The Eternal Dance of Light and Dark
by The King of Ravens
Summary: Having just survived a nine year long civil war, those of Lucael would be forgiven for entertaining the notion of peace. However, new threats are rising, and as the son of the king, it is Caiellis's job to combat them, despite his youth. But as the leaders of a rival nation declare war and mysterious figures pull strings in the shadows, Cai will be drawn into the fate of the world.
1. Introduction

_Introduction_

_Well, this is the new story I was prattling on about. It is set in a world of my creation loosely following the patterns of Mana. Each magic user in the world is paired with a creature from Sancturia (a spirit world mirroring the human/real one) at birth, their Summoning, and their magic is based upon this creature. The Summonings, once brought into the world by the birth of the human, then reside inside their mind, and can only be controlled when the human passes a test of their choosing. Sancturia often bleeds over into reality, causing dangerous zone filled with Unbound creatures. Also, technology in the world is controlled by magic. More will be explained in the storyline, but I thought it would be relevant to introduce the concept here, as well as the four main factions._

_I'm aware that the story starts of slow, and that the story is not based exactly within the official MtG universe, so if that is not what you wish to read then I understand. However, since this is one of my first stories, I would appreciate it if you left constructive reviews. Also, as a recent update, I have been updating this introduction to improve its quality, which is why presently the sizes of the sections pertaining to each faction are disproportionate to one another._

Factions:

Lucael, Kingdom of Light

Occupying the north-west of the super-continent Magnus-Primae, the Lucaelians are a people primarily associated with White mana, upholding the values of unity, community and control. Living in a dark and depressing climate has made them value the light, becoming obsessed with it as there are only a few hours in each day in Lucael, and the vast majority of these will be without sunlight – so much so that any day with sunlight immediately becomes one of prayer and celebration. Only the sunlight in Lucael is good enough for them however, and as such they view the light of other factions as impure and irrevocably flawed, as it doesn't bring the same holy warmth of the Lucael's sun, said to be the divine light of the heavens - not the mere glow of any distant celestial body.

Residing within gigantic metropolis cities of gothic architecture, they have crushed nature and the wildness that comes with it, heavily defending their cities to the point of extreme xenophobia, something necessary for their survival. Their hatred of difference stems from how dangerous Lucael is when one is not in one of the cities – creatures of the night prowl the perpetual darkness. The cities were built by the first King, Matalis Ortus Lucerna, the first Lucaelian with an angel Summoning, and his and his family's descendants became the monarchs after their first recorded descendant carved out the Kingdom of Light, an unyielding bastion of hope and righteousness against the legions of evil. They have an extremely strict and inflexible society and hierarchy, the noble families deciding much of the fate of the kingdom.

The law is taken extremely seriously, with many painful punishments for crimes enacted upon those with the audacity to break it. However, more often than not repentance is an option, and those who have disregarded the near sacred tenets of Lucaelian society can be accepted once more through a penance that can take many forms - the most popular of which is being drafted into the auxiliary regiments of the army, where the repentant will repay their dept one unholy life at a time.

The night outside is a product of an overlapping zone of the infernal hells of Sancturia plunging the land into darkness, with many violent and deadly Unbound creatures stalking through the shadows. As travelling within the inner darkness is out of the question, each of the major five cities is connected by monorails guarded by troops and mages. This also means that vast swathes of land in Lucael are unpopulated (at least by the angel-fearing denizens of the kingdom), as they are far too hazardous for isolated villages and towns without the means to protect themselves.

This uncharted area that resides within the overall territory of the Kingdom of Light is the land of the damned. The forsaken abyss is home to many writhing horrors, murderous beasts and ravenous undead - all addicted to the taste of human flesh. Safe pathways within the perpetual twilight shift and fluctuate; the only constants are the sanctified routes on which the large tracks of the monorails were constructed.

The further away from the walled cities one travels, the more the evil enshrouding the north manifests. The very soil is permeated with dark, ancient power, the earth shivering with malice. The dead are refused peace, rising up and hopelessly wandering in eternal pain, sorrow and hunger, or shackled to the malevolent will of a foul necromancer. The wildlife - or what little of it survives - is twisted and misshapen, imbued with an unnatural ferocity and savagery. Lurking in the endless night, unspeakable horrors borne of the nightmares of sleeping gods lie in wait for unsuspecting prey, eager to rend the mind as well as the flesh. Worse still are the demons that inhabit the regions of the abyss that intersect more strongly with the darkness of Sancturia, infernal barons of a hellish realm whose sowed temptations and promises of power can lead even the most devoted zealot from their path of righteousness.

And yet, despite all of this, the power of the Kingdom of Light is not to be trifled with, and the armies of Lucael have held back the tides of darkness for over a thousand years since the nation's inception. The blessed angels that grant their powers to Summoners chosen at birth are found at the forefront of the Lucaelian forces, leading the way with their heroic mortal companions and plunging like a holy lance into any danger that faces the kingdom. And none are stronger, tougher, or wiser than those of the First Sisterhood, the direct daughters of the First Angel regarded as a goddess by both the people of Lucael and the luminous creatures of the Sancturia plains. These are the oldest angels, and the most powerful, each aligning themselves with a Lucerna selected by their divine mother and smiting the spawn of the nether with celestial blasts of incandescence.

Technology is reasonably advanced in Lucael, more-so due to recent agreements with the Yentarian Republic, however their military-focussed magic doesn't interact that well with it, so isn't used in combat, only for appliances like clocks and the aforementioned monorail trains. The current king Marik's push for greater technological advances is markedly different to the conservative mindset adopted by previous monarchs, but the benefits of this - most prominently more reliable long range communications and the faster and safer travel facilitated by the monorails - cannot be denied.

The denizens of Lucael are a tall and hardy people, only matched in general stature by some of the more brawny inhabitants of the Erian jungles, their physiques honed by rigorous military training and harsh adherence to the tenets of their faith. The women and men of the Kingdom of Light are pale, as befitting of the lack of sunlight they are exposed to, but the vast majority of Lucaelian individuals are not of a sickly white pallor customary to those living their lives in the dark within the wider world. Only those who have not felt the touch of the holy radiance of the divine sun are extremely pallid, as the blessed rays imbue the faithful with sanctified vitality even as they scorch and sear the followers of evil.

Religion has quite a large part on the lives of the Lucaelian people, with the angels and other powerful manifestations of Sancturia (and by extension, the royal family) being venerated as gods – they are regarded to be the divine messengers of the infrequent sunlight. Powerful mage-priests who are just as comfortable preaching their doctrine of self-sacrifice and courage on the battlegrounds of brutal war as they are in any cathedral have huge amounts of influence. Each city is capably ruled over by a Hierarch and Guardian, the former being the one with more magical power in their Summoning and the latter with more physical, more often than not the leader of that city's armies. These are in turn commanded by the royal family, who reside in the largest city- Capitalia Lux - and dispense orders to the Light-bearers regularly.

Each descendant of Matalis has a birthmark somewhere on their body – a specific symbol associated with a First Sisterhood angel that becomes imprinted when said angel visits them at birth, their own unmistakable sigil of royalty. A few angels have become well known, with several ancestors of the child having the same Summoning, whilst others rarely appear. The next monarch of Lucael is not based upon age order – when the current ruler dies, they will have a vision of one of their children taking the throne, and choose their successor based upon this in their final will.

The magic of the lawful Lucaelians is associated with light and White mana just as the creatures from Sancturia that become their Summonings are, and although other colours frequently appear within the populace the one that is outlawed and never naturally born into is Black, as that symbolises the cloying darkness and evil surrounding the safe cities. Black mana leads to disorder, to selfishness within the selfless ranks of the Kingdom of Light, to the corruption of one's being and the pollution of their ideals, and (with extremely rare exceptions) cannot be biologically obtained within Lucael. Several traitors have sold their Summoning in a ritual known as an Infernal Bargain, swapping the creatures of White for ones of malevolence and shadow. This permanently sacrifices their old Summoning, who is unable to return to Sancturia and dissolves into the earth, the fractured pieces of their essence becoming playthings of the unholy beings obtained from the nefarious ritual.

Similarities: the Abzan Houses, Benalia, Bant, Thune and Thraben.

.*.*.*.

The Yentarian Republic

Residing in the north-east of Magnus-Primae, the Yentarian Republic occupy the island-chain of Yentar and some of the nearby continent, and are affiliated with Blue mana. Their entire ideology revolves around the pursuit of knowledge, and as such each part of the territory is vastly different as every League of Thought (or sub-faction) tries to find understanding in their own unique way. They are unified by the Council, made up of elected representatives from each of the individual parts of the overall conglomerate who put aside their differences to interact with other kingdoms in a united fashion. The outsiders to the Republic see a unified front when engaging in diplomatic relations with the inhabitants of Yentar, but in fact the Republic is an amalgamation of many different cultures that are only in accordance with the pursuit of knowledge and the importance placed upon intellect.

Because of this, Yentar is made up of people from many alternating backgrounds and spans a huge swathe of territory - the influence of the Republic stretches from the rain-swept coves of the north that near the border to Lucael to the sun-kissed oases of the south that frequently trade with Welkas. Each sub-faction supplies the overall republic with resources and arms, and those who would invade thinking the researchers to be easy prey would be in for a painful shock as their aggressive forces are systematically dismantled by the arcane mastery of the Republic's magi and their plans of attack rendered null through genius counter strategies that exploit any and every weakness. Technology is extremely well-developed in Yentar, as several Leagues believe that only with superior, technology equipment and machinery will true understanding be found.

Yentar itself is the result of a Blue mana associated part of Sancturia overlaying onto the material world, causing immense floods to the vast ancient empire that once controlled the formerly mainland territory. Although the submerged cities of the civilisation that once ruled the north-east of the super-continent many millennia ago are the subject of great interest, the cataclysm that brought about the domain's end remains unknown. What is known however is that the underwater ruins are great repositories of ancient knowledge, and that many old magicks and spellcasting rituals that have been lost to the passage of time are hidden within its archives.

The Yentarians have the most communication with other kingdoms, the League of Isak believing that knowledge will be found through each faction working together and by learning from each. Although there are still some dangerous Unbound lurking in the waters between the disparate islands, Yentar is mostly peaceful as war has become unnecessary – weapons have been created that would end wars between Leagues at the mere threat of activation. It has been quoted that a more cognisant royal of the south-westerly Empire of Passion once said: "The Yentarian Republic may revere peace, but to rouse them to war would be suicide."

As each of the philosophies of each League of Thought is vastly different, so too are the Summonings from each. Blue creatures are by far the most common, although each colour is utilised to some extent. However, Red and Green are viewed with the most disdain, the latter far more than the former, even though is used by one of the sub-factions. Red is disliked because of the tendency to ruin carefully lain plans and investigations, while Green on its own is abhorred as it represents the regression of technology and learning. This means that most of the Yentarians feel antipathy towards the Erians, as they wish for everything to be under the rule of nature and would rather that progress was halted and science abandoned. The Conclave's belief that every living being has a predetermined purpose and destiny clashes violently with the Republic's assertion that one will find their own path in life.

There are four main Leagues of Thought in the Yentarian Republic that wield the most power and influence within the nation, although there are far more than just this prevalent quartet that make up the ranks of those tirelessly exploring the knowledge laden within the twinned worlds.

The League of Isak believe that learning should be done through one's own mind and with others, rather than using technology to create insights into the world. They regularly exercise the mind and body to keep it open and healthy, clear and ready to be filled with new thoughts and concepts. Their main Summonings are enigmatic elementals of natural essence. It was their idea that the Scholaria Magnus was created, which is an education facility for prominent and important teenagers from each kingdom that will soon begin its first term - a preliminary step on the path to open communication and peace between the four great nations.

The League of Uveria maintain that enlightenment will be obtained through the purity of the machine, often foregoing using biological-physical force to achieve their goals. They Summon huge constructs of metal and wise sphinxes that aid in their endless pursuit of perfection through artifice. Logic and order, concepts already championed throughout the vast majority of Yentar, have been taken to extremes by the aloof and dispassionate Uverians. The more an aspiring artificer advances through the ranks of the League, the greater proportion of their biological body will be replaced by unyielding metal, often by the scientist's own hand. This results in the most exalted and successful members of the League of Uveria possessing greatly elongated lifespans which they will use to perfect their own creations as they ascend even further into self-proclaimed genius - even if that genius is often indistinguishable from madness by those outside of Uveria.

The League of Xechun teaches that the flash of realisation after an explosive experiment is true understanding – they are the most fiery and passion-driven of the leagues, and are famed for causing huge amounts of damage with their "tests", so much so that they have received numerous warnings from the council in the past and almost had the Republic fall into all out war when one particularly catastrophic trial run of a new combination of otherworldly substances resulted in the destruction of a prized construct shaped by a leading artificer of the League of Uveria. Alongside rational and investigative Blue mana, those who obtain membership of the League of Xechun employ Red magic, valuing the spontaneity, creativity and sudden revelations gifted by the mana of fire and emotion. Those of the League of Xechun wield their emotions like they would any other knowledge, and have a reputation for being more impulsive than other Yentarians - though nowhere close to the impetuousness of the Welkalites. Usual creatures consist of drakes, djinn and the occasional Blue-associated dragon.

Finally, the mysterious and almost outlaw League of Thrazek maintain that true wisdom can only be achieved after the subjugation of all life, so that it can be controlled and manipulated to become the ultimate being. They practice body modification and often use Black and Green mana to achieve their goals, the only League of the Yentarian Republic willing to wholeheartedly embrace the latter to further their own quest for enlightenment - although it is whispered that the League of Thrazek merely subverts the magic of life and nature to its will instead of employing it in its natural form. They Summon horrors, fey creatures and shapeshifters from the strangest regions of Sancturia. However, even more disturbing is that members without a Summoning that would aide them in their objectives often modifies their own creature, creating terrifying cross-breeds and mutants. There are some dissenting voices within the Republic that advocate the removal of the League of Thrazek from the official rosters, stripping them of their ability to conduct their experiments and investigations into the nature of life itself, but so far none have wielded enough influence to catalyse any change and the enigmatic Thrazeki continue to act with relative autonomy within Yentar.

Similarities: Esper, Jeskai, Simic, Izzet, Meletis and Neurok.

.*.*.*.

Eria, Conclave of the Wild

Living in the lush jungles of south-west Magnus-Primae, the Erians are a hardy people that have to contend with all manner of immensely dangerous predator Unbound that would hunt their tribes to extinction given the chance. The forests of Eria are extremely hazardous, as although there is plenty of food there is also a huge amount of competition. Instead of trying and failing to change the landscape around them to fit their needs, the Erians have learnt to adapt to nature, as such they are perfectly complementary towards Green mana. They are led by a group of secretive shamans and druids that hold together the diverse tribes populating the forest and maintain the ancient rituals of their magic.

They mostly live in villages and towns located in the canopies of mind-bogglingly gigantic trees, high up in the air to avoid predators, though this is not a set precedent and many take up residence upon the ground of the Deep Forest. The Erian humans live off of the bounty of the land, and seek the emulate the multifarious animals which exist within the vast jungle bioscape. They are an insular and secluded people, much preferring to remain within their gigantic forest in lieu of leaving and interacting with outsiders. Attuned with nature, the Conclave does not take kindly to others who are not as respectful of the Deep Forest as they themselves are, and many a raiding force from Welkas or a research party from Yentar has been repelled violently from the jungles over the centuries.

Each tribesmember has a specific purpose in the tribe – whether that is a hunter, artisan, warrior, gatherer or something else - decided when they reach from skills that they have displayed in life. "adulthood". As life for the humans in the great forest is difficult, the average age of Erians (excluding the shamans) is much lower than that of other factions, and a child is considered an adult when they reach their tenth birthday. Youths of exceptional mana borne power that are born are taken away from their tribe to become shamans, who hold great influence over the disparate clans of the forests as they are reputedly able to communicate with the personifications of nature itself.

Unlike the Summoners of other nations, many of those who obtain the power to call a creature of Sancturia that selected them at birth to their side are comparatively few, and such individuals are soon adopted by the mysterious shamans. Instead, the majority of those who would be named Summoners within Eria gain the aid of a powerful denizen of the twinned realms, an Unbound of the Deep Forest, by interacting with the beast as it roams the jungles.

Through hunting down the creature and branding it with their Summoner's mark, or completing specific missions for the being, a prospective Erian can form a bond with a beast of the wilds that some would say is stronger than that of the relationship between master and pet of other Summoners. The Unbound Now Bounded will remain at its Summoner's side within the lush greenwoods of their home, but will retreat to the Mind Realm if its physical form is eliminated or the Summoner leaves the Deep Forest, ready to be called upon once more in the more conventional manner of foreign wizards. There is no limit to the number of preternatural animals that may be tamed in this manner (though many proud beasts will have to be forcefully brought to heel if they are made to work with another), and it is whispered in tales around tribal campfires of great hunters with legions of mythical fauna at their command.

The most stable and permanent dwelling of the reclusive Erians is Geansse, a large city on the outskirts of the forest that has had several dealings with outsiders – in the past, it fended off many assaults from the impulsive Welkas Empire and either desperate or prospective Lucaelian armies attempting to escape from their eternal darkness, but presently it is a trading point and a place of interaction with other kingdoms.

This is a much safer and more civilised place than the other villages scattered throughout the forest, however the tribespeople of those view the Geansseans as soft and not used to the hardship of the "true" wild. The fact that their lives are arguably harder, having to repel many invasions and raids from the ever aggressive Welkas Empire, does not dissuade them of this belief. Communications with the tribes and the leaders of Geansse is stunted at best, though some druidic circles interact with the city-dwellers.

In recent years, the Erian Conclave has begun to reach out of its vivid green shell of leaves, the single commercial agreement between Lucael and Geansse joined by a select few others. This fledgling exploration into the rest of the world not residing in the shadow of massive trees has captured the attention of the other nations - but none moreso than the Yentarian Republic. Whilst the Lucaelian rulers watch from their walled cities, with wariness if not quite outright suspicion, and the Welkalite people launch a contradictory array of proposed trade deals and marauding raids, the island-dwellers observe with rapt curiosity. The culture of the Erian people and the uncharted reams of biology and magic within the secluded depths of the Deep Forest that have escaped documentation for so many years - with many intrepid researchers entering Erian territory and suffering horrible demises at the hands (or claws, fronds or spines) of whatever dangerous organism they encountered first - are an explorator's wildest fantasies come true.

The shamans that lead the Erian Conclave are immensely powerful, with some of the most mana-intensive Summonings known to man - gargantuan, elemental manifestations of nature's wrath and gigantic Sancturia creatures that can flatten entire villages in one powerful slam. They venerate these Unbound behemoths, most of them completely unaware of its human worshippers.

Similarities: Naya, Setessa, Selesnya, Mul Daya and Temur.

.*.*.*.

Welkas, Empire of Passion

The final kingdom of the present world is located within the arid and hot plains and mountains of eastern Magnus-Primae, and is home to a fiery and emotional people. The Welkalites have a warrior culture based upon waging constant wars and raids – they believe that violence is one of the best passions for proving one's own strength, and are always itching for a good fight, taking offence at perceived insults and using it as an excuse to start a scrap. They primarily utilise Red mana, as it reflects their desire for individuality and doing whatever they want, unrestrained by society.

Their entire philosophy revolves around achieving individual goals and each person doing what pleases them most – in that respect, they are very hedonistic, but adversely they are extremely free people that will help fight against those they believe to be bullies or oppressors. This stems from their not too distant past – Welkas was a kingdom ruled by an autocratic and repressive monarchy of tyrants who strictly controlled the free spirits of their subjects, forcing them under their rule with the power of their Summonings, unstoppable Sancturia dragons. While the first in the long line was a brutal military general, they became ever more decadent and corrupt with each generation, hoarding huge amounts of wealth and pleasure to themselves. Twenty-two years ago, the last of that line of corrupt tyrants was slain by Jarred Redhand, an inspired revolutionary that led a large rebellion against the fracturing control of the Empire.

Free from the yoke of control, the Welkalites were able to do whatever they wish – there were no rules, anything was fair play. As he saw the society begin to tear apart after he had spent so long trying to free them, Jarred knew that something would have to be done to prevent the utter collapse of order, as chaos would reign and the streets would run red with blood. To this end, he established the Orders of Passion, carefully controlled groups that each pursue a different type of hedonism.

By far the largest is the Order of Violence, which also forms the main army of the New Empire. It is comprised of hot-headed youths who wish to achieve martial glory, and older veterans who are addicted to the rush of combat. They are led by generals who have established themselves by proving to be stronger than all competitors, most of which have deadly Summonings. They often attack other kingdoms, which has made the New Welkas Empire extremely unpopular – especially with the Lucaelians, who view them as impulsive and ridiculous.

The cities of Welkas are famed for the fact that anything can be purchased there for the right price, and are often visited by representatives of other kingdoms, who are dazzled by those in the Orders of Entertainment and Rapture.

Similarities: Xenagos, Rakdos, Mardu, Kolaghan and Gruul.


	2. Awakenings

Caiellis's eyes snapped open, the remnants of the dream slowly fading from his sight as he sat up in the plump bed, pushing the soft covers off him. He checked the time on the ornate but not ostentatious watch next to him on the cabinet to the left of his bed – 07:02. His dad would probably already be awake and ready to start the day's long list of objectives; the man barely slept anyway, kept conscious by his worries and grief.

The boy yawned, wondering whether he should go back to sleep – he didn't need to get up for another three hours, but although Caiellis couldn't quite remember what had happened in the nightmare, he subconsciously knew that he had no intentions of returning to the realm of dreams. Sliding over the side of his bed, he started to do what he had done every single time he had woken up.

Caiellis stepped sleepily across the room towards the long purple curtains in front of the window, tiredly rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He yanked the drapes open, and was greeted by the expansive city of Capitalia Lux stretching out as far as he could see. He sighed as, once again, the city was swathed in darkness, the feeble lights of those already awake like faint and distant stars in an obscure constellation. _Of course. Of Course, _he thought vaguely dejectedly, used to the feeling of disappointment, _It hasn't been sunny any day in the thirteen years of my life, why would it be now?_

He looked up, meeting the reflection of a youthful-looking pale boy with high cheek-bones and dark green eyes shrouded by slightly messy brown hair staring coldly back. His eyes were drawn to the birthmark on his cheek – the eight-pronged Black Sun was imprinted on the boy's left cheek, and Caiellis's hand automatically went to his right, his thin fingers lightly stroking the conformation of royalty, the twinned blessing and curse of the specific angel his heritage had gifted him with.

Trapped in his silent contemplation, Caiellis spun around in surprise when a hand gently tapped him on the shoulder. He glared at the grinning face of Alexander, Caiellis's calm features becoming guarded, who smirked even wider at his younger brother.

Alexander had a stern face that was offset by the fact he often wore a grin or smirk, and had inherited the pale blue eyes and short blonde hair of his father. He was a tall and muscular seventeen-year old, much stronger than his smaller sibling. His birthmark was the crossed Swords of Flame stamped onto his right bicep, matching his fiery angelic Summoning, Aurelia.

"I didn't know you still did that, squirt," he laughed, motioning towards the window. Annoyed that his brother had been able to creep up on him like that, Caiellis replied curtly: "I don't know why I do. Why are you up so early?"

"I could say the same to you. I heard you open the curtains. I suppose I just wanted to check if you were alright," Alexander sighed at his brother's incredulous expression. Only a year ago, they had been extremely close, Caiellis would share anything with his brother and Alexander would always be there to protect him. His little brother was the one of the most open people he had known (towards him at any rate), and as their father hadn't really had the time for them (well, more accurately he hadn't seen them once through no fault of his own), Alexander had basically raised his four-years younger brother. But as soon as Caiellis hit his thirteenth birthday and the war that had swept throughout the entire Kingdom of Light ended, he became guarded, keeping his emotions and thoughts to himself - coinciding with the return of their father.

"Sorry if I woke you up," the boy apologised quietly, and the older fondly ruffled his messy dark hair.

"Nah, it's fine, I'd already woken up hours ago," he said. He slept in the adjacent room to the smaller boy, as when Caiellis was younger he had been terrified of the eternal darkness (with good reason) and had needed to share a room with the protective form of his big brother. That was another thing their relationship had recently lost, in the past the little brother always wanted to be with Alexander, craving the comfort of his nurturing sibling, but now he seemingly shied away from physical contact.

Alex knew that a lot of Caiellis's change was down to their father, King Marik Ensis Lucerna, returning from the war. Alex's brother had been having troubles passing the test his Summoning had set for him, but the older boy had been supportive of him, constantly reassuring him that one day he would be able to do it. That had changed when Marik came back, annoyed at his youngest's failure to Summon, telling him that he would be useless as a king if he was not able to even complete "the simplest of tasks".

Alex knew that his brother worked extremely hard to pass the test, exhausting himself by attempting it as much as his fragile body would allow. If he looked deep into Caiellis's green eyes, past the barriers of determination that would easily fool anyone else that didn't know him so well, he could see the hurt and pain of rejection.

"Are you even listening to me?" Caiellis inquired loudly, gracing his brother with the inquisitive eyes he used often as an innocent child.

Alex remembered his friend's fear of the perpetual night, and had often told him stories about brave heroes venturing out into the dark and protecting young children like him from monsters. Caiellis had always wanted to see the sunlight, and as such Alex and their mother, who had invented the game, had carried him to the window of their room every morning so that they could check for light. Even when the smaller boy was old enough and tall enough to complete the task himself, every time he would wait for Alexander to wake up, wide-eyed anticipation etched onto his youthful face. He found it nostalgic and incredibly cute that his brother still adhered to that old childhood habit.

"Sorry, shortie, sometimes it's hard to hear what you are saying from up here," he teased, grinning at the daggers Caiellis sent him. Although the smaller boy had grown quite a bit the past few years, he was still a slight four feet and eleven inches feet compared to his tall 6'3'' brother. It didn't help that along with the increase in height, his only ever vague childhood pudginess had also faded away, leaving him gaunt and thin for his age.

"I was thinking about trying the test again," Caiellis muttered bitterly, not wanting to meet Alexander's concerned eyes, finding them full of pity.

"At least have breakfast first," he suggested, putting a large arm around his sibling and dragging the reluctant boy with him, "I'll make you pancakes."

Alex beamed as he saw his brother's eyes light up slightly – even though the palace had access to some of the most proficient chefs of the kingdom, Alexander's pancakes were still his favourite breakfast from the days where they were not able to have others cook for them, despite the fact that the older boy was a mediocre cook at best. Caiellis stopped struggling and his brother pressed on, eager to not waste the precious time he would be spending with him before he attempted the test again, and then was inevitably comatose for the rest of the day. "Cai, I'll add extra syrup, just how you like it."

His plan of coaxing his brother out of his shell seemed to be working, and Alex slung the boy over his shoulder and carried him out of the room.

.*.*.*.

After a filling breakfast of the promised pancakes, Caiellis once again made to go to his sanctum and attempt the Summoning, but Alex again stopped him.

"What do you want?" the younger boy demanded in annoyance, and Alex shrugged his shoulders, trying to be as nonchalant as he could, replying: "I just want to spend a day with my little brother. Is there a problem with that?"

"You know full well that there is," Cai snapped, his eyes full of irritation and he tried to pull away from Alexander, who asked: "What, then? What is the problem?"

"I can't do a Summoning! How can I be trusted with anything if I can't even do that? I need to try every day until I can! Let go!" he shouted, tears gathering at the edges of his vision. He wiped his eyes quickly on the back of his sleeve; he didn't want his brother, or anyone in his family for that matter, to see him crying, but the action was not lost on Alex.

"Calm down, Cai. It's going to take a long time for a Summoning as powerful as yours," the larger boy soothed, and playfully thumped his thin shoulder.

"Ow! What was that for?" Cai yelped, though by now he really should have been used to his brother using far more force than necessary. _Your Summoning is just as powerful as mine, Alex, and you were ten when you passed Aurelia's test. _

"Don't be such a girl," Alex teased, and moved a hand round to Caiellis's side, who started to stifle a giggle as his brother tickled him. He had needed to lighten the situation or Caiellis was just going to leave, so he resorted to something he had not done in years. The older brother then went into full-on attack, running his fingers up and down the boy's abdomen, who was laughing hysterically, his frustration gone. _Perhaps__ I should have let him in earlier_, he thought, as Alexander thrust a hand underneath his shirt for maximum tickling efficiency.

His finger brushed over a mark on his brother's skin, and Alex stopped tickling, stretching out his palm across Cai's stomach and instantly switching from tormenting brother to alarmed. Caiellis stopped laughing immediately, and tried to pull away, belatedly remembering one of the reasons for shutting Alex out.

"Shirt off. Now," his brother commanded, his blue eyes full of concern. Caiellis sighed and acquiesced to the older boy's wishes, knowing that Alex wouldn't leave him alone and would continuously press the issue until it was resolved. He pulled off the shirt, and heard his brother gasp.

The younger brother's abdomen was covered with a large amount of small criss-cross knife-wounds – the oldest couldn't be older than around a month, whereas the most recent could easily have been inflicted yesterday, which it had been. Worry turned into anger as a sick feeling wormed its way through Alex's gut and Caiellis couldn't meet his piercing glare.

"Who did this to you?" he demanded, roughly grabbing hold of his brother's bare shoulders (wincing at how thin and bony they were) and examining the wounds. Luckily, the vast majority of them wouldn't leave scars, as they weren't very deep and the skin would heal back over them, but it didn't remove that fact that someone had hurt _his _little brother without him knowing about it.

"I...I" Caiellis stuttered shakily, tears beginning to well up in his sad eyes, and Alex hugged him comfortingly, whispering: "You can tell me, little brother,"

Taking a deep breath, knowing what Alexander's reaction would be and wishing that he had just pushed his brother away earlier, Caiellis steadied his voice.

"I did it to myself," he uttered softly, his tone becoming blank and losing personality as he started to retreat back inside his shell. Stunned, Alex took a second to process the information, but when he did, his mind filled with rage.

"You did what? Why?!" he shouted, dropping his brother who scampered away from his sibling's wrath.

Alex took a deep breath, mimicking his younger brother's actions from a few seconds ago, and composed his tone. He wouldn't get any answers from shouting at Caiellis, and he needed to know why he had done it before his brother rebuilt the fortifications and would refuse to share any information. Caiellis was impossible to talk to once he had done that – one particular moment of their childhood that he regretted was once beating up the youngest Lucerna after he kept hiding something from his brother – even then, Caiellis hadn't shared anything, and didn't speak to Alex for an entire day afterwards.

"Cai, please talk to me. I'm not angry at you," Alex pleaded, knowing from his brother's blank eyes that he was almost out of reach, and he tried to keep his voice soft despite the fact that rage was welling up within him at the fact that his sibling's life had got that bad that he felt he needed to cut himself, "I just need to know why you would do that. You can share things with your big brother."

He already had an inkling of the reasons behind the boy's self-harm, but needed to hear it confirmed with Cai's own voice. The thirteen year old stared vacantly through his brother for a few seconds, and Alex was about to repeat the statement when Caiellis's head snapped upwards, eyes locked despairingly with those of his brother. Alex saw clearly the fear and pain Cai kept bottled up inside, and wished he had pressed the issue sooner, instead of waiting for things to resolve themselves and leaving his younger brother to his recovery. But in the past month after the end of the civil war, Alex had wanted more time to himself because of the fact that he had spent just more than nine years in the presence of his little brother, and as such had left mostly Caiellis alone apart from occasionally checking on him and focussing on his own education and development.

He of course still loved his baby brother, loved him more than anything else in the world at the current moment in fact because everything was better with the little guy around, but they were both teenagers now and both needed personal space after having only each other for company for nine years. He should have pushed to make sure that his brother was ok sooner, instead of assuming the fact that Cai wasn't talking to him was because of the fact he was no longer just a child and wanted independence as well, and to pass his Summoning trial.

"It just ... helps," Caiellis tried to explain, and Alexander motioned for him to elaborate, "The pain distracts me from the feeling of failure, the feeling of stress. Every time I fail, I know how disappointed you and dad will be. It helps me ignore the crushing feeling."

"How many times have you done it?" Alexander asked, wiping the tears away from Caiellis's face and moving his long dark-brown hair out of his eyes, silently promising that his brother would never again feel the need to cause himself pain. _He _was the one supposed to take the pain, _he _was supposed to protect his little brother from harm. The fact that Cai was hurt meant that _he _had failed.

"Only after each Summoning attempt the past month," Caiellis admitted, looking down ashamedly and tracing his fingers along the wounds, wincing at the pain from some of the most recently acquired. He started to slowly put the shirt back on, waiting to see whether his older brother would stop him or not, and continued after a few seconds.

"Never again," Alexander stated flatly, determined that he would prevented Cai from getting hurt again. "If you ever want to self-harm again, tell me and take it out on me instead. Ok?"

"But-"

"OK?" Alex asked, his voice brooking no dissent. The eldest prince knew that he was very protective of his sibling, but when they had lived the life that the two youngest Lucernas had he had to be.

"I suppose," Caiellis relented, shaking his head at his brother's stubbornness. Alex grinned and clapped his brother good-naturedly on the shoulder, although his eyes were still full of smouldering anger not targeted at his brother, eliciting a scowl from the youngest. He snapped, "Fine, now you know my problems. Leave me alone."

Alex shook his head, knowing that he would have to do something that Caiellis would probably hate him for.

"Come with me," he ordered, gently directing his brother towards the doorway of the dining hall and smiling encouragingly at Caiellis as the boy realised where they were going.

"Don't try to resist. He needs to see this."

* * *

_At the end of each chapter, I will leave the name of the card each newly-introduced Summoning is based upon. Type this name into Gatherer, a MtG card search engine (or just google it) to find out what they look like._

Liber Sancturia:

Aurelia, the Warleader: Summoning of Alexander Ensis Lucerna


	3. Family Arguements

Marik Ensis Lucerna, king of Lucael, sat at the head the council that, despite the fact that it was barely morning, had been running for several hours already. He glared out at the bickering representatives of each of the other four cities. Two Hierarchs and two Guardians had been sent, some of which he had appointed himself but others who had been around before he was crowned. The Hierarch and Guardian of Capitalia Lux had taken their positions to the left and right respectively of the king. The gargantuan hall echoed with the arguing voices, and Marik slammed his hand on the table to silence them.

Hierarch Aretis of Civitas Sol smirked smugly back, an arrogant young man swathed in golden robes who had inherited the role from his respected late father that Marik found insufferable, though he was tolerated because he was very powerful. His Summoning was an incandescent and imperious angel that aptly represented the City of the Sun.

His counterpart sneered condescendingly at his cockiness – Martha was an aged representative of Scientia Mos, the City of Books that was made up of a huge amount of libraries, though none matched the ancient splendour of the palace's. She was a trusted advisor of the king that was well known for her wisdom, and although her Summoning was the least offensively powerful of any of the ten remaining Light-bearers, a venerable and sagacious Lammasu, Martha could give out the correct advice in almost any situation, and her stoic presence at the council was gratefully received. She had been Emili's mentor before her engagement to Marik, who sorely missed his wife.

Xathan, Slayer of the Wicked was the Guardian of Cassida Principia, City of Swords, the most militaristic of the five cities, was a similarly-aged comrade of the king's that could sometimes be thick-headed and bellicose, but had proved himself numerous times on the field of battle. Befitting of his station, he was clothed in polished but still dented and worn armour that had carried him through many engagements, although the scabbard was empty at his hips, as tradition dictated. Xathan used a warrior angel that could inspire the common troops to victory.

Finally, the representative of Gol, formerly the City of Quiet but now the City of Silence, was Lelia, a once youthful and enthusiastic young warrior that had been the younger sister of the previous Guardian before both him and the Hierarch had been brutally murdered in the Siege of Gol. The atrocities wreaked upon the city left it a defiled shadow of its glorious self, and Lelia had been scarred (both physically and mentally) by the slaughter, but instead of giving up hope she had rallied the people. She had taken a Vow of Silence, promising never to speak until the perpetrators of the heinous act had been brought to justice. That had been nine years ago, and she had not spoken a word since – neither had her Summoning, a vengeful angel that had helped her on her quest.

Marik shared the blame for the surprise attack on Gol and the nine year civil war that had resulted in countless deaths – three of the eight cities had sided with his own brother, who had been planning the rebellion ever since Marik had been crowned after the Death Vision of their father. Those three cities were now razed to the ground, obliterated from sight and home to the creatures of the darkness.

After his revolt failed, Johnias had fled into the unknown depths of shadow with his most loyal warriors, and his brother had no ideas as to his fate. He had hesitated at the start of the rebellion, not really comprehending the extent of his brother's treachery, but after several greater demons were sent to the palace and took the life of Emili, Marik could never forgive Johnias for taking his love away from him. He had become obsessed, hunting him across their territories and slaughtering the revolting armies in his need for revenge.

It had only been a single month since the violence of the civil war and the final confrontation between the brothers' armies, but already the construction of Gol Secondus, City of Rebirth, had begun next to the ruins of the first. It was a testament to the unity and resolve of the Lucaelians that the wounds the rebellion that had lasted nine years had caused were beginning to heal at such a rate. The physical wounds, anyway.

The king was flanked by Tristram, Champion of Capitalia and childhood hero of his eldest Alexander, and Tybalt, the Hierarch of the capital city and the mentor to his sons. The two had cared for Alexander and Caiellis during the civil war when the capital city and palace had been compromised, taking them across Lucael so that Johnias's forces could not take the two princes and so their location had remained secret - even to their father.

Marik knew that he should start paying attention to his children now that the war was over, as he hadn't really been there for them the past nine years - well, he hadn't seen them at all. He was disappointed that his youngest, Caiellis, had failed to pass the test and achieve his Summoning, because the age of only just thirteen was almost the latest recorded time for a Lucerna. He had needed to give the boy an incentive to try harder, as obviously he had been coddled by his older brother and wasn't trying hard enough to pass the test. It had pained him to see the expression of rejection on Caiellis's young face when he had told his son that he was a failure as far as he was concerned the first time they had spoken after the war, but now maybe the boy wouldn't screw up as much.

His eyes snapped to the heavy wooden doors on the other side of the room as they were slammed open, and all of the council members turned around in alarm at the crash. Tristram stepped protectively in front of his king, axe at the ready, and then snorted when he realised it was only Alexander and Caiellis. Marik's eyes narrowed when he saw the look of smouldering anger on his eldest's face, wondering why the seventeen year old would just barge straight into the council room – he was a respectful boy, and knew that his father wouldn't take too kindly to having the meeting interrupted.

"Dad. We need to talk. Now," Alexander stated, eschewing pleasantries and glancing at the other council members' surprised faces. Aretis sniggered under his breath, sensing the volcanic fury bottled up inside the lad, and realising that King Marik would have a hard time diffusing that rage – he definitely didn't envy the king's position. He stifled it when Hierarch Martha glared at him, and the king sighed wearily, supposing that if his normally obedient eldest son was angry enough to charge into an important meeting then he should probably pay attention to his children.

"Fine, that concludes today's council session. Light-bearers, go back to your cities, and begin the process of rebuilding. Ave Lux," he intoned, and the representatives bowed respectfully, replying: "Ave Lux, my king."

With that, they began to file out of the chambers, followed swiftly by Tristram and Tybalt at a gesture from Marik, although the two clearly wanted to say and see what would transpire. When the wooden doors had closed fully, he let out another impatient sigh, not wanting to have to deal with foolish children. Emili had always been better at this parenting business.

"What is it?" he questioned irritably, and Alexander moved in front of him, yanking the reluctant Caiellis behind by his thin arm, the younger son clearly not wanting to be there.

"Alex, please-" he pleaded, and his brother shot him a reassuring glance that didn't entirely dispel the anger in his eyes, "Cai, I wouldn't be a good big brother if I didn't do this."

He turned his gaze upon his father, who stood up out of his ornate chair at the head of the table. Both Marik and Alexander were tall men, although the latter was around four inches shorter than the imposing king. Marik shared the piercing blue eyes, physical build and blonde hair of his eldest, but also the guarded emotions and high cheekbones of his youngest son.

He wore his favoured outfit for interacting with council members and his subjects – a golden but unadorned circlet encircled his forehead, and he was plated in sliver armour that was shined and polished, but not to the extent that it removed the clear battle-damage. An antique longsword was sheathed at his waist, the scabbard furnished with rare and enchanted gemstones.

A cloak of deep purple fell down his back, reminding onlookers that he was not just a warrior, but a politician, diplomat and ruler as well. The armour on his front left his throat bare, where the Blade of Wrath could be clearly seen, his badge of royalty.

Alex pulled Caiellis in front of him, and said: "Kiddo, I'm going to need you to take off your shirt again, ok?" Without saying a word, Caiellis silently made to remove the garment, and heard his father gulp when he saw the knife-wounds.

"Who the hell did that?!" Marik asked, analysing the wounds and feeling a parental feeling begin to overcome his initial anger at being interrupted. He may have not been able to see his sons over the past nine years and his dream of a perfect family may have died with Emili, but no one was going to hurt his baby boy without severe consequences - especially this badly.

"Exactly what I asked," Alex replied, not giving his little brother time to respond – not that Cai was going to, he didn't want the situation to escalate any more than it needed to. He should have just ignored his brother earlier and gone straight onto trying the test, avoiding having Alex confront his father over his self-harm. Why did he care anyway? It was just his way of coping with the feeling of failure. His brother had no right to tell him what he could and could not do. Even better, he knew that it was pathetic, and now that was being shown to his father. He shivered in the cold of the large room, uncomfortable with his father's staring at the knife-wounds on his slender torso and hoping that the man wasn't judging his stick like arms too much.

"Dad, he did it to himself," the older boy stated, and Marik looked confusedly back, thinking about why his child would want to do that.

"Why?" their father inquired, and Alexander shook his head back.

"He said that it was his way of managing with the pressure, he said that he did it every time he failed a Summoning," Alexander snarled, knowing that his father's return had coincided with the start of Cai's self-wounding, and also knowing that Marik would definitely had said something to his younger brother that made him lose his sense of self-worth.

"I don't see a problem with that," Marik uttered calmly, expanding his (admittedly untruthful) point after Alexander's outraged expression, "If he wants to do that to himself, fine by me. It gives him another reason not to remain a failure."

"Cai, out. Now," the elder brother instructed, trying to keep the fury he felt out of his voice, his tone brooking no dissent. He certainly didn't want Caiellis to see him and their father arguing – the poor boy had enough on his plate already, he didn't need anything else to worry about. Caiellis slunk dejectedly out of the room, tears of self-loathing burning at the edges of his vision. Great. Now his dad would dislike him even more, think that he was even weaker and more pathetic. How was he supposed to survive with his failures now? And of course Alexander had to go and make a huge deal out of everything.

He shot through the corridors, not caring where he went and ignoring the terrified glances some of the servants gave him before scurrying away. He knew that a large number of Lucaelians feared him because of his Summoning, as the last and only person to ever have that was King Xarius, or the self-styled Emperor of Light who used the Angel of the Black Sun to terrorize his subjects into compliance, using the hated Black magic given to him from the dual nature of the angel to reanimate a necrotic army and crush resistance.

He had planned to sacrifice the entire population of Capitalia Lux to fuel his conquest of the world and gain favour with his dark patrons, but had been slain by his niece, Queen Matrice. Her reign had ended over a hundred years ago, but the Lucaelians were notorious for holding grudges and when Xarius's Summoning had appeared at Caiellis's birth, it was said that a few Hierarchs and Guardians suggested that the babe be murdered to avoid a repeat of the reign of terror.

He thought about just running away, but quickly realised that such an action would be pointless – so long as he was still in one of the cities, his father's soldiers would find him soon enough, as there was no way he'd be able to board one of the monorails without being identified. He could retreat out of the safety of the cities, but dismissed that idea. Caiellis was too much of a coward to venture into the darkness alone.

Maybe he should just kill himself. He felt worthless. It wasn't like anyone even wanted him around, and there would be no chance he could be made king and screw up even more if he was dead – his father thought he was a failure, and the people feared him. Well, there was Alex, but his big brother was one against hundreds.

Caiellis laughed quietly as his random path led him to the entrance of the palace library – a huge repository of knowledge that stretched far underground, once his favourite place to relax before he had begun incessantly attempting the test. The palace library held the Codex Angelica, a bestiary of the many different Lucaelian Summonings, with a large section dedicated solely to each angel that had graced the world with its presence. His subconscious was obviously trying to tell him something.

He resolved to find a good book and become lost in the stories of battles between mighty heroes and dastardly monsters, and wait for the depressing thoughts to go away. Then he would check on his brother to see if he had finished. As he walked in, waving at the venerable caretaker who nodded back at his favourite visitor, Cai randomly chose an aisle of books to walk down, figuring that his unconscious mind had served him well already.

The boy blinked in mild incredulity as he noticed a tanned young woman wearing strange clothing with her head in an open book snoring softly in front of him.

Caiellis smiled, realising she was a Yentarian researcher and recognising her from when she arrived in Capitalia Lux and was granted entry to the library - although he hadn't spoken to her, just watched from one of the windows of the many high up corridors and halls in the palace. He removed her silken jacket which had been dumped to the side, gently pulling out the book from underneath her head, bookmarking the page, and replacing it with the garment of clothing. She was quite a heavy sleeper – the boy had been scared about waking her, not really wanting a conversation but feeling like he should do something to comfort her more.

Cai then left her, going to get a drink and some food from the curator, who often took a meal after Caiellis used to pop in regularly as a child and spend the day there, out of the way. The old man still followed that habit in the hope that the boy would start visiting again, as it was an incredibly lonely job.

.*.*.*.

"What the fuck do you mean, you don't see a problem?" Alexander exploded, letting out the anger he felt once he was sure that his younger brother had exited the room and was out of earshot, "Do you not care one bit about him? I know that you are obsessed with bringing your brother to justice and avenging mum, but could you at least spare a thought for him? It's partly your fault that this happened!" Alex felt magical power building up inside of him, the Red mana responding to his rage while the White reacted to his protectiveness of his brother.

"I though I had taught you to be more respectful than that," Marik replied coldly, letting out some of his pure White mana to match the release of his son – he wasn't afraid to fight in the chambers, they had withstood much worse over the years. Anyway, it would be good to see how powerful one of the potential heirs to the throne had become – training sessions were one thing, but Alexander wouldn't hold back in his angered state, and Marik was sure that his son didn't want to hurt him, "Disappointing. It seems like I will have to discipline you."

Alex breathed in deeply, feeling the sensation of mana running through him as he began the Summoning. A circle of fiery orange surrounded him, followed by one of white that pulsed outwards. He felt the Swords of Flame light up on his right bicep, and sensed the familiar tingle coursing through his veins.

"Aurelia!" he cried, and the circles on the floor flashed with incandescent light, expanding upwards around the boy.

When the light had died down, the slow beat of huge wings could be heard, and Alexander looked gratefully up at the angel in front of him. Armoured by dark-silver plates that covered her human-esque form and framed by bright, unembellished wings that gracefully held her aloft, Aurelia had a head of scarlet hair that spilled out behind a helm the same colour as her armour. The Warleader held two swords out in front of her – one was straight-bladed while the other was twisted and elegant.

Marik nodded at the well known sight of the fiery angel, and relaxed his breathing – his breaths had subconsciously become shorter; he had never quite been able to get over the feeling of awe whenever he saw an angel that close- - especially one of the First Sisterhood. Foregoing the ceremony his son had to go through due to his relative inexperience with Summoning, Marik placed his palms facing each other and in front of the Blade of Wrath, calmly channelling the White mana through him, creating a sphere of pale light in his hands.

"Akroma," he uttered, letting the sphere grow until it eclipsed his form and forced his eldest to look away. The light began to take a shape, and another angel was Summoned. The Angel of Wrath was clothed in pale armour with golden edging that left much of her waxen skin uncovered and also decorated the top of her open wings. She wielded a colossal broadsword of a marble-like Sancturia metal one-handed, the blade the shape of the king's birthmark. Akroma had blue hair – the only colour on her – above small eyes that regarded her opponent coldly.

"Sister," she spoke, her voice lacking anything resembling emotion – the two angels were opposites, Aurelia represented the emotions of the defenders of justice, whereas Akroma was the aloof avatar of endless duty. Alexander leapt forwards, his fist wrapped in golden flames, and Aurelia followed him, igniting her twin swords and diving at her sister. Marik blocked with a conjured shield of White, while his Summoning deflected the blades of her counterpart with her immense sword.

Alexander launched another strike, knowing that he would have to stay on the offensive before his father could bring his greater magical energy to bear. He didn't really know what he wanted to accomplish by fighting his dad, but had needed to release the rage he felt at his brother's mistreatment. Maybe if he proved to Marik that his sons were worth listening to would his father actively try to help Caiellis.

"Don't you realise what your words have done to him?" he shouted, and the king grimaced as a kick from his son caught him off guard, sending him staggering back. Perhaps he had underestimated Alexander, and shouldn't be holding back as much power.

"What, given him an incentive to try harder? Good. He can't stay a failure forever," he replied through his teeth, repelling a blistering series of strikes that cracked his shield. Marik didn't fully mean the words, because if he was being honest he didn't really consider the boy as a failure because Caiellis was his son, but he no longer had the time to deal with children and Caiellis was getting dangerously close to being the Lucerna who had taken the longest to pass their Summoning trial - something that the king would _not _allow in his reign. He let out a bit more mana, watching as Akroma used that to send a lance of light at the opposing angel, who met it with her own spear of conjured flame.

"Caiellis tries harder than anyone I have ever met, including myself!" Alexander yelled as Marik began to counter-attack, drawing the sword at his waist and forcing his eldest to parry an arcing overhead blow on his bracers. Sparks shot from the ringing impact of metal-on-metal, and Alex had to jump back to avoid being impaled on his father's blade – he was sure that the man wasn't attacking with the intent to kill, but it would surely signify his defeat if he allowed a blow like that to get through. "Can't you tell? He attempts the test every day, and it exhausts him! Cai hardly eats, and all he thinks about is how to try differently and complete his Summoning. He doesn't have any friends, and he barely even talks to anyone any-more! It's killing him, how can you not see that? Or are you just too fucking blind to realise what is happening to your youngest? My acceptance is not good enough for Caiellis on its own, I've always tried to make him feel welcome, so he doesn't see a change! He just needs you to notice him! He just needs your love after nine years of waiting to see you!"

Alex beckoned his Summoning over, Aurelia breaking off from her duel with Akroma, and together began channelling mana into a devastating spell.

"That's enough," Marik declared, his voice loud and commanding but bereft of anger. He released a huge amount of White energy and forcefully dispelled Aurelia before the spell could be completed, who returned inside of his eldest's body in a jolt of mana, knocking him off of his feet. He then dismissed Akroma, who returned to the Summoning Realm with a salute, her duty done for now. He sighed for the third time and paced over to his son's side, hoisting the teen to his feet.

"Quite the display of power," he commented, proud of Alexander's courage to fight his father and king. He had taken the boy's words to heart – he did barely ever see his youngest, and he remembered Hierarch Tybalt's words from a few days ago: "_You shouldn't be too harsh on Caiellis, he is constantly trying to pass the trial and access his Summoning." _Marik had disregarded his advisor's words, saying that obviously his son wasn't trying hard enough, but now with Alexander's outburst, his defiant plea for Caiellis's sake, he paid more heed to the warning.

"Yeah, well, someone has to stick up for the runt, because he's not going to do it himself," his eldest responded, sullenly, annoyed at the fact that he had been defeated so quickly. Noticing his disappointed, Marik sat down beside him put a fatherly arm around his shoulders, glad by the fact that he didn't shy away from the contact, and said: "I should probably teach you how to resist that spell."

They sat in silence for a few seconds, and just as Alex made to speak his dad interrupted him, "I have arranged for you both to have a place at the Scholaria Magnus."

"Huh? What's that?" his eldest son asked, a curious look on his face.

"It is a school that has been recently constructed in neutral territory by members of each of the four kingdoms for fifteen to eighteen year olds, although I was able to use my influence to ensure your brother was also able to go."

"You're sending us away?" Alex replied disbelievingly, "But dad, you only just got back from the civil war!"

"And I'm clearly incapable of being a proper father yet!" Marik snapped back, silencing his eldest child. "Anyway," he continued, "I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet important children from other factions, and hone your magical skills." He left the fact that he hoped it would allow Caiellis to unlock his Summoning unspoken, knowing that it would be on his boy's mind, "Also, it will be good for your little brother. He needs to make friends (_since at the moment, just like before the civil war, he doesn't seem to have any_), and when you both return, I will be ready to act as your father. I promise."

Marik looked deep into Alexander's eyes, trying to find acceptance there and doing so when his son stared back. The boy turned away, rising to his feet and saying: "I'll go tell the little man then."

"No, I'll do it. I need to speak with him anyway, and make sure he is alright," the king stated, placing a placating hand on Alex's shoulder and also standing up. He laughed, and said, "How many nicknames do you have for him, anyway?"

Alex smirked back, glad that the boys' dad was actively trying to heal the relationship between him and Caiellis that had been rent asunder by a nine year long civil war which had begun with the death of the queen, replying: "Each one is for a specific situation to get a different response."

"Seriously?" the man replied, because although he could remember that an eight year old Alexander had called his little brother numerous different names he didn't think his eldest son would have enough patience for that.

"Nah, I just do it to annoy him."

Marik pushed the doors open and strode confidently out, and returned a few seconds later with a vaguely embarrassed expression on his face.

"Where will he have gone?" the king asked of his older son, realising that he knew almost nothing about his youngest apart from what the four year old Caiellis had been like. Smiling patiently in a way that Marik was sure the older brother used on the younger, Alexander said: "Cai will have gone to the royal library. Make sure that you are patient with him, and slowly coax him out of his shell. Don't be too forceful or he'll just push you away. You can thank me later."

* * *

Liber Sancturia:

Akroma, Angel of Wrath: Summoning of Marik Ensis Lucerna

Angelic Arbiter: Summoning of Hierarch Aretis (Yes, I know I changed this if anyone is reading it again. Admonition Angel is just too cool not to be First Sisterhood)

Venerable Lammasu: Summoning of Hierarch Martha

Angelic Overseer: Summoning of Guardian Xathan

Guardian Lelia: Angel of Retribution


	4. Learning

_The third chapter of the Eternal Dance. Do you like the story? What improvements would you suggest? Please review!_

* * *

Jenna jolted awake, at first forgetting where she was and almost falling over backwards, nearly knocking over the stool she had been sat on. The events of the past few days then came back to her, and she remembered that she was supposed to be researching about Lucaelian culture. _Shit,_ Jenna thought, glancing at the watch still strapped to her right forearm. The hands showed that it was only 08:13, and the Yentarian breathed a sigh of relief. She still had plenty of time to get enough research done if she started now.

She turned around, finding her notes carefully arranged on the desk next to her and the book she had been reading closed, but with a bookmark in the page Jenna had been on. Jenna also noticed that she had been sleeping on her jacket, instead of the book which she had been taking notes from. Clearly someone had seen her and decided to help her but chose to leave the young woman asleep.

She also saw a plate of appetizing looking pastry-cases and a mug of steaming caffeine, and gratefully gobbled the meal. The twenty year old stood up, stretching and preparing for another day of relative inactivity, when a small voice piped up, making her jump.

"So you're awake then?" a slight boy who couldn't have even been five feet tall yet asked, although the question itself was quite redundant. Getting straight to the point, as she didn't want to be interrupted from her investigation any more, she asked: "Were you the one that helped me, and put the food there?"

"Caiellis Noctis Lucerna, at your service," he answered back, sketching a quick bow and smiling shyly at the Yentarian. Jenna instantly fell to her knees – the boy was royalty, and the Lucaelians certainly took their rulers very seriously, so the Yentarian didn't want to show disrespect. She heard Caiellis sigh, and the woman kept her voice level as she said: "I am Jenna Bylae, my lord. I am a researcher from the Yentarian Republic, part of the League of Isak."

"Well then, Jenna, could you please stand up? I'm not used to being above people," Caiellis joked, and the woman nodded her head gratefully and got back to her feet, where she could fully examine the heir in front of her. Despite his relatively jovial manner, there was something wrong with the boy, inner feelings that were concealed by the veneer of false happiness Caiellis currently wore which didn't extend to his large green eyes.

Faded tear tracks that he had clearly tried to rub away were still stark on his face, especially where they met the ominous and clearly magical birthmark of an eight-pointed sun on his cheek, which glowed amethyst where the tears had ran over. His emerald green eyes also showed a large amount of emotional pain, although when he sensed her scrutiny they became guarded. Had he not been royalty, Jenna would have asked him what was wrong and attempted to console him because he was only a child, but she thought it would be a mistake to pry into his problems. To that end, she pretended to not notice his obvious distress, and made to continue with her research.

"If you would please excuse me, my lord, I have carry on with my work. Thank you for making me more comfortable and giving me food," Jenna bowed and turned around, hearing the prince sigh again.

"Stop calling me "my lord". I have done nothing to deserve that title yet," Caiellis spat, and then reigned in the emotion that was inflecting his tone, "Anyway, I may be able to help you with your research. It's not like I have anything else to do."

"I appreciate the offer, my l-... Caiellis, but surely you don't have the time to assist a humble researcher such as myself?" Jenna tried not to offend the prince as she sat back down, but she really didn't need children slowing down her work.

She was already behind as it was, the notes had to be handed in before the start of the Scholaria Magnus's first term, so that the Lucaelians could be accommodated properly. Several other investigators had also been dispatched so the Yentarians could understand more about other cultures – however King Marik Ensis Lucerna had only permitted one into his kingdom. A lot of responsibility rested on her shoulders, and falling asleep had been bad enough.

Cai narrowed his eyes at the rebuttal of his proposal and the fact that Jenna evidently did not want the teenager here, but he was interested to see what she was researching and knew that more likely than not he could help her with it. He supposed that if it came to it, he could force the young woman to have him assist her, but that would be extremely hypocritical of his earlier statement, not to mention incredibly spoilt and petty, which was not the sort of image he wanted to cultivate.

"Were you not listening? I just said that I had nothing else to do. I promise that I will not get in the way," he told her, trying to sound sincere as he felt. It would be good for him to have something to distract his thoughts from the events of earlier, and while some parts of him would rather be reading alone and isolated others wanted to interact with someone who had not lived in the endless night all of their lives.

"I must insist-"

"Please?" the boy pleaded, giving the woman the puppy dog eyes he had often used as a child on Alexander. Jenna sighed. How could she resist something so cute?

"Fine, fine, just stop doing that!" she relented, and Caiellis smirked triumphantly, pulling over another nearby stool and sitting next to the Yentarian. Jenna then explained the research she was undertaking – a full analysis of Lucaelian culture coupled with notes of the common Summonings. Caiellis listened intently when she outlined the inscriptions she had already completed – Jenna had almost finished a brief examination of the culture of the (ironically named) Kingdom of Light, but hadn't even started to record any of the Sancturia creatures that were Summoned due to the distinct lack of material.

The boy flashed a quick smile at that and stood up, quickly striding to the dusty altar in the centre of the library. Jenna had pondered its purpose at first, and came to the conclusion that it would have been used some years ago in delivering lessons to students in the library, but had gone unused for some time.

She cocked an eyebrow when Caiellis closed his eyes and uttered a small incantation, light flowing from his hands and onto the altar. When the magic touched the altar, Jenna nodded her head, impressed as a huge book materialised onto the plinth. The tome was embossed with an intricate cover of entwined gold and silver, and seemed to hold a vast amount of information judging by its thickness.

Caiellis tried to pick it up, but almost succeeded in dropping it – in the past Alexander had repeatedly got it for him, his older brother always making difficult tasks of physical strength look easy. He shot an embarrassed glance over at Jenna, who took the hint and moved over to the boy. Together they moved the book over to the wooden desk, which creaked alarmingly under the tome's weight.

"The Codex Angelica," Caiellis announced, smiling proudly at Jenna's awe at such a large repository of knowledge, "A complete bestiary of every Lucaelian Summoning encountered yet, restricted to royalty and those trusted with the revealing spell."

Concern etched over Jenna's fascinated features for a moment, and she said: "Won't your father be angry at you for this?"

She noted how Caiellis eyes became stony at the mention of King Marik, and the boy replied: "I'm not going to let you look at all of it, several sections are hidden, even from me – that means we won't be able to look at them. Please refrain from the entire first half of the book, as that is where the angels are recorded."

"And if I don't?" Jenna asked, more curious to see how the prince would respond rather than any desire to disobey his wishes. She was already grateful for the vast amount of information this book would surely contain, and respected the Lucaelians' privacy over their angels that they seemed to worship.

"Then I would have to kill you," Caiellis replied evenly, looking her straight in the eyes. The Yentarian couldn't decide whether the boy was joking or not, and resolved to not push her luck. She was glad that she had allowed the prince to help her, as there was no way Jenna would have been able to find that much information in the amount of time she had.

"How does each Summoning get recorded? Obviously the Codex is barely ever looked at, but all the entries are in so much detail," Jenna inquired as she made notes on the Lucaelian wisp and Goldenglow Moth, two of the least powerful Summonings used by those with only minimal magical potential that reminded her of the sprites of her home island.

"Each city has their own copy of the book that the Hierarch has direct access to – they each have a team of observers that reports to them. Due to the enchantments that no-one truly understands any-more on each of the copies, when they are modified so too is the Codex Angelica," the just-teen explained, and Jenna nodded.

After a few seconds of silence, Caiellis got back up and went to fetch another book on Lucaelian culture, grabbing his own paper and a pen and compiling another set of notes for Jenna, his neat and orderly handwriting at odds with her jumbled scrawls. Another two minutes passed, the only sounds the rustling of paper and the scratching of pens, before Caiellis spoke up again.

"Do you have any siblings?" he asked, his mind drawn back to what had made him come to the library in the first place. Jenna snickered, and replied: "Yeah, a little sister. Her name is Annia. Why?"

"Do you ever feel like you are butting in on her privacy, or making big deals out of things that she wants to keep quiet?" Cai mused, blatantly ignoring the question which made Jenna smirk. The prince could be quite stubborn if he wanted to be.

"I didn't really feel that way, but to be honest, I never asked her," Jenna said, and then sniggered, "Maybe you can ask her?"

"What? How?" the boy responded, confusion clouding his features.

"As she was born in the year of 1235, she will be in the same year as you in the Scholaria Magnus," noticing the prince's uncertainty not lifting, and his quizzical expression remaining, she continued: "You know? The new school for 15 to 18 year olds from each faction, set up to provide greater understanding of other cultures and magic itself, and to help form friendships between the teenagers who would one day be the leaders and important figures of their nations? You and your brother will be going there in a few days."

"Wait, 15 to 18? I'm thirteen years old, born in 1237. I don't fit into that age group," Caiellis stated, and then chuckled quietly, "Although I am a prince. Let me guess: my father used his influence to secure a place for me?"

"That's correct," Jenna admitted, noticing Caiellis's sullen demeanour and saying: "He was probably going to tell you soon."

"I suppose," the boy replied, "Is that why-"

Caiellis instantly became quiet as he turned around to get more paper, and Jenna sensed a large change overcome the prince. His eyes became blank and his shoulders slumped, so Jenna also craned her neck to see what was wrong.

"My lord," she said, falling to her knees and not meeting the gaze of the figure about ten metres away from them.

"Miss Bylae," the king responded, nodding in the direction of the researcher, and then looked at his son.

"Caiellis."

.*.*.*.

Kaled staggered through the doorway into his house – the day had been long and tiring, numerous battles in the local bloodsport arena underneath the malevolent red eye of the sun sapping the energy from his bones. The lean fifteen year old only participated in some of the minor battles against weak Unbound creatures, just as a way to gain more income without putting himself in much danger or attracting the attention of the Order of Violence - a lesser spectacle only watched by a small audience in the intermittent periods between events.

He was relatively tall and tanned, with brown eyes and a short scar above his left eye, a childhood wound from his life out on the streets. Kaled was somewhat wiry, as were most young Welkalites without the income to sustain excessive consumption, but as he progressed throughout his teenage years he had become leaner, his active lifestyle facilitating the build up of muscle on his otherwise slender frame. The boy had short, brown hair cropped close to his skull - any longer would cause him to heat up even more in the blazing sunlight - and walked with a slightly limp gait, a testament to a couple of scrapes he had suffered earlier in the day.

His ma had railed against the notion of him fighting in the squalid arenas for the amusement of the filthy at first, but she had relented when the taxes increased to a point even greater than her income and Kaled proved he could easily defeat some of the weakest captured Unbound. The big money was only gained fighting against some greater creatures or other humans, but Kaled's ma had forbidden him from doing that. It was the least he could do after all she had done for him.

He slumped on the ragged but comfortable sofa at the side of the small room that coupled as Kaled's bed, idly flicking through the newspaper as he stretched out his tense form – most of the articles were advertisements that he scanned over without even reading, but one of the pages caught his eye: the Scholaria Magnus, a school for the most powerful young prodigies in each nation of the continent.

He read to the bottom of the page, his intrigue piqued until he read the price that Welkas charged its citizens for the placement there. It was the same price as at least two or three installments (mathematics had never been Kaled's strongest point) of the recently raised taxes – that meant that only the extremely rich – the corrupt - could afford to send their children there, as the rest of the people were barely able to pay the extortionate levies and feed their families at the same time, even those belonging to one of the four dominant Orders of Passion. The fifteen year old snorted; it was sadly extremely typical of the corrupt rulers of Welkas to only offer the places to the adolescents of families that could afford their ridiculous prices - something that he was quite sure wasn't the intention of the Scholaria Magnus administration.

Who was he kidding, anyway? Even if he had the economic backing to make paying for the placement a trivial affair, or if it was based upon other criteria such as actual skill, he certainly wasn't going to become an influential figure in the Empire and was hardly an extraordinary fighter or mage.

It was unusual for his ma to be out at this time, her position as a cleaner for the marketplace districts only lasting until the patrons came to visit, but Kaled supposed that she had gone to pay up on their debt when the newly acquired funds from his victories had been delivered. The aged woman wasn't actually his biological mother, but had taken him in off the streets when he was seven years old, given him a home away from all of the poverty and violence of the slums just as he had been on the brink of death. She had insisted that he go to school, even though him being there put extra economical strain onto her, but when his Summoning had activated he felt it would be a waste and unfair not to use that to get them more money.

The capital of Welkas, Usnaan, had, not too long ago, once been a paradise of freedom ruled over by the famed revolutionary Jarred Redhand, a place of individuality and expression of oneself forged from the ruins of the degenerate Old Empire. That had changed around twenty years ago, when the man's wife and two daughters had been slain in an assassination attempt that was still as mysterious as the day it had been enacted. The Protector of the city then locked himself away from the public, forever residing in his mansion and letting his subordinates take command of the New Empire of Passion.

Without the controlling influence of the Protector restricting their activities, the Orders of Passion went wild, ruling the New Empire as they saw fit and participating in even greater acts of deprivation and greed. For those not part of the Orders and not wealthy, life became hell incarnate as the Orders raised and raised the taxes to gain more and more money to fuel their pursuit of pleasure – ironically becoming the things that the revolution had set out to destroy.

Kaled would love to get away from the degrading Welkas Empire, go to this Scholaria Magnus, but there was absolutely no way him and his ma could amass enough money for that without skipping the taxes – and that would attract the attention of the Order Enforcers, a sadistic bunch of people delighting in causing cruelty to the common public. Besides, that would mean leaving his ma behind, and while Kaled knew that he cost her a substantial amount of money to feed, clothe and send to school, she was becoming old now and it was about time for him to repay the debt to her for taking him in and giving him a new life.

The boy heard the door creak open and then became closed, and Kaled went to see his ma who had entered the kitchen. The old woman looked weary, but quickly hid those emotions when her "son" walked into the small room. She gave him a smile, noticing how he slightly favoured his right leg – he must have suffered a minor wound at the bloodsport pits.

"Hey ma," the teenager greeted her with a hug, careful not to make the smaller woman's arthritis any worse or cause her any pain. Kaled let go of her and she smiled again, taking the boy's appearance in – she was so proud of him, to think he had grown up from the little street urchin into this compassionate and handsome young man. It almost made her regret what she had done in the city today, how she wouldn't see him any more... _No!_ She thought, shoving the selfish ideas from her head, _Stop thinking about yourself. You made the right choice. __You made the right choice. _She repeated in her head like a mantra.

"Ma, are you alright?" Kaled asked, his voice becoming tinted with concern as the elderly woman wiped her eyes, the inner melancholy within them replaced with a sort of kind, compassionate steel when he wrinkled hand revealed them once more.

"Kaled, I just want you to know that whatever happens, I love you. I love you more than anything else in the world," she told him seriously, staring into his brown eyes and grasping onto his forearms, feeling the lean muscle bunching beneath the skin - Kaled was a far cry now from the emaciated street urchin that she had taken in eight years ago, although his life alone in the slums had left several marks on him; both emotional and physical scars had been inflicted upon the youngster.

"I love you too ma." the boy replied, his confusion evident as she placed a piece of paper in his hands, the design of which was more outlandish and extravagant than anything else in the drab but homely house. He brought it up to look, and his eyes widened in surprise as he scanned the words imprinted upon it. A place at the Scholaria Magnus! Kaled could finally get away from Welkas, finally get away from the corruption and the poverty, and a ray of hope lit up his mind. But that meant-

"Ma, no! You haven't paid the taxes for weeks, have you?" Kaled realised in horror, handing the parchment back to the woman. He looked at the clock and realised that it was only a few minutes until the Enforcers that were dispatched to the houses of those who had not paid up would. The Order of Wealth was notorious for the brutality and maliciousness of their Enforcers, and the boy had often heard the screaming of those dragged out of their homes and sent to the bloodsport arenas for the night-time slaughters if they were strong and entertaining enough. If not, they would be tortured by pain-artisans from the Order of Rapture. He shouted in panic: "The Enforcers will be here soon! We have to get away!"

"No," she declared, her voice shaky but filled with a resolute determination. The aged woman had used a trick that she had picked up from one of her more devious accomplices in her earlier years on how to get away with not paying taxes for a protracted period of time, and when she had made the choice that Kaled needed to escape from what Usnaan was being led into she had begun stashing the money away so that there would be enough to secure him a Scholaria Magnus placement.

"So we fight then! I'll use Regata. I won't let them take you!" Kaled yelled, his voice becoming more and more desperate and breaking slightly with emotion as the woman put a calming hand on his shoulder. While his Summoning wasn't the most powerful, far from it, Regata barely required any mana to Summon, and was very fast and efficient. The fact that the fiery elemental was easy to Summon made it easier to interact with, and Regata responded to his rage, letting out a roar in Kaled's mind.

"No, Kaled. This is my choice. My life for your future," she said calmly, leaning up and kissing the boy on the cheek. She had made the decision to save her son from the horrors of life in Usnaan, and she would damn well not let his recklessness spoil that. "They won't hurt you - they can't touch you, not when you have this document. I want you to make a better life for yourself."

"But ma, they'll torture you!" Kaled pleaded, tears beginning to roll down his cheeks. He had always been one for showing his emotions and wearing his heart on his sleeve, the woman reflected - it was one of the things that she loved most about him. "We can fight!"

"And do what exactly? I would be useless in combat, and you would ruin your future," she admonished. It would be hard for Kaled, heck, it was almost impossible for her to face the fact of never seeing her son again, but she was willing to make that sacrifice so that her son could find refuge from the hellish thing that the New Empire of Passion was becoming. She would be lying if she said that she wasn't scared of what was going to happen to her once the malicious Collectors arrived, but that price was nothing to pay when her son's future was at stake. "Anyway, I already have one foot in the grave. Kaled, I want you to have a better life than the one that I could give you."

"No..." the youngster cried, the timbre of his words suffused with an anguish that he had never felt before, not even when he had come to terms with his death of starvation in the streets. _I don't want to go ... I don't want to leave her! I want to protect her like she has protected me! _ His ma moved her hand up, brushing the crystalline liquid from his cheeks as she spoke with a strength not belied by her frail frame, "Listen to me, Kaled. I have lived a long life - a good life - whilst you have so many years yet to live. You have given me a reason for this life Kaled, and my only regret is that I couldn't take in more children like you. I won't let you stay in this depraved empire any longer. The Scholaria Magnus placement only lasts one year, but at the end of it I want you to get as far away from Welkas as possible. You are the most precious thing in the entire world to me, and you have to understand that this fate is one I have chosen for myself."

"How touching!" a rasping voice cackled, and both humans spun around to find a spiked, crimson red creature perched on the open window, cocking its head to one side as it regarded them with blue eyes shining with a sadistic mirth borne of cruel malevolence. Its voice was like the shrill scraping of jagged blades abrading over one another, and it shrieked "Time to pay, time to pay, time to pay!"

As he pulled away from his ma, Kaled let his anger pulse through him, his rage at the injustice of the Empire and the thought of his loving ma being captured and hurt taking physical form as flames burst into light around his clenched fists. The devil giggled maniacally at the sight of the magic and scampered away in concert with a loud bang resounded that out through the house and was accompanied by the splintering of rotting wood.

Kaled's heart started to pound and adrenaline rushed through his veins as the door was kicked open, and two imposing figures strode in.

The first was a large man clad in unadorned black clothing that covered the entirety of his body, with a matching ebony helm to boot. He held a barbed whip coiled in one hand and two pairs of handcuffs in the other. It was clear from his tall and broad stature that he was the one who had broken open the door, Then the second man pounced in, laughing madly when he saw the two terrified residents of the house. He was mostly bare fleshed, with a loincloth covering his genitals and chains wrapped around his emaciated upper body that flailed like writhing snakes with every movement. The devil sat on his shoulder, grinning maliciously and chittering in dark amusement to itself.

He wore a ragged mask of cloth that twisted his face into a smile, and his right hand was covered in a piece of equipment adorned with slicing blades and spikes. He cackled insanely like his Summoning, running the blades down his face and bare chest whilst shuddering in the bliss of the pain. He locked eyes with Kaled and licked his lips, a gesture that repulsed the teenager. Kaled stood protectively in front of his ma, the Red mana sheathing his hands causing the temperature of the already uncomfortably warm room to rise even further.

"Elsa Denith, you have failed to pay the last two deposits needed by the Empire of Welkas," the voice of the first Enforcer rang out, a monotonous drone bereft of any emotion other than dark malice, "Suffer the consequences."

The second Enforcer moved towards Kaled, who yelled in rage and Summoned Regata, the blazing fire-cat slamming into the deranged human and knocking him into the walls, singeing his flesh and biting into his shoulder, the fiery teeth ripping through tanned skin and scraping on the bone. The devil was flung into the air, regaining its footing. It whimpered and crawled away from the violence, as the first Enforcer's whip cracked out, wrapping around Kaled and yanking him closer as the barbs on it that were intended to hurt and entangle but not cause much bodily harm cut into the boy.

Kaled thrashed, but the entangling thorns dipped in some sort of agonising toxins ripped into his skin from where it was twisted around his bare arm and trapped in the shirt around waist restricted his movements and sent spikes of pain rushing throughout his nervous system.

"Wait!" cried Elsa, pulling out the document and thrusting it at the taller man, his compatriot still writhing in the gnashing jaws of the burning elemental, her voice filled with empathetic pain at seeing her son harmed, "Stop! He is going to be a student of Scholaria Magnus, a representative of the New Empire. You can't hurt him!"

The Enforcer calmly checked the identification code on the bottom, and, satisfied it was authentic, pulled out a syringe from his belt and injected Kaled in the shoulder with the long needle. The numbing agent acted immediately, blocking the mana passageways and making the boy stagger as the whip uncoiled from him in a spray of blood. Regata let out a roar of fury as it was dragged back into Kaled, the boy unable to sustain the Summoning as he slipped further and further into unconsciousness. The fire-cat tore out a huge chunk of meat out of the freak's shoulder as it was pulled away, who bounded forwards and kicked the teetering Kaled in the stomach, hard.

The boy barely felt the pain as he was knocked to the floor with a resounding impact that seemed miles distant – he couldn't move, the drug was trying to force him into unconsciousness but he fought it with every inch of his willpower. He had to help his ma! He had to help her! _Come on, move! Move! Please ... please MOVE! _Dark spots and curling streaks like blotches of ink filled his vision as he screamed and tried to propel himself forwards into the man that towered over the woman who had taken him in and saved his life - and was now wanting to sacrifice her own to secure him a better future. But his body refused to act in accordance with his voice, and his ma was soon obscured by the hideous visage of the psychopath that Regata had almost torn in half.

Blood dripped onto his face, a numb sensation as the man opened his mouth in a jagged mixture of a sneer and a malicious grin. Kaled screamed at him in anger that was slowly receding from his anesthetized limbs but still coursed through his mind like the winding path of a bubbling molten river, but all that came out was a sort of gurgling cry. Even the tears on his face and streaming down his cheeks could not register on his desensitised nerves, and the Enforcer bared teeth filed to a point at him.

The black-clad Enforcer punched his colleague in the face, removing him from Kaled's field of increasingly blurring vision, shouting: "Do not touch the boy! He is now a representative of the Empire," the second Enforcer made an exaggeratedly maudlin pouting face, completely oblivious to the wounds in his shoulder, and the other one said, "The woman, however..."

As Kaled's vision faded, consumed by the roiling blackness, the last thing he saw the freak giggle and move towards his ma, who stood up straight, defiant and proud and made ready to meet her fate.

_This is it then,_ Elsa thought. _At least Kaled can't watch. Goodbye, son. Make something of yourself with this opportunity, with this new life that I had failed to give you before now. My only regret is that I cannot see you grow older and mature even more. I love you, Kaled. I will be watching over you from the oases of the sky forever more, until it will be your time to ascend in many, many years to come._

.*.*.*.

King Marik strode quickly towards the library, his mind playing over Alexander's words in his head. Maybe he _had_ been too harsh on Caiellis, but the boy needed to realise that if he became king, failure would not just have a negative impact upon himself, but the entire kingdom. Caiellis had always reminded Marik more of Emili simply because of his appearance, whereas Alex was physically more like himself. However, his youngest son had undoubtedly inherited much of his father's quiet personality, while his eldest was more extroverted like his late wife.

Lost in his thoughts, the king almost didn't realise when he reached the entrance to the library. He took a deep breath: ruling the kingdom of Lucael was one thing, but he found it infinitely harder to interact with his own children, especially after nine years of not doing it. They were no longer little boys now (although to be fair that could be debated in the case of his second son), but teenagers. He supposed that he had endured the wrath of his eldest, but that had been more about listening to him.

Talking to Caiellis would require him to take the initiative, if what Alexander said was true –and Marik had no cause to doubt his eldest son, as the boy had basically raised his younger brother (although with the Capitalia Lux Light-bearers) as they went from safe-house to safe-house, and then eventually went to stay in the palace once it had been deemed safe.

He walked into the library, and saw his son conversing with the Yentarian researcher – Jenna Bylae, if her recalled her name correctly – laughing and chatting happily. It seemed paradoxical to the king that his son was here talking openly with a complete stranger from another nation while he hid things from his own family. Caiellis turned around to get more paper, and Marik felt a pang of regret as his son's casual demeanour instantly transformed into one of cautious quiet when he caught sight of his father.

Jenna spun around and instantly dropped to her knees, which made Marik smirk, although he soon hid it under Caiellis's blank stare.

"My lord," she said, and the king replied: "Miss Bylae. Caiellis."

The boy said nothing and regarded his father coldly – his armour was battle damaged, which was nothing new, but there were new scorch marks there. Just what had Alexander done? Caiellis certainly appreciated his brother's protectiveness and nurturing qualities, but sometimes he wished the older boy would just leave him alone and not make every one of Cai's problems one of his. Although he tried to appear blank-eyed (it was the best way of getting his family to go away), Caiellis couldn't quite keep an accusatory glint out of his green eyes as he related the fact that Alex had attacked their father with the probably counter-attack of the king.

Marik picked up on that instantly, regretting his haste to speak to his youngest and not changing his clothes on the way. The boy was quite observant, another trait that he had inherited from both his father and his mother. The forty year old then said, "My apologies, Miss Bylae, but me and my son need to talk. Caiellis, will you join me for a walk?"

Knowing that the request wasn't one at all, the boy slid off his seat and muttered an invocation, the book in front of the two disappearing into particles of golden light. Marik realised with a jolt that they had been looking at the Codex Angelica, although he doubted that his son was stupid enough to allow Jenna to look at anything classified – anyway, Caiellis wouldn't have the full clearance to look at the entire book, so there was that. The boy silently made his way over to the king, not even saying a word of goodbye to the researcher, who sighed and continued on with her work. She had got a good deal of information from that book, so was grateful for the encounter.

Marik paced out of the library, intending to go to the royal sanctum and show his son something there. Caiellis trotted dutifully (if slightly sullenly) at his side, waiting for his father to start the conversation he knew was coming. He was aware that the self-harming was pathetic and utterly unbefitting of what a Lucerna should be like, and was preparing for some sort of censure from his father about it now that the information he would have quite liked to keep to himself had been brought to the fore by his brother. He was annoyed at Alexander, but couldn't really blame the older boy for being concerned and raising the issue with their dad no matter how much Cai would want to. He knew that it was his own fault for this happening now, that he was wasting his dad's time when he should be concentrating on running the kingdom, and not on his second son who couldn't even pass a damn Summoning trial.

He trudged behind the man, wanting more than anything just to be left alone so that he could attempt to pass the test that his First Sisterhood angel had set for him which had been hanging over him the past month (and before that, but during the war there were worse things to be worrying about and the fact that it always exhausted him meant that he hadn't had much chance when they were constantly on the move), to slink away and not be under the scrutiny of his family any more and have all of his failures picked apart and dissected by them. He needed to be able to deal with his lack of success on his own, and was not looking forward to the king's reaction to his latest screw up and the revelation that he had been cutting himself to relieve some of the stress because he was too weak to handle it without that.

He was pathetic, needy. No wonder his dad didn't want to spend time with him.

"I wasn't aware you knew how to access the Codex," Marik voiced, trying to make small talk before he announced the main news.

"Hierarch Tybalt taught me and Alex the spell when we were both attempting out Summonings a few years ago," the boy replied, his soft voice deadpan. _Shit_. That topic came up far too quickly; Marik had wanted a bit of bonding time with his son before discussing the pressing issue of Caiellis's trial.

"Ah, I see." After a few seconds, he added, "I know that you try extremely hard to pass the test, Caiellis, and I am proud of you for that, but we both know that you need to successfully complete it soon. Which I am confident you will and I am looking forward to seeing your Summoning."

"You certainly sound confident," the boy muttered sarcastically under his breath, and then blinked in surprise. He hadn't meant to actually voice the scornful thoughts. Maybe it was the effect of actually talking to his father for once.

"And why shouldn't I be?" Marik asked, making to put his arm round his son's thin shoulders but stopping when the smaller male shied away from the contact, "You are a determined boy, and you always have been. Besides, every time you do it, the easier it gets."

"And why is that?" Caiellis narrowed his eyes (which were half obscured by his fringe of dark brown hair) at his father, who gave him a bewildered look.

"Because the more you do the test your Summoning has set, the more used to it you become. It is the same test each time."

"No. It is not," Caiellis stated simply, and Marik raised his eyebrows incredulously as his son continued,: "It is a different trial each time. Sometimes I feel like I have almost completed it, sometimes I fail on the first hurdle. Why, is it supposed to be identical each time?"

"Yes," the king, murmured thoughtfully. The forty year old felt slightly guilty for blaming his son's failure to pass his trial solely on his weakness and the fact that Marik had thought that the boy hadn't had the proper incentive to successfully complete the test - which he obviously had, as otherwise there was no way that he would be cutting himself. He had never heard of such a thing occurring before. He would look into it himself – some of the records in the Codex Angelica would speak of the phenomenon, he was sure of it. "So that is why you have found it so difficult to Summon?"

_You think? _Caiellis thought, ensuring that the sarcasm was kept to himself this time.

"However, I have decided that currently I am incapable of performing my fatherly duties, so I have managed to get a place for you both a the newly built Scholaria Magnus, a school for 15 to 18 year olds, though I was able to get you in. I think it will be a great opportunity for you and your brother," Marik announced proudly, thinking that his son would receive the news gratefully. He thought that Caiellis would leap at the chance to get out of the lonely (what with his brother spending time with his own friends and furthering his own education and Marik busy conducting the recovery of the kingdom) and sometimes mournful palace to explore the world, to be able to interact with people his own age (although all of the students would be older than him Caiellis, which did not concern Marik at all because he knew how intellectually developed his second son was) instead of being cooped up inside and constantly attempting his Summoning trial.

The thirteen year old didn't reply or react in any way to the announcement; he simply continued to walk behind his father before the man halted, turning around and appraising his youngest son.

Annoyed at the lack of response, both vocally and within Caiellis's posture (which hadn't changed), Marik raised his voice: "Well?"

"I am aware," the boy uttered, utterly without emotion, which incensed the man even further. He was the king of a nation that had just gone through a gigantic civil war; he shouldn't have to deal with sulky teenagers and to be quite honest he didn't know how.

"I am trying to be patient with you, Caiellis. Would you prefer it if I shouted at you?" the king questioned, and his son looked him straight in the eyes, annoyance prevalent in those expressive green orbs which were almost concealed by his ridiculous fringe that Marik thought definitely needed cutting.

"I would prefer it if you stopped talking to me, but that's not going to happen, is it?" Cai shot back, and Marik growled. He swung a punch at the small boy, but managed to restrain himself, his mailed fist millimetres from the Black Sun on Caiellis's cheek. To his credit, the boy didn't even flinch, persisting in glaring defiantly at his father. Marik exhaled deeply. This is not how he wanted the father/son moment to go. He was glad that he had enough self-control to not hit the boy, no matter how insolent Caiellis had been – Marik was already close enough to losing his youngest in the conversation, Caiellis's obedience the only thing keeping him at his father's side.

Sometimes being a father could be the most grating and irritating thing in the entire world, but hitting his smaller and more fragile son (or either of them for that matter) over something so petty as teenage defiance would not have been acceptable - and the king was not going to follow his father's example in discipline, although the former king's brutal and heartless methods had undoubtedly worked.

Marik lowered his hand and instead brought Caiellis into a crushing hug, lifting his son off his feet and crying: "Angels deliver me from impertinent children!" That got him a smirk from Cai, which was a victory as far as the king was concerned. Not wanting the intimate moment to end, much to his son's chagrin Marik decided to carry him the rest of the way to the sanctum. Alexander was right – the boy was incredibly light, Marik could lift him with only one arm, which must have been due to a combination of his reluctance to eat and his teenage metabolism. Only the king had admittance to the sanctum, and he noticed how his son's eyes widened in amazement as he was carried into the vault.

Caiellis was awed by the amount of relics on display, he was surprised that his father trusted him enough already to take him down here. He recognised quite a few objects from stories his brother had read to him when he was younger, artefacts of such overwhelming strength that he had dismissed as being myths, although Cai assumed that their powers had been exaggerated by the tales and the historical tomes. Had this happened even a single year earlier, he would have enthusiastically rattled off his recollection of all the names and properties of the relics, but for now he kept silent.

Marik could sense his son's wonder breaking out of the carapace he had constructed for himself – he was positive he had made the right choice doing this. He could visualise Tybalt's prideful smile as he read out some of the pieces of work Caiellis had written in the past.

Despite the fact that both his sons were smart and if Alexander applied himself more to written studies he could also achieve great things, the younger brother was immensely intelligent for his young age, though the older still had more experience. Caiellis's fascination with knowledge and his way of thinking would be a great asset to him in the future – Tybalt had once joked that the boy could have been a Yentarian before Marik told him that it was demeaning to be compared to one of them. He found it quite ironic how the only part of the conversation he paid attention to was the end, and wished he had been less obsessed about the aftermath of the war with Johnias and listened more to his sons' mental progress now it had ended (for now).

He had taken note of what Tristram had told him about their physical training however – Alex was exceptional at hand-to-hand combat and most types of weaponry, whilst Cai couldn't even lift some of the heavier equipment, instead focussing on one-handed sword training. Marik also listened to their magical progression, which Caiellis also excelled in, although both his sons were exceptional mages due to their Lucerna blood. Alexander preferred to blend physical and magical attacks with Aurelia, whereas his little brother had huge amounts of magical energy even without unlocking his own Summoning – he had similar levels of power to many mages with their own Sancturia creatures backing them up. However, this made him far more dependant on his magic that at the moment was still much weaker than his sibling's (as Marik's eldest was older and had access to Aurelia), and reticent to focus on his admittedly severely lacking physicality.

The king thought it was disturbing that he could reel off a list of each of his sons' specialities in combat and warfare, but could barely say anything about either of their personalities.

When the war had finished, the artefacts used in war had been returned to the vault – he was ashamed to say that in his rage he had obliterated the cities allied to his treacherous brother with semi-forbidden relics of the past. Nevertheless, the one he was going to show to his son was powerful, and would hopefully help the lad in both the physical and magical aspects of combat, but not _that _powerful.

They stopped at the fifteenth alcove and Marik put down Caiellis, who instantly examined the object in front of him. The medium-length and thin sword had a straight blade in a scabbard made from black leather inlaid with silver etchings. The sword had a semi-circular cross-guard of shiny silver, and the pommel surrounded a small crystal.

"The Sword of Glass," Caiellis breathed in wonderment, correctly identifying the blade from just a brief depiction of it in one of the "storybooks" (books that Alexander stole from different libraries (before Cai had been old enough to go on his own and spend the days there) to read to Caiellis, he adapted the historical accounts of them into stories knowing how much his brother didn't like children's books). "Used primarily by Queen Arie in the years 831 to 837, after she had her artisans craft it from glass found in the temple-church of the capital city in the Drenure Kingdom before they were taken over. Said to amplify the magic of the wielder, it made the Queen's tricolour White/Blue/Green mana even more powerful,"

"Very good," Marik nodded proudly, amazed that his son had managed to recall such a comprehensive definition from the wealth of information in his young mind. "I want you to have it. Consider it a father's gift, to show that I do actually love you."

The king smiled lovingly when he heard Caiellis's stifled gasp of amazement and fondly ruffled the boy's brown hair. _Wow. I wasn't expecting that. Instead being admonished for being pathetic and cutting myself, something that a prince should not do, dad is giving me a gift?_ This time, his son did not move away from the contact out of antipathy, but instead he was excited to get out the blade. He moved towards to sword, before turning around, a plea for conformation in his eyes. Marik nodded, and Caiellis said, infusing the words with his gratitude: "Thank you."

He drew the sword from its plinth – the blade was made from a crystal-clear substance that was as sharp and reliable as metal, but far more beautiful and incredibly light - and gave it a few practise swings. It was perfectly balanced for his small frame – Queen Arie was quite a petite woman, although she had reputedly more than made up for that with her boisterous nature. The Sword of Glass was almost weightless, meaning that he could wield it very well - Cai knew that he didn't lack the skill to use swords, but the strength to manipulate them to the best of his ability. This would definitely counteract that.

Caiellis then charged the blade with his magic, and grinned in slightly childish delight when it lit up with white/golden light, bathing the two in a glow. Neither one failed to notice the fact that the edges of the blade were tinted with shadow, which was only natural – the Angel of the Black Sun was made from light and darkness, which had allowed King Xarius to begin his reign of terror. Marik hoped that his son could overcome the fear of the people and prove that it was the man that had been evil, not the angel, but right now he pushed the maudlin thoughts from his mind and revelled in his son's happiness, knowing how rare that it was these days.

He had missed out on a huge amount of his sons' life going to war against his brother. Marik almost regretted sending Alex and Cai away to the Scholaria Magnus, but such an opportunity could not be wasted. The king sighed, knowing that he would have to become strict father again until Caiellis achieved his Summoning, but at least maybe the boy's self-esteem had been restored a bit more now. Besides, being a dad again had stirred a deep rooted sense of _something _in his heart that he hadn't felt for many years, and he was at the same time happier than he had ever been since the death of Emili but also scared that this emotion which was beginning to break out of the cage he had placed around his feelings of love would be hurt again now that it was coming out of his shell.

* * *

Liber Sancturia:

Regathan Firecat: Summoning of Kaled Denith

Rakdos Cackler: Summoning of Enforcer 2


	5. Departures

Caiellis swung the inactive Sword of Glass in a wide arc which would have been impossible for him to execute with a heavier weapon, a feint designed to draw out a block from Guardian Tristram, whom he currently duelled against. After receiving his father's gift, the boy had partaken in a long, relaxing shower, which had helped to ease the pain of his cuts, particularly the most recent ones which had only been inflicted yesterday morning. The king had made him promise to stop doing that, and although simply giving Caiellis a present didn't yet make the man the perfect dad in the prince's eyes, he decided to indulge him on this.

Tristram grinned at the boy's tactics, moving the axe in sideways to block while keeping an eye out for the coming second strike. To this end, he wasn't going to put full power into the block to allow him to react to the second blow faster. The two were duelling to help the youngest Lucerna practise with his physical combat abilities now he had acquired the relic blade – magic was forbidden in this test, and the Guardian wasn't entirely sure he would be able to defeat Caiellis if it wasn't, despite having access to Athela, the Aegis Angel. However, since they weren't using spells, if worst came to worst he could simply brute-force the small boy into defeat, although the whole point of this fight was to allow Cai to train with his new weapon, not for Tristram to best him by overwhelming him with his strength.

Alexander watched intently from the sidelines – he was supposed to be completing the task given to the brothers by Hierarch Tybalt, which was to research the other kingdoms in preparation for their departure to the Scholaria Magnus, but he was far more interested in observing Cai fighting, especially since his brother was for once not in the midst of his Summoning trial or exhausted after it. He was glad that the eldest and youngest living Lucernans had spent time bonding, and that their father had given the boy the Sword of Glass. The weapon matched his little brother perfectly, complementing his dynamic and magic-based fighting style whilst also not requiring much strength to wield. They had already been duelling for fifteen minutes, and Alex could see that his brother was tiring.

Realising that the Guardian would have figured out his plan, Caiellis instead continued to cleave downwards onto the axe with his sword. Tristram grunted at the prince's sudden change of plans, but the boy had over-extended himself. He shoved the sword back with the haft of his axe and continued pushing forwards, overpowering Cai and knocking him backwards onto the ground. He couldn't remove the sword or Tristram's weapon would "slice" into him before he could roll away, and he wouldn't be able to last much longer by attempting to fight against the man's greater strength, even though he knew that the Guardian whom he was closer to than his own father was holding back.

Grimacing, the boy quickly slid out his sword from under the axe and jolted back, barely dodging his opponent's swing. He bit back a yelp of pain as an armoured foot pressed into his right forearm, preventing him from bringing his blade to bear and pushing his arm into the floor. Tristram placed the blade of his axe next to the boy's thin neck, trying to only put enough pressure on his foot to prevent Cai from moving the arm, and not cause him pain since he knew how easily bruised the smallest prince was.

"Surrender?" he smiled, relatively impressed with how Caiellis wielded his new weapon. The boy grunted stubbornly (possessed of that family trait like the rest of his exalted family) and tried to move his arm, succeeding in inching the limb sideways, and Tristram put a bit more weight on his leg to give the prince a harder time moving. Caiellis tried to stifle a cry as the pressure on his arm increased, but only ended up making it sound more pained. He blinked back the tears, determined to not let them see him as weak, and was about to submit when a voice shouted:

"Get off him! You're hurting him!" A strong form barrelled into Tristram, knocking the Guardian off his feet with the unexpected attack. He slammed into the ground, smashing the air from his lungs but still keeping a hold of his axe due to his combat training – dropping his weapon in a fight could lead to the death of his king or the Lucerna heirs.

"Alex! What are you doing?" Caiellis yelled, as he got to his feet, his older brother stood protectively in front of him. _Crap,_ thought Alexander. He hadn't meant to hurt Tristram, he only meant to stop him from causing his brother more pain. He had overreacted then, just like he had overreacted earlier when he discovered Cai's self harming. The middle Lucerna had an extremely high pain tolerance for both physical and emotional distress, but if there was one thing that he couldn't stand it was to see his baby brother in pain. He had seen the hurt clearly in Caiellis, and before he could think he had already intervened. While he had always been protective of his younger sibling, especially during the civil war as they were hunted by the forces of the darkness, it seemed like currently with the revelation of the boy's self-harming his big brotherly instinct had been snapped into overdrive.

"Tristram! Are you alright?" the tall boy asked in concern, ignoring his brother's indignant expression and moving forward, extending his hand to help the Guardian up and back onto his feet.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a bit winded. Though I didn't expect an attack from the sides", the boys' combat mentor laughed as Alex went bright red and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. He then switched his gaze to his youngest student, and changed his jovial tone to one of soft admonition he had developed during the civil war, "Caiellis, you need to surrender if you are in pain. You know I don't mean to hurt you, I never would intentionally, but you are more fragile than your brother and I'm used to fighting him."

"Yes, Uncle Tristram, I know," the boy rolled his eyes at his family (because if he was being honest, Tristram and Tybalt were more like family to him than his father) babying him, "I was going to before idiot here barged in."

"Hey, jerk, I was just trying to protect you," Alex grinned and pulled his brother over, pulling down the sleeve of his right arm and looking at the purple bruise that had started to form. Caiellis sighed dramatically at his brother's ministrations but didn't pull away, and Tristram smiled at the two boys, though he still winced guiltily at the at the sight of the mark on the boy's pale flesh.

Having no children of his own, the Guardian considered the royal brothers as akin to sons after the years of their lives spent moving between safe-houses when the palace had been breached nine years ago. He knew that Marik blamed himself for Emili's death, as the queen had wanted to take their children to her parents in Scientia Mos, but the king had insisted the palace was much safer. He had soon changed his opinion as a group of demon-assassins sent by his brother and masquerading as royal staff murdered his wife and almost killed his children.

He sent the (not at the time for both - and in reality they took it upon themselves to act at first, the official orders following that) Hierarch and Guardian with his boys and evacuated them out of the city, where they lived in different cities and in forlorn villages until they came under attack. Although at first Tybalt and Tristram had despised each other, they had formed a bond out of caring for the king's children, the youngest of which had only been a tender four years of age at the time. Now the ancient Hierarch and comparatively youthful (although he wasn't really any more) Guardian were close friends, an unlikely pair.

Tristram was reminded of those dark days in the civil war where the boys' physical training had come down to him, while the Hierarch focussed on the mental improvements. Alexander had been extremely eager in his training sessions, throwing himself into every gruelling exercise with youthful enthusiasm so that he could get his body to develop more muscle. However, the younger brother had hated the Guardian, much preferring to learn about the world with "Uncle" Tybalt rather than practise swordplay or run laps in the cold and the rain. The youngest boy increased his resentment of Tristram after the man accidentally gave an over-eager Alexander a black eye after a wrestling session, but when he had saved Caiellis's life and single-handedly bested a squad of Johnias's agents who had been sent to murder the children and attacked Cai when he had ran off in a huff, the boy had nothing but respect for the Guardian and also graced him with the grand title of "Uncle".

He grinned fondly as they began squabbling as Alex poked Cai's bruise a bit too hard, reminded of the "good old days" when they had both been thin children. Now Alex was a tall, well-built and muscular lad, and although the younger brother would never match his elder in that respect, Caiellis was becoming taller as well (not that one would see it unless they had known him for a long time). He was glad that the younger boy had began to break out of his depression, and was surprised when Caiellis had challenged him to a duel, since it was something that the thirteen year old despised.

It was easy to forget that they were still children – the oldest still couldn't legally consume alcohol and the youngest had barely breached his teenage years (Tristram suppressed a snort when he remembered that – the boy had a temper that could match any of his family). They certainly weren't spoilt, despite being the sons of the king, and their childhoods had been harder than most. They had only recently begun to live in luxury when the war finished, but the down-to-earth attitude instilled in them by their time as basically refugees meant that they didn't indulge much and would aid greatly when one of them became king.

They had a fantastic brotherly bond, and although they were extremely close Tristram had often been forced to break up heated disputes of name calling or wrestling (which always ended badly for the younger brother) or tend to wounds the boys had caused each other in fights.

His reverie was interrupted when King Marik himself strode confidently into the room, sternly eyeing his boys who immediately stopped their play-fighting and bowed their heads, stood slightly shamefully next to each other. Marik forced himself to grin warmly at the two, dispelling the atmosphere of seriousness which had sprung into life with his entrance.

"Sorry to spoil your fun, but Tristram and I need to discuss force dispositions and training of new soldiers," the king said, and on the spur of the moment swept up both his children in a hug. Alex gratefully reciprocated the gesture, happy that his dad (who had been his idol for as long as he could remember) was paying attention to them, which left the unwilling Caiellis crushed in the middle between the two broad Lucernas.

"I trust you are prepared for your departure tonight?" Marik inquired, and was met with a pair of surprised glances.

"Tonight? What?" Caiellis exclaimed incredulously, "You said the term started in a few days," and then realisation clicked in his mind, "Of course! The monorail has to stop at each city, and then since the Scholaria Magnus is located on a neutral island, the travel time will be increased as it will have to be done on boat."

"Well shit!" Alexander cried, and then at a stern glance from Tristram (who knew that it was probably his fault the boy had begun to swear all those years ago), not that the Guardian really minded but he wanted to give the impression that he had taught the boys at least _some _manners, "Sorry, darn. We'd best get going then. Race you to our rooms!"

Alexander shot off, leaving Caiellis who sighed in a way that would better fit a person forty years older. He knew that he would never win in a race against his much taller brother, and didn't feel that it would be appear very mature in front of his father. _Besides, I mean, how childish is that? We aren't little kids anymore; what sort of seventeen year old challenges his brother to a race? _At any rate, no matter how annoying Cai occasionally found Alex, he knew that he was lucky to have an older brother who still wanted to talk to him and still looked after him - plenty of seventeen year olds (especially in nations without family bonds as strong as those in Lucael) wouldn't even tolerate being in the presence of their dorky younger brothers for a few minutes, let alone actively want to be with them.

"You're going to lose if you just stand there," Tristram sniggered, and the youngest Lucerna gave him a very pointed glare. The guardian winked back, and Caiellis set off at a deliberately measured pace. He had no intention of going to the rooms, he had already packed his clothing after he left the shower. In fact he was heading back to the library – he needed to get some books on what the Lucaelians knew about the other factions so that he could better interact with them. He also knew that despite the fact that Uncle Tybalt had specifically told Alex to do as he was now doing, his older brother would forget or simply not bother.

Marik watched his sons go with a mixture of remembered fondness and regret, then turned towards Tristram. There was something he needed to say before they talked about army things, something he should have said a long time ago.

"Thank you-" he began to say, infusing his normally stony voice with deep gratitude, when the Guardian waved a placating hand.

"Save it, my lord," Tristram grinned, "I was just doing my duty to the royal family. Besides, it's not as if it was a bad thing or a hardship to take care of your boys."

"You and old Tybalt raised them better than I could ever have done alone," Marik uttered softly, regretting every second of the civil war in that one moment.

"That doesn't change the fact that they need you, their father now. Especially Caiellis. He needs your support with his Summoning, instead of your censure," Tristram replied evenly, and Marik was glad that his battle-brother was always so open with him – most people were understandably reserved around the king, but his closest advisers never pulled punches because of his rank.

.*.*.*.

"Ma! Ma!" Kaled screamed, as the woman talking to him was ripped open in an explosion of gore, her loving face replaced with a cackling devil with a smile that stretched too far across its face. He shouted in rage as the devil imitated his ma's kind words in a mocking force, and tried to swing at it, but felt firm hands holding him down. "Kid! Kid! Wake up!" a man's voice shouted, and Kaled sighed with relief. It was just a dream. It was all just a dream – except it wasn't. His ma was still dead or worse.

His eyes opened and a hard-faced woman wearing black armour with a red glove around her right hand held him down, regarding him coldly. Kaled looked around, he was in the back of a moving vehicle, sat on cushioned seats with the woman on top of him. A voice came from the driver's compartment, tinted with concern: "Is he alright now?"

"I don't know. Are you?" the woman questioned as tears began to fall out of his eyes. She repeated the question and Kaled nodded, wiping them away.

"Don't be so harsh, Messa," the man scolded softly, and the woman scowled and moved off the boy. "Don't worry, kid. My name is Degan, and you're currently on the way to the Scholaria Magnus."

"I expected Enforcers to be taking me," Kaled mumbled, trying not to cry even more at his ma's sacrifice – she wouldn't want him to be sad about it, and the man laughed, "We are Enforcers, kid. But not part of the Orders. The original Enforcers."

"What Degan is trying to say is that we are part of the Ja'an Guard, the last remnants of the system introduced by Jarred after the Revolution's victory," Messa explained, and Kaled noticed that she looked a lot prettier when she wasn't scowling. She narrowed her eyes at his staring and the teenager blushed profusely, turning away in embarrassment and looking out of the window. He noticed that the car he was in was one of a large group, and if he craned his neck he could see city gates in the distance behind them. It was almost night-time, the sun finally diverting its gaze away from Welkas.

"The other cars are also holding new students of the Scholaria," Messa hissed, and Kaled could clearly perceive the resentment in her tone.

"Though we have to take them, wouldn't want the other nations know how corrupt Welkas as become," Degan added sarcastically, and noticing Kaled's confused look from his rear-view mirror, he said: "As Ja'an is the city controlled the least by the Orders, they have decided that Enforcers from there would transport the spoilt brats to the school so that other factions don't become suspicious of the New Empire, although only the Yentarians would really care."

"Though you aren't a spoiled brat, are you?" Messa asked, and Kaled slumped.

"No," he responded simply, wishing he could have done more to protect his ma.

Degan coughed loudly and Messa nodded – the two had earlier agreed not to bring up the topic of Kaled Denith's adoptive mother, and the way the conversation was going could easily go in that direction.

"It's going to be a long journey," Degan mused idly, "When we get to the coast in the west we will get onto a boat. The school is located on an isolated island to prevent any faction from doing claiming the territory or threatening the students."

.*.*.*.

Caiellis paced slowly through the darkness of Capitalia Lux – he had managed to (_somehow_) convince Alex to let him walk alone, but his brother still insisted that he take Caiellis's luggage and books on board the monorail with him. Cai knew better than to object to more than one thing at once, so meandered through the city unobstructed by possessions, apart from the relic blade that was sheathed at his waist.

It was late evening, although there was no difference in the perpetual darkness apart from an intensification of the shadows, and the lights lit by the citizens of the metropolis were like pinpricks in a sea of night. He didn't exactly know why he had wanted to walk alone, but just felt like he needed to absorb the city one last time before he left again.

It was a beautiful city – maybe not as majestic as the reported Court of Oaks in Eria, or as stunning as the Sapphire Citadel of the League of Uveria, but the baroque and gothic architecture standing defiantly in the face of the abyss was a wonder in its own right. And then there was its sheer size as well that added to how impressive it was.

Caiellis reasoned that he was more than a little biased, having never actually been to any of these other locations and knowing that he had been born in the palace of Capitalia Lux, but this city had always had a special place in his heart. It was little known fact that despite people living in relatively close quarters to one another (although the metropolises were large enough to prevent overcrowding), the Lucaelians had the smallest crime rate out of all the factions. This was because it was bred into them that to survive in the darkness, they needed to work together and respect the structures of order that had let them survive through the ages.

The boy was in a large plaza full of bustling civilians indulging in the winter markets of the early days in the first month of 1251. He shivered and pulled his scarf further up his face – to both block out the cold and to prevent people from recognising him. When Cai turned around, he could clearly see the two largest structures in the capital city: the imposing and awe-inspiring palace was all hard stone on the outside and wider than its counterpart, the Cathedral of Salvation, one of the many churches in the Lucaelian realm. The tall building had a huge array of stained glass windows that reflected the light from inside, and was topped by a statue of Matalis Ortus Lucerna, the first king and Caiellis's distant ancestor. The sculpture extended further upwards into an abstract rendition of Matalis's Summoning, the unnamed First Angel.

Thousands of Lucaelians went into the cathedral every day to pray, and Hierarch Tybalt was in charge of the church – the role had been his for many years in the past, when he let his protégé step in when he became too old for the position, and instead became a teacher for the king's first child, and then also his second. However, when the new Hierarch (that Cai could only faintly remember) had been murdered in the civil war by the Arch-Heretic Johnias himself, Tybalt stepped back into the role, which the ancient man would hold until he died.

Caiellis found it strange that even though he had been taught about the angel-worshipping religion, he didn't actually believe in it himself – he thought it must have been the by-product of actually being able to call upon an angel, especially one of the First Sisterhood. These angels were far more powerful than those of subsequent Sisterhoods, and would only appear to those of the Lucerna line. The angel Summonings of other prominent Lucaelian figures were said to be far less powerful, according to Tybalt, who could himself call upon the aid of a Second Sisterhood angel, the wise Bruna, Light of Alabaster.

He knew, obviously, of the tremendous power and benevolence of the First Angel and often referred to her as the Goddess, as did many other Lucaelians, but he wasn't certain if she was a truly divine being. Such thoughts would be considered tantamount to heresy if harboured by any other than a Lucerna, but it was precisely his "divine claret" (as he had seen it mentioned as in ancient tomes and religious texts) that made him sceptical. The fact that he didn't worship angels must also have been because the royal family were treated with almost the same reverence. That wasn't to say that he didn't venerate the angels and the First to appear to the survivors of the darkness, as he did, because he knew how much the angels had helped the Kingdom of Light, he just didn't feel the need to pray to them when he could speak to one.

_If I pass my Summoning trial, _Cai thought dejectedly, slumping his shoulders slightly as he slowly dodged his way through the crowds as he felt the weight of the pressure to succeed crushing down on him again, although most of the Lucaelians tried to avoid walking into one another and definitely not crash into a boy as small as he was. At least the fact that no kind stranger (_or "subject"_) had asked him where he was going or offered to take him to his parents meant that he didn't look too young any more, though Caiellis was very aware that he still had quite a baby-face and his large, wide green eyes certainly didn't help that.

He made to leave the plaza – the train would be departing soon, and although the driver would not leave without the prince Cai didn't want to be the cause of a delay – when a young voice called out: "Mummy, look! It's the pwince!"

Caiellis froze, hoping the parents of the child would simply dismiss the girl as having a vivid imagination, and soon realised that he would be appear more inconspicuous if he just kept moving, instead of suddenly stopping. He knew that he had corrected the mistake too late when a woman cried: "My lord!"

The boy wondered what had given him away – he wasn't wearing anything emblazoned with the Lucernan Crest, and his scarf hid the Black Sun on his cheek from onlookers. Maybe it was the sheathed sword at his waist, but Caiellis was small enough that it would have been hard to pick out in the crowded plaza.

He gulped and turned around to see a woman holding a small child's hand begin to fall to her knees. At the sight of the woman doing so, a few other citizens copied the act, noticing the boy in their midst, which was a catalyst for everyone in the plaza to begin doing it. Soon he was the only one stood up, and a sea of kneeling figures surrounded him throughout the plaza.

Cai's heart started beating faster. What was he supposed to say? Everywhere he looked, expectant faces smiled back, though his mind twisted their prideful (pride in him, the youngest member of the Lucerna family) and welcoming smiles into judgemental and disappointed glares that speared into him. There were no shadows he could slink into in the plaza – he had already been recognised tonight, but had blended into the gloom before the person could verify that it was truly him. If there was one thing that years spent on the run from Johnias's hunter-demons had taught him, it was how to hide. Now that skill was useless.

The boy started to breath faster, inhaling and exhaling at a steadily increasing rate as he realised that he had no idea what to do. What had he done to deserve this admiration, this respect? What could he say to these people that would live up to their absurd picture of him? What was he supposed to do?

Caiellis stood rigid, panic making it harder to breathe as he fully took in the amount of people in the square – it must have been hundreds. He wanted to scream, or lash out and blast these people away from him, but he managed to control himself in that respect. Cai had been taught how to deal with these situations before, many of his lessons with Uncle Tybalt revolving around this, but he wasn't ready, and any words he tried to grasp slid out of his mind. He barely realised that he had started to hyperventilate, but not to the extent that the people around him would notice.

His frantic breathing made everything start to blur and distorted his vision as his eyes desperately flicked side to side. For as long as Cai could remember, he had always been a shy boy, uncomfortable speaking to those who he didn't know and wont to hide behind his parents in social situations until the civil war began and they were whisked away from him. He could recall burying his head in his mother's chest in their first visit to Scientia Mos, (the first occasion he had left the capital as far as he could remember), hiding from the people who lined the streets to greet the royal family, and clutching onto his older brother in their second until Alex pushed him away.

Now he was stuck; there was nowhere to hide and there was no one more confident to take control and speak for him to this crowd. Caiellis's shyness and reluctance to interact with people that he wasn't familiar with, instead of falling now that he had gone into his teenage years, had risen to the point where he found it terrifying. Not only was he scared of the public speaking, but now as well he was horrified of failing, frightened of making himself look like an idiot and unsuitable for the throne because he knew that would bring more of his father's censure - no matter that the man had started to act kinder with him.

If he made a mistake now, these people would hate him for it, and Cai would be shaming his family and his father which was something he had done enough of already. The boy could feel his heart thudding in his chest and the blood pounding in his head, and stood stock still as the people looked at him. He knew that no matter his social anxiety, he had to say something, but couldn't find the words, and couldn't force those words out with the sudden lack of oxygen from his hyperventilation that he hadn't noticed.

After what felt like years to the youth's panicked mind, but was actually seconds, a confident voice called out to him. The familiar sound broke through the barriers of mental paralysis, and Cai looked to see Alexander walking quickly towards him, the older boy coming to his rescue as the crowd parted to allow the other prince through. Relief flooded through Caeillis's body as the people turned towards the arrival of the eldest prince, and the thirteen year old saw concern mixed with affection and an easy confidence in speaking to people within his brother's blue irises.

"Citizens of Capitalia Lux, please stand," Alexander bellowed as he made his way to the stricken Caiellis's side, putting on a stony face and imitating his father's voice in an exaggerated manner – the display of humour was not lost on the crowd of Lucaelians, some of whom laughed or stifled sniggers as the people rose to their feet.

"It seems the cold has stolen my brother's tongue," he said, amplifying his voice so that it carried to everyone in the plaza wrapping a protective arm around his brother's painfully thin shoulders. Caiellis wasn't listening to what he was saying, he was just immensely relieved that once again Alex had been there to bail him out. Despite the fact that he tried to not rely on the older boy as much, Cai wanted to just bury his head in his big brother's side like he used to when he was scared and let Alex protect him and take him away from the fear, but thought that would look pathetic, so instead stood still, trembling but reassured.

"So I'll have to fill in for him. I hope none of you are disappointed if you wanted Cai, but now at least you can have his handsome and attractive big brother," Alex flashed a charming smile which had often got him the attention of girls from noble families, and even though King Marik had forbidden him from having a partner until he was eighteen, he often liked to push those boundaries - and sometimes outright broke them, but he was allowed at least one rebellion, right? More laughter erupted from the crowd, and the middle Lucerna finished off his short speech.

"Please, carry on with your celebrations. Don't let us interrupt you," Alex closed, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Caiellis was staring at him in a combination of admiration that the seventeen year old had become used to seeing from his sibling (although now Cai only favoured him with it when he thought that he wasn't looking, no longer the little boy that worshipped the ground on which his big brother had stood) and sheer relief at having him arrive, as well as heavy embarrassment and shame over freezing up.

And with that, the people turned to one another and began chattering excitedly – not many of them had seen either one of the king's sons in the past month, but their story of survival in the civil war was a well known one. Alex winked or waved at the few citizens still watching him and then turned to his little brother, whose gaunt face was becoming streaked with tears.

"Hey, short stuff, what's wrong?" he soothed, looping his other arm behind Cai's knees, lifting the light boy off his feet and squeezing tightly with his hand on the boy's shoulders. In the past he had almost always known what to do to comfort a sad or scared Caiellis (whether he chose to do that or not was another matter entirely dependent on if they had argued recently or not), and hoped that he still possessed that skill. Alexander had always been able to lift his baby brother in his arms because of their age difference, but instead of it becoming harder as they both got older and grew (not that his brother exhibited much of the latter), therefore becoming heavier, Alex found it even easier now because of the fact that he could actually eat a diet that allowed him to develop the muscle that he had - and his brother was almost weightless, which was something the seventeen year old was very concerned about.

"You...You are always here for me. You always know what to say," his younger brother sobbed, barely able to get the words out, before pushing his head into Alexander's chest, who gave him a patented smile. Caiellis then extricated himself from his older brother, his eyes still slightly puffy, and pushed the larger boy away, suddenly self-conscious. He knew that that would have looked pathetic to anyone watching - he was _thirteen _now, not _three_, and shouldn't have to rely on his older brother to solve his problems or soothe his woes.

Alex gave his brother some space – he had been looking for Cai, not content to just simply sit in the carriage and wait with his two friends with every second of his brother not being there a second he could have been hurt. He did realise that he would have to get used to that sort of feeling, as his brother would be in a completely different year to him at the Scholaria, and if his father hadn't said anything about the brothers sharing a room to the patrons, it would be very unlikely that they would do so.

It was just after the revelation over the younger boy's self-harming this morning, the seventeen year old felt more protective over him than he had for the past month of peace time and believed that he owed his brother for not trying to help him sooner. To that end he slung a reassuring arm over Cai's painfully thin shoulders, wishing that his brother would eat more but also knowing that because he was going through puberty there was no way, no matter how much that he ate, that Caiellis would be anything more than thin.

He had seen his little brother surrounded by the kneeling people, sensing instantly that Caiellis had no idea of how to properly react – he was not as confident at interacting with people as Alexander, preferring to either just talk to those he knew very well or keep his thoughts to himself. While he wasn't worried about the fact that his younger brother would be in a year full of fifteen or sixteen year old proteges from the four nations, as he knew first hand how intelligent and analytical the little geek was, he was concerned about the thought of Cai interacting with others - well, more concerned about him not doing it at all.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked when Cai had stood still for a few seconds, his brother clearly lost in thought and drifting off.

"I just want to do one thing," Caiellis replied enigmatically, and began walking towards a woman holding a child's hand, shrugging off his senior. Vaguely baffled, Alex followed closely behind as his brother slid through the crowds, the Lucaelians who noticed bowing respectfully as the Lucernas past.

"I told you, mummy," a young girl's chiding words could be heard, "I said that the pwince was coming to see us,"

"I'm sorry about Cassandra," the woman apologised profusely when she noticed the youngest Lucerna stood next to her, and her child shook her head vigorously. The daughter was the spitting image of her mother apart from having light blue eyes when the woman had brown, and she bowed respectfully, apologising, "You clearly needed to be somewhere, and we stopped you. Please don't blame the girl, she is only four. I will take full responsibility for any delay caused."

"No, it's fine. Please stand up," Caiellis shook off the woman's concerns, embarrassed. _Four._ The age he had been when his mother had died. He gave Cassandra a smile and knelt down to the girl's height. "Cassandra, how did you know that I was the prince?"

"I saw the angel," the girl replied simply, suddenly looking quite shy and tugging on her mother's arm, and her mother added: "Cassandra has the Sight – she can see Sancturia creatures, but is not a mage herself."

"Wow, that is a cool ability," Alex exclaimed, coming to his brother's side and winking at the girl. It was uncharacteristic of the squirt to initiate a conversation with people that he didn't know or do something like this, although whether Caiellis was doing this so that he could avoid a repeat of the experience that he must have found terrifying judging by his reaction to Alex arriving or was just curious and wanted to know was unknown. At any rate, the second he arrived Cassandra instantly became more comfortable and confident.

Cassandra looked him straight in the eyes and stated: "Your angel is pretty and nice. She is watching you" She then looked at Caiellis and added: "Your angel is asleep. You need to wake her up!"

Noticing the prince's expression hardening and his eyes becoming tinted with a mixture of stony determination not to let his sadness show and a haunting sorrow which quite frankly made the woman feel sorry for her young liege, the mother quickly scooped her young daughter into her arms and apologised once again.

"The girl doesn't know what she is saying, please excuse her my lords."

Caiellis was going to leave when he turned around and tapped Cassandra on the forehead, which made the girl giggle and gave the mother a story to tell to her friends. Alex smiled at the actions, seeing some of his own interactions with his little brother within them.

"Take good care of your mum," Cai ordered, trying to smile warmly as he did so, and the girl nodded with a child's seriousness as understanding clicked in the mother's head. He turned back around from the two and let his brother lead him towards the station as Cassandra waved at him and her mother smiled with pride for the newest members of the Lucerna family.

.*.*.*.

When they had arrived in the front-most transport carriage (as was their royal right), Leodred and Elizabex Montlea, twin children of General Carlis Montlea and childhood friends of Alexander before the civil war had started got up from their booth and waved the Lucernans over. Alex sat down in the seat opposite theirs and patted the space next to him for Caiellis. The boy raised his eyebrows and instead chose to sit in the booth across from theirs, which was empty, reaching over and taking down one of the quite heavy tomes from the overhead storage.

To be more precise, the entire carriage was empty apart from the bodyguards located at each entrance – King Marik had graciously allowed one friend for each of his children, but as Caiellis didn't have any he donated the extra place to Alex, who could let the twins onto the front carriage, as they were also enrolled at the Scholaria Magnus. Leo could Summon a fast attacking spirit creature known as Valour, whilst Elizabex called upon an elemental of holy light named Purity.

Alexander rolled his eyes at Cai's deliberate impertinence, watching as the boy opened the first page of the first tome and began to take notes on a sheet of plain paper in front of him. He was about to get up and sit across from his brother, wanting to make sure that he was alright after the events of today, when Leo slammed his hand on the table, just as the train started moving.

"Well then, shall we get this game started?" he asked excitedly, and Alex belatedly remembered promising to play in a game of cards before setting off to find his brother. The three had played the game every time the brothers returned to Capitalia Lux, and each of them had won an equal number of times – Leo wanted to be the "grand champion" he called it, by beating Alex and his sister, and the Lucerna supposed that the honour of his family was on the line in their game. Anyway, Cai seemed fine, although that didn't really mean much since apparently he had lost the ability to detect whether something was wrong or not with the youngest member of their family in the few times that he had seen him over the past month.

No, that wasn't right. Much as it hurt Alex to admit it, he knew that if he had actually tried then he would have figured out that the short fry's problems were more than just not passing the Summoning trial yet, but he had been too caught up in his own life to notice fully. To be fair, he had spent the past nine years looking out for his baby brother, so he had wanted time to himself - though that didn't excuse it. Alexander was an older brother, and older brothers were meant to take care of their little siblings.

"Hey squirt, are you playing?" Leo inquired, fully aware of how much it annoyed his friend when anyone else used his nicknames for Caiellis. At first, many years ago, Alexander had been against allowing his baby brother to play with them, especially since the runt had only been three at the time, but at their mother's insistence he had been allowed to, and he sometimes joined in when they played it. Alex snapped out of his brief reverie, looking away from his brother and glad that the younger boy hadn't noticed him staring - since that was something that he often teased Caiellis about when he was lost in thought and accidentally rested his gaze on the blonde.

"I think I'll pass," Cai responded, not even looking up from his work as he continued to write.

"He's such a nerd, isn't he?" Alexander said loudly, and if Caiellis heard it, which there was no way he couldn't, he didn't react. He grinned conspiratorially over at Leodred, who smiled back, but for now they wouldn't do anything. Pulling pranks on his little brother was something that he had often done, but at the moment it was off limits.

"Leo was so excited about this game," Elizabex sighed, almost resignedly, pulling out her deck and shuffling it thoroughly, "He wouldn't shut up about how he would put that "arrogant prince" in his place."

"Is that what you call me?" Alexander laughed, genuinely amused, and Leo raised his hands.

"It's just a nickname. Don't want you going all high and mighty about it," the slightly older but smaller boy replied, slamming his deck on the table once he ad finished shuffling, accompanied by a characteristic eye roll from his less enthusiastic twin sister.

The game soon started – it was based upon building a city and winning the game in one of three ways: Alex and Leo's decks were both military, while Elizabex's won through diplomacy and economy. Cai's rarely used deck won through converting the other players' cities to his religion. Alex played a very fast deck that won through sending relentless attacks of raiders and pillagers before the other players built up their cities, while Leo relied more upon the crushing power of his late-game arsenal of military assets.

Elizabex wielded more of a mid-game strategy that worked through disrupting the offence of the two boys and also subtly weakening the resources that Cai would gain when he played - as the youngest one of them had the most meticulous and slowest plan of action, requiring large amounts of patience before he could build up the required devotion to access his game deciding acts of faith.

The boy grinned triumphantly when he recruited a phalanx of elite warriors, equipped them with enchanted metal and sent a group of Alex's bandits packing, and then loudly gasped with indignation when his sister then bribed them onto her side.

"You can't do that!" he cried, and then noticed just how much gold Elizabex had managed to stack up while the boys had been constantly at war with each other.

"They look better on my side anyway," she snickered as Leo growled in annoyance.

"Children, please quieten down. Some of us are trying to do work," Caiellis's reprimanding voice rang out, which made all three of them laugh and Leo stuck his middle finger out at the boy, met by a glare from Alexander despite the fact that Leodred had never laid a hand on his brother and never would.

Apart from Cai's occasional and very fitting nickname of "bitch", Alex didn't like swearing when it came to his brother, especially at him. It was the fact that the younger boy was still so innocent and young in his brother's mind, and he didn't want that to be erased. He was aware that when he was angry he often swore a lot, and tried not to direct it at his sibling - made much harder if it was his sibling that was angering him in the first place.

"Overprotective much?" Leo joked, and his friend punched him hard on the shoulder. The older boy scowled in order to replace his momentary look of pain and rubbed his shoulder, muttering profanities under his breath as not to annoy his friend further.

"I was planning to use this against Elizabex, but since she doesn't make unnecessary comments about me and my brother, I'll use it against you instead," Alex smiled charmingly and used his sappers to destroy the walls of Leo's city, allowing his raiders to wreak havoc before they were sent back, severely weakening both of the military players.

"Thanks Alex," Elizabex grinned as she bought out both of their cities in one fell swoop, claiming the victory for herself, her brother glaring at his best friend. She knew the boy's real reason for doing that was so that he could go see his little brother faster – had he used it against her, she would have been weakened, putting all of them on roughly the same strength level, making the game take twice as long. Alexander was very much a macho "suck it up" kind of person, but she knew that he had a soft spot for the little brother that had been through so much with him.

"What'cha up to?" Alexander asked Cai, sauntering over to his brother's booth, as if trying to make the actions seem more nonchalant, like he was visiting the thirteen year old because the game had ended, instead of ending the game so that he could do precisely that. It was a good job that Cai hadn't paid attention to the game at all, otherwise he would have realised what his older brother had done and might have been annoyed.

"Compiling notes about the other nations, as you should have done already," was Caiellis's curt reply. He didn't glance up from his work, his older brother rolling his eyes again. Alex made a face, and jeered:

"Why should I do that, when I can just take yours?" he joked and picked up the sheets of paper that his brother was working on, holding them just out of reach. Caiellis sighed wearily like he was much older than his thirteen years would suggest and bookmarked the page he was on, turning back to the front of the book and beginning again.

"You're no fun to tease anymore," Alexander pouted, returning the notes to his brother and sitting down next to him. "Mind if I work next to you? I'll just make shorter versions of your novels."

"No need," Caiellis replied, handing his brother half of the sheets, "I wrote everything twice, so you can have a copy of the notes too."

Alexander groaned, which made his little brother chuckle, although he was surprised and grateful that Cai had done that for him. Actually, thinking about it, his younger brother always used to try and help him with his written work (well, with everything, as there had been a phase within Caiellis's life where he had relentlessly hero worshipped his older brother and had tried to do everything for him. Alexander had taken advantage of it at first, but eventually it had become extremely annoying, especially when Cai had refused to leave the now teenage Alex alone), so it shouldn't have been such a shock that Caiellis had done so tonight.

The door on the far side of the carriage suddenly opened, and a young waitress wearing the black and white chequered uniform of the monorail service holding a large menu walked towards them. Of course their meal order would be taken first. Alex had barely got used to the amount of privilege the brothers received when they had moved back to Capitalia Lux after the war had finished.

They had been treated well whenever they visited cities that knew of their identity, but most of the time they had been forced to keep it secret and live on the outskirts of the metropolises for fear of Johnias's many agents, spread like a cancer throughout the loyalist forces of the kingdom, ascertaining their whereabouts. The girl was clearly nervous about taking the princes' orders, and very pretty, so the middle Lucerna gave her a dazzling smile that made her blush and prompted a sarcastic eye roll from his little brother.

She handed him the menu, filled with an extensive array of dishes – Marik had spared no expenses in making the enrolled pupils of the Scholaria have a luxurious journey. Alex smiled at the range of mouth watering delights transcribed onto the paper. He loved food, particularly anything meaty, and couldn't understand this phase that his brother had started going through when he had become twelve where Cai tried to avoid eating it or anything large.

"I'll have the Civitas Sol steak and a glass of fizzy yellow-berry, thank you," Alexander ordered, and the woman nodded, writing his order at the top of the list. He then elbowed his brother in the side (forcing Cai to repress a pained reaction since he didn't want to look pathetic in front of the waitress) and passed the menu over to him.

"I'll just have a drink of water. I'm not hungry," Caiellis murmured distractedly, glancing at the menu for a total of zero seconds, so Alex butted in with: "We'll have two steaks then please."

"I just said that I don't want anything to eat," the smaller boy stated in a manner of fact way, and his big brother shook his head at the confused waitress as if sharing a private joke. Alex wasn't going to let that happen; he knew that his younger brother wouldn't have been eating properly when he had been relentlessly attempting the Summoning trial and Cai needed to start it again since for one he was thin enough already and while Alex didn't mind his sibling being small (it made it easier to torment him as well as made him look more adorable) he didn't like how bony the younger boy felt, and secondly the thirteen year old would need energy for getting through the journey and arriving at the Scholaria Magnus on a full stomach.

"What is your order, my lord?" she asked, unsure of what to do or which prince to listen to. Caiellis was about to respond when his brother placed a large hand around his mouth, smothering his words, and declared: "He will have a steak like me."

"At least let me choose what I want if you're going to force me to eat!" the boy's muffled and indignant voice could be heard, his much smaller hands pulling futilely at his big brother's larger one, and Alex removed his hand with a patronising snicker of: "Good boy."

He wasn't surprised in the slightest when his younger brother ordered the smallest dish, a light salad grown from the photo-refectories (as nutritious plant life couldn't be sustained above ground and the only plants that did survive were those tended to in the metropolises or twisted, leafless varieties outside of the safety of the cities) with some rice, but it was a significant improvement from eating nothing. After the waitress had taken the twins' requests and left the carriage, Leo moved to the seat opposite the boys and placed a hand on Caiellis's shoulder.

"I hate to admit it, but your brother is right. You do have to eat, shortie, you're already skeletal," he admitted, and pulled his arm away at the kid's glower. He had known the youngest prince ever since the thirteen year old's birth, but had never really interacted with him on a one to one basis without Alexander being at his little brother's side.

"You wouldn't think that either of them were royalty," Elizabex quipped, moving over to sit next to her brother. _Great. More people to fuss over me, _thought Cai, turning his gaze to the darkness outside the train. At his request, the monorail driver hadn't closed the shutters on that window, just in case it was sunny. When their respective meals arrived, the youngest of the four ate in silence, only looking away from his introspective staring out of the window that allowed him to watch the eternal night rushing by to occasionally glare at his older brother when Alexander said something directed at him.

After they had finished their meal, Elizabex and Leo moved back to their booth, the girl realising that Alexander wanted some time alone with his baby brother and dragging her own fraternal twin away with promises of another game between the two of them.

Caiellis turned to him with his puppy eyes, and Alex suddenly realised how handsome his brother was becoming – the childhood cuteness he had always possessed was still there, but when he got a bit older Cai would be devilishly attractive, maybe even matching his older brother although the seventeen year old was quite sure that his younger sibling would retain his adorableness in his own view for many years to come.

"Thanks. For everything today," the boy muttered awkwardly, though his eyes showed that he genuinely meant it, and Alex chuckled quietly, reaching out to wrap his brother in a headlock and give him a rough noogie.

"Don't sweat it. That's what I'm here for," he laughed, stopping his rubbing when Cai threw a small fit about his hair being messed up. He didn't fail to notice how Caiellis snuggled into the crook of his arm, giving up instead of resisting, and supposed that after a month or so of pushing his older brother away and developing individually, Caiellis just wanted to be close to Alexander for a bit before they were separated again. Besides, it wasn't like he was restraining his brother with any real strength, only stopping him from getting away as an expression of their relationship as brothers.

"Alex is just like you, except he is older, so it's his job to help protect you. That's what big brothers are for," the smaller boy quoted and Alexander sat up with a jolt, inadvertently bringing his brother with him as he did so.

"You remember that?" he questioned, shocked that his little sibling could recall something that happened when he was three years of age. He was aware that his sibling had quite an exceptional memory, but he would have thought that perhaps events from over ten years ago would have been past what he could remember.

_Little Caiellis sat in his mother's arms, thinking about what she had just said when he asked her where he had come from. Emili smiled as she saw the gears twirling in her youngest's intelligent mind, and he turned to her again, a question in his wide green eyes._

"_If you and daddy made me, then what is Alesh for?" he asked, once again stumbling on the pronunciation of his brother's name. Although Caiellis's speech was more advanced than a normal three year old's, he understandably still had difficult pronouncing a lot of words - especially the x at the end of his big brother's, which irked the older boy to no end. The aforementioned seven year old was playing with building blocks in the corner of the room, and petulantly stuck out his tongue at his little brother, somewhat jealous of the attention he was receiving from their mummy. Though he didn't truly mind, as he knew that his baby brother was younger than he was, and only did it to tease the younger boy._

_Emili laughed and carried Caiellis over to Alexander, who sighed when his small brother was deposited in his arms. Caiellis looked lovingly up at his big brother, who stared down at him, the corners of his mouth twisting between an affectionate smile and an irritated frown._

"_Alex is just like you, except he is older, so it's his job to help protect you. That's what big brothers are for," she explained, ruffling her eldest's blonde hair, who snorted. She then added, "Isn't that right, Alexander?"_

_The seven year old nodded, placing his younger brother on the soft carpet of the nursery floor in front of him as the three year old gave him a beaming smile, full of innocence and unrestrained love for his big brother, too young to show anything but his true feelings. Emili winked at them both, stepping back and watching how her baby watched Alexander for guidance, telling her eldest: __"Play with him for a bit. I'm just going to get you both a drink."_

"_But he is so lame!" Alexander exclaimed. Emili quizzically raised and eyebrow at her firstborn son, who half-pouted back, knowing full well how much Alex loved his smaller sibling, although recently as he began to get slightly older the seven year old had been going through an understandable phase where he didn't want to spend all of his time with a three year old. When she was in the kitchen, she heard a loud thud and a wail of pain erupt from the nursery, and quickly ran inside, the drinks forgotten and motherly concern etched on her face. She sighed in relief when she saw Alex holding his crying brother in a soothing embrace, a red lump appearing on her youngest son's forehead._

"_Mummy! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!" Alexander cried, tears of guilt, self-recrimination and sorrow beginning to run down his face as well at the fact that he had caused his fragile younger sibling harm, "I just pushed him. I didn't mean to hurt him!"_

_He held out Caiellis to Emili, clearly no longer trusting himself around his little brother and not believing in his ability to calm the three year old down and comfort him, who shook her head and gently pushed the now silent boy back to her eldest._

"_Look, he's happy with you. See?" she explained, and Alex looked down into his brother's puffy eyes. He didn't see accusation there, all he saw was forgiveness. Emili smiled fondly at the two, aware that although her youngest son was frail he was still a toddler and that minor scrapes and bruises weren't really much to worry about - but what Alex needed was to know that Caiellis didn't hate him for simply shoving him over._

"_Don't worry, big brother. I forgive you," Caiellis said in his high-pitched voice, and Alexander hugged him close, chubby arms that were becoming leaner firmly wrapped around his only smaller family member. Emili had to pry the two apart when the older brother started suffocating the younger he was hugging him that tight._

"Yeah. I can recall some events, but not very many," Cai grinned, shifting slightly in his older brother's hold. The vast majority of his memories before the civil war, apart from one which he could recollect in excruciating clarity, were blurred and indistinct, though it was obvious to work out that back then he had felt happy and safe, "I don't remember much of mum, but enough to know that she was an extremely kind woman."

"She had the same eyes as you," Alex said quietly, thinking of the nurturing and loving woman that had been ripped away from them. He had been knocked out before when she had died, and woken up after Tristram had carried the boys away from the palace, placed his unconscious baby brother in his arms and told Alexander to run as far as he could out of the besieged city. "What else do you remember?"

Caiellis gulped, and then stammered, "I..I can remember _that_ night,"

Alex instantly became rigid, locking his arm around his brother's neck, causing him to cough loudly. He let go, though still kept his brother next to him, and Cai continued, saying: "Though my memories are scattered, I can only remember certain bits. The fire, and the demons. I didn't see her die," he lied, recalling how his brother had been unconscious during it. The seventeen year old nodded, aware that his younger brother probably wouldn't have been able to erase such a horrible occurrence from his young memory and that Cai had suffered from numerous nightmares concerning it. He had just hoped that maybe, as he had only been a tender four years old at the time, Caiellis would have been able to forget the vast majority of it.

After a few minutes of silence in which Alexander pulled his brother in for a firm and reassuring hug, Caiellis asked: "When we are at the Scholaria, can you not be so protective? I need to be able to take care of myself."

"I can't promise anything," Alexander admitted, his instinct to guard his little brother after all of the danger and peril they had endured together as strong as it had ever been due to the day's revelations, "But I won't butt into everything you do, alright?"

"Thanks."

"Anytime, baby bro, anytime," Alex smirked at Caiellis's most hated nickname, and he suggested as he pushed the smaller youth away: "Get some rest. We have a long journey in front of us, and if you don't get any sleep I'm probably going to end up strangling you."

* * *

Liber Sancturia:

Aegis Angel: Summoning of Guardian Tristram

Bruna, Light of Alabaster: Summoning of Hierarch Tybalt

Valour: Summoning of Leodred Montlea

Purity: Summoning of Elizabeth Montlea


	6. Arrival

_As usual, please leave reviews! Thank you for reading up to this point!_

* * *

The connection began, pulling the man out of his physical body and depositing him in the Eternal Realm, the meeting place of the Confederacy. He looked around – the other members hadn't arrived yet, as none of the other engraved and designated points on the circle had been taken. The meeting place itself was a large disc split into five equal sections. The background showed a vast expanse of stars that flowed around the disc, giving the impression that the Eternal Realm was always moving, endlessly revolving through time and space, but he knew that the place wasn't real.

For the purpose of the meeting, he would be known as Beta – this in itself didn't signify anything (as it did not denote that he was in any way secondary as the title of the letter in the ancient language might insinuate), but the identity of each member of the Confederacy was kept secret. Beta shut his eyes and fully assumed the role, forgetting who he was outside of the Eternal Realm to ensure that the decisions that he made were not distorted by his true nationality, race, or personality – he would act like Beta always had done, like Beta always would do. He sighed wearily – being a member of the Confederacy took its toll on a person, and although for all intents and purposes he was immortal, ageless, Beta constantly felt exhausted. Making decisions concerning the fate of the world tended to do that to a person.

Beta snapped out of his introspection when Delta crashed into the Eternal Realm – the woman (well, Beta assumed that she was due to her voice and how she anatomically appeared) wore an archaic mask favoured by nobles of a long dead empire that she must have been a part of before her Ascension. The bone-white mask had the rough shape of a fox, and Delta wore a red kimono speckled with elegant black spots equal distances apart from one another. Beta knew that her attire was just as mysterious as his – the man was clothed in a plain white tunic and was masked by an unadorned piece of fabric with eye and mouth holes. Through the slits of her mask, Delta's barely visible eyes stared across at Beta, appraising him silently in lieu of giving a verbal greeting. Beta returned her gaze solemnly, eschewing words as he knew that more of the Confederacy was soon to arrive.

Alpha then gracelessly teleported in, a large and imposing figure wearing armour of burnished bronze and a horned helm of the same metal to hide his identity. Alpha was unmistakably male due to his gruff voice and lack of any discernible feminine features. He would often lead the meetings, the fact that he was designated the first in the long forgotten tongue not spoken since the collapse of a bygone civilisation giving him an air of false confidence. The Confederate acted in a manner that was typical of the stereotypical alpha male within some cultures (whether human or otherwise) of the world, perpetually attempting to assert his self-perceived dominance over the others and filled with an entirely unrequited self-assurance that often radiated out from him in the way that he spoke. Beta tolerated Alpha's insufferable behaviour, as he had done for the thousands of years since the Confederacy had been established, but that did not make it any less irksome.

Gamma and Epsilon then also entered the Eternal Realm, the first much more mutely than the last, taking up their positions in the sector of the disc that belonged to them. The former was enigmatic (well, even more so than the other members), with a bulbous glass mask covering their head and showing the other Confederates their own reflections, while the latter was a small, child-like figure with a high-pitched voice to boot, although the members didn't actually have an age (despite their physical appearances serving as a mild indication as to their biological age). Epsilon certainly didn't act like a child, and seemed to have quite a malicious tendency, enjoying meddling in the affairs of mortals more than most, though the Confederate did often have bouts of high pitched squealing when excited or disappointed with something.

They glanced over at Beta, Gamma's inscrutable mask preventing the man from seeing into the other's gaze before he turned away and was met with Epsilon's sparkling eyes that stared happily at him out of the slits in his mask. The smallest Confederate wore a disguise shaped in the form of a wolf's visage, though unlike with the others' own concealments it left Epsilon's tanned lower face and mouth bare, allowing Beta to see the other Confederate smiling widely at him with a child's adoration for kind elders. Although both Delta and Epsilon had their personal veils molded into the semblance of predators, the latter's was made out of the brown wood of oaks and represented more of a hunter than Delta's scavenger masquerade.

"And so the meeting begins. The pieces are in their assigned places, the stage is set, and now we must decide whether or not to act," Alpha intoned sternly, and Epsilon giggled at his melodrama, despite the fact that speaker's seriousness was not at all misplaced. Beta was aware that the current gathering in the Eternal Realm wasn't to discuss their plans – they had spoken of and started to enact the preparations for that in the previous one – but to ensure that each member agreed with them. The Confederacy had an archaic but logical rule that prevented their schemes from being put into action unless every Confederate added their consent; this had often prevented them from doing anything in the past few centuries, as none of the disparate personalities that made up this ancient organisation could concur on anything unless the peril of the situation was great enough to spur them into agreement.

A paradoxically embellished yet bare plinth then rose up out of the disc in front of each Confederate, a simple mana receiver fluorescing with swirls of multi coloured luminescence that would allow them to show their feelings on the course of action – a member could simply use negative energy and none of the others would be able to go forwards with the strategy. Beta watched as his fellow Confederates all placed their palms to the receiver and acceded to the proposition, each plinth flashing with a golden light tinted by numerous harmonious hues as their acceptance was registered.

Of course they did. Beta liked to think that he still possessed some humanity, still retained some emotion and empathy after all the years of bloodshed they had almost directly caused and all the manipulation of those that they were supposed to safeguard, but even though he knew that ultimately such a notion was false he was also aware of how much the others had degraded in that respect, even more than him to the point that they were no longer concerned about wanton slaughter if it was in the name of the greater good.

"Beta. Do you disagree with the plan?" Alpha demanded, direct and blunt as usual, eyes glaring at him out of the holes in the largest Confederate's helmet. Beta had his doubts – how could something like that ever help the world? How could they profess to be a force for good and yet be perfectly willing to enact what they had planned?

"I don't know. It just seems as if we are messing with something that should be left untouched – nothing has happened in the centuries the Confederacy has been established, so why should it now?" Beta asked, voicing his concerns vaguely desperately, though the timbre of his voice didn't quite come to showing emotion yet. He knew that he was pulling at metaphorical straws, and that the power of their enemies - the _world's _enemies - was expanding, that they would have to be dealt with soon, but he personally believed there needed to be more time for planning, more time to come up with a solution that did not involve what the others were agreeing upon now.

"The darkness grows stronger every day. I can feel it," Delta replied, her voice stained with an emotion that Beta had thought they had long ago purged: fear. She continued on more resolutely, but the fright, the barely repressed dread, remained to permeate her more determined tone. "We have to act now. This is our purpose. This is why we were created. We have to stop it, and this is the only way that we can."

"Who cares how many are sacrificed if the greater whole lives on?" Epsilon asked, its sing-song tone utterly at odds with the bleak rhetorical question it delivered. Beta glanced over at the physically youngest Confederate, who returned the gaze, their twinkling eyes filled with equal amounts of childish naivety and intent single-mindedness that filled Epsilon's posture with strength far greater than their small frame would imply, an adamant purposefulness to do anything - no matter how brutal or inhumane - to secure the future of the world, individual lives be damned. Beta looked away, uncomfortable with a child appearing in such a way, even though he knew full well that Epsilon was as old as all of them.

"It just feels...wrong." Beta admitted, realising that he still had some empathy locked up inside of him, as it was leaking out the emotionless cage in his mind now. He did not like disagreeing with his fellow Confederates, as unity was key in these dark times and they had to function as a singular force to achieve victory over he peril encroaching upon the twinned worlds as one. But too many lives were at stake for him to simply stay silent and acquiesce to a plan that he did not fully support, too many innocents would be put at risk for him not to try and at least make a stand against this barbarous strategy. That was why he continued to voice his worries, uttering, "This is further than we have ever gone before. We are supposed to quietly pull the strings, not force them under our control."

"You were always the most human among us," Gamma murmured enigmatically and dispassionately, like they were making a simple scientific observation that only made sense to them rather than a profound statement concerning the nature of one of his allies, and Beta shot the mysterious Confederate an angry glance. His furious eyes were reflected within the mirror surface of Gamma's mask, and even though he could not see the other Confederate's eyes through his opaque helm he could feel their gaze piercing into him.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" he shouted, before being interrupted by Alpha, the man evidently tiring of his defiance and, as usual, impatient for them to progress with the plan - the personal opinions of the other Confederates be damned.

"Beta! Decide now. Do you give your consent, or not?" Alpha questioned, leaning menacingly over the edge of his own iridescent podium with his large hands held within bronze gauntlets clamped around the sides of it, scintillating arcs of red reflecting his anger pulsing outwards in a vein-like pattern from his contact with the unreal material. Beta was certain that if there were not specific rules to the Eternal Realm that must be obeyed then Alpha would have been towering over him instead, possibly attempting to physically convince him as well.

"I just wish there was another way," he exhaled deeply, and resignedly placed his palm to the top of the plinth that was facing him, signalling his assent in a flash of yellow luminescence. Beta already regretted doing so without further thought or consideration of what they were doing, berating himself for being persuaded and pressured into acquiescence by Alpha's threatening and brazen demanding, but he knew deep down that Delta was correct: they did have to act swiftly and with no mercy in order to save the twinned worlds as one, but Beta was still unconvinced that anything positive could emerge from what they had planned to do.

"Then we are agreed. We begin immediately," Alpha proclaimed, and even though it was too late to voice any objections now Beta couldn't quite shake the niggling suspicion at the back of his mind that they should have waited instead of forging ahead with this strategy, that he had made the wrong decision in agreeing to it. The world would pay dearly if he had.

.*.*.*.

Kaled stepped into the Scholaria Magnus grounds, marvelling at the modern structure ahead of him – it looked foreign to him, but sometimes he could pick out features that were clearly derived from Welkalite architecture, such as the archways leading between different parts of the academy being heavily reminiscent of the opulent palaces within the Order of Wealth's Augur's Quarter that he had only ever seen from a distance (nowhere near wealthy enough to be allowed access), though much less gaudy and extravagant than the ones from his own city and with designs on it that he didn't recognise.

He knew almost nothing about other cultures apart from their names – Lucael, Yentar and Eria – but hoped that his enrollment would help teach him about them, as meeting people belonging to another nation would aid him in that respect, especially when combined with the lessons that were sure to revolve around the multifaceted civilisations of the world. The dilapidated school that he had attended in the past had possessed a low economic backing (with the only thing sustaining it the taxation of the parents and the guardians of the students, as the ruling order provided it with no funds from their own coffers) and as such had limited educational facilities for teaching the pupils about anywhere other than Welkas itself.

The academy building was tall and wide, stretching across the island with many different sections (many separated by swathes of natural land which, although the Welkalite couldn't see that, had been carefully cultivated to appear entirely natural but stopped from encroaching upon the academy's structure) that Kaled had little ideas about pertaining to their function and use. It was night-time, one of the silver moons hanging high in the sky as it illuminated the ground beneath it in its lunar glow, and the students would have time to go to their dormitories and find their rooms to sleep. Then the introductory assembly would start tomorrow morning, after breakfast, the current day sacrificed due to the different and vaguely uncertain arrival times of the students from all across the continent.

"Wonderful, isn't it?" an unfamiliar voice chirped next to him, and he spun around to look at a girl around his age who had suddenly materialised to the left of him, with medium-length, sapphire coloured hair which shimmered in the lucent glow of the moon and hazel blue eyes. She was thin, but not unhealthily so, more elegant and graceful appearing than malnourished like many Kaled had seen within Welkas, and wore a blue dress that matched her hair perfectly, which was tied up by a pale flower brooch. _Who is she trying to impress? _Thought Kaled, as the girl confidently stuck out her hand, amiably introducing herself. "I'm Annia Bylae, Yentarian. You?"

"Kaled Denith, Welkalite," he replied quietly, though loud enough for her to hear, and Annia could sense the bitter resentment in his tone when he mentioned his nationality. She raised her eyebrows slightly at that, although she didn't mention anything, supposing that it was none of her business why the other student would regret being part of the empire founded upon the tenets of Red mana.

"Well, Kaled, I will be seeing you around, since I am in the adjacent room to you," Annia smiled, adjusting her hair slightly. The Yentarian girl made to depart, possibly intending to go to her own room or perhaps wanting to explore first and satiate her clear curiosity for the academy building, but halted when the boy fired a question at her.

"How do you know?" Kaled asked, confused. All he had managed to work out from the data-sheet handed to him was that he shared a room with some Lucaelian kid named Caiellis Lucerna. She shook her head impatiently and pulled the sheet away from him, conjuring up logical and cold Blue mana on her fingertips and tapping the page. She handed it back – the image on it had changed, it now showed an image of Dormitory C, clearly stating that Annia and a girl called Freya were in the room next to the one Kaled and his new roommate would be residing within, as well as the locations and names of other students in the block that their room was situated in.

"How did you do that?" he asked, figuring it would be useful to be able to use the sheet properly considering no other information had been given to him when he had arrived here, and Annia tutted loudly in a very disapproving manner which the Welkalite found quite unnecessary.

"It says how to in the instructions on the back," she laughed as Kaled turned the paper round, an embarrassed look on his face, and then she poked him on the nose. The Welkalite instinctively recoiled and tensed, not used to other people making those sorts of moves around him, especially not a girl that he had never met before today and who had lived a significant distance away from him before this. Annia smiled apologetically at him and said: "See you soon."

With that, she took off, leaving Kaled vaguely stunned as to the strangeness of the encounter.

The bay was quickly becoming empty as more and more students figured out how to use the seemingly ubiquitous maps, leaving Kaled alone on the sand whilst they departed. Kaled glanced one last time at the map, ensuring that he had memorised at least the geography of the area surrounding his own room, before setting off himself. The boy paced towards the dorm, when someone shouted: "Street rat! We found you!"

Kaled spun around, his threat sense honed from years of living within the extremely dangerous neighbourhood of the derelict suburban sections of Usnaan flaring into life when he spied a group of pompous looking teenagers that he recognised from the journey there closing in on him from both sides, blocking off any potential escape routes. The four Welkalite boys were all around his age and bedecked in expensive fineries that clearly showed how rich their most likely corrupt parents were. The lead boy, an overindulged and pudgy brat going by the name of Arceus, clapped a thick (though not due to any substantial muscle but up) arm around Kaled's ever so slightly thin but athletically built shoulder as his three cronies walked next to them.

The fifteen year old automatically tensed, repressing the instinctive urge to desperately fight back against the sons of "nobles" (as if there was anything remotely noble about them) and as such not ploughing his fist into Arceus's windpipe or smashing his knee into his gut, brutal self defence tactics which had been vital for his survival upon the streets before his ma had taken him in - and after that they had helped in his gladiatorial battles against captured Unbound beasts in front of a small crowd to warm them up for the savagery of the main events. No, that would be overreacting, and while Arceus had already called him a "street rat" he had endured far worse than that in his short lifetime.

"Why don't we take a walk, Kally-boy?" Arceus suggested, glaring at a willowy Yentarian lad who strayed a bit too close for his liking and who quickly decided that going somewhere else would be more beneficial to his continued well-being as opposed to helping Kaled - a course of action seemingly taken by anyone else who might have heard Arceus's shout. Continuing on with his facade of casualness that would be considered starkly false by any who looked into the interaction further, the smaller but heavier boy stated, "Let's go some place a bit more...private."

Kaled assessed the other boys, two taller than himself but none with the lean muscle that he had built up from large amounts of exercise – he probably couldn't beat all four of them at once without using Regata, but didn't want to be the cause of trouble before the first day even started. And that wasn't accounting for the Summonings that they were bound to have, and whilst Kaled was a blisteringly fast Summoner who could conjure up his fiery elemental feline almost instantaneously doing so would turn the confrontation into something far more serious even if he was just defending himself from the bullies.

Kaled didn't know how they would handle infractions at the Scholaria, but the boy certainly did not want to ruin his chances at the school before he had even started. He would take a beating if it was the first step on his road to a new life; his ma would be disappointed in him if he lashed out and he had handled significantly more pain than anything these pretentious brats could dole out in the past despite her protection.

As soon as they had turned the corner and Arceus checked that the coast was clear of other students or staff who might intervene, he slammed the taller boy into the wall, hands soft from the years of a pampered life gripping the collar of the shirt Kaled had been given by those who had taken him here. Kaled didn't even flinch. He had endured much worse.

"I don't know how you managed to get here, street-scum," the ringleader spat, which was accompanied by contemptuous jeers from his little gang. The son of a Welkalite aristocrat prominent enough to secure their child a place at the Scholaria Magnus pressed the taller student into the wall, sneering, "But I am going to make your life hell here, understand?"

Kaled stared back impassively, trying not to let his derision and defiance of Arceus and the others that he didn't yet know the names of leak into his expression, though he had never been one for hiding his emotions and was sure that it would be burning in his eyes. This was confirmed when Arceus snarled angrily up at him, trying and failing to lean over him and seem more intimidating. He whacked Kaled in the face with the back of his knuckles, shouting, "Understand, rat?"

Kaled couldn't help but let a smile creep onto his face – Arceus hit like a wet noodle, with little to no real strength behind the blow, and when he noticed the other boy punched him again. And a third time, driving his fist into the other Welkalite's face. Despite the fact that in a vacuum the individual punches weren't doing too much damage (not with what the fifteen year old was used to from his pit fights and the life on the streets before that) when put together they were staring to quickly take their toll on the boy. His vision was blurring slightly, and his face hurt, the smirk dropping from it, but still he refused to react. Kaled could have fought back and defended himself from the attacks, but that would mean attracting the attention of the other three boys who were currently only standing next to their ringleader and turning the altercation into something far more violent.

"How does that feel, Kally-boy?" the boy smirked viciously, and blood began to leak from a cut on Kaled's cheek, a thin trail of crimson which trickled down his tanned skin and brought the taste of metallic iron to his lips. He grimaced, a response to the pain that he could no longer simply ignore, and Arceus grinned sadistically as he hit him again, and then turned to one of his "friends".

"Let's teach this scum that street rats don't belong here," Arceus near cackled, his voice cruel, the other boy laughing with him as he pulled out something from his pocket that gleamed in the faint light of the moon and twinkling stars.

"Actually, the motto of the school is "Quis Delda Los", which in ancient Yentarian means "Merit based upon talent". So actually, whether this "street rat" of yours belongs here isn't up to you," a strong voice broke into the evening, prompting all of the participants of the gang of Welkalites to frown in concern and halt in whatever they had been planning to do, the glinting metal sheathed almost instantaneously. Arceus spun around indignantly, and glared as a tall blonde-haired boy from one of the older years strolled around the corner and towards them. Kaled took the violence abating as a good sign, his vision still unfocused through the haze of the pain, and sank wearily back against the wall instead of remaining defiant and tall.

"And who the hell are you?" he demanded, and the older boy smirked, though in a way that did nothing to lessen the angry tint of his eyes and the way that his voice belied his seriousness. Arceus raised an amused eyebrow, quickly concealing how startled he had become at the start of the other male's intervention due to him not being one of the official staff who could have landed the group of Welkalites in large amounts of trouble with their authority.

"Someone who isn't afraid of the consequences for standing up for themselves, unlike the poor kid here," he replied, his blue eyes hardening and his posture switching from casual to threatening in the blink of an eye. He remained standing where he had stopped, but Kaled distinctly felt that the fact that he was more menacing made him appear larger and imposing even from that distance, "Leave him alone. Now."

The boy's grip on Kaled merely tightened, the aristocratic Welkalite teenager staring dumbfounded for a second at the threat from the older student before his pudgy face that would make some of the rough and brutal gladiators that Kaled had laid eyes upon appear heavenly in comparison creased into amusement. Arceus chortled, and the act was reciprocated by his gang, who let out worried laughs as they glanced warily at the slightly older male, their eyes betraying the trepidation that Arceus seemed not to share. The ringleader was about to jeer when a strong fist lanced into his face, knocking him away from the stunned Kaled. Blood exploded from the boy's nose and he staggered backwards, an expression of shock and pain on etched onto his features. Although Kaled could tell that the boy's nose hadn't been broken, he could also discern that the elder student hadn't held back very much, only enough to ensure that Arceus wouldn't be permanently damaged.

"I warned you. Now leave," the older boy stated calmly, and Arceus glared at him with eyes that were starting to be filled with tears and began to slink away, feeling humiliated in front of his friends. He would make sure to have his revenge for this embarrassment, that was for certain. The older boy shook his head sadly and turned to Kaled, who was still bleeding from the cuts on his face and breathing laboriously.

"You look pretty beaten up. Would you like me to take you to the infirmary?" he asked, mild worry inflecting his stern features as he helped Kaled up from where he had slumped against the wall.

"No thanks. I've endured worse. I'll just go to my dorm," Kaled replied, glad that the other teenager had intervened before he had been forced to fight back. He would prefer not to go, as he could clean himself in his room where he assumed would be sanitary facilities - and besides, he really didn't want to visit the medical professionals of the academy before the first day had even started; additionally he would rather not bring negative attention to himself and get both his persecutors and saviour in trouble. The taller boy nodded and held out his hand for Kaled to shake, who did so gratefully.

"I'm Alexander, but call me Alex. Lucaelian," he said, grinning warmly and charismatically at the younger teenager, who gave his own name and nationality back, wiping some of the blood from his face after the Lucaelian unclasped his hand.

"Thanks for that, brother," he stated solemnly, genuinely grateful for his assistance, and Alex made a curious face at him.

"Sorry Kaled, but only one person is allowed to call me that," he smiled back at the smaller boy (although that still didn't say much as Kaled was almost six feet tall), still concerned for him but willing to let the boy follow his own ideas about what to do.

If it had happened to him (and the perpetrators of the violence would have been hurt significantly more if Alexander had been the target) then he would most likely have done the same so that no unwarranted attention would be drawn to him, but if a certain someone would have been the victim of the violence (and if the person in question had then the Welkalite bullies wouldn't have been left conscious by Alex, much less still standing and mostly unruffled apart from the ringleader) then they would have been immediately taken to the medical facilities of the Scholaria Magnus regardless of any of their protests. _Speaking of him..._

"You have a sibling?" Kaled inquired, a vague hint of jealousy rising up in his tone before he quashed it immediately. What he would give to have a brother like him, someone who would have helped him through his dangerous life on the streets - someone who would have taught him right from wrong at an early age, and someone that he could have depended upon for emotional comfort when he had been ready to give in before his ma had taken him in. Alex nodded silently, and Kaled pressed on, hoping that his new acquaintance hadn't noticed the tinge of envy in the timbre of his earlier words: "A sister?"

Alexander snorted and laughed: "You could say that."

"A little brother then?" Kaled couldn't help but smile; the other boy's grin was infectious, and the Lucaelian nodded in confirmation again. "What's his name?"

"Caiellis," the senior student replied, and Kaled physically jolted back. He remembered that name from somewhere, but his encounter with the sons of the Empire's aristocrats had distracted him from his thoughts. He pulled out the data sheet and began tapping furiously on it, Red mana encircling the tip of his index finger and a frown of consternation creasing his face. Alex sniggered and yanked the sheet off of him, gently pressing on the map with soothing White mana and waiting until it acknowledged his request. As soon as it did, the Lucaelian howled with laughter, handing the other adolescent his means of navigation back after a brief chuckle.

"Haha. You share a room with him," he giggled, and Kaled began to walk over to dormitory C after taking his map, shooting a glance behind him to see what the Lucaelian who had helped him was doing. Alexander followed him and said: "I'll just make sure you get there safe if you aren't wanting to go to the infirmary. I have a feeling that those pompous idiots won't want to leave you alone. Besides, it won't hurt to check in on the squirt, as knowing him he will be there already."

Kaled heard a slight inkling of worry in Alex's voice that wasn't directed towards the Welkalite. He pondered it for a short moment, mulling over whether or not the boy was fearing for himself (and if he could do anything to help assuage that) after making himself a target of the gang by humiliating their leader, but quickly deciding that Alexander wasn't scared for his own sake, but for the sake of another. They walked together through an outside area that had an exotic variety of trees on display, plants that Kaled had never laid eyes upon before twisting together in an amalgamation of unusual yet earthly hues that extended high into the night sky. Dorm C was just across from there, an elegant and refined rectangular building connected to the rest of the academy through the corridors of trees that the two boys were walking through now, and Kaled asked: "What is Caiellis like then?"

"Quiet. Reserved. Cute. Smart," Alex responded, smiling as he thought of his little brother – he was pleased that his brother hadn't been placed with one of the bullies from earlier, as the youngest member of the Scholaria Magnus would be an easy target, although Alexander was confident that his younger brother could stand up for himself – in fact he was vaguely worried about what he would do to someone if he saw them picking on Caiellis, although they would definitely deserve it. It was just that Cai was small for his age of less than a month into his thirteenth year but compared to fifteen year olds (most of which had undergone their growth spurts) and older students he could easily be half a foot shorter than the smallest.

He only hoped, like he did himself, that the boy's classmates felt protective of him instead of jealous or antagonistic because of his young age and position as a prince. "He can be quite shy though, so don't think that he dislikes you if he doesn't talk. Anyway, you'll get on just fine."

Kaled absorbed the information without comment – if this Caiellis was anything like his brother then they certainly would, but the Welkalite has a large suspicion that he wouldn't be. That didn't necessarily mean that they would mesh badly with one another, much less due to the fact that Caiellis seemed to have a exemplary older brother looking out for him, but still there was the inkling in Kaled's mind that there could be friction between the two. Alex then placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Kaled, can you do me a favour?" he asked, and the boy was surprised to see sadness in Alexander's eyes. The concern had dissolved, leaving a brief glimmer of melancholy in its wake that the expressive eyes of the Lucaelian couldn't hide despite how much he probably wanted to.

"Sure!" he responded quickly, eager to make up for what Alex had already done for him - who knows what would have happened if the senior student hadn't arrived? Alex grinned and released Kaled, and explained: "Try to make sure that Caiellis actually eats. He has a tendency to ignore food when he is focussed on something, and he is thin enough already. I know that it isn't your responsibility, but since I won't be able to spend as much time with him it would be nice to know thathe had at least one other person looking out for him."

Kaled could clearly see the big brother in his new friend then, Alex's protective instinct colouring his words, and reassuringly patted the larger boy on the arm.

"Me and Caiellis will be in the same year, won't we?" he asked, assuming so because he shared a room with the Lucaelian's younger brother, and Alex nodded, adding, "Though he is younger than you. He became thirteen only a month ago, but because of our father he-... it's not important," the older boy cut off, brushing over the fact that they were royalty. Everyone in the Scholaria started equally, and he was fully aware of how Cai detested being treated with respect just because of his origin, as his younger brother thought that he hadn't done anything to deserve that despite the heroism he had displayed throughout the civil war.

"He's only thirteen?" Kaled questioned, not wanting to pry into something his friend chose to keep hidden, and sensing Alex's worry underneath his calm demeanour, decided to reassure the older boy. "Don't worry. I'll take good care of him."

"I'm not sure that he'll appreciate it," Alex mused, awareness conferred from past experiences informing him that Caiellis didn't necessarily react positively when other (male) teens that were his elders tried to protect him in a similar way to Alexander himself, "But thanks from me."

The Welkalite nodded. Kaled adopted a more contemplative expression while they walked, wondering what special property had allowed Alex's younger sibling to enter the school at an age two years junior to himself. He knew that it would be easier to feel protective of him because of the fact that he was still within his first teenage year, but conversely that meant that he would be an easier target for others.

Kaled followed the Lucaelian into the dormitory and almost bumped into him when he stopped in front of the fourth door on the right.

"There's your room," he instructed, and Kaled once again thanked him for earlier, and pushed the wooden door open. The room was medium sized, with two single beds at equidistant points from the centre of the room set at opposite sides of it and pushed against the back corners. There was a small bathroom with a shower and toilet on the right, the door being slightly ajar insinuating that it hadn't been properly utilised yet, and large windows opposite from the entry door that were currently covered by black curtains - befitting the fact that it was late evening.

Each bed had a small wooden desk next to it, one of which had a pile of venerable-looking leather bound books neatly placed on top. The bed next to that desk on the left of the room (Kaled's right whilst facing inwards) was already occupied, the boy who must have been Caiellis snapping the tome he had been reading shut and instantly glancing up at the door. The Lucaelian gazed at him intently, as if analysing Kaled, and then Caiellis narrowed his eyes as he spied the tell-tale flash of blonde hair behind his new roommate.

"Alex? What are you doing here? You said that you would leave me alone when we got here?" Caiellis snapped, and Kaled instantly concluded that he didn't like the younger boy. He had almost immediately disregarded the presence of the Welkalite when he had noticed his older brother, and instead of being grateful for Alexander's presence the thirteen year old was questioning it like it was something to be irritated at.

"Your brother was just taking me here. It was a coincidence that I happened to share a room with you," Kaled shot back, feeling like Caiellis was unnecessarily antagonising his big brother for something out of his control. The boy raised his eyebrows, his green eyes flashing back to the fifteen year old – Alex had been right, he was quite cute, still in the preliminary phases of his adolescent years whereby his face remained young and boyish, although the dark mark on his right cheek looked rather ominous, and Alexander laughed in the background.

"See you around, baby brother!" he snickered and walked off, and Kaled went into the room and pushed the door shut behind him. Caiellis continued to glower at the wooden door, as if through force of will he could burn it open and incinerate his older brother. Actually, Kaled thought, he didn't know what his roommate's powers were, though he must have been quite exceptional to be permitted into the academy at thirteen, so didn't put the act past him.

Caiellis sighed, though made sure to do so quietly enough so that it wouldn't be heard by his new roommate. He had overreacted by speaking in that matter to his older brother, especially since it was characteristic of the seventeen year old to want to help others if they were in need of it, even if he might act nonchalant about dispensing his aid. Consequently, it was a logical step for the elder prince to spend a few seconds checking in on his little sibling. Cai was grateful for Alexander's protective nature even if it was occasionally irritating, but he still hadn't become accustomed to it being the norm once again after their independence from one another proceeding the civil war's ending and their return to the palace that they had both been born in.

Nonetheless, that didn't excuse his snapping, and while the youngest Lucerna was well aware that his tone was a product of a new and unfamiliar environment as well as the constant stress that mounted every second he didn't pass his Summoning trial and continued to be a disappointment to both his family and the kingdom at large, he shouldn't have taken it out on an older brother who was only trying to help and ensure his safety. And now he had gone and made his new roommate dislike him at first sight as well, which made having to interact with a stranger even harder and more anxiety inducing.

Kaled slung his small bag of possessions onto his side of the room, which earned a scowl from Caiellis, as his section was carefully organised. Kaled suddenly noticed the presence of an ornate and sheathed sword resting upright on the wall – surely the weapon should have been confiscated? The fifteen year old wasn't entirely sure about the exact rules and regulations of the academy (with no one who actually knew having deigned to explain them to him), and supposed that he didn't know much concerning the other cultures of the world either, but still, it was a sword - and swords could easily be deadly.

He quickly made his way into the personal bathroom assigned to them, flicking his eyes towards the brooding teenager that he would be sharing his living space with for the duration of the academy's first term before entering the pristine sanitary facilities. Not only did he wish to use the toilet, but accessing the bathroom would allow him to deal with the far more pressing issue of the coppery blood that had coagulated onto his face and was still bleeding in some regions.

When he re-entered after a few minutes Kaled glanced over at the younger occupant of the pleasant room, perturbed at both the weapon and the boy's actions towards his older brother, but Caiellis averted his eyes and stared at some obscure section of the wall instead of meeting the Welkalite's gaze, nervously twisting his hands on the fabric of his trousers before consciously stopping himself, wishing that he was anywhere else but here. The fifteen year old boy jumped onto his bed, tired out from the long journey, when Caiellis's quiet and timid voice piped up.

"H-hey," Cai gulped, trying to control his breathing as he attracted the attention of the other teenager. He laid out his hands on the bed so that the shaking of the slender fingers wouldn't be visible, and forced himself to look at the Welkalite instead of the much more appealing option of the floor, hoping that his normally pale cheeks weren't blushing as incineratingly obviously as they felt. Kaled glanced at the teenager who was most probably the youngest member of the Scholaria Magnus as the thirteen year old shifted over the side of his bed, slender legs dangling over the edge and not even reaching the floor.

"I don't think we started out very well. I'm Caiellis Noctis Lucerna. Lucaelian," the boy smiled shyly and held out his small hand for his roommate, who took it and shook it, Kaled's tanned fist easily able to close fully around the younger boy's hand. The older male repressed a smile at the boy's attempts at reconciliation, thinking that perhaps he had jumped to conclusions earlier. Caiellis was thin, more so than most teenagers who were slim themselves, and Kaled could fully empathise with Alexander on wanting his little brother to eat more.

"Quite the mouthful," Kaled replied nonchalantly and stifled a laugh at the boy's unamused scowl. Actually, Caiellis was more than a little pleased – his roommate clearly had never heard of the Lucaelian royalty before, so that meant that would actually be treated as a person rather than a title. That was preferred, and while the adolescent was well aware that the other students hailing from the Kingdom of Light would most probably treat him with reverence, respect and ill-concealed fear because of the Black Sun imprinted on his right cheek unless they knew him personally (through Alexander as Cai barely ever made friends of his own) he would like to have a place in which he wasn't.

"Call me Cai. And even though I already know your name, it would be appreciated if you participated in this little introductory activity we have going on here," he couldn't quite keep the customary teenage snark that had leapt upon him a few months before his birthday in the closing sections of the previous year (as well as the ending of the war) out of his voice as he replied. Instead of reacting negatively, Kaled snorted loudly at the words, vaguely reminding Cai of something his older brother would do before wrapping his younger sibling in a head lock and roughly ruffling his mop of brown hair.

"Hi, I'm Kaled Denith, Welkalite, nice to meet you too," he sniggered, squeezing the boy's hand hard which elicited a half-smothered hiss of pain from his roommate. Cai pulled away, spontaneously deciding that he had tried hard enough to make a friend, and there was nothing more he could do. If Kaled was going to be one of that subset of people who thought that play fighting and rough housing was beneficial within their relationships (he only tolerated that from his older brother because of how much Alex had done for him, and because he couldn't really do anything other than take it) then there was no advantageous reason towards befriending him. Caiellis already had a big brother in his life, he didn't need anyone else who wished to act similar but without the implied brotherly love within all of Alexander's actions.

Further conversation was deemed useless, so he turned around in the bed and began to read his book again – Caiellis realised that he would probably need his shell soon, so started its mental reconstruction. He didn't want to get emotionally attached to anyone or anything here, particularly due to the reality that it would only ever be temporary, and his main priority was to obtain usage of his ominous Summoning despite his nation's fear of it.

The youngster could feel the pressure, the stress, building up within him again now that the novelty of leaving the Kingdom of Light and bonding with his big brother again had dissolved, and was certain that he would have to employ his emotional barriers and fortifications again in order to prevent others from noticing and endeavouring to help. However, he would try not to use them against Alex any more; the older prince didn't deserve that kind of treatment after all he had done for Caiellis and if he was being honest he had hated hiding himself from away the seventeen year old - otherwise he never would have been able to continue with his relentless attempts of the Angel of the Black Sun's trial and the cutting that came after every failure.

Kaled sat silently in his bed for a while, thinking that he had hurt the younger boy with his actions. He had tried not to cause him pain, but Cai was definitely fragile, so Kaled could have easily done so by crushing his hand, something only meant as a boisterous gesture that, as usual, he hadn't considered the ramifications of before hand.

He felt guilty, like he had failed Alexander already – Kaled had promised to take care of the younger boy in return for the aid that the selfless elder Lucaelian had provided, and his new friend would be displeased with him if Caiellis was hurt. Kaled was under no illusions – even though Alex had helped him out earlier, his little brother was surely miles higher on his list of priorities than some new acquaintance, almost certainly at the top. He resolved to say something to check if his roommate was fine, it was far too early to be going to sleep now anyway. Besides, the silence that had descended was thick between them, and even though Kaled was often solemnly quiet and as such didn't mind not talking he didn't like the fact that it felt nothing close to companionable, more tense and awkward.

"Cai? Are you alright?" he asked, but with all the response he received he may as well have been attempting to communicate with a wall - and would probably have had more success in that endeavour. The boy didn't even acknowledge his roommate, nor react to the words, but Kaled could still hear the flicking of pages as he glanced at the thirteen year old's small back. He reached over and shook the bony shoulder of the smaller adolescent, who made him jump by suddenly whipping around and glaring at him.

"What do you want?" Caiellis demanded, and Kaled was shocked at the sudden vehemence in his tone. The prince had been trying to read, but every second his thoughts went to the Angel of the Black Sun residing in his body, dragging his mind away from the book in front of his eyes - one that he had started reading not only because he was curious but because he hoped it would distract him from the feeling of failure that had been his perpetual compatriot ever since his father had spoken to him after the war.

He hadn't been able to attempt the Summoning for a couple of days, as it was too risky whilst travelling, and once again began to feel the crushing weight of expectation hanging over his shoulders, even though he was hundreds of miles away from what could well become his kingdom. He didn't really know how to cope with the feeling now that his only release had been forbidden by his older family members, and was pondering the fact that despite his father's kinder tone and gift, he still expected Caiellis to pass the test soon, although at least now he possibly better understood why it was difficult for the youngest Lucerna, when he had felt a hand on his shoulder.

Forgetting where he was for a brief moment, Caiellis thought it would be Alexander, his big brother checking on his well being due to his lapse into saddened introspection, but was sorely disappointed to see Kaled there, and was reminded once again about how the king needed his failure of a child out of his sight to concentrate on the kingdom – Cai didn't believe for a second that Marik's intention had been to "improve as a father" before they returned. He hadn't meant to spit the words out with such acidity, but thankfully Kaled didn't seem that offended.

_Angels above; what is wrong with me? I'm being consumed by this ... but I _need _to complete it. I can't comprehend why dad would want to send me away from the kingdom apart from him wanting the pathetic disgrace of his youngest son out of his sight ... but even then he didn't see me at all over the month between the war ending and two days ago, the latter in itself only facilitated by Alex forcing him to and revealing my self-harming, so I was hardly in the way. I mean, I understand that this is in theory a good opportunity, and I'm extremely thankful that dad (or whoever organised this, as my father might not have known) had the foresight to keep me and Alex together instead of nations apart because I don't think that I would have been able to cope with only seeing him every time he could come home._

_But with the amount of effort that he must have gone through in wielding his royal influence to convince the administrators to make an exception and send me, a thirteen year old, here, smacks of dad wanting me gone as quickly as possible. I don't understand what he wanted to achieve through this; I haven't even been able to attempt my Summoning trial in the past couple of days and I'm not certain that this opportunity is really more important than remaining in Lucael and being able to utilise the veritable repository of resources in Capitalia Lux._

_It's only ... I don't want to be here. I don't want to have to meet new people, or be at a disadvantage due to my age or lack of a Summoning, and while interacting with the prodigies of other nations is important for a Lucerna prince _nothing _is as vital as accessing my First Sisterhood angel, my birthright and way of protecting the people. _Caiellis had to manually force himself out of his introspection when he registered that the older student was still talking to him. He hadn't slept well on the journey at all in spite of his older brother being near him as he could never feel truly safe on the monorails through the darkness, and the exhaustion of his month of constantly attempting to Summon and barely eating was catching up with him and making him lethargic - which was why he was lapsing so easily into thought.

"I just wanted to check on you, chill out. Your brother would probably kill me if I hurt you," Kaled mumbled, and Caiellis couldn't help but laugh even if his young voice was tinged with melancholy that he desperately wished not to show, not to anyone. He had already been too weak these past few days, too dependent on his older brother and too needy to the point where his father couldn't even stand to have him around any more - not with Alex reacting in the way that he did.

"What, you thought you hurt me with that rough handshake?" he chuckled incredulously despite the fact that it had been kind of painful, although there was still a potent mixture of sadness and angsty anger in his tone that he wasn't able to hide, "Trust me, when you have an obsessive older brother that is twice your size and strength, you tend to rack up on the bruises."

"You shouldn't slag off Alex so much, he is only trying to look out for you," Kaled chided, and in spite of the fact that there was only a minute hint of envy in his voice, Caiellis detected it instantaneously and that immediately made him feel very uncomfortable.

He wasn't entirely sure of how to reply to that so decided to stay silent instead - he knew how lucky he was to have an elder sibling like Alexander even if his older brother was often a pain in the ass and occasionally (though nowhere near rarely) his worst enemy -, and after Kaled began to feel awkward after a few seconds he tried to make some conversation, not wanting to stay alone with his thoughts and confront the grief that gnawed away at the centre of his being. Yes, he needed to talk, thrived upon the communication even if it was with a quiet yet sardonic younger teenager, because otherwise he would succumb to the anguish festering at the heart of him.

"It's a great opportunity, isn't it? The Scholaria I mean," he verbally contemplated for a moment, his mind drawn to his ma's sacrifice, the thing that had secured his placement here. He was determined not to waste this chance she had given him, and was thinking about that (just not too deeply into it) when the smaller boy replied quietly with: "You could call it that."

"What do you mean?" Kaled asked, sitting up in his bed and directing his gaze at the Lucaelian. Caiellis reciprocated the gesture, also bringing his knees up to his chest and huddling them with his thin arms, his brown fringe obscuring his eyes, making the Welkalite remember belatedly that the boy was two years younger than him – even so, Caiellis still looked small and delicate as he asked, "What would you say it is then?" The boy glanced up at him, partially revealing his green orbs as he did so, emotions unreadable to Kaled swirling around in their emerald depths.

"A punishment? A waste of time? Just two suggestions," he answered bitterly, and Kaled was confused as to how anyone could view it in that way. He could feel his choler rising, the thoughts of his adopted mother souring and becoming laced with streaks of darkness and fury at the scornful dismissal his roommate had showed this privilege, this chance for a new life away from the squalor and poverty of his home city.

"How can you say that? Aren't you grateful for being here?" Kaled snapped, accidentally letting anger enter his tone, but the younger boy automatically picked up on it and made his voice louder too in response – it was a tactic he had developed when he was younger, often raising his voice so that a raging older brother would listen to him despite the fact that it was easy enough for Alexander to shout him down.

"No, not in the slightest! And why should I be? Caiellis shouted back, subconsciously baiting the older boy to react. He was sick of this place, sick of his roommate's antagonsing tone, and sick of his mind being pervaded with the knowledge that the longer he spent here, failing with his Summoning trial, the longer it would take for him to return home to the Lucerna palace in Capitalia Lux and be brought back into the perfect - well, as perfect as it could be without his late mother that he barely remembered - family that he had dreamed of throughout the peril of the civil war. Even though only a relatively small part of him was naive enough to believe that it could still happen after his father's change, that want, that desire that had been the only thing fueling him apart from Alex's love through all of the turmoil of Johnias's treachery, still burned brightly within him, and he knew that while he was at the Scholaria Magnus that near desperate need could never be realised.

Kaled acted without thinking, as he was wont to, grabbing the near-weightless boy by the front of his collar and slamming him the wall connected to the door, lifting the thirteen year old off his feet in one swift motion so that their eyes met at the same plane of height. His ma had died to get him here! How could any person spurn this opportunity? His fists twisted upwards in the fabric of the boy's shirt, not caring that he was pressing in hard as he snarled and glowered at the Lucaelian he was to share a room with for the foreseeable future.

Cai gulped and looked back into Kaled's wrathful face, stilling his legs before he automatically sent a barrage of what would be undoubtedly feeble kicks into the Welkalite's chest.

He could have instead kicked himself for letting his feelings of stress and sadness get in the way of rational judgement – this Kaled was quite clearly different to the other Welkalites, judging by the obvious wealth flaunted by the students sent here (the irony that he, as a Lucerna prince, was most likely richer than some of them even though he did not look like it not lost on him, in spite of the fact that his personal finical status amounted to mostly nothing), so something significant must have happened to allow him to be enrolled, something that Kaled evidently cared about very deeply. Something that he should not have scorned so freely without paying any heed to the possible consequences.

The thirteen year old knew he shouldn't have given in to the argument or showed any emotion in his words. He just hoped that he wouldn't have to fight back, that Kaled would have enough restraint to avoid causing him pain, because he was aware that the boy two years his senior was substantially stronger than he was and that there was little way of him breaking out (as Kaled seemed to have been trained in at least the rudiments of fighting technique due to his stance that didn't allow any easy openings to arise) without using his magic.

Caiellis's small hands had already reached up, thin fingers that were long in comparison to the size of the palms but still little clasping around Kaled's tensed wrists, though embarrassingly enough they didn't even fully encircle them. He tried pulling them off, but the effort was fruitless and the fists digging into his jutting collar bones and the base of his neck barely budged at all.

He would have said something, apologised and asked Kaled to release him so that proper reconciliations could be made, but he didn't want to risk incensing the senior boy even further and putting himself in even more danger. Besides, Cai knew that his voice wouldn't come out as anything other than a pitiful squeak, and was scared (_no, no. Not scared. Lucernas aren't supposed to feel fear. I'm just ... slightly concerned for my own health_) of what Kaled could do, as though he wasn't quite as strong as Alexander he was still far more physically powerful than the slender and exhausted thirteen year old.

The prince didn't want to have to resort to his magic, as he hated using it on other humans (regardless of the fact that some definitely deserved it) and refused to utilise it when not in actual danger with enemies that wished him dead (or when practising), and especially on those who would be unsuspecting such as the Welkalite hoisting him off of his feet. And he wasn't about to utilise it now even if it would remove the source of the pain - additionally, his White mana (as Caiellis had never willingly employed the more sinister variety of magic that he knew was inside of him) usually required some prior channeling and that would be sensed by Kaled - who knew how he would react if he sensed that? He would rather take a beating than hurt another person with his magic.

Instead, Cai made his eyes all the more imploring, though could not completely erase the defiant tint to them which contributed to provoking his roommate into this course of action, and hoped that Kaled would have enough sense to release him soon. He was fully certain that the region around his collar bones had a high probability of bruising, which meant he was lucky that the clothes he had taken concealed that area. The youngest Lucerna was afraid for himself, but more prevalent in his mind was the concern of what Alexander - or indeed, any other Lucaelian teenager who took their duty to guard the scions of the royal family seriously, though to a significantly lesser extent than his protective older brother - might do if he found out.

All Kaled wanted to do was punch this arrogant child in the face, but his words from earlier resonated in his mind – the least he could do for Alex was not hurt his younger brother, in fact he had said the he would protect Cai. He was doing a great job of that now, but he had just insulted something that his ma had given her life for, and the younger boy squirmed somewhat fearfully as Kaled unconsciously tightened his grip, pressing into Caiellis's throat and restricting his breathing. The Lucaelian youngster began to feel slightly light headed as inhaling became difficult, moments away from starting to verbally plead with the stronger male.

"I'm coming in!" a female voice suddenly announced, smashing apart the tense silence, and Annia burst into the room without even knocking, an excited smile on her face that was soon replaced by a look of surprise and horror when her eyes ghosted over the two boys with one pinning the other to the wall by his shirt collar.

"Kaled! What are you doing? Don't you know who he is?" she cried, shoving him hard as another, smaller but slightly stouter girl stood awkwardly in the doorway. The instant his balance was altered and he was almost sent sprawling, only his arena instincts allowing him to remain upright after the surprisingly hard push, Kaled snapped out of seeing red and instantly released Caiellis, the Lucaelian slumping to the floor as he sucked a breath of unadulterated air into his lungs. The Welkalite stepped away and turned around, sitting on his bed, guilt pulsing its way into his mind when he realised just what he had done. He was angry at Cai's words, but he was more annoyed at himself – he had overreacted hugely, and taken advantage of the fact that his roommate was younger, smaller and clearly frailer than himself.

The boy ignored the Yentarian's words, forcing himself to slowly breathe in and out, a relaxing inhalation filling his lungs and followed by a languid expiration that helped to soothe his frayed nerves. The images of the attack on his ma's home - _his _home - faded from where they had maddeningly danced at the edges of his vision and fueled the sudden violence. He needed to calm down, reminding himself that Caiellis wouldn't have known, that his situation was different from Kaled's and that perhaps the younger adolescent had been forced to come here.

The Welkalite was only grateful that he had possessed enough self-restraint not to punch the junior male and do serious damage, but still felt extremely contrite for hurting and quite possibly scaring his roommate - he wouldn't be surprised if Cai requested that the administrators of the Scholaria Magnus relocated him to another room (or even a different dormitory) or told his older brother about the incident. Kaled had no doubts in his mind that he would have incurred the wrath of Alex now, and was sure that he deserved any punishment that he would receive when Caiellis inevitably informed his brother, one of his friends or staff.

He wanted to apologise for his outburst and the release of his anger at the circumstances which had taken place to allow him to come here and begin a new life, make reparations for what he had done so that maybe the Lucaelian wouldn't be as uncomfortable in his presence. But he refused to look over at Caiellis until he had calmed himself completely, almost wanting to go into the bathroom so that any urge to lash out was greatly diminished but not wanting to push past the thirteen year old and scare him further.

As Caiellis got to his feet, brushing himself down and smoothing the creases that had formed in his outfit, the Yentarian fell to her knees in a strangely familiar gesture altered by the differing culture of the girl kneeling in a form of offered supplication he had seen only once prior to this before him.

"My lord, my name is Annia Bylae, Yentarian, and I share the room next to yours – I hope that we will be able to talk a lot in the future," she chattered, her voice swaying between both respectful and casual, and then immediately blushed profusely. She hadn't meant to say that last part. The fact that Caiellis was the son of a king - an almost unheard of concept within Yentar as the most important children were the scions of the leaders of the Leagues of Thought or the council representatives, but even then those who displayed intelligence and intuition were valued higher within the meritocracy - was fascinating to her, as she couldn't quite imagine being born into such power, importance and responsibility.

Luckily, the boy didn't seem to hear the final section, or that was until he started laughing quietly, his green eyes filled with a mixture of pain that was being pushed down and forced mirth that he tried to hide it with. He was shaking slightly, hands trembling in the wake of the adrenaline rush that had half flooded through him, but resolved to try and stay appearing as strong and resolute as possible - he had suffered worse, even from other humans that weren't trying to kill him - as to not disgrace his line in front of a scion of the Yentarian Republic, Lucael's ally.

"You are just like your sister," he smirked, trying to control his nervousness, and then coughed painfully, rubbing the front of his bruised neck, as the girl asked with a smile, getting to her feet and glancing down at the boy: "Oh, you met Jenna? She was at Capitalia Lux, wasn't she?"

"Indeed. She mentioned you," Caiellis said in a strained voice, not wanting to speak any more words than was necessary, and turned to look at the doorway. The girl who had stood there was now gone – she looked like an Erian, and was probably quite nervous about talking to other people judging from the way that she had acted. The prince could empathise with that, wishing that he could retreat to solitude and privacy instead of being inundated with new faces to talk to and subsequently ruin his social chances with, as Annia looked down at him sympathetically. "Are you ok, my lord?"

"What is with this "my lord" business?" Kaled asked, turning back around once he had composed himself and made sure he wouldn't lash out anymore. He didn't miss how the younger male's gaze instantly met his, a form of defiance warring with shyness - and _guilt? - _before being overpowered by it, green eyes lowered back to the floor before they flicked up at Annia's voice.

"You really don't know? Are you stupid?" the girl raised her eyebrows dubiously, scorn present in her words, and the Welkalite squinted at Cai, thinking hard for a second – nope, he didn't recognise the boy or his name from anything. But then again he did know absolutely nothing of Lucaelian culture apart from the fact that all those he had seen were shaded in varying degrees of pale.

"Quite possibly. Could either of you please explain what is going on?" he glanced between the two, Cai sheepishly looking up at him again before he made his expression more collected, or at least tried to.

"Caiellis Noctis _Lucerna_," Annia emphasised the last part of his name, explaining whilst the named looked on abashedly: "The monarchy of Lucael – Caiellis is the son of the king."

"Ok," Kaled replied simply – did she expect him to be impressed? If so the Yentarian would be severely disappointed. The almost natural Welkalite disdain - bordering on hatred - for nearly any form of established sovereignty extended to Kaled Denith, and although he didn't exactly resent the thirteen year old (it wasn't as if he had chosen to be born into that family) his "royal blood" wasn't exactly going to bring him any favours with his roommate. Caiellis would have to do something to actually be afforded respect if he wanted it. Despite that, it did make sense to Kaled that Alexander was a prince, the heir to the throne if the Lucaelian royalty system was anything similar to the monarchs of the Old Empire.

Cai laughed grimly, and, before Annia could reply to the Welkalite, said: "I like your style Kaled. I really don't deserve all (_well, any, in fact_) of the admiration I receive." He then coughed violently, massaging his throat, and Kaled moved towards him, concerned. He hadn't quite realised that he had placed the younger boy in that much pain, nor put enough pressure into his grip to cause the painful sounding coughs.

"Anyway, I'm going to bed now," declared Annia, pushing open the door once more and enthusiastically continuing, "I just thought it would be nice to see the people in the room next door, though I didn't quite expect that you would be trying to kill one another. See you tomorrow!"

After she shut the door and left, the fifteen year old's smirk at her antics faded and he stepped next to Caiellis, who forced himself not to stiffen at the nearness of the Welkalite after what had just happened. Kaled awkwardly placed a relatively large hand on the boy's slender arm, not missing the half repressed flinch back, and guiltily asked: "Did I hurt you? Sorry if I did."

"It's fine, Alex," Caiellis snickered at his roommate's puzzled expression, and elaborated. "I already have one older brother. I don't need you look after me too. And yes, for a moment you did choke me, though really all you did was lift me off my feet. Trust me, I've had much worse than that done to me. So we'll put it behind us, unless you would prefer that Alexander became aware?"

The question was rhetorical, but Kaled considered it anyway - he wasn't sure whether or not he had failed the older student who had helped him avoid a savage beating earlier with his characteristically rash and emotion-fueled actions. Perhaps Alexander should have become aware, and although Kaled was relatively ashamed of himself he supposed that it was Cai's choice whether or not he informed his big brother - that the younger boy's pride was at stake and that Caiellis didn't want his sibling to follow him around and protect him from everything.

Caiellis brushed past him gracefully and slipped into the bathroom, pulling out a toothbrush from one of his luggage bags and carrying another one in. Kaled hadn't thought to bring or ask for something so simple as a toothbrush, and had a few changes of clothes, but no nightwear. He pondered the boy's words for a few seconds, he felt that it was instinctive to want to protect the younger male, but he reasoned that Caiellis would have been guarded his entire life, not just by his overprotective big brother but by his father's guards as well. Maybe the kid just wanted a friend that he could talk to without them constantly trying to keep him out of harm's way, or maybe Cai didn't actually want to be friendly with the older boy - just in speaking conditions so that staying in a room shared between them wasn't uncomfortable.

The Lucerna sighed wearily when the door was shut and locked, examining his throat in the mirror and satisfied that no bruises (things that couldn't be rejuvenated with mana due to them not being serious enough) had appeared that would be cause for suspicion, then pulled off his shirt and ran soothing White mana down the cuts all across his thin torso. He wasn't able to heal the wounds outright – one of the most fundamental tenets of healing was that one could not repair wounds that they had caused themselves - although he done this everyday since starting, the magic preventing the cuts from infecting or deteriorating in any other way. It was the stinging sensation of sudden pain that he had needed to distract him from overwhelming despair, he didn't want to cause lasting damage or degrade his own health further.

After doing that, he undressed fully and put his pyjamas on, and then started to brush his teeth, gazing into his own eyes and the dark skin underneath from the lack of sleep and his currently unhealthy lifestyle. If Caiellis was fully honest with himself, he felt nothing towards his roommate, he just wanted them to be on good terms so that Kaled wouldn't distract him from the school - well, not the school, his Summoning trial. Cai assumed that there would be facilities for students who had not Summoned yet, and would relentlessly attempt the test until he passed it. It would be interesting to see what else would occur and what knowledge he could learn, but that was a minor objective in the prince's opinion. Passing the Summoning was Caiellis's first priority.

He held back the tears when he thought about how far he was from the place of his birth - apart from his fondness for a few places, it wasn't his darkened nation that he missed, just the feeling that the dream which he had lived for through the civil war was almost completely out of reach. Before he broke down in to sobbing that would be unbefitting of a possible heir to the Lucerna throne, he composed himself, glaring sternly into his own eyes until all unwanted moisture disappeared and a few barriers were erected - he didn't have to be utterly emotionless, just not give away any of the pathetic sadness and homesickness that was eating away at him from the inside.

Once a few minutes had passed, he re-emerged into the main room, and Kaled who was relaxing on his comfortable bed couldn't help but smile at how adorable the young prince looked in his somewhat fluffy nightwear.

"Aww, have you got a teddy bear as well?" he joked, and Caiellis went and sat on the bed next to him.

"Actually, I was hoping that you could fill in that role," the younger boy admitted, shuffling closer to Kaled and looking up at him with pleading puppy-dog eyes that had barely ever failed to get him what he wanted from his brother or Uncles. Kaled's own brown orbs widened almost comically, surprise curling his expression as his mouth dropped open.

"I-I didn't know you felt that way," Kaled stammered, going bright red and turning away. He certainly hadn't considered that. Cai burst into laughter and Kaled indignantly shoved him away, knocking him off the bed and onto the floor.

"Don't _do _that!" he chastised, feeling embarrassed and quite stupid at being so easily tricked by the younger boy (though those eyes that he had employed were certainly very convincing and had seemed genuine) although he hadn't expected the so far serious and somewhat angst-ridden Lucaelian to make jokes or have much of a sense of humour.

Caiellis hung his head in mock shame, and got back onto his own bed, pulling the soft covers over him and apologising, "I'm sorry. It was a pitiful excuse for a joke."

"Well it caught me off guard." Kaled replied in a combination of a laugh and an annoyed grumble, and then noticing the other boy snuggled underneath the quilt of his bed, asked: "What time is it anyway?"

"10:13," Cai replied smoothly, looking at his elegant watch that was on the desk next to him. He tiredly rubbed his eyes as he turned back to the Welkalite, glad that their earlier interactions hadn't set the precedent for the rest of their communication.

"That's way too early to be going to sleep. Although, I suppose that babies have to go to bed earlier than the rest of us," Kaled teased, and Caiellis sat up and snapped back: "Watch your tongue before I cut it off. Besides, I have a feeling it will be a long day tomorrow, especially since the whole-academy assembly is at eight, and breakfast will have to be eaten before that. I want to get as much sleep as possible so that I am well rested - I'd advise that you would do the same but, um, ultimately it is your choice." The boy's voice started off playfully angry, before becoming informative and quickly dissolving into a sort of anxious mumble that had him rapidly ending the sentence, his shyness getting the better of him.

"Whatever," Kaled grumbled, seeming not to have noticed, pulling off his t-shirt and dumping it next to his bed, revealing a somewhat wiry but otherwise muscular and tanned upper body that the Lucaelian couldn't help but noticed was blemished by black bruising before averting his eyes. Caiellis turned away, muttering: "Can't you get undressed in the bathroom like a normal person?"

"I'm not a normal person, and why? Does it make you uncomfortable? Are you jealous?" the older male chuckled, flexing in a way that was completely missed by the thirteen year old before sliding into his own bed, removing his trousers once underneath and tossing them aside to land in a crumpled pile beside his t- shirt.

"None of us at the Scholaria Magnus are normal. And no, I have to live with Alex, so I've seen worse," Cai countered, speaking from experience at his older brother's penchant to having no self-restraint about slinging off his chest garments whenever they had been staying at whatever "home" had constituted as despite Caiellis's protests.

"You two seem very close," Kaled turned in his bed, glancing over at the younger male who was gazing intently at the ceiling. The mana-powered illumination of the room was still active, as Kaled didn't feel much like going to sleep right at this moment and didn't mind talking to his first possible friend at the academy.

"And why shouldn't we be?" the Lucaelian demanded somewhat sharply, shifting his head on the pillow so that he could level emerald eyes at his roommate. He hadn't missed at all that Kaled, who he barely knew anything about, seemed quite interested in him and his older brother, but perhaps he was overthinking it and all the Welkalite was trying to do was stimulate conversation.

"I don't know," Kaled mumbled abashedly, "I guess I just thought you wouldn't have forged a "brotherly bond" being royalty and all."

"We've only lived in relative luxury for a month, because of the-" Caiellis silenced himself immediately, cursing in his mind. News of the civil war in Lucael had been carefully restricted, and here he was going to share it with a complete stranger. Any possibility that the outside world and the other nations would hear of the weakness that had afflicted the Kingdom of Light had been swiftly curtailed so that none could take advantage of the inner turmoil of Lucael that had left it essentially defenseless against any full scale attack from another civilisation, and while the kingdom had recovered in leaps and bounds from the civil war instigated by Cai's traitorous uncle it was still weaker than the shining dominant power it had been around the time of Caiellis's birth and early life. Kaled didn't need to know, and it was a testament to how little he had spent interacting with those from other nations as to how he was failing to be controlled in the discussion about the internecine conflict that had ravaged the Kingdom of Light.

"Because of what?" the senior roommate inquired curiously, wondering if perhaps there was more to the life of this young prince than he had initially envisioned - as, disregarding the boy's earlier angst that could be attributed to only just breaching his adolescence, Cai hadn't acted particularly spoiled or haughty (especially not when compared to the Welkalite aristocracy) and neither had Alexander. Kaled didn't know enough about Lucael or the culture of his two friends to state his thoughts with any evidence supporting them, but thought that perhaps the responsibility of ruling was taken very seriously within Lucael.

"Nothing. I'll tell you some other time. Good night." Cai got up out of his bed and switched the lights off, leaving the boys in darkness, alone with their thoughts.


	7. The Scholaria Magnus

_Please review! Also thank you for reading the story up to this point. The action has been somewhat lacking so far, but I promise that such a state of affairs will soon change!_

* * *

Kaled sat up in the bed, stretching his limbs out and emitting a loud yawn, Caiellis twisting and murmuring: "Just five more minutes..." as the boy's slumbering mind detected the movements but dismissed them as he snuggled back down - part of him thinking that it was Alex moving restlessly in the bed on the other side of the room in preparation for getting up ridiculously early and beginning the rigorous training regime that had defined most of his life until the civil war ended.

The Welkalite hadn't slept well at all, his mind constantly thinking about what the introduction day would bring, how his new life would properly start out, and of course the memory of his ma. Kaled hoped for her sake that she was dead now and had entered the paradise of the sky even if it pained him to do so, but what he couldn't bear was the thought of the compassionate woman being subjected to torture and pain that the boy couldn't even image. He walked over to the other boy's desk and, as he currently didn't possess his own means of timekeeping, checked his watch – 07:04 – plenty of time for them to get ready and go to have breakfast before the assembly introducing the state of affairs in the academy.

He gently shook the Lucaelian, who tiredly mumbled something indecipherable and glared up at him, pulling away from the sudden touch and remembering that for once he was sharing a room with another individual other than Alexander, epitomising his ambivalence towards the Scholaria Magnus.

"Rise and shine, beauty queen. Your kingdom awaits," Kaled grinned at the sleepy youngster, and Cai narrowed his already half slitted eyes.

"One day it may well do. But not right now," he replied seriously, and his roommate chuckled and flung the curtains open, early-morning golden sunlight cascading over the room and illuminating everything in a yellow glow. The island wasn't as hot as Kaled was used to, with medium-range temperatures – the Lucaelians wouldn't find it unbearably hot, whilst the Welkalites and Yentarians that took up residence in the cities close to the border of the New Empire of Passion would be satisfied with the mild heat.

The instant the beams of light washed over him, Caiellis gave an involuntary shriek of pain that he couldn't hope to stifle as a burning stimulus tore through his nerves and set his body alight. He couldn't see anything, the light blinding in its intensity, and as Kaled shot to his side he buried himself under the covers, whimpering slightly. He desperately tried to keep quiet and hide away from the oppressive radiance of the island's dawn, muffling his own pathetic sobbing in the pillows of his bed and in too much pain to care that tears were rolling down his cheeks - but not enough that the self-judging part of his mind insisted that he was a weakling for giving into the sudden and unexpected agony so easily and not fighting it like any other Lucerna - or indeed, Lucaelian - would.

"Cai! What's wrong?" he shouted as the boy huddled further under his sheets, shuddering and scared of exposing himself further. An irritated yell of "Could you please shut up?" echoed throughout the corridor, and Kaled heard the door open; the frightened noise and loud shouting must have attracted someone. He wasn't surprised in the slightest when a tired looking Annia appeared at his side, the girl wearing a silver dressing gown that shone and scintillated in the sunlight.

"What is wrong with him?" Kaled asked desperately, somehow hoping that the Yentarian who seemed familiar with the nationality of his roommate would know what to do, and Annia gave him an exasperated look which all but confirmed that notion. Caiellis could feel the older boy's grip on his shoulder covered by the quilt that he had taken refuge under; he recoiled from it and buried himself further away - the Welkalite's touch, even with a layer of plump fabric between them, sent ripples of pain across what he logically knew wasn't burnt skin but was subsumed by the sensation of it anyway. He was hot, boiling in his own skin, and something was happening to him that he was certain he could have recalled the cause and identity of if spikes of white-hot agony weren't piercing every nerve ending in the front half of his body.

The thirteen year old could hear the distant voices of a boy and a girl, the latter' scathing tones a cause for him to wince in sympathy at the recipient had he not felt like he was being burnt at the stake like the heretics of the past. Despite that, the strictures of control and resolution to wade through the torment that had been imprinted into his mind by both Uncle Tristram's relentless physical training (at least in the times of the civil war) and the battles with agents of shadow that they had fought were beginning to be imposed, and Cai clamped his mouth shut and placed a stifling hand between it and the pillow to further block out the whimpers that he couldn't stop making.

"You really do know nothing about anything, don't you?" she snapped caustically, striding to the curtains and dragging them shut, plunging the shared bedroom into gloom. "Lucael is a kingdom perpetually shrouded in darkness - they barely ever have sunlight, and when they do it is a cause for celebration, as the intervals can go into years. Caiellis might not have ever seen the sun before, and here you are exposing him unexpectedly to it - actually, now that I remember, the Lucaelian sun apparently has special properties that somehow make it different from the light we are accustomed to - which explains the adverse reaction he had to it when you exposed him to sunlight. Caiellis, it's ok now, you can come out," Annia encouraged, slowly peeling off the quilt when it became clear the prince wasn't going to do it himself.

"Sorry," Kaled muttered ashamedly (and slightly petulantly), but how was he supposed to have known that? Neither Alex nor Caiellis himself mentioned it (and no one else had forewarned him about the prince's condition (also, judging by the lack of noise from the rest of the dormitory, it was just Cai that had been affected, suggesting that the others had already experienced the luminescence of the sun before)), so Kaled couldn't really be blamed for it, although Annia seemed set upon doing exactly that.

"It's ok Kaled. How could you have known? I completely forgot about it myself to be honest," Caiellis stated quietly, as if reading his roommate's mind, emerging from his cocoon and rubbing his eyes sleepily - or at least, that was what it seemed, whereas in reality he was erasing all evidence of the shameful tears he had shed before he appeared even weaker and dishonoured the Lucerna bloodline to an even greater extent in front of the representatives of two separate civilisations. He was glad that the room was still shaded, otherwise Kaled and Annia would have been able to plainly see how beet red his face had become in his abject embarrassment, and, downplaying his pain, continued: "I just felt a burning sensation and couldn't see anything. You can open the curtains again now. And thanks, Annia."

The Yentarian flushed and turned away before either of the boys would notice, as Kaled pulled the drapes apart and sunlight once again cast its glow upon the room. Caiellis didn't react this time apart from a sharp intake of breath as he adjusted to the feeling of being illuminated by something other than a magical source or flickering flames. Annia swiflty said her goodbyes and stepped out of the room, bumping into another student, a larger boy that was also Lucaelian who glared down at her.

"What was that racket?" he demanded, and Annia sighed, hoping that she wouldn't have to explain it to more people and exacerbate Caiellis's discomfiture.

"Caiellis was just ... adapting to the light," she told him, and the boy widened his eyes in surprise.

"Prince Caiellis is here?" the taller student asked, his amazement at being so close to royalty visibly eclipsing his almost instinctive need to censure Annia for her disrespect - or at least that was how it appeared to the Yentarian, who hadn't failed to notice how the boy's eyes had lit up in automatic annoyance at her using the prince's forename without his proper title.

"Yes, in the room I exited only moments earlier (_before I was blocked by you_)," Annia replied somewhat haughtily, irritated at the Lucaelian's originally unnecessarily caustic tone. Pre-empting the teenager's next question, she explained with a vaguely superior note: "The instructions on how to use the data-sheet are located on the back."

He barged impatiently past her and she rolled her eyes, returning to her own room where Freya had finished getting ready. The mysterious Erian had been picked for the enrolment to the Scholaria Magnus by the shamans of her nation, and had lived in the deep forest before coming here. Beyond that, Annia hadn't been able to glean anything else about the reserved girl, apart from the fact that she obviously had a strong connection to natural Green mana.

Kaled was about to go into the bathroom for a shower when he heard the door open for the second time, and a pale Lucaelian boy who was about his size (though perhaps a little stouter, indicating that he had not been in want of food as much as the Welkalite) and seemingly unaffected by the sunlight strode in. The instant he caught sight of the prince propped up in his bed, he fell to his knees in a gesture of supplication. Caiellis hid the scowl that had formed on his young features as the boy's eyes met his, and awkwardly got out of his bed, uneasy with not affording even the slightest of respect to someone kneeling in front of him. Kaled hung in the doorway of the bathroom, eager to see the exchange between heir and subject.

"My prince. I hadn't expected to have a room so close to yours – opposite in fact," the older student said proudly, his eyes not lowered deferentially to the floor as Caiellis hadn't indicated that he wished for that - as indeed he did not.

Cai shut his eyes, scouring through the depths of his memory. He recognized the fifteen year old from somewhere, maybe from his journey throughout Lucael in the years of the civil war. He and his brother had needed to keep moving to prevent Johnias's demons from pinpointing their location, as the king's brother knew Marik's main weakness well – his young family.

The death of the king's wife taught him that much, and he knew that his twin brother wouldn't be able to mount a defence should his children be slaughtered as well. Emili's assassination combined with numerous instances of shrouded agents and demons to capture or kill the princes even when they though they were secure had made certain that mundane defences could not hope to protect them, and as the two boys were primary targets within the brutal conflict they had constantly been forced to travel between the cities using the "safe" passageways throughout the darkness, never remaining in one location for longer than a month - a fact that both youngsters but especially the junior brother (as he had only ever had fleeting memories of stability and normality) despised. Caiellis smiled as he located the somewhat blurry memory, and reopened his green eyes.

"Mysos, son of Xathan, Slayer of the Wicked and Guardian of Cassida Principia," the prince grinned slightly, remembering staying at the City of Swords and meeting the Guardian's young son (in-between his and Alexander's age) before Johnias's general, Garod Morr, Guardian of the former City of Commerce, laid siege to the metropolis with an army borne of treachery and unholy magic. It had been a brief respite from wandering the darkness, as the monorail transport systems that were so useful now had only just started construction a few months before the onset of betrayal. Cai vaguely recalled Alexander beating up Mysos after he pushed the eldest prince's little brother into a table, but Mysos had obviously matured in the seven years afterwards and he doubted that the senior Lucaelian would be able to remember it.

Stunned at the prince's remembrance of his name, Mysos blinked twice and Caiellis pressed on with something that he had been considering since the onset of his journey, "Well then Mysos, everyone starts equal at the Scholaria Magnus, so please don't kneel to me. Or call me anything but Caiellis or Cai for that matter."

Mysos got to his feet, a wide grin plastering itself on his face as he stared down at the youngest Lucerna (yet still managed to make it appear extremely respectful), amazed that the prince remembered him despite being only six years old at the time of their meeting, and Kaled chose that moment to ask the question that had been burning in his mind: "So you're Lucaelian as well, but not affected by the sunlight?"

The son of Xathan (who seemed to have quite an ostentatious title in Kaled's mind) regarded him haughtily, as if he hadn't even noticed that the Welkalite was in the room due to him being so focussed on the young prince, and Kaled smiled sarcastically back at him.

"All Lucaelians have a moment in their lives when they are exposed to the sunlight for the first time, reacting in a somewhat scared way that is only amplified if one encounters the sunlight of the outside first. However, mine, and every other student from the Kingdom of Light's first time was a year before the young prince was born," Mysos explained, his tone partially condescending in a way that made Caiellis wince at the impression he must have been having on his Welkalite roommate.

"Why don't you just move out of the darkness, and into a normal location with plenty of sunlight?" Kaled suggested, and Mysos looked at him like he had just taken a fecal dump on his favourite possession. Cai kept his gaze flicking between the two, unsure about whether to intervene and answer Kaled's question in a less virulent manner than the other Lucaelian would be sure to, but deciding to remain silent for now and just let the conversation play out.

"Don't be ridiculous. The light here, and anywhere else in the world, is _nothing_ compared to the light the angels bless us with, no matter how brief it may shine upon our kingdom," Mysos described as if the point he was making was as simple to grasp as why fire burned things. The boy turned away from Kaled, the derisive curl of his lips twisting into respectful reverence that the youngest occupant of the room was certain that he didn't deserve, and his voice was respectful and deeply deferential (although slightly fearful - _probably a combination of him being wary of my Summoning and birthmark and his concern for ensuring that he doesn't act in any way that I, an "exalted" Lucerna, might perceive as rude_) "Well, Caiellis, would you wish to join me and the others of the Kingdom of Light for morning prayers?."

"Thank you for the offer, but I will pass. I prefer to say my prayers alone," the youngest boy replied solemnly, and Mysos departed with a nod of acquiescence, not even acknowledging the Welkalite as Kaled swore with his fingers at the student's back, muttering discontentedly to himself, "What the hell was his problem?"

He had no idea about what Mysos had just said, and he turned to Caiellis, who looked like he was in deep thought. Although a part of him wished for clarification on the strange nature of Lucael that seemed to be simply accepted by anyone else who knew of it from his young roommate, the last thing that the thirteen year old had mentioned lingered in his mind.

"Do you want me to leave if you're going to pray?" he asked, and the boy grinned back at him, though it did not dispel the contemplative tinge to his green eyes.

"Don't you dare mention it to anyone apart from Alexander, who already knows, but I don't pray. I don't worship the angels as messiahs, and I don't feel the need to pray to a man who is my distant ancestor," Cai confessed, resisting the urge to direct a furtive glance over his shoulder to ensure that no one else was in earshot.

"I won't. That must be hard for you," Kaled offered, and the Lucaelian glanced strangely at him. The older of the two boys couldn't really empathise with his roommate at all, as while superstitious traditions were very present in Welkas and the citizens of the Empire believed in an amalgamation of different gods and goddesses, after the dissolution of the Old Empire most if not all of the traditional worship of the pantheon (of which every Emperor was said to be the divine incarnation of, a huge factor in the New Empire of Passion throwing off the yoke of oppression and false gods) and the honouring of specific deities had faded into obscurity (as had any of their remote temples), even though some of the names prevailed within expressions.

Besides, without the dominating influence of the structure of the tyrants of the past's sovereignty it was unlikely that the Welkalite people who were notorious for their fickle and spontaneous nature would continue to pay dividends to any religious organisation that would try to shackle them in their pursuit of passion.

"Not really. I am pretty much treated like some sort of messenger from the angels and the Goddess anyway," he responded enigmatically, and Kaled shrugged his shoulders and went to get ready for his shower.

.*.*.*.

There were approximately one hundred students located in the medium sized hall, but knowing the Yentarians and their love for precise mathematics and knowledge Caiellis guessed that there would be one hundred and twenty pupils in total – thirty from each nation, and forty in each of the three years. Kaled, Annia and the Erian girl who had shyly introduced herself as Freya stood next to him, the former two excitedly chattering about the welcoming speech to come whilst the latter stayed silent, much like himself. Caiellis saw his older brother at the far east of the room, who noticed his little brother absently staring at him and pointed out his position to a couple of other teenagers. Cai waved nervously back at the older students, and Alexander laughed at him, before grinning and turning back into his conversation.

The boy's attention started to drift as Kaled and Annia began childishly bickering about something, and observed the wide hall. There was a raised area at the far end, probably where the person(s) addressing them would situate themselves, with the flags of each nation hung behind and the personal crest of the Scholaria Magnus in the centre, its motto embroidered in golden thread that glistened in the illumination from mana-powered lights hanging down from the ceiling.

He focussed his gaze on a doorway at the far side of the elevated stage that creaked open, revealing a middle-aged man wearing grey/blue robes who slowly paced towards the middle of the platform dais, halting when he reached a plinth of glossy deep brown wood. The man had medium-length, greying hair and a large beard of the same colour – if Caiellis could choose one word to describe him from this initial impression, it would definitely be wise. He reminded the youngest prince slightly of Uncle Tybalt, but whilst the Hierarch was more dignified and strict (at least externally, as Cai had definitely seen his softer and more affectionate side directed against both himself and his older brother) this man seemed more understanding and affable.

The chatter in the hall slowly died down as more and more students realised that one of the teachers was among them, and when he reached the middle of the stage and gave a quiet cough that somehow projected across the whole room, despite the fact that the youngest Lucerna detected no magic currently emanating from the man. When the last pupil awkwardly ceased talking, the man nodded as if satisfied and looked down at his audience of adolescents ranging from all across Magnus-Primae.

"Students of the Scholaria Magnus, as the headmaster of the school, I bid you welcome. I am Mr Colae, headmaster of the Scholaria Magnus, but please feel free to call me Hadan," the headmaster announced, his voice captivating and genial. He was clearly a very good public speaker, Caiellis's mind for a moment going back to the humiliating incident in Capitalia Lux that his brother had been forced to rescue him from, his cheeks almost reddening with embarrassment in spite of the reality that it was unlikely anyone but Alexander in the room was aware of it.

Headmaster Colae smiled, a warm expression that seemed utterly genuine, before continuing, "It is truly a wonderful sight that my eyes are laid upon - youngsters from all different civilisations and cultures brought up in many differing ways all brought together in the pursuit of learning and peace. It is my hope that you - the future of the world - will be able to use this time to meet other young adults that you would have never dreamed of talking to before, make friends with those whose homes are located thousands of miles away from your own, and advanced your knowledge of the nations of Magnus-Primae. The Scholaria Magnus is a truly great opportunity, and I have faith that you will make the most of it, my students."

The way his gentle voice pierced the silent air of the assembly hall was captivating, his friendly and knowing eyes drifting between the individual girls and boys within his quiet audience and his amiable gaze meeting that of each and every adolescent located in the room. It seemed like he was holding a separate conversation with each distinct student that had a simultaneously different but identical effect upon each one - Cai had experienced the same from the more charismatic generals and (especially) high ranking members of the holy church in the past, the enrapturing sensation that one was unique and that one was being spoken to by the orator individually, that the words were meant for them alone.

Just because he knew what it was, was familiar with the verbal technique due to it being taught to him and Alexander within their speaking lessons (which were mainly the focus of Hierarch Tybalt, although Tristram often intervened to add his own opinions on the matters at hand), didn't mean that it failed to have an impact on him, and Caiellis would be lying if he said that he did not feel a small fire of inspiration kindling within his chest - even if that fire was quickly smothered with the suffocating weight of his expectation as a Lucerna prince. It stung knowing that _Alex _was able to address the people of Lucael in this manner, that _Alex _was so much more confident and had the ability to be so much more genial towards the inhabitants of Lucael than he himself could ever be, though he didn't hold it against his older brother and only blamed himself for the problem.

Hadan's grey blue eyes locked with his own emerald-centred spheres, the corner's of the man's lips twisted into a cordial smile as they stared at one another. Although rationally Cai was aware that the headmaster spent no more time gazing at him than he did with any of the other students of the hall, it felt to the prince as if the man's portals lingered on himself for much longer than anyone else - as was the intended effect. It was supposed to make him feel special, wanted, even, but Caiellis knew (or was convinced) that he was only unique as a role, a position and title, not as a person.

He kept his eyes, which had always been the doorways into his emotion even when attempting to make them blank and apathetic, bereft of any of his inner turmoil. And then the gaze was gone, grey orbs shifted to meet with the eyes of another new academy student, and Caiellis had to force himself to keep his sigh of both relief and sadness inaudible.

"Many of you I'm sure will be wondering what sort of lessons will take place at the academy, thus I shall now introduce the teachers that will cater to the multifarious general subjects present before specialization is a possibility,"just as he was finishing his sentence, a selection of other adults walked up onto the stage, and Mr Colae beckoned them forwards with a calloused hand.

A hard-faced, stern Lucaelian woman that the youngest Lucerna didn't recognise and a large and gruff-looking man with the tanned skin most reminiscent of the Welkalites Cai had seen so far stepped forwards first, standing straight and surveying the students in front of them as if they were a bunch on new recruits on the first day of a brutal military training regime.

"This is Miss Gloria and Sergeant Tarkos, the both covering combat training – the former catering to fighting exclusively without one's Summoning, while the latter includes the powerful denizens of Sancturia you are all gifted with. Although we at the Scholaria Magnus advocate for peace in all of its forms, we are not so short-sighted as to not realise that threats to the stability the academy hopes to create can originate from anywhere - and that to combat this brave fighters and magi who know how to control their powers and use them for good are needed," Hadan declared, as another two mentors replaced the military teachers, who filed back into the line.

"Doctor Argyle, Shaman Trostani and myself will teach you about both wielding magic and what we have been able to glean about essence of Sancturia itself, with the first also educating in mathematics and the second and myself on the effects of overlaps between our own world and the mystical plane." A Yentarian male swathed in heavy robes glanced down impassively and analytically at the pupils like they were test subjects, his piercing mottled green eyes roving over the ranks of adolescents, and Cai shuddered slightly when he saw the glint of metal from underneath each of the man's large sleeves.

He had heard of the League of Uveria, those that believed in the purity of the machine and replaced "weak" biological limbs with artificial replicas, but had never actually encountered one before. The boy wasn't sure whether to be disgusted or intrigued in regards to the man's bodily modifications. The Shaman was a dishevelled Erian that had a mysterious air about her, and the Lucaelian knew of their strong link with the land itself - although in reality that was all that he did know of the reclusive residents of the Deep Forest. The headmaster himself didn't directly show any allegiance to any nation, but Caiellis would guess he was Yentarian also, probably from the League of Isak.

"Finally, Mr Fram will teach you about culture," an unassuming man bowed slightly at the words, his spectacles wobbling on his long nose. It was somewhat refreshing to see a relatively normal looking teacher among the wildly varying members of the academy staff, but in spite of his innocuous appearance the prince could perceive a magical aura around him that matched that of the other educational professionals in its potency.

"These are the mentors that will aid you in achieving your full potential at the Scholaria Magnus, and each grade will have a revolving timetable, spending time with every teacher on almost every day. However, the year system based on age is a purely temporary methodology of organising you in the first few weeks, where we will be individually and group testing you so that we can analyse your aptitude for different subjects. After that, the individual classes will be based upon assessed skill alone, which may mean that every class is yours is different when we have sufficient data to factor in your skill level for each unique lesson," Mr Colae proclaimed, and Caiellis nodded – age was no indication of strength as far as he was concerned, and if the strictures imposed upon age had been upheld as utterly unbreakable then he wouldn't be here.

That fact was tarnished by the reality that the youngest Lucerna had been exempted from the equal treatment not because of any merit belonging to him, but because he was the son of a king who had clearly pushed for his entry to get the boy out of his mind. He just hoped that he would be able to avoid any form of bullying or discrimination because of his status as the youngest - and smallest, he had embarrassingly noticed - member of the Scholaria Magnus.

"The assembly is now concluded – first year will be taken by Miss Gloria and Sergeant Tarkos, second year will join myself and Mr Fram, and finally third year shall have its beginning lesson taught by Doctor Argyle and Shaman Trostani. You will receive your timetables in attendance of these lessons. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to bring them to my attention. I will be observing some of the lessons, but otherwise I will most likely be situated within my office in the main building," the man finished, smiling once more as he stepped backwards in conjunction with the teachers moving towards the pupils.

The students dispersed, walking towards their respective teachers, and Kaled clapped Cai on the back of his shoulders. He glared at the older boy for a moment, his irritation dissipating slightly when he looked upon how excited his roommate appeared.

"How cool is that? We get to see the combat teachers first!" he grinned, evidently happy about the arrangement of the first lessons, while Annia sighed despairingly. "Urrgh, why couldn't we have done magic class instead?" she moaned, and Kaled shook his head in bemusement. Caiellis himself wasn't too concerned about the schedule of lessons – all he cared about was when he would be able to attempt the Summoning trial again. The academy was a nice distraction, but at the moment that was all it meant to the thirteen year old, and he wouldn't let it get in the way of his duty.

.*.*.*.

The training room was connected to a large armoury filled with all sorts of weaponry, and was comprised of several spacious fighting cages, the metal enchanted with a strange, shimmering glow that Caiellis assumed would prevent damage. The forty students of the first year, the youngest of the academy, sat on the floor in a central location adjacent to the individual rinks while Miss Gloria introduced them to the area, explaining that there were also arenas farther out that could be used in testing students against captured Unbound creatures of various strengths and mana alignments, as the Scholaria was located on a uniquely placed island where all five colours of magic were present in equal force.

As his fellow trainer briefed the pupils, Tarkos observed each one of them intently, as if assessing their combat aptitude merely from physicality alone. When his gaze brushed over Caiellis, the young prince couldn't help but stare back into the man's judging and harsh eyes, the sergeant glaring at him with more intensity than he had done with the others at the show of defiance (even though the boy was still paying attention to the other professional in the room).

The boy sensed a great amount of resentment directed specifically towards him – however, judging by the Welkalite's age, he would probably have fought in the rebellion against their corrupt tyrants as a teenager, so his hatred of royalty would most likely stem from there. It didn't help that Cai was the only one who was armed – he had taken the Sword of Glass with him in case weaponry training would be taking place, doubting that he would be able to use his father's gift. But no other weapon that he had ever wielded reacted as with him as the crystalline relic blade had, and the fact that it was mostly weightless was a great benefit to the small youngster.

He lowered his vision, reluctant to meet the piercing eyes any longer because he didn't want to be the cause of any trouble nor land himself in it, fidgeting nervously in a parallel of Kaled's restless movements next to him. The Welkalite was clearly anticipating the fighting that was sure to come, that was for certain. Cai hoped beyond hope that it wouldn't be any form of weaponless sparring, as he had endured enough negative experiences in being forced to train in hand to hand combat against Alex, and had built up a burning hatred of it because of his older brother's ability to completely put his meagre ability and strength to shame even when the seventeen year old reduced the force of most of his strikes and went easy on his little sibling.

"Before we start, I would like everyone who hasn't Summoned yet to come forward for a few seconds – just so we can calculate the amount of Summoning Bays we will need in your next lesson," Gloria ordered, and Caiellis stood up ashamedly along with a few other teenagers, mostly Welkalites for some reason (and no other Lucaelians), shuffling glumly towards the teacher.

He felt surprised eyes at his back, and bowed his head in shame, knowing that he deserved the humiliation for not passing the test. His cheeks burned as he approached the teacher; although it would be known that the dreaded Angel of the Black Sun had not yet been unlocked by her incompetent Summoner, it was still disgraceful for a Lucerna prince to have such little success in their endeavour to Summon their First Sisterhood angel. Gloria took their names on a sheet of paper, her eyes flashing with recognition and veneration at the prince but otherwise making no comment.

The youngest Lucerna returned to his place next to Kaled and Annia, refusing to meet the eyes of either of the two and adopting the blank mask that he had perfected in the recent month, apathy warring with sadness and a grim determination to succeed. He could see out of the peripherals of his sight that Sergeant Tarkos was relatively amused at Caiellis's predicament, but refused to let it externally perturb him.

"Right then. We shall begin with simple and unrestricted duels – just so we can obtain a measure of your relative skill and strength in this area. Magic and Summonings are permitted, although those without should fight each other," Gloria pronounced, and Caiellis was about to object, wanting to quietly assert that he was perfectly capable of training against those with Summonings (though he would undoubtedly be at a disadvantage) when the sergeant cut in: "Hold your tongue, boy."

He couldn't resist glowering at the man, who returned it with a sarcastic and condescending smile. Caiellis turned away once more, refusing to rise to the bait or incite anything that would detriment him in the future. He knew that it was not condoned for a Lucerna prince to act in such a petty way, and only hoped that the more rigorously devoted of the other Lucaelians would not take offence for him or act out because of any perceived insults. At any rate, non currently seemed concerned by the fact that Cai was here, which was how the thirteen year old would prefer to maintain things.

Each teacher began announcing names as to who would fight, the students called up taking their places next to specific cages. Tarkos grinned when he realised that all the other pupils without Summonings had already been called, leaving Caiellis as the only one with three other students.

"Meri and Joeseph, you two duel," he commanded, and the named - respectively a small Yentarian youth and a slender Lucaelian boy that, if the youngest Lucerna remembered correctly, hailed from Capitalia Lux like himself - excitedly ran off to their assigned arena. "Now then, that leaves Kaled and Caiellis. Sorry Kaled, but you will have to fight someone without a Summoning. Try to go easy on him." Tarkos smiled, as if revelling in demeaning the prince.

"How is that fair? He doesn't have a Summoning! I might hurt him!" Kaled protested emphatically, and Cai snarled, flicking his eyes to the tall Sergeant as they walked to their assigned battle station, "Shut up. Sir, may I used the Sword of Glass?"

"Why not? Not like it will help you much," the man replied. Cai raised an eyebrow for a moment, sourly wondering whether it was customary of Tarkos to automatically underestimate enchanted armaments or if he was just doing it in an attempt to belittle the thirteen year old's capabilities with or without the weapon.

They took up positions on the opposite sides of the cage, Kaled rolling his shoulders and stretching whilst his opponent practised swinging his sword, both removing the tension from their muscles in different ways, the sergeant's eyes watching him intently. Caiellis considered, for a moment, as to why the teacher thought it was necessary to solely observe them, but resolved to refuse to let it distract him from his combatant.

The boy allowed his mana to flow into his weapon, the comforting incandescence of his White mana illuminating the crystal blade in a luminous glow with a hint of shadowy edges that belied the dark power which rested inside of him. He had never willingly drawn upon Black mana before - he didn't particularly know how - always restricting his magic to that of the light. But sometimes, even when casting spells that he was intimately familiar with, he felt the lure of something more sinister dangling at the edges of his consciousness. And it scared him, that possibility for evil, the fact that he could wield power that had brought the Kingdom of Light to its knees if he just let himself.

"Kaled, begin your Summoning," the Sergeant instructed, and Kaled felt a rush of fiery heat course through his veins and blasting out of him as he manipulated the heat within his chest, coalescing to form the feline shape of Regata. The fire-cat snarled, molten spittle dripping to the floor, and he gave it a little tickle behind the ears, the owner impervious to the flames pulsing off the elemental.

"Who is our opponent? A child?" it snarled in incredulity, flecks of magma hissing as they touched the mat of the cage, the magic nullified immediately as it touched the shield surrounding the living metal.

"Yeah, but it is only a practise session. No ripping him apart," Kaled warned, Regata shaking his head disappointedly. Caiellis stood impassively, watching the exchange intently (and also with a pang of envy that he quickly subdued) and gauging the strength of his foes. He pushed irrelevant thoughts out of his mind, focussing fully on the combat as Tristram had taught him – there was no room for remorse when fighting traitors, and though Kaled was hardly that, the same principles applied.

His mind was liable to wander and be wrapped up in tangential contemplation, but instead of completely crushing any and all thought, his Uncles had helped him in honing that ability to think and strategise and devise solutions to the problems caused by his opponent's manoeuvres into a battlefield context. Sometimes his thoughts betrayed him, and too often he had been knocked off his feet by a blow from his brother that he should have dodged, but right now he was concentration clarified into a single body.

"Are you ready?" Tarkos asked, and both boys nodded, Kaled's face lit up enthusiastically while the prince's was blank and fixed on his opposite.

"Then go!" the Sergeant shouted, and Caiellis blurred forwards, instantly hacking apart Regata in a blinding explosion of fire and light. He reversed his grip on the Sword of Glass and pointed the tip directly at Kaled's throat, who was still reeling from the sudden elimination of the elemental creature. All this had taken place in less than a single second. He gasped, looking down at the younger boy with a form of awe at his speed, as such was supposed to be Kaled's strongest point and yet the prince had defeated him in the time it took for him to blink. Perhaps the royalty of Lucael deserved the admiration shown to them by their subjects after all...

"You need to concentrate more on the battle, rather than if you will hurt me or not," Cai chastised, his voice harsh and brilliant luminescence surrounding his fragile body. His weapon was also suffused with such a glow, the edges tinted in a barely perceptible darkness, and Kaled gulped at how fast he had been defeated. What his friend had said was true – he was thinking about the fact that he had a Summoning created an imbalance in power and not paying full attention to the duel, but he hadn't expected to be punished for it so swiftly.

The younger adolescent had clearly taken full advantage of his momentary weakness, and Kaled resolved not to let it occur again, to both better prove himself and to give his roommate more of a challenge. He should not have been defeated so easily, even if he was distracted and hesitant to harm Caiellis. He pulled away from the boy's sword, the shining blade gently lowered in response, and nodded towards the other boy, tanned brow furrowed in consternation.

"I think that's enough of your "relic blade"," Tarkos scowled, annoyed that the insolent thirteen year old had bested Kaled so fast even without a Summoning whereas the older boy had been primed and ready with one. He had wanted to teach the boy about respect, but might have only succeeded in heightening his ego further. It was the reality that Caiellis was so innocent, so seemingly perfect on the exterior that really pissed him off the most - that he couldn't noticeably find obvious faults with him apart from his lack of physical size. The fact that he was the only person that was an exception to the age range just because he was the son of a king didn't help either, and would serve to instill the prince with a sense of superiority over his peers.

He yanked the weapon off the boy, the sword instantaneously deactivating the instant it left Cai's grip. The man swung the sword a few times, testing its balance in his own hands, before placing the enchanted blade so that it leaned against the outside wall of the cage, ordering: "Have a rematch now it is more even."

Had he been annoyed at the sergeant's clear discrimination towards him, Kaled's opponent didn't show it, silently pacing back to his side and taking up a ready position, the concentration never leaving his green eyes. Grunting with the effort of conjuring his Red mana, Kaled re-summoned Regata, easy enough to do with such a low-mana creature but slightly harder due to feeling no particular anger or passion directed against his opponent. He was resentful of the other Welkalite clearly displaying his distaste for royalty and using that as an excuse to make his new friend's life harder, so used that to empower his magic - as whilst there was a veritable wellspring of rage locked up within his young form at the injustice done to his mother - or indeed, any of the residents of the horrible Usnaan slums - he didn't want to focus that fury on someone who had done nothing to cause it.

"I underestimated you, little boy," the fire-cat hissed, directing the comment at Caiellis, "Not this time. This time, my jaws will feast on your young flesh. Metaphorically speaking, of course," he added as he sensed his Summoner's irritation. Kaled noticed the sergeant walking away, the Sword of Glass (as Cai had called it) gone from his calloused hands, glad that the man was going to observe other students instead of focusing solely on them and distracting both of the adolescents.

Caiellis knew that there was no way he was going to get close to Kaled or his flame-beast without a weapon, mentally preparing himself for using offensive spells, silently wishing that he had access to his own Summoning. He would not have the element of surprise on his side this time, he could see Kaled was significantly more aware and wary now that he knew how powerful his young opponent was even bereft of a creature from the other world at his service. Kaled was older, easily stronger than him and most likely faster now that he was concentrated (Caiellis knew first hand how much speed Red mana could confer onto a wielder, and if the senior boy had even a fraction of the alacrity which his sibling was blessed with by Aurelia then he had to be prepared) on the fight.

The Welkalite still had a grin on his face – what could be so enjoyable about violence? Caiellis had often pondered the question, but it seemed like a lot of men and teenagers, including his older brother, liked to fight with each other. He could partially empathise in it being a boisterous release of tension, as he had often play fought with his sibling in the past, and he couldn't pretend that he hadn't initiated the mock battles himself. It was the derivement of satisfaction and merriment from the more serious sparring that perturbed him. Alexander had often wanted to wrestle with his younger brother outside of the bounds of their mandatory training against one another, which Cai couldn't understand: Alex already knew that he was going to emerge triumphant, so why bother?

_Focus on the fight! _He admonished himself harshly, ashamed that he had disregarded his own advice so quickly. He glared at the taller boy, before coldly removing the emotion from his gaze, unwilling to let himself become annoyed at the state of events.

"You ready?" Kaled inquired, and Caiellis nodded. The fire-cat would attack first, so he already had binding spells expertly taught by Uncle Tybalt in mind to nullify the first strike. Kaled would probably go in afterwards, possibly utilising Red mana to enhance his strikes in a similar way to his older brother, so physical defences would be the key - he didn't quite think that the Welkalite would be one for bombarding him with an inferno of unnatural fire from a distance, but it wouldn't hurt to expend some of his mana in creating enchantments of magical protection. Then he would switch to the offensive, powerful light magic hopefully proving enough to win once he had weathered the initial assault.

Just as he predicted, Regata leapt forwards, the elemental roaring like an angry volcano itching to drown all interlopers in its molten rage, and the prince uttered the words of power to halt it...

.*.*.*.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Kaled teased Annia as the loose group of all four of the pupils from adjacent rooms walked to their next lesson through the corridors of this section of the academy, Caiellis and the addressed periodically checking their navigation maps to ensure that they were heading in the right direction. It was mostly a needless endeavour, as everyone in the grade was moving towards the same location, but it would be easy enough to confuse students from different years and end up following them to the incorrect area - which could in itself be passed off as an easy mistake, though neither the Yentarian nor the Lucaelian would prefer to appear incapable of reading a map.

The girl scowled at the Welkalite, smoothing back her hair for the umpteenth time as she glanced at her map again. Before he and Kaled had been selected to exhibit their powers against one another, Caiellis had noticed Annia taking her stance against a Lucaelian girl called Charlotte (if he recalled it correctly, as the two had not spoken) with an analytical glint in her eye. Cai's attention had been too taken up by his own combat and Sergeant Tarkos's actions to see who had claimed the upper hand.

"I suppose," she replied, unenthusiastically, though her tone was drastically more excited than it had been before the first lesson now that they would be participating in something more academic. The Erian Freya walked alongside them, trailing behind Kaled and Annia whilst stood next to the youngest Lucerna (who had initially been at the front of the group but had let the Yentarian overtake him), staying silent and reclusive as seemed customary of her. Cai had a slight urge to start a conversation with her, but had no clue as to what would be a suitable phrase to initiate with, so stayed silent and let their mutual shyness be the only thing that passed between them.

As a contrast it seemed that Kaled and Annia were having no trouble chattering to one another about the events of the day, even if the latter was far more concerned in trying to breach the topic of explaining the multiple wondrous facets of the Republic's technology. Kaled flicked the occasional glance back to him, grinning slightly conspiratorially as if the two boys were sharing a private joke that Caiellis wasn't privy to, though he could hazard a guess as to what he was thinking.

Caiellis ached, not as much as he had done after Tristram's brutal training exercises that were designed to emulate the merciless pace of battle, but he was still tired and his body had picked up numerous bruises from when Kaled's flame-wreathed fists had crashed into him. His luminescent shields had nullified the flames and reduced the impacts of the punches that did hit, but they still hurt, especially the ones that had touched the more recent cuts on his abdomen. Cai would have preferred to have dodged them, but in a choice between the flaming elemental's jaws or his roommate's attacks that most likely weren't at full power the selection was a simple one.

Trotting behind the two older students, the youngest Lucerna let himself lapse into contemplation, but instead of his casual musing that had been a constant companion throughout his life where he could let his thoughts drift but still pay close attention to them he felt his mind being pulled back into the issue of the Summoning that he had failed to do, a dark, festering mass of melancholy and expectation that made the evidence of stress on his chest sting empathetically and would have - _had already _\- consumed him had he not been forced into this new environment and pushed away from all that he had ever known.

Caiellis didn't understand quite how he had been incapable of succeeding so far, but simultaneously he failed to comprehend how it was possible for him to succeed at all - in his more recent attempts over the past month since seeing his father again and having his dreams shattered by the man's scorn, he had disregarded Uncle Tybalt's past advice in leaving when death - which would be permanently carried over into reality as his body seized and gave out - was a certainty, straining against his failure with all of his might.

_What am I doing wrong? I followed Tybalt's, Tristram's and Alexander's council to the letter, employed techniques that had been written down by past Lucerna monarchs so that the new generations would have something to follow in accessing their angels, but still nothing has worked! _

_I know it is like dad said - I know the problem is with me, and the excuses that I make for not being able to complete the Angel of the Black Sun's test are worth nothing, but I've tried everything! I know that I'm too weak, that I'm not brave enough nor worthy of an angel's blessing, but I don't know how to become stronger. I don't kno-_

Something yanked him back by the collar, pulling him out of balance and off of his feet, instantly and violently dislodging the boy from his train of thought. Cai instinctively cried out as the world was knocked out of focus, flailing his arms and legs in surprise before forcing himself to stiffen and become more composed, preparing to unleash a defensive assault against the person that had attacked him from behind.

Just before he kicked back hard, a gentle but also boisterously rough arm plied around his neck, pulling him close against another body in an all too familiar headlock that served to reduce the intensity of his struggles. Caiellis's breathing wasn't restricted, and heard a voice that was clearly amused by the shock he had displayed greeting him with: "Hey little man! How was your first lesson?"

The youngest Lucerna could practically picture the stupid grin that would be plastered on Alexander's face now at being caught out so easily by his older brother, and tugged on the muscular limb that was wrapped loosely enough around his throat that he wasn't being strangled but with enough force to both make the position uncomfortable and to prevent him from getting away easily. The thirteen year old slowed down the rate of his breathing, consciously making the adrenaline that had surged through his veins begin to dissipate and relaxing ever so slightly now that the nature of his ambush had been ascertained.

The surprise and a little fear that had bloomed as he was jerked off of his feet was substituted for hefty amounts of embarrassment when he noticed that the other three in their party had turned to gaze back at the two princes, Annia's eyebrows raised in a mixture of curiosity and empathy that could only be shared by younger siblings whilst Kaled smiled at seeing the older student who had come to his aid the day previous. Caiellis tried to make his voice as intimidating and coldly frustrated as possible when he growled, "Get off me, Alexander."

The older boy simply laughed at the irritated snarl, and, sensing his little brother's embarrassment at having his friends/classmates (Alex was optimistic, but not unrealistic, as it did seem that his sibling had been trailing them without engaging in conversation) watching him being tormented by his big brother, the seventeen year old roughly tousled Cai's mop of brown hair, prompting the youngest Lucerna's face going even more red as he did so. He struggled slightly harder, reaching up to shove Alexander's offending hand away and squirming uncomfortably, so the eldest prince released his brother from the head lock, placing him fully back on the ground but keeping an arm draped around his shoulders.

To anyone else, the contact would look relaxed and brotherly - which it was, Cai concluded - but despite how loose the arm around his thin shoulders was Alex's grip was tight and protective. He smirked teasingly down at his younger brother, playfully taunting him at his inability to free himself through facial expression alone, in spite of the reality that he knew neither of them had tried as hard as they could have done. He glanced over at the other three younger students, before smiling and introducing himself, "By the way, I'm Alexander, Cai's big brother. But call me Alex. So yeah - how did you kids find the combat training?"

Kaled was the first to respond, meeting the Lucaelian's blue gaze with his own brown eyes and replying effusively, "It was awesome. Though I did have to spar against Cai, which was sure as hell one of the hardest fights I've ever been in." The Welkalite didn't miss how the older Lucaelian's eyes narrowed slightly before returning to their original size, the grin never leaving his face.

"Why are you here?" Caiellis muttered discontentedly, his face still a shade of red that was gradually receding from his usually pale cheeks as he crossed his arms in annoyance, knowing full well that in spite of the arm dangled around his bony shoulders currently in a slack state if he made a move to push away then there was a strong possibility that his brother, in the teasing yet friendly mood that shone through him, would restrain him so that they could retain the casual connection. The prince flicked an amused smile in his direction before answering, "No need to sound so annoyed, squirt. If you had paid attention to the class timetable you would have known that my year had the lesson that you have just done after your grade. So I just saw you on the way and decided to find out what it was going to be like, alright? Plus it never hurts to interact with the kiddos of the academy."

"Hmph," the younger boy scowled, turning to stare at the other side of the corridor, though he made no moves to get away from his brother in spite of the knowledge that they might be late. True to Alexander's words, the students walking in the opposite direction were taller and older, and while a few nodded in Alex's direction most ignored him. He swiveled his gaze and glanced up into his brother's face, Alexander sticking out his tongue petulantly back at him for a moment. Along with the amused glint to his blue portals, the seventeen year old's eyes were filled with more than a hint of affection and fondness for his little brother.

Cai lowered his eyes once more. He knew that in his own strange, bizarre manner that he himself would probably never understand that his sibling was, through these rough actions, expressing his love for Caiellis and ensuring that the youngest student of the Scholaria Magnus would be ok in a year of pupils two to three years his senior.

He could tell that Alex was still concerned for him - as his big brother idolised their father, and so he must have been extremely angry and worried to catalyse a confrontation between them. The older prince clearly still didn't feel comfortable knowing that Cai had cut himself and hadn't come to him for aid (because of numerous factors, not least the frequency of their sometimes violent arguments before they got back to the palace at the end of the war and Alex had basically stopped talking and wanting to spend time with him), that his younger brother had become so ill and emotionally distraught - Caiellis was fully aware that he was thinner and paler than before the war's end, and that he had been very scrawny already.

Despite his strive for more independence now that he was thirteen and that there was no pressing reason to rely on Alexander any more, Cai was grateful for the gesture regardless of the embarrassment it entailed, and content knowing that he had his big brother for support if he needed it. Alex squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and painfully at the same time, before releasing him and shoving him away, almost sending the smaller boy sprawling. "You'd better get going to your next lesson, short stuff. Wouldn't want to ruin your geek boy reputation already."

Caiellis glared back at his older brother, tempted to flip him off but declining to do so as he smoothed his clothes and his ruffled hair back down. The older Lucerna smiled cheerfully and waved before striding away. He turned around, surprised that the other three had waited for him and abashed at what they had witnessed in the same instance, before Kaled grinned at him and patted him on the shoulder. Cai, who had reached the end of his tether with other people touching him for now, pulled away, walking towards the situation of their next lesson and not really caring if they followed or not.

.*.*.*.

They sat in the Magic Development Classroom, Cai's eyes drawn to the pieces of strange machinery at the back of the class – each was a metal bed with soft cushions placed along it, connected to an opaque but glass visor with several wires trailing off it, leading to several screens beside each bed that were currently dark.

The boy assumed that these were the Summoning Bays Miss Gloria had mentioned, advanced pieces of equipment that were supposed to help those passing the test by inducing the mind-state needed for it, not that Caiellis had ever had trouble doing that before - Lucaelians were taught to enter their own mind without the assistance of machines, and it had never been crossing the threshold into his Mind Realm's trials that was the hard part. He could feel anticipation building up in his chest – maybe this would be the time that he finally did it – before ruthlessly quashing it, knowing well that such emotions were a great hindrance in the Mind Realm. He felt nervous, extremely so, and could barely concentrate on what the teachers were saying, the trepidation and anxiousness making him short of breath.

For some Lucaelians, the Mind Realm was a place of introspection and quiet, an angel's (or another creature borne of White mana's) tranquil domain of repose and reflection, whilst for others, most notable the eldest son of Marik, it was a training ground to hone their skill and become ever more familiar with their Summoning. To Caiellis, it was intrinsically associated with the crushing weight of failure, of fear and pain. Try as he might, the youngster couldn't imagine the Mind Realm being anything else, and knew that even if he unlocked the Angel of the Black Sun, the place would be forever stained by the emotional distress that it had forced him to endure - _no, what I'm not strong enough to endure._

The realm itself was a combination of the creature's residence in Sancturia with the Summoner's own mind, as that was where the Summonings resided since their designated child was born. No-one agreed on what drew a specific creature to a specific infant, some argued that the Sancturia resident chose while other believed that it was forced into the contract. At least, that was in the Yentarian studies that Caiellis had pored over after their transfer to the libraries of the Kingdom of Light, as the people of Lucael were unanimous in their belief that it was the Summoning who selected their Summoner, a blessing of the heavens and the First Angel herself.

The youngest Lucerna tried to listen intently to Shaman Trostani whilst also focusing on organising his thoughts and systematically removing his anxiety, as Doctor Argyle prepared the bays for use. At the man's insistence the students who needed the bays came forwards, and Caiellis pondered if such a piece of equipment would help him in completing the trial, as its potential effects on him were currently unknown.

When given a signal, the boy climbed up onto the pleasant material of the bay, remaining sat up for now instead of laying down. He felt apprehension shudder down his spine as the Uverian starting adjusting dials and tapping keys on the machine hooked up to his bay whilst occasionally sending analytical glances towards the youngest Lucerna. He saw Kaled sticking his thumb up encouragingly at him, not paying any attention to the lesson right now.

They had sparred many times over the remainder of the training session, even though Cai had barely defeated Kaled each time his respect for the Welkalite began to grow somewhat - though he was far more concerned with personality and actions instead of just martial prowess; it may have been enough to impress some but not himself. At any rate, Kaled had proved to be a very challenging combatant, and Caiellis was certain that the only reason for his continual victories was that the older boy was clearly inexperienced at battling against heavily magic focussed enemies.

Caiellis forced himself to relax and slow his breathing as the visor was lowered carefully over his face – he had been to the Mind Realm many times, but it felt like he was being trapped this time. The enforced darkness consumed his vision, and he had to resist the urge to tear it off. He couldn't help but think that he was being confined, but at the same time he couldn't have distractions, not when there was so much at stake.

"You will feeling a sinking sensation," the doctor stated, his robotic voice inflected with a slight bit of comfort (though the boy might have been imagining that), and Caiellis bit back an angry retort of _I know what happens!_, understanding that this was just his anxiety talking and that Argyle was trying to put him at ease after obviously noticing the prince's elevated heart rate, Instead, he nodded confidently, trying to appear strong in front of the teacher and the other students who would be watching when all he felt was fear – not at what the challenge would bring, Cai was terrified of further failure and the disappointment of his father and other Lucaelians.

"We will be able to see your trial on one of the screens, one of the many benefits of the Mark IV Summoning Bays," the doctor explained emotionlessly, but Cai wasn't really listening as a numbing sensation drifted over him.

He felt himself slowly detaching from reality and entering into the Mind Realm, mentally preparing himself for what was to come. The deepest, darkest recesses of his mind beckoned to him, yawning open like chasms of fear, and the thirteen year old plunged head first into them.

.*.*.*.

_Caiellis opened his eyes, once more seeing nothing around him and feeling as if he was moving through thick tar. He quickly realised that he couldn't breath, though his eyes didn't sting like they would if he was in water. He felt his small lungs burning, as if suddenly reacting to this revelation, and desperately swam upwards, knowing that although nothing that hurt him in this realm was carried over death was permanent. He dragged his arms through the thick sludge, keeping his mouth resolutely shut and holding his breath the way he had been taught to respond to an unavoidable cloud of poison - but without the benefit of an initial deep breath, he could tell that his unreal air reserves would deplete soon._

_He could leave at any time, but that would achieve nothing, pulling himself back into reality with nothing to show for it. No, he needed to endure as long as possible, though drowning in his own mind would not be the death he would choose._

_It was cold, almost unbearably so, but the freezing waters barely made an imprint on his mind when all he could feel was the fire in his chest. Asphyxiation had always held a place of unreserved horror for him, and he had known deep down that it had only been a matter of time before a trial involved that peril as one of its main hazards. He had been strangled in the Mind Realm before, to the point where the mental representation of him had been vomiting up blood before he couldn't take any more and had evacuated, but it was a rarity considering the amount of fear it could generate in him._

_Cai had no indication of when he would reach the surface, and felt his body shutting down as the lack of oxygen put an even greater darkness at the edges of his vision, but even in spite of that his discipline forced his mouth to remain closed. Clawing at the viscous water (or whatever liquid that it was) seemed to be achieving nothing, and a bolt of sheer panic laced through his head when a rogue thought considered that he might have been meant to go downwards, that by potentially fleeing from danger he was only inviting inevitable failure._

_The boy knew that had this been in reality, he would have opened his mouth by now in a desperate attempt for air and had water flooding into his limbs. But since the Summoning trials occurred within his mind, it was mental discipline, not physical, that was allowing him to go on. Additionally, had he been drowning within the material world he would not have been able to have a somewhat clear train of thought, as the oxygen deprivation would have had much more profound effects on his weak form. Nevertheless, slivers of unadulterated terror were beginning to pierce the defences of willpower that he had erected around his fear, and he had to violently quash the urge to take a gulping breath._

_He breached the dark water, gasping for breath, and looked about him. He was in a small cave, the rock barely a single foot above him. There was nothing in the cavern, absolutely nothing, just bare rock. He reached up to the ceiling, feeling around for any sign that something was there, but the search bore no fruit and all his hand touched was cold rock. The only way was downwards._

_The Lucerna gave a few seconds for his body to recover, and thought about the other trials the Angel of the Black Sun had set for him - some were short whilst others could last hours (although time in his own psyche passed at a different rate to that of the awakened world), and there was no discernible link between them. Or at least, none that Caiellis could figure out. Some involved him fighting for his life against hordes of vicious and near invincible foes with all of the powers that he had at his disposal in real life, whilst others, like this one, were more environmental, battling against a hostile world. The one common factor of each that he was completely alone without the aid of any non-existent allies, but all that showed was that his First Sisterhood seraphim was more concerned with seeing his power instead of leadership._

_Why couldn't his have been as simple as everyone else's? Apparently all Alex had to do was win a battle and lead his imaginary army to victory against demons before Aurelia revealed herself to him._

No. Thoughts of jealously will not help. Your brother tried just as hard - or possibly harder - as you are doing,_ Caiellis sternly reprimanded himself, annoyed that he had so easily belittled another's trials and pain when he struggled so much with it himself. Just because Alex passed the test before him wasn't because it was easier (although it was linked slightly to the four year age difference), it just meant that the younger brother was more of a failure._

_Happy thoughts like these on his mind, the boy tested the amount of mana he could harness – none at all – and took a deep breath, plunging under the watery abyss again. __This time, the liquid was icy cold, freezing his limbs and sending sharp pains through his body – he was only clothed in underpants, and his thin limbs shook in the cold of the water. Wracking shivers cascaded up and down his thin form as his body instinctively tried to warm itself._

_He swam deeper, his vision obscured by the darkness, and felt the lack of life-giving oxygen beginning to make itself known in the suffocating sensation once more. He looked for anything, __**anything**__, that could suggest progress, but all he could see was the all-consuming blackness. Cai desperately needed to breathe, but pressed on, ignoring the parts of his mind screaming for air and forcing himself to continue._

_Suddenly, he began to see a faint light, the flickering of a distant candle in the night. Emboldened, the prince pushed his body forwards, black spots beginning to form in his sight that were much more evident now that there was some contrast to the darkness. He let out a muffled scream of strangled pain as the water abruptly became scathingly hot, burning his eyes and his pale skin. Bubbles were coughed up from his mouth as the boiling water ran into it; his tongue and throat felt like they were being set alight as he snapped his lips shut._

_The pain was immense, and the voices in his head telling him to pull up for air became deafeningly louder, the crushing fire in his chest impossible to ignore. Cai knew that he couldn't continue in his current oxygen-deprived condition and swam up to the surface. He bounced off something solid, and yelped with startled shock when a wall of rock met him, trapping him underwater and forcing to go downwards or leave the Mind Realm. His voice was swallowed up by the water, and he gagged, scraping desperately on the lowered ceiling for anything that could allow him to surface above the water - allow him to _breathe.

_He silenced his mind's pleas for escape and air, feeling his body about to give out. Caiellis would have to leave soon, before he drowned in the scathing water and died spasming in the Summoning Bay._

_WHY CAN'T I JUST DO IT? He shrieked in his head, and the water responded to his desperation, forcing him further downwards at in increased rate while also heightening the amount of pain he felt. __He could feel his skin peeling off in the steaming heat, exposing the tender flesh beneath, but he didn't care, he couldn't care._

_I. WILL. NOT. GIVE. IN. Caiellis shouted. He had never felt so determined before – he was going to die here, but he didn't care, he couldn't care. All he wanted to do __was pass the challenge, his safety came second now. Had he been able to consider it rationally, he would have known that it was paradoxical to value something that directly depended on his life to be more important than that life, but right now he didn't care, he couldn't care. _

_I. WILL. NOT. GIVE. IN. He would rather die than emerge a failure again, he couldn't take any more disappointment, any more of the pressure. If he didn't succeed now, then at least he would be released from the crushing weight of expectation, and the Kingdom of Light wouldn't be burdened with a Lucerna king who couldn't even pass their Summoning trial._

_I WILL NOT GIVE IN. He pushed himself downwards, seeing the haunting light get closer and closer – he could see an angel with onyx black wings kneeling in front of a baroquely gothic altar, seemingly unaffected by the physics of the water rushing around her._

.*.*.*.

Kaled watched exasperatedly as he saw Caiellis's Mind Realm through the screen – the lesson had finished, Shaman Trostani knowing that she wouldn't be able to teach the class much whilst their fellow students suffered at the back. Cai was the only one still in his realm – the others hadn't had difficult trials to pass, they were just weak-minded and scared Welkalite brats, not really having attempted it properly before due to possessing no reasons to do so in their comfortable lifestyles. Once again Kaled thought back to how the Welkas Empire had chosen its students – only allowing the wealthy instead of those with the most potential to attend, thus placing their power the definite lowest in the Scholaria Magnus, as each other nation chose their strongest, fastest, smartest, or those who had the capabilities to become so much more.

His heart went out to his new friend – Caiellis was sweating profusely, mimicking the heat in his test, and was breathing very fast in short inhalations, the heart-rate monitor pinging at a dangerously fast rate. He watched as the swimming boy's pale skin blistered and burnt off, revealing the raw muscle underneath, and turned to Doctor Argyle, who observed the trial dispassionately. Cai started to hyperventilate and whimpered unconsciously in pain, and Kaled had a flashback to Regata's volcanic test – nowhere near as difficult or painful as this.

His small fists were squeezed tight, nails digging into the palms of his hands, and the fifteen year old had the sudden urge to hold them or to clamp a hand around his slender shoulders in support, but didn't want to overstep any boundaries nor do anything that might disrupt the procedure.

"We need to help him," he pleaded, and the Yentarian shot him a condescendingly cold glance.

"Caiellis has the ability leave whenever he chooses to do so," the doctor uttered mechanically, and Kaled felt his temper raise at this man's obvious uncaring attitude towards his roommate, the youngest member of the Scholaria Magnus. Caiellis was capable and strong, that was for certain, but he was also younger than the rest of them, and it incensed Kaled to see that no one else seemed to care that he was clearly hurting himself in this act.

"What if he can't? He's going to die!" Kaled shouted, attracting the attention of the other students, who instantly swarmed around Cai's bay, moths drawn to a flame of potential drama and urgency. He saw how the boy was shuddering, both on the screen and in reality, and noticed how he was getting closer to the strange, melancholy light. He was still undecided, knowing that Alexander would want him to help his little brother if he was in danger, but also realising that what the doctor said was correct – he could exit the Mind Realm himself, and he hadn't ever heard of a trial where the Summoner being tested was restricted from leaving.

"Removing the equipment now without Caiellis's mental permission could have numerous detrimental consequences, not least inducing a reaction involving his mana due to the excess conjured mentally bleeding off and his control facilities being hindered for a time. It has the potential to be hazardous, both to yourself and the boy," Argyle droned, like this was nothing more than a routine explanation of how the Summoning Bay functioned. Kaled paused, gazing at the shaking thirteen year old, not wanting to be the catalyst of any of those effects but remembering his pledge to the kid's older brother.

Kaled's mind was instantly set on one course of action when the boy let out an agonised and desperate scream of absolute pain, even if his mouth clenching at the end of it cut off the rest. Doctor Argyle didn't impede his progress when he moved next to the bed and abruptly ripped the wires out of the visor on Cai's head.

.*.*.*.

_I WILL NOT GIVE IN. He repeated to himself, the single-minded determination to succeed pushing aside all concerns of safety and health as he swam closer to the angel, his eyelids peeling off as he moved his hand to grasp onto her shoulder, get her attention. _

_He had done it. Finally, he had done it. Relief flooded through his body, his hand brushing against the angel and-_

Caiellis screamed in shock and torment when he jolted back into reality, his body feeling absolutely exhausted but his mind alight with a sudden, burning rage. He ripped off the visor, the prince's blurry vision readjusting to the classroom. Kaled stood next to him, a concerned expression on his face, holding the disconnected wires in each hand like he didn't know what to do with them. The fury inside of him, the pain of failure and of being thwarted so close to his goal, his _hatred_ of the Summoning trial and all that it had done to him, focused on this new target.

He roared in primal anger and shot out a beam of dark light from his hand, smashing the boy into the wall and making him yell in torture. Cai shrieked incoherently, the pent up anger at constantly failing uncontrollably releasing in a single instant, and the teachers reacted instantly, a shield of Blue mana reinforced by vines of Green nullifying his magic. Caiellis glared at the all of the older boys and girls that stared in shock at him as the lucent shadow snapped off, wanting nothing more than to hide from their censure - or to forcefully wipe it from their faces.

_What's happening to me? Where are these thoughts coming from? I can't ... I can't stop them ... I can't stop my mana! _The youngest Lucerna jumped off the bed, feeling more tired than ever and just wanting to go back to sleep or start hurting himself, and ran out of the door, the teachers preventing other students from following. He couldn't risk hurting anyone else, needed to be alone so that he could get himself back under control.

Rubbing his head - as though the magic was definitely powerful, it had lacked the focus or definition normally imposed on Caiellis's attacks, and thus the impact into the wall had done more damage - Kaled stared open-mouthed in shock at the prince's departure, making to run after him, but felt a vine wrap around his leg and deposit the fifteen year old back in the classroom.

"Let me go after him!" he raged, the guilt of knowing he had caused this fueling his anger, and the shaman and doctor ignored him, moving towards the emergency communication system. He felt a calming hand on his shoulder and soothing essence moved through his body, relaxing tensed muscles.

"No, Kaled, he needs time alone. You've done enough," Annia told him, reproach and shock in equal quantities in her voice. He turned to gaze at the Yentarian, who still managed to inject a disapproving tinge to her otherwise shocked eyes.

"Why did he react so badly? All he was doing was trying to pass his Summoning. He didn't have to kill himself for it," Kaled snapped back, and Annia shook her head despairingly in response.

"You don't understand him. You don't have the constant feeling of pressure that he does,"she replied sharply standing up as the taller student followed her motions.

"And when did you become so close with Cai?" he questioned, turning his burning hazel eyes upon the girl again, who continued to shake her head.

"Don't be stupid. He is royalty. He will have been expected to pass the Summoning long ago. And you disrupting that when it was so close to completion is certainly not going to get you any favours from him."

.*.*.*.

Aurelia's blades clashed with the clone of her, the replica bellowing the same battle cry as the fiery angel, a perfect rendition of the Warleader's anger. She snarled in fury, but there was nothing she could do – this upstart Yentarian brat had dared to use his cowardly shape-shifting Summoning of her in a disgusting imitation that had the exact same strength, though none of the genuine sacred righteousness.

Alex knew that as his angel's power was matched, it would come down to him personally defeating Ellan, and his greater familiarity with his Summoning and her abilities. He swung a flaming fist at the tall Yentarian, who turned the scorching fire into hissing steam with a shield of water. Ellan's Summoning could be immensely powerful, automatically equalling the potency of the Sancturia creatures it mimicked, and of course the boy had predicted that Alexander would go for him instead of the false angel. The lanky boy who was around Alex's height but significantly thinner flung out a gangly arm, a whirl of sapphire liquid extending out like a whip and battering against the crossed bracers of the younger of the two.

"Alexander Ensis Lucerna," Miss Gloria's clipped tone rang out, her practised voice splitting through the clamour of the battling students – one thing that had made her an excellent commander in the armies of Civitas Sol during the civil war. The seventeen year old instantly stopped his assault, suddenly glad that Ellan had the foresight to do as well, and dismissed Aurelia. He left the cage and walked briskly to the Lucaelian teacher, ignoring the glare Sergeant Tarkos gave him – he hoped the grizzled man wasn't treating his little brother the same way.

Although he knew that he was sometimes the bane of his teachers, up to this point he had done nothing that would potentially irk either of them, which meant that it was probably his identity as royalty that caused the Welkalite to dislike him. Alex personally didn't care, but his little brother would be an easier target, and he knew how fragile Caiellis's self esteem was at the moment - and how much he valued the praise of his teachers.

"Alexander, your brother has left the school premises, bleeding a huge amount of uncontrolled mana after he was forcefully unplugged from a Summoning Bay at the cusp of completing the trial. It was unanimously agreed that you should be the one to retrieve him – who knows how he would react to anyone else?" the combat teacher delivered the speech fast but not rushed, although there was a slight hint of panic to her voice – she would definitely live the rest of her life in shame if one of the king's sons lost his life at the Scholaria, or even if they were hurt in a place of supposed safety.

"Where is he?" Alex demanded urgently, and Gloria shrugged her shoulders, admitting, "We don't know. However, we have a map of the island, so we were hoping that you would be able to pinpoint his location, as knowing him as well as you do should reduce the difficulty of the task. I doubt that Lord Caiellis will have chosen somewhere dangerous."

She noticed the slip of the tongue, cursing herself for it but glad that no-one was paying attention to that. The staff of the academy were not supposed to show favouritism - even if her first instinct was to bow to these children who might one day be the supreme authority within Lucael. However, being in a situation where the princes were just Alexander and Caiellis instead of the near divine descendants of Matalis Ortus Lucerna gave her a unique opportunity to see the boys as students and young people that not many apart from those who were family or close friends to the potential heirs. Not that she had been able to view much of either of them, but it was still somewhat of an eye-opener to see them without all of the titles and responsibility that defined them within the Kingdom of Light.

Gloria handed the frantic-looking older brother a map of the Scholaria and the surrounding area, and Alex let his big brother instinct kick in, scanning his eyes over the locations that Caiellis might go – he could be temperamental at times, but when the boy was frustrated with himself he normally went somewhere secluded and quiet where he could think. He was also rather confident that the analytical Cai would have expended time meticulously anatomising the geography of the island, so in lieu of randomly selecting a direction in which to run the youngest Lucerna would possess clarity in the location he would wish to calm down in. There!

Alex thanked his teacher for the map and quickly ran out of the room, desperately praying that he knew his brother as well as he thought he did. His mind was alight with possibilities, and though he had an inkling of who would abruptly terminate the Summoning trial due to having the ability to observe through a mental screen he wasn't willing to blame yet - and such was irrelevant. What did matter is that Caiellis had been detached from his Mind Realm, and knowing the awful pressure that the thirteen year old had been suffocating under (which Alexander had tried to relieve but was a month too late) quickened his already sprinting pace. He hoped beyond hope that his younger brother wouldn't do anything whilst under the sway of the powerful emotions and mana coursing through him, and would wait for help.

.*.*.*.

Caiellis plunged his hand into the cold water, the purifying White mana removing the minute possibility of the flowing water being poisoned or inimical to human life, and cupped it to his lips, feeling the refreshing liquid flow through his body. He had needed a drink. His throat was raw from screaming. Screaming that he hadn't been able to stop, screaming that he didn't care if anyone else heard - the expected way for a Lucerna to bear themselves be damned.

Cai had been so close. _So close!_ He breathed deeply, inhaling and exhaling slowly, letting the anger pour off his trembling body in shuddering waves. The boy pulled his knees up to his chest, huddled and small, silently watching the waterfall splash into the pool he was sat next to. The ripples of stray droplets spread across the pool, which, despite the stream of water from the incline and its movement still seemed motionless and calm.

He had remembered the place from analysing the map, a relatively close area outside of the school grounds named Tranquillity's Descent, a waterfall that marked the mid point of one of many rivers criss-crossing the island, joining the seas on either side or running down from some of the distant mountains. Large trees shrouded the area from the heat of the sun, though the light shone through in shafts onto the pool, illuminating the waters and bouncing off it in an iridescent display of natural beauty, brightening the azure lotus flowers that floated on the colourful brook.

Many Unbound creatures of different mana alignments lived outside of the academy, but the youngest Lucerna hadn't encountered any, though he had the Sword of Glass at the ready should he need to swiftly dispatch them. They were probably terrified of him, as for a while he had been unable to safely control the amount of energy he was releasing. Cai assumed it was one of the side effects of being forcefully disconnected from his Mind Realm, but was scared of the shadows that had seeped out of his footsteps, decaying plants as he walked past and bleeding out of his small hands in spiraling contusions of darkness on the flesh of the world.

Caiellis picked up a calm blue lotus flower that had been drifting on the pool's surface, his hands still shaking, and was happy when it didn't wither and die. That meant he had properly managed to halt the flow of darkness coming from within. He twirled it slowly, watching the petals slide elegantly through the air, before placing it next to him. It would be a perfect present for Annia, though Cai didn't know why a girl that he had barely spoken to and possessed no particular attraction towards had sprung to mind.

The slight Lucaelian shut his eyes, blocking out the suicidal and frustrated thoughts baying for attention in his head, and concentrated on the quiet sound of the rushing water. He began to spin the ornate knife in his hands; he had disobeyed his father and brother in bringing the weapon here, and had considered doing so again and cutting himself, to alleviate the feeling of extreme self-worthlessness and crushing pressure, worse than he had ever experienced before, but now he knew that wouldn't be necessary.

Cai heard the sounds of footsteps crunching through the undergrowth, becoming alert and then relaxing when he realised that if something or someone was going to attack him, they would have attempted to approach with significantly more subtlety. The boy wouldn't have exactly been hard to follow to the secluded area. He felt a large, strong hand gently but still forcefully encircle the wrist with the knife and prevent the arm from moving. He didn't try to resist the firm grasp, knowing that he couldn't.

"Let's put that away, little brother," a comforting voice spoke softly, and Caiellis opened his eyes, turning around to see Alexander looking lovingly down at him, worry that he couldn't conceal inflecting his expressive eyes. Evidently the teachers had decided upon sending his big brother after the wayward prince, knowing how well they got on and maybe realising that Alex was the only person that truly understood him, proven again by his accuracy in finding Caiellis.

The younger brother smiled up at his elder and flicked his wrist, tossing the knife into the water. He silently watched it sink for a few seconds, a multitude of emotions running through him, before turning to Alexander, who had let go and was getting down to sit beside him.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" the older boy asked, relieved that he had actually found his younger brother and that Caiellis hadn't harmed himself. He wrapped an arm around his shoulders, feeling the slender teenager trembling and brotherly concern flooding his mind. It must have been extremely painful for the youngest son of King Marik, being immeasurably close to the thing that had caused him immense amounts of emotional pain the last few years, especially in the last month. He was frustrated for his brother, but if Cai had been pushing himself towards death without any signs of relenting then he could not say that he wouldn't have done the exact same actions as what had caused this.

"Kaled pulled me out of the Mind Realm. Just as I was about to do it," he whispered. Cai's small voice shook and he looked up into Alex's face, who noticed how exhausted and drained his little brother was – this was more than any other occasion he had strived to complete the Summoning. The boy needed rest, but more than that, he needed someone to remind him that he was loved and wanted. Caiellis's emerald green orbs clearly told his elder sibling that, even if he thought he was too old to admit it.

"I'm sure he wouldn't have done it unless you needed help. I know that you are angry and infuriated, but I am glad that he did it. You are far more important to a lot of people than your stupid Summoning. I know you, Caiellis. You will have almost died attempting it, and I for one certainly never want to live in a world without my little buddy," Alex ruffled his hair affectionately, and his heart leapt when he saw Cai's eyes lighten up at his little speech. It had been cheap, but no less heartfelt, and Alexander meant the words with every ounce of his being.

"That was cringe worthy," Caiellis joked after a brief delay, and his brother thumped him on the arm hard. "You know I'm not good at girly things, that is your speciality," he teased back, and Cai rubbed his arm painfully, though as usual Alex had pulled the force so it wouldn't do much more than sting. They both laughed and sat wordlessly, happy in each other's company. The older boy pulled his arm inwards slightly, gently dragging his little brother with it, not close enough to be considered a hug but more intimate than a simple arm slung around Cai's bony shoulders.

After a minute of absolute silence, the only sound the perpetual rushing of water, Alex was about to speak, suggesting that they go back, when Cai's hand shot out and went across his mouth, the smaller boy not even glancing up from the shimmering pool. Discerning that Caiellis was in his "extreme thought" mode, Alexander ignored the idea that popped into his head, his brother would be extremely displeased with him should he do that. Suffice to say, it involved a shove, a splash, and freezing cold water.

After a few seconds, Cai peeked up at him, puppy eyes already primed and available for deployment, and Alex understood then that his little brother was going to ask him something that he would disapprove of. He squeezed the little dude's shoulder, assuaging some of his hesitant doubt - whilst he knew that he would not like what would be said, he still wished to encourage his brother to ask him anything, something that he had formerly been endeavouring to stop Caiellis doing at the closing of the civil war.

"I am going to try the Summoning again," the youngest Lucerna stated confidently like it was an undisputed fact – that just highlighted the change he had undergone in the last month and when he entered his teenage years; a younger Caiellis would have timidly asked his brother an unreasonable favour and Alex would probably turn him down unless he used his cuteness to his advantage. Now, the boy uttered it like a royal pronouncement, as if pretending that his big brother wasn't going to argue with him.

"Fat chance, little man. You are worn out. You can try again tomorrow, but right now you need rest," Alex shot back, his hand on his brother's shoulder tightening in emphasis of the words. Cai's face fell in a mixture of discontent and confusion, like he hadn't been expecting to be turned down in spite of his current condition, "Huh? But why? I need to do it. I need to complete this trial..."

"Yeah, you do, but not right now. I can't believe that you are seriously asking me this, Caiellis, after what just happened and the state you are in now. You're _exhausted_, little brother, and I won't let you hurt yourself even more," the seventeen stated with a hint of finality, hoping that his little brother wouldn't try to press the issue. He really didn't want to shout at the younger boy or force him to acquiesce, because he wasn't about to allow his drained sibling to do something that would leave him vulnerable and exhausted for several days. Cai wrenched himself out of Alexander's grip and pushed himself to his feet, glaring defiantly back at his sibling. "You can't stop me."

"Are you sure about that, baby brother?" the older boy also rose, towering over his little brother, Cai's head barely reaching the bottom of his upper chest and his limbs significantly thinner than those of his muscular brother. It wasn't often that Alex used the difference in solid muscle mass between them to intimidate the younger boy, and while he wasn't actively being aggressive Caiellis still felt a pulse of trepidation. Quickly assessing that his tactic of trying to butt heads with his older and much stronger brother directly wasn't working, he switched his eyes to be more accusatory.

"You say that you love me, and care about me, but when I need to do something you stop me!" he shouted, accidentally letting some of the emotion he thought he had carefully put away into his voice. Alex sighed and put his hands on Caiellis's shoulders, the younger boy about to twist away angrily when he increased the pressure of his grip, causing his younger brother to gasp in pain slightly and holding him still. _When was Cai going to understand that he was killing himself? I'm sick of this. He's not doing it twice in one day, definitely not after he was forcefully disconnected from his Mind Realm. _The eldest son hated causing his younger brother pain like this, but he needed to make the boy realise that the way he constantly endeavoured to pass the trial was wrong.

"You will not attempt the test. Understand?" he asked calmly, his voice harsh but free of negative emotion, a command meant to tell his sibling that he would tolerate no dissent in the matter bereft of anger that he felt for his brother's sake and his brother's obstinacy. Caiellis glowered back at him and tried to pull away, but his brother squeezed harder still and he involuntarily whimpered as he felt bones being crushed.

"Understand?" Alex repeated, shaking the smaller boy, whose face was screwed up in pain. Cai nodded frantically and Alexander released him, feeling guilt slither its way into his thoughts when he saw his little brother's chest hitching up and down, the prince trying not to cry or look any more pathetic even as tears of pain glistened in his wide eyes. The kid would almost certainly develop bruises on his shoulders from the force of his digging fingers, and he heavily regretted that, but if Caiellis went into the Summoner's trial again today he was risking permanent death.

He moved forwards to comfort him, and jumped back when Caiellis screamed: "WHY WON'Y YOU JUST LET ME DO IT?"

Stunned, Alex felt adrenaline rush into his body when he sensed magic energies, fuelled by extremely powerful emotions, roiling within his brother's voice, suddenly realising just _how much_ Cai wanted to do it this time. Tears streamed freely down Cai's face, and his older brother knew that he saw him at his weakest, but also at his strongest. He couldn't deny Caiellis now, not when he had a chance to remove the thing that had been killing him and earn his father's pride (that he already deserved). But he could impress how serious the situation was upon him.

He slowly inched towards the boy, not wishing to frighten him, kneeling down to his height and brushing the tears from his eyes, flinching when a flash of almost unfamiliar energy erupted from the Black Sun birthmark when he touched it. That hadn't ever happened before.

"If you feel that strongly about it, then I'm definitely not going to stop you," he surrendered, and Cai's face split into a tired smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, still shaking from his loud release. _Thank the angels. And thank you, Alex, for believ-_

"However," he continued, suddenly wrapping a hand around the boy's thin throat and near effortlessly lifting him off the ground, firmly but not violently pressing Cai against a tree. "You _will _not endanger yourself doing this, you _will_ leave as soon as it becomes too hard for you."

He had first discovered that he could do this to Caiellis a few years ago, when they had been "experimenting" with wrestling moves Tristram had taught them and got into a fight in their shared bedroom, Cai having lashed out at him to get him to go away and accidentally hurting his big brother. Alex had ashamedly somewhat enjoyed the feeling of the absolute power he had held over his little brother's life, and inadvertently choked him unconscious, tightening the pressure of his grip every time Cai pleaded with him to let go or tried - and failed - to force him off.

Nonetheless, the sight of his baby brother, unbreathing and lips cold and blue, had terrified him, and he had screamed for Tybalt and Tristram to come help, but by the time they came Caiellis had already jolted awake. Needless to say, the younger boy hadn't enjoyed being choked out, scared of his brother for a whole week afterwards, and Alexander had to slowly build back the kid's trust in him. Right now, he only put enough pressure on to stop him breathing and not crush his throat – he would go unconscious eventually, but it gave him more than enough time to convey the seriousness of his point. And while Alexander could see that it was working, that his point was being made, it didn't disguise the fact at all that he was harming his brother, didn't remove the sensation of the pounding pulse underneath his thumb and the palm of his hand.

Cai couldn't breathe, his big brother's hand clamped around his windpipe and his legs in the air. He tried to pull the hand away, open up his lungs to oxygen, but his older brother was far stronger than he was and Cai's small hands failed to even move Alex's single one - not even a single large finger was shifted in the resistance. He focussed on his brother, shaking hands, too thin and too weak, desperately trying to find sufficient purchase to tug away the one fitted tightly all the way round his neck, a noose of skin, muscle and bone much like the one of pressure and expectation that had strangled him into silence so many times recently, legs swinging in the air, too small to reach Alexander at the distance he had placed himself.

He would have known, rationally, that kicking his brother's solid chest wouldn't have achieved anything anyway, but his mind was frozen up in panic, the idea that the older boy would kill him despite the fact that Alex wasn't even actively pressing his digits in and that it was Cai's own weight that was choking him met with equal amounts of horror and acceptance.

The thirteen year old concentrated slightly blurred vision on his big brother, his protector and best friend, imploring him to let go, tears streaming freely down his cheeks again. If he had possessed the mental capacity to consider himself in this situation, he knew that he would have found crying pathetic, would have realised that his brother wasn't wanting to hurt him, but right now he couldn't think past the pounding of an elevated heart rate within his skull and the icy tendrils of fear that glissaded into his mind.

Alexander hated the fact that he had hurt his little brother and hated seeing Caiellis like this, detesting the situation even more knowing that he was the object of his brother's terror, but needed to emphasise that Cai _would not_ allow himself to get harmed or even killed in the Summoning trial.

"Promise me that, little brother," Alexander commanded in a comforting voice completely at odds with his current actions, but he needed to ensure that his baby brother knew he wasn't trying to kill him. His other hand was still clasped onto his brother's shoulder, and though he was incredibly tempted to move it round to hook it underneath, relieve some of the pressure on the youngest Lucerna's throat and just let the threat of the action itself make and impression on his sibling, it would undermine what he was doing now - even if the boy's cheeks were starting to blossom red.

Caiellis nodded, fear near freezing his body and his mind flashing back to the last time his brother did this, aware that the discrepancy in strength between them was even greater now and that Alexander could crush his windpipe in a few seconds if he wanted. Alex quickly let him go, but gently held onto his shoulder and arm pit to ensure that his brother didn't hurt himself in the fall, and the smaller boy collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath.

The middle Lucerna was glad that he didn't move away when Alex rubbed soothing circles on his back. The boy was wracked by violent shivers, and Alexander was reluctant to let him venture into his mind again, but now that he was willing to give him another chance and had just lifted him off of his feet by his throat such hypocrisy would have hurt his little brother even more than those actions did.

Cai concentrated on the incredibly tender motion of his brother's hands, timing his breathing again so that it corresponded with every full revolution to get it back under control. If one didn't know the relationship between the two sons of the king intimately, hadn't seen them in times of distress (or even some relaxation where the older teen had allowed his little brother to snuggle close to him without many complaints), then they might struggle to believe that the boisterous, rough and teasing Alexander could be so kind and gentle - especially if they had just witnessed him strangling Caiellis.

"Sorry about that, but you need to realise that your life is worth way more than the "honour of the family" or any other stupid crap like that," Alexander apologised profusely, his voice a mixture of both comforting resonance and real, genuine guilt, and Cai nodded knowingly and forgave him for it. He pulled himself up and crossed his legs, glancing at his brother and not really surprised to see a hefty amount of worry in his blue eyes.

Alex could be hurtful at times, or unapologetic if they had fought, but right now he could see that the elder adolescent was concerned for him. It made his heart melt to be reminded again that there was at least one person who would always look out for him, despite his flaws and failures. Cai beamed at him, a red hand mark beginning to form on the pale flesh of his neck, saying: "It's fine, Alexander. I understand why you... why you had to do that. It just scared me a bit."

Alex nodded (aware that "a bit" was a huge understatement, but it would be cruel to focus on that) and replied: "You know I hate hurting you. Whenever I seem harsh or cause you pain, it's just because I need to show you something, or I need to make you understand something. That's just how big brothers are." He intentionally left out the times he had hurt Caiellis in his anger or unintentionally as it wasn't relevant.

He sat down on the floor and told his brother he could hold him if he wanted – Alex squeezed his hand and sat beside him, ensuring that he wasn't disrupting anything but was obviously providing support.

"I'm going to begin," Caiellis announced, the Mind Realm coming to him much more naturally without the Summoning Bay's distracting equipment. He was immeasurably glad that there were no screens this time around, there was no way Alex would let him carry out this if he knew what he was intending to do.

.*.*.*.

_His eyes snapped open, and he examined his surroundings. It appeared that Cai was in the entrance of some grand castle, and weird creations of rotating blades attached to demonic faces and grinning masks floated towards him, the scraping of their vicious weapons on the stone floor setting his teeth on edge. This challenge would be simple – defeat the enemies, get to the destination. Except it wouldn't work like that, not now he knew the true link between each individual trial. His last venture into this painful domain had taught him that._

_He looked down at himself – clothed in light leather armour, and with a functional but otherwise unadorned short-sword at his waist. Excellent. Cai felt a powerful tremor of trepidation flow through him – if he was wrong, the Alexander would never forgive himself. But he couldn't hesitate now. The longer he waited, the harder it would be to do it. _

Angels, I'm so sorry, Alexander. _The boy swiftly drew the sword, ignoring the proximity of the creatures, and sliced the blade across his own throat. The crimson blood jetted out of him, and he fell to his knees, gasping and clawing for air that wasn't there, that wouldn't come. Hot, irony liquid bubbled up through his mouth and spilled out through his lips, and he gurgled in a emotional mixture between a sob and a scream, before falling silent. The sword dropped with a _clang_ beside him, but he didn't hear it. His upper body toppled onto the ground, the crunch of the impact nothing compared to the howling agony in his neck, and a note of pure, unadulterated regret poured through his mind before his eyes closed and the world faded into darkness._

_.*.*.*._

_For the second time, Cai's emerald orbs opened. He was in the large interior of an empty cathedral – incredibly ornate and detailed. The boy could faintly perceive singing voices and praying whispers, twisted and contorted by a funerary mournfulness, but whenever he looked in their direction, they faded away and started anew at the opposite side of the basilica. _

_On each side of the central processional, huge statues of filigree yet baroque angels that he had never seen depicted before stared down at him. From his visits to other Lucaelian temples in the past, the boy was well accustomed to massive sculptures of the heavenly guardians, but instead of their gaze being loving, benevolent and determined to protect here it was oppressive, condemnatory - but no less impressive._

_He glanced down the pew of seats and into the front – there, kneeling in front of a large golden altar and bathed in the melancholy purple light of a stained glass window depicting the Black Sun passing judgement upon the guilty, was an angel, the same one from earlier._

_Involuntarily holding his breath Caiellis paced forwards, and she slowly yet deliberately rose, her movements languid yet with an inevitability that permeated throughout her actions, turning around to gaze down at him. She was majestic but also terrifying, wearing aureate armour carved with strange and yet oddly familiar sigils and framed by huge black wings the colour of midnight. In one hand she held a golden chain, in the other a gigantic and elaborate scythe the size of her, which meant that the blade itself was longer than Cai was tall. The heel was a shining aureate Black Sun, with the large curved blade extending out from it. Elaborate and wing-like protrusions from her collar framed her porcelain face, a cascade of black hair flowing behind it._

__She had pale features, black eyes surrounded by purple eyelids and golden tears etched underneath them – also in the centre of her forehead was a spherical gemstone of the same colour, though instead of appearing like it had been painfully implanted into her skull her flawless skin melded around it, giving the impression that it had always been there and was as much a part of her as her imposing wings.__

__She was ... she was __beautiful. _Somehow it had never occurred to the youngest Lucerna that his Summoning would be so divinely graceful - not alluring like he might find some women, as the angel was far removed from any mortal female, but beauteous, suffused with the heavenly glamour that was the birthright of the First Sisterhood, the daughters of the Goddess herself. _

_The few artist's renditions of the dark seraph that he had laid eyes upon had shown a soulless murderer, a functional and efficient harvester of souls that held nothing of the celestial magnificence that those same young eyes beheld now. Perhaps she was even more beautiful than Aurelia and what little he had seen of his father's Akroma - as the two other First Sisterhood angels, while elegant and beatific, were moulded around war, whilst the Angel of the Black Sun was resplendent in seraphic glamour. Yet the huge, imposing scythe carried in her right hand only had one purpose - as an executioner._

__Her eyes were orbs of darkness that reflected the prince's purity but also his potential for evil, the curse of the Black Sun that had consumed King Xarius and could very well destroy him if Caiellis wasn't careful - the angel had promised to obey the self styled "Emperor of Light's" demands to the letter, and while all others of the Sisterhoods would refuse to execute acts of darkness, the Angel of the Black Sun would do whatever he wanted, becoming a harbinger of death and misery more akin to a demon than a seraphim as she followed his increasingly insane orders.__

_ Cai could sense the light in her, but also the shadow – both were combined however, not just both present and not separated, the White and Black mana fused representing everlasting life and power, the balance between light and darkness, that one could use to their own ends or aid those around them. Selfless selfishness, or selfish selflessness Caiellis wasn't sure, but it was certain that this angel had powers at her fingertips that the youngest Lucerna had only seen in his wildest dreams - and darkest nightmares._

_It was all he could do to resist the ever growing temptation to fall to his knees and clasp his hands in prayer, press his head into the soft purple carpets that adorned the cathedral floor and beg for this angel's blessing - he had earned this, he had passed his Summoning trial and had gained the right to stand tall and proud. The only reason that he would kneel before his Summoning would be to afford her with respect, nothing more. His desire to adore the Angel of the Black Sun was easily met, but the knowledge of the suffering and pain she had inflicted upon the Lucaelian people warred with that devotion._

_He wanted to speak, to introduce himself to the Angel of the Black Sun and have her accede to the Summoning contract, but felt that breaking the silence would be defiling the quiet sanctity of this place, that whatever a mortal such as himself might have to say was not worth impeaching upon the haunting tranquility of the angel's cathedral. The boy felt an invisible weight tightening at his throat and holding his limbs still, and though the rational part of his mind knew that the imaginary restraint was nothing more than his own awe he could do no more to free himself from it. Instead, he remained motionless, barely breathing, transfixed by the twinkling darkness of the seraph's eyes as a multitude of clashing emotions welled up in his chest._

"_So you've arrived," she uttered, her voice like honey but with a sinister undertone, inflected with a sense of melodic melancholy, "My name is Orzhova, the Angel of the Black Sun. I have been waiting for you."_

"_Yes, I passed the test you set for me. Now the contract will be signed," regaining a measure of his confidence, Caiellis smiled triumphantly, trying not to seen arrogant at his first meeting with Orzhova but supposing that she already knew almost everything about him. The grin that he plastered onto his young features was a mix of pride in his achievement and trepidation. He couldn't help but feel slightly anxious in his moment of victory - this angel had been the cause of the largest catastrophe in Lucaelian history, eclipsing even Johnias's revolt and attempted coup d'etat. _

_It was unfair. Why should he have to be wary in unlocking something that he had attempted to obtain for years? Why should he have to be shunned, hated because of an angel that he had never chosen to have inside of him, and yet be subjected to so much pressure that he had willingly ended his own life on the possibility that it might pass her strange test? Why had Orzhova wanted him to _die _before revealing herself to him?_

_She sighed, weariness that a mortal could not hope to ever comprehend and yet as intimately familiar to Cai as his own emotions entwined with her words, and said "As you wish. I shall sign your beloved contract. But rest assured, the real trial is only just beginning."_

* * *

Liber Sancturia:

Deathpact Angel: Summoning of Caiellis Noctis Lucerna

Clone: Summoning of Ellan Artuis


	8. Angelic Beckoning

Alex held his comatose brother upright, one hand on the back of his head, curled into his fluffy brown hair, and the other squeezing the boy's small hand. Caiellis was breathing at a regular pace now, appearing as though he was in a peaceful sleep, though nothing could be further from the truth. The prince had ventured into his Mind Realm for the second time on this day, Alex's warnings about him being far too exhausted to be attempting the Summoning trial going unheeded.

A couple of minutes ago, Cai had gasped in pain and started convulsing – his older brother had tried to comfort him but it was up to his little brother to remove himself from the danger, and there was naught that he could do to help other than keep a hold on his body. The middle Lucerna hoped that he had imparted the seriousness of the situation to his brother when he had lifted him off of his feet and cut off his breathing; Caiellis had promised to exit the Mind Realm if he went into anything he couldn't handle, but knowing his brother the boy wouldn't give up until absolutely necessary. If there was one trait that all Lucernas seemed to possess, it would certainly be stubbornness.

Now his baby brother had calmed down, and Alex assumed that he had overcome whatever challenged him. He stroked the smaller boy's wavy hair fondly, his little brother the one person in his life that he felt closest to. He definitely meant what he had said earlier, currently Caiellis was indeed the most precious individual in his life. And that was why it was hard for him to just let his brother venture into the tribulations of his psyche, even if he understood that it was absolutely necessary and that a Lucerna without a Summoning was nothing in comparison to one with a First Sisterhood angel at their beck and call.

There were other people he had cared about in his life, though none surpassing his affection for his little brother. Alexander had frequently courted girls despite the fact his father had forbidden his sons from having a partner until they were eighteen – Marik hadn't exactly been there to stop him during the civil war, and Tristram and Tybalt had been more concerned by more important matters than whether or not one of their charges was involving themselves in a relationship (Tristram had simply given him a "man to man" talk on being careful and how to properly treat a woman).

Many girls were attracted to him due to his confidence, charming looks (though he feared that his little brother was on the road to beating or at least matching him there) and personality, although he had never quite found anything in most of them so far that convinced him want to remain with them.

Alexander had often cancelled dates and meetings with friends when his younger brother wanted to spend time with him – at one point in his life he would have considered that especially lame, but as he got older he realised just how much he enjoyed being with the little man and teaching him about the world. Tristram and Tybalt had been excellent mentors and protectors of the royal sons, but it had been up to Alex to teach Caiellis about life as an adolescent as the younger waded into that tumultuous sea. While the older men educated him on how to properly wield a sword and rule a kingdom, Alex had taught him about girls and friendship. Although on the other hand he had, on plenty of occasions when the two boys were at odds, pretended that his younger brother didn't exist and gone out without him.

Caiellis was his little brother, the person that he was supposed to protect, the person that he made mistakes for so that he didn't have to suffer through them himself, his best friend and rival - a boy that he sometimes severely disliked (but never hated, even if he had told Cai that he felt that way in their more heated fights) but always loved. And to think some of the Light-Bearers (come to think of it, the majority of those who had suggested it were now aligned with Johnias or dead from what Hierarch Tybalt had told him) had insisted that his infant brother be killed just because of his Summoning.

Perhaps he should have notified the Scholaria Magnus officials as to Cai's whereabouts instead of permitting him to thrust himself back into the trials of Summoning, but if he was being honest knowing that Caiellis was safe was more than enough for him. He would take the no doubt exhausted boy back to the academy later.

The older brother heard a crackle of energy and peered down at his sibling – coruscating arcs of golden and purple lightning were sparking over the birthmark on his right cheek. Alex had never seen that before, and automatically held his little brother closer, ignoring the slight sting the mana pouring out of the Black Sun caused as he increased his proximity.

Abruptly, Caiellis's eyes snapped open, one orb filled with holy light while the other was suffused in abyssal blackness, gazing blankly up at the world - his pupils indistinguishable from his irises. He stared straight forwards for a few seconds, mana borne power billowing around him, and Alex rolled back, a shield of White and Red mana blocking the effects of the tempest beginning to form around Cai.

He thought that perhaps he should have been protecting his brother, but somehow instinctively knew that the energies would not harm the youngest Lucerna, and when he let go of Caiellis the boy remained in the same position Alex had left him, held aloft a few inches off of the ground by the influx of sheer power. Shadows swirled around him, but as the prince slowly rose to his feet and tilted his head upwards a pillar of pale yet no less brilliant light spilled out from the heavens, illuminating him in White mana.

Instead of dispelling the shadows, the light began to mix with them, coating some in shining gold while other patches of the conjured night wrapped around the luminescence, entwined in a lover's embrace like the natural two opposing forces was to be combined. As if by some sudden command, the darkness and the light poured into Caiellis, who stood unaffected by the maelstrom of tenebrosity mixed with radiance. Alex had to shield his face to avoid being blinded by the brightest shadows and darkest light, his mind still alert and his body ready to rush to the aid of his brother.

A few seconds of quiet passed, and he gingerly removed the conjured mana shield with the lowering of his hand, his eyes immediately fixing on Caiellis. The boy was stood still, calmness emanating from him in the aftermath of the orderly yet hugely formidable display. His head slowly turned towards Alexander, Cai's eyes back to their normal emerald-green lustre. Instead of panic, fear or pain, all they showed was positivity – not an ecstatic happiness, but a quiet contentment.

Then a small smile split his young face, a genuine grin of joy that made Alex's heart sore. _He's done it!_ It was the most cheerful he had seen his little brother in a long time, and the middle Lucerna felt pride well up inside of him.

"I did it," he announced softly, gazing through his older brother instead of at him, his mental functions locked up in thought with his body lagging behind.

The emotions he was experiencing felt strange to Caiellis – he had assumed he'd be delighted, and despite Orzhova's ominous declaration playing over in his mind, he knew that wasn't blocking the feelings of joy. He certainly felt excited, satisfied with himself and his performance, but didn't want to punch the air in triumph or jump in ecstatic joy or anything. It wasn't as if he was unhappy, or felt hollow, he just didn't think finally achieving something that had made he go as far as devaluing his own life, push away his brother who had always been there for him and self-harm - a shameful act by a Lucerna on all accounts - wouldn't come with a burst of euphoria. He felt tired, but quietly happy. That would have to do.

Cai could say that he felt a weight lift off his shoulders, but that would be a lie – he had realised that the pressure would always be there, it was a part of being the royalty of Lucael. But the crushing felt much less intense, and he felt that now he could finally breathe again.

No sooner than he had thought the words, the boy felt himself being lifted into the air – of course Alexander would be overjoyed, revelling in his little brother's achievement. He was soon wrapped in a bone-crushing hug, and seeing his brother's blue eyes shining in merriment and pride brought a greater sense of satisfaction to Caiellis. He curled his own arms around Alex's chest (somewhat embarrassed that they didn't reach all the way round), before squirming and pushing when the seventeen year old's limbs began to squeeze the air out of his lungs - _angels above, can't Alex just hug me without making it uncomfortable?_

"I'm proud of you, squirt!" he declared loudly as he put him down, and his little brother smirked. How many nicknames did he have again? Often times they were demeaning, but in others - such as right now - they showed his sibling's affection. Alex's excited eyes met his, and the eldest son of the king enthusiastically asked: "Are you going to Summon her then?"

"Her name is Orzhova, and I have nowhere near enough mana for that." Caiellis admitted – he could barely even stand up, and would be swaying if not for Alex's hands providing an anchor for him to lean on. Attempting a single trial in a day drained him, consigning him to waste the rest of the day resting, and the one he did the first time on this introductory day was by far worse than any he had experienced prior. Alex nodded understandingly, swiftly appreciating that Caiellis was putting on a show of endurance now by just staying on his feet.

"Can I say "I told you so!"?" Alexander snickered, his little brother rolling his eyes.

"I was right about doing it a second time though, don't forget that," he informed the taller male, wanting to ensure that Alexander knew he was still capable of doing things by himself. With the fact that his autonomy in the palace had led to him self harming and his health deteriorating, he was aware that his brother had every right to believe he needed to once again take a more active role in caring for Caiellis - whilst that would still be appreciated, he would prefer it if he could retain the independence he had striven for at the end of the war.

"Yeah, I know. And sorry about earlier," Alex apologised, although Cai had already pardoned him for it, comprehending why his older brother had hurt him. Sliding to his knees and then crossing his legs, almost as tall as Caiellis even then, he suggested: "Why don't you stop acting so tough for a moment and sit down? Trust me, your big brother's lap is a lot more comfortable than standing up when you're exhausted."

Cai shot an annoyed and bemused glance at him, petulantly sitting away from his brother, muttering, "I'm not five."

Contrary to what one would think if they had viewed the two princes' interactions in the past few days, in times without stress Alex usually wasn't so affectionate, preferring to maintain a more "macho" facade and showing his support in more subtle ways - a casual punch on the arm there, a shoulder squeeze here - and now that they were older sometimes it took Cai by surprise (especially with the utter lack of anything resembling even simple friendliness between them before the final battle between their father and uncle), and he wasn't sure if this was a method of his brother teasing his own predilection towards open displays of love - or a younger Caiellis's constant want to be in hugs with his sibling, or his craving for his big brother's approval.

"Fine, be that way. I'll just have to eat the Honey Liquorice on my own then," Alexander mock sighed, grinning mischievously when he saw Cai's eyes light up in surprise. He took out the sweets – they were his little brother's absolute favourite, although they were in very short supply in Lucael as the resources once used to create the luxurious delicacies were devoted to more important causes.

When he had seen them in a shop in one of the neutral villages they halted at during the journey (with Caiellis declining to get off the ship and continuing to read in spite of his brother's urging), he knew that he just had to purchase them – luckily whatever was in the sugary liquorice stopped it from going off after a day in his jacket pocket, as he had quickly forgotten about them in his encounter with Kaled. Alex shuffled down next to Caiellis, not wanting his brother to tire himself out further, and slowly unwrapped the packet, smirking as he saw the boy's eyes widening despite himself.

He knew how much his baby brother absolutely adored the sweets, but he hadn't eaten them since his seventh birthday, which had been the last time they had procured some from Scientia Mos. Before that, when their mother was still alive, toddler Caiellis had gorged upon a jar of them that Emili accidentally left open, going completely hyper and almost seriously injuring himself by falling down the palace staircase. The boy's mother had restricted the sweets for birthdays and special occasions, and they stuck to that rule ever since, even though there was no chance now that Caiellis would eat too many of them.

"Where did you get them?" the boy asked in awe of his brother's powers to manage to constantly please him when he set his mind to it, and Alexander laughed and winked conspiratorially.

"Big brother secret," he teased, tapping the vaguely irritated boy on the nose.

"May I repeat the fact that I am no longer five years of age?"

"Nope," Alex replied, answering the clearly rhetorical question just to tease his brother further. Caiellis rolled his eyes, intrigued to see if he would still find the saccharine confectionery as delicious and addictive as he had in his childhood.

After a few minutes of excitedly devouring the Honey Liquorice, Alexander revising his opinion on his little brother's appetite for the sweets but allowing the boy to eat all of them instead of taxing a few (holding his hands up when Cai tried to offer him some), the blonde pulled out a circular device, which was instantly analysed by Caiellis.

"What is that?" he inquired, his soft voice weary, and Alexander smiled. Although it would be no issue for him to carry a sleeping Caiellis back to his room, he suspected that the smaller boy would protest at such treatment afterwards, so he hoped that the food would give his little brother sufficient energy to stay awake until the time came for him to rest.

"A mana-communicator. Dad gave it to me. Said we should use it to contact him in an emergency, or if something important happened. This definitely classifies as important," he insisted as soon as he saw Cai about to object – his little brother obviously didn't want to speak to the king. Alex couldn't really blame him - though he had not been there when Marik had spoken to his youngest son after his return to Capitalia Lux (perhaps he should have been, but he would barely be able to protest against his father anyway), the fact that whatever had been said had obviously hurt the youngest member of their family was evinced in the spiraling descent into despair Caiellis had undergone.

But their father needed to know, needed to be proud of Caiellis. Not just for his sake, but for all of the Lucerna family's, as Alexander hated seeing his little brother so broken and hurt that he cared little for the state of his own body and had desperately tried to avoid any form of help. He wanted emotional closure for Cai more than anything else, and wanted their dad to hear of his achievement.

"Why didn't he give us each one?" the little man inquired, his sleepy eyes drifting over Alexander's own before snapping back into focus tinted with curiosity

"He only had one set, and obviously the big brother is more mature and sensible, so he gave it to me."

"Keep telling yourself that," Caiellis retorted sarcastically, and Alex laughed good-naturedly, thumping his brother lightly on the arm and rolling his eyes at Cai's scowl - he barely put any force into it!

"Anyway, we're going to speak to him. No buts, Caiellis, he needs to know," Alexander firmly told him. I _need him to know._

.*.*.*.

Marik Ensis Lucerna sat in the small room, the pen in his hands mechanically scrawling over the documents in front of him – the slips of paper represented his orders to the two leaders of each other city, and would be sent by couriers embarking upon monorail trains the following day. It was currently the fastest way of transferring information until the large-scale communicators - a product of the Lucaelian and Yentarian alliance - were finished and installed. The king technically didn't have to spend time writing out the orders, just emblazon it with the seal of Lucerna after reviewing and approving of it, but Marik felt as if it was his duty to painstakingly transcribe his orders onto paper.

Many of the Hierarchs and Guardians were asking for more resources from Capitalia Lux to help build back the metropolises and replenish the resources expended now that the civil war had ended, but one particular message that caught his eyes was from Aretis of the City of the Sun. Civitas Sol, the closest city to the border between Lucael and Welkas, had been plagued in recent years by bandits from the New Empire, although the diplomats and representatives from there vigorously denied that their "Orders" were associated with them and that the attacks were simply the doing of lone factions within the domain.

However, the frequency of attacks on supply lines and lone travellers and traders between the two nations had increased (as those that had survived had been able to attest that the aggressors were clad in the attire of Welkas), the bandits becoming more and more brazen after the Kingdom of Light had been forced to divert its military inwards to deal with the more pressing threat of traitors.

Had Johnias not caused the largest and most violent conflict between Lucaelians that had ever blighted the Kingdom of Light, he would have taken the leaders of the New Empire to task sooner. The king had hoped that the attacks, like a persistent itch left ignored, would die down eventually - and that had happened for a time after defeating his treacherous twin brother - though it had been a foolish wish and whether or not the rulers of Welkas could control the bandits he would not allow the sanctity of his kingdom to be impeached upon any longer. Especially not now the marauding parties had penetrated into Lucaelian territories.

Talks between the bordering factions had become more heated, trading agreements that Marik had worked hard to broker were cancelled, and tension rose – Marik knew if nothing changed it would only be a matter of time before he was required to declare war. Some of the Light-bearers, most notably Guardian Oleic of the aforementioned City of the Sun and Hierarch Francis of Gol, were already baying for a righteous crusade to remind the Welkalite people why the Old Empire had stayed far away from Lucael, but Marik would wait to see if diplomacy could prevail. He didn't want to throw his people into another campaign, although he could clearly see where the two were coming from – a decisive victory would certainly be preferable to a protracted conflict.

Zoned out, the king didn't notice the mana-communicator in his pocket pinging repeatedly until at least thirty seconds after it started. Jolting into action, Marik instantly fished the ornate circular apparatus out and placed it on the desk, brightening the grey room with a flash of his White mana that allowed him to speak to his children. He dearly hoped it wasn't something urgent, though knew that his reliable eldest son wouldn't bother him unless it was.

"Dad," Alexander's voice cut across the room, near exactly the same sound as if his son was sat right next to him – the benefits of being firm allies with the Yentarian Republic were wonderful indeed. Marik couldn't detect anything wrong with Alex's tone (_though then again this could be the result of technological speech_) so assumed the talk had been initiated because of something important but not harmful. Marik breathed out a silent exhale of relief, not realising he had been holding it in within the time between his answering of the communique and his son's word.

"Hello son. It is nice to speak to you again. Was there something you wished to talk about?" he asked, pleasantly, trying to keep irritation that had sprung from nowhere out of his voice – it wasn't like his sons were pestering him, far from it, and the paperwork could wait. Besides, he had recently resolved - through no small internal quarrel with himself, though the sight of his little boy's self-inflicted wounds had shifted the argument in favour of one outcome - to pay more heed to his children now that the war had ceased. He could never give them his undivided attention, but clearly ignoring them had been extremely detrimental - particularly to his less emotionally stable youngest.

Alex replied quickly with: "Cai needs to speak to you." Marik's interest piqued and he leaned forwards in his seat in spite of the fact that it wouldn't actually increase the volume of the words and nor could his sons see. He felt a pang of regret when he heard his youngest distantly pleading: "Can't you just tell him?"

Evidently the boy still wasn't ready to accept him quite yet; it had been foolish to assume that just because the king gave him a present Caiellis would instantly open up to him. He listened as he heard a shuffle of limbs and a grunt of annoyance, evidence that a slight scuffle was taking place between the two boys.

"Father," Caiellis's soft voice rang out when the noise ended, sounding weary but pleased in the same instance, but fatherly concern made Marik narrow his eyes. There was something partially off as to the way the kid spoke, though it seemed to have a physical component and not an emotional one.

"Good morning Caiellis. Are you alright? You sound strained," the king inquired, and his son sighed, though it wasn't quite with the same despondence that the eldest Lucerna had become accustomed to from his few interactions with his youngest son.

"That's because," he responded tiredly, Marik able to hear the exasperation seeping through his words - he clearly did not want to be speaking to his dad, "Alex has me in a headlock."

"Oh," Marik chuckled quietly, ensuring that he wouldn't be heard and infuriate the thirteen year old even further. Clearly the big brother had needed to use force to make his youngest talk to him, which only sharpened his sense of guilt. He near automatically warned: "Don't hurt your brother, Alexander."

"Yeah, yeah," was his older son's sardonic reply, and Marik detected the sound of hair being ruffled a little too roughly for the recipient's liking. Despite that, once the tormenting had finished his ears picked up on the quiet noise of Alexander shifting his restricting grip, obviously concerned that if their father had noted the effects of the headlock on his youngest then he was enacting it a bit too hard for his liking. Nonetheless, the monarch knew for certain that Alexander wouldn't have weakened it enough to let Caiellis escape if he didn't put all of his effort into it, and with how tired his second son seemed it would most likely be an impossible task.

"I completed the Summoning. Orzhova is mine to command," Caiellis suddenly proclaimed, happiness warring with exhaustion in his tone, and the king felt a large smile work its way onto his somewhat pale but healthy features. He felt immensely proud, but a modicum of annoyance also entered his thoughts – the second his later-born left the pressure from his father, he passed the trial. Marik soon shook that off, reminding himself how difficult his son had found the trial, and that he should be revelling in the youngster's achievement instead of taking it as a personal slight - perhaps it was his altered approach after Alexander's shouted warnings that provided the push, though he seriously doubted that.

"How did you do it? Did one of the different tests simply react to you more, or was there a link between them that you previously hadn't discovered?" he asked, forgetting to actually congratulate Caiellis on what he had done.

"You never told me they were all unique!" Alexander cried indignantly, Caiellis instantly apologising to his big brother, a hint of fright in his young voice. "Don't worry, it's fine. You just should have told me," the older boy instantly placated; he had forgotten just how tired his younger sibling was.

"Before I continue," Caiellis said, "Alex, promise not to beat me up for this."

"I can't promise that I won't kick your skinny ass some time in the future for what you might say now, but right now I won't. Not until you've got some rest, it would be unfair otherwise. Ok?" Marik briefly wondered if it was ever "fair" for Alexander to tussle with his younger brother, but if there was one universal constant it was that siblings - especially brothers - would fight one another, and the king wasn't going to change that.

"That will have to do. Anyway, the first time I attempted Orzhova's trial today, the more pain I was under the closer I seemed to get to her. I almost died doing it, but was about to reach the Angel of the Black Sun when someone unplugged the Summoning Bay, a piece of equipment that allows others to monitor your health and watch your progress," Caiellis explained efficiently, the anger and frustration he had felt at the time currently absent from his soft voice, "After storming off as I couldn't control my mana for a few minutes, I started thinking about what could possibly connect the different trials – there was nothing apart from one factor."

"Which was?" Marik questioned expectantly, appreciating his son's contextual explanation but wishing to cut to the chase of the matter.

"The only common factor in the tests was my mortality," the boy stated gravely, "So at the start of the next trial I ignored the world presented to me and killed myself. When-"

"You did what?!" both older Lucernas exclaimed loudly in unison, the shock in their voices prevalent. Caiellis rolled his eyes and smiled – Alexander and their dad sounded exactly the same. Alex freed him from the headlock and spun the smaller boy around, placing his large hands on skeletal shoulders, before shouting, "What the fuck, Cai?! Why would you do such a stupid, reckless thing?! I can't believe you, Caiellis! After all I said, you go ahead and do _that_! WHY?!"

Marik abruptly snapped shut his mouth that was gaping open, his eldest son's anger carried well over into the room despite him not being the one holding the communication device. His concern for Caiellis warred with both his pride in the boy's month-long determination that had finally been rewarded and that same almost guilty sensation that told him his smallest son had been right to risk himself if he had deduced that it was the only way to achieve his.

The father, _dad_, within him that had been locked away since the fateful night of Emili's murder and had only now begun to reach out of its austere cage, baulked at such a thought, extending fingers of grief and guilt into his iron mind before he clamped down on them. The King Marik, who had much more of a monopoly of his emotions, knew well that there was no honour or victory without sacrifice, and that if he had passed the Summoning trial then it had evidently been worth the risk. This part of the man was only mildly worried for his child, as the loss of a Lucerna heir within their own mind was unheard of and would be a huge loss to Lucael.

He could well understand Alexander's fury, as he felt it himself at the fact that his youngest had taken such a foolhardy gamble without consulting anyone first (though he knew there were several very good reasons for that), but when he heard his thirteen year old's whimpered sniffle Marik became irritated that the single thing Caiellis had done correctly since the end of the civil war was met with anger instead of congratulation, and now his clearly exhausted boy who dearly needed rest was being scared by his older brother.

To that end, he injected authority that brooked no dissent into his voice as he commanded, cutting off the beginning of another tirade from the seventeen year old: "Alexander, stop shouting at your brother. Caiellis needs rest, not you yelling at him." His stern tone sliced through the start of his son's words, silencing him immediately. He didn't bring up the fact that the elder teen was frightening Caiellis, attributing his clear fear to lethargy and his evident respect of his older brother and leaving it unsaid - it was embarrassing enough for the boy without his father the king pointing it out.

"Sorry, Cai. What you did was incredibly stupid, but I understand why you thought that you should - and part of that is my fault. Look, little bro, I'm not mad at_ you_, ok?" there was a pause, and Marik could feel both his youngest's dubious glance and the apologetic smile that he somehow knew would be splitting his eldest's handsome features, "I know, I know - weird way of showing it, huh? But I'm not angry with you, and you've gotta believe that."

The forty year old, despite being the father of these two adolescents who had helped raise one of them for eight years, felt that he was intruding on an intimate moment that he didn't deserve to be a part of, and tilted his head away from the filigree sphere laid out on the table in front of him. The words of his older boy were a stark reminder that, if he had the inclination or time, there was so much more to learn about both of his sons.

"Don't worry ... I - I calculated that the chance of failure was quite low," he lied into the yawning void of silence that had opened up, the correct figure being more around fifty percent - not that any equations he did make were anywhere near accurate, as this had been a matter of the mind. Because Marik wasn't right next to the boys, he couldn't detect the falsity of his words, but as Alexander gazed apologetically at him he instantly realised that Caiellis was lying when his little sibling avoided eye contact.

"Caiellis, don't lie to us," he admonished softly, a far cry from his earlier yelling, "What was the real chance of failure?"

"About half..." the youngest Lucerna muttered despondently under his breath, already anticipating the startled response from his elders, so cutting in before they said anything, his voice full of a steel that he didn't know he had, "It was my choice to do that, my gamble to take. I don't want to hear about how my Summoning is not worth my life, or how I should value myself more. I'm fully aware of that. The risk to reward ratio was fine as long as it got that burden off my back."

"Caiellis..." the king began to say, some measure of guilt seeping into his tone, before his youngest interrupted. "Save it, dad. I've already forgiven you for it."

Taken aback, Marik remained silent for a short moment, before he began smiling again. Though he had not done much to aid his son - his duty as a monarch necessitating that he could not spend time with them and his own disinclination towards doing so serving to push him even further away from his youngest - evidently taking him down to the reliquary and making an effort seemed to have been appreciated by the boy.

"Well, I'm extremely proud of you," he beamed, adding somewhat awkwardly - the words that had once been so natural to him feeling forced and stunted, "Proud of you both, in fact. I don't tell either of you nearly enough."

"Thanks, dad," Alex grinned back at the communicator as his brother quietly repeated the words. He gently eased the device out of Cai's white-knuckled grip, the younger male startled at how hard he was inadvertently holding it, before saying, "See you soon."

The connection ended, and Marik sat wearily down in his chair. Even if he hadn't borne the brunt of it, arguing with Caiellis felt like he was arguing with himself – the boy was probably going to become more and more stubborn as he got further into his teenage years, it had taken Marik until he was at least nineteen before he stopped questioning every single one of his father's orders. Johnias had always been the perfect one – the better soldier, diplomat, mage and ruler, while Marik had been the screw up, prone to acting coldly around people. His twin brother had been more warm and emotionally-driven, the kingdom's favourite, maybe that was what had driven him to betray Lucael after the Death-Vision of their father named Marik as the next monarch.

He knew that Johnias had taken an interest in his youngest ever since the boy's birth – at the time it was a blessing, as plenty of the then sixteen Light-bearers treated the infant with suspicion due to the hated Angel of the Black Sun returning for the first time. Now he realised that Johnias wanted Caiellis because of the boy's innate and almost unheard of White and Black mana, whilst the treacherous brother himself had been forced to sacrifice his Summoning to obtain the latter, losing the ability to use the former.

Marik wondered where the betrayer was – it would have been risky and fool-hardy of him to venture into the abyss and vengefully hunt his twin down, although he would have done so without the council of his greatest advisers and friends. His brother would be planning something, he was certain of it - Johnias never surrendered - and when he reared his nefarious head again, Lucael would be ready.

.*.*.*.

"I can't believe you sometimes," Alexander grumbled when the connection ended, his little brother tilting his head away in shame. Rolling his eyes at the fact that he was going to have to initiate _another _emotional moment, the taller boy knelt down to his brother's height, clasping his gaunt face in his hands and softly turning it so that he could gaze into the emerald depths of his brother's eyes. At any other moment, Cai might have resisted and the elder would have had to apply some of his strength in holding him still, but the energy to fight had been drained out of the youngest Lucerna and he solemnly let his big brother have his way with him. Alex sighed, resolving to be quick, "I mean, really? After all that I said to you - and did you to - you go ahead and do that?"

"Look at me please, little brother," he spoke as the boy's eyes meandered anywhere but the blue orbs of his older brother - probably frightened of what he might find there, Alexander realised. To that end, he made his gaze as soft as possible whilst still conveying his point, smiling slightly at Caiellis. Tears pricked the edges of his eyes, but he clearly didn't have the drive to brush them away, and while Alex knew he was verging on ruining his baby brother's triumphant moment there were still things he had to say. "We are going talk about this later, alright Cai? Another time, when you aren't so tired and stressed."

"But right now: please promise me that you will tell me how you feel if the pressure ever gets to you again, Caiellis. You know that I'm here for you - that is what big brothers are for, and its about time that I started embracing that again instead of leaving you to face your challenges alone. This is as much my fault as it is yours - much more, in fact - and I need you to know that I will drop _anything _for you." Caiellis gulped nervously as Alex moved his hands down to the boy's too-skinny shoulders, before murmuring quietly, ashamed at the fact that his brother was feeling guilty because of him, "M'kay."

"Right. C'mere," he ordered as he let go of the boy and holding out his arms, Cai shooting him a doubtful glance before wrapping his own arms around his brother's chest and leaning his head on a broad shoulder (only able to do so as Alex hadn't stood back up yet). A quiet: "I love you, big brother," almost imperceptible over the peaceful waterfall in the background, escaped Caiellis's lips, and Alexander beamed. That made it all worth it.

The older boy's arms fastened around his back, gently hugging him for a moment before squeezing tightly and lightly shoving him away, extending to his full height again and grinning at his little sibling. He teased, no sting to be found in the words, "Angels above, Cai, I'm sure that you find a way to make every moment an emotional one."

Caiellis favoured him with an innocent smile, flashing his adorable dimples at his older brother and causing Alexander's heart to melt even more. "Anyway. I'm proud of you, short stuff, and even if I don't quite agree with your method you still did very well to figure out and pass Orzhova's trial." He reached out and stuck a hand in the smaller boy's half-curled mop of brown hair, ruffling it more softly than usual in deference to the kiddo's tiredness but still hard enough to evoke annoyance as he exclaimed, "I knew you could do it, nerd."

He stopped his tousling, letting his hand rest in his brother's fluffy locks that probably required cutting soon before they became a distraction that a Lucerna could not afford. The seventeen year old had not anticipated being with his brother for such a duration since they arrived at the academy and Caiellis had near instantly left him (probably prompted by Alex's friends among the selected adolescents coming to see him), as he had been intending to almost fully respect the kid's wishes about being more independent. He would prefer to keep his brother here longer, but with Cai's eyelids drooping he suggested: "Well, are we going to head back now? I'll ask the teachers to see if you can rest for the remainder of the day. I'm sure they should let you."

"Na-ah," the boy shook his head slightly childishly, which made his brother smirk. It wasn't often Caiellis acted his age, and when he did it was much more likely to be angsty pre-teen (_or actually young teenager now_) than the little kid he was. "I'm fine. I can go back to lessons."

"You certainly look fine-" Alex's sarcasm was cut off when Cai took one step and tripped, landing face first in the undergrowth and murmuring a curse that was muffled by the plants. The older boy rolled his eyes at his brother's wilful perseverance, walking towards him and pulling the weightless child up, hefting him onto his back. "Don't complain, baby brother. And no, you aren't five."

"Wait a second," after getting comfortable and slotting his thin legs properly into the gaps between Alex's arms and chest, wrapping his arms around his big brother's shoulders, Caiellis suddenly looked back at Tranquillity's Descent, "Can you get one of those lotus flowers? I think Annia would like them."

"Ooh, who's that? Your girlfriend?" Alexander teased, and his little brother went bright red. The elder prince could tell that, despite the reality that he was the only person other than Cai in this location and he couldn't see him, the squirt shrunk against his back, as if instinctively trying to conceal his embarrassment.

"She's just a friend," he refuted quickly, causing the older prince to chuckle.

"It's ok to have a girlfriend little brother, I promise I won't tell dad." That elicited a grunt of annoyance from the younger boy and a small fist thumping into his back, at which Alexander laughed, taunting, "That's the hardest you can do it? That was barely a punch! I'm sure your new girlfriend wouldn't be very impressed with that."

"She's just a friend," the prince repeated sulkily; he wasn't in the mood for teasing and he certainly didn't care for Annia in the sense of courting (which was one of the very few topics his mentally challenged brother ever thought about). She was nice, and her fascination for knowledge was something they had in common, but right now Caiellis didn't want a partner – he was only thirteen, he didn't think he was ready for a relationship, and if he was then he wouldn't choose Annia. In fact, he didn't know who he would choose, but just assumed he would realise when he met them.

Besides, their father had officially implemented a ban on girlfriends for his sons during the civil war (apparently he had seen fit to indirectly inform Tybalt of that without seeing the young princes) that hadn't gone obeyed by his brother (nor had their carers particularly minded as long as it didn't disrupt anything else) and displeasing the man was a possibility he would rather like to avoid.

"Keep telling yourself that," he mimicked Caiellis's voice in a mocking and high pitched tone, hearing his brother sigh tiredly, "Forget it."

Nonetheless, he carefully knelt down and scooped up one of the admittedly visually alluring flowers, handing it to Caiellis, the younger boy taking it silently after a moment's delay.

When they had got back to the academy, it was already lunchtime, but the younger Lucerna was allowed to go into his room and straight to bed, not eating anything despite Alexander's insistence that he needed to aid his body in replenishing his energy before slumber. He was glad about the fact that his older brother had allowed him to disembark before they arrived in the Scholaria building, permitting him to retain some measure of pride in front of students he didn't know. Alex kept a hand clamped firmly but not painfully his shoulder, maintaining the illusion that Cai could still walk upright whilst virtually keeping him on his feet by himself. All this was done without a word said about it between them, making Caiellis even more grateful he had a brother that could be so empathetic at times.

"Night, baby brother," Alexander snicked as Cai tiredly snuggled down on his bed, struggling to even reply to his brother. His body was exhausted despite the sugar ingested earlier, but his mind was alight with emotions and thoughts, a blazing forest fire that would not be extinguished by the lethargy of the rest of him.

About two hours after he got underneath the covers, Caiellis finally got to sleep. The second he did so, he felt himself being pulled out of his dreams, a surreal feeling of drifting aimlessly through liquid velvet that ended when he opened his eyes. He looked around – he was in the abandoned cathedral where he met Orzhova a few hours ago, illuminated by the almost oppressive light shining through the stained glass.

"Hello again, Caiellis," a melancholy and otherworldly voice echoed throughout the dizzyingly tall church, and the boy spun around, coming face to face with his newly obtained Summoning. She glanced at him expressionlessly apart from a deep sadness in her eyes – it was like looking at his own reflection in angelic form, though elevated to become something far more than he could ever hope to be.

"Orzhova," he said quietly, nervously, his voice stretched out across the room. He had heard of the interactions between Summoner and Summoning in the former's mind, Alexander himself sometimes conversing with Aurelia in his own personal Mind Realm – his older brother had often told him about it, both to satiate his curiosity concerning the First Sisterhood and to prepare him for this time, but Caiellis's Sancturia angel was more divergent than the Warleader.

Whilst Aurelia had appeared to many Lucernas over the years and been part of numerous military victories, saving thousands of lives and purging the enemies of Lucael, Orzhova was an entirely different matter – in fact Caiellis was certain his brother's Summoning had been used by Queen Matrice to slay the self-titled Emperor of Light, which would hopefully not be a source of contention between his angel and sibling.

Xarius had used the angel to fight against other factions, never revealing her potential for Black magic until he revealed his plot to become king, using her to murder his own sister and terrorize the population into compliance. She had slaughtered thousands of innocent soldiers -and even worse, children - without even batting an eyelid, though at least nowhere did it say the angel took pleasure in it.

As if sensing Cai thinking about her violent past, Orzhova's face became noticeably more dejected. She took a step towards him, gold inlaid heels clacking on the stone floor in a noise that echoed across the cavernous nave, gazing down at him in a mixture of emotions that Caiellis found difficult to interpret, so far removed from human feelings as they were.

"You are probably thinking: "Why couldn't my Summoning be any of the other First Sisterhood Angels – my father has been blessed by Akroma and my brother has Aurelia, why couldn't Avacyn, Iona or Razia have appeared to me at birth? Even less common angels, like Jenara of Queen Arie, Numia of King Lukem, or even Feather of King Acarn, would be infinitely preferable to the Angel of the Black Sun." Am I correct?"

Orzhova seemed hurt, and Caiellis felt the strange instinctual desire to refute her claims – but he knew that lying to the angel would not achieve anything.

"Well, many of my sisters wanted to become the Summoning of such an ethereally powerful infant, especially after Aurelia and Akroma had already entered the world and were entrusted to those who were more suited to martial prowess. However, I decided to aid you myself – I am disgraced in the Sisterhood, scorned by my sisters and their daughters after what I did in service to Xarius. I sensed a great potential in him, though he proved to be unsuitable – he could only control light or darkness, not both, and lusted after the latter. The balance was never achieved, although I followed his commands dutifully - as you well know." Although she spoke the words swiftly, her melodic voice was still inflected with a sonorous hint that kept it from being perceived as anything close to hasty.

"And I am guessing that you have sensed a similar potential in me," Caiellis deduced, the angel nodding solemnly. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that - his capacity for darkness that he had only truly displayed once before in the past scared him.

"I am truly sorry – you will be hated and feared by your peers just as I am, for nothing under your own control. But I can tell you this: ultimately, Xarius was a greedy fool that wanted nothing more than to become more and more powerful at the expense of everyone else. He had no higher goals, and was even intending to offer me up in an Infernal Bargain, just like your uncle did with poor Serenity, when he realised that I wasn't able to serve his demands as well as a demon would. I fully admit that I made a mistake in choosing him."

"Yet still you murdered thousands under his orders," the boy stated sombrely, glancing anxiously at the floor as Orzhova narrowed her black orbs, a wave of nervousness washing over him. She grabbed Caiellis's chin with her free left hand, the skin of her pale fingers smooth and cold, and forced her Summoner to meet her liquid night gaze. The grip was gentle, coming nowhere close to harming him, yet Cai knew that he wouldn't be able to turn away if he tried.

"Have you ever wondered why, out of all the remaining First Sisterhood angels, I have appeared to Lucernan infants the least?" Orzhova asked, clearly waiting for a reply although at first Caiellis though she was going to answer herself. He hated not being able to distinguish between a rhetorical and genuine question.

"Because it takes a special type of person to be able to find the balance between light and darkness?" the boy hazarded a guess, thinking that this would be the most logical solution and reminded belatedly about advice given to him by Uncle Tybalt in the past: "_Is that an inquiry or a statement? Be confident in your assertions, Caiellis."_

"Exactly. There are barely any mages with the mana of both White and Black - let alone with the capacity to properly control the opposing forces - living, but as angels of the First Sisterhood are restricted to the descendants of Matalis Ortus Lucerna after the foolishness of Serra, known to you as the First Angel or the Goddess, there has only ever been another single candidate for me. And you are fully aware of how that turned out," Orzhova explained patiently.

She released her Summoner and spun around, pointing her glinting scythe in the direction of the gigantic stained glass window behind her, glowing with malevolent light and portraying a single kneeling figure, head bowed towards a huge sun of midnight black that pulsed with darklight and bathed them all in its contradictory glow. It was the very essence of supplication, and yet the boy couldn't help but wonder - _Is it devotion or fear that keeps them on their knees?_

"Caiellis Noctis Lucerna. You are different to Xarius. I can feel it. I am confident that you will be able to master the White and the Black. I can already tell that you do not fear me as much as the rest of the people – you understand that it is the wielder to blame, not the weapon, no matter how vile. That doesn't apply to demons, but that is a conversation for another time. In the coming years, I am certain that this alliance will become very beneficial to the both of us. But for now, I suggest that you wake up. It has been a pleasure to finally talk to you."

Caiellis felt himself (involuntarily) re-emerging from his mind and was thrust into reality once again, the lonely cathedral gradually replaced by the dusk of closed lids, scintillating stained glass becoming the swirling patterns locked behind his eyes. He slowly opened his eyes – the room was gloomy, suggesting that it was evening, and he immediately locked on to another presence sat on the bed opposite him. The adolescent was hunched over, and Cai could hear the scratching sound of ink pen on paper.

"Kaled?" he inquired after a stifled yawn, the Welkalite turning around and genuinely grinning at him. He could already feel his cheeks turning red at the fact that he had been slumbering in a room with someone he barely knew as its sole other occupant, and was grateful for the lack of light concealing his embarrassment.

"You're awake," he stated. _Humans do like to make these redundant points. H_e smiled shyly back, recalling when he had met Annia's sister and had said the exact same words. Caiellis sat up in the bed, stretching and yawning loudly – he still felt tired, as anyone would after just waking up, but apart from that was rejuvenated from his ordeal. He glanced at his watch, which was still strapped onto his wrist, blinking in mild surprise when he saw that it was quarter-past nine. Cai had spent the entire day in bed, which while not uncommon when he had attempted a Summoning in the past, but he had woken up regularly. It must have been the best sleep he'd had in a while.

"Kaled, I... - I'm sorry about earlier. I know why you would do that, and I'm grateful to you for thinking about my safety," he apologised quietly, remembering the events that had lead to him meeting Orzhova – he had accidentally hurt the older boy in his rage. He had never meant to launch a barrage of uncontrolled energy at the Welkalite, but the fact that Kaled was here instead of constrained to the infirmary meant that he obviously hadn't been harmed too badly.

"It's fine. Turns out you couldn't actually control your mana usage well in that state, so the percentage you sent at me was easily healed by Miss Trostani. Doctor Argyle did warn me, so I don't blame you at all. Anyway, I'll forget about that 'cause you did the same when I choked you yesterday," Kaled added, putting his pen down and fully spinning round. "Speaking of which..." he motioned to the red mark just visible on his roommate's throat, Caiellis's hand instinctively massaging it. It didn't hurt much, and certainly wouldn't bruise (at least he hoped not), but it still remained slightly tender.

"That was Alex. Sometimes he has to be harsh to get me to listen." He hoped that the fifteen year old didn't take issue with the words and stayed out of any altercations Cai might have had with his brother. It was bad enough that he had shamed himself in front of an entire classroom of students, but right now, with that sleepy contentedness still warming his soul he couldn't find the will to care.

"I know, he told me earlier when I asked about it. I just wondered whether it felt alright, or if you wanted a drink," Kaled offered - the water in the bathroom was suitable for drinking.

"Thanks, but I'll get it myself," Caiellis replied, easily walking to the opposite side of the room and accessing the bathroom without falling over. His energy had returned faster than usual; he could feel the fresh mana revitalising his exhausted limbs as it seeped through them. Once he had done so, Cai returned to the comical sight of Kaled puzzling over his work, chewing his pen intently. He stood next to his roommate, thinking that it was considerate that he had chosen to keep the lamp illuminating the desk dim as to not prematurely disturb the prince.

"Do you want any help?" he asked the older boy, noticing that the sheet was filled with mathematics problems no doubt set by Doctor Argyle.

"Actually," Kaled responded, getting off the bed and rummaging through his disorganised satchel, pulling out an identical piece of paper, "You have one to do as well, so would you like me to help you, considering you missed the lesson today? Though be warned I haven't done anything like this before so I'm not exactly the best person to be teaching you it."

Caiellis accepted the proffered sheet and examined it, smiling at some of the puzzles detailed there. He could recall in crystalline detail Uncle Tybalt teaching him about it (at a younger age than his big brother had covered the material) and applying it to the newly introduced theorems of mana equations, and though the form of them in Yentar differed from the Lucaelian derivative he was confident that he could solve them.

"Quadratic algebra. Piece of cake," he smirked, completing the questions in a matter of a few minutes – he thoroughly enjoyed maths, finding the application of logic to find an answer mentally stimulating. During their lessons with Tybalt, Alexander had invented a whole slew of nicknames that he mostly used then: ranging from Adopted Yentarian to Boy Genius.

"Oh! I almost forgot!" Kaled exclaimed loudly, instantaneously disregarding the rest of the mathematics "homework". "Tomorrow we have one of our first tests – it is a team-battle exercise for the whole year. Ten teams of four, one from each faction – me, you, Annia and Freya are a team, assuming you have recovered enough by then. They didn't explain it fully, but from what I could gather we have to defeat all the enemies, and that it will assess how we work together in the face of adversity. We are teleported to different sections of the island. I'm really looking forward to it."

"It certainly sounds interesting," the younger boy mused, pondering the implications of such a challenge – Caiellis wasn't the best at working with others (apart from Alexander), but this would allow him to work out Orzhova's potential and capabilities. A First Sisterhood seraph would be an overwhelming force in the right situation, and though he was well aware that in his first Summoning he wouldn't be able to sustain Orzhova for long now that he had access to her his power level had been dramatically increased.

One thing that he was definitely wary of was his potential usage of Black mana, which had surged to the fore after his jarring removal from the Summoning Bay and had remained within easy reach since then. Cai did not know how to employ the magic of darkness safely, and although he was well aware that it would be an integral part of the ritual to bring Orzhova into the world of man that only raised further questions. Admittedly, he was quite scared as to both how other Lucaelians and any scions of the Goddess that he might encounter would react to the Angel of the Black Sun's presence and how the angel that had chosen him would respond to them.

* * *

Liber Sancturia:

Sanctum Angelica, First Sisterhood:

Jenara, Asura of War

Razia, Boros Archangel

Iona, Shield of Emeria

Avacyn, Angel of Hope

Admonition Angel

Angel of Serenity: Former Summoning of Johnias Otium Lucerna


	9. A First Test

The chimera launched itself at Quioni, the fish-like water elemental turning herself into watery blue liquid in response, forcing the goat-headed creature to plough through what was the enemy Summoning and into a tree. It snarled, furiously beating its feathered wings and pushing off with its hooves, propelling itself straight into Annia's waiting spell. The jet of water hit it full on in the face, the dispelling magic encoded into the spell slowly unravelling the conjured essence of her opponent's Summoning in concentric layers.

Meri was another Yentarian youth whose father was a prominent scientist in the League of Xechun, often shunning his son and familial responsibilities in favour of continuing his research after the sudden disappearance of his wife. The boy was not known by Annia in much detail, though the two had shared a conversation on the merits of third-wave runic ciphers.

The boy opened his hands wide and sent out a rather crude tongue of flame into the girl that scorched the air in its passage, his concentration split between the opposing Summoner and maintaining the presence of his chimera. Annia emulated the technique Quioni had shown earlier and morphed into water, swiftly flowing down to the ground, the tree she had been on set alight.

The two teams were fighting in a forest bioscape, the vast scale of the trees reminding Annia of the monolithic Erian oaks, although Freya had mentioned that they felt artificial, nothing like the trees of her homeland. The battleground had probably been created by Landshapers, as to not offend some Erians who would object to the abuse of the living features of the terrain - especially mighty trees. The engagement had not been a chance encounter - indeed, Annia, Freya and the boys had been subtly tracking the others for at least half an hour, waiting for the perfect locale in which they could split apart and neutralise their foes individually.

She materialised back into human form – her clothes were still on, the fabrics enchanted with spells her mother had invented to allow them to act as Annia did without the expenditure of additional mana for purely cosmetic purposes, just in time to see Quioni slam into Meri as the boy was teleported back to the Scholaria before any severe injuries could be caused, out of the challenge. His Summoning vanished also, the chimera hissing in frustration at the girl.

Her team had decided that the best way to defeat enemies would be to isolate them individually and duel them, each person fighting with their counterpart in the other teams. Annia had reasoned that as they were more accustomed to the magic of their own nation, they would have an easier time overcoming it - and honestly, she didn't want to be the one to have to convince the others to act as one cohesive force.

"An expected outcome," Quioni commented almost idly, batting her eyelids and elegantly floating through the air, returning to Annia's side.

"Thank you for the help. You can go now," the girl replied, as the other members of the group walked quickly towards her whilst her Summoning dispersed into droplets of shining water. Obviously Team 6 had been fully removed from the competition; Annia felt slightly sorry for them – none were particularly powerful in comparison to their factional counterparts, especially the spoiled Welkalite girl that Kaled would have had no trouble dispatching from what Annia had observed of his combat style. Her eyes met with the taller youth, and he smiled. Though his eyes lit up with a mixture of happiness and tease that Annia had come to expect from the younger student, the sadness that had drawn her to him in the first place (she had wished to do something to salve it but didn't want to bring attention to it) hadn't left in spite of his demeanour.

The current plan wasn't the most preferable option, nor the most efficient, but it was the best she had come up with for the time being – they would easily crush weaker teams, but when others of similar strengths found them, the abject lack of teamwork would definitely be their downfall. She had chosen to be team leader after none of the others offered to take the role, but so far it wasn't working out well.

Kaled insisted on repeatedly arguing with her over every single plan she came up with to the point where she had considered instating him as the leader so that they could enact his tactics and figuratively crash and burn just to prove her point. And while at least Freya followed orders she wouldn't contribute to the strategizing, instead shyly averting her eyes whenever Annia tried to make contact. Caiellis was respectful and kept his thoughts to himself also, but Annia knew that no matter what plan she came up with, the prince would continue to do as he wished if said plan didn't suit him. Luckily, neither Freya nor the youngest of their group had Summoned in their first fight, at least listening to her point about theirs being far more mana intensive – they should be kept in reserve until they had to battle the other top-tier squads.

That meant that while Annia and Kaled may have to aid them against enemies that were too powerful to face without their Summoning (to Kaled's amusement in terms of helping the Lucaelian), but almost contemptuously easy with it, their mana wouldn't be expended in the first few battles – potent Sancturia creatures tended to require a vast amount of energy to even Summon, much less sustain.

"That was … easy," Kaled admitted, planting himself at the base of a tree and pulling out his data-sheet, inelegantly whipping scarlet light across it to activate the device. After every battle, Annia maintained that they should leave time to recover and examine the map, finding out where they should go next and what areas of terrain they expected their classmates to be situated at. For once, Kaled wasn't disputing that.

"I-I think we should take this time to make a list of the most formidable foes from each of our nations," Caiellis suggested, nervously at first, remaining standing as Annia and Freya also sat down (though it didn't place him that far above them), the Erian appearing without comment and not electing to join in the discussion immediately. "I'll start – there are three others in this year that can Summon an angel, although all of the Lucaelian students are powerful, so do not underestimate them. However, their angels are "only" Second Sisterhood, which means that Orzhova and I should theoretically be able to defeat them, though I have less experience with my Summoning having only just passed her trial - but they can utilise them more frequently and sustain them for longer in any case. Mysos Grandé of Cassida Principia is blessed by Iridis, Seraph of the Sword, Kierra Esse of Civitas Sol uses Abigale of the Firemane, and finally Ollis Pax of Gol is graced by Linvala, Keeper of Silence."

"You do know that most of that is gibberish, don't you?" Kaled laughed, stopping when Annia sent a glare his way. She didn't miss how Cai's head lowered for a moment in embarrassment, so decided to speak up on his defense. Besides, even if Annia hadn't sensed the youngest's discomfort, she would still be arguing his case as identifying potential threats was important.

"No, the information is very useful. The Yentarian students we should watch out for are Tai Zhing from the League of Isak, Ianus Mecur of League Uveria and Jayrahl Phransis from League Xechun. However, I think we are all at a similar power level, and that I should be able to hold my own against them," the girl added, turning to Kaled.

"How does this help, again?" the Welkalite questioned as he got back to his feet but continued to lean against the tree, his casual pose irking the young prince, "It's not like we can avoid them, and telling each other their names doesn't do anything."

"Actually, it does," Caiellis snapped back, shooting the older boy a frustrated glower, and Kaled retorted irritably with: "Care to explain?"

"We have met these students and seen their powers - unless you haven't been paying attention. But Annia and I have, and names are more than enough to come up with stratagems for defeating them. Freya, are there any Erians we should worry about?" the thirteen year old ripped his gaze away from Kaled and directed it towards the girl he addressed, inadvertently pinning her to the tree with the intensity of it. He couldn't comprehend why his roommate insisted on being so deliberately obstinate when they had to be focussed if they wished to emerge victorious - and no other outcome would be befitting of a Lucerna. Caiellis just wished that he didn't have to work with these three, that he could fight on his own or with his brother who he didn't feel anxious talking to.

"I...I don't know," she stuttered meekly, turning away from the prince's piercing green eyes. Caiellis frowned in a way that was almost a scowl, not noticing that he was perpetrating something that he would have hated had it been directed towards him despite having experienced it much worse.

"Glad you could contribute," he spat sarcastically, and she went bright red. Kaled reached out and clapped him a little too hard around the head (forcing the junior adolescent to stifle a hiss of pain), putting his other arm around the Erian's shoulders and growling. "Don't antagonise her."

"Or what, exactly? Any threat you could make won't mean anything," he scowled at the older boy, once again irritated by his over-familiarity, and subconsciously annoyed that Kaled was treading on Alexander's territory. He only permitted his big brother to act in that manner because he knew that Alex did love him and that it was (mostly) an odd way of showing brotherly affection (and that he didn't have much of a choice, but would prefer not to call attention to that fact).

"What the hell is wrong with you all of a sudden? Was that battle a bit too hard for you to handle?" the Welkalite also stood up to his full height, leaning over the younger boy in a slightly intimidating manner, hands clenching into threatening fists. Caiellis's hand reflexively grasped around the hilt of the Sword of Glass at his waist, before he forced himself to pull away. That sort of violence would help no one.

_Kaled isn't going to kill me,_ he reminded himself, even if the slight bruise on his neck (which now eclipsed the mostly faded evidence of Alexander's grip despite having been there longer) protested against that. Instead of continuing the argument, he exhaled deeply and sat next to Annia, refusing to meet the eyes of the older boy.

"I guess I'm just not used to working in a team. I would much prefer to be alone. Sorry if my attitude is causing you problems, I don't mean to," he offered unemotionally, trying to keep his words at a level tone instead of allowing it to devolve into quiet timidness, which made his apology seem less than genuine. Kaled narrowed his eyes, figuring that there was no point in saying that unless Cai meant it, though he couldn't look the Lucaelian in the eyes since they seem fixated upon the mossy ground.

"I have to say, I didn't expect that. Very adult," Kaled intended it to be interpreted as a commendation, expecting Cai to carry on with the quarrelling, but it came out quite patronising. He wanted to reach out and give the youngster a friendly pat on the shoulder, but decided against the idea - it was what he would normally do for a friend (or more like an acquaintance in this instance), but with the way Cai had reacted to it with a mixture of mild but visible discomfort and nervousness so far he thought it might just aggravate him further. "I meant that as a compliment, by the way."

"Than-"

"Caiellis?" Annia asked, as the boy instantly became silent, his green eyes becoming alert and focussed. He snapped up to his feet, the girl he had been sat next to flinching back from the sudden movement, unused to fighting and not having the experience required to instinctively repress such a reaction.

"Freya, do you feel that?" he demanded urgently, sensing the mana building up within the ground around them as a wave of raw magic seething beneath the surface. The Erian nodded quickly in response, eyes wide, as Annia and Kaled shared a look of confusion - their sensory abilities not as honed as the other two. The older boy demanded tersely, "Feel what, Cai? Mind telling us what th-"

"Scatter!" Caiellis shouted, blatantly interrupting the Welkalite - something that he would have felt no small amount of trepidation about in a normal social situation, but right now his honed instincts were taking over and he had no time for shyness. Spiralling light flashed from the prince as he leapt with enchanted wings of scintillating stained glass onto a nearby branch, the stocky wood more than thick enough for him to stand on safely and overlook the undergrowth beneath.

It wasn't a technique he had ever used before, but his mind had little time to pay heed to that now, and was thankful for the gift of manoeuvrability that his mana had conferred to him. Kaled Summoned Regata hesitantly in a flash of flame, while Freya sent an orb of Green mana into the ground, yelping in panic when it returned to her.

"What are you doing? Get out!" the Lucaelian yelled, as titanic vines burst out of the ground, smashing through the solid earth as if it were water in an explosive impact and flinging Kaled and Freya off their feet. Their fall was caught by a cushion of watery Blue mana and a less gentle circle of White light underneath it, Annia's figure forming from scattered droplets after she had been hit by a huge tendril of plant-matter and almost eliminated from the year spanning challenge. The firecat landed on the lower ground, slashing at another opportunistic stalk that ripped its way out of the earth in front of it with claws of flame.

Quioni appeared by her side as the Yentarian wove the liquid mana into the creature's shape, the elemental quickly analysing the battle situation as more vines broke out of the ground and came at them. The being opened its mouth and breathed out a spray of corrosive mist that Annia directed at the roots with the sapphire magic surrounding her fingertips, the acid dissolving them and blocking more from attacking the imperilled members of Team 3.

A figure leapt through the fog, catching Annia off guard, his conjured armour of light hissing as it slowly decayed but nonetheless protected the occupant from the mist. His large great-sword swung at her, and she involuntarily screamed and fell backwards. An indistinct blur darted past her face and the girl heard the scraping sound of metal grinding against metal, though Annia soon realised that assessment was slightly inaccurate.

His sword shining like a beacon, the section surrounding the tip and edges like a shroud of starless night, Caiellis grunted as his opponent, Mysos Grandé, pressed against the younger boy's weaker strength – both boys wielded their weapons two-handed, although Mysos clearly was used to fighting in this manner.

No sooner had she come to terms with her sudden deliverance and processed a strategy to aid her teammate a fork of Blue-tinged electricity coruscated at her from above. Slashing a crude but effective counterspell into the storm bolt allowed her to behold her new opponent, silver-haired Jayrahl Phransis of the League of Xechun and a wielder of impulsive Red and calculating Blue mana.

"My prince. It is truly an honour to cross swords with you, and I hope that I can provide a suitable challenge for a Lucerna such as you," Mysos bowed his head respectfully as he intoned the words, utterly out of place in the battle that had begun to rage around them in flickering storms of clashing magic. Cai's arms were shaking with the exertion of holding the taller boy's broadsword at bay, sliding across the ground and knowing full well that he would have to disengage soon before his defence was broken. His mouth was clamped tightly shut, jaw locked in his strain making him unable to return the pleasantries to the senior Lucaelian.

"Hey, Mysos!" Kaled tried and failed to direct the attention of the other Lucaelian away from Cai, realising that in a battle of purely physical strength the younger one of the two was going to be overwhelmed soon (despite being stronger than he looked even without magic enhancements, as Kaled had found out). Growling, the fifteen year old closed his fists, crackling fire erupting from the gaps in his clenched fingers as he summoned his rage. He flicked open his hands, the flames roaring into life as he felt his own excitement rising, "Catch!"

Kaled hurled the bolts of fire at Mysos from the side, who kicked Cai (who would have physically cringed at Kaled had he not been more preoccupied) in the stomach and swiftly deflected the bombardment with a flourish of his sword. The prince staggered back, coughing and winded, and the Principian rounded on him. The Lucerna cursed under his breath, internally berating himself for not predicting such a reaction and stepping away to widen the distance between himself and Mysos.

Caiellis could feel his mana already endeavouring to reduce the pain he had experienced, but the boy had been subjected to worse in his short life and thus didn't pay any more heed to the strike. The surprise of having a foot slam into his abdomen had taken him aback, but the fact that Mysos had been more concentrated on blocking Kaled's magic instead of driving his boot further upwards meant that the thirteen year old hadn't sustained anything worse than a potential bruise. He didn't know whether or not Mysos was strong enough to break his bones, but didn't doubt that he would be capable of it given the chance.

The senior Lucaelian quickly strode into the gap left by Caiellis, giving him no quarter to recover or bring any long ranged magic to bear. The boy's eyes locked with Mysos's own as he flicked the last remnants of the fire away from his great sword, and this time both Cai and the Principian refused to look aside as each prepared for the next meeting of their blades.

Only a few metres distant from the Lucaelian duel, Annia was encountering her own form of problems. She weaved another water-based nullification, a quick mental calculation giving her the amount of mana necessary to extinguish the bolt of bright blue energy heading towards her with only a small margin of error. Quioni shot upwards, colliding with a descending efreet in an explosion of cascading water and hissing steam, and Annia saw the excited expression of Jayrahl grinning enthusiastically in her direction, floating on a storm cloud next to his Summoning.

He flipped her a thumbs up, the animated motion of his wide eyes belying the intense series of deductions and strategy creation that Annia knew would be going on beneath the surface of Jayrahl's enlivened demeanour. She was also well aware that the odds were not in her favour for a confrontation between them, as no matter how precise her application of Blue mana could be not only did Jayrahl have a range advantage but his ability to use chaotic Red in conjunction with his Blue meant that Annia's mental arithmetic would always be off - the girl knew she wasn't quick enough to be able to accommodate for the spontaneous tendencies of the emotion-fuelled magic and respond to it in time.

But, then again, she wasn't a member of the cold and calculating League of Uveria who relied upon their mathematical predictions with an insular obsession that bordered upon fanaticism. Annia wished to join the open-minded League of Isak like her older sister, and that meant she had to think outside of and around the problems that the world presented her with. The Yentarian quickly glanced around her, taking into account the wider engagement and ensuring that no one was about to ambush her from behind.

Sidestepping a green creeper that reached towards her, she noticed Kaled snarl as another Welkalite emerged from the fading mist. Arceus smirked cockily, lightning surging around him and forming a malicious grin before vanishing back into the storm, clearly taunting the taller male. As expected, Kaled took the bait with gusto, charging alongside his elemental towards the other citizen of the New Empire. It seemed like their opponents were using the same tactics as them, although with far more precision and teamwork.

Annia briefly wondered who had taken command of Team 1, before banishing the thought from her mind. Whoever it had been, they had evidently had an easier time organising their comrades than she had, but now that the battle had begun she couldn't say that she wasn't grateful and happy to have them by her side. She flicked her gaze away from the dance of swords straight in front of her, turning to where Freya was busy wrestling control of the vast majority of the vines still ripping themselves out of the ground not far away. Annia quickly decided that Freya must have wanted to help one of her teammates with their own opponents but was too wary of committing to any single fight and possibly getting in the way, instead choosing to try and combat a foe that was too far distant for her to defeat.

"Freya! Switch with me, I'll take out Leleth at the back!" she ordered, quickly concluding that in a battle of the sky, Jayrahl's djinn would easily defeat her elemental, and Freya would have no way to challenge the other girl with her lack of mobility, whilst Annia could morph into water and propel herself there.

Freya looked inside the earth, pressing herself to the ground and feeling nature call out to her. She concentrated this energy into herself, sensing the land's fury and it's resentment of the destructive magic of the non-Green mana colours. It reverberated through her, and Freya whispered a small supplication, thanking the earth for its strength. Green magic flowed out of her palms and into the waiting ground, which began to rise. A huge, giant-like wooden incarnation of the essence of life itself pushed itself out of the ground, its four massive arms of plant-matter causing the land to crack beneath it. Where its face should have been was simply a patch of moss, with antler-horns of bark majestically framing it.

Freya heard Gaean murmur quietly, although its deep voice shuddered through the air, and the elemental gently plucked her off the ground and deposited the girl in the face-cavity – her Summoning was threatening and destructive to the enemies of nature, but ensured that not even a single insect or weed was crushed underfoot. It mumbled something ancient and incoherent to non-shamans, and Freya smiled – Gaean wanted to show the Yentarian that the skies belonged to nature as it took a swipe at the efreet, creaking tremendously as it did so. Jayrahl and his Summoning both quickly dodged the thunderous blow, firing arcs of energy at the towering elemental.

Annia turned herself and Quioni into liquid and shot past the gigantic distraction of Freya, heading towards a circle of Green mana in the distance, where a tall girl swayed as if in some sort of ritual, surrounded by pulsing vines and trees. A few of them shot towards the jets of water, but they were too fast – Annia turned into human form when roots covered in millions of tiny hairs reached towards her. She certainly didn't want to be absorbed into them, and swiftly dispelled the animating force of them – this wasn't the Erian girl's Summoning, just a by-product of it, so was easy to counter, and landed next to her enemy.

Caiellis flipped away from Mysos's attack, the older boy's larger sword carving swathes of air apart as he narrowly avoided the steel edge. His blade was also enchanted, though not nearly as much as the Sword of Glass, but enough so that the superior weapon wouldn't just slice straight through it. He sent a blinding flash that broke apart on the son of Xathan's defensive magic armour, but was only intended to cause a distraction anyway.

He stepped back, channelling a titanic amount of White mana into a beam of destructive light that lanced from his open palm, golden energy swirling around the prince. The shaft of luminescence gradually increased in intensity as it travelled quickly through the air, hitting Mysos and exploding in a ball of White. Caiellis narrowed his eyes, readying another spell – the mana he detected wasn't his own, and seemed very potent. This was definitely something he should be wary of, the tell-tale light descending from the sky warning the prince about impending danger.

Thin sword held elegantly aloft, shimmering with the energy absorbed from Cai's assault, the angel of Mysos stared aloofly down at the prince. She was clad in shining black armour and framed by wings of the same colour, although those wings were not nearly as dark as Orzhova's. Iridis's long brown hair shone in the light remaining from her Summoning, her perfect features etched with the determination to bring her Summoner victory. She was a small angel, which didn't necessarily equate to power, but still invoked a sense of awe and inspiration from onlookers.

"Prince Caiellis, allow me to introduce Iridis, Seraph of the Sword," Mysos declared proudly, in the manner of ancient Lucaelian tradition. The duels between influential figures, such as Light-bearers, generals or even sometimes members of the royal family, were very formal and respectful battles between two people and their Sancturia creatures. It came as no surprise to Caiellis that Mysos would attempt to be traditional when battling the prince, and he could sense that the older boy had been itching for the opportunity ever since meeting him. Now he had access to the Angel of the Black Sun, he was more than happy to humour him.

"Iridis. You are a daughter of Akroma, Angel of Wrath, correct?" Cai asked, and the seraph nodded briskly, examining her unassuming opponent.

"My apologies for the silence of Iridis, but it is part of her code of honour that she does not favour the enemy with words," Mysos apologised – Caiellis fully understood, many of the creatures of darkness that Iridis would be regularly fighting would not be worthy of talk. "The enemy in this case being you, Caiellis."

The thirteen year old was glad he was fighting against Mysos. Any other opponent would have tried to interrupt his Summoning, as it would probably take a comparatively long time considering it was his first and the fact that Orzhova required a huge amount of mana. Not to mention the fact that his angel needed Black magic, which Caiellis had never utilised before, though he definitely was aware of its presence in his body. He planted the Sword of Glass in the ground, the blade becoming inactive as it lost contact with the mana he was providing.

Caiellis took a deep breath, shutting his eyes, relaxing his muscles and taking part in a moment of introspection, looking inside himself and making his way towards the abandoned cathedral in his mind. White mana was conjured first, golden energy spiralling down the left side of his body and turning his right eye into a pool of light, that opened and viewed the world through the Lens of Innocence.

Orzhova had explained the concept to him when he had fallen asleep again – the angel always acted like she was indulging him by talking, although it seemed to Caiellis that she was incredibly lonely and was eager to converse with him after all the years of isolation, considering she forced him to go there (he could still leave whenever he wanted). She had said that to truly master White and Black mana, he would have to view the world differently, gifting him with the enchantments for whenever he Summoned her – Orzhova enigmatically explained that Caiellis would have to find his own way to observe the world, but said that the Lenses would suffice for now.

As Cai felt the purity of the mana well up inside of him, suffusing his limbs with light, he felt the Black Sun on his cheek respond to the build up, converting the light into darkness as it passed through. The youth harnessed this magic, concentrating on negative thoughts to channel the Black mana – he focussed on the emotions of pure, unflinching hatred he had experienced as he watched his mother ripped away from him by the cackling demons.

As a four year old child, the youngest Lucerna had under no circumstances hated something before, but right in that moment he had absolutely despised the existence of the one killing his mother, and while one demon stroked an unconscious eight year old Alexander the other plunged its claws into Emili's heart. Caiellis had never suffered such a feeling of utter loathing before, and had exploded in a blast of pure Black mana, obliterating the demons and falling unconscious himself. When he had woken up, his big brother had been holding him protectively as the men he knew as Uncle Tybalt and ("just" at that time) Tristram, argued loudly in another room, far away from his home.

Cai felt tears dripping down his cheeks and past the birthmark as he relived his most painful memories, the conformation of royalty reacting to his emotions and a sphere of abyssal un-light forming above it. Then the left eye opened, the Lens of Guilt perceiving the world in a riotous display of dark thoughts and shame. He sensed the mana levels rising, the light increasing in intensity to match the tendrils of shadow wrapping around the right side of his body.

He grabbed the orb with both his hands, suffusing it with both new White and extra Black mana, and threw it into the air, where it hovered ominously, expanding as he poured more and more energy into it. The sound of a distant choir could be heard, the hymns rising in volume and drowning out all sound as the sphere became even larger, becoming like a shadowy sun, light and darkness pulsing out of it in equal measures.

Caiellis slid his artefact armament out of the earth, the glass igniting with a significant amount of light, although the edges were substantially darker and dripped with tenebrosity. The radiance of the aerial Black Sun was becoming unbearable, and he etched a pattern into the air directly in front of it with his sword – a large scythe of gloom appearing when he finished the drawing. The youngest Lucerna raised his left hand, focusing more on the vision his right eye, the Lens of Innocence, showed, and White mana coursed through his palm and around the shadow-scythe, flowing around it and coating it in gold, a sun-shaped circle at its heel, its haft still obsidian apart from a golden grip at in the middle and a golden bottom.

An arm, gloved in black leather but leaving pale fingers exposed, reached out of the star of darkness, gripping around the middle of the scythe as the Black Sun, crackling with white and amethyst lightning, began to be absorbed into an angelic figure.

Mysos gaped, open-mouthed in wonder and terror as a First Sisterhood angel, one of the rarest, was Summoned in front of him. Orzhova opened her glittering eyes and spun the scythe, regarding Caiellis haughtily, showing not even the slightest attention to her current enemies.

"My my, that took a long time," she shook her head in amusement, her dark eyes flashing to the other angel aloft across from her. Caiellis knew that this would definitely be the time to strike – he had never felt so powerful in his entire life – as he wouldn't be able to sustain Orzhova for long. That was the problem with First Sisterhood angels, a problem that was mitigated by age and experience, of which Caiellis had pretty much none, they were difficult to Summon and maintain, however a Lucerna's power level went into godlike when they did so. The Lucaelian people maintained that there was nothing that could defeat a Lucerna that has Summoned, and although Cai was always sceptical of their beliefs he felt as if there would be little to prove them wrong. Mana was overflowing out of him, and the prince resisted the sudden incentive to laugh maniacally, instead favouring his subject Mysos with a moderately insane and confident smile.

.*.*.*.

"Marik, my boy, we are doing the right thing," Tybalt assured the restless king, the ancient man still using the moniker despite the fact that his former student was the ruler of the kingdom. The Hierarch of Capitalia Lux had taught Johnias and his twin before he had inherited the role from the previous, and although he now mentored the king's young sons he still offered advice like he was Marik's teacher, never quite calling him anything like "my lord". He had been one of the few people to prefer the quiet and calculated younger twin over his outgoing and cheerful brother, which had helped immensely when Marik had become king.

They were sat in an aerial vehicle of Yentarian origin piloted by one of the Republic – the fastest way of getting to their destination. The passenger compartment was spacious, with more than enough room for the King, Hierarch, Guardian, the Isakian diplomat named Pasko two hand-picked royal guards and Jenna, whom Marik had insisted stay with them after her research period was over. He liked the girl's diligence, honest attitude and work ethic, deciding that she would be the Yentarian representative to Lucael – which had no doubt created great uproar in the Republic.

Just yesterday night, Welkalite forces had eliminated a shipment of vital goods sent from Civitas Sol to Gol Secondus, brutally murdering the soldiers guarding it and the innocent civilian traders and workmen. That had forced Marik's hand, who began mobilizing the forces of each city – the foolish New Empire would be taught the folly of challenging the Kingdom of Light when its cities smouldering in purified ashes. Eager to stop the brewing violence, the Yentarian Republic had quickly tried to placate the leaders of each faction by arguing that negotiations should be tried one last time before outright warfare, if peace was achieved then both nations would be grateful for it.

To do this, they needed neutral territory for diplomacy. They Yentarians suggested the Scholaria Magnus island, as it would prove a good meeting point for the leaders of the Welkalites and Lucaelians, each of which would be arriving in a matter of hours. Marik looked forward to meeting them, and showing them that Lucael should not be messed with.

Many Light-bearers had argued against the course of action, maintaining that it was just a delaying tactic so that Welkas could escape retribution – they also argued against the king going. Marik was confident that he would be safe, as Bruna and Athela flew alongside the sky-ship, and needed to impart upon the Welkalite representatives the dire seriousness of the situation. Plus, despite the fact that Tybalt and Tristram were more than capable decision makers, he felt like it was his duty to be there.

Now his mind was consumed with niggling thoughts – what if the people thought he was weak, tolerating negotiation instead of bringing down heavenly justice upon the New Empire? What if the Yentarians were actually allied with the Welkalites and planned to assassinate him?

Tybalt had sensed his student's mind at unrest due to the fact that Marik was pacing down the length of the passenger compartment, his armoured boots clanging loudly on the corrugated metal.

"Could you please sit down? Making all that racket isn't going to help you think," Tybalt scowled, Jenna raising her eyebrows at the admonishing tone he used with the king, like one of the most influential men in the world was still a petulant child. Marik chuckled – the Hierarch had inspired a huge amount of respect from his younger self, and though he hated to admit it, far more than his late father, King Garius II.

He hoped that neither of his boys thought the same way about him – he used to despise the strict and cold man, especially since his and his brother's mother had died at their birth. Marik had never felt the nurturing hand of a loving parent, and tried to do so with his children now, which was hard without Emili.

The king had decided not to inform his sons of his arrival – the diplomacy would take place out of the way of the students, in fact Pasko had said they already had rooms in place, as after its usage as an academy the Scholaria Magnus was to become a place of international negotiation. If they saw him, it would be a pleasant surprise, but it wasn't necessary for them to know.

.*.*.*.

"Oh, and who's this?" Orzhova asked in mock confusion. Caiellis ignored her and carried on with the tradition of the combat, saying: "Mysos Grandé, this is Orzhova, Angel of the Black Sun."

"You're not a talkative one, are you?" Orzhova mocked when Iridis didn't respond to her. She opened her huge black wings to their fullest extent, and said: "No matter. You are just a lesser angel anyway. Caiellis, couldn't you have Summoned me to fight something more interesting?"

"Do not underestimate Iridis. You may be more powerful and First Sisterhood, but Mysos has far more experience with her than I have with you," Caiellis warned direly, and his angel pouted at him. "He can sustain her for far longer, so let's get going," he ordered.

"Excellent. Since you are lacking slightly in Black mana, I shall use more of that to compensate and keep the balance. This will reduce our overall power, but it will sill be more than enough to crush our enemies," she grinned diving forwards and arcing her scythe at Iridis, who blocked it with her sword, straining as the shadows surrounding the other angel expanded, tendrils of shadow shooting towards her and Mysos. The boy and his Summoning, her eyes alight with hatred, whispered the words of a dispelling ritual, blinding light glowing from their swords and cutting through the miasma.

Caiellis conjured up bolts of mana that he flung at the older Lucaelian, bombarding Mysos's defensive enchantments as he inched towards Cai. The prince smiled and harnessed the energy of darkness, plunging the Sword of Glass into the ground as grabbing arms of shadow began grasping at Mysos. With his left hand he released yet more of the beams of White mana, battering the teen's defences and slowly stopping him as he fired a singular ray that shone with purple light.

Orzhova opened her wings wide and pushed Iridis away from her, spinning the scythe in a shimmering circle of light and darkness that pulsed outwards, sending the seraph reeling. Iridis felt intense pain and gritted her teeth, pulling her wings and sword protectively in front of her as the circle compressed back into a dense sphere. She swung her weapon into it, and as the scythe hit it detonated, Orzhova laughing as the life drained from the opposing angel flowed into her, a cascade of glittering golden particles gently falling onto the dark angel.

Freya could see the destructive combat below her as Gaean swung around, roots and vines called by her chasing the elusive djinn and his Summoner. Jayrahl dodged grasping vines and the huge wooden fist of the nature avatar, launching a flickering tongue of flame at Gaean, as his efreet blasted at it with crackling lightning. Freya's Summoning rumbled in pain as some timbers caught fire, and the Erian swiftly sent out healing pulses of enhanced natural regeneration that nullified the painful flames.

The avatar and efreet continued their dance for a few swings, the djinn and his Summoner avoiding the ponderous swings of Gaean – Freya's Summoning was almost unparalleled in taking out stationary targets, although it suffered greatly against enemies with high mobility. Jayrahl shot upwards and dropped shining spheres of Red and Blue mana onto the moss-cavity the girl was stood on. Gaean raised one of his arms defensively, and the magic detonated in a deafening boom of unstable energy that ripped the elemental's limb apart.

The second that happened, the djinn plunged in for the kill as Gaean staggered back, the muscular creature leaving a trail of fading storm clouds behind it. He dove between the lumbering reactionary strikes of the elemental and headed straight towards Freya as his Summoner focussed his fire-magic on its legs, causing it to sway violently and toss Freya off her feet.

Panic flooded her mind as the efreet hurtled towards her, and she quickly conjured up a scattering of leaves that instantly ignited as soon as they came close to the djinn – Freya had hoped to use that as a distraction, but her breath caught in her throat as the enemy Summoning reached towards her with a coil of lightning that cracked thunderously as it shot towards her.

The Erian breathed deeply, thinking back to the warrior techniques of her tribe before it was slaughtered by the predators of the Deep Forest – it was a gamble, as the djinn would probably be unaffected by her attack, but it was the best thing she had. Freya didn't want to let down the other members of her team, and if she was teleported out when the teachers knew she would die otherwise, Jayrahl would be free to wreak aerial havoc upon her friends. Determination flooded her mind, making the Green mana she was gathering grow in strength as a steely resolve gripped her. She would not fail her team.

Time slowed to a crawl as a heightened flow of adrenaline coursed through her at the proximity to danger – Freya wouldn't actually be killed or hurt, the whole purpose of the teleportation shields was to take them out of danger, but her mind still responded in same way. She felt Green mana augment her physical strength and waited until the lack second to dodge the efreet's blow, jumping into the air by using the strength of natural energy she had accumulated. Freya kicked downwards into the djinn when its whip lashed out into the space she had been a second ago, crushing its corporeal form into mush and cracking Gaean's wood beneath her, ignoring the jolts of electricity that poured through her as she destroyed it.

Jayrahl jolted back when his Summoning unexpectedly crashed back into him, and Freya's own Sancturia avatar used the brief pause in the weaving evading patterns to slam his massive hand downwards and into the Xechunan, the boy being forcefully removed and ported back to the academy before Gaean's fist splattered him into a pulp of mashed organs and bone.

Freya soothed and released pulses of rejuvenating Green mana to augment the healing process of her elemental – Gaean was severely wounded, her stunt with the efreet doing little to help things, and the Erian wanted to use a few seconds of respite to help it recover before aiding her team-mates. It grumbled at her in its strange language and she smirked – Gaean had told her that he wasn't a small sapling and could take care of his own wounds. Even terrifying incarnations of nature could be stubborn and boisterous.

"I haven't forgiven you for the humiliation you caused me, Kally-boy!" Arceus sniggered loudly as he ran at Kaled, the hissing lightning spirit taking the form of a grinning devil-like creature of undevil-like proportions. Regata snarled at the creature, cautioning Kaled.

"Be wary! That thing is a Malignus. No defensive measures that we could take would help against that, it just pierces right through them!" the fire-cat explained, the smaller Summoning's jaws dripping with embers and its anger rising. His last Summoner, a resistance fighter named Garteh who fought with Jarred Redhand in the freeing of the Welkalites, had been brutally murdered by the same Malignus that they fought now, which had then been controlled by one of the last tyrant's bodyguards.

The thing clacked its jaws together in malevolent recognition, electricity spitting into the air around it, and Arceus used that to send a bolt of the stuff at Kaled. The taller boy automatically raised a shield of flame to protect himself, but the coruscating energy completely bypassed it and slammed into Kaled, who involuntarily shrieked in pain as the electricity coursed through his nervous systems, causing him to spasm in pain.

Regata roared and leapt at the Welkalite noble, who smiled disdainfully and brought his Malignus in to intercept the blow. The fire-cat's jaws tore great chunks of substance from the creature, which responded by smashing the elemental away. Kaled watched the exchange intently – Arceus's Summoning hadn't intended to be the recipient of that blow, but the Welkalite had still forced it to do just that. There was no bond between the two earned from hardship, no teamwork between the Summoner and Summoning – Arceus utterly controlled the Malignus.

Mysos waded through the abyssal murk Caiellis had created, swiftly blocking the barrage of offensive White mana the prince sent at him and staggering back in torment when the violet ray hit him square in the chest. It felt like his vital energies were being siphoned away – it shocked Mysos that Prince Caiellis, one of the most innocent and pure people he had ever met could use such evil magic, although he supposed that was mostly due to the Angel of the Black Sun. He let pure determination pulse through his mind and broke free of the draining force, charging at the prince who neatly sidestepped his cleaving blow, the Sword of Glass still pulsating with globules of shadow and stuck in the ground.

Iridis rushed at Orzhova, feeling extremely weary due to the debilitating magics of the dark angel, but still determined not to lose against Akroma's, the creator of Iridis and her Wrathful sisters, hated sibling. Orzhova tutted disapprovingly at her and effortlessly blocked the blow, shaking her head when Iridis was knocked away and immediately came back at the First Sisterhood angel. The Seraph of the Sword was nothing if not persistent, in that, she echoed the creator of her lineage.

"Please do something more interesting instead of swinging that pointless sword around," she sighed, releasing an immensely potent flash of White mana and forcing Iridis to back away from her. "I swear, all you daughters of Akroma are so incredibly flat."

Iridis snarled and launched a spear of radiance at Orzhova, who easily batted it away with a wave of Black mana.

"Caiellis! I'm bored, and we don't have much time left. Lets end this," she announced, grinning down at her Summoner who was still embroiled in combat with the larger boy. Orzhova twirled her scythe above her head, conjuring up the Black Sun that had birthed her into reality this day, infusing it with tremendous amounts of both light and dark energy. A choir could be heard in the background, rising in volume ever second Orzhova poured more power into the midnight orb. Sensing the danger, Iridis dove towards her, a rare battle hymnal on her lips, and Orzhova swung her scythe into the angel, slamming her downwards and into her Summoner, who she had specifically aimed at to free up Caiellis from his battle.

"Provide the light," she commanded, and Cai raised his left palm to the sky, a pillar of luminescence rising up out of it and into the dark star. Orzhova shut her eyes, pushing the White mana in her to the back of her mind and focusing solely on the void of Black, letting go of her weapon and weaving smoking symbols into the air – the ritual of the Culling Sun.

She laughed as Iridis shot towards her furiously and Mysos did the same to her young Summoner.

"Too late," she jeered triumphantly as the Black Sun started to shine, the choir becoming a haunting scream that pierced through her ears. Iridis's expression turned from one of fury and defiance into one of agony and defeat when the light of the deathly sunshine illuminated her in darklight, the annihilating rays draining the life from the angel. The second Mysos was touched by the light he was dragged back to the academy, Unsummoning the Seraph of the Sword.

"That was more fun that I expected. See you soon," Orzhova said, returning back inside of Caiellis's body. The exhilarating feeling abruptly ended and the youngest student of the Scholaria fell to his knees wearily, the god-like sensation of pure power fading back into his mind. He was drained after the Summoning, but in his opinion it had gone well – they had bested a Second Sisterhood angel, which despite Orzhova's boasting and sneers was a mighty foe indeed.

Caiellis knew it would take a few minutes for his mana to recuperate enough so that he could start using it again, but also remembered Tybalt telling him that the feeling got better and the time decreased every time he Summoned. It was an amazing sensation, he could well believe that Xarius and many other mages had become addicted to the feeling of power. He wiped his brow – the heat of the Welkalites fighting was setting the artificial forest alight, and now his own personal battle was over Cai was beginning to sweat. When his mana returned he would be able to help Kaled, but right now he would get in the way.

Arceus blasted Kaled away with a wall of electricity which collided with the boy's own flaming attack, sending Regata and his Summoner back for a few seconds. The instant he felt the aching sensation in his mind dull he looked left, where the two duelling angels and Mysos had gone, leaving a fragile and vulnerable boy on his own – a perfect target. The child was the greatest threat out of Team 3, and even though Jayrahl and Mysos had been defeated Arceus and Leleth could still carry Team 1 to victory if they could eliminate the remaining opposing members.

Annia shot out jets of water at the twisting plants, occasionally catching a glance of a wild-looking Erian girl through the mass of vines, Quioni adding her own fire-power to the bombardment from the air – huge plants erupted from the ground and absorbed the attack, and the Yentarian grinned and called to her Summoning.

"Now!" she shouted, and Quioni rapidly began to decrease her body temperature, freezing the contrails of water that Leleth's botanical Summoning was greedily drinking up. Annia dodged a thrashing vine that obliterated the ground that she had been stood on, and raised her palm, a wave of kinetic force discharging from her hand. It crashed into the frozen Summoning, shattering it apart in an explosion of ice and revealing the startled Leleth.

Annia leapt at her, Quioni returning to normal heat and diving down at the enemy Erian. Leleth raised her arms frantically and a storm of arrow-like leaves descended on the elemental, tearing her apart in a flurry of Green mana – the arrows that impaled Quioni would absorb the elemental should she try to morph into liquid. Instead, she retreated back into Annia, as the Yentarian conjured a staff of numbing Blue mana and swung it at Leleth.

The other girl shrieked as she was hit, baiting out another blow from Annia as she cried in pain. Annia swept the staff again for a second strike, when Leleth cackled victoriously and pulled her closer, vines growing out of her own body and wrapping around the Team 3 leader. She gasped as they crushed the air out of her – Annia knew she couldn't turn into water, but the vines would eliminate her soon enough if she didn't do anything. Her mind worked at overdrive to think of a solution as the vines tightened; any spell she could cast wouldn't be effective or would take too long to conjure.

Feeling her time running out, the Yentarian quickly morphed into water and was absorbed by the vines, almost beginning to drink up the nutrients before she was teleported out. Leleth cried exultantly at her victory, just as a titanic wooden foot crashed down, annihilating the area and defeating her too. Freya screamed out Annia's named, knowing that her friend would already be out but feeling ashamed of herself – had she arrived a moment earlier, she might have been able to save the other girl.

Arceus grinned sadistically at his new plan, figuratively throwing his Malignus into combat with Kaled and Regata, spinning around and running towards the small, huddling shape of Caiellis. Realising the boy's malevolent intention, Kaled yelled in rage and clapped his hands together, igniting the air around him and sending a massive fireball at the Malignus. Regata shot into the path of the flame, letting them wrap about him and roaring in fury as they augmented his already potent speed – the flames surrounding him started to become white as he reached a ridiculous intensity; this was Kaled's finishing move. He cracked the sound barrier in his haste, bursting forwards like a fiery missile, ripping into the screeching Malignus and tearing it apart in an eruption of super-heated flame, returning to Kaled's side as an explosion of white fire pulsed out over the ground.

Arceus grimaced as his Summoning was bested, but no matter – it was just a tool for him to use and dispose of at will, and Kaled would be too late to stop him from eliminating Caiellis. He was confident that he could defeat the street-rat after dealing with the Lucaelian heir anyway.

The boy's head snapped up as he heard the crackle of electricity, and Arceus smirked maliciously as claws of lightning appeared over his hands. Cai tried to move away, but couldn't go far – he was still exhausted from his own combat, and weakly raised his relic blade of inactive crystal in a pathetic defence as the Welkalite threateningly stalked closer.

"I never did get to pay your brother back for the humiliation he caused me. I'll have to take it out on you instead," Arceus smiled viciously. Caiellis could feel his mana slowly returning, and mentally urged it to come back faster. _Maybe if I get him to gloat longer, _he thought, and prepared himself for a counterattack when his mana regenerated.

"No! Please," he pleaded pathetically, inching away from the older boy who came even closer. _Shit! It's not working!_ Panic shuddered through his veins – he knew he wouldn't get hurt, but as a Lucaelian prince he should carry his team to victory – it was expected of him, but as Arceus raised his arms Cai realised that even with Orzhova, he was still a failure.

"I'm going to enjoy this," Arceus murmured, swiping at Caiellis with his thunder-claws. A form blurred and shunted in front of the blow, Kaled yelling in rage as the talons tore into him instead of Caiellis, who's mouth was gaping open in shock. The older boy cried out in agony and was teleported back to the academy, but not before landing next to Cai and weakly smiling at him.

Caiellis's mana rushed through his body, the Sword of Glass lighting up and reflecting his incandescent rage. The prince whipped it around and sliced it through Arceus's block, easily tearing through the Red mana and forcing Arceus to be ported out before he was hacked apart. Tears of anger blurred the edges of his vision – Cai shouldn't need anyone else to look out for him, he was supposed to be one of the strongest mages in the world. It never occurred to the young prince that the reason he wasn't as powerful as he thought he should be was because of his age.

He slowly paced towards the towering elemental of Freya's in the distance – it was a sorry sight, with an arm missing and numerous scorch marks, and stumbled slightly as it noticed the prince and began plodding in his direction. It reached into a mossy area where its face should have been and delicately plucked a figure from there, placing Freya in front of Caiellis and slowly dissipating into peaceful Green mana, muttering quietly to himself. The two remaining team-mates stared awkwardly at each other for a few seconds, Freya slightly taller than the Lucaelian, before Caiellis pulled out his data-sheet and turned away.

"I'll check how many teams are left, but that was definitely the strongest one," he stated, tapping the sheet in nodding in satisfaction when there was only a single other one left. He conveyed the information to Freya, who accepted it silently. Cai suggested: "We should rest for a bit before trying to find them. It's getting dark."

"Caiellis?" Freya asked suddenly, as light began to bleed off the younger boy – the light signalling a teleportation. He looked in confusion at his hands, glowing with turquoise glimmer that steadily brightened.

"What's going on?" he demanded, "I'm still fine! I haven't been defeated yet!"

It felt like he was begging to some uncaring deity, and swung his sword in the air in frustration. "Why is this happening?"

Then, the concerned face of Freya was gone, as was the ground beneath his feet, and a spinning sensation left Cai feeling nauseous as he was roughly deposited on a soft mat. Doctor Argyle stood with his side to the boy, fingers on a wall-terminal that glowed with a soft blue light. The prince realised that the small room surrounding him wasn't the recovery room the students were supposed to have been transferred by the teleportation into.

He rounded on the Yentarian, releasing his anger, shouting: "What is the meaning of this?!"

Argyle stared blankly back at the irritated youth, pressing a button on the wall next to him and standing back as a gleaming metal door swished open. Caiellis's glared instantly switched to the figure stood in the doorway, but he immediately converted it into one of cautious respect when he recognised just who it was that had authorised the teleportation.

"Good evening, son," Marik uttered, and Alexander gave his little brother a friendly wave from behind their father.

* * *

Liber Sancturia:

Mulldrifter: Summoning of Annia Bylae

Spellheart Chimera: Summoning of Meri Hayato

Gaea's Revenge: Summoning of Freya Oluseyi

Seraph of the Sword: Summoning of Mysos Grande

Firemane Avenger: Summoning of Kierra Esse

Linvala, Keeper of Silence: Summoning of Ollis Pax

Serendib Efreet: Summoning of Jayrahl Phransis

Malignus: Summoning of Arceus Etin

Phytotitan: Summoning of Leleth Barkbite


	10. Abduction

Marik had spontaneously decided that his sons, being princes, deserved to know about the state of their kingdom and have a hand in its fate, so had requested their presence from one of the school officials the second he greeted him.

"With respect, my lord," one of them, a nervous-looking Yentarian that quivered beneath the king's stony gaze, readjusting his glasses, "Prince Alexander isn't in lessons, as it is the evening. However, Prince Caiellis is currently in the middle of a team battle. We can teleport him out at any time, but-"

"Then do so," Marik interrupted sternly, "And call Alexander."

"My lord, I don't think your son will take too kindly to being pulled out right now," the man basically pleaded – when he had left the observation gallery, the youngest student of the school was in the midst of his Summoning, and Mr Fram certainly didn't want to be the one to intervene. Truth be told, the dark angel terrified him, as did the godlike expression on the boy's face.

"I will be the judge of that," the king stated, using his authoritarian voice, and strode past the man. "I assume you have some way of allowing me to view him. Take me to it."

"Of course lord, right away lord," Fram babbled, a little too relieved at not having to be the source of the prince's ire. He motioned to the silent and impassive Doctor Argyle stood next to him, "My lord, Doctor Argyle will be able to take you to the observation gallery. I shall go and fetch your eldest."

The man then scampered away, Guardian Tristram trying to stifle a laugh at the effect Marik was having on the teacher – he himself was ten years younger than the king, but when they had first met he hadn't reacted in such a way. Tristram attributed that to the fact that he had been a rebellious teen at the time, but had been beaten by his father after showing disrespect to the current monarch's two sons. He remembered the stern man, hating him at the time and still feeling antipathy towards him when the war had started. The Guardian now regretted that, as his parents had both died in the civil war.

"Follow me," the expressionless doctor uttered, beginning to walk away from the Lucaelian party. When they made to follow him, he turned around, saying: "Only King Marik is permitted access. The rest of you should make your way to the hall. The Welkalite leaders have only just arrived."

The guards bristled at the disrespect towards their ruler and made to refuse, but were dissuaded by the wave of a placating hand from Marik. They saluted curtly and left, Jenna utilising one of the data sheets and conversing with Hierarch Tybalt to direct them towards the hall. The doctor and king paced wordlessly towards the observation deck, a large room with many screens showing different areas of the island, and another small space with a metal door adjacent to it.

Marik scanned the footage, and smiled when he saw his son about to cut apart an older boy (he reminded himself that Caiellis was the youngest student in the Scholaria Magnus - hopefully that hadn't affected him detrimentally), a mechanical construct in the room clicking a button and rescue the adolescent from his impending doom, depositing him back in the academy but in a different room.

"There is no need for me to initiate an emergency teleport, so I can get Caiellis to be teleported into that room over there," Argyle explained, as the youngest Lucerna met up with an Erian girl after her own towering Summoning dissipated into raw Green mana. Marik heard the door opening behind him and turned around, meeting the face of his eldest.

"Evening dad," he said, his voice happy but also coloured with an undertone of seriousness – anything that brought the ruler of Lucael out here would be something important. Alex had been under no illusions, his father definitely wouldn't take the time to come here just to see his children, and when Mr Fram had anxiously briefed him on the precarious situation he knew he was correct. Alexander was glad to see his father, but was apprehensive about the coming negotiations.

"I assume you are aware of the situation?" Marik questioned, and when Alex nodded he belatedly embraced his eldest, the teenager vaguely awkwardly returning the hug, unused to the open affection from his father after nine years without it. The doctor ignored the Lucernan prince and moved through the doorway into the single-teleporter chamber, instantly shutting the door when Marik was about to follow. The king shared an amused glance with his son, who then turned to the viewing screens.

"The squirt isn't going to be happy about this," Alex muttered as he watched Caiellis look at his glowing hands in confusion, incredulous anger marring his once triumphant pale features.

"His royal duties are more important than his own feelings," Marik shot back, as he heard an energised detonation of sound that must have heralded his son's re-materialisation. They could hear an angry voice demanding to be informed of what was going on, and Marik walked towards the steel door as it swished open.

"Good evening, son," he uttered at the furious face of his youngest, who instantaneously calmed in the presence of his father – he understood that this was why he had been called out, it must have been extremely significant to requisite the king of Lucael's presence here. Alex waved at the younger boy, who gave him a smile and turned soberly back to his father.

"Dad, what is going on?" he inquired earnestly, and Marik was pleasantly surprised. He expected his youngest son to be furious with him for teleporting him out of the battleground, but Caiellis had pushed his emotions to the back of his mind and focussed intently on the current situation.

"Caiellis, I requested you and your brother's presence because I am about to enter negotiations with the Welkalite emissaries and leaders," he explained, his voice clipped and tone clinical. Caiellis nodded quickly and Marik continued, "Bandits and raiders from Welkas have been attacking supply caravans on the borders, but instead of declaring outright war the best course of action is to engage in diplomacy. I want you and your brother to learn from this experience Come. We go to the main hall."

"You ok, little bro?" Alex asked when their father turned around, concern etching across his face when he noticed Caiellis had zoned out, eyes losing their intent gleam and becoming unfocussed. Marik, who had already set off, turned around to see his eldest gently tilting Cai's head upwards so that he could look into the 4'11'' boy's eyes and repeating his question.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a bit tired," he played down the weariness he felt, but both Marik and Alexander could clearly see it. A pang of sympathy went out from the king to his youngest – the small boy was battered and quite clearly exhausted. Maybe dragging him straight out of a battle and into a complex and tenuous political situation wasn't the best plan; Marik pushed the thoughts out of his mind, both his boys needed to know how to rule a kingdom.

"If you say so, squirt. Just tell us if you don't feel well," Alex patted his brother on the back and led him forwards to their waiting father. Marik was glad they had developed such a strong brotherly bond – he had never felt particularly close to Johnias, although his twin had often acted like they were best friends. Here he could see that Alex's love was reciprocated, which brought a sense of warmth to his heart, even though he knew the real reason for their intimacy was the years of hardship they had suffered through because of their traitorous uncle.

The small family made its way towards the hall, through a route of out-of-bounds zones that had been set up to prevent students from seeing the king of Lucael, and Marik thought about starting a conversation, but didn't want to break the silence so continued walking instead. He contemplated the coming meeting – the king certainly didn't want to throw his people into another war, so would have to be careful about what he was going to say. When they reached the mahogany double doors that signalled access to the main hall, Caiellis spoke softly.

"Dad, I have a bad feeling about this," he said worriedly, and Marik turned around to face him.

"Care to elaborate?" he accidentally snapped, not realising how tense he was becoming about the imminent conference.

"I don't know," the boy replied unhelpfully, and Marik sighed. "I just feel like it is a mistake to go in there. I have a bad feeling about this, and a headache." he repeated.

"And should I let your bad feelings get in the way of Lucael's safety?" the man questioned sternly, moving towards the boy, to which his youngest shrunk back nervously.

"Dad," Alexander interjected, "Maybe you should-"

"Do what, exactly? Consign my kingdom to another war just because a child couldn't control his sad emotions or keep them to himself? Caiellis, if you don't want to go in, be my guest. But it is my duty as a king to try and prevent war," he stated calmly, reigning in his caustic tone from earlier and making sure that he didn't look threatening to his son that was a total of around twenty inches smaller than his six foot seven frame. Nevertheless, he couldn't let "bad feelings" get in the way of his people's safety. "So are you coming, or not?"

His youngest nodded dutifully, all the obedient son in that moment, although his eyes were still clouded over with anxiousness. Marik patted him reassuringly on the shoulder and composed himself, removing the compassionate expression and replacing it with one of steely determination. He was one of the most influential human beings on the planet, and forced himself to look like it, adjusting his crown and cape and dramatically pushed the doors open.

The room was set out with a large table in the centre of it, a holographic representation of Magnus-Primae located in the middle. At one side, white banners bearing the Lucernan crest indicated where the king and princes should sit, next to the Hierarch and Guardian of Capitalia Lux. Jenna was stood off to the side awkwardly, intently watching the humans sat at the other side of the hall.

The opposite end was framed by crimson flags showing the symbol of a mailed fist, bloody with the viscera of the slain, held triumphantly in the air. A quartet of Welkalite representatives lounged in comfortable seats, with masked guards standing to attention behind them. Marik scanned the exotically adorned four, who smirked arrogantly back, surprised and more than a little annoyed that Jarred Redhand had not deigned to appear to the gathering, and had instead sent obviously important members of whatever ruling body the Empire of Passion obeyed after the dissolution of the Old Empire.

Caiellis's eyes brushed over them, sensing that they were the causes of his discomfort, and as he glanced at a man swathed by his clothes – he was covered in gaudy fabrics that sent aching pains through his head and the man grinned sadistically at him, exposing filed teeth that glinted in the sapphire light of the conjured image. Alexander glared at the man and the Welkalite turned away from his little brother, Alex and Cai then taking their seats either side of their father's.

A man clad in grey robes with knowing eyes stood up from a seat at the bisector between the two factions and cleared his throat. Both boys recognised the headteacher Hadan Colae, and the man winked understandingly at Caiellis, as if sensing his agitation.

"As both parties have arrived, the discussion will now begin. You should probably start by introducing yourselves," the unaligned headmaster suggested, and Marik took that as a cue to stand back up.

"I am Marik Ensis Lucerna, king of Lucael, and quite frankly, I couldn't care less about who you are or what your station is. All I need to know is that you are lackeys of Redhand," the eldest Lucerna raised his voice to be like a royal pronouncement, booming across the room and capturing the undivided attention of its occupants. He was determined to take control of this discussion from the outset and force the opposition to acquiesce to his demands. "The Welkas Empire stands accused of repeatedly assaulting traders, civilians and border patrols of Lucael. What is your excuse for this? I need a good one to prevent from ordering the utter annihilation of your precious empire."

Marik's dramatic and threatening words had their intended effect, and the king concealed a smile as the haughty Welkalites physical rocked back as if they had been slapped, smugness dissolving in the face of the king's wrath. One of them, a muscled brute clothed in interlocking brass metal plates that left much of his tanned and scarred skin bare and masked by a gladiator's helm, got to his feet, a huge battle-axe slung over his back.

"I am Arendus Draal, Master of Violence," he announced belligerently, wilfully ignoring the Lucaelian's earlier proclamation, his voice deep, harsh and brutal. "I thought we had established that the attacks were done by bandits. If you cannot defend against petty raiders, that is none of the empire's concern."

Marik raised an amused eyebrow at the barbarian's audacity, thinking that politics were no place for gladiators – he had heard of the brutish bloodsport arenas the Order of Violence prided themselves on. What a waste of time. Glory should be earned in battle and through one's own achievements, not by slaying captive creatures in an orgy of pointless bloodshed. However, the Welkalites had always had a penchant for over-indulgence.

"Well then, Arendus, it will no come as no surprise to you that we have eliminated these "bandits" of yours. They were garbed in the regalia of Welkas troops, although they could easily be renegade. Nevertheless, so long as your civilisation poses a direct threat to mine it will be destroyed. Simple as that," Marik stated plainly, "So therefore, I think you should conclude that these raiders _are _your problems also, if you cannot control your troops then maybe a change of leadership needs to occur."

Caiellis got up from his seat. Immense pain pounded in his head, burning torment that increased in intensity every second of being in the room. He could sense the eyes of everyone boring into him as he silently made his way towards the door on the left, which led to an outside balcony. Cai could feel his cheeks lighting up ashamedly under the joined gazes of both parties – his father must have been disappointed, but the boy couldn't bear being in room anymore. He wouldn't have been able to contribute to the debate anyway, he couldn't think clearly past the burning sensation.

Alexander made to get up and follow him, concern for his baby brother evident in his bright blue eyes, but Tristram placed a restraining hand on his shoulder, keeping the seventeen year old still. Marik would already be annoyed enough at the departure of one of his sons. Unbeknownst to the Lucaelians, a couple of shadows detached themselves from the walls and slipped out of the room behind the youngest prince.

"Aww, could the child not stand the arguing? Did we upset him? How adorable" the Welkalite attired in garish clothing who had locked eyes with the boy sneered, receiving a fiery glare from the king, older son, Hierarch and Guardian. He had definitely hit a nerve there. He also rose, "I am Tradax Yulica, Master of Rapture and what you are saying,_ my liege_," he spat mockingly, "smacks of intimidation and self-aggrandizement. I thought those qualities were frowned upon in the Kingdom of Light."

"The king is not threatening you. He is merely stating facts," Tybalt replied coolly, intervening before Marik, already irritated by Caiellis, released his anger.

"We have tolerated your impertinence for many years now, and if you refuse to stop then we will have no choice but to force you to."

.*.*.*.

Caiellis raised his face to the pouring rain, feeling the refreshingly cold water wash away some of the pain. The headache receded to tolerable levels, and he sighed wearily. He hadn't wanted to embarrass his father, he should have taken the man's offer earlier and stayed out of the room. However, the notion that they were all in terrible danger refused to be erased from his mind, and no matter how hard Cai tried he couldn't shake the premonition of onrushing peril.

The boy analysed the precarious situation between Lucael and Welkas and what that would mean for each nation. The Kingdom of Light had only just recovered from their own internal civil war, although now they were arguably even stronger than before – even so, Johnias was still loose in the darkness with his closest treacherous compatriots, and the distraction of another conflict may be just what he needed to further his own plans.

He wanted to talk with Orzhova; maybe she could tell him about the foreboding he felt. Come to think of it, there had been something else niggling at the back of his mind since he had Summoned her. Cai let himself sink into his Mind Realm, his body remaining standing out in the freezing rain. He found himself in the cathedral he had now come to associate with the Angel of the Black Sun, said angel smiling pleasantly at him when he fully entered.

"Hello again, Caiellis. Do you need to talk about something?" she asked, the melancholy veil over her eyes quickly replaced with one of happiness. Cai felt a moment of empathy for the angel – according to Akroma, Orzhova had been shunned by the Sisterhood after her actions in Xarius's reign; it must be an incredibly lonely and isolated existence for the dark angel. She always seemed thrilled to see him, to have someone to talk to after the years of being trapped in the Mind Realm when he couldn't pass her trial.

"Yeah, I want to ask you about two things. First, earlier today you said that my Black mana was inadequate. I know that I'm more comfortable with White mana, having utilised it my entire life, but I followed your advice to the letter," he explained, slight exasperation colouring his soft voice, "I never focussed on those feelings before. I forced myself to remember every excruciating detail of that horrible night, and yet my Black mana is not good enough?"

"Caiellis, calm down," she gently admonished, "I know it must have been painful for you, I could feel it myself – just like what I felt on the night your mother died."

"However, all your pain, all your hatred, who is it directed at?" Orzhova asked.

"Johnias," Cai muttered darkly, disgust blooming in his mind at the thought of his uncle, the one that had ripped his young life apart and plunged the four year old him into a desperate war between darkness and light.

"Exactly. Johnias the Arch-Heretic," she continued, "Perpetrator of one of the largest cataclysms in Lucaelian history. You have not seen him since before the war, have you?"

"No," Caiellis murmured, starting to see what his angel was getting at but willing to let her finish her explanations before jumping to conclusions.

"Precisely. Your last memory of Johnias, the focal point of your hatred in the generation of Black mana, is not of a murderous betrayer, nor of a merciless butcher. The last time you saw him, he was just an affectionate uncle doting on his favourite nephew."

The boy let Orzhova's words sink in, playing them around in his mind and considering the implications of it – he remember his uncle's face, identical to his father's but filled with warmth that he now knew to be false instead of parental pride hidden under a veneer of duty to the kingdom. That had been a month before he betrayed, and the young Caiellis couldn't believe that the loving man had gone against his father. That had been prior to Emili's murder, and all thoughts of fondness towards Johnias had been converted to pure and unfettered hatred in Cai's mind, emotions that remained to this day but had increased in potency every day of the civil war. Nonetheless, it seemed like Caiellis's subconscious still regarded his uncle based on his last meeting with the man.

The angel's onyx eyes narrowed and her porcelain face became suspicious before Cai had a chance to inquire about his present emotions.

"Get out. Quick!" Orzhova commanded, and the boy felt himself jolt roughly out of the Mind Realm, blearily opening his eyes to the pouring rain. He shook his heard, cursing inwardly when he detected the presence of two intruders to the balcony. He quietly activated the Lens of Guilt, ink-like darkness painting the world in black, clearly revealing the intent of the ambushers behind as blotches of pulsating scarlet. Caiellis waited until they were within striking distance, and then sprung into spontaneous action.

The prince spun around, drawing the Sword of Glass and activating it in an actinic flash, the rain sizzling when it touched the crystal blade. The first assailant, smaller than the second and lithe, gasped in shock when the weapon pierced through her shadowy disguise. Claret liquid spilled from her stomach, the wound quickly cauterising because of the intense magical heat of Cai's blade. She pulled the sword deeper, ignoring her flesh burning as her hands touched the holy crystal, and Caiellis could see her grinning insanely through the immense agony.

A moment of indecision cost the prince dearly, as he wrestled for control of the sword for a second and was distracted by the spray of vital fluids. Caiellis hated violence and death, although it was a necessity and liked to think that he wouldn't hesitate to kill if the offender threatened him or his loved ones, but was more than a little disturbed by the woman's moans of pleasure as the blade stuck further into her. He twisted it to try and break free when the second assailant loomed behind him, a muscled figure that swung down at him.

Caiellis managed to yank the Sword of Glass out of the now-dead female assassin, who slumped to the floor with a huge cavity where her stomach once was, twirling around just as a huge hand encircled his lower forearm. The prince yelped in distress as cold metal was roughly pressed onto the thin wrist, the sinister black steel shimmering with malignant intent in the Lens of Guilt. He gasped as the freezing thing cut him off from his supply of magical energy, the sudden hollowing sensation making the boy want to vomit. Cai felt incredibly weak and tried to pull away from the man, who grunted and yanked him back, pulling the prince's artefact weapon away from him and slinging it into the same holster of a huge axe.

The two wrestled for a split second before the prince was overpowered, fragile without his mana backing him up. Cai tried to conjure up some to fight off his attacker, but it was like looking into an empty void. Panic pulsed through his mind – was he going to die here?

"Alex..." he choked as the man wrapped a bulging arm around his throat, cutting off the flow of air and starving the cry for help. He feebly pulled at the constricting limb, but it barely moved. Normally Caiellis wasn't that bothered about his lack of physical strength, figuring that he would gain it as he went further into puberty, but now sorely wished he had devoted more time to weight-training and Tristram's other sessions. He felt himself being hauled into another room and suddenly understood the direness of his situation – the prince would be used as a bargaining tool. Cai thrashed and desperately kicked back, and the man increased the pressure of his grip, as black spots appeared in the boy's vision. Fatigue and the disconcerting and abrupt lack of mana weakened him severely, but it didn't stop him from trying as he was carried away from the balcony.

.*.*.*.

Tradax shut his eyes for a second and breathed deeply – he seemed to be the leader of the Welkalite party, as only him and Arendus Draal had contributed so far, and the latter seemed to show grudging fealty to the Master of Rapture. The man smiled sadistically at Marik, revealing his sharpened fangs. The king glared back as the Welkalite began to laugh, a sibilant, hissing noise that made the middle Lucerna want to go and punch him.

"What is so funny?" Alexander snarled, and Tradax ceased his manic giggling, locking eyes with the eldest prince.

"Oh, the main event is about to start!" he squealed in ecstatic joy, and the Lucaelians and Yentarians glanced around suspiciously as the shadows began to deepen.

"This is-" Tristram exclaimed as Marik interrupted him coldly, his eyes blazing with fury, "Yes. Demon-magic."

"How perceptive of you, my lord!" Tradax cried, and the king gathered up his White mana and immediately Summoned Akroma, the pretence of trying to find peace with Welkas utterly gone now that he knew they courted with Sancturia demons. The angel growled when she realised why she had been Summoned, drawing her enormous sword and about to charge at Tradax when the man waved his finger.

"Ah-ah. I don't think you should do that," he shook his head mockingly when the Angel of Wrath didn't stop her attack, "Especially not when you see Caiellis."

"**What have you done to him**_?"_ Marik thundered, Akroma sensing the hidden command to stop her attack. Bruna, Athela and Aurelia had also entered the room, the huge angels aloft in the cavernous hall and surrounded by haloes of glittering light. Tradax waggled his finger again and Alex's breath caught in his throat. His little brother had been hurt!

"Arendus, if you would?" the Welkalite grinned maliciously, clearly enjoying the oldest Lucernas reacting to the news of the youngest in plight. The brutish Master of Violence nodded and dissolved into a pool of blood where he was stood.

"A clone?" Jenna blurted out in realisation, as the door to the balcony was pushed open and the true Arendus strode in. Alex cried out when he saw Caiellis struggling weakly against a muscled arm around his neck, hopelessly trying to break free.

"Oh? Where is Meira?" Tradax asked. His counterpart replied with a gruff: "Dead."

"Shame, I liked her."

The brothers' eyes met, Cai's green orbs bloodshot and terrified, and Alex wanted nothing more than to exterminate the Master from existence and save his little brother from harm. But Arendus held a large knife to the side of the boy's throat, and the gladiator would have no problems in killing Caiellis before Alexander could rescue him.

As bad as Alex took the situation, it affected Marik worse. Seeing his baby, his little Caiellis, in harm's way froze his mind. He had never before witnessed one of his sons in so much danger – he hadn't been there when Emili was stabbed, but arrived after Caiellis destroyed the demons. The sight of his precious youngest with the life being choked from him filled him with a tremendous rage that couldn't get past the mental block he felt. Marik had only experienced this once before, when the love of his life had been slain.

"The New Empire of Welkas would like to be able to survive without you Lucaelians interfering – to do this we need an alliance. However, you would never do so, so we knew that the perfect incentive for … shall we way _persuading _the stubborn king would be his sons," Tradax laughed, "Now, our proposal is simple. Alexander and Caiellis come with us to Welkas and act as your Lucaelian representatives, ensuring that you won't break your promises. We will release them when we are ready. You would never willingly agree to that, so now you have an easy choice to make – Your sons come to Welkas, or precious little baby Caiellis dies right in front of you. First, dispel your angels," he ordered, moving to Arendus and tenderly stroking Cai's mop of brown hair.

Akroma and Aurelia were dismissed instantaneously, with Bruna and Athela being released by their owners after a moment of hesitation.

"Get away from him," Alexander growled and made to move over to the Welkalite's side. A restraining hand prevented him, and he turned towards the pleading face of his father.

"If I let you go, who knows what may happen to you? You could both die," his blue eyes were desperate, "I'm sorry, but I can't take that chance. One heir needs to survive."

"You aren't seriously suggesting that, are you?!" Alex shouted indignantly. He was fully prepared to go along with Tradax's proposition, so long as he could get his little brother out of immediate danger. They would figure things out after that, and right now he didn't care about the future. He needed to protect Cai in the present. Alex was horrified that his father could even suggest sacrificing his youngest to keep them both out of danger.

"The longer you wait, the less air he has," Tradax called from across the room. He was right – Caiellis's struggles were becoming weaker as his oxygen-starved limbs refused to respond to his commands, falling limply by his sides as he realised that he needed to conserve energy. Marik's eyes locked with his, and Cai shook his head feebly.

"No...Don't..." he gasped out, and the father could see the shame and sadness, but more than that, the pleading, in his son's eyes. They said: Let me die. Get out with Alex. Don't let him be thrust into danger as well.

"Dad, we will be fine. I will make sure of it," Alex begged, his own blue irises desperate with the need to help his sibling. "Dad, please. We can't let him die."

"I will get you back," Marik resigned, promising his sons and etching that promise into his mind, where it would burn until it could be fulfilled. Alex nodded his head and ran over to Caiellis, still held by Arendus and dying in the man's grip. Tradax grinned victoriously and pressed a metal bracelet into the other prince's hand.

"Put this on before we release him," he commanded, and Alexander did so instantly, grunting when the mama-inhibitor cut off his magic flow. Caiellis was released, slumping to the floor and gasped violently, coughing and inhaling in equal measures.

"And lord Marik, should you attempt to get your sons back, or interfere in any way it is they who will pay the price," Tradax smirked arrogantly and Arendus roughly pushed the boys towards the exit, his gargantuan axe held one-handed. Alex reckoned that he could maybe best the man, but didn't want to risk doing anything with Caiellis in his current state. He held the smaller boy close to him and helped with the walking, turning around to meet his father's determined eyes one last time before they were dragged away by other Welkalite guards.

"What do you really want with us?" he snarled at Tradax, the man walking confidently in front of them.

"Oh, was my lie not very convincing?" he replied petulantly, taking on a childish voice as if trying to better interact with the princes. Alex stroked his brother's forehead when the boy shuddered and let out a small whimper.

"Oh well. There is someone in Welkas that wants to meet you."


	11. City of Pleasure

_Disclaimer: There are a few Final Fantasy XIII-Lightning Returns references here, as the Welkalite city of Usnaan is based on the very similarly named (my choice of name was creative, I know) city of Yusnaan in the game._

Caiells sat with his brother in the back of a large and extravagant airship that had intercepted their passage in the one that the Yentarians had lent each of the two parties. He was scared, but far more pressing was the feeling of shame that refused to leave his mind. Cai felt that it was his fault the brothers were basically kidnapped and forced to go to Welkas, and even though their father, king of one of the most powerful civilisations in history, had promised to save them, it still didn't stop the boy from thinking about how he had doomed them both, how they should have just let him die so Alexander wouldn't be dragged in as well.

"Cai. Stop blaming yourself," Alex said suddenly, moving his hand over and squeezing his brother's shoulder gently, but firm enough to show that his big brother was going to protect him. Caiellis wiped tears of self-loathing that had already appeared in his eyes. _Alex never cries, and neither should I, _he told himself, and looked away from the older boy. He didn't want Alexander to worry, both of them had enough to deal with, "'I'm not."

"Yes you are, little bro. Don't lie to me, my big-brother alarm is ringing," he joked, and Cai favoured him with a sad smile. He would like to think that this wasn't the worst they had gone through, but despite some dangerous encounters in the civil war the boys had never been in so much peril before.

"It's my fault," Caiellis muttered, and Alex chuckled quietly. Both of them blamed themselves for the abduction – Cai thought that he should have been stronger and never been subdued by Arendus, whereas his brother told himself that he should have helped the youngest Lucerna to argue with Dad when the boy sensed incoming danger. He shook his head at the smaller boy, sighing loudly.

"Where are we going?" he asked the Master of Rapture who was sat in a seat in front of them, just behind the pilot. Cai was once again surprised and proud of how calm his older brother always acted in precarious circumstances, hiding away his own worries and concerns so that he could better protect his little brother. He knew that Alex would have bottled up his true feelings inside, pushing them away so they didn't distract him and so he could focus on aiding his families and friends. The older boy was certainly quite selfless.

"We will alight at Usnaan, City of Pleasure and you will be accommodated at the Palace of Desire, what used to be the Imperial Palace before the last tyrant was torn down," Tradax explained, casting a glance back at the teenagers. He was triumphant, but not overtly hostile. "I thought it would be fitting considering your exalted heritage."

"The Empire of Passion, City of Pleasure and Palace of Desire. Sounds quite fun," Alex sniggered at the ridiculous names. The brothers both reacted to conditions like these differently – the younger would become depressed and filled with self-hatred, while Alex tried to use humour and appear perfectly fine so that others wouldn't worry about him.

"Oh, certainly. You will be able to find anything you could ever want there," the man purred, once again exposing his filed teeth.

"Anything apart from freedom, you mean?" Alex shot back, and Tradax laughed loudly. Caiellis stayed silent and looked out of the dark window, seeing the arid and drab landscape of Welkas fade away and become replaced by the signs of dwellings. He craned his neck, perceiving flashes of light and ostentatious colours out of the corner of his eye, wild declarations of individuality into the night, but couldn't actually see Usnaan.

"Oh my, you are a funny one. I wonder which member of your family you get that from – it certainly can't be your insipid father."

"Do not insult my family," Alexander retorted angrily, and Tradax held up a hand in mock surrender. "I would not presume to affront the great Lucernan line, and definitely not with you here – you are very protective of your relatives."

His eyes, moving in their slits like those of a predator whose gaze has just sighted the perfect prey, slid over Caiellis, taking the melancholy prince in. Now that he had calmed down after almost being killed by Arendus Draal, the boy was just remembering that he had actually murdered another person. This was the second time he had killed an actual human being, although in the civil war he had been forced to slaughter many of the Black-aligned Sancturia creatures that had allied with Johnias to survive, and flash-backed to his first human kill.

_Alexander and Caiellis shared the double-bed in the bedroom of the current safe-house, despite both their protestations – at the age of fourteen, Alex of course still loved his little brother, but was finding the time he spent with the younger boy tiring and sometimes unbearable. He felt like he couldn't properly enjoy himself in the cities they visited with the boy constantly tagging along, cramping his style. However, he still shared a room with little Cai, not forgetting the kid's fear of the perpetual darkness that intensified with the coming night – Caiellis had said that it reminded him of the night before their mum had died. His ten year old little brother laid on the other side of the bed in his black pyjamas, staring defiantly at the opposite wall and pretending he was asleep, though the older sibling knew he wasn't – Caiellis made periodic wiping motions with his arm and stifled sniffles, indicating that the junior Lucerna was crying. _

_The brothers had argued vehemently before going to bed – Alexander had wanted to go to a festival in the city they now stayed in, Civitas Sol, with the new friends he had quickly made from the boys and girls similar to his age he had met. However, Hierarch Tybalt (or "Uncle" Tybalt as his little brother called the ancient man) had decreed that he stay back at the house, look after Caiellis and make sure they both completed their written work. Alex had been in a bad mood because of this, blaming his brother before the night had even started, and when the smaller youth continuously pestered him for help with his own work the middle Lucerna had exploded._

_Of course Cai had reacted in the same way, emulating his big brother and shouting back. It had devolved into a bitter argument that drew sustenance from both their negative emotions about their lives in the civil war, and both of them had said things that neither meant. Being the older brother, Alex should have known that his words and accusations would have cut deeper than Cai's, but had been too caught up in the heat of the moment of their shouting match. He hoped that his baby brother didn't truly believe the things he had said about not loving the other boy and how he should never have been born, but judging by Caiellis's present actions he had._

"_Hey, kiddo?" he asked, turning around in the bed to look at the slight form of his little brother, who stopped his movements and quietened his breathing at Alex's sudden decision to want to talk, pretending he was fast asleep. Alexander sighed, annoyed at himself for letting the bickering get out of hand and not acting more mature about it, "Look, I know you're awake, so whether you reply or not doesn't matter." He was greeted with silence, and chuckled quietly, "You don't really think that I hate you, do you?"_

"_Why would anyone not?" the younger boy whimpered back, and Alex mentally punched himself. He should have seen this coming, Caiellis always thought negatively about himself because of his uselessness in Tristram's physical training, so of course his little brother would take Alexander's words to heart and start the self-loathing process. "I'm just dragging you down, the useless little one that always has to be protected. I'm a waste of space."_

_The younger male's repetition of some of Alex's words combined with his own made the older brother wince inside._

"_C'mere," he commanded in his best big brother voice, and Cai questioned, "Why?"_

"_Don't make me force you," Alex responded, and his brother sighed, turning over in the bed to face the larger boy. The youngest prince was actually far beyond his single decade of life in intelligence, but his lack of experience in dealing with emotions and just generally not having the maturity given by age often made Alex want to help him. It wasn't as if he acted his age – the war had forced them both to become adults much faster than normal – but his tiny frame coupled with his innocence were the main factors that made Alexander want to baby him. Caiellis had obviously been crying, despite the fact that he tried to hide them tear tracks were evident on his pale cheeks._

"_Aww, little brother, you know sometimes I don't mean what I say," he smiled, pulling Cai closer in for a bone-crushing but still brotherly hug. The little brother scowled but made no effort to move away, signalling to Alex that he was victorious in removing the negative thoughts from the ten year old's mind._

_After a moment of silence in which Alexander was unwilling to release his little brother but did so anyway; the boy wouldn't like it if he overstayed his welcome, Caiellis spoke up, "Alex, can you feel that?"_

"_Feel what?" he replied, concerned at the younger prince's sudden change of tone from one full of youth to one of adult seriousness and alertness._

"_I can sense a dark presence..." he began, his eyes widening to the opposite side of the room as the shadows coalesced and detatched from the wall, materialising behind Alex. He shouted: "Look out!"_

_The blonde spun around, activating his mana and forming a large shield as a large and serrated blade swung into him. The strength behind the blow was immense, and both Lucernas cried out as Alex was flung across the spacious room, cracking loudly against the hard wall and briefly slumping into unconsciousness._

_Grunting an annoyance at his weapon being repelled by the boy's magic, the man stalked across the room, preparing to finish off the eldest prince, the greatest threat, before easily murdering the smaller boy._

"_No!" a voice yelled, suffused with an otherworldly resonance as the assassin swung his blade towards the downed Alex, who had reawakened and held his arms defensively in front of him. A beam of light shot out from the bed, piercing through the man and immolating his insides in a fiery expansion of holy flame. The agent of Johnias shrieked as he was incinerated, a horrific sound that pierced both boys' ears._

"_Well, that was impressive. Thanks bro," Alex said, impressed at the sheer magical display, but also quite miffed at his own swift defeat. He would have to train harder, although he had been caught by surprise and unable to call upon Aurelia. The teen got to his feet, rolling his shoulders and gasping slightly at the pain in his stomach, when he heard the sound of a small whimper. The big brother alarm in his head rang loudly, and he turned around to see Caiellis shaking and looking at his hands, pure horror on his face. Then he realised it – neither of them had killed any humans before, as the agents sent after them at every previous occasion had been Black Sancturia monsters, but this time it had been a man, albeit corrupted by darkness._

_He got down on the bed and wrapped an arm around his trembling brother, holding up a reassuring hand as the door creaked open and Tristram's face went from the crying Cai to the comforting Alex and the pile of ash on the floor, coming to his conclusions about the event – creatures of the other realm didn't leave corpses, and his youngest student had never been shaken by erasing them. The look in Alexander's face clearly stated that he could handle the situation, and the Guardian nodded, shutting the door and waiting dutifully by the doorway in case they called him in, feeling like he had failed in his duty to protect the king's sons._

"_H-he was human," Caiellis stammered, feeling the weight of his actions pressing down on him._

"_Yeah, and he was going to kill us," Alex responded, wiping the tears away from his brother's face and moving the brown bangs out of his eyes. "You did the right thing, Cai. You stopped us both from getting hurt."_

"_B-but I'm a murderer. I k-killed him," he tilted his head downwards in sadness, and Alex pushed off the bed, kneeling down on the floor and in front of his brother's dejected gaze. "He was evil, Cai. Imagine how many other people he would have killed after us, imagine how sad Dad would be knowing that he would never see his sons again. Imagine how depressed mum would be when we went to meet her in heaven – she would want us to have long and happy lives, ok? You did good. He was no better than the demons, so you should think of him as one."_

_Alex was completely unprepared for Caiellis to jump off the bed and tackle into his brother, pressing his head into the teen's lean chest and wrapping his thin arms around him like a death grip._

"_Oof! You're getting a bit too big for that," he reciprocated the hug, "Angels, you're gonna think I'm your wife or something the amount of times I've hugged you tonight."_

"_Eww, that's gross!" the younger boy exclaimed, extricating himself from his brother's assuaging embrace and pushing him away, a look of exaggerated and child-like (Alex reminded himself again that Cai was only ten) disgust on his face. He pulled his little brother into a headlock and kissed the top of his mop of hair, grinning at his brother's squeals of indignation._

"_Get some sleep, squirt," he said, letting go of him and waiting until Cai was under the covers before saying: "I'm just going to tell Tristram what happened, ok?"_

"Not a very talkative one, is he?" Tradax laughed, and Alexander snapped back with: "Maybe having his windpipe crushed has something to do with that?"

Caiellis turned his head away from the dazzling lights of night-time Usnaan, feeling another headache coming on just from the flashing glow, and Alex winked conspiratorially at him. He knew full well that the boy had a flashback, no doubt to when he had destroyed that human assassin Johnias had sent to kill them.

"I apologise for that brute Arendus's rough handling of your brother, although there was no other way to convince your father. We had originally planned to use every single other Lucaelian student as a bargaining chip, but since Caiellis went out to the balcony it would be easier to capture him instead. Though we didn't quite expect Meira to die," the Master of Rapture blabbed, and then turned back towards the younger prince. "Evidently you didn't hear me the first time, so I will repeat my question: How do you find Usnaan? It is a far cry from any Lucaelian city, is it not?"

Expecting Caiellis not to respond, Alexander was mildly shocked and also wickedly proud when his younger sibling calmly shot back: "Actually, I find it quite disgusting. The amount of resources you must have wasted on those ridiculous lights is quite astounding."

"And here I was thinking you stared out of the window so long because you were busy admiring it. Well whatever, we're almost at the palace. The one who wants to see you has not arrived yet, so after you have a meal and choose a room I will give you free reign of the city," Tradax explained, "Obviously with the mana inhibitors on, don't want you going and blowing up everything you dislike."

"How hospitable of you," Alex muttered back, instinctively pulling at the cold metal bracelet on his arm to try and removing the numbing presence in the back of his mind – he shuddered empathetically as he thought about how much worse it would have been for Caiellis, who was much more in tune with his magic despite only recently being able to Summon. Even though they were here as captives, the older prince couldn't help but let a little excitement well up in him – he had never visited a non-Lucaelian city, and it would be interesting to see what Usnaan was like, if its reputation as being the hub of the realisation of all desires was true or not.

In twenty minute's time, the airship landed on a large and artificial granite plateau, and both brothers got to their feet and were led out by Tradax. Alex stood protectively in front of Cai when he saw Arendus striding out of another section of the medium-sized vehicle, but the Master of Violence paid the boys no heed and instantly left the grounds of the palace.

"Draal is going straight to Slaughterhouse, his seat of power and the largest bloodsport arena in the Empire," Tradax sneered condescendingly at the back of the larger man. "You are welcome to go there and watch if you want, though I would advise not participating in the events."

"Shame, I wanted to mindlessly throw myself at dangerous Unbound creatures without access to my magic," Cai retorted under his breath, and only Alex heard that.

"Each of the four most popular orders maintains a Passion Quarter of the city – my own Order of Rapture controls the Hedonist's Quarter with the Order of Entertainment merged into our ranks, while Arendus rules over the Champion's Quarter with his Order of Violence. The Order of Gluttony led by dear Ershun resides in the aptly named Glutton's Quarter, and finally the Augur's Quarter was led by that bitch Gretia, before I had her assassinated and also assimilated the Order of Wealth into my own."

"And where is Jarred Redhand in all this? It sounds like the Orders are getting out of control," Alex asked, knowing that the inquiry would be burning in Caiellis's mind as well, though he sensed his younger brother building up his shell – as long as he didn't ignore the older prince, Alexander was perfectly happy with the boy shutting out everyone else.

"Our esteemed Protector is still in mourning after his wife and daughters were assassinated, so the Orders of Passion have taken over in his absence. As the Master of the most influential Order, I am the de facto ruler of Welkas right now," he smiled thinly, the gesture more frightening than reassuring, "So you have my express authority to explore the city and indulge to your heart's content, any bills you incur will be simply rendered null by Wealth."

Caiellis didn't know about Alexander (but doubted the seventeen year old thought differently to him), but he certainly wasn't intending to indulge in any of the things on offer, besides food and water. He could see from the mild anticipation in his brother's blue eyes and the way he was acting (even though Cai wasn't as good as knowing Alex's emotions just from that as his brother was, he had still lived with the older prince all his life) that the older male was eager to explore. Whatever. If that's what he wanted to do, then Cai wouldn't stop him. Instead he would tag along, just like he had used to whenever his brother went somewhere when they were younger – maybe there would be something interesting.

He blinked slowly, registering that he had drifted again, noticing that they were walking through an astoundingly flamboyant palace decorated with expensive and obtrusively bright-coloured fabrics with servants running around, avoiding the gaze of Tradax and bending their backs forwards whenever he walked past. The Palace of Desire was in every way a polar opposite to the Lucernan seat of power in Capitalia Lux, the Lucaelian citadel built to defend and invoking a sense of solemn awe from onlookers, while this extravagant mansion was created to remind citizens of Welkas just how much wealthier the owner was than them.

Tradax led the teenagers into a large room with an ornate mahogany table edged with ruby and gold placed in the centre, with large tapestries depicting what Caiellis assumed were defining points of the revolution. He found it wonderfully ironic that the first picture, showing tyrants lording over the masses in their pleasure dens while the civilians were oppressed and downtrodden, was far closer to the reality of the New Empire instead of the last panel, the one highlighting the freedom.

The table was already set out with a variety of exotic dishes comprising colourful ingredients that the boy had never even seen, and as his green eyes went over them his empty stomach demanded his attention. Despite the fact that he hadn't eaten in the morning, spent the best part of the day using magic and battling against other students, Summoned Orzhova for the first time and almost died in the arms of the Master of Violence, he roughly quashed the notion of food. Who knew what could be in there?

Having no such misgivings, Alexander pulled an empty plate towards him and sat down, sampling some of the succulent-looking meat and savouring the taste on its tongue.

"The finest oxen of the Glutton's Quarter were used to make that. I trust you found it delectable?" Tradax mentioned with a gleam of avarice in his mind, and Alex nodded, impressed. He had never tasted something so delicious in his life – he supposed that when you have an entire fourth of the capital city dedicated solely to creating meals for the rich, then this was only to be expected. The Master of Rapture filled his own plate and sat down at the head of the table, tucking in to his own meal. After a minute, he glanced over at the slight younger prince, who hadn't touched the food. The boy returned his look, green orbs full of resentment and antipathy, and Tradax snorted.

"Are you not going to eat? I'd hate to let your teenager angst get in the way of enjoy a good meal," he jabbed, noticing that while Cai's expression didn't change and that he continued to glower back at the man, Alexander instantly saw that his already thin brother wasn't eating. Tradax's talent that he was most proud of was reading people, allowing him to rise through the ranks of Order through manipulation and deflecting other's intentions. He could use this to better influence people, and right now he could clearly see that while both boys were very mentally strong, and even though after significant amounts of torment Caiellis would break first, the easiest way to get under the skin of either of them would be to hurt the other. Should he ever want to hurt Alexander, the best way to do it would be through Caiellis – Tradax filed that information away until he might need it.

"Cai, you have to eat something," Alex pleaded, looking at the younger boy who stared back coldly. "Come on, bro, at least just eat one thing. Do it for me if not for yourself."

"One thing may be enough," he said under his breath, and when Alex raised his eyebrows in confusion he decided to elaborate. "They could have done anything to the food – you know they consort with demons. It could be poisoned, or be infused with magic that would corrupt us against our father and kingdom."

Alex gulped, suddenly losing his appetite. He hadn't thought of that.

"Now, now Caiellis, do you know nothing about demon magic? I appreciate that you are an intelligent boy, and I know full well that you are probably paranoid and scared by this alien place, but do you not think that if I really wanted you and your brother corrupted, I would have been significantly less subtle about it. You are in my domain. I could simply Summon some demons and subdue you both," he laughed, "Think about it logically. It is in the express wishes of my client that you both be unharmed and unchanged, so you have to eat. Would you prefer I had the guards force feed you?"

"Fine," he snarled, infusing the word with a ridiculous amount of vehemence, glaring with undiluted hatred at the man, who in that instant was immensely grateful to the unknown Yentarian scientist who had the foresight to invent the mana inhibitors. Cai sparsely populated his plate with a few nibbles and chewed slowly on them, looking as if he was indulging the two older males by deigning to eat. His eyes quickly went back to the calculating intensity Tradax had seen in the boy whenever he wasn't in deep, introspective thought – the prince analysed everything, and the Master of Rapture knew he was formulating an escape plan already. He also had realised that Alexander was doing this, although much less than his little brother.

When the boys had finished their meal, he beckoned towards a nearby slave, who carried Caiellis's artefact blade in his shaking hands. The prince took it without comment, strapping the sheath around his slender waist. The gesture said: _I couldn't care less whether you have your weapon or not, nothing you can do will help you get out of Usnaan._

Much as he hated to admit it, without his magical ability he was, and by extension the Sword of Glass was also quite useless. Well, maybe he had the intelligence that others constantly bragged about (Alex always used to, and still did sometimes call him Geek Boy or Boy Genius), but Caiellis knew that this particular talent would be of no use – he was book smart, not world smart like Alex and their father. Reciting a list of trigonometry rules wouldn't help them escape.

"Can we go into the city now?" Alex asked, sensing that the gears in his brother's wind were whirring frantically – the boy never gave himself enough credit about his intelligence, as with magic they were Cai's main strengths, while his own were interacting with people and physical prowess. The kid would be thinking about how to escape, which was becoming less and less of a possibility, and though Alexander devoted some mind-power to it his first priority was keeping Cai safe.

"I encourage you to," Tradax grinned devilishly, "Explore and find what you truly desire. Apart from freedom, of course."

.*.*.*.

The streets were full of those with the money to celebrate, laughing and indulging in the multifarious stalls of Pleasure Avenue; the central path through the Hedonists's Quarter was paved with gold and many of the wealthy Welkalites were dressed in fineries with ostentatious masks depicting several types of Sancturia creatures. A band played a lively and enrapturing tune in the background, taking residence inside a colourful gazebo, with some of the people dancing in front of them.

It must have been at least in the final hour of the day, but many still populated the streets – Caiellis thought it was peculiar that the city came alive at night, as it felt to him as if the Welkalites were wasting the daylight.

Caiellis gulped as he saw a scruffy looking man keeping his head down and trying to look inconspicuous striding through the crowds, freezing in place when guards, or Enforcers as the public called them, shouted at him. Then, the man bolted, crashing through an oblivious couple too wrapped up in their own pleasures to notice anything around them, quickly followed by the gold-clad Enforcers. One of them, a mage of some kind, conjured chains of crackling electricity and threw them at the man, sending jolts up his spasming body and making him shriek in agony.

Alex had to put a restraining hand on his brother's shoulder, who looked as if he was going to interfere, but it was more for his own benefit than Cai's – the contact reminded him that his brother was his first concern, and that if he ran in to try and stop the injustice without his magic they would both probably get hurt, despite Tradax's reassurances to the contrary.

"Come on Cai, let's go somewhere else," he firmly directed the squirt away from the scene of violence, feeling his own blood pressure raise at the brutal treatment of the man just because he couldn't afford to pay to get into the area. Caiellis had always had more of a tender heart, though Alex was compassionate, the fact that he had often had to choose between his little brother and some civilians in the civil war had hardened it. Cai often over-compensated for his inner gentleness with harsh words, feeling as if it was showing weakness and knowing that his father wouldn't want a potential heir to be as pathetic as he was.

"Hey pretty boys," a coquettish voice purred, and Alexander spun around to see an extremely scantily clad woman swinging round a street-lamp and pacing along the wall beside them. He put a hand over Cai's eyes when the boy was about to look round also, the woman's breasts were bare and personally he thought his little brother's innocence could be preserved a little longer.

"Ooh, a protective brother, how hot," she slid down beside them, parading her undeniably attractive body in front of him. Alex felt his cheeks light up slightly, and forced himself to pretend that this whore was just like any other girl, flashing his charming smile at her.

"Children normally aren't allowed in the Augur's Quarter, so you must be something special. Usually I'd find it distasteful to offer my services to little boys, but since your parents must be very rich I'll do anything for a good price," she directed the comment at Caiellis, who went bright red, Alex could feel the boy's cheeks and forehead lighting up under his hand.

"Sorry, but he's not interested in that," a warning note crept into his voice, and she giggled, "And you? I'm sure your little brother can amuse himself for a few minutes while we find somewhere private."

For once Alexander was irritated by the fact that the many of the opposite sex flocked to him, his muscular physique combined with his Lucernan handsomeness and his confident, almost cocky personality proving to be quite irresistible a lot of the time.

"Sorry, not tonight. Go find some other customers, my brother would kill me if I left him alone," he smirked at Caiellis's stifled sigh, managing to tease his brother even in this situation. "Ok gorgeous. See you around."

After she had left and Alexander removed his hand and Cai glared up at him, unamused, a vexed little brother bitch-face plastered on.

"You could have just said: "No thanks, I'm busy"," he complained, and Alex socked him on the arm. The boy massaged it and scowled, and Alexander laughed.

"Don't want to spoil my reputation with the ladies," he gave a patented smile and ruffled his hair. "Dad said that you shouldn't even be thinking about having a girlfriend until you are eighteen, much less start snogging them at fourteen."

"Oh little brother, you have much to learn. Dad would definitely ground me if he knew what I'd been up to," he sniggered at the boy's expression of child-like shock and incredulity. "You haven't done _that, _have you?"

"You talk about it as if it isn't something completely natural," he winked at the adorably aghast Cai, but was secretly glad that he wasn't yet interested in girls, as he had been at the younger boy's age. It made him that much more cute and still like a child, though he was more than adult enough in every other aspect of life.

"Just wait till I tell dad," Caiellis teased, smiling victoriously. Alex nudged him hard in the side, which elicited an irritated grunt. "If you did that then I would have to kill you, baby brother."

"Not if he kills you first," the boy replied, and then a strange sensation of vertigo similar to the teleportation devices employed at the Scholaria Magnus overcame him, pulling him out of his current location. The second he and Alexander disappeared, he could see exact replicas of them continuing to walk down the street, brotherly banter disturbingly like that the actual brothers had been saying spewing from false lips. It was weird, as he couldn't actually perceive much of the teleportation process without his sixth sense, so instead of his mind seeing a tunnel of light Cai just saw the world around him abruptly change.

"Alexander and Caiellis Lucerna," a gruff but familiar voice spoke firmly, as Cai's vision started going back into focus, "Do not be alarmed. You will not be hurt."

When the blurriness dissipated fully, the boy was greeted by the sight of his brother's brown leather jacket right in front of his face, repressing a scowl when he realised that Alex, reacting faster after the disorientation of the teleport, had moved in front of his little brother to better safeguard him. Alexander was only thinking about his safety, but Cai sometimes wished the older boy would let him be more independent. He was _thirteen,_ for angels' sake. He didn't need looking after.

"Welcome to the hideout of the Ja'an Guard, also known now as the New Resistance," another man's voice, much more light-hearted and jovial than his companion's. Caiellis tilted his head to try and see past his brother, prodding him in the back when he couldn't. "Sorry, squirt." the senior teenager apologised and moved to accommodate his brother, who quickly examined the scene presented to him. It was a large, cold room that must have been part of some abandoned sewage facility judging by the erosion of the rock and some questionable stains covering the hard stone. However, abandoned it was no longer, with several archaic-looking terminals powered by some harnessed unbound elementals showing distorted and low-quality scenes of Usnaan that crackled with interference – Cai noted that one showed the progression of the clones of him and his brother.

He blinked in surprise when his eyes were drawn to what was obviously a Summoning, without his magical sense (_Author's Note: Each human in the world is connected, however slightly, so Sancturia, so emotions and sensations are evoked when they come into contact with creatures from there_) he wouldn't have realised it was there without seeing it. The nymph-like being, an Oread if he recalled correctly, regarded the boys with undisguised hostility, echoing her Summoner, a hard-faced woman wearing black Enforcer armour with her right gauntlet painted red.

"Messa's Summoning magically forged the replicas of you that are currently still in Pleasure Avenue, while tech that I improvised from Yentarian 'porters brought you here. I'm Degan, by the way," the red-haired and kind-faced man said. That was strange, although there were other people in the room, they were getting on with their own work, ignoring the princes. Cai could have sworn he heard another voice, but only Messa and this Degan were talking to them.

"The New Resistance is going to help you escape from Usnaan," the clipped and gruff tones rang out again, and Cai turned to look at a screen to his far right – it showed a low-quality picture, but the man in it was undeniably Sergeant Tarkos. "We are not doing this because we care in any way about you personally, but the Resistance needs outside help to ever have a chance of overthrowing the Orders of Passion and freeing the public."

"Already your father must be mustering his armies for a strike to try and free you himself, but he will leave the city burning as both sides slaughter each other – King Marik won't wait to gather all his forces, and as Usnaan is very close to your Kingdom of Light he will attack within a few days at most, and thousands of needless deaths will be incurred. When we help you escape, the Lucaelians will have more time to plan, more information about the city and more forces – almost guaranteeing a victory. Once he has his sons back, your father will still declare war, and the Resistance wants you to tell him about the corruption of the Orders and make sure he spares the innocent," Degan explained efficiently, "We don't have enough time to tell you fully about the escape plan, but it will happen tomorrow. Some of the Ja'an Guard will cause a distraction so me and Messa can secure the device that removes your mana inhibitors, and try to escort you as far out as we can manage without incurring too many casualties. Hopefully your angels will be powerful enough and enough confusion will be caused that you can get into Lucaelian territory."

"Thank you," Alex said after the man ran out of breath from talking so quickly, infusing deep gratitude into the two words.

"You called for me, sir?" an imperfect rendition of someone's speech rang out, and Sergeant Tarkos responded with "Yes, I did. You know about the Ja'an Guard, don't you?" there was a brief pause, and Cai assumed the questioned was nodding their head, "Well, I want you to become a member in the future, and help promote freedom and equality for all. If you were wondering where Caiellis went, here he is."

Kaled's tanned face appeared on the screen, the scar above his left eye glowing in the scarlet light, and Alexander laughed when he saw his brother's former roommate.

"How're you, Kaled?" he asked, grinning widely at the Welkalite, who looked startled. "Fine. Are you both ok? I kinda feel embarrassed."

"We've been better," Caiellis cut in before his overly jovial brother could respond, directing his next inquiry at the other members of the Resistance, "Is there any particular reason why we are speaking to him? If you didn't have much time to explain the plan, why are we wasting it now?"

"I-I thought it would be nice for you to see your friend," Degan paled under the boy's disapproval, glad for the mana inhibitor preventing his feelings being transferred into magical energy. "You Welkalites are far too attached to your emotions."

"Show some respect little man," Alexander reprimanded sternly, and said: "You should probably send us back now. No matter how convincing those clones of us are, I don't want anyone finding out about your plan, or for the Resistance to be jeopardized because of us. Thanks again for helping us escape, and sorry about my brother. He's just tired and stressed."

"It is alright," Sergeant Tarkos said, which surprised all of them, "I heard about how he was choked into semi-unconsciousness by that bastard Arendus Draal – the bruise on his neck looks bad even through the screen, and he even managed to kill Meira Rawl, one of the most proficient agents of Rapture. Coupled with the amount of energy he released during the team-battles at the academy, I'm astonished that he can still stand upright."

Caiellis smiled meekly as a wave of tiredness washed over him as if in response to the man's words, he really needed sleep but quickly quashed the moment of frailty. He refused to look pathetic in front of these people. Alexander discerned his brother hiding the fact that he was exhausted as the façade of strength he put on cracked slightly – it must have been a Lucernan trait to attempt to hide weakness, as Alex did it often himself. So far Cai had not noticed him when he did so in the civil war, but his little brother couldn't conceal his fragility or inner feeling from Alexander. Well, he had thought that until they returned from the war to Capitalia Lux and the palace, and Caiellis, who had previously worn his heart on his sleeve, managed to completely camouflage his emotions, taking on a secretive and blank persona after their dad had interacted with them for the first time in nine years. Luckily, the kid wasn't trying as hard to hide his feelings from Alex now, though the older boy was concerned if Cai ever did that again – as shown by his utter failure to notice the junior boy's self-harming. It had terrified him that Caiellis felt bad enough to even consider doing that to himself, he should have tried to comfort his brother more rather than just letting him attempt the Summoning over and over again.

Degan patted some keys on his console, as Kaled and him both said their goodbyes in unison, Messa and Tarkos keeping stoically silent. The disorientating sensation washed over the boys again, depositing them in the exact position their clones had been in, luckily not very close to anyone else. The brothers locked eyes, silently affirming not to speak of the encounter again – who knows what could be listening in on their conversations?

"Alex, can we go back? It must be almost tomorrow by now, and I feel quite tired," Caiellis asked, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. "Ok little brother, we can head back to the Palace of Desire."

* * *

Summonings in this chapter:

Messa Yaos: Forgeborn Oreads

Spark Elemental


	12. The Seductress

_Apologies for the history lesson in this chapter, but I just wanted to create an interesting past for Aksua. Anyway, this chapter is a bit short, but it was either this one or the next, and I thought it would be best for the escape to be detailed in a single chapter. Plus I just wanted to get one out, because I had severe writer's block while writing this despite already knowing what I want to happen._

Caiellis had barely slept at all when he woke up again from an empty void – as his connection to Sancturia and mana had been severed, his dreams were either expanses of nothingness or the fateful night of Emili's demise. Though the void was preferable to having to relive the night of his mother's death in excruciating detail, which was often the content of his nightmares, the fact that he couldn't visit Orzhova made him feel hollow. Even when he hadn't spoken to her or passed her trial, she had a presence in his mind, and Caiellis was only just realising how much he missed that.

Despite his sixth sense being deactivated due to the sinister black metal inhibitor encircling his thin wrist, the boy still felt a strange, distracting sensation in the back of his mind that disappeared whenever he focussed on it or tried to identify it. It was calling him to the lower palace, that much was certain, and he should be able to get there if anyone but Tradax spotted him – Cai could just say that he was exploring with the clearance of the Master of Rapture.

He currently shared a room with Alexander, the older boy sleeping in the bed to the right and snoring loudly, arms wrapped around himself. They had both agreed to stay in one room in case something was to happen – the sons of Marik were in enemy territory, and said enemies consorted with demons, so the Welkalites could be plotting anything. Mostly, Caiellis knew that his big brother wanted to protect him and the easiest way to do that was to be in the younger boy's vicinity. Cai wished that he had his watch with him, but as he had taken it off to prevent it from being damaged in the team battle yesterday, so it would probably be still in the academy, forgotten. Judging by the fact that it wasn't yet light, the time was likely about two or three o'clock, but the Welkalites would still be active in their celebrations and indulgences.

He tried to shut his eyes and go back to sleep, not wanting to wake up his brother who would be on high alert anyway, but now that he was awake the reprieve from reality just wouldn't come. Feelings of anticipation warred with trepidation in his mind, thinking about the escape plan that would happen today. He kept playing out different scenarios in his mind, wondering just how they could break out of Usnaan against the entirety of the Welkalite military forces, even with access to two potent First Sisterhood Angels.

Cai sighed quietly and sat up in the plump bed – both him and his brother had dumped the vast majority of the absurd amount of cushions on each bed onto the floor, but it still felt like he was being suffocated by the soft mattress. He was obscenely glad that even though he was royalty, he wasn't treated like this in Lucael.

Cai silently slipped out of the quilt, picking up his sheathed relic blade and wrapping the scabbard's belt around his slender waist – as the princes only clothes were the ones they had come in, Tradax had provided them with new garments. Despite the fact that he didn't want to wear Welkalite clothing, he had grudgingly put on some red pyjamas after Alex told him there was no way the younger boy was sleeping in his Lucaelian heir outfit, as it was battered, singed and splattered with some blood. It had incensed Caiellis a bit that Alexander hadn't followed his own advice and kept his own clothes on, just taking off the leather jacket before going to bed, though the junior Lucerna supposed that his brother's attire hadn't been battle damaged.

He had resolved to investigate the disturbance in his mind, and slowly crept across the room to the door, casting occasional glances back to Alex to ensure the older boy wasn't waking up. As he neared the doorway, the seventeen year old mumbled: "Caiellis?"

The named froze, hoping that either his sibling was having a dream that concerned him or that the older boy was still in half-sleep and would fade back into unconsciousness if he didn't make any sudden movements. When a few seconds had passed he was satisfied that Alex had gone back to sleep, he turned back around and inched towards the door. Cai blinked in astonishment when he walked right into a large figure in front of him.

He stumbled back and Alexander grinned wolfishly at him – the older boy could be extremely stealthy and fast if he wanted to be (both brothers could do so but Cai required magic to augment his speed), much to the chagrin of Caiellis over the years, as when they would spar his brother would often be in one position and then suddenly be in the right place for a counter. Alex would always naturally be taller and faster than him, and their gap in strength seemed huge because of their age difference.

"Where are you off to, little dude?" he asked, grinning at his little brother's shock. He hadn't actually been asleep much himself, sensing Caiellis's restlessness in the fact he was constantly moving or adjusting his position. He had instantly detected the younger boy edging to the exit and wondered why he wanted to leave without informing his sibling, not that Alex would ever let him go into the palace in his own. He enjoyed the mixture of bewilderment, admiration and annoyance plastered on his little brother's gaunt face, and playfully shoved the small boy backwards. It was good to be the older brother.

Downcast, Caiellis replied: "I couldn't sleep so I was just going for a quick walk."

"You're a terrible liar," Alex stated, ruffling the mop of brown hair on his brother's head, "So really, where were you going? And why didn't you wake me up and tell me?"

"You just looked so adorable when you were asleep, I couldn't bring myself to wake you up," he flashed a smile, trying to act as much like Alexander as possible to annoy the older boy. "Watch it, kiddo, only I can say things like that. Big brother perk. But seriously, Cai, tell me where and why you were going before I force you to."

Though his tone was playful, Caiellis knew that he had pushed the middle Lucerna enough, and uttered: "So I assume that means you can't feel it?"

"Feel what, Cai? And stop being so vague and mysterious. You're starting to annoy me," a growl entered Alex's voice at the end of his words. _Why is Caiellis being so damn enigmatic? Is it really that hard to just tell me where he was going?_

"It is a sensation in the back of my mind, calling me to the lower palace. If I had use of my magic, I would have able to pinpoint what it is and tell you," Caiellis explained, automatically rubbing the malicious metal that dug into the skin on his right wrist. He hoped that his intent eyes would convey a further point: _If I can detect something without my mana, it is surely something significant. It could help us __in our escape plan, or prove to be detrimental to the Resistance._

Judging by the understanding in Alex's blue orbs, his older brother had hopefully caught on to the underlying message – they had agreed not to talk about the plan in case someone – or _something_ – was listening in. The teen nodded his head, and Caiellis continued, "Since I couldn't sleep, I was just going to take a look. I should have woken you, but I thought you would want as much rest as possible."

"Good job I awoke when I did, I would've had a fit if you were gone," Alex chuckled, "You can detect something with the suppressors? Is yours on properly?"

"I think so," Caiellis reaffirmed the statement by trying to summon mana, pulling at the metal wristband – they had already established the futility of the act last night, when Alexander had attempted to remove Cai's but instead making it dig in more. That was how they were designed, the more interference from those without the key the more they tightened. Luckily, it wasn't yet cutting off his blood supply.

"So, are we going to go back to sleep or check this thing out? Personally, I don't think I should be encouraging you considering something could happen, but it's your choice." Alex asked, breaking the youngster out of his reverie

"We will investigate," the boy stated in his manner of fact royal pronouncement way that he had recently developed, and slid past his brother to the door. Alex grabbed his arm, the hand wrapping fully around the boy's bicep, and warned: "But no unnecessary risks, alright? If there are too many guards, or something dangerous is going to happen, we leave immediately. Understand?"

"That's fine. Though we are going to have to be stealthy. Don't want that bastard Tradax finding out about our little trip," Caiellis grinned, and Alexander softly chastised with: "Language, little dude. Lead on."

.*.*.*.

The brunette sat in her cell, casually examining her nails – even though she hadn't left her incarceration for seven years, they were perfectly manicured. Everything about her was disturbingly flawless, from her unblemished and milky skin to her impeccably kept brown hair that swept down her shoulders. Nor did her body structure suggest that she had been imprisoned in the most high-security facility in Welkas for years, the woman's form lithe and shapely when she should have been emancipated and insubstantial. However, she had gorged enough to last several hundred years.

Her beauty was dazzling, which was why there were no guards stood outside of the enchanted cell – even with the wards that prevented mana usage, the cage bars constructed for the same metal as the inhibitors, they had no chance against her charm. However her hazel eyes didn't match the purity of the rest of her, the brown orbs full of malice and condescension. After all she had done for the ungrateful Welkalites, they had gone and locked her up in this dingy chamber. She wasn't at all concerned, she had nothing to fear from them, but it was so _boring _being stuck there. She wanted to feast, feel the blood of her victims run down her flesh as they realised they were helpless against her allure.

Aksua thought back to the events that led to her present circumstances, she had taught the Masters of the Welkalite Orders of Passion how to enter in an Infernal Bargain, sacrificing their Summonings to be able to conjure powerful demons. That had been after she was forced to flee Lucael after she was almost killed. Aksua was born over a hundred years ago, when she had been abducted from her village by the vampires of the darkness that had demanded tribute – instead of killing the teenage girl, they "gifted" her with the power of vampirism and taught her how to use Black mana. The elders of the clan had sensed a great potential within her, and after a few years of learning their ways they planned to use her as an offering to the Bloodchief of the vampires, Kalitas, firm ally of the current Lucaelian monarch Xarius and overall ruler of all clans.

She had been forced to please him, become his slave while he abused her, pretend that she loved him to survive. The vampires had become lax in the years of decadence, gorging on the tributes they were sent by Xarius from the fearful populace. Aksua built up a hatred for her forced lover, and that burning hatred grew and grew until Xarius was overthrown and the new Queen Matrice led a fiery crusade in the darkness of Lucaelian lands, purging the vampires from existence before returning back to their cities. She used the distraction of the siege of Kalitas's nocturnal palace to murder to ruler, sealing the doom of her species and fleeing into the abyss, into the inner darkness – the only shadow remaining in Lucael now the power of the Lucernas had grown and grown.

Aksua learnt new, darker powers in her time in the shadows, falling under the tutelage of one of the greater demons of Sancturia (second highest in rank to Archdemons, but the most powerful demonic creature that could manifest itself in reality without needing a Summoner) – her master had never told her his true name, telling her it would rend her flesh and shatter her mind into pieces, just giving her a Summoning of Black mana. The demon wanted to be known as the Perverter of Truth.

Aksua knew she was being manipulated in some way, but didn't care. She finally had enough power to get her vengeance on the society that had betrayed and abused her. Aksua went on bloody rampages throughout the villages, leaving them full of exsanguinated corpses as she drained every last innocent dry, gorging on the blood and the feeling of ecstasy that came with it, after all the years with her meals carefully restricted by Kalitas to keep her subservient. She travelled from village to village, killing them all and feeding but destroying each in a unique way to make it appear that the attacks were the caused by different creature of the abyss so that the Lucaelians would not launch a crusade to hunt down and slay her.

Eventually, after about eighty years, when she had consumed enough blood to last several centuries, the sensation of bliss that came with feeding faded, becoming more and background and less and less pleasurable. Desperate, she thought that increasing the quantity of her meals would bring back the ecstasy, and recklessly attacked a Lucaelian city, the now-annihilated Vectura, city of Transportation. There she was confronted and assaulted by trained soldiers and killed them all. After feeding upon a battlemage, Aksua then realised that quantity was not going to help her, but the quality of her victims mattered a huge amount. However, before she was able to put this into action, a Lucerna confronted her. She did not know that the royal family was active in the city she had chosen, and was almost killed by the young man, who Aksua would later know as Johnias. She retreated back into the abyss to nurse her wounds for seven years, and when the king's brother betrayed him and began building armies in the darkness, even turning Vectura into an abyssal city, Aksua saw an opportunity that she couldn't miss.

Johnias welcomed her into his midnight citadel, and asked her to do one very special task for him – drain his brother Marik, monarch of the Kingdom of Light, dry. He promised her that Lucernas, in his words the strongest magic-users in the world, would be far more delicious than anything she had ever experienced. To that end, she set out to seduce the king, taking the place of one of the captains of his army and slowly becoming closer to him.

That had been a mistake, and once again Aksua was almost murdered by a Lucerna. Knowing that she couldn't flee into the darkness, as Johnias would be very displeased by her failure, she escaped into a changing empire – Welkas. There she met a budding member of the Order of Rapture, Tradax, who she gave knowledge of Infernal Bargains to in exchange for letting her reside in the city and feed – Aksua was too weak to fight for herself. She also taught the other members of his little sect – Arendus, Gretia and Ershun – how to contact demons. However, after the man used his newly acquired Demonic Summoning to gain control of the Order he locked her away, fearing her power to overthrow him and trapping her in this cell.

Nevertheless, Aksua was still a vampire, so her physical senses were far more receptive than her magical, which had been nullified, and when she felt the two members of Lucaelian royalty enter Usnaan it was a perfect moment to kill two birds with one stone – to escape and satisfy her hunger for Lucerna blood. To this end, she used discreet magic that bypassed the wards to try and contact the princes, lead them down here. She knew that they would already be planning an escape, realising that they were captives by utilising her ultra-perceptive hearing to listen in on their conversations with Tradax throughout the palace. She had many abilities that she had not revealed to the man when they had worked together, and this was one of them.

The mana inhibitors had at first prevented the princes from hearing her call, but luckily the younger boy was an exceedingly prominent mage, managing to detect her faint signal and convincing his protective brother to go down into the dungeons with him. Aksua inhaled deeply, relaxing her limbs and ensuring she looked as attractive as possible – as she had been turned into a vampire at the young age of twenty, Aksua was very beautiful. The fact that she had consumed so much blood in her life meant that she had a functioning circulation, and while Aksua still had a pale Lucaelian complexion, she wasn't deathly like the others of her now-extinct race. Her charm would work better on the older boy, Alexander if she remembered correctly – when she had started a relationship with Marik during the civil war, subtly influencing him with her coercive powers of seduction, the king had told her about his two young sons, ten and six at the time, and how he hadn't seen them for two years.

Aksua composed herself, running over what she was going to say in her head, offering the boys to help them escape if they could get her out of this cage. She would easily be able to release them from the mana inhibitors, and together they could flee from Usnaan – after that, Aksua would finally feast on Lucernan lifeblood. The two teenagers stumbled into the dungeon, both of them alert but still sleepy. She flashed a flirtatious smile as her eyes locked with the handsome blue orbs of the blonde, the eyes widening in shock as Alexander saw the most alluring woman he had ever laid eyes upon. They continued to stare at each other for a few seconds, longing welling up in the older boy's chest as she winked at him.

"So me and Alexander have answered your call. Who are you?" Caiellis cut in, interrupting the short connection between the two, leaving Alex dazed for a second. She turned her gaze upon the smaller prince, who returned the look sternly, his expression hardening. "Hello. My name is Aksua, and I am a Lucaelian, like you."

"I'm not entirely sure the darkness constitutes part of the Kingdom of Light," he replied evenly, hatred evident in his tone. Aksua blinked, surprised at his realisation of that already – maybe Marik had warned his sons about her. She doubted that the king would want to tell his boys about the little affair he had with a servant of Johnias, especially after she tried to kill him; Marik's main reason for letting the pretty Lucaelian captain get close to his was because he craved comfort after the death of his wife, evacuation of his children and the betrayal of his twin brother. Aksua had realised that the king never truly loved her, which didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, he was still too attached to his dead wife and former lover. However it was still a possibility, however slim – she would know whether he had or not if the boys revealed her true name, as she had told Marik that the night she went to kill him. "Whatever you want from us, vampire, you aren't getting it."

"Is that so? Alex, what do you think about that?" Aksua utilised the abbreviation of the teen's name in an attempt to seem more familiar with him – maybe she could get him to convince his little brother that she would be worthy of help. The fact that Caiellis used the term "vampire" meant that the kid had managed to recognise the signs of the condition that Aksua had never truly been able to erase, although after the extinction of her race most of the Lucaelians had never heard anything about them, much less knew that they had even existed at one point. Obviously this boy had researched very deeply into the creatures of the abyss, more than his father and brother had done, despite the former having to wage a war against them.

"If you are a servant of Black mana, then you won't be receiving any help from us," Alex mumbled, averting his eyes from the prisoner and instead preferring to look at the stone floor. He knew he was going red, which was embarrassing – the middle Lucerna had always thought he was very confident with the fairer sex, but couldn't deny that he wanted Aksua. Caiellis was right, traitors did not deserve aid, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to refuse her if he met her eyes. _Concentrate, _he roughly admonished himself, _Ignore her charm! She is clearly trying to manipulate you. Your little brother's safety is far more important than any attraction you have towards this bitch!_ He steeled himself and looked straight at Aksua, glad his little mental chat had allowed him to focus his priorities and become immune to her charm.

Aksua smiled – _let's see him try to resist when I am out of this cage –_ and turned back to the younger boy. The barriers of resolve they constructed to try and withstand her glamour were absolutely adorable, as was the older boy's protectiveness of his younger sibling. She detected that Alex strengthened his determination with thoughts of his little brother. This could be useful to control them in the near future.

"If you aren't willing to help me, then I suppose I can't aid you in escaping Usnaan," she sniffed petulantly like a small child would, delighting as Caiellis's features twisted into an unamused scowl. "Such a shame. We would have had so much fun together."

"How can you help us leave?" Alex asked despite himself, knowing his little brother would be disappointed that his instincts had led them down here and convinced they should get something out of the venture. Cai was busy analysing the situation in his mind – Aksua was clearly a vampire, she must have been the last of that race, otherwise she would have denied it by now, making his earlier assumptions correct. Apart from freedom, the only other reason he could think of for wanting to help them was to drain them. Nonetheless, the Resistance's plan for getting them out had been very vague, not revealing details about how they would combat the entire army of the Welkalite capital. Maybe having some unexpected assistance could turn the tide in their favour – but right now Caiellis wasn't going to consider the notion of freeing Aksua, not now they already had escape plans.

"Tradax leaves the keys to this cell in his private sanctum," she moved closer to the bars and lowered her voice. Aksua knew this because of other abilities that she had never divulged to the Master of Rapture – in fact her own Summoning, Nocturon, was spread throughout the Palace of Desire, ready to follow her mental commands. The boys need only retrieve the key from it and unlock the cell. She whispered conspiratorially, "I have powers in place that would allow you to easily get it, and once you let me out I can easily destroy the mana disablers of yours. Then, with the forces of light and darkness combined, we can easily defeat those that try to stop us and escape."

"We already have darkness on our side," Caiellis uttered gloomily, "We don't need yours."

"Quite right, young Caiellis! Put the wench in her place!" an amused voice boomed down into the stairs, and all three of them cracked their heads around in stupefaction and Tradax smiled down at them. "Anyway, do you not think it is a bit past your bedtime? I don't want to be a strict parent, but if you insist on going out of your room in the middle of the night I might have to post guards."

Alexander sensed his little brother bristling at the honeyed barbs Tradax spoke, and placed a restraining arm around the younger boy's shoulders, though he shared his resentment. _How dare this bastard even think to call himself our parent..._

Aksua glowered angrily at her captor, smouldering frustration heavily present in her captivating gaze, as the Welkalite sneered back. This was inconvenient.

"How nice of you to visit, Tradax," she spat, wishing she was able to use the full extent of her magic, then he wouldn't be smiling. "How many years has it been?"

"Too many, it seems. Have you forgotten who rules this empire?" he gloated back, spreading his arms wide.

"Jarred Redhand?" Alexander offered sarcastically, winking as his little brother grinned in approval.

"Get back to your room. Now," the man ordered, and the boys both slunk off. Caiellis needed some sleep anyway.


	13. Gluttony Overcome

They were walking down Pleasure Avenue, basking in the light of the Welkalite sun – Alex had experienced Lucaelian light and knew this to be inferior, but his little brother hadn't and enjoyed the feeling of sunlight on his pale skin; boy would he be impressed if Lucael ever was sunny. Alexander tried to appear relaxed, but couldn't halt the slightly increased beating of his heart, and the anticipation that coursed through his veins. He liked combat, testing his skill against others, but wasn't addicted to it like many of the members of Violence. He could understand now the reasons why little Cai thought differently, but when they were younger he didn't know why the runt wouldn't want to wrestle with his older brother – though they often had because of arguments and sibling spats.

Alex stared at the back of the boy's mop of brown hair for a second, he often got worried whenever they had to fight, despite there being plenty of that in the Lucaelian war. However, him and Cai made a good team, brought about by their familial bond and intimacy with each other's fighting styles due to many battles with demonic creatures – the older brother was more reckless, quicker and stronger which meant he almost always charged into battle, and while to someone who didn't know him Caiellis would appear dynamic and also quick, the junior Lucerna fought in a precise and calculating manner, methodically taking away his opponent's advantages and then striking the finishing blow when he was sure of victory.

When the younger boy became old enough to fight, Alexander always tried to prevent his little brother from getting hurt, which had often caused himself to get injured instead. He had taken the front with Tristram, while Tybalt and his brother provided magical support from the back. Now that Caiellis had his own angel, his fighting prowess would be amplified to levels similar to his older brother – though Alex had more experience and would still look out for the kid. He could never get rid of that instinct if he tried.

Caiellis suddenly stopped moving, cocking his head to one side as if listening to a silent melody only he could hear and causing Alexander to nearly bump into him. The littlest Lucerna had often done similar things before, one of his more peculiar talents in sensing imminent violence that everyone, including Alex, had attributed to his magic. Maybe the premonitions were more innate, but he supposed that his brother had detected Aksua's call even through the mana inhibitors. Was Caiellis's mana really that powerful?

The younger boy turned around, his green orbs full of expectation and excitement, which was unusual – Cai usually detested bloody and violent fighting, so this was something different.

"It is going to start," he stated simply, and Alex took that moment to squeeze the younger boy's shoulders. _Urrgh, he's so thin. Someone like him shouldn't be fighting, _he thought, before pushing them from his mind. It was distracting enough for him to be trying to protect Caiellis in the midst of combat, much less considering the implications of what could happen to him.

"I finally get to see Orzhova in action." he said enthusiastically, which made Cai smile. "You know the drill, little bro – no unnecessary risks, back me up when we are fighting. Remember that this isn't a competition"

"The same applies to you. I can handle punishment," he responded evenly, latching onto Alexander's previous thoughts, just as a loud explosion echoed in the distance. They both spun towards the sound, a huge plume of smoke rising up in the other side of the Hedonist's Quarter, quite close to them. Several civilians – Cai reminded himself that only the corrupt and wealthy were allowed access to the area, so shouldn't start feeling sympathy for them – started screaming in panic as several more detonations boomed in different locations of the city. Those still locked in their own pleasures were knocked out of the way as the general population of the Avenue charged away from the explosions.

A pool of molten metal began coalescing at the side of a nearby sewer grate, and both boys grinned as the familiar form of Messa's Oread began to construct itself in front of them, holding a sinister metal device in her hand that seemed unaffected by the scorching heat she emitted. It passed the thing to Alexander without comment, as yet more discharges shook the earth. The older boy touched the thing to his mana inhibitor, sighing when the block on his magic was removed, as he quickly cast White enchantments upon himself. He brushed the device over Caiellis's own bracelet, the younger boy started laughing as his magic returned to him. Satisfied, the Oread dissipated into burning embers that slowly fell to the ground, no doubt returning to Messa's side.

"Alexander. Let us show these Welkalites the true meaning of the word power," he unsheathed the Sword of Glass, the blade lighting up with a mixture of golden and shadowy energy as his mana coursed through his veins, a revitalising feeling that made him wonder how he could have existed in the short time without it.

"Got it, squirt," he replied, as a group of gold-clad Enforcers ran round the corner, one of their mages gasping in surprise when he sensed the sudden released of mana. There was five of them, wreathed in Red auras that probably augmented their speed. Caiellis analysed the situation quickly – there was only a single supportive magic user, who was beginning to Summon, while the rest of them wielded halberds that crackled with crimson lightning.

"Alexander and Caiellis Lucerna. Stand down before we are forced to subdue you," one of them declared, and Cai picked up on the note of fear in his voice. He pushed a few guilty thoughts out of his mind, recalling how the Enforcers abused the populace and took pleasure in it. Alex rolled his shoulders, knowing that his brother would be suffering from a slight moral crisis because of the fact they had to kill these guards.

"Sorry, that's not going to happen," he replied, Red and White mana flowing through his limbs as circles of the same colour radiated across the floor. Caiellis felt his brother's familiar strong magic rising in power level, a comforting sensation that made him feel safer. The Enforcers then rushed them, the mage shrieking at his subordinates to take down the prince before he Summoned, conjuring up his own devil which launched itself at them.

"Aurelia!" the boy cried, as the patterns of the ground flashed upwards, disintegrating the devil and forcing the Welkalites to stagger back to avoid its fate, covering their eyes at the intensity of the incandescent light. The angel swept her fiery gaze across her cowering foes, glowering in disgust at their opulent armour.

"I am going to give you one chance. Flee now and avoid my wrath," the Warleader spoke, her voice suffused with an otherworldly resonance. She ignited her twin swords for effect, and the Enforcers took one look at her and fled quickly.

"That was easy," Alex boasted, and Caiellis said: "They were obviously in the job just for money. We will have to face much more debased and corrupt enemies before we can escape Usnaan, and I fear that they won't take the chance to flee."

"We will show them now mercy, young Caiellis," Aurelia stated, the beating of her wings blowing the boy's hair behind his face. Cai always felt a feeling of awe whenever his brother Summoned, but now that he was capable of doing it himself their abilities weren't so far apart. Aurelia knew him quite well, and also knew just how much Alexander wanted to protect his little brother. She felt sorry for the youngest Lucerna, having to deal with the disgrace of the First Sisterhood – the child was pure and innocent; Orzhova certainly didn't deserve him.

.*.*.*.

Aksua lounged in her cell, absently twirling her long fingers through her silken hair to try to distract her mind from the frustration she felt. She might have been able to convince the brothers to aid her, despite the little one's severe misgivings, if Tradax hadn't appeared. Once more she wished that she had just drained the man when she first met him, instead of entertaining his notions of gaining more power in preparation for her vengeance against the Lucaelian monarchy.

When the vampire had first heard the reverberating detonations in her underground cell, some rubble being shook from the walls outside (the interior was far too secure for that to happen), she contemplated Caiellis's final words from the morning: "We already have darkness on our side. We don't need yours." Aksua mused that the subliminal message present in the statement was that the boys already had an escape plan. Well, that was unfortunate. Aksua could easily wait a few more years, but was starting to get incredibly bored of the monotony of each day, and being trapped in a cell away from the pleasures of life definitely wasn't how she wanted to spend any more time. Her patience was ending, and she thought about how else she could escape.

Caught up in her own thoughts, it took Aksua a few minutes to notice the figure stood outside of her cell. Startled and annoyed at herself, she quickly examined the enigmatic woman – she wore clothing of a design that the vampire had never encountered before, a red kimono speckled with midnight black spots. The figure had her identity concealed by a bone-white mask in the shape of some sort of fox, and her heart rate was perfectly normal. That irritated Aksua, it wasn't unheard of for women to fall for her charm, yet those that didn't usually felt slight trepidation in her presence – even influential figures like Kalitas, Marik Ensis and Johnias Otium Lucerna had elevated their heartbeat when looking upon her beauty.

"And you are?" she inquired casually, moving to sit in a more comfortable position while regarding the mysterious figure with indulgently curious eyes, tossing her brown hair to one side. Sea-green eyes, much less impressive than young Caiellis's emerald splendour, glared out of the mask, and a hard voice scowled: "Your saviour."

Aksua stifled a snicker, amused by her proclamation. The self-righteous were always the most fun to pervert from their path, of so her demonic mentor had told her, saying: "_The pious will choke upon their sanctimony._" The vampire rose to her full height and looked down haughtily at the masked one, who ignored her sneer and pulled out a key from the folds of her outfit. Normally, Aksua would have responded with something sarcastic and demeaning, but considering the unknown girl was freeing her she refrained from doing so. Maybe she would drain the little bitch after she was let out. She hadn't feasted on blood in years.

Aksua heard the metal door clang open and she swiftly stepped out, revelling in the sensation of her magic returning and flooding through her veins, the immensely potent Black mana. The vampire laughed loudly, and then looked around, mildly surprised. Her inscrutable saviour had disappeared, leaving not a trace of her presence there. Interesting. Aksua wondered what her motives were for a second, and then soon realising that she couldn't care less. All that mattered was that she was finally free.

The vampire sensed a gargantuan amount of hated White and also Red mana released above her in the city, assuming that this must have been one of the princes, Alexander if she was correct. She licked her lips: despite being a very formidable opponent herself, Aksua didn't want to risk being obliterated by a First Sisterhood angel. No, she would wait to confront the heirs after they had escaped the city, eliminate the inevitable pursuers that the Master of Rapture would send, and wait for the princes to be tired out. Then, she would strike. Then, she would finally taste Lucerna blood.

.*.*.*.

Aurelia crashed into the gore-covered horror, the blood-drenched creature raking her silver armour with bony protrusions jutting out from its raw and crimson skin. Her curved blade burnt through its flesh as she drove it downwards, while the straight-edged sword in the Warleader's left hand blocked a brutal club that was swung down at her. The spawn of Red and Black mana screeched in a crazed frenzy as she stabbed her weapon in further, purging the corrupt flesh beneath it. Aurelia snarled in angelic fury and pressed the attack.

Alexander swung a fist of flaming rage at the Summoner of the horror, a brutish mage wearing the gladiator's mask common to those in the Order of Violence. The patrol had intercepted the two boys and the angel just after the Rapture Enforcers fled, sneering at their cowardice. Two other warriors were battling with Caiellis, both wielding savage and heavy weapons. The youngest prince hadn't deigned to Summon yet, and was holding off the fighters and their shrieking minions with delaying and numbing White mana. The man that fought the middle Lucerna dodged the incoming blow, and swiftly riposted, his cleaver slicing through the air and thudding into the adolescent's arm.

Grunting as the metal bit into him, Alex twisted at the impact, managing to force the cleaver to slide upwards instead of cutting into the arm. When it brushed over the Swords of Flame on his right bicep, a flare of mana automatically blasted out and knocked the gladiator back. He let out a bolt of flame that burnt into the man, making him howl in pain, and roughly shoved the leader away from him. Alex clasped his hands together and conjured a hammer of Red and White mana, charging at the recovering gladiator. The Welkalite sent a pulse of rippling shadow in the prince's direction, who responded with dispelling light emitted from his whole body.

Noticing its Summoner in peril, the horror-spawn roughly knocked Aurelia aside and ran at Alexander, but not before a helix of blazing energy shot from the Warleader's crossed swords. It slammed into the back of the creature, making it scream in agony as its raw flesh began sizzling in the purity of the magic. Stunned, it failed to notice Aurelia diving at it from above, and with a cry on her lips the angel swept her twin swords into its throat, decapitating it in an explosion of blood and ash. She then went to the aid of Caiellis, who was busy avoiding the relentless attacks of the other Welkalites, knowing from years of battling alongside Alexander that this was what the big brother would want him to do.

The Violence magic-user growled in pain and fury as its Summoning was brutally murdered, and Alex took this chance to arc his sun-hammer at his opponent. The gladiator instinctively raised his cleaver, and the hard metal cracked off when the crushing weapon came into contact with it. Continuing on with his momentum, Alex swung the hammer further downwards, slamming into the man with a thunderous crash that crushed him into a bloody pulp. The weapon vanished, and the Order mage-warrior groaned as he died.

With the help of his brother's angel, Caiellis easily finished off the rest of the Welkalites, his face blank as he participated in the killings. The boy flicked the blood from his sword and nodded in thanks to Aurelia, who flew back the short distance to her Summoner's side. Cai could feel a significant release of mana, predominantly Red, a few hundred metres to the west of them, and assumed that it must be the Ja'an Guard occupying the vast majority of the military. He felt like maybe the Resistance hadn't thought it through much – the whole thing seemed a little rushed. Maybe they had done it to avoid the mysterious person that had wanted to see the princes, getting them out of the city beforehand – but where could they have got that information? Even Tradax had said at breakfast that he didn't know exactly when said person would arrive.

"Cai, you ok?" his older brother asked, walking past him and patting his shoulder. The smaller boy hadn't sustained any wounds, he fought too carefully for that to happen, considering his movements to ensure they were safe enough before enacting them. He noticed the cut on Alex's right bicep and his eyes lit up with concern – his healing magic, while better than his brother's and father's, wasn't very powerful, despite having often used it to patch up the more reckless older boy in the past. Cai instructed: "Let me see to that, it looks painful."

"It's alright," he responded, brushing off his little brother's concerns. However, the boy could be quite persistent if he wanted to, and pulled his sibling's muscular arm towards him, his palm lighting up with soothing mana. The older boy was about to knock his sibling away when Aurelia cut in: "Alexander, you need to be at maximum fighting efficiency, and I know that wound is hurting you more than you are letting on. Let your brother help you."

"Thank you," Caiellis exclaimed, a victorious grin breaking out on his face. Alex sighed at the kid's wilful perseverance, letting the slender male heal his arm. He didn't want Cai to waste his mana repairing the older boy's wounds: his little brother shouldn't have to worry about him, although Caiellis tried his damned hardest to worry about everything.

"Let's go," he pulled away when the pain stopped, and began walking briskly towards the north of the town. "So Cai, when are you going to Summon? I think it would be best to wait until I can't sustain Aurelia anymore."

"Uh-huh. I'm going to keep her in reserve until we need her. And we will need her soon," he replied vaguely cryptically, leaving Alex wondering whether the younger prince had sensed something. He dismissed the thought – despite his little brother hiding things from him in the past month, Cai wasn't stupid enough to try and keep potentially important information from him in the middle of a battle.

The streets of the meeting point of the Hedonist's and Glutton's Quarters were mostly empty, apart from those too distracted to bother with fleeing the battle-zone, and they were far too intoxicated to pose a threat. Alexander walked next to a brightly-coloured stall covered with intricately designed cupcakes, and began taking a few of the most appealing ones, packing them into one of the bags and then fastening it at his waist. There was no telling how far they would have to go, and the cakes would provide short bursts of energy to keep them going.

"This Glutton's Quarter must be perfect for you. I swear all you think about is food," he sniggered, though he was glad that Alex had the foresight to think about sustenance – Cai himself was pondering whether the Resistance had arranged transportation or not, because although Civitas Sol was relatively close it would take them the best part of a day to get there at a fast pace, and would be easy prey for any Welkalite hunters.

"Hey, you know that's not true," he grinned back, lightly shoving the younger boy – both of them were still alert, but it didn't hurt to participate in some banter to lighten the tense mood. Caiellis snickered, "Actually, that's right: Food _and _girls!"

"I live inside of Alexander's mind, and I have to say that I support these claims," Aurelia added, which made both boys laugh. The angel must of known that she was making a joke, but her deadpan delivery coupled with her serious gaze made it all the more hilarious. Alex shook his head in mock indignation when he noticed his angel winking conspiratorially to his younger brother. Aurelia did have a nice side.

They paced through the colourful streets, the boy's agitation steadily rising every time they entered a new, and empty, avenue. This was starting to get strange – yes, the Resistance was providing an excellent distraction considering the sheer amount of mana that was being released in the east, but surely some soldiers should have followed them into the Glutton's Quarter? Surely someone must be trying to prevent the Lucaelian captives from just leaving?

As if in answer to his thoughts, both Aurelia and Caiellis immediately tensed, halting in the middle of the street. Cai shut his eyes and then opened his left, the Lens of Guilt clouding his natural vision with darkness and blotting out his older brother and the angel, as their intents were pure and good-willed. He had definitely felt a potent source of Black mana approaching, mingled with less powerful flecks of Red mana, and he looked through mundane objects, clearly viewing what he had suspected: a huge, bloated mass of corpulent scarlet sat like a diseased heart at the centre of pulsing tendrils filled with malicious intent.

"Cai. I'm assuming that you can detect that?" the older boy inquired tensely, sensing the enemies blocking their path a few streets away, probably located on the central pathway through the Glutton's Quarter: Banquet Street, where the vast majority of the more renowned food establishments were located. The thirteen year old nodded quickly, opening his right eye so that he could see the physical realm of Innocence. Alex had only see his brother do that right after he completed Orzhova's trial, and could feel Cai's innocent and pure White mana welling up with him, as well as a more sinister but not evil dark energy. Maybe he was going to finally get to see the Angel of the Black Sun, and couldn't help but notice Aurelia suppress a scowl of severe resentment.

"So the little princelings have finally arrived," a deep, gurgling voice jeered, and Alex narrowed his eyes as a vibrant palanquin carried by tall and unnaturally muscled Enforcers each with a faceplate that concealed their identity, came round the corner. Inside the brightly coloured carriage sat a gigantic fleshy mound, a human so far removed from normal bodily proportions that Alexander would have found him ludicrous if they weren't in the middle of the Glutton's Quarter. Swathed in golden robes, the plump man was sat in the centre if the carriage, while a decrepit and thin Unbound creature help up a bowl of food. Occasionally, a fatty limb, pink like a newborn, would pop out of the fabric and grab a handful of the foodstuff, dragging back towards a bald head that sunk into the blubber of his shoulders. The man's chins wobbled as he spoke, and Caiellis would have laughed if the circumstance wasn't so dire – he could detect a deep and potent corruption emanating from the Welkalite, corruption that reminded him of the dark days of the civil war – the corruption of demons.

"Ershun, I presume?" he responded civilly, a crimson clump of impurity superimposed over the physical image of the man in the Lens of Guilt. He slowly paced backwards, intending to get enough space to Summon and hoping that his older brother would pick up on that. Cai was taking no chances when demons were involved, they would probably need two First Sisterhood angels to defeat it. Greater demons differed greatly from lesser ones and devils, manifestations of sin and corruption and Black mana incarnate. Despite his utterly non-threatening appearance, the Master of Gluttony would be able to Summon a demon, which could be potentially catastrophic for the boys.

"Did my good friend Tradax speak of me?" Ershun asked, and was greeted by unflinching silence from the two Lucernas. Shaking his head, he took a moment to grab a handful of biscuits and stiff them into his gaping maw, chomping on them as his robes were covered in even more crumbs. When he had finished, the Master of Gluttony said: "Anyway, Tradax told me to offer you a final chance to surrender peacefully. So what'll it be? I personally think you should take his kind offer, there is much of Usnaan you haven't enjoyed yet. You haven't even eaten from my own Glutton's Quarter yet! You especially, little Caiellis, you could do with having some meat on those bones of yours."

Seeing the final Master of the Orders of Passion completed Cai's mental picture of the political situation of Welkas – as Tradax had said, the Master of Rapture was indeed the de facto ruler of the New Empire. While Jarred mourned of the loss of his family, (the youngest prince wouldn't put it past Tradax to have manipulated the Protector into staying that way), Tradax had slowly tighten his stranglehold over the Empire – Ershun was clearly a blubbering fool, eager to take orders from his "equals" and having no ambitions of his own, resorting to petty insults to try and rile the youngest prince, whereas Arendus Draal was enigmatic and utterly unconcerned with politics so long as he could continue to participate in violence.

Finally, that left the now-dead Gretia, and judging by Tradax's colourful choice of words when mentioning her she had been the only other Master capable of rivalling him, opposing his manipulation of the Empire with her own motives of doubtlessly similar intent. So he had ordered her assassination, assimilating the influential Order of Wealth under his leash, likely electing a new Master that would follow his commands. Cai pushed the thoughts deep into his mind for further reference, for now focussing on preparing himself for his Summoning, letting Alex do the talking.

"While my little brother may be thin, I think he would prefer to eat Lucaelian food in the comfort of his home. As would I," Alex replied curtly, letting his anger rise to amplify his Red mana, also sensing that this Ershun could call upon a demon.

"Very well. You force my hand. Though dear Tradax will be very disappointed if I damage you," he laughed, as titanic amounts of Black energy began to swirl around him. Alex felt a sudden need to eat, a primal and ravenous desire erupting in the forefront of his mind making him want to gorge until he was sick, and then continue. Just as the mad flow of thoughts battered as his barriers of self-control, a feminine hand was placed on his shoulder, pure and righteous hatred reinforcing his own determined emotions and fortifying his mind.

"A demon's temptations can be very captivating," Aurelia's furious words burned through his mind – all angels, without exception, hated demons with a passion reserved for them solely, and when Alex was freed from the pull of Ershun's magic he could clearly see the mass of shadowy mana building up around the palanquin. The older boy's eyes then instantly switched to his little brother, remembering that the younger Lucaelian hadn't yet Summoned and so could have succumbed to the temptations. Caiellis gave him a disapproving glance when he noticed Alex's gaze resting on him, however the fact that his left eye was pure midnight whilst the other was filled with luminosity meant that none of his emotions were transferred.

The tempest of dark delight grew in power, swirling around the Master of Gluttony and pulsating with the need to indulge and consume. To match the force of the Welkalite's mana, Caiellis started his own process of Summoning, the twin opposite forces of light and dark finding a balance within him as the Black Sun on his cheek blazed with energy. The fact that he had Summoned once before meant that the ritual would be much quicker this time around, although it was still dramatic and slow compared to others. He focussed upon positive energy first, waiting as swirls of golden radiance began to twirl around him, and then ignored the White and pulled negative thoughts to the forefront of his mind. Cai felt Orzhova bolster his own hatred of Johnias with her loathing of demonic entities, the Black mana generated in enough force this time to almost equal his White, tendrils of shadow wrapping around the right side of his body

The boy ran shining energy through his Lucerna birthmark, grinning in satisfaction when once again it became an orb of pure tenebrosity. He tossed it into the air, pouring both types of mana into the sphere of abyssal un-light, and as it expanded the simultaneously familiar and unknown choir of his lonely mind-cathedral filled the air. Alexander watched in fascination at the kid's actions, proud of how the younger boy wielded Black mana with such skill despite it being inimical to most Lucaelians – despite the evil nature of the magic, he felt no sinister intent from his brother, no threat directly towards him, just an unadulterated detestation targeted at their new foe.

Just as the haunting hymnals were beginning to eclipse all other noise and the luminosity of the Black Sun rose to gargantuan levels, a burst of much more corrupt Black mana released from Ershun's carriage. Whilst Caiellis was finishing his own Summoning, etching the symbols of Orzhova's scythe in the air with the thrumming Sword of Glass as yet more mana pulsed around him, so too was a bloated figure emerging from a dark portal that ripped open reality and plunged the street into malevolent blackness.

Finally, two immensely powerful Sancturia beings stepped into the world to join Aurelia, the first being Orzhova, the Angel of the Black Sun, who smiled down at her Summoner. The second was a huge demon with a distended stomach of corpulent grey flesh, kept aloft by the beating of malicious bat-shaped wings. Golden and opulent sigils decorated the black skin, rising up from the swollen abdomen and framing its muscled pectorals, bracers of the same ostentatious material encircling its large forearms, as massive clawed hands extended from tree-trunk wrists. Wisps of indulgent purple light floated around the demon, promising eternal delight in the form of endless banquets, majestic golden horns curling up from the creature's head reflecting the blasphemous glow. The most terrifying feature of the personification of Gluttony were its small eyes that twinkled with a decadent gleam that couldn't quite conceal ravenous, uncontrollable hunger.

"So nice to see you again, sister," Orzhova smiled mockingly, as Aurelia shot a glare of smouldering aversion that clearly showcased the First Sisterhood's detestation of the dark angel. A wet, rumbling laugh erupted from the demon, and both angels turned their hatred-filled gazes upon it as it guffawed, the disturbing noise brimming with false mirth.

"Two little seraphim of the First Sisterhood?" it chuckled in baleful incredulity, his eyes filling with primal hunger and lust as they took in the beautiful angels. "My my, I am flattered. You would make fine guests at the Everlasting Banquet, if you just ignored the instructions of these pathetic princelings and joined me."

"Are you honestly that stupid, demon scum, or is food all you can think about?" Orzhova snarled back, opening her ebony wings to their fullest extent as twin contrails of White and Black whirled around her golden scythe as she spun it languidly. "That disgusting offer of yours didn't even entice me, a much more individual angel than my boring sisters, so Serra knows what effect it had on puritanical Aurelia."

"Orzhova," the fiery Warleader growled impatiently, evidently less interesting in verbally sparring than her heavenly sibling, "Do not invoke the founding mother's name in vain."

"Boo-hoo, I broke one of your ridiculous rules. What a shame," the Angel of the Black Sun feigned an over-exaggerated gasp and smirked petulantly at her sister, who looked as if she was about to retort angrily.

"Ladies please, can we stop our bickering and focus on the more pressing issue of a Greater demon?" Alexander flashed a charming smile at his own Summoning and then at Orzhova, who snorted and grinned back. "Isn't your big brother just charming, Caiellis? I like him," she laughed.

Caiellis wasn't listening. In fact, the boy was no longer stood in his former position. Alex gulped in shock as his brother leapt into the air, wings of stained glass reflecting the colours of light and darkness augmenting his ascent, and swooping down at the demon, who up until now had looked thoroughly bored. He opened his palm and a rotting mass of bloated limbs vomited out from a rift in reality, slowing down the prince as he swung his shining artefact blade in a sideways arc, annihilating the obstructions and pressing on at the demon.

Ershun then fired out a bolt of flame, the Master of Gluttony obviously able to utilise the Red mana of Welkas as well as his demonic Black magic. A shield of singing energy appeared in front of the boy, as Orzhova flew alongside him and elevating his already prodigious magical strength.

Despite only fighting together once before, the two shared a bond of teamwork that matched the one Alex had with Aurelia. The demon growled in frustration as Orzhova swung her large scythe into him, swiftly dodging his counterstrike and dragging her blade along its flesh, purple blood leaking out. A chain of debilitating shadow wrapped itself around Caiellis's thin leg, and Ershun pulled on it, sending the boy tumbling to the ground. His palanquin bearers watched impassively as the Master's dark magic was met by a force of equal intensity, Cai's own Black mana bolstered by the opposite energy of his White, their strange harmony smashing through Ershun's combined Red and Black.

Determined not to be outdone, Alex conjured up his sun-hammer from earlier and charged at the bulbous denizen of Sancturia darkness, his battle cries in unison with Aurelia screaming war-shout. Orzhova gasped as thousands of tiny beetles began to swarming out of the Master of Gluttony's Summoning, buzzing over to her in a surge of malignant chitin. A ball of purifying silver flames washed over the dark angel, and she grudgingly nodded her thanks to Aurelia, who had ignited her twin swords and was carving into the demon.

The beast roared in anger and spread its wings, occult sigils forming out of its malevolent desire wisps and two simultaneous portals into the nether opening wide. The gaping maws then vomited out a tsunami of some vile substance that looked disturbingly like half-digested meals, forcing the Lucaelians and their Summonings away from the demon to avoid being melted by the acidic bile. Caiellis jumped into the air, and then yelped in surprise as his wings spontaneously shattered, Ershun grinning with vindictive glee as he completed the destroying spell, the ruinous forces of Red and Black combining to obliterate the boy's enchantments. Utterly unprepared for the burst of sudden speed the demon put on, Cai felt immense pain shoot through his nerves as a large hand grabbed his waist, squeezing with crushing force and then flinging him into a nearby stall. He crashed through the wooden table, splintering it, and hit the wall with a sickening impact.

"Cai!" Alex shouted, and shot to his little brother's side, his rage at seeing the younger boy hurt and potentially mortally wounded gifting speed in the form of Red enchantments to the middle Lucerna. He skidded to a halt as his younger sibling got to his feet apparently unharmed by his collision, despite the fact that Alex had definitely heard bones snapping. Life-giving energy swirled around the smaller youth, who swayed unsteadily as Orzhova conjured an orb of darkness, using it to channel a draining ray that sucked life the enemy Summoning, who snarled in anger.

"We cannot lose," Caiellis uttered calmly, an incredibly confident grin gracing his normally shy features as he cocked his head to one side, staring straight past his older brother. Alex wondered whether the kid had hit his head and suffered a concussion, but Cai looked perfectly lucid – he couldn't actually check the boy's eyes to see if they were dazed or not as they were still suffused with alternate energies.

"Do not fear for your brother, young Alexander," Orzhova's soft voice called, "The main principle of White and Black mana is to, above all else, keep the mage healthy and draining life from foes to accomplish this. Cai might have sustained significant damage in his little tumble, but nothing a bit of extraction magic can't handle."

"Arrogant child! I am Azarklak, Lord of the Everlasting Banquet, Arch-Patriarch of Gluttony, the Father of the Feast!" the demon shouted, making the air shake with its anger as it beat its wings furiously. "I will show you the meaning of true pain!"

It clasped its hands together, a storm of violent magic conjured around it. Ershun wailed in panic as his palanquin bearers suddenly collapsed in the presence of the spell, their minds not capable of withstanding the pressure and dropping the carriage.

"Empty threats will get you nowhere, Azarklak," Orzhova tutted admonishingly.

"Enough with words. Let us end this," Aurelia declared, letting go of her swords and animating them, the flame-wreathed blades orbiting around her as she channelled White and Red mana into her palms.

"Hurry up and kill them!" the Master of Gluttony shrieked in sheer panic as he sensed the fiery angel's mana levels rising to obscene levels, crawling out of his downed palanquin and beginning to drag his morbidly obese body away from the battle. Orzhova also began a spell of her own, as alternating circles of tenebrosity and light expanded out from her black wings. Both brothers added their power to their Summonings, and eventually it became then pitted against the magic of the Lord of the Everlasting Banquet.

In the end, there was no way that the demon could win. The might of two First Sisterhood angels was far too powerful for it to handle, and although Azarklak hand acquitted itself favourably Caiellis had been right: there was no way that they could lose.

A release of immensely potent corrupting energy was matched, and then overcome, by a wall of purifying flame that Aurelia summoned, bolstered with crackling purple lightning gifted by Orzhova. The Angel of the Black Sun had sensed that her sister was preparing one of her finishing moves, Aurelia's Fury, and as such wouldn't have to use much more of Caiellis's mana in completing the Culling Sun or some other such ritual that would leave the poor boy unnecessarily exhausted – Caiellis would most probably be tired enough without that.

Azarklak bellowed in impotent fury as his magic was burnt by the purifying flames, screaming in anger as he was incinerated and forced back into Sancturia. Ershun yelled in agony as his Summoning was forcefully annihilated, whimpering in pain and trying desperately to move his bloated body away from the vengeful angels. A sea of pleas babbled from his mouth as the ominous figure of Orzhova landed next to him, but they were ignored as her golden scythe swept down into him.

* * *

Summonings in this chapter:

Order of Rapture mage: Vexing Devil

Order of Violence mage: Spawn of Rix Maadi

Ershun Firefist: Master of the Feast


	14. The Succubus Strikes

Orzhova elegantly flicked the blood from her scythe, the bisected corpse of the Master of Gluttony falling apart underneath the dark angel. She slammed her heel in the ground, a mixture of White and Black mana rushing out of it and erasing the upper and lower half of Ershun. Aurelia stood still for a brief moment in the silence of the aftermath, the only sounds the heavy breathing of each prince, and then rounded on her sister, grabbing the other angel by the shoulder and spinning her around. The Warleader's angelic features were twisted in calamitous fury, but instead of looking scared Orzhova grinned mockingly at her sibling.

"Orzhova! Where have you been in the past one-hundred years? Why have you chosen now to select another Summoner?!" Aurelia demanded, her eyes blazing, and shook the Angel of the Black Sun for effect.

"Serra exiled me from the Sanctum Angelica after my "crimes" in the material plane under Xarius, or do you not remember, dear_ sister_?" Orzhova spat the words, sending Aurelia a look of pure hatred that made the angel blink in hesitation for a split second. "And my reasons are my own. Caiellis was a suitable Summoner, so I chose him before any of your sisters could intervene."

"Orzhova..." Aurelia's words fell short, a very human action for one so mighty, "They are your sisters too."

"You know full well that there is nothing between me and them, nothing between you and I," the dark seraph pulled away from Aurelia, and as Cai reached her side he could clearly see the deep sadness in her onyx eyes as she turned. "I'm sick of talking to you. Goodbye."

A wave of exhaustion threatened to overcome the youngest Lucerna as Orzhova returned inside of him, and Aurelia cast him a sympathetic glance before admitting, "Alexander, I have used up enough of your mana. I shall leave before I consume anymore. Summon me when you need me."

"Thank you," Alex replied, squeezing his brother's shoulder with a large palm as his angel also dissipated into golden particles. He surveyed the scene of destruction they had caused in their battle with the Master of Gluttony, vibrant stalls, scorched by Aurelia's Fury, lay strewn across the wide street, and Alex was extremely thankful that there had been no innocent Welkalite civilians in the area. Neither of them needed that on their consciences.

"You did good, little man," Alex grinned proudly at his younger brother, placing his arm around the other boy's back and walking with him to the other side of the Banquet Street. They were almost out of the city, but Alexander was worried about how tired they both were – walking for days on end back to Lucael and Civitas Sol wouldn't be ideal.

"Don't worry. I'm sure the Resistance will have something planned in the way of transport," Cai's soft and thoughtful voice broke the silence that had descended between them, and the older brother nodded. "Actually, I probably shouldn't be so confident. If their whole plan has anything in common with Degan's time management, then we will probably end up back in Tradax's clutches."

"Wow, you are mean. Did you not want to see your friend? You didn't even say anything to him," Alex sighed, knowing full well that his little brother was bad at socialising with most others and pushed them away, but when he had seen the two boys together at the Scholaria Caiellis looked like he was bonding with the fifteen year old Kaled. Apparently not, though he was aware how obstinate the little guy was when interacting with children of a similar age, often ignoring them.

"I never said he was my friend. It was only circumstance that brought us together," Cai replied, twirling his sword and sheathing it with an elegant flourish that made Alex stifle a smirk. Sometimes Caiellis trying to act as an adult was more funny than anything else, though his little brother would always get really annoyed if he pointed it out.

"You shouldn't push people away, Cai. Kaled clearly wanted to be friends with you," Alex's soft tone took on one of slight admonition, a voice he often used when he was trying to teach the younger boy more about the world. "Besides, you can't hang around me all the time. We are princes, and I'll soon be an adult."

"That's not true. You're the one who always wants to talk to me," Cai responded sulkily, running past his brother and glancing round the corner to ensure it was clear. However, the path towards the gateway out of the city was empty, bereft of brightly coloured Gluttony Enforcers. Had the Welkalites really thought that Ershun alone could stop them? It smacked of arrogance, and although Tradax was wont to preening Caiellis had realised that the Master of Rapture was deeply cunning, and it was unlike him to not have a back up plan in case Ershun failed. And despite how organised the Ja'an Guard was, Cai couldn't help but think they would be able to delay the entire Usnaan military alone. _What am I missing?_ He thought, trying to play the details of the past couple of days in his head.

"Yeah, and I found out that you were cutting yourself, so obviously what I did was right," Alexander quickly overtook his smaller sibling and scanned the area for enemies, in spite of the fact that Cai had just done so – he could tell that the younger boy was thinking hard about something, and when he had done that in the past sometimes he had failed to notice foes. The most prominent time he remembered was when Cai stormed off after Tristram had given Alex a black eye (that he felt he thoroughly deserved) in an unarmed combat training session, and apparently hadn't noticed Johnias's soldiers ambushing him before Tristram saved him. Although that turned out well, with the littlest Lucerna remaining unharmed and discovering new-found respect for the Guardian, Alex wanted to make sure the area was indeed clear before they carried on.

"Whatever."

"Don't deny that I'm an awesome big brother," Alex joked, playfully ruffling his unamused brother's hair and then narrowing his eyes. A figure clothed in black leather armour with a red glove covering their right hand was beckoning them over to the gate, a strange looking wheeled-capsule behind them. The Welkalite held a curved scimitar that was covered with blood and ash, going a way towards explaining the absence of guards.

"Messa?" he shouted, recognising the hard faced Resistance Enforcer as they ran closer, and the woman stood beneath the ostentatious triumphal arch of Gateway Gluttony nodded quickly, turning round to adjust some dials on the machine behind her. Alex swiftly arrived at the open gate, waiting a moment for his panting brother to catch up. The younger boy was tired, a fact made painfully obvious by his heavy breathing. Well, they were both drained, but Alex certainly wasn't going to let Caiellis realise that – he reminded himself that his brother had only Summoned Orzhova once before today, whereas he had Summoned Aurelia over a hundred times.

"Get in," the woman ordered, roughly dragging the weightless Cai towards the vehicle, and Alex would have objected to the harsh treatment of the kid if time was not of the essence. Caiellis examined the locomotive as he was shoved inside, turning to Messa with an incredulous glance.

"A Yentarian automobile? I thought they were Uverian, and those scientists normally don't approve of sharing their technology. How did you obtain it?" he inquired, monumentally glad that the Resistance had acquired such a state of the art vehicle for their escape. This would get them back to the City of the Sun within a day at most.

"Let's just say that it would not be in the best interests of the League of Uveria for you to remain here," the woman replied, her face as inscrutable as stone. Knowing he would get no more out of her, he slid along the comfortably padded seats to allow his much larger brother to get in also. The second Alex did so, a wave of claustrophobia that made him want to get out was ruthlessly quashed; small spaces may not be his favourite place to be but he would suck it up as the automobile was the brothers' only way of realistically escaping. It wasn't like he was extremely claustrophobic, far from it, but Alexander couldn't help but wonder how they were supposed to defend themselves stuck in the car.

"I have already set the co-ordinates for Civitas Sol," Messa cut in, and Cai quickly noticed the control panel set in front of them – he already knew that the mana infused into the automobile would allow it to direct itself and automatically take them to the aforementioned city, where no doubt their anguished father would be massing an army to take them back, but he could manually override it with magic if necessary – Caiellis hoped that he didn't have to, as reading about the properties of the invention in treaties published by the Yentarian scientists certainly wasn't a substitute for first hand experience, of which either boy had none. The only modern transport Lucaelians used were the monorails, preferring to either move on foot, on horseback or with magic of some kind, so Cai doubted his big brother even knew what the vehicle was considering the older boy didn't read nearly as much as he did, if at all.

"Activate it by-" Messa began, just as the youngest prince called mana to his small fingertips and tapped the holographic display, starting up the vehicle. "Well, it seems you already know what you are doing. Remember your promise to the Resistance, Alexander and Caiellis Lucerna. You will help to free Welkas from the Orders of Passion. There is no way we can force you to, but I hope your consciences are enough to force your hand."

"That, and the fact that our father will definitely declare war if he hasn't done so already," Cai replied glumly, to which Alexander added: "Thank you. The Resistance has done a great service to Lucael. Let it not be said that the Kingdom of Light forgets its allies."

The confident words prompted Caiellis to recall their lessons on proper speaking with Uncle Tybalt; while the older boy may have found what he just said cringe-worthy (as he had stated previously on numerous occasions), the line was textbook perfect. Neither of them had particularly struggled with the teaching, but since Cai's brother was far more confident and amiable than the younger boy, so was better placed to talk to people. Not many people gave credit to the older boy for his intelligence in using words, though Cai himself had only realised a few years ago when pondering just how his older brother always knew what to say to him to either exceedingly irritate or please him.

Messa quickly retreated from the vehicle when its small but very effective engines powered up, the mana supplied to it from batteries and Caiellis gave ample propulsion. Alex looked through the reinforced glass at the front of the automobile, watching as the Yentarian invention shot through Gateway Gluttony and into the suburbs surrounding the main city, the main dwelling place of civilians in Welkas. He glanced round at the deserted poverty, obviously those that lived here were inside their homes. According to Tradax, whom he had asked about Welkalite society at the breakfast of today's morning, the Master of Rapture had explained that while most of the population did live within the cities, in the unnamed habitable areas in between each Passion Quarter, there were some who resided outside of the capital city. However, it seemed like either they had been evacuated or were hidden within their homes.

Alex ensured that he examined each building they drove past for potential ambushers, feeling a queasy sensation building up in his gut at the thought of being attacked while stuck inside the automobile. Sensing his brother's disquiet, Cai piped up and said: "Don't worry, Alex. The Uverian scientists designed these vehicles to be resistant to both physical and magical attacks, giving us enough time to get out." he smiled comfortingly, placing a small but reassuring hand on his sibling's forearm. "Besides, I can always manually override the automobile if the situation becomes that dangerous."

"You can drive this?" Alexander asked, a quizzical expression on his face. Cai grinned wryly, which wasn't particularly encouraging, and replied: "Well, I technically know the method for piloting it, but obviously I've never had real world experience."

"Fantastic," the older boy sarcastically muttered, and Caiellis pouted. "Hey, I don't see you knowing how to operate it. At least I know vaguely what to do, you wouldn't even be able to explain how it worked!"

"No need to get offended, little brother," Alex held up his hands, and although he had reacted satirically he was secretly glad the boy had some knowledge of their salvation's mechanisms. "Anyway, I'm not Boy Genius, so you shouldn't expect me to know anything. Give me a good fight over complex formulae any day."

.*.*.*.

Aksua leapt high across the tiered balconies of the huge Towers of Ecstasy, the glittering monuments to self-gratification and obscene wealth shining in the brightness of the Welkalite sun – unlike the hated Lucaelian light that came from Sancturia itself instead of the natural illumination of other countries, the vampire did not have an adverse reaction to it. The sun conveyed none of the abhorred White mana that made Aksua's skin burn and revealed her true age, and the Lucaelian darted with supernatural swiftness from tower to tower.

The buildings were playgrounds for the rich, formerly belonging to the Augur's Quarter but now on the border between that and Tradax's Hedonist's Quarter. The man had kept their original function, since the Orders of Rapture and Wealth often overlapped, and now the nobles of the city spent huge amounts of time in the three towers.

Though the reason why Aksua had been released was still a mystery, the vampire had been able to ascertain that several unexpected combats were taking place throughout Usnaan, although now they were beginning to die down as the dissidents slunk away in the wake of a full scale mobilization of all Enforcer forces. Evidently Tradax's narcissism had prevented the man from noticing the growing resentment of the population – were these Welkalites doomed to repeating history, defeating their oppressors before becoming tyrants themselves, and then in turn being deposed by the next budding regime. Even though Aksua detested Lucaelian society, it was far more reliable and advanced than this. Whatever. The vampire couldn't care less about the Empire of Passion, it was just a means to an end for her to recover. The fact that said recovery had taken far longer than expected wasn't much of a bother for a functionally immortal being, and now that she was free Aksua could do as she pleased.

Only a few minutes ago, a gargantuan rise in mana levels near where she had detected her prey, the Lucerna princes, made her hesitant to continue on her current path – if they were really that powerful, was it wise to hunt them? However, this rise in magical energy from the younger boy made her want to feed on them even more, the burning temptation in the back of her skull unconquerable. This was amplified even more when they defeated the demon she had bound to Ershun Firefist; the Lord of the Everlasting Banquet had been intensely displeased when it was Summoned through the Internal Bargain, but Aksua knew she had nothing to fear from Azarklak, who would lick his wounds and then return to his eternal feast with Ershun's soul a new dish on the menu.

She had sensed distinctly then that the massive amounts of Black mana being emitted were not just from the Master of the Feast, and a shudder went down her spine as she clearly identified the presence of the terrifying Angel of the Black Sun, a seraph made up of equal parts light and darkness that Aksua remembered from when Emperor Xarius had visited Kalitas's dwellings in the outer abyss, angry that the vampirical ruler had not aided him prior to this in the war against his niece. The angel had stared at them, full of disgust, and Aksua recalled Xarius ordering her to butcher several helpless vampire nobles to "restore the loyalty of the vampire clans", which she did so without comment, inspiring awe and primal terror from onlookers, utterly unlike any angel Aksua had ever encountered before and after the incident.

Despite the fact that Lucaelians hated Xarius, he was one of the most powerful rulers ever to ascend to the Lucerna throne, and would have been a delight to feast upon. However, what the vampire sensed from young Caiellis was even more enticing – before, the angel had been full of Xarius's darkness, using exclusively Black mana to prosecute the king's nefarious wishes. Now the White and Black were both present in the dark angel, and while a balance had not yet been achieved he would become far more formidable than the late Emperor of Light. Aksua could not even imagine how delectable a Lucerna would be to feast upon, and so could only begin to think of the heights of bliss she would reach when draining the youngest son of Marik. That must have been what he meant when he had said they already had enough darkness on their side.

The vampire had already fed on this day, exsanguinating several parties of Enforcers, and now she was in the process of causing enough disruption to allow herself and the princes to escape unimpeded – Aksua was hoping that if she brutally slaughtered the guards, dismembering or obliterating their bodies instead of leaving bloodless husks, then the Welkalites would just assume it was the doing of the rebels that called themselves the Resistance. She had found that information out when she had murdered a group numbering five of them, who had thought she was a corrupt Welkalite mage of some sort.

"Sir, it seems that the Resistance has stopped their attacks," a condescending voice, enhanced by the vampire's post-human auditory functions, floated up to Aksua on her golden vantage point. She listened intently, focussing in on the sound, hearing the pumping heartbeat of the soldiers of the Augur's Quarter far below – judging by the sluggish rate, the Enforcer hadn't participated in any fighting yet. She was going to change that, though she doubted what would come next could be called a fight. More like a culling.

"Indeed. Those cowards are obviously afraid to fight us in a proper battle," the man that the soldier had been addressing, probably a leader of some form, spat, and Aksua could visualise his conceited sneer. She quickly descended the Tower of Ecstasy, her preternatural agility making navigating the sheer drop child's play. She could hear the enforcers conversing triumphantly amongst themselves, like they had actually accomplished something in this battle. Shadows wrapped around Aksua as she silently called Nocturon to her side, the umbral horror blending seamlessly into her slender form, tendrils of wriggling darkness shooting off from behind her as she began to run at a vertical slant down golden tower.

"Three cheers for the New Empire!" one man shouted, and the other Enforcers began laughing and agreeing, and the leader chuckled and declared.

"Hooray!" he bellowed, the arrogance in his tone thick and making Aksua want to kill him even more. She loved to murder those that thought themselves influential, proving their folly before draining them of life.

"Hooray!" the Enforcers cried in unison, the ridiculousness of their celebration not lost on the vampire. She could see them now, her supernatural vision allowing her to perceive the extravagant and pristine golden armour of the soldiers guarding the untargeted Augur's Quarter – there were two types of Enforcer in the Order of Wealth, while black-glad and sadistic Collectors enforced the brutal taxes upon the oppressed, shining Custodians defended the vast, glittering vaults of the Order. Aksua remembered them being a formidable and disciplined army under the command of Gretia, the only Master that she had exempted from her Infernal Bargains, but evidently these were the recruits Tradax had gathered after he exterminated the former Custodians. She leapt off the wall, landing softly on an expanding mass of shade in the shadow of the tower, out of sight of the Enforcer group.

"Hooray!" they chanted for the final time, and Aksua briefly Unsummoned Nocturon before striding confidently out of the shadows, preparing her best flirtatious smile.

"Ooh, how lucky I am, to come upon a group of the Empire's bravest soldiers after the crushing defeat of the Resistance," she purred, tossing her hair to one side and feasting on the stares of undisguised lust the Enforcers gave her. She paraded her attractive body in front of them, watching as their eyes followed her, like a pack of pups desperately wishing for their mother to notice and feed them.

"It is certainly a time for celebration," the leader agreed, his brown eyes full of atavistic craving, and Aksua noticed how the other soldiers glared pettily at his back as he stepped forwards towards what he must have assumed was a Rapture slut. He made to embrace her and she leaned into his grasp, hearing his heartbeat rise in response to the all-consuming desire he felt. Aksua responded with an unexpected strength, her long hands wrapping around his resplendent gauntlets and crushing with huge force, pushing them to his side as she inched her head towards his. Aksua licked her lips as she saw the desire in the man's irises quickly turn to panic as she began a kiss on his neck, before uncovering her sharpened fangs and burying them in his jugular. The man gurgled as his breathing was impaired, and his soldiers dutifully ran forwards, shouting battle cries.

The coils of darkness that represented Nocturon suddenly reappeared, shooting out of her and wrapping around the other Enforcers, restricting their movements as they screamed in agony. Aksua clamped down harder, a spray of arterial blood jetting out from the wound as she drunk greedily, but there was nothing special to the meal. She sighed disappointedly and tossed the barely exsanguinated corpse away from her, the Custodian's features twisted in a rictus of pain. It crashed into the golden walls, blood still spraying from the body's throat and painting the ostentatious material a deep crimson.

The vampire raised her fist and squeezed it shut, the tendrils of abyssal gloom the Enforcers were trying to fight off contracting with unstoppable power, eviscerating the Custodians as their armour was no protection against Black mana. When Aksua had first been converted, she had been taught to savour every meal and would have baulked at how wasteful she was now being, but the current Aksua knew now that it was quality, not quantity, that mattered most.

_Speaking of quality,_ she thought, as her mind sensed a sharp decrease in mana levels in the Glutton's Quarter, meaning that the princes had ceased their Summonings of First Sisterhood angels. Aksua detected them moving away through Gate Gluttony and into the outer city at an incredible rate, which meant they had some form of transport. She concentrated on the other mana signatures of predominantly Red spreading out through the city and in the princes' direction, and the vampire resolved to eliminate them first so that she would have no interruptions in her feast. Besides, even with transport it wasn't like the Lucernas could outrun a demoniacally gifted vampire.

.*.*.*.

It was dark, though the chronometer on the automobile still insisted it was well within the daytime hours. _Great to see that Lucael welcomes us back with its endless night,_ Caiellis thought bitterly, as the vehicle shot through the dark of the outer kingdom. It had just happened, one moment it was perfectly sunny and the next twilight had descended, marking their entrance into the Kingdom of Light, like a sudden curtain of midnight onyx had been drawn across the sky. This was arguably the least dangerous part of the abyss, as it was relatively close to both Civitas Sol and Welkas, though still acted as a natural barrier preventing the two nations from interacting much, though Cai still assumed his father would gladly march an army through it to lay siege to the New Empire in order to retrieve his heirs.

Alex dozed next to him, taking the moment of respite to recuperate after Caiellis had informed his older brother that he wasn't in the mood for a conversation, which the younger boy now thought was a bit harsh. He knew that the veil of sleep his friend wore was only temporary and very thin, allowing Alex to react as soon as he sensed danger while giving his mind time to rest.

Cai's thin fingers ghosted over the holographic representation of alternative schematic designs for the automobile that other Uverian inventors had suggested, though his brain had long since stopped actively recording the complex explanations and utterly uninteresting experiment notes. All Yentarian vehicles had a mana source that allowed the user to access several databases, and at first the thirteen year old had thought it would be a good idea, but was swiftly coming to the conclusion that his mind wanted him to think about something else: how easy the escape had been.

Sure, they had been challenged by a Master, one of the most daunting judging by his prestigious status, and they did have the ability to wield two First Sisterhood angels, but it didn't seem like Tradax to let the flee so easily. The Master of Rapture had taken a massive risk in abducting Lucerna monarchy, rousing the entirety of Lucael to righteous outrage and mobilizing the formidable army into action. The Old Empire had always been far more careful, staying far away from the Kingdom of Light as it expanded, obliterating other nations that challenged its dominance as each Lucernan ruler used their angelic power to claim more and more territory, annihilating more and more other factions and grinding them to dust under the blessings of the Sisterhoods.

The only war Lucael had ever "lost" (though the official records still maintained that it was only due to the foolishness of the king and that now the Lucaelian military could destroy the Erians) was King Acarn's attempted expansion into the forests of the Erian Conclave in the year 823, where the glittering legions were completely outmatched by the environment, ambushed by huge predators and forces of Erian tribesmen, utterly outsmarted by the shamans who used their knowledge of the forest to decimated the army. They had attacked the king himself with titanic manifestations of Green mana that had swept aside Feather and crushed the man to a bloody pulp.

What was focused on more however what came after Acarn's untimely death – the Erians swarmed out their forest to muster and take advantage of the Lucaelian's disaster by taking over territory outside the forest, and while the Hierarch of the time organised the retreat the late king's younger sister, the famed Queen Arie, arguably the second most successful monarch of Lucael that Caiellis had inherited his own artefact blade from, managed to hold off the entire Erian army with only Jenara, her tricolour Summoning for assistance. She annihilated the enemy army, and when the shamans realised that there was no way they could possibly win against her they brokered a treaty that still stood – the Erians and Lucaelians would leave each other alone, and traders from each would be allowed in Lucael and Geansse, the only Erian city. Cai and Alexander, when one of them became king, had a huge range of successful and heroic ancestors to take inspiration from.

_Dammit! Concentrate you idiot! _Caiellis harshly chastised himself for letting his mind wander to the vast amounts of information he had absorbed when he had methodologically read the large majority of history books in different libraries around the kingdom. _Right, back to Tradax and the escape please._

The fact that the Master of Rapture had willingly angered a nation famed for its prosecution of warfare and massive range of military victories suggested that Tradax must have had monumental plans in store for the princes, which made Cai doubt that the man would let them go without diverting large numbers of Welkalite Enforcers to stop them. Yes, the Resistance may have delayed and distracted some of them, but that didn't account for most of them. What was he missing?!

Cai sighed, analysing the data he knew over and over again as the hologram automatically shut off with a quiet whoosh due to the lack of use. He rubbed his eyes, tired, and his gaze landed on his older brother. Maybe he should ask Alex, it wasn't as if the older boy was stupid and wouldn't object to being woken if Caiellis wanted his advice. Even so, the littlest Lucerna didn't want to deprive his sibling of sleep after the seventeen year old had Summoned Aurelia for a prolonged period of time and utilised a spell of a very large mana requirement.

"I know that I am incredibly handsome and charming, but you don't have to stare little brother," Alex teased good-naturedly, causing Cai to rock back in surprise, his cheeks coloured with a slight tinge of cherry. He hadn't realised his brother had awoken. Alex laughed and punched his brother in the arm, eliciting a familiar scowl from the prince that the kid wore whenever Alexander did that. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

Stunned for a second, Cai's features twisted in incredulity which made his senior laugh even harder. "Don't look so surprised, buddy. You sometimes seem to forget that I've known you all your life. You used to pull the same "deep-thought" expression when you were as young as two, and I'm well used to the "I-want-to-ask-my-big-brother-about-this-but-don't-want-to-disturb-him-in-case-he-kicks-my-skinny-ass" look you have at the moment, so don't try and pretend that you don't want to talk or I will have to force you to," Alex grinned charmingly at his sibling, who folded his arms and turned away from the older boy. "Trust me little guy, I don't want to have to tickle you into submission, but if necessary I will evoke my right as a big brother to do so. Now talk."

"It's about the relative ease of our escape," Caiellis turned back around, looking into the bright blue eyes of his older brother, who snorted. "You're the only one calling it easy, squirt," he exaggeratedly raised his hands when the boy shot him an irritated glower, which Alex couldn't help but think it made his little brother that much cuter.

"Note that I used the word "relative". I'm not saying it was effortless, far from it, I just would have thought that Tradax would have used more resources to prevent our breakout. I know the Resistance was diverting their attention elsewhere, but they took a massive gamble taking us to Usnaan, so I just thought Tradax would have more countermeasures than a few squads of Enforcers and the Master of Gluttony," Cai explained, watching as Alex contemplated the words, mulling them over in his mind. Caiellis was expecting good advice, and it was Alexander's duty as an elder sibling to deliver, so he took his time considering the ideas presented. True, maybe the escape was easier than he might have thought, but that wasn't necessarily a cause for concern as they had already reached Lucael and were only a few kilometres away from Civitas Sol, so if Tradax had sent any pursuers it would be unlikely that they could recapture the brothers. Alex came to his conclusion, realising that his little brother wouldn't like it but both knew that the most simple explanation was often correct.

"Cai, you're not going to like my answer, but here it is: I think you are worrying too much," he said simply, waiting for that well known annoyed frown to appear before elaborating, "You are delving too far into the world of "what-ifs" and "buts" without considering what is plainly obvious – we have escaped from Welkas with the Resistance's help, and the measures Tradax placed to stop us – including a powerful demon and rare mana inhibitors – weren't enough. Maybe he hadn't even thought of us breaking out of them, so wasn't even expecting us to be able to Summon."

Cai nodded slowly, seeing sense in his brother's words. In truth, he had forgotten about the inhibitors in the heat of the retreat, and now that the older brought them up the comparative ease of their escape seemed much more logical. Trust Alex to be able to provide an alternative and objective viewpoint, one that was much more obvious and rational than his own mental ramblings. Alex could see how his brother was grateful for his point of view, and grinned proudly at the younger boy.

"Thanks, Alex," he murmured thankfully, his green eyes full of appreciation for his big brother's advice and the older boy prodded him in the forehead.

"No problem shortie. Sometimes that brain of yours is too smart for its own good," the seventeen year old patted the boy's head affectionately, smirking when Cai narrowed his eyes and glared back.

"Or maybe your little brother is onto something," a coquettish voice lanced into the automobile, the familiar sing-song tone belieing the malignant intent poured into the words. Both boys instantly reacting by channelling their mana, crackling and incandescent White humming through the air as the brothers prepared to react to their pursuer(s). A pale face, perfect in every dimension and insanely attractive, suddenly appeared out of the gloom, grinning down at the boys through the circular windscreen.

Alex shouted in sudden panic and tried to yank his weightless brother with him through the automobile door as he felt it being lifted from the ground, the mana-engines whining at the disturbance. He managed to pull Cai out into the freezing darkness of Lucael just as the car was tossed casually across a large distance, flipping in the air like the discarded toy of a petulant giant and crashing into a nearby building. The engines detonated in a high-pitched squeal of released energy, and both Lucernas covered their eyes from the intense glare of the blue light.

As the explosion died down and hissing flames began to consume the wreckage of the car and the small and archaic stone hut it had smashed into, the wan crimson/orange light illuminated a tall figure. Alex baulked in recognition as his eyes landed on the unmistakeable form of their attacker – the shapely hips, impeccable milky skin, the flawless brown hair that cascaded down her back, and the eyes, those beautiful eyes, that promised eternal love and a perpetuity of pleasure.

Somehow, Aksua had escaped from her cell and found them.

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Aksua: Abyssal Nocturnus


	15. Sweet Dreams

"Hello again boys," the vampire licked her lips in expectation of the coming meal, while both exhausted princes glared defiantly back, their determined eyes reflecting the flames of the burning automobile and locking with the amused orbs of Aksua. She smiled indulgently as the gloomy morass of wriggling tendrils behind her, only visible because of the flame-lit illumination brightening everything else in the eternal night, started moving even more spasmodically.

Cai was the first to react, augmenting his agility and speed with the favoured glittering stained glass wings he had utilised before and somersaulting into the air, the Sword of Glass in his right hand arcing through the darkness, the edge of tenebrosity slicing towards Aksua. He knew that although White mana should be more effective against creatures of the abyss, a vampire was still technically living and human (though very far removed), so maybe Black mana could be just as lethal – however he had no points of reference to base this assumption upon, as knowledge of the magic of the shadows was very limited in Lucael.

Aksua dodged his first shining swipe and pirouetted back from the second, tutting disapprovingly at the young boy as he tried to keep up with her vampiric speed augmented by Nocturon – now that she was out of the Welkalite sunlight and back in the darkness of her homeland, her demonic gifts were far more powerful. Tendrils of gloom shot out from the horror behind her, shooting after the airborne prince and bouncing off a shield of defensive holy energy he created quickly. The woman smiled and leapt at him, just as bolts of flame impacted into her side. She grimaced at the burning sensation and swiftly shot towards Caiellis, her smallest opponent yelping at the sudden burst of speed she put on as she barrelled into him, sending them both tumbling and preventing Alex from getting a clear shot with his Red mana with the risk of hitting his precious little brother.

"Cai!" the older boy shouted, looking desperately within himself and realising that he had no-where near enough mana to re-Summon Aurelia. Their battle with Ershun and his demonic Arch-Patriarch of Gluttony had enervated him more than he had let on, but he still needed to be there for Caiellis and ran after the two battling figures, severely hoping that the kid would still be alright as him and Aksua were about to land in a different part of the long-abandoned village.

The younger boy managed to twist through the air and launched a series of measured strikes at the vampire, who was forced to sway out of the way to avoid being impaled - the child's artefact weapon, energised with the twin conflicting forces of light and darkness, probably wouldn't kill her outright but it would cause significant damage. Cai reactivated his wings, leaping away from the vampire and landing a few metres away. He shot out a lance of pure radiance at Aksua, who opened her palms as a wave of billowing murk undulated out from them, impacting on the protective enchantments Cai conjured.

He gritted his teeth as the wave intesified, he couldn't see anything past the darkness wrapping around his small refuge of safe light, and knowing that the Lens of Guilt would be useless in this instance, as it too would be blocked by the miasma that threatened to break through his shield. Caiellis quickly activated the Lens of Innocence instead, his vision piercing through the murk a lighting everything in gold. He couldn't see Aksua with this vision, but could clearly view Alexander rushing towards what must have been the position of the vampiress, a large and heavy hammer held aloft by his stronger brother. But angels, he needed to hurry up. The pulsing dark was threatening to overwhelm his defences, the magic smashing through his enchantments one after the other like they were thin sheets of glass. Cai deactivated Innocence, focussing all of his energy on maintaining the sphere of safety that was becoming smaller every second. The boy's small fingers gripped the handle of his relic blade, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the pressure, wishing that he was fighting at full power, and shouted as the Black mana shattering the bubble he had conjured and crashing into him.

Caiellis felt himself being lifted into the air as the dark energy coalesced into a more solid form, flinging his weightless form across the empty streets of the deserted village, his sword clattering to the ground a few feet away.

Aksua had to mentally restrain the sometimes disobedient Nocturon to prevent the abyssal horror from murdering or significantly injuring the child, as that would irrevocably reduce the quality of the meal – she needed him alive, healthy but still subdued to feast upon. She scowled as the boy hit the floor with a painful impact, skidding along the stone ground. Cai yelped in pain as his thin left calf scraped over a jagged rock, the fragile skin sliced open by the sharp stone and pumping claret liquid onto the ground. The instant Aksua scented the rich aroma of the rich, crimson blood, her nostrils flared in anticipation and a sensation of longing filled her limbs with power.

Alex shouted a battle-cry, adrenaline pumping through his veins at the sight of his little brother being hurt, righteous anger welling up in his mind and inflating his supply of Red and White mana as he charged at Aksua. The seductress whirled around the second he was about to slam his hammer into her, and as Alex's rage-filled eyes met Aksua's alluring orbs he felt the strength sap from him. The hammer slowly fell from his grasp, dissipating into insubstantial magic particles, as the woman's eyes widened.

"Put that down, pretty boy," she purred, stepping to his side within an instant, the shadows that had been pulsing around her gone, as if they had committed a sin just by touching her. Her slender hands brushed against his, and Alex felt his heartbeat quicken as the cold flesh made contact with him, longing filling his mind and blocking out all other thoughts. Aksua's deep, hazel eyes shone with dazzling beauty, erasing the niggling sensation in the back of Alexander's mind that was screaming at him to continue his attack, and she giggled, the timbre of the laugh lulling him into complete submission. "We wouldn't want anyone to be hurt, now would we?"

Cai pushed himself up off the ground, ignoring the sharp pain coming from his left leg as more blood pumped onto the ancient and worn paving stones that constituted the pavements of the empty village. He bit back a gasp, determined to help his older brother – judging by the increase in the levels of mana coming from Aksua herself, not her shadowy Summoning, and the way in which Alex was just stood still, not reacting to the proximity of the vampire, he was in danger of being overcome by her magic.

He let healing spells pulse through his body and ease the agony of his wounded leg, tentatively taking a step forwards to ensure that the pain was bearable – if his friend hadn't been in need of help then he wouldn't be moving the limb – and then began to sprint towards his older brother. Concern blossomed in his mind when he saw the vacant, distant look of euphoria in the boy's usually intent blue eyes. When he ran within about five metres of Aksua, a huge wall of darkness spontaneously erupted from the air in front of him, and a keening shriek split the air and making him feel like his ears were bleeding. A face appeared out of the miasma, an indescribable _thing_ that gnashed rows of bleached teeth and glared at him with three pits of unrelenting despair. Cai shut his eyes before the temptation to claw them out overcame him, and he felt the shadows begin to surround him, blocking off his path to Alexander. That wasn't going to happen, Alex was the most valued person in Caiellis's universe and if there was one thing he would do right it would be saving him.

.*.*.*.

The messenger cowered in the corner of the ostentatious throne room of the Palace of Desire, seeking to make herself look as small as possible in a futile attempt to avoid the gaze of the one sat in the throne. Tradax sat, fuming, as the woman quickly relayed what Enforcer-General Fraetus Etin had told her to say. It was technically the general's duty to inform Tradax herself, but clearly she had sent her lackey to bear the brunt of the Master of Rapture's ire considering the absurd news she was bringing. He was no longer listening to the streaming babble that was spewing from the lieutenant's lips, meaningless excuses trying to place the blame on others and spare herself from his undoubtedly coming wrath.

_So, the Resistance deactivated the mana inhibitors I placed on the princes, and caused a huge number of distractions allowing the boys to get away from the main bodies of idiotic Enforcers. Then, they murdered dear Ershun, and escaped through Gate Gluttony in a Yentarian automobile that those useless piles of shit that call themselves soldiers allowed them to smuggle into **my** city! And just to top it all off, the vampire whore Aksua has escaped from her **warded **cell and wreaked havoc in the city, slaughtering the parties of Enforcers that were pursuing the escaping princes. How did **three **people managed to triumph over the entire garrison of Usnaan? Where the fuck was that stupid bastard Arendus Draal, and what was the newly-instated Master of Wealth doing? Twiddling his thumbs and counting his coins as the city fell apart around him?_

Tradax was once again reminded of why he had been forced to seize control of first his own order of Rapture, utilising his newly-acquired demon to annihilate the imbecile, and then the entirety of Welkas itself. It was because the rest of the humans in the Empire were so fucking _useless. _It actually amazed the man how stupid his subordinates could be if left to their own devices for a while – while the Master of Rapture had taken a short trip outside the capital city to ensure that all the preparations for the ritual him and his allies had in store for the Lucaelian boys, and when he had returned all chaos had been let loose, and not the good kind of chaos.

"My-my lord?" the red-head stammered, apprehensively looking up from where she had pressed her face into the ground, and Tradax glared furiously at her for interrupting his thoughts. "May-may I leave, lord?"

"Yes, you may go," the man snarled, and the pretty lieutenant bowed her head nervously and turned around, when the Master of Rapture let out a shriek of frustrated anger, red lighting blasting forth from his hands and jolting through the woman in a violent coruscation. He giggled in vindictive glee as the lieutenant spasmed, screaming in pain as the twofold magic both amplified the agony she would feel and inflicting tremendous amounts of it – being the Master of Rapture, Tradax was one of the most proficient artisans of pain in the entire empire, inflicting insane amounts of torment with his evil magic.

The Enforcer shouted one final time as her nerves were literally incinerated, followed by the rest of her body, and Tradax scowled. He shouldn't have lashed out like that. What a waste. If he had really wanted to punish the woman, he could have tortured her for several hours and revelled in her agony, a fate reserved for those who had failed him, but thinking about it rationally it wasn't really the lieutenant's fault for the debacle, she hadn't deserved to die. Tradax knew he was just annoyed and infuriated by what he would have to do next – he would never admit it, but the thought filled him with terror.

The man pursed his lips and tried to relax his breathing and panicked thoughts before plunging into the well of Black mana in his mind, the room becoming significantly darker as he began the shadow-communion. After a few seconds, he sensed another presence, much more evil and terrifying than Tradax himself, enter the communication. He felt the being's disapproval, he could taste the hatred in the air like ash on his tongue.

"Since we last spoke only yesterday, I assume this means that you have failed in your part of the plan?" the deep, demonic voice cut through the silence of the throne room, and Tradax gulped. He hadn't expected his "ally" to already be aware of his failure, though he knew the other lord of Black mana had agents scattered across Magnus-Primae so shouldn't be surprised. The malevolent voice then stated: "I take your silence as a yes."

Tradax tried to reply, to say something that could possibly direct the blame to something else, but the words died in his throat. Shadows began to coalesce into a figure stood upright in the centre of the chamber, clothed in midnight armour that shone with dark purity. Red slits glared at the Master of Rapture through a helm of the deepest darkness, and even though the shadow-communion only showed a distant representation of his ally, Tradax could clearly perceive the man's murderous disdain and a shudder of pure fear shot through his spine.

"I'm honestly not even shocked. You Welkalites really are a useless, detestable race. Why I thought I could trust you with such an important duty is beyond me," he spat, and Tradax felt his anger rise. They were supposed to be allies, he was no longer just going to tale the other man's insults and snorts. They were supposed to be equals.

"If you hadn't taken so long getting to Usnaan, then none of this would have happened!" he shouted back, feeling empowered by the outburst and letting the natural Red mana he had been born with flow through him. "What, was the Lucaelian military too hard to handle? And anyway, if your traitorous bitch Aksua hadn't escaped as well and prevented our military from recapturing them, then the boys would still be here!"

"DO NOT QUESTION ME, YOU PATHETIC WRETCH!" the terrifying figure bellowed, and Tradax was flung across the room by the force of the words, crashing into the tapestries behind his throne and whimpering quietly. The figure of the man in the room became a whirling maelstrom of tenebrosity, expanding and pulsing with malicious force, "I DRAGGED YOUR WORTHLESS CIVILISATION OUT OF THE DIRT BEFORE IT TORE ITSELF APART, AND GAVE YOU THE MEANS TO RULE IT. YOU WOULD STILL BE A UNIMPORTANT, MINOR PAIN-SERVANT WERE IT NOT FOR ME. DO NOT _DARE_ TO THINK YOURSELF AS AN EQUAL TO ME!"

The manifestation of Tradax's ally then faded back to its normal size, and the pressure in the Welkalite's mind eased slightly.

"It seems you are incapable of detaining even Lucerna _children,_" he hissed, pacing towards the huddled form of the Master of Rapture, who had been degraded to pleading, sobbing sentences that made no sense in his terror. "I have no more use for you."

"Please!" Tradax begged, pressing himself further back into the wall in an attempt to make himself look as small as possible – had he been an observer, he would have laughed at the irony of the Master being reduced to doing what the poor Enforcer he had just killed had done.

"However," the dark lord sneered, and hope flared for a second in Tradax's mind, "I was originally going to punish you myself, but the purifying fire of my brother's vengeance will be an ample substitute."

"You can't just lea-" Tradax was about implore with the man, but the communion had been forcefully ended, leaving him sat in the room alone. His ally was right. Marik would want revenge for the killings of innocent Lucaelians and the abduction of his sons, and Tradax's face twisted into a leer. He would show the bastard brothers by repelling the legions of Lucael from Welkas, proving to all whom the greater nation was, who the better leader was. _Now is my chance to finally obtain glory and truly overthrow Redhand!_

.*.*.*.

Alexander's vacant eyes drifted away from Aksua's hypnotising beauty as a pillar of pure and incandescent light pierced through the cloud of gloom a few metres back, and the vampire scowled when a huge shaft of White mana shot towards her. She sidestepped and then flipped to the left to avoid being annihilated, but in the process losing her connection with the older Lucerna. That was irritating, but she and Nocturon had plenty more tricks up their sleeves. She _would _feast on this day.

The second the beam of radiance hit Alexander, the light became golden and more comforting, illuminating the boy in a warm glow that jolted his mind back into action, breaking it free of Aksua's charm. He shuddered as he recalled how close the vampire had been to him, and burning guilt pushed its way into his mind as he realised that he had left his little brother alone and undefended.

"Alex, are you alright?" Cai demanded, suddenly stepping next to him and shaking his brother, hoping that Alexander wasn't still stuck in Aksua's deadly allure and would be able to help him in the fight. He needed Alexander to be unharmed, and relief streaked through his body as the older boy grinned at him and ruffled his mop of brown hair, a reassuring and brotherly gesture through all of the desperate violence. Aksua cocked her head to one side and smirked at the two boys, re-Summoning Nocturon with noticeably more power this time, drawing deep into her wells of mana.

"Don't worry little bro, the bitch hasn't got me yet," he winked as the vampire scowled with mock offence. "How rude. And here I was thinking we were making progress." her sibilant words did little to hide the primal hunger suffused into every syllable, and a sensation of fear rose unbidden in Cai's mind. He realised then that Aksua had just been toying with them, but also how much she longed to drain them – every fibre of the vampire's being was thirsty for their blood, a craving that could only be satiated with their deaths – or Aksua's. Activating the Lens of Guilt confirmed these suspicions, the vampiress' body a pulsating mass of primeval desire and huge quantities of mana as yet unused.

"Big brother, can you distract her for a moment?" he inquired, automatically keeping his voice low although he knew vampires had the ability to detect sounds for ridiculous distances away. Alex narrowed his eyes, a quizzical expression forming on his handsome features, and Aksua watched intently, making no move to disrupt their strategizing. After all, she could hear whatever they were saying, so it didn't really matter that she gave them time to talk; adversely it would be fun to have a challenge once in a while. Besides, Aksua wasn't cruel (or so she thought), and allowing the brothers to spend a moment together before she killed them wouldn't be the worst, so instead she sat on a nearby rock and stretched her legs out.

"Why? What are you planning?" Alex asked back, his eyes darting back and forth between his little brother and the vampire, who smiled indulgently and occasionally winked flirtatiously at the older boy, making his blood boil as a sick feeling wormed through his gut. "I'm going to Summon Orzhova. Trust me on this, we need an angel to defeat her."

"Ok, I'll try," he said, pacing slowly away from his brother and towards their opponent. A sudden feeling of guilt pressed itself through the boy's mind, an emotion that he didn't often feel but one had spontaneously erupted in his brain, and with it an urge to pull Alex back and just hug the older boy, press his head into Alex's chest and let his big brother protect him from Aksua's desire to feed. He swiftly flattened the emotions, identifying the need of his brother as his fear talking and deciding that fear was an emotion not worthy of a Lucerna's time. Instead he focussed on the hatred, the dark resentment of the vampire who threatened to tear him apart from Alexander, and mixed with his detestation of the abyss that ripped his loving and kind mother away from him, aiming it all at Aksua.

For the first time, made easier by the Lens of Guilt already being active, Caiellis conjured up Black mana first in his Summoning ritual, contrails of pure night swirling around him as the birthmark on his cheek shone with unholy force. Alexander felt his brother's magic level rise hugely, and remembered that this would be the first time he would see the kid's Summoning without his own active, making Orzhova seem that much more deadly. Determined not to be outdone, the seventeen year old ignored his fatigue and allowed flames to wrap around his fists, rage fuelling his Red mana as the vampiress beckoned languidly at him, a sweeping gesture that made it seem like Alex was doing this of his own free will, instead of the brothers being attacked by her.

He leapt at the woman, launching a barrage of fiery strikes that obliterated the rock Aksua had been sat on, as the vampire had launched high into the air and fired shards of darkness that screeched through the air and shattered viciously on a shield of mana the teenager instinctively raised to protect himself. One pierced through his enchantments and dug into his arm, and the boy grimaced as it stuck into him. Blood spurted out from the wound, and he felt debilitating curses run through his veins.

The bitch had chosen the perfect time to challenge the boys – not close enough to Civitas Sol to have any chance of receiving help, but far enough into their escape that both boys were tired and less aware, becoming slightly more complacent after hours of travelling – had Alex been able to fully access his magic, he would have been able to purge the ailments and continue on with the fight, but now he had to contend with the full power of the vampire alone and the fact that his body was beginning to shut down. _If I can just hold on to when Caiellis has Summoned..._

"Feeling sleepy, handsome?" Aksua's lullaby voice drifted lullingly through his ears, the charm seemingly amplified by the negative enchantments she had inflicted upon him, and Alex tried to bring his arms up to defend himself but the limbs felt like they were being dragged through tar. He was powerless to block a leaping kick that lashed into his body with tremendous force, breaking a few ribs and sending him sprawling. He tried to stifle a cry of pain but when Aksua materialised out of the shadows and slammed her fist into the exact same spot as the kick, he couldn't halt the shout of agony.

"You only have to be conscious for me to savour you properly, subduing you is not a problem," the vampire purred, sliding onto the floor next to him and raking sharp nails down his side before blending back into her horror and emerging couple of metres away, shuddering in hunger when the succulent blood began to flow out, "Besides, I like my prey to be alive and kicking when I feed."

Meanwhile, Caiellis, who was about to complete his Summoning ritual, heard his brother's shriek of anguish. Rage poured through his mind, the need to protect his older brother fuelling his mana – the emotions sustaining the Black, combined with the already present hatred of the abyss and its residents, started to become darker, more sinister, as his loathing of Aksua increased the magnitude of energy he was releasing, Black completely equalling White in power.

A bolt of panic lanced through Aksua's mind as she picked up on the surge of mana that was coming from the youngest prince, abruptly realising that she was nowhere near strong enough to combat that – the boy's dark angel would be created in reality with a ludicrous magical strength, and Aksua would rather not have to deal with Orzhova, the personification of light and darkness far too formidable to handle with the amount of mana Caiellis was currently pouring into her. A gargantuan sphere of pulsing golden and onyx made her mind ache, so she decided that she would end the boy's Summoning now – using this technique would be incredibly risky, and leave her extremely vulnerable to attack, but it was better than having to contend with the Angel of the Black Sun.

As the hymnals emitted from the Black Sun reached a crescendo of noise and a sensation of absolute ascendancy caused Caiellis to want to laugh maniacally, Aksua growled and wrenched out mana from inside herself, blasting Nocturon towards the boy and tearing her arms open. As the stolen blood poured onto the ground, she infused Black mana into it and shrieked the forbidden words of a demonic spell, the inhuman syllables splitting her lips apart as a sticky, smoke-like substance belched out of her mouth. It mixed with Nocturon as he shot towards the vulnerable youngest Lucerna, and Alex shouted a pained warning as the horror sped towards his little brother. He tried to move, to drag himself along the floor and help the younger boy, but a sharp pain erupted in his back and he cried out.

Caiellis reopened his eyes, ready to fight as Orzhova's gauntlets reached out of the Black Sun, but blinked in startled shock as a mass of tendrils smashed through his guard and wrapped around him. _No!_ He desperately released mana all around him, feeling confusion and alarm thrust itself to the forefront of his mind as his vision was cut off, and tried to force the shadows away from him. A nauseous, sinking sensation subsumed his consciousness, and Cai felt himself drifting away into a deep darkness.

_No! Stop, I need to help Alex! No! Stop, Alex needs me!_ The panicked thoughts rushed together in a jumble of terror in the boy's mind as he realised that he was the only one that would be able to aid his injured big brother, and now he was being ripped away. He screamed and pounded at the darkness that was consuming him, intense and incandescent light having little effect on the midnight veil. His power levels began to decrease as his body began to shut down, and the last thing Caiellis heard was himself whimpering the name of his older brother. He felt tears roll down his face until even that stimulus faded away.

"You bitch! What have you done to him?!" Alexander demanded, invigorated by the torment imposed upon his little brother by Aksua's horror-creature. Volcanic fury exploded inside of him as he heard Caiellis speaking his name and crying, the black shadows wrapped around the youngest Lucerna obstructing his sibling's vision of him. A huge swell of mana pulled him to his feet, and before his rage-fuelled mind could process what was going on his wounded body was already charging towards the vampire.

"Ah ah aah!" the woman enunciated mockingly, wagging her slender fingers and stepping to avoid Alex's lunge, the spot she had been on demolished by a detonation of magma. "I have control of the situation here."

At a gesture, Nocturon pulsed away from Caiellis, the formless body of the Summoning now dancing around the fragile boy, who looked as if he was standing in a dream-state. As Alex was about to attack again, she made a viscous chopping motion and smiled vindictively as a gloom-tendril encircled Cai's thin left arm and twisted it at a painful angle. Alex heard the bone snap and took the hint, lowering the amount of mana he was releasing when the younger by cried out in pain, though didn't make any move to remove the tentacle wrapped round his arm.

"Alright, I get it. Stop hurting him and I won't fight." Alex's voice took on a resigned tone, powering down the last vestiges of his mana as the vampiress smiled widely, her expression the epitome of atavistic hunger. If there was a choice between which prince was hurt, Alexander would choose himself every single time, and while Aksua attacked him Caiellis would hopefully be able to break out of the abyss-dweller's hexes. _Come on little brother, I need you here!_

"Now we can enjoy ourselves without that irritating child interrupting," Aksua purred, her brown orbs glinting with avarice and the need to gorge.

"And don't worry about dear Caiellis. He won't be coming back to reality any time soon, not after what Nocturon has in store for him."

.*.*.*.

King Marik Ensis Lucerna tapped his steel-clad fingers on the desk that had been donated to him by Hierarch Aretis when him and his elite guards took up residence in the City of the Sun after he had returned from the disastrous trip to the Scholaria Magnus. The methodical _clack_ of the armour against the mahogany table clearly emphasised how uncomfortable the man was feeling – how could any father relax when their children were abducted?

After returning to the landing beach, he had "appropriated" the Yentarian Airship for his own purposes, informing the Isakian diplomat Pasko that the vehicle would now be utilised by the Kingdom of Light. Before he, the Capitalia Lux Light-bearers, his royal guards and Jenna embarked for the journey back to Lucael, the party was confronted by two Lucaelian students that Marik recognised as the twins of his favoured general Carlis Montlea. The boy's face was contorted with rage, and while the girl had hidden her anger better it still seethed through her skin, present in her actions.

"_We want to fight!"_ the young man declared, to which his sister scowled and added a belated: "_My lord."_

She had informed him that the two noticed the Welkalites taking Caiellis and Alexander away from the Scholaria Magnus, and judging by the awful bruise on the youngest's throat they had been abducted with the unparalleled bargaining chip of the king's precious youngest son's life. At first he would have been against taking them away from the academy and thrusting them into the war (or "crusade" he preferred to think of it as) he was going to start against the Empire of Passion, but when he saw the fire in their eyes he couldn't refuse – the tipping point was when the girl had sensed his reticence and told the monarch that they would be eighteen in six (five now) days anyway, so were to all intents and purposes adults. The children of Carlis clearly cared about his sons, and Marik would have felt a warm feeling of parental pride if not for the unflinching rage and regret coursing through his brain.

They now sat with their father and mother, who was a formidable High Priestess, in the strategy room, discussing the best Welkalite cities to strike simultaneously with Usnaan, or to just leave the other settlements alone and focus solely on retrieving the royal heirs, with Guardians Oleic and Tristram and Hierarch Aretis along with a slew of other Civitas Sol commanders. The main problem with launching a strike this early would be that the king would not be able to mobilise the full extent of the Lucaelian military, but the garrison of Civitas Sol along with himself and two extra Capitalia Lux Light-bearers should be able to overcome the soldiers of the Welkalite capital and rescue the boys, but every second Marik waited was a second that his children could have been killed or worse.

Normally Tybalt would have admonished the king, telling him that his constant noise-creating wasn't going to solve anything (Marik had done that even when he was a child trying to solve a problem the then-teacher had set for him), but like most of the people in the expansive room he shared the man's agitation. Him, along with Tristram, considered the brothers as their own children, and as technically they had spent more time with them than with their own father, he had plenty of excuses to worry. He was sure that these Lucernas were taking years off his lifespan. _Why didn't just become a librarian or something peaceful instead? _Tybalt thought, only half jokingly. He had often pondered the question in the civil war, wondering how his life had come to this and how he had become so important, but now he knew he didn't have enough time left to think about his regrets.

However, there were many positives to being as old as he was – he had been able to see King Marik grow from a youthful, thin and timid prince into one of the most confident and successful Lucernan kings, and the man's young sons were beginning to become adults themselves, though he doubted Caiellis would ever stop referring to him or Tristram as "Uncle". The boy's affection was cute and welcomed, but Tybalt wished that the youngest Lucerna would be able to show the same love to Marik that he did towards the Hierarch. At least their relationship had improved over the course of the month after the end of the civil war, which at the start of Cai never engaged his father in conversation, which however was mostly due to the man's harshness and the almost fanatical devotion the thirteen year old attributed to attempting to passing his Summoning.

Tybalt silently chastised himself, he often thought far too much about Caiellis and not enough about his other student, the bright but mostly uninterested Alexander who would much rather be with Tristram participating in physical training. At least he had readily accepted Marik more, but then again the king had no reason to be critical of the older boy. Tybalt assured himself that at least Cai would be alright if his older brother was with him, but since the teenager had a tendency to through himself in front of blows targeted at his fragile sibling, he wouldn't be surprised if the boy returned with a few scrapes from constantly trying to protect his little brother.

It was sweet that he went that far for the younger boy, although there had been lots of past occasions where Cai had saved his older brother, normally by healing him but more rarely by destroying threatening enemies. Tybalt had to remind himself that Cai could now be a killing machine now that he had unlocked the Angel of the Black Sun, as while White mana mixed protective enchantments with offensive force to ensure the survival of the wielder and their allies, Black was much more aggressive and prone to strike first. Mixing the two would be hard, but Tybalt had faith in his littlest student.

_Here I go again, thinking about Caiellis,_ Tybalt admonished, though he supposed that someone had to do it in a positive light apart from the boy's brother. In the kingdom, Alexander was definitely the favourite, stemming from the citizens' natural abhorrence of dark magic and the fact that the older prince was more charismatic and confident. Of course both princes and their father were still loved by the public, feeling great outrage when they were abducted, but it was hard not to think of the smaller adolescent as the inferior. Maybe Cai would be able to prove that they were both equal.

Marik's loud gasp punctuated the ancient Hierarch's thoughts, abruptly snapping him out of his reverie.

"My lord?" Aretis inquired, standing up out of the plump chair he was reclining on and joining the other occupants of the strategy chamber in running to the monarch's side. The man clutched the side of his head in what Tybalt assumed was pain, consternation clouding his sculpted features as he squeezed his eyes shut.

"My lord, what is happening?" the Civitas Sol Hierarch asked again, his voice taking on a pleading tone and Tybalt glared at him, commanding: "Be silent boy! The king has detected something."

As if to prove his words correct, Marik reopened his eyes, the blue orbs filled with a cold determination that made the Hierarch's heartbeat quicken. He had seen that expression in the king's eyes before when they truly discovered that Johnias had betrayed Lucael and had ordered the assassination of Emili, running as fast as he could to the nursery, and it brought a great sense of foreboding to the forefront of the old man's mind.

"Servants of Lucael. My sons are in the abyss. I just felt Caiellis's mana out there, piercing the darkness before being overwhelmed by it again. I can pinpoint his exact location, and while I do not know what is happening I know that with certainty Alexander will be at his brother's side." Marik explained, his tone clipped, professional and urgent. That relieved Tybalt slightly, as at least this time the king wasn't desperate. "I do not know whether Caiellis did that to try and contact us, or whether they are fighting, but we go at once to them."

He began to stride out of the room, his limbs suffused with fresh purpose now that he knew his boys had escaped the clutches of the Welkalites (or at least got out of the empire) but he also realised that they were in the dangerous darkness outside of Civitas Sol and would probably need help.

"How are we going to get to them?" he heard Carlis's son, Leodred if he could recollect, ask loudly, and though the question was not directed at him the king spun around.

"We go to my sons by Airship," he replied, and Leo blinked in surprise at Marik himself directly answering his inquiry, "You and your sister stay here with your mother and father. The ship can only take so many occupants, and I mean no offence, especially to Carlis, but I would rather have my Light-bearers at my side at the moment. Rest assured you will be able to see Alexander and Caiellis later. Ave lux"

"Of course, my lord. Ave lux," the general replied, wrapping an arm around his son's shoulders, the boy looking as if he was going to object. Marik nodded briefly and then swiftly set off again, glad that Tristram had had the foresight to continue on while the king was slightly delayed to ensure the Airship was ready to launch by the time Marik got there. The Yentarian scientists had installed machinery on the vehicle that allowed, through the application of intellectual Blue mana, for anyone to learn the spells required to pilot the vehicle. He hoped his sons were alright, though every parental instinct he had screamed towards them being hurt – the flash of mana that Caiellis sent out had no doubt been cancelled, otherwise the youth would have kept it going.

_Alexander, Caiellis, I'm coming. Maybe I will finally be able to do something as your father._

.*.*.*.

_Caiellis's eyes snapped open, the remnants of the dream slowly fading from his sight as he sat up in the plumb bed, pushing the soft covers off him. He checked the time on the ornate but not ostentatious watch next to him on the cabinet to the left of his bed – 07:02._

Wait, what? Why am I here? What is going on? _The boy thought, jumping off the bed and forcing his tired limbs into action. _What the hell is happening? Where is Alex?_ Caiellis remember__ed__ desperate fighting, although he c__ouldn__'t recall who it was against, or what exactly was taking place, but he kn__ew__ for certain that his older brother need__ed__ help. Why, then, __was__ he back in his bedroom in __Capitalia Lux__?_

"_Aren't you going to check for sunlight?" __a voice, female and full of affection, strangely familiar but yet still unknown to Caiellis, rang out, and the boy turned around to see a girl, around his age but still a bit older, giggling and stepping out of the doorway and into Cai's room proper._

"_Who are you?" the prince __demanded__, his expression instantly becoming guarded and White mana flowing out of his limbs, taking up a combat posture._

"_What do you mean, Cai?" the girl asked, taken aback as if he had asked a ridiculous question. The boy sternly repeated his inquiry, flashing the mana for effect, and the girl, taller than him by a few inches, took a step back and raised her hands._

"_Calm down, Caiellis! I'm Hollie, remember?" she grinned at him, her grey-blue eyes half-masked by a fringe of dazzling __silver/white__ hair. She wore a white gown, making Caiellis recall with a jolt that he was still in his pyjamas, __and she confidently walked towards him, and though he didn't lower his guard of mana Cai felt uncertainty cloud his mind. Who was this girl? She obviously wasn't a threat, nor was she scared by his usage of magic, and when she looked back into his eyes she sighed emphatically. "Hollie Otium Lucerna! Your cousin?"_

_When Hollie noticed that the veil of confusion hadn't lifted, she ignored the younger boy, brushing past the stunned Caiellis and opening the curtains._

_Confused and irritated, Cai turned around, about to announce that he had no cousins, but when he met the eyes of his reflection the Lucerna froze. His appearance, __a youthful-looking pale boy with high cheek-bones and dark green eyes shrouded by messy brown hair __staring back, his __large__ and expressive orbs opened __wide in shock, was the same – apart from one thing. Instead of an ominous reminder that Caiellis was a pariah within Lucael, host to the cause of the largest cataclysm in the kingdom's history, __the black stain on his cheek was replaced by an elegant symbol of a silver collar. _That meant that Or-... Why can't I think of her name? All that comes to mind is the Angel of the Black Sun, but I **know** her name. I can't have just forgotten it...

_Caiellis looked deep inside of his mind, panic flooding through it when he couldn't visualise the dark angel or her residence in the Mind Realm, and he suddenly resolved to go to whatever his Mind Realm was._

"_Not sunny, as usual. That's not fair, when are you ever going to get to see the sun?" Hollie tutted and turned to her cousin, his pupils diluted in shock. She shook his skeletal shoulders and then realised that for whatever reason he had chosen to visit his First Sisterhood angel._

_For the second time in whatever was going on, Cai's eyes snapped open and he jolted forwards, taking in the strange and unfamiliar place around him – a large cathedral surrounded him, a circular room with many stained glass windows and silver decorations surrounding it. When an otherworldly voice said his name, he spun around, greeted by the sight of a large angel – Caiellis recognised her as Avacyn, Angel of Hope from research he had done, and further bewilderment caused his mind to spin. Since when was Avacyn his Summoning? Since when did he have a cousin?_

"_Caiellis?" the angel asked again, her golden irises narrowing in concern. "Are you alright?"_

Focus, focus, _Cai told himself, repeating the mantra over and over in his head as he felt a sense of vertigo wash over him. He had started to breath faster, though not to the extent where he was hyperventilating, and his mind refused to work as it failed to process these new revelations. _Focus. What is important? Alexander. Your brother needs you. Find Alex.

_He dispelled the introspection, mentally tumbling out of the Mind Realm and landing with a nauseous lurch back into "reality", or whatever this place that was posing at it was._

"_What was that all about? Are you ok?" Hollie asked, her eyes portraying her amusement at the younger boy's antics. Cai had a hundred questions to ask, ranging from "How do I have a cousin?" to "What day is it?" but concentrated on the most pertinent one._

"_Where is Alex?" he questioned, figuring that he should be trying to locate his sibling and see if he was alright. The girl blinked for a moment, perplexed by the spontaneity of the request, and laughed._

"_He is in the room next door, asleep," she responded, taking a moment to peer down at the younger boy, worry prevalent in her blue eyes. "Though I doubt he is anymore after the racket you created."_

"_I'll go get your brother for you," she suggested after a few seconds after the boy didn't reply, his youthful and cute features still locked in an expression of startled stupefaction. She stepped outside of the room for a second and called her older cousin's name loudly, faced with an irritated and tired, "What?"_

"_Your brother needs you. Badly," she stated back, grinning when she heard the older boy launch into movement at the mere mention of his precious little brother. Although Alexander was protective of her, it was nothing in comparison to how he guarded his fragile and innocent little brother. Cai had been acting up, but hopefully the comforting form of his big brother would help._

_A drowsy looking Alex appeared after a few seconds, his blonde hair wild and still sticking up after being in bed, and Hollie beckoned over to the older boy. Together they walked back to Caiellis, who was still breathing fast, the breaths hitching in and out of his small chest._

"_Alex? How can you be here?" Cai asked, and Alex looked at him quizzically, to which Hollie added, "I don't know what's up with little cous-cous, he seems frightened and agitated, like when he was when we were in the civil war."_

"_Alright, little buddy, do you want to tell me what is going on?" Alex walked towards his brother and embraced him in a brotherly hug, feeling the smaller boy trembling._

"_I..I need to help you," Cai declared softly, trying to extricate himself from the older boy's embrace and push him away – whatever this was, it couldn't be Alex. There was no way. Yes, it felt and spoke like Alex, and yes, he still felt that warm and safe sensation in his mind when his big brother was around, but it still didn't remove the inkling that the older boy was it grave danger, despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary._

_Alexander shared a confused glance with his cousin and pulled Cai closer, overpowering his feeble resistance and resting his chin on the mop of brown hair atop his sibling's head. The younger boy began whimpering, sniffling and whispering, "I need to help you."_

"_What is going on in here?" a familiar man's voice interrupted them, and although the tone was stern it carried and undercurrent of affection and mirth._

"_Hey dad. Hi Uncle Marik," Hollie said the things consecutively, and Cai opened his eyes – he hadn't even realise that he squeezed them shut. He pulled away from Alex, who let him go, and gasped when a face pushed itself into his vision. It was his father's face, but in the same instance not – the tell-tale scar on the man's chin coupled with the four-pointed Star of Serenity on the top left of his forehead confirmed his identity, although Caiellis hadn't seen this person for nine years. Hatred coursed through his mind, a primal hostility that burned through the boy's veins._

"_Johnias," he growled, his voice filled with hatred and a potent resonance – it seemed that even with Avacyn as his Summoning, he still had a huge battery of mana to utilise, though it was solely devoted to White mana. "You traitorous bastard."_

_The man cocked his eyebrows confusedly, while another, angrier voice graced Cai's ears, "Caiellis, show some respect! How dare you address your uncle in such a way! I'm of the right mind to severely punish you for that"_

_Johnias waved away his brother's reprimanding admonishment of his son, ignoring the huge quantities of mana the boy was releasing in his very clear hatred and walking towards the boy. Alex, Hollie and Marik stepped back across the room, and Johnias asked: "Cai, what is wrong?"_

"_Little cous-cous has been acting strange all morning," Hollie cut in exasperatedly, shielding her eyes from the glare emitted by the younger boy, whose eyes were lit up in golden fury. Johnias chuckled quietly, and said: "Don't call him that, Hollie, he's only two years younger than you. Almost a man," he smiled and shared a conspiratorial wink with his favourite nephew (though he loved Alex and would never admit it to him), who glared back, his normally emerald orbs consumed with incandescent light. "Open up buddy. Share what's up."_

"_I have no words for traitors," he spat, continuing to glower at the man, who shrugged his shoulders, miffed. "Welp, if I'm a traitor than I'm definitely in the best place to betray the kingdom."_

"_Cai, Uncle Johnias isn't a traitor," Alex said in a reassuring big brother tone, making to move towards the younger boy but stopped when Johnias held up a restraining hand. "Why am I a traitor, Caiellis?"_

"_Are you seriously asking me that?!" Cai shouted, mana bleeding out of him and obliterating the carpeted floor around him, singing the purple fabric. "Yeah. Why am I a traitor? I want to know."_

_Cai didn't know why he felt compelled to answer the man, who wasn't using any magic or in any way reacting to the threatening form of his nephew, instead of striking him down in righteous vengeance._

"_Fine, I'll indulge you, for now. After my father became king, you plotted to overthrow him for many years, turning Crescia, City of Commerce, Vectura, City of Transportation and Epulaeous, City of Nourishment against Lucael," Cai's voice started shaking as he recalled the events that had ruined his childhood, "Then after that, you sent demons to kill me and my brother but only succeeded in," -deep breath- "Murdering our mother. Me and Alex had to flee Capitalia Lux, live our lives on the run from your demons as dad fought a civil war lasting nine years against you. When he finally won, you fled with your traitorous compatriots into the abyss, leaving Lucael and my father shattered." his voice became an accusatory shout, "Why did you do it? Was it jealously that your twin brother became king instead of you? WHY DID YOU DO IT? WE WERE HAPPY! WHY DID YOU KILL HER!?"_

_Johnias's mouth opened and closed in stunned shock, and Alex took that moment to shove past him and slam his little brother into the wall, gripping the boy's pyjama collar tightly and lifting him off his feet._

"_What the hell are you saying? Johnias never betrayed anyone – and he's the king, not dad! Yes, Vectura, Epulaeous and Crescia did rebel, allying with the forces of the abyss and striking the palace, forcing, me, you and Hollie to flee with Tybalt and Tristram – but the war only lasted five years!" he shouted into his paralysed brother's face, shaking him violently._

"_GET AWAY FROM ME!" Caiellis screamed, his normally soft and adorable voice full of pain none of them could understand, forcing Alex to drop him out of fear that he had hurt his little brother. He shut his eyes, crying and covering his face with his small hands, curling up into a ball avoiding the sea of concerned glances coming from what apparently was his family. _I want to leave! I want to leave! I want to leave! I-

_A hand, slender and gentle, was placed on his shoulder, and calming energy flowed through his body, dispelling the conflicted emotions battling for supremacy in his mind. He tentatively removed his hands, his green eyes still puffy from the tears, and was met with something that once again made his breath catch in his throat. There, smiling lovingly down at him, was his mother. The pale purity of her face, just how he remembered it from his childhood but perhaps very slightly older, brought fresh tears to his eyes, although this time they were tears of happiness. She was alive, his mother was alive! The nurturing, comforting, loving, perfect woman that was ripped away from Caiellis when he was four years old was hear in front of him, and he pressed his head into her stomach, sniffling loudly._

"_Shhh, Caiellis. Everything is going to be alright," she soothed, the perfection of her words sending shudders of contentment he thought he was incapable of experiencing any more down his spine. "I'm not going anywhere."_

"_And I'm not going to betray Lucael," Johnias added, sitting beside his nephew and sister in law, and smiling as his wife also entered the room. "I promise."_

"_Yeah, sorry about earlier," Alex said abashedly, also depositing himself behind his younger brother and stroking his hair, Hollie and Marik also making their presence known to help comfort Caiellis, the latter muttering, "You're not five, get out of your mother's arms and be a man."_

"_Don't be mean, Marik," Emili chastised, and both husbands and wives laughed._

I could stay here, _Caiellis thought as another wave of cheerful delight washed through him. _I'm not hated or feared, and I no longer have to deal with Black mana. Uncle Johnias isn't a traitor, I have a cousin that loves me, dad isn't consumed with grief and mum is still alive.

And most of all, _he thought, glancing up at his big brother, who winked encouragingly and poked him on the nose, laughing merrily at his blink of surprise,_ Alex is ok. And I'm happy.

* * *

_Originally I was going to conclude the battle between the boys and Aksua in this chapter, but considering how long it took to write this (sorry about that) and how many words I used, I think it would be better done at the beginning of the next chapter and that to follow on in the same instalment. Sorry for the cliffhanger :P I probably won't get another chapter out before (though I'm hoping to finish the next before 2015), so Merry Christmas, and thank you for following my story so far!_


	16. The Price You Pay

_Disclaimer – some readers might find this slightly disturbing, but it shouldn't be anything a teenager can't handle. Just thought I'd put that out there. _

_I listen to music when I write, and I have a playlist on Youtube that I have on shuffle – I like to believe that the songs influence the writing. While I was writing the scene with Aksua and Alexander, the Final Fantasy 13 Sunleth Waterscape theme started playing, which is one of the most cheerful things I have ever heard. I just found it ironic that I was writing this scene of disturbing violence to the light and cheerful background of that. :P _

_Actually, on that point I've been trying to think of a song or theme that relates to each of my main characters, but I can't quite think of one for Alexander or Marik. Any suggestions?_

"What have you done to Caiellis?" Alex demanded again, taking a fearful step back towards his little brother despite himself, his blue eyes still locked in place with Aksua's chocolate spheres. The vampire paced slowly closer to him, languidly tensing and releasing her muscles in anticipation of her meal. It didn't feel right to Alexander to just let her do this to him – every instinct he had screamed for him to fight back, but at the same time he didn't want his little brother to be hurt more, and there was a possibility that the boy would be able to break out of whatever Aksua's Summoning was doing to him, so he was stuck.

The woman licked her lips, feeling the weary young man in front of her about to succumb to her charm once again. She didn't have much magical energy left after she used her most powerful spell on Caiellis, but was still in possession of her supernatural speed and strength. Aksua thought it had been worth it to subdue the boy – his dark angel would have been too strong to deal with, and now with him out of the equation Alex was all hers.

After that, she would feed on the younger boy, although the thought of it left a slightly bitter taste at the back of her mouth that was soon subsumed within the desire to gorge on this boy's blood, to find out if it really was as exquisite as it was said to be. Killing children never sat well with Aksua, although she had done it numerous times in the past – at least Alex was an adult now, and very attractive to boot, much like his father.

"Nocturon sent him to the realm of his deepest desires," Aksua giggled at the expression of outrage plastered on the adolescent's face, stepping closer to him as he inched backwards, batting her eyelids and intently observing how the boy's heart-rate quickened out of lust for her, pumping blood at an increased speed out of his wounds. "Give in, Alexander. You know you want to – Caiellis is happy," she whispered, though her words still reached Alex's ears, the alluring tone making him want to lower his defences, as she continued, "And I can make you happy as well, while you do the same for me. I can show you true pleasure, not the pathetic half-ecstasy Tradax and his over-indulged cronies blabber on about. I can make your inner dreams, your deepest desires," she shadow-stepped next to him, taking in the scent of his noble blood, feeling her plans finally coming to fruition, as she leaned in to the side of his head, her mouth inches from his ear, "Come true."

"I'm not entirely sure my deepest desires consist of becoming your meal," Alex smiled charmingly at her, as her features twisted into an annoyed scowl. Now that he had managed to steel himself and his little brother was in very real danger, he had been able to resist her charm. It wasn't going to work on him twice. "Besides, although you're very pretty, you're not my type – I prefer shyer girls to ones that hunt you from one nation to another."

Aksua shrieked in fury and backhanded him, the force of the blow sending Alexander spinning through the air as pain erupted on his cheek. Ouch. That would leave a painful bruise. He landed sprawled next to Caiellis, who was still trapped within Nocturon's dream-land, the shapeless horror still pooling around him.

It hissed threateningly at Alex's proximity, exposing several gnashing mouths full of bleached teeth and coalescing more prominently around the boy's younger brother, but otherwise made no move towards the middle Lucerna. Cai's eyes were still shut, but judging from his heightened breathing and occasional gasps and sobs the boy was under a lot of emotional strain. He wished he could come to his brother's aid, but Nocturon would just injure the kid more if he tried to help. It was up to Caiellis to free himself from the induced-unconsciousness, but the youngest Lucerna was very mentally strong so Alex probably wouldn't have to wait long. The boy's leg was still bleeding, the horror making no motion to stem the trickle of crimson liquid, and Alex shuddered when it finally hit him that if he fell too quickly, didn't allow his little brother enough time to escape from his mind then they would both die.

He scrambled back, focussing on the more immediate situation of trying to prevent Aksua from doing as much damage as she could before his brother reawakened – he didn't really want to rely on Cai, but Alexander could discern that at least the boy was putting up resistance considering the tension present in his body and the annoyed grunts he was making. _I just have to hold on..._

"You're going nowhere, handsome," Aksua purred seductively and leapt towards him, landing on top of the boy and knocking the air out of him. Her hands slid down his sides, and equal amounts of conflicting longing and disgust running through him as the vampire straddled him, the mere aura of her slowing his movements through a mixture of nauseating Black magic and her captivating allure.

The scent of the young man's blood and the heat of his skin was intoxicating, and Aksua grabbed Alexander's wrists, pressing them into the hard stone of the ground, completely overriding his feeble opposition – though the boy was physically very strong, he was weakened by his exhaustion, lack of mana and Aksua's debilitating curses, whereas the vampire was augmented by supernatural strength, her demonic gifts that grew in power due to her proximity to the abyss and her primal lust for his blood.

"I think a room in Civitas Sol would be more suitable...for what you've apparently got planned," Alex gasped out of the pain he felt – the vampire was sat on his broken ribs, grinding them against each other in flaring agony. She giggled and ran her claws down his sides once again, trying to take the time to savour the moment before she finally drank and moaning softly at the grunts of pain the teenager emitted. "Oh no babe. The darkness if fine, just me and you here, able to do whatever we wish – I know you want me, and we can visit the heights of pleasure together before you die."

"No...thanks," he managed to wheeze out as she increased the pressure on his chest, scraping his ribs against his lungs and making breathing a painful experience. Aksua cocked an eyebrow, the atavistic hunger in her eyes half-masked by a veneer of playful flirtatiousness, and she increased the intensity of her curses the dark magic sapping the boy of strength but ensuring that he was fully conscious for what was about to happen. "Oh, I see. Would you prefer it if little Caiellis joined in?"

"That's...disgusting," Alex half-growled, sincerely hoping that the bitch wouldn't drag his little brother into it. He definitely didn't want her violating the younger boy as well. "Luckily for you, baby, I completely agree. While he is cute, he's nowhere near as handsome or attractive as you, and he's way too thin for my tastes. I'd much prefer just you and me." Alex grunted in pain as she released one of his arms – he automatically went to swing at her, but when she wagged her finger and Cai started sobbing uncontrollably, he stopped. He tried to twist his head, to see what new torment was being inflicted upon his little brother, but the vampire held his cheek and forced him to look into her eyes. She lulled in a soothing voice: "Don't worry about your precious little brother, he's fine – for now. And I'm fully aware that you are trying to delay so that he can somehow escape from Nocturon's embrace, but rest assured there is no chance of that happening – once young Cai sees what I've got planned, he won't want to leave. Give in. You know you want to. Give in to me, and I'll make your last moments as pleasurable as possible."

"I...don't think so...bitch," he replied through gritted teeth, shaking his head vigorously as the vampire scowled. She slapped his across the face, bouncing his head off the ground in a sickening impact. The pumping of his heart, adrenalized by the panic he felt, was amplified in the vampire's head, becoming an addictive drumbeat that she could no longer ignore. Aksua abandoned the pretence of wanting to do anything else other than feed, and clamped her mouth round the wounds on his side. It was bliss. The blood pouring into her mouth was the most exquisite, the most _perfect_, thing she had ever tasted, and it took all of Aksua's self-control to not drain him dry right there – who knew when she would next get any Lucernas to savour?

Alex only just resisted the urge to vomit as he felt the vampire sucking the blood out of the cuts she had created, feeling his stomach churn at the revolting actions. _Caiellis please, you have to wake up! I need you, please!_ After a few seconds of greedily slurping on the vitae, Aksua pulled away, her mouth covered in the scarlet fluids and her pupils dilated in ecstasy.

"You taste as good as you look, pretty boy," she laughed, the beauty of the sound utterly at odds with the desperate situation, and then frowned as she noticed the boy's lips moving silently, pain flashing periodically over his sculpted but now deathly pale features. Aksua snorted derisively as she recognised the ancient syllables of the _Canticia __Luxia__, _the Lucaelian battle-hymn that was said to be written by the first monarch, King Matalis Ortus Lucerna, after the First Angel apparently told him it. Aksua didn't believe that for a second, and found it wonderfully ironic that in his pain the prince had resorted to mouthing that.

"No angels can save you from me," she whispered sensuously, noticing the effects of her enchantments slowly killing her victim. That was the thing about a vampire's bite – it didn't just extract blood from the target, but also afflicted them with a death-causing curse.

That was why vampires had always had to prey upon humans to survive, as they couldn't just abduct a few and then feast on them for many years because they would die, and the blood deteriorated a few minutes before that. Aksua knew she didn't have that long before her meal expired, judging by his pained breathing, pale skin and his eyes losing their blue lustre and becoming more faded. At least his blood was still crimson and pure, not oily and black, which meant she had a few more minutes to enjoy the sensation. And, by whatever gods may be out there, that sensation was rapturous. She would drink some more of the blood from other wounds, create some more, and then go for the jugular before the fluid became corrupted – it was still edible, but if she had wanted just edible then she could have attacked any random village and got it.

Alex moaned in pain as the vampire ripped off his shirt, sticking her teeth into his muscled flesh and biting hard. He could still feel the agony of the torment, but his mind was beginning to shut itself away from the reality of torture. He tried to fight it, reminding himself that his little brother still needed him, that he needed to stay awake to survive, but his battered psyche insisted that it was time to rest.

"Caiells..." he whimpered, and his head lolled back – this time the vampire made no move to stop him from looking at his sibling. Despair ran through him when he saw his little brother's face – the boy was still crying, tears running unimpeded down his innocent features, but now instead of distress and pain a contented expression adorned his face, a happy smile that Alex knew hadn't properly graced his little brother since he was a small child – sure, he had been reasonably happy on numerous occasions in the past, especially around his big brother, but their mother's death and the civil war had left significant emotional scarring on both of the princes that neither wanted to confront. _Cai...please...help,_ he pleaded, too weak to say the words as his blood was drained from within him and dark curses began to travel through his bloodstream. _Please...little bro...big bro needs you..._

"Not too long now, beautiful," Aksua's soothing voice could be heard, indicating that she had finished feeding in that area, but Alex could no longer feel anything physical apart from a sensation of pain that encompassed his whole body, "On the bright side for you, at least you won't have to wait very long for your little brother after you leave."

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex noticed something strange, although he couldn't quite focus on it. He couldn't move his head from where his gaze was fixated upon his little brother, and blessed unconsciousness was beckoning him into its endless abyss, but Alexander knew he had to fight. Then suddenly, the vampire's tone changed. The middle Lucerna let out a guttural scream of suffering as Aksua conjured up a blade of pure shadow and vindictively rammed it through him with a fierce snarl of disappointment, all his other pain seemingly fading away in light of this new agony.

A wave of light pulsed over him, flinging the vampire across the abandoned village, where she landed elegantly on all fours and poised to face this new threat, he body tensed and ready to explode into action. A heavy impact cracked the ground next to Alex, who tried to move his head to see what it was.

"Everything is alright, Alexander," a harsh voice, brimming with righteous and cold anger but also coloured slightly with parental warmth, spoke, and Alex experienced an emotion that he hadn't in several years, one of safety knowing that his father was watching over him. "You can go to sleep now. I will deal with this bitch."

"Is that any way to address a former lover, Marik-Sweetie?" Aksua smirked flirtatiously, although underneath the masquerade of pleasantry was a burning rage at being interrupted.

The rush of addictive ecstasy she had felt as the Lucerna's blood pour through her was dissipating, replaced by a primeval longing that Aksua knew would consume her if she couldn't feed again soon. Despite being pulled away from her current prey, a greater opportunity had presented itself – instead of just two young Lucerna princes, the king of the entire nation had come to stop her.

And apparently, so had his lackeys, who were busy landing the Yentarian Airship a safe distance away before rushing to their king's aid, who himself had jumped out of the vehicle the second he saw his sons in danger, Summoning as he did so. The hated Angel of Wrath, Akroma, had appeared at the king's side, the seraph that had dealt her a near fatal blow the first time she had been close to fully feasting on a member of the royal family. Aksua knew it was stupid of her to fight, that she should just flee, but the lust to feed was too strong now to be overcome by any rational thought. Besides, even if she did try to leave she doubted that the king wouldn't hunt her down in his need for vengeance against what she had done to his sons, and she may never get a chance to drain a Lucerna again.

"It's been a while, Aksua," Alexander heard his father say, the man's voice distant like he was shouting it from a very large distance away, instead of stood protectively in front of him. He knew his father was right, that he should just let unconsciousness take him, but it went against all his instincts to let others protect him and not to help. The last thing he heard was: "Aren't you supposed to be dead, Sweetheart?"

"Despite how ridiculously big your angel's sword is, it was only a scratch," she shot back, moving closer to Caiellis now that Marik blocked her from the now inert Alex, smirking as she saw the man's countenance twist to become full of hatred – but more than just that, Aksua perceived a flash of disappointment clouding his furious blue eyes as they passed over the comparatively unharmed younger sibling, who still had that contented smile on his face. "It takes a lot more than that to get rid of me."

Marik felt sympathy war with bitter resentment when he looked at his youngest, still trapped in the vampire's dream-world – he himself couldn't really talk about resisting Aksua's charm, having let the vampire get close enough to almost kill him, but Cai had left Alex unguarded and the older brother had paid for it. He pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind – both his sons needed him to focus and slay the vampire once and for all, so there would be no room for distractions. He growled threateningly as Aksua ran her slender fingers through the mop of brown hair on Caiellis's head, her shadow-Summoning purring in delight as its mistress touched it.

"I feel a bit mean, actually," Aksua admitted, her tone full of sarcasm, "I've hurt Alex more than his mind can comprehend, but as I focussed all of my time on him I've not yet had the chance to _truly_ hurt little Caiellis yet, and now is as good a time as ever."

"Get away from him!" Marik shouted, though he felt the words were empty, and formed a selection of glowing swords from his pure White mana, flinging them at the vampire and trying not to hit his son with the magical blades. Aksua hissed in annoyance as she was forced to move away from the smallest prince to avoid being impaled, gracefully somersaulting out of the way of the swords as they sang through the air. She skulked to the side, recalling Nocturon as she realised that she would need all of her power to face the king head on. Anyway, after his failed Summoning the boy would have barely any mana to work with, and the abrupt disconnection from the realm of dreams that induced by her abyssal horror often left victims incredibly disorientated and nauseous – plus, Nocturon was vindictive and viscous, echoing its Summoning, so Aksua doubted the horror would leave the boy's mind peacefully.

.*.*.*.

_Caiellis smiled up at his family, feeling the warmth and love in their gazes and slowly erasing his memories of that other world – it must just have been some form of dream, but it had greatly scared the boy. Judging by the relief etched on his brother's features, who now looked at him affectionately, it had frightened them as well. Cai wasn't surprised – accusing his uncle of being a traitor, not remembering who his cousin was, thinking his mother was dead and insisting that Alex needed help would have alarmed him if the situation was reversed._

"_You had me scared for a second there, kiddo," Alex scoffed, punching him on the arm and being met by disapproving glares from Hollie and Emili, as Cai yelped in pain and massaged the limb. "What, it's not like that should hurt him."_

"_Don't be mean to little cous-cous, Alex," Hollie chastised childishly, grinning playfully at him and winking at her cousin, who blinked in bemusement, a child-like expression of confusion on his youthful face. Alex laughed at said: "I'm pretty sure you saying that is more annoying than me punching him in a brotherly manner."_

"_Don't be a hypocrite, Alexander," their mother laughed, making to stand up but sitting back down when Caiellis's little hands grabbed her arm tightly, not wanting his mum to leave. "You have thousands of nicknames for him, and not all of them are nice. Besides, when does Cai ever call you something other than you own name or big brother?"_

"_Never, but you don't understand, mum," Alex grinned mischievously, "You never had any siblings to torment," he said, plucking Cai from his mother's embrace and wrapping him in a painful arm-lock that restricted the boy's movements._

"_The kid has a point, Emili," Johnias added, patting Marik on the head as the other man sent him a glowering death-stare, "A big brother has the divine right to make his sibling's life a misery."_

_Caiellis laughed loudly at the look of pure irritation on his father's face, quickly silencing when the man glared back at him. Smiling evilly, he said: "I would like to discuss the nature of your punishment for the disrespect you showed to your uncle and king, young man."_

_The boy's face fell, recalling that he had acted with extreme hostility in the presence of poor Johnias, his uncle never having done anything to warrant his ire. His father was right, he deserved a punishment for his actions, and he made to kneel in front of his uncle before belatedly remembering that he was still in Alex's wrestling hold._

_Then, it started. A look of worry encapsulated his mother's features, and as his older brother released Caiellis he walked towards the woman, his apology forgotten._

"_Mum? You okay?" he inquired, starting to come to her side as he looked down at him, her eyes full of a saddening mixture of despair and horror. _

"_You aren't having him!" she screamed, the noise desperate and horrifying to Cai's ears, reminding him of a time when his mum had acted the same way. He froze. No, that couldn't be right. _Mum was never in that situation, me imagining her dying wasn't real – but I can think of it in so much detail...

"_Caiellis, stay where you are," the stern voice of his father broke through his shocked paralysis, panic flooding him as his image of a perfect family was beginning to shatter with his mother's desperate wailing. "What's happening to her?" he asked, about to tentatively take a step towards her._

"_I TOLD YOU TO STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" Marik bellowed, the sound full of fury, and fear crept up Cai's spine at the anger in his father's voice – it sounded like the man was going to hit him. "Alexander, get your brother. Now!"_

_Cai felt strong hands grab his thin biceps, roughly hoisting the boy off his feet as he flailed, trying to get to his distressed mum, who was starting to glow with a malicious light and reached out towards him. He reached out his own arm as Alex let go of that and instead wrapped an arm around his lower chest, pulling him away from the loving and nurturing woman. Their fingertips brushed together, and the instant they did so Emili shattered, shards of iridescent stained glass exploding from what was her body and launching themselves in all directions in Caiellis's bedroom. One of them hit him, but instead of slicing the fragile flesh of his leg open it passed straight through, glinting with malevolent twilight._

"_Mum! Mum!" he shrieked, batting futilely at his brother's muscular arm, his tiny fists not moving the limb at all. Tears ran down his face as the last trace of Emili faded away, and he turned his head to the rest of his family – shock was covering all of their features as well, coupled with a grim inevitability that made his heart race in panic and fear. "What's happening?!"_

_Johnias's wife went next, detonating in the same way as his mother – Cai remembered with a jolt that he never actually knew the woman's name, and now that she had gone he couldn't visualise her face either. Despite their loves dying before their eyes, Marik and Johnias didn't seem that concerned for them, but as their gazes landed upon Cai he felt a bleak determination in their blue eyes, a determination to protect him at all costs. "Dad? Uncle Johnias? What is going on?"_

"_Don't worry, Caiellis. We aren't going to let them take you," Johnias said, ruffling his hair fondly and smiling reassuringly at him, although none of that showed in his eyes. To which Marik added: "Your uncle is right. You are safe with-"_

_Cai shrieked in despair as both men cracked and smashed apart, shards of glass cascading to the floor where the two brothers were stood. More tears ran down his face, and he pressed his face into his hands. _No...Why? Why did this have to happen? I was happy... I don't want to to go! I don't want _them_ to take me!

"_I'm not letting you go," Alex declared, squeezing his little brother tightly to his chest, determined to protect the younger boy from what was occurring. Cai couldn't breathe the larger boy was hugging so tightly, the air fighting to get into his lungs, but then the pressure on his chest eased and he landed with a bump on the floor._

"_ALEX!" he screamed, desperately grabbing at the fragments of his big brother, as if collecting the glass would allow him to rebuild the older boy, rebuild the illusion of happiness, but when his thin fingers touched the pieces they broke apart even more, millions of tiny shards cover the carpeted floor until even they dissolved into nothingness._

"_Alex..." he whimpered, scrunching up his hands into fists and punching the floor in anger, something he had never done before. Caiellis had never released his anger in a violent manner, instead directing it inwards where it festered and turned instead into self-loathing. That, or having a shouting match with someone, most likely his big brother. His big brother. The one who was gone. The feeling of warmth that had started when Hollie first called Alexander into the room and persisted even through the members of his perfect family shattering into pieces disappeared, and Caiellis was left feeling hollow as the rest of the room exploded around him, plunging him and his cousin into an abyss of darkness twinkling with the light of stars._

_He didn't know how they were floating, or where they were – they were defying the laws of physics that he knew of, they should have been falling, not sat in the same position as earlier. Then it finally hit him – it wasn't real. None of it was. The dream Caiellis had had earlier was reality, and the truth of that made him want to scream out in agony. Then that begged the question – who – or what – was Hollie? Cai looked at the girl, who gave a sad smile back and shook her head, before splintering into the slivers of crystal, following the fate that had befallen the rest of his "family". Her face was erased from his memory, as well as her name, but Cai would never forget the perfect family he had created in his mind._

.*.*.*.

Caiellis was thrust into an uncaring and harsh reality, stumbling forwards and slamming face-first into the ground. He tried to get up, the events of the day flooding back to him in painful clarity, but as he tried to use his left arm to push himself to his feet agonising pain erupted in the limb, making him gasp at the blossoming torment. He couldn't remember being injured in that area, but then he reasoned that anything could have happened while he was trapped in the dream realm. _Stupid! _Caiellis thought harshly, huge quantities of disappointment and guilt vying for control in his mind, but the prince removed them quickly.

Alex needed help; his brother must have taken the brunt of the vampire's wrath while he was stuck in happy-fantasy-land enjoying himself. Cai mentally cursed himself for letting his already exhausted brother go alone against the vampire, and used his right arm to hoist himself up, heavily favouring that side of his body as he already was aware of the damage to his leg. He found it both ironic and pathetic that he was busy worrying about minor wounds like these when his brother was in need of help, and, gritting his teeth, ignored the pain and made to get back to his feet, swiftly noting the position of his weapon, only a few metres to the left.

Caiellis wished he knew how long he had been comatose – the dream had only lasted about ten minutes at most, but that length of time didn't necessarily translate to the amount elapsed in reality – even so, ten minutes was an awfully long period to be left alone against a covetous and formidable vampiress. The boy lifted his head up, about halfway to standing up, and his breath caught in his throat.

"Alex!" the word rose unbidden from his mouth in a half-scream, half-gasp, and Caiellis felt like he wanted to vomit when his eyes landed on his older brother. He started to hyperventilate, panic and despair forcing his limbs into action. Alex was in a bad state. Cai could see that from here, the older boy covered in his own blood with numerous viscous wounds predominantly covering his chest. There were four men stood defensively next to his brother, two of them half-kneeling and pouring purifying White mana into the older boy, but it still didn't ease Cai's mind.

He cried out a choked sob of anguish and stumbled towards the position of the older boy. Huge fat tears, their size increasing as if they gorged upon his despair, rolled down the boy's cheeks, crackling with coruscating purple force when they touched the malignant birthmark of the Black Sun. Alexander looked dead; the teen's eyes squeezed shut as tears of his own spilled down his deathly pale face, although he was still locked within a painful unconsciousness, whimpering in pain and breathing heavily – _at least that means he is still alive_, the rational part of Caiellis's brain quipped before it's pragmatic voice was drowned in another wave of sorrow. _This is all my fault..._ Cai thought as his body was wracked by another sob, his mind unable to process his brother being as injured as he was – while he had seen the older boy wounded in the past, often having to patch up the more reckless teenager himself, none of them had ever been life-threatening.

Caiellis started to run closer, powerless to think about anything else but his brother, and tripped when he put weight on his wounded leg. A pair of gauntleted hands prevented his headlong fall, and Cai found his face buried in soft fabric covering a breastplate of hard metal instead of the ground. Tears blurred his vision, and the youngest prince tried to shove the person holding him away and continue on his quest to reach Alex's side, but a firm grip impeded his frantic movements and stopped him from harming himself further, one large arm hooked under his legs and the other wrapped around his back.

"Shh, Cai, everything is going to be fine," Tristram comforted, lightly stroking the boy's back and repeating the words over and over as small fists pounded at his armoured chest. After a few seconds of frustrated resistance, Caiellis stopped trying to remove the immovable object of the Guardian and pressed his face into the fabric, alternating between weakly crying his brother's name and sobbing. Tristram then said again, "Cai, your father is here fighting with Aksua, and Uncle Tybalt and Hierarch Aretis are healing your brother," he decided not to add that the older boy was in critical condition and desperately needed a medical facility, Cai would already be aware and he didn't want to frighten the young boy further, "So everything will be alright."

Caiellis wanted to scream that _"No, everything is not alright you idiot! My brother is going to die, and it's all my fault!" _But he knew that it wasn't Tristram's responsibility for the failure, and that the man was trying to calm him down. He just wished that his elders would stop trying to tell him that the situations in his life were fine when they clearly weren't. Only Alexander and his mum had ever been able to successfully pull that off with him. He wiped his eyes, his chest still hitching up and down and still wracked with stifled but still anguished mewls, and looked up into the stern face if the Guardian, who flashed a quick smile at the prince.

Tristram had heard the boy calling for his brother, spotting him waking up from his unnatural slumber and staggering towards them while the other Light-bearers were either too fixed on the stricken older prince or their battling monarch, who slowly paced around the abandoned village square that they had found the sons of Marik in, Aksua mirroring his actions like they were orbiting a common centre of fated gravity. Caiellis was pale, his leg was bleeding profusely onto the ground and his left arm was bruised painfully, twisted at an awful angle, but obviously the kid had ignored his own wounds in his need to get to Alexander. The ghost of a purple contusion still lingered on Cai's thin throat, the faded evidence of Tristram's shame in not being able to stop the abduction of the princes, a reminder that is was the boys' protectors' fault that Alex was now horribly injured.

"Is...is Alex going to be ok?" Cai asked, stammering the words in his panic and needing to get to his brother's side. The boy already knew the answer to the question, so instead Tristram ignored it, not wanting to lie to him but also not wanting to fracture the prince's delicate mental state even more. "Kiddo, I'm just going to do a temporary job on your wounds, then you can see your brother, ok?"

Caiellis nodded slowly, still trembling, a look of confusion briefly creasing his face (which looked incredibly young in the golden light of the Hierarchs' healing) as if he was only just remembering that he himself had also suffered injuries as well. It then turned into a pout when he came to the conclusion that this was just a further delay to ensuring Alexander was safe, and he deserved the pain anyway.

Tristram conjured up a small light, both so that he could better analyse the abuse the younger boy had suffered and aid in the nullification of the pain, although his healing magic was nowhere near strong enough to repair even minor cuts. He knew that Caiellis wasn't thinking clearly, the trauma of seeing his brother in that much danger slowing down his mental functions, otherwise he would have rejuvenated himself before getting to Alexander. The poor kid probably blamed himself for what happened, and while that was not entirely true Cai was partly at fault, but almost definitely not to the extent that he was beating himself up over.

The Guardian stifled a gasp when he saw just how much blood Caiellis had lost – yes, Alex had sustained heavy damage that was far more destructive than his little brother's, but that still didn't make the wounds look any better. He ripped off the cloth adorning the front of his breastplate with the entwined sigils of Capitalia Lux and the Blade of Wrath, creating a makeshift bandage around the boy's gushing calf. The man knew that wouldn't last long, and wished Marik would hurry up in his battle with their enemy so they could evacuate both Alex and his brother – the wench was using powerful shadow-magic to prevent the Airship's systems from working, otherwise they could have left by now – though he doubted that Aksua would let her prey just leave, and Marik would want vengeance for the damage done to his sons, not that he had noticed what had happened to Caiellis. He then tenderly prodded the boy's broken arm, noting his suppressed yelp of pain at the touch.

"Cai, I need to relocate the bones in your arm. This is going to hurt," he stated simply, wanting to give the boy warning of the incoming pain but knowing that it would be better to just get it over and done with before letting Cai worry about it. He spontaneously jolted the forearm back into place, grimacing at the boy's hiss of agony and feeling empathetic towards him, as he had often suffered similar injuries. He was immensely relieved that he had seen Caiellis, as if the boy had fallen over chances are he would have bled out while they were busy fussing over a critical Alexander. Tristram thought he had hurt the boy when he started crying again, but quickly realised that it was because he could see Alex with more clarity now that he was closer.

He carried the boy over and deposited him next to his older brother, ignoring the irritated glance Oleic cast over in his direction – the two thirty year olds were fierce rivals, wont to repeatedly challenging each other to duels. The Guardian of Civitas Sol usually made no attempts to disguise his dislike of the youngest prince unless he was actually in the presence of the Lucerna family themselves, which made Tristram despise the arrogant man even more, as he felt protective of both of the king's sons. Normally, Tristram would now have gone to help his king against the woman, but Marik had been very clear before he jumped off the Airship that none of them were to aid him in his battle. Tristram could easily have just disobeyed the order like he had in the past when the man occasionally let his pride blind him, but he had sensed that there were very real reasons behind the command, not just the need for vengeance.

Cai shuffled closer to his brother, Tybalt ensuring that he moved to accommodate the younger boy, knowing that preventing Caiellis from getting to the prone form of Alex even more would end in disaster – Tristram had already done enough. Aretis ignored the boy and hid a sneer of contempt – it was said that the Light-bearers of Civitas Sol had objected most to the young prince being allowed to live, as apart from Capitalia Lux their city had suffered the most under Xarius's reign of terror.

"Alex..." he sobbed, unable to say anything more than that and now truly realising the extent of his brother's injuries – the healing that Aretis and Uncle Tybalt were doing was just prolonging the inevitable, and Alex needed serious medical attention from professionals if he was to have any hope of surviving. He let his hands slide down his brother's arm until he found the hand, and gripped it tightly, his small fingers already slick with his brother's blood. Tybalt had to repress a smile – despite the fact that Alex was still making pained groans, the second his little brother made contact he calmed down, completely imperceptibly to anyone who had not known the boy his entire life, reacting positively to the presence of his little brother even though there was no way he could be aware of it.

"I'm sure Alex will be fine. He's a strong lad," Tybalt assured his youngest student, placing a wrinkled hand on the boy's shaking shoulder and subtly infusing the gesture with resolve-augmenting White mana – had they been in a situation less dire, Caiellis would have noticed the man's interference and asked him why he thought it necessary to bolster his emotional state, but since the boy hadn't noticed it was obviously the right choice, especially judging the fact that he was no longer hyperventilating, though Tybalt didn't know whether to attribute that to his magic or the contact with his brother.

Truth be told, he was significantly concerned by the drastically deteriorating health of the older boy – the blood that was pumping out from various wounds was starting to become thicker and more like tar, indicating a deep corruption taking hold, and the boy began violently coughing up oily blood. The purifying enchantments of the Hierarchs were the only bulwarks against complete and utter takeover of the virus-like curse, and even their walls of mana were beginning to crack under the tide of impurity that was jeopardizing the teenager's life.

"H-he d-didn't d-deserve...w-why...?" Cai stuttered, trying to hold back more tears but failing miserably. The boy was going into shock, in spite of Tybalt using magic and words to try to reassure him, and his words came out in snivels. "M-my fault...I should have...h-helped. I s-should have been hurt instead."

"Look, Caiellis, you couldn't have done anything. And Alexander will prefer it this way, he would have been saying the exact same if the situation was reversed." Tybalt said sternly, using strictness where soothing tones had failed.

"...failure of a brother," Cai muttered bitterly, before pulling Alex's limp forearm up and hugging it tightly, dead set on making sure nothing else would harm the older boy further on this disastrous night, but it seemed he had calmed down after seeing his older brother in such a state. Still continuing the channel his magical energy into the losing battle of Alexander's purity, Tybalt let his eyes stray to where his king was busying combating the greatest threat – he understood now why Marik had ordered that none of the others interfere, as this Aksua was immensely powerful and would make a mockery of any attempt at teamwork. The king needed to hurry up so that they could take Alex back to the city and get him proper help from trained healers and medical staff – even that wouldn't be a guarantee of his survival, but there was son chance of the boy living if they remained here.

.*.*.*.

"You will pay for what you have done to them, bitch," Marik spat, sending Akroma to rush at the vampire, the angel's gargantuan sword obliterating the ground with a thunderous impact fuelled by Marik's cold anger. The angel's perfect features were impassive apart from a glimmer of contempt in her forbidding eyes, and she attacked again, charging her holy weapon with milky light and swinging it in a wide arc that Aksua had to leap away from. She was met by the king, his own greatsword drawn and thrumming with mystical potency, and formed twin blades of pure darkness herself to block his blade for a single second before morphing into shadow as a blast of light was shot out by the Angel of Wrath.

"Marik-Sweetie, you are more impatient than I remember," Aksua taunted, ramming a shard of blackness into the back of Akroma before fading away again. The angel scowled and released White mana in a pulse around her, slamming her sword into the ground and loudly singing the words of a hymn. A shriek of pain could be heard and the vampire tumbled out of the darkness a few metres away, trails of smoke coming from her hair.

"Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I have to kill you to allow Alexander to get help," Marik snarled as Aksua flipped back to her feet, standing up to her full height and looking haughtily back at the king and his First Sisterhood angel. A glint of amusement made it's way into her alluring brown eyes, although she wasn't trying to seduce Marik – her charm would have no effect on the furious monarch. "Oh don't be silly, I'm not stopping you from leaving."

A moment of hesitancy made the king narrow his eyes, and although he knew he should be trying to kill the vampire he sarcastically shot back: "Then I suppose it isn't you creating the shadows preventing the Airship's movement?"

"No, why would I want to trap a vengeful king in with me? You aren't as attractive as you used to be, and Alex is basically dead anyway," she smirked maliciously at Marik's smouldering glower. _She raises a fair point,_ the king thought for a second, before stamping the doubt out; she was probably just saying it to get him to delay so she could regain her power – it would be in her best interests to fill her opponent with uncertainty, and lying would be one of the best ways to do it.

"Although," Aksua lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, though it still carried through the abyss, the words sounding like the vampire was stood right next to him, "I wouldn't be against making Alex a vampire and saving his life for you, if you would just let me go unharmed."

"The king is not going to be swayed by your lies, vampire-scum," Akroma bellowed, launching another assault, this one of bolts of light that arced through the air.

Cai watched the engagement fearfully, although at this distance he could only hear what Akroma was saying, the resonance if the heavenly angel's voice piercing through the darkness and filling all the Lucaelians' hearts with conviction. However, sometimes the occasional word, such as "Marik-Sweetie" and "former love" drifted through the night, but his shocked mind couldn't process them so it filed them away to be analysed later. As the vampire and his father traded more blows, the hated Aksua switching her weapons from two malevolent swords to a large scythe, not unlike Orzhova's before Caiellis infused it with White mana in his Summoning ritual. His father fought so much like him, methodically gaining an advantage through a series of precise and well-thought out strikes that forced Aksua into an unfavourable position.

However, he perceived elements of his older brother's fighting style in their dad's over aggression and spontaneous impatience that often let him catch the vampire off guard. For the first time since finally seeing the man again after the civil war, Cai felt a small swell of admiration for his father, before that was consumed by the sadness he felt over Alex's horrific wounding. The boy coughed up some more sticky black phlegm, shuddering in torment, and Caiellis brushed tears of agony from his brother's face, as the older boy had often done to him in the past.

Aksua was getting panicked, a mixture of anxiety and dread running through her functionally immortal body as she realised she was soon going to lose the battle – Marik's relentless attacks gave her no quarter, no room to properly manoeuvre and regain the advantage. She knew she couldn't just morph into shadow again – Akroma was ready to purge the area if the vampire tried it again; she had been fortunate to only have some of her hair incinerated by the blast. The vampire blasted a huge wall of wriggling darkness at the king and somersaulted backwards.

Snarling, her face losing it's beauty and becoming something altogether more sinister and terrifying, Aksua called Nocturon into her, her shadowy horror pulsating into her body from her open mouth, wriggling through her veins and corrupting the stolen blood within – this technique had been taught to her by the Perverter of Truth, augmenting her power massively but also coming at a terrible price – the immortality she had gained through the consumption of vast quantities of blood would be rendered null, meaning that she would have to feed again after this battle – but Aksua didn't care.

Her bones began to crack as Nocturon expanded, her eyes filled with darkness and her beautiful hair falling out in clumps. She shrieked in agony as the horror twisted her from the inside, forcing her to vomit out near-solid blobs of murk that throbbed to the sound of an unheard and malignant heartbeat. Her once slender-body expanded at a huge rate, the skin becoming swollen and almost breaking at the horror seethed within her, drinking greedily upon her essence to empower itself. Writhing tendrils of darkness burst out from her back, the sound of tearing skin horrifying to behold as they pushed her off the ground, elevating her undulating and bloated body above the floor and suspending Aksua like a puppet controlled by the strings of an invisible master. The analogy was not lost on the vampire, who screamed in pain and tried to revert the spell, regain her original form as her mind dipped further into insanity, but Nocturon gleefully silenced her mana-fuelled protestations with a roar of dark desires made manifest.

And then, Akroma was in front of her, the angel's pitiless voice full of hatred and abhorrence, perfectly enunciating the syllables of a purification spell, one of the most destructive. The angel had recognised the vile powers of a greater demon, one she had often fought in Sancturia in the endless wars between the armies of light and dark – Seizan, the Perverter of Truth. Aksua screeched in mindless fury when she deduced that she had been tricked – her demonic patron had given her the spell so that he could claim her soul fully if she ever used it, and the vampire silently cursed him as her personality was dissolved, gobbled up by Nocturon, the malevolent horror nestling in her body and sending Aksua to her death.

"Marik! I require you aid to enact the Vengeance," Akroma announced austerely, her authoritarian tone reminding the king of the one he often utilised on disobedient subjects (or sons) and brooking no dissent, so Marik did as he was told and provided the angel with a large chunk of mana. The thing that had been Aksua screeched, the noise cutting through the air and forcing every Lucaelian to cover their ears, more tendrils of questing shadow-substance bursting out of the vampire's body and hurtling towards the many meals available. Marik hacked apart the tentacle that tried to crush him into a pulp, seeing Tristram Summon his guardian angel Athela of the Aegis, a large shield of mana encapsulating the king's sons and making the tendrils bounce off as the angel used her glaive to cut them apart.

The ones that tried to get close to Akroma immediately dissipated as a golden light began to surround the Angel of Wrath, a blinding intensity that made Marik want to instinctively look away despite a Summoner always being immune to the spells of the Summoning (apart from a few exceptions). Cai covered his eyes as the light became too much, gripping Alex's hand tightly as he sensed a gargantuan increase in mana from his father's angel, matching and then eclipsing the energy abomination that was Aksua was filled with.

Marik looked on with a mixture of awe, terror and self-pride as Akroma focussed all the magical potency into her huge sword, the blade beginning to shine with an incandescent light. Even though he had seen the Vengeance before, having used it many times during the civil war against traitorous generals that had aligned themselves with the Arch-Heretic, his angel's finishing still captured a sense of awful wonder from the king. The spell was one that was filled with her utter abhorrence of Black mana itself (Marik was no stranger to the fact that Akroma actively despised Cai's Orzhova), a cold fury powering hatred that no White creature should ever be able to feel.

Cai heard a shout of pure hatred and an undulating shriek, but still couldn't open his eyes to see what was happening. Akroma shot towards the horror that Aksua had become, screaming her loathing of the abomination in an extremely rare display of emotion, and swung her sword. It smashed apart the creature's feeble block, slamming into not-Aksua with a calamitous discharge of thunderous energy that shook the earth. Caiellis saw light even with his eyes snapped shut and a hand covering them, and moved protectively in front of Alexander, despite knowing that their father would never willingly hurt them.

When the light faded, and Cai tentatively opened his eyes, there was no trace of Aksua, and Akroma sheathed her sword with a dispassionate flourish, as if the angel had exhausted the amount of emotion she was allowed to show in a certain time period and had to go back to being detached and aloof. He felt awe encompass his thoughts as the shield Athela had created faded away – Akroma had absolutely annihilated every particle of Aksua.

"And so is the fate of all those who sell their soul to demons," the angel bellowed, abruptly returning back inside of Marik as the king ran towards Alex.

* * *

_Also, apparently I lied about not doing another chapter until after Christmas. Sorry if Cai seemed a bit weak or pathetic, but trust me after a few scenes in the next chapter we will be seeing plenty more of strong and determined Caiellis._


	17. The Pains of Recovery

_Because I like timelines:_

_Day One: Chapters 2-5_

_Day Three: Chapter 6_

_Day Four: Chapters 7 &amp; 8_

_Day Five: Chapters 9-12_

_Day Six: Chapters 13-Present_

Marik shot towards his stricken son as Tybalt frantically commanded Oleic and Tristram (however only the former did so) to go to the Airship, as neither Hierarch could leave Alex's side without the corruption overwhelming the boy's fragile resistance. The king grimly assessed the awful state of his eldest, not wanting to move him and cause his son more pain but knowing that he would have to. Aretis bowed his head and moved to the side, all sarcasm and arrogance gone in the face of the prince's wounding, and Marik hooked one arm under his son's legs and the other behind his chest, lifting the teenager off the ground. The boy gasped in pain, coughing up some more of the tar-like substance, and Marik noted how Caiellis tenderly soothed the older boy, wiping him with a bit fabric that he had torn off from his own clothes (which the king noticed were of Welkalite design), tears appearing at the corner of his eyes also.

Cai glanced up at his father, getting to his feet also and disregarding how faint he felt, but the man didn't look back, his austere features intently focussed on the Yentarian vehicle a couple of hundred metres away. A shudder of fear went down the boy's spine as he realised just how scared his father was, as although the king was putting on a brave face he was clearly terrified of losing his older son's life. He let go of Alex's hand as their dad began to swiftly carry him away, feeling as if he should remain next to his older brother but thinking that he would probably just get in the way, as he had done his entire life.

Tristram ran alongside the desperate father and magically-attuned Light-bearers, the need to protect Alexander burning strong within his breast as well, when he detected something strange. He abruptly turned around and his eyes landed upon the youngest Lucerna, who stood in the darkness, alone. Caiellis looked pale and lost, fragile like an abandoned child, and the Guardian's heart ached for the kid. He quickly made his way to the boy, grabbing his shoulders and forcefully, but still gently, leading him in the direction of the Airship.

"Come on," he encouraged, half-carrying the boy back to the vehicle as he stumbled. The bandage around his leg needed to be replaced, the white cloth now stained a deep crimson, but both Lucaelians knew it could wait until they ensured that Alex was safe.

Only a few seconds after the king and the Hierarchs embarked, Tristram and Caiellis clanged up the ramp and into the main deck. Oleic had managed to input the correct instructions to release a temporary medical bay, and Marik was currently in the process of manoeuvring his son onto it with Aretis's help, trying not to cause the boy any more torment than was necessary. The facility was not sufficient to fully cure Alexander, but could at least aid in stabilising his condition in the short journey to Civitas Sol, where the city's Guardian had already contacted the doctors and healers. Tristram may despise the other warrior, but while they disagreed on almost everything the Capitalia Lux Guardian had to admire the man's precise organisational skills.

Marik ran his fingers through his son's spiky blonde hair, so much like his own, to comfort his half-conscious eldest, who alternated between whimpers and gasps, as well as check for any potential fractures. Satisfied, he began to use some of the bandages that came out of a compartment to the left of the bed, to see if he could stem the bleeding of some of the more brutal wounds – he knew that they would have to remove them so that Alex could be purified of the vampire's curse, but the boy was laying in his own blood as the rapidly blackening scarlet liquid poured out onto the bed.

The man instantly spun around when he heard footsteps behind him, and sighed in relief when it was only Tristram and a distant-looking and frightened Caiellis. His mind suddenly came to the awareness that he had totally forgotten about his youngest, as the boy wasn't as injured as his older sibling but would still be terrified by the turn of events. Marik's blue eyes met Tristram's, and the Guardian nodded his head solemnly as the king's orbs conveyed his gratitude.

Cai's gaze then met his – the younger boy looked scared, but his green irises were filled with guilt and Marik was sure he hadn't entirely managed to keep an accusatory glint out of his stare. He steeled himself – there would be time to talk about things like that later, but right now his eldest needed his help, and Caiellis gratefully nodded his understanding. Marik reminded himself that as well as battling with Aksua, his sons had escaped from Usnaan within a day, so would be exhausted – highlighted aptly by the gloomy bangs underneath Cai's expressive eyes that looked ten times larger in his sadness, making him look more like a five year old than a..._wait, what am I thinking? He looks exactly like a _thirteen_ year old should._

He cast a furious glance into the pilot chamber when the Airship rocked, juddering as it set off and making Alex's head almost slam into the metal wall beside the bed, which it would have done if Marik wasn't still subconsciously stroking his hair. Evidently the vampire had been lying about not preventing them from leaving, and as he suspected the Airship was able to take off without her interference. Marik pondered getting something to cover up his son's bare chest with, but as his hands moved over the boy's abs Alex cried out in pain. The king gently prodded, realising that many of his son's ribs were broken and would be causing him a lot of pain, although there was nothing to be done about that apart from waiting for them to heal.

Alexander coughed and spluttered more of the viscous black liquid that would no doubt be clogging his lungs, and Marik suddenly decided that he would be better off sat up.

"Caiellis," he said, and his youngest snapped to attention, "You and Tristram help me move Alex to sit up, in order to clear his airways so he can breathe better."

The younger boy nodded for a second, then confusion creased his youthful face.

"Wait, won't that just damage his ribs more?" he asked, "I didn't," his voice took on a melancholy ring, the tone infused with self-loathing, "_see_ Aksua break them, so I don't know how damaged they are, but is making him sit up really worth the pain?"

"You of all people should know how unpleasant it is to have your oxygen cut off," Marik replied, and Cai's face fell as he remembered the fateful events that had led to this – it was his weakness that had caused the brothers to be kidnapped, just as it was his weakness that had allowed Alexander to get hurt. "Plus, if we do it properly he won't feel much."

Cai, his dad and the Capitalia Lux Guardian went to hoist him up, but when the older boy whimpered in pain and groaned loudly at the strain on his broken ribcage, Caiellis backed away.

"I can't do it..." he whispered, looking up at his frustrated father and feeling disgusted with himself, but he wasn't able to be the cause of any more of his big brother's suffering. Marik glowered for a second and sighed exasperatedly, "Fine. Tristram and I shall do it ourselves. Make yourself useful and try to find some rubbing alcohol, something to numb the pain. While Tybalt and Aretis are healing him, they are mostly concentrating on stopping the advance of the corruption, and so your brother will still be in immense pain."

"How long until we reach Civitas Sol?!" he roared when Caiellis started opening different drawers in a frantic search for something to ease Alexander's agony. He hadn't actually meant to shout the words, but agitation for his son had twisted the question into a shout that made him sound terrifying.

"Approximately five minutes, lord," Oleic answered, his voice level. "Make it three!" Marik shouted back when his son let out another groan of pain, hacking up some more black blood. His eyes promptly opened, the startled blue orbs full of confusion and pain, glazed over like he had a fever – Marik didn't discount the possibility of that, but they presently had more pressing concerns.

"Alex, we are on the way back to Civitas Sol. You are in a grave state, but with the help of professionals I'm sure you'll pull through," Marik informed him, and then, wishing he hadn't been so cold or dispassionate, added: "I'm proud of what you did today – escaping from Welkas within a day! You are a strong lad, and although I know you're in a lot of pain but we will help you get through it."

The boy started to nod but stopped when it was unnecessarily painful – he couldn't recall his neck being injured, but then again pain was periodically sweeping through his entire body. He felt really weak, and Alex knew he would fade back into unconsciousness soon so made sure to get his priorities right before he did so. Marik saw the boy's lips moving, though no sound came out, and asked: "Are you having trouble breathing? Is there anything we can do?"

Alex shook his head – yes, his lungs and throat felt like they were on fire but the fact that he was sat up was relieving some of the strain on his congested airways, and he needed to do something before he was dragged back into the realm of sleep. It was irritating that he couldn't speak, so tried again.

"Cai..." a weak whisper that sounded alien to Alexander's ears emerged from his mouth, and he silently cursed at how pathetic he sounded. He couldn't argue with the fact that he needed help, he just wished that his dad, Tybalt, Tristram and Aretis weren't all looking at him like he was a broken doll – he didn't want their sympathy, though he knew it was going to get worse when they got to the City of the Sun. The prince resolved to suck it up – yes, he may feel like his privacy was being breached but it was necessary for his recovery, and once he had recovered he could continue to protect his little brother.

From the other side of the passenger compartment, there was no way little Caiellis should have heard his brother's faint words; Marik had barely done so himself, but the boy's father gave a wry smile as his youngest's ears visibly pricked up from underneath his mop of dark hair. He stopped his frantic rummaging, selecting one of the medicine bottles and carrying it over to his older brother. Cai handed his father the rubbing alcohol and gently eased his brother's larger hand into his two.

"Please don't leave me Alex. I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you," he murmured out next to his brother's ear, tears once again surfacing in his wide eyes. Alexander fought to console his brother, tell him that he would never leave him even if the younger boy wanted him to, but he lacked the strength – he seemed to be getting weaker by the second. Instead, he managed to give a feeble wink in his little brother's direction. Marik watched on until that point, when he had to look away to compose himself, fighting to get himself under control again – his sons certainly didn't need him acting weak as well. The bond between his children was the strongest he had ever seen, even in the amount of pain his eldest was in, his first thought was still to comfort his younger sibling.

It seemed to affect Caiellis as well, but instead of being the catalyst for a fresh flood of tears the boy controlled himself, mustering up all his courage and self-control and giving his brother the most determined look he could come up with. Alexander needed to see him alright before he worried about himself, and so he would need to be strong, for his big brother's sake if not for his own.

"Alex. I'm not going to leave you," he declared, and the addressed almost thought he was going to stamp his foot in verification of the pronouncement – though he hadn't done that for many, many years.

The delirium of the vampire's magic was affecting him deeply, it seemed – Cai's battered but innocent visage was repeatedly replaced by one from their childhood, a much younger Caiellis superimposed over his brother's current state. He steeled himself, whether his little brother looked four or thirteen he would still be there to comfort him, and slowly and painfully moved his hand upwards. Sensing his brother's intent, Caiellis snorted quietly and bowed his head, allowing the hand to be placed atop his mop of brown hair, which his brother ruffled weakly. Had the scene taken place anywhere else, Marik would have found it quite funny, but now he could only think of it as extremely heart-warming.

He slipped back into the world of dreams, glad that he had at least been able to console Caiellis a tiny bit. His younger brother removed Alexander's hand from his head and then resumed squeezing it tightly, as Marik moved forwards to rub some of the numbing medicine onto the gaping wound in his eldest's chest, the one that had been inflicted when Aksua came to terms with that fact that her coveted prize would be denied.

After two more minutes of torture that felt like years for the king as his son's state worsened every second, Oleic outdoing himself, the Airship roughly landed, sending shuddering vibrations through all of them. The ramp burst open and a small team of medical staff instantaneously appeared at the bottom, attired in golden and warded uniforms that would protect them from potential corruption. Marik once again lifted his son into his arms, transferring him into a stretcher that one of the staff quickly wheeled round. Apart from a nod of reverence and respect the team gave him, no gestures or supplications were shown to the king – for that, he was extremely glad, as they were obviously trained enough to be more concerned about their patient than their ruler.

The operatives got to the side of the stretcher and started moving as fast as they could go without it being too dangerous, efficiently shooting down inside a large and ornate building adorned with the golden sun symbol of Civitas Sol and the Alpha Helix of the Ordo Medella, the order of healing that combined advances in technology with age-old magic to provide some of the greatest physicians the world had ever seen. Lucael wasn't a kingdom of barbarians, they didn't just solely utilise magic in a vain attempt to cure the afflicted like the Erian Conclave, but still understood the significance and power of rejuvenating spells so refused to rely on technology entirely, as with the Yentarian Republic.

Tristram could have snorted at his fellow Guardian's choice of landing – Oleic had literally dumped the vehicle onto one of the large balconies in the Ordo Medella's hospital in the City of the Sun. Marik charged alongside the stretcher and his eldest, the Hierarchs and Guardians on his heels, and Cai tried to run and keep up but instead trotted quickly as sprinting hurt too much – the wound on his leg was violently throbbing, and the bandage that Tristram had wrapped round it had stuck using the blood and was now in the process of painfully unravelling. Once again he ignored the pain and followed the party into a large room full of medical equipment, some of which he knew but others that he didn't, that were in the middle of being hooked and inserted into his brother. Alexander usually hated needles, but right now he really wasn't in the position to complain even if he was conscious.

"My lord, I need you to move from the operating theatre please," a clinical and stern voice ordered, and Marik furiously turned from his eldest son to the face of a grizzled doctor that reminded him quite a bit of his late father. The king stated: "He's my son. My place is by-."

"With respect, lord," the man interrupted, his authoritarian voice cutting out the king's emotional one and making Caiellis almost want to snigger if his brother wasn't so injured, "You are just going to get in the way, and time is of the essence if we are to save your son."

Marik looked as if he was about to protest again, before Tristram strode across the room and bodily dragged the older man towards a selection of chairs that would allow him to observe without obstructing the surgeons. The king pouted as he was forced into a chair, although his blue eyes showed that he was grateful for his battle brother removing him before he started an argument – he knew full well that he wouldn't be able to help the doctors.

Cai, who had stood in the doorway, crossed the threshold into the brightly, almost oppressively lit room (the boy already was aware that it would aid the Ordo members in their work, but it didn't make it any more inviting), sitting down next to his father, who didn't look up. His thin fingers reached out, almost instinctively grasping at his dad's hand before he pulled them away just as they were about to make contact, mulling over whether his desire for comfort was a good enough reason to break the man out of his silent reverie of intently staring at the operation, and deciding that it wasn't. Alex should be the focus of their dad's attention, the man shouldn't have to look after Cai, the one who had failed to protect his own brother – besides, his brother could die any second, despite him wanting to avoid the thought, so it was right that their father was concentrating on the older boy.

A fresh wave of guilt threatened to overwhelm him, and the boy huddled his thin knees up to his chest, wrapping small arms around them and staring at the frantic operation, one part of his mind wishing for Alex to stand up, tease him in that way that was so damn annoying but lovable at the same time, and embrace him in a bone-crushing hug, while the other coldly informed it that there was no possibility of that – even if his brother did survive the surgical intervention, he would probably drift between states of consciousness, though Caiellis was sure Alexander would still try to comfort him at his own expense.

His big brother didn't deserve to be hurt: he was the kindest, most selfless person in Cai's world, constantly looking out for and protecting his little brother, shoving away his own fears to better combat the youngest prince's. It was all so painfully logical to the thirteen year old, agonising clarity erupting in his mind – the reason the older boy was hurt was because Alexander was strong enough to push aside his concerns and sacrifice himself for him, while Cai had been too weak to do the same. Despite only remembering fragments of his illusion of a flawless family, Cai could recall with complete transparency that his big brother was the only member of the Lucerna family that had remained exactly the same: Emili had been alive while she was now dead; Marik had been happy and warm whereas in reality he was consumed by grief and cold; Johnias had been contented and loving whilst presently he was a horrific betrayer and brutal murderer; the unknown girl that had been his cousin birthed into the dream world when she really didn't exist – even through all that, Alexander's interpretation was identical to the real Alexander, staying his protector, best friend and the person he looked up to most. And now he was dying, and it was all because he was too weak to protect him, too fucking pathetic to guard the most precious thing in his short life.

"I'm sure your brother will be up and annoying the crap out of you soon," a voice, mostly stern but tinted with a glimmer of sympathy and love, snapped through his mind, and Cai looked up from where he had buried his head in his knees, shaking his head to get rid of the tears in his eyes and abruptly realising that they were cascading down his face, reacting with the Lucernan birthmark on his cheek in a riotous display of purple light, in spite of the fact that Caiellis couldn't call upon a drop of mana – he idly wondered why it did that, and resolved to ask Orzhova the next time he visited her, before pushing his mind out of the cycle of pointless thoughts and muses it often got into when something significant was occurring.

He glanced up, rubbing his eyes in a way that made him seem even younger, and was pleasantly surprised to see his father looking down at him, having expected one of his Uncles. The corners of the man's lips were almost imperceptibly twisted upwards, making his attempted parental smile look more like a grimace, while his large arm hesitantly moved around Caiellis's worryingly thin shoulders, hovering above them, not wanting to scare his youngest and remembering how he had reacted the first time he had tried physical contact with the boy after the war.

Marik's eyes systematically flicked between his eldest and youngest sons, simultaneously checking on the condition of both of them, but were filled with a paternal love that his uncharacteristically awkward actions could not capture. Cai felt more sadness flow through him despite the rare gesture of kindness and intimacy, and, sparing his father from the indecision of whether or not to touch his son by pushing his head into the man's muscled chest, a reassuring sensation that he had not felt since he was four rushing through him but still not pushing away the guilt, terror and sadness.

"Caiellis Noctis Lucerna. You never cease to surprise me," he said, hugging the boy close in what would have been an uncomfortable way had Cai not had to constantly deal with it from his older brother. He had been prepared for the younger boy to shy away, thoroughly taken aback by Caiellis's need for comfort. The man smiled as he enunciated the syllables of the boy's name – while Alexander had been picked by his mother, Caiellis had been chosen by the father. He still remembered the beautiful woman rolling her eyes in that attractive way when he told her the names he had come up with (though he supposed that Thaliecia wasn't the best female name he could have selected), jokingly saying: _"__Trust you to pick something over-complicated and sophisticated. I should never have promised to let you choose the name of our second child when I told you I was having them."_

She had laughed even more when he had told her that there was no actual meaning behind the names, he had just come up with them and liked how they were pronounced. Neither could deny that it fitted with his middle name though: the first-born of every Lucerna ruler inherited the middle name of the monarch (Ensis for Marik and Alexander, which had also been the surname of his mother) whilst the second-born received the family name of their other parent as their own middle name. Subsequent children would have theirs picked from the vast range available from their ancestors in the Lucerna family, although understandably the most popular choice throughout the ages for a third child had been Ortus, middle name of the founder, though it was generally frowned upon to have more than two children – logic dictated that two was the perfect number, as there was a back up in case one was assassinated or the Death Vision of the preceding ruler chose a child that would be detrimental as a ruler, whilst still not too many to train in the ways of ruling.

Though being crowned king definitely did not mean that the person would be any more successful than their siblings – one tale that was often told was of two Lucerna brothers, Jaceon and Taris – the latter had become king, content to rule over the kingdom and maintain it, while his brother had taken the armies far out, carving out huge swathes of territory, destroying many nations that also resided in the darkness and used Black mana, eventually becoming more famous than the king. Marik remembered arguing with his brother (and more rarely his father) about that, debating that while Jaceon may have conquered new territories, expanding the kingdom, it had been his brother that maintained these cities, bringing them into the fold and ensuring that they didn't revolt, but of course he had been forgotten while his brother hogged all the glory.

As well as inheriting his mother's family name, Caiellis had evidently also derived his physical build from her – thin, with dark green eyes and wavy/curly brown hair, though he still had the high cheekbones of Marik whereas Alex had gained the more open features of Emili. He had often thought about Caiellis not receiving the traditional body structure of the Lucerna line – the hair and eye colour didn't matter, but the fact that he was small and thin instead of naturally tall and muscular could prove to have a negative effect on his combat abilities, before reminding himself of the few but still prominent rulers that had done extremely well without that.

This included Queen Arie, who seemed to be his youngest's inspiration - that was why he was glad he had chosen the sword, as after that he decided to read every single piece of work his children had ever written (that still survived after the war, Tybalt had jokingly lamented losing precious pieces of work on the run from demons) he soon realised that Caiellis had studied each Lucerna ruler in great detail, and choosing the wise and very intelligent queen over some of the other rulers (such as Matalis) spoke volumes about his son's personality. Alex hadn't selected an inspiration, but then Marik doubted the more practically orientated brother had the patience to pore over all the material his little brother had.

He still could recall a young Caiellis using his matter-of-fact tone and telling his mother that his father and brother were nice things to hug because they weren't bony like her, though he had found that incredibly contradictory (although Caiellis wouldn't really have understood what he was saying) when one considered that he had spent half the time clung to the woman – though he reasoned that he would put his youngest down after a few minutes as he had to attend to some duty or another kingly necessity, while his big brother would have probably irritated and teased him.

He glanced over to the chronometer in his pocket, sighing loudly when he saw that only a single minute had passed since they entered the room – the surgeons would only just be starting the operation, and Marik noticed how while two of them were equipped with numerous instruments, a third was busy leafing through a prayer book. Being able to access magic was required for most members of the Ordo Medella, and this one was clearly going to use purification spells to facilitate the removal of the vampire's curse.

Marik was extremely proud of his eldest son, surviving through all of those wounds that would kill a lesser person twice over – he doubted Caiellis, with his much more fragile body, would have lived. Alexander was the perfect son – kind, intelligent, loyal, determined, nurturing to his younger sibling, strong and tough, and most of all more than willing to sacrifice himself for others. He had a fantastic and loving personality, much like his late mother, while he still looked more like his father. He sometimes wished that Caiellis would be more like his brother, although Alexander didn't have to contend with Black mana in his body. The day his first son had been born was one of the happiest in his entire life, only rivalled by Caiellis's birth (despite the fact that the Angel of the Black Sun had selected him as her second Summoner, causing tumultuous uproar throughout the kingdom and making the night far more ominous) and his marriage. It had been sunny, golden rays of angelic light cascading over the hospital and illuminating the crying baby's face in a holy glow. Aurelia visited only a few hours after the boy's birth, and the day was a cause for celebration.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I just want Alex back! I'm sorry!" young Caiellis bawled into his father's solid chest, clenching and unclenching his tiny fists and violently brushing the tears out of his eyes. _Alright, that's enough_ Marik thought, extricating his son from him and putting the boy back into his seat, though he still tried to keep the motions gentle. He found it so hard to do this – being a father had never come naturally to him, but after eight years of it Marik had thought that he was finally becoming a good one. That had been just before Johnias had his wife killed, and in the nine years the king had often worried that the atrocities he had seen and the grief he felt would make him forget how to be a proper father to his sons, aptly highlighted by causing his already small youngest's self-esteem to drop so low as to make him want to hurt himself. Just comforting Caiellis evidently wasn't working, so he switched to be more stern.

"I'm not the one you should be apologising to," he replied evenly, lifting up his son's chin and forcing the boy to look into his eyes, which would almost certainly be marred with accusation. He was disappointed in the boy, succumbing to Aksua's dream-magic and leaving his older brother alone to get hurt. Should Alexander survive his ordeal, (Marik harshly told himself to stop entertaining the notion that his eldest wouldn't), he would have very, _very_ serious words with Caiellis, but if the older boy didn't then he wouldn't – his younger son would be broken if Alexander died, needing all the comforts of his father if he was to survive, although Marik didn't think he would be able to give him them. He wasn't sure he'd be able to get over his own grief if his precious eldest didn't pull through; Marik sincerely hoped both his children would outlive him, seeing another member of his family die (apart from one) would end him.

Caiellis nodded slowly, and took a few deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling in a calming pattern that allowed him to regain control again, and pulled fully away from his father, guilt and shame once again burning in his mind. His green orbs flicked to the operation, followed by the turning of his head. Two of the order members were inserting a large needle into his brother's chest – Cai had read about the device before, knowing it was used both for the extraction of blood and to allow the magic of the users to penetrate into the deeper corruption within their patient and expunge it in a very painful procedure.

"Angels of Sancturia, we beseech thou, lend us thy aid so that we may cleanse this Lucerna child of the filth of darkness, bless us with thy holy magic so that we may commence the purification," a woman's voice, clear and strong, rang out, and Cai looked on as the Ordo member holding the tome began to be suffused with holy light. She then began to say another line, however this one was entirely in the ancient language that had been spoken in Matalis's time. The boy could only understand broken passages of it, occasionally catching a stray word that meant something to him.

Sure, he understood a lot more of it than most other people, but while phrases of the language were used in everyday life (such as Ave Lux, which translated to "For the light!") the writing was very complex and archaic, and as such only a few people devoted their time to truly studying it. Whereas combat magic, Summoning and some less powerful forms of healing spells required mental power and mana to prosecute, the harder to use healing magic requisitioned the appropriate words and ritual to use to its fullest extent, needing a lifetime to fully learn. That was why Caiellis had been forced to abandon learning the magic of repairing, as he didn't have enough time to learn that, the warfare magic and Summoning rituals, though his healing was as powerful it could get without devoting his life to it. He found it a bit worrying however that when he Summoned, the White and Black magic combined to heal solely himself in an intensely selfish manner, extracting life from other beings in order to help himself.

After a few seconds into the procedure, Alexander woke up again, and screamed. He thrashed and shouted in pain as the machinery simultaneously sucked out some of his polluted blood and poured curing magics into his body that began to burn out the corruption. He shrieked in panic, knocking one of the orderlies away from him in his desperate resistance, the sucking sensation making him think that he was back with Aksua, back with the vampire gorging on his blood. The operation was making him relive his most recent nightmare, sending hysteria pounding through his head as he tried to push the vampire away.

"_You're going nowhere, handsome._"

"Hold him down!" the lead medic, the one who had argued with Marik earlier, shouted, and the Medella operatives moved to the prince's side, restricting his movements in an attempt to prevent his from disrupting the operation. There was a rapid increase in mana, Alex's magic responding to his need for freedom in a destructive flash and sending the medics sprawling.

"_Give in. You know you want to. Give in to me, and I'll make your last moments as pleasurable as possible._"

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Alex screamed, releasing more mana around him and gripping the needle stuck into him tightly, trying desperately to pull it away. Luckily, although the detonation of mana had been unexpected, the boy was still extremely weak, and the medics could quickly return to his side. Even so, he still managed to dislodge the needle, moving it an awkward angle as it scraped his skin as he tried to pull it out. Through all of that, the chanting of the surgeon-priest had not stopped – she seemed to increase her volume, the hymnals cutting through the boy's panicked screaming.

"_You taste as good as you look, pretty boy._"

Caiellis stood up from his seat and walked straight into the operating theatre, his eyes determined and fixed upon his stricken brother, who was still trying to remove the needle. Another explosion of flames erupted from him, forcing the surgeons to retreat to avoid being burned. Cai strode through them, nothing, _nothing, _would stop him from getting to his brother. He smiled – even in his panicked state, Alex's fire still didn't harm his little brother, and Cai appeared at his sibling's side completely undamaged.

"Alex," he said, softly, and could have cried when his older brother's eyes met his. "Stop resisting, please. We are trying to help you. I'm sorry."

The pitifully depressed look of surrender in Alexander's eyes broke his little brother's heart, making him hope to hell and want to pray to a deity that he didn't believe in that he would have his cocky, cheerful and confident brother back, but the emotionally sore twisting in his stomach excruciatingly told him that Alex might not bounce back this time as quickly as he usually did, if he did at all. He was a failure through and through. He had let his older brother down yesterday when they had been abducted, and then let him down again when they were fighting Aksua. He clearly didn't have what it took to be a prince, let alone a king. He was pathetic.

"_No angels can save you from me._"

Cai tried to hold Alex's arms down, but despite his brother being wounded and weak he was still infinitely stronger than his younger sibling (Caiellis was still faint also), and broke out of his grasp, beginning to try and dislodge the needle again, flames still pulsing around him.

Knowing that wrestling against his big brother wouldn't achieve much and may end up hurting the older boy, Cai instead opted to take hold of Alex's head in both hands and force him to look into his eyes.

"Alex," he said again, and once again the older boy's terrified eyes locked with his. "Do you remember, every time that I have ever been down, or hurt, you have been there for me?"

The older boy was still struggling against the needle, although the flames had receded to a less intense heat, and Caiellis pressed on, emboldened, the surgeon-priest also redoubling the volume of her chanting, though the prince's words still cut through it.

"Do you remember the days after mum died, where every time I was sad you would hug me tightly and promise that everything would be better? Do you remember the first time that I was properly, seriously ill, and Tybalt and Tristram were in a meeting with the Light-bearers of Gol at the time? I came down with really bad chicken pox, and although you cared for me and did all you could I was still crying because of the pain, telling you that I looked like a freak with all these spots. You insisted that they were cool, and it was your idea that we drew patterns by connecting the dots. You drew me a dragon, an angel, a sphinx, a lizard, a bird, a dog and loads more," Caiellis smiled encouragingly at his older brother as the boy stopped trying to pull away the needle, the fire dying down around him and allowing the orderlies to resume the operation. Cai looked intently into his brother's wide and frightened blue orbs, ensuring the older boy was entirely focussed on him instead of the agonising operation. He fell into his memories, feeling his brother begin to do the same, and continued.

"Do you remember when I tried to kill myself after finding out what Orzhova really was after everyone had hidden it from me? I told you that I didn't deserve to live, and you responded by saying that you didn't give a damn about what the thing inside me had done one hundred years ago. You said that I would always be your little brother and that you would always love me for who I was, not for what my Summoning had done."

Marik appeared at Caiellis's side, although the king made no move to interfere with his youngest's recounting of the boys' memories. In fact, he just listened, feeling like he had missed out on a gigantic portion of their childhood where both his sons had grown from cute children into great young men. Alex grunted with pain but persisted in listening to his younger brother, the boy's soothing voice eclipsing all other thoughts and pushing Aksua's seductive voice back down.

"Do you remember the night that I killed the agent of Johnias that tried to murder us? I was convinced that I was a murderer, a horrible person, but you managed to persuade me otherwise. Even recently, when you discovered I was cutting myself, and when I was too scared to talk to those people, you still helped me. When Kaled disconnected me from the Summoning Bay, and when I attempted it again, you stood by me every step of the way. Even only yesterday, you reassured me that it wasn't my fault we were abducted, and today we battled out of Welkas together. We managed to defeat a greater demon, a Master of Passion, but when we fought Aksua I left you alone..." Cai's voice broke off as a wave of despair threatened to crash into the barriers of resolve he had built back up and overwhelm him in tears. He noticed that the woman was no longer singer the purification ritual, meaning that everyone in the room was listening to him. Caiellis gulped nervously, meaning to stop talking, but when he looked back down into Alexander's eyes, enraptured by his little brother comforting him, he knew that he should go on.

"I failed you, and I am so damn sorry. You've been there for me all my life, and the one time you needed me to back you up I failed you. But not now, not ever. I won't leave you again. I _won't_ leave you again." Caiellis began to murmur, his voice an accusative half-growl aimed at himself. He felt a hand brush against his back and gently push him forwards, and he sat on the side of his brother's bed as the older boy hugged him weakly.

"Don't...blame yourself...little buddy," Alex whispered faintly into his brother's ear, who stifled tears. "Thank...you...for that...you...girl."

Cai grinned at the weak teasing, and his brother smiled back before being plunged back into unconsciousness, the smile still remaining on his pale features.

"As heart-warming as that was, we need you to step aside, Lord Caiellis." the leader of the operation ordered, his gruff voice coloured slightly with warmth at the prince's speech, echoing what all of them felt. "Despite the corruption being expunged, Lord Alexander is still grievously wounded, and we need to work on that if he is to live through the day."

Caiellis nodded and backed away from his brother, and then wished he hadn't moved so suddenly; it sent pains through his head, a pounding white noise that made him fall to his knees.

"Alright Caiellis, your wounds need seeing to," Marik uttered, and his son vehemently shook his head, wanting to stay in the room and watch over his brother. "Look down, Caiellis, and then deny that you need help again."

The prince did as he was told, glancing down to the source of most of his throbbing pain. The bandage that had been around his leg had ripped off when he had strode to Alexander in the older boy's panic, exposing a wound that had been rubbed raw by him jolting the fabric around. A trail of blood spilled across the sterilised and white floor of the surgery, flowing from his former seat, to his brother's bed, and then arcing back to where he now knelt. The wound looked painful, and probably infected, and was busying pumping more crimson liquid onto the floor.

"Doesn't matter," he stated, getting back to his feet, determined to make sure Alex would remain alright, to be there for him should his big brother wake up again. He slipped in the pool of blood, but managed to halt his fall by extending his arms to the ground. He gasped in pain when he put pressure on the left one, recalling that although Tristram had relocated the bones, it would still need time to heal.

"It's fine, Marik, I've got this. Come on kiddo," the Guardian grinned, picking up the weightless prince and forcibly carrying him out of the room.

"No! No! I want to stay with Alex!" Cai pleaded, battering his small fists against Tristram, the second time he had done that on this fateful night and it had the exact same effect. Marik nodded his thanks to his battle brother, and turned back to his eldest as the doctors were busy cleaning and dressing his wounds. Caiellis continued to struggle, although they were getting progressively weaker, so eventually he resorted to a childish mutter of: "Hate you."

"I know kid, but your wounds need looking at, despite what you may think. With the amount of blood you've lost, I'm surprised you haven't fain-" he snorted as Cai's head slumped against his shoulder, "Spoke too soon, it seems. Eh, at least this way you won't try to stop me."

.*.*.*.

After an hour or so, the lead doctor calmly informed Marik that they would stop operating on Alexander for a while, and that he was happy with the boy's condition for now, so he could get some more privacy and rest with the king's permission, taking out the vast majority of the machines. Marik gave it, even though he suspected that Alexander's recovery was faster because of his vaunted Lucerna fortitude. He stood by his eldest's stretcher, listening to the periodic beeping of the machines hooked to him, knowing from his greater time with Alex as a child that the boy hated hospitals.

He pulled over one of the seats and rested wearily on it, beginning to think of how much his blonde baby had grown up. His mind idly thought about how handsome he was, and then pushed that out of the way, realising that it would have been his handsomeness that made Aksua target him first. He dearly wished he had never told the pretty Lucaelian captain about his sons, or ever got close to the vampire in the first place – it had felt like he was desecrating Emili's memory, by he had desperately needed repose in the war, and Aksua had delivered a temporary means to achieve that.

His thoughts then drifted to the pressing issue of Welkas, deciding that now he had his sons back the inevitable siege of the upstart empire could wait until he had fully mobilized all his forces in preparation for a crushing blow. He wanted his sons, Alexander and Caiellis, to be at the forefront of the war, to be his hands and leading his armies to victory, though that dream would definitely have to wait until his eldest had recovered. Meanwhile, Caiellis could be trained in military issues and strategy, attending the sessions that would undoubtedly happen so that he could learn more about the worst duty of a Lucaelian monarch – prosecuting war. That reminded him: he still needed to have harsh words with Caiellis, and he stroked his son's spiky blonde hair again.

"...mmmm, Dad?" a voice groaned quietly, and Marik smiled down as Alexander's eyes opened, blinking tiredly at the world around him.

"Just me, bud," he replied, using the nickname for his son that he had used when the boy was a child. Marik thought he should probably start using them again, though he wasn't entirely sure how Caiellis would react – he had always been closer to his eldest, even when the boy was eight and his little brother was four.

"Where's Cai?" he instantly asked, stammering slightly in his exhaustion, and Marik couldn't quite stop a wide grin from splitting his austere face. Even in the state that he was, Alexander's first concern had been for his younger sibling, not for himself. "Tristram was just seeing to your little brother's wounds, though he took him out and hour ago. He didn't want to leave."

"Who would want...to leave the side of someone...as handsome as me?" Alexander joked, though the effort to show humour failed to hide the pain in his eyes – they ached with both physical and emotional strain, but also showed how he needed his little brother at his side to feel better. He felt awful, like he had fallen underneath a monorail train and then been stabbed with thousands of tiny needles, but worse than the immense bodily pain was the mental agony he felt – Alexander had just let Aksua abused and violate him, although at least the vampire didn't do anything sexual like she had repeatedly hinted at. He felt broken, defiled, and just wanted the younger boy to be with him so that he could focus on his recovery and what was important to him.

"I will go and fetch Caiellis," Marik told him, patting him on the shoulder and then making to stand up out of the chair and go and get his youngest. The second he did so, the door flung open and his other son figuratively bounded over to his bed-ridden brother, with Tristram following and shaking his head in despair.

"I just repaired your bandages, squirt, don't go ruining them again." he laughed, and the boy sighed and turned to look at him, and innocent smile on his face. "Don't worry, Uncle Tristram, I won't."

He spun back round to his older brother, grinning down at him, although Alex could tell that the expression was a mixture of real happiness at his brother's survival and then some extra feigned joy in an attempt to hide the sadness the younger boy must have felt. Cai was wearing Lucaelian clothes again, after Tristram had persisted in refusing to let him go and see Alexander unless he got out of the torn, singed, battered Welkalite outfit with the trousers and shoes also covered in some sort of half-digested bile like substance. The Guardian had also given him the Sword of Glass that he had left on the battleground of the abandoned village, forgotten in his haste to reach the wounded older prince, which Caiellis had accepted graciously.

"How are you feeling, big brother?" he asked, his wide eyes eager and inquisitive, prompting Alex to think of the many mornings he had carried his little brother to the window and check for sunlight. The older boy replied with a grunt of: "Fine."

"Sure you are," Caiellis smirked, knowing that there was no way that what he said was true, and entwined his hand with Alexander's, giving it a firm squeeze (well, he hoped it felt firm) to try and reassure his sibling. He then glanced at the machinery to the left of the bed, reading the patterns that truly described his brother's condition. "Your heart rate is still quite high, although I suppose that is to be expected with the amount of blood you lost."

"That's great, Doctor Caiellis," Alex replied, then turning to send a conspiratorial look to his father, his blue eyes twinkling mischievously, "Did dad ever tell you about the handsome Yentarian diplomat that mum spent a lot of time with? I'm sure you're descended from him."

"That would explain a lot," Tristram cut in, ruffling his younger student's mop of brown hair, and both him and the middle Lucerna chuckled at the unamused scowl Cai wore.

"Alexander, are you going to be alright with Tristram for a few minutes?" Marik interrupted the light-hearted teasing, electing to have his words with Caiellis now before he got too comfortable in the presence of his older brother. "I just need to talk to your brother for a bit."

"Sure," he answered, and judging by the way Caiellis's posture visibly fell and his shoulders slumped, he had a clear idea of what this "talk" would entail. Alex could hazard a guess, and tried to catch the younger boy's eyes; even just a split second would allow him to confirm his fears but his little brother let go of his hand and turned before he could get even a small glimpse. Marik firmly took his thin forearm and led him out of the room, fully closing the door behind him and smiling at the orderly that walked past them, before dragging the boy in front of him when he was certain there was no-one in earshot.

"Caiellis. I assume you know full well what I am about to say?" he questioned, letting go of his smallest son when he felt his grip instinctively tightening around the boy's thin arm; he didn't want to hurt Caiellis, just verbally discipline him. When the boy nodded glumly he continued, wanting to get it out of the way so that they could return to Alexander. "What the hell were you thinking?! You left your brother alone against the vampire! You were smiling! Did you even try to break out of her magic?!"

Caiellis bowed his head in shame as the accusations bombarded him, feeling like he deserved this and much more for just letting his brother get hurt as badly as he did.

"Imagine if you were in that situation! Would you have not felt betrayed knowing that your own brother had just left you for dead? I know that I would, and it damn well shows how much Alexander loves you that he is willing to just forgive and forget about you failing him!" Marik felt his volume rising as he started to release all of the pent up anger and agitation he had built up inside of him after the events of the previous day. "You are unbelievably lucky to have an older brother like him, and what do you go and do?! You go and leave him to die when he needed you most! Alexander _could have died_! I could have lost my eldest son because _you_ weren't strong enough to back him up! I hope you are happy with yourself."

Caiellis slumped even more, and Marik noticed that he was shaking with anger, and that all he wanted to do was just hit the boy, teach him to _never_ abandon his brother again. _Angels damn it! Control yourself! _He mentally admonished, when Caiellis mumbled something.

"What did you say?" he asked, his voice coming out in a more half-furious hiss than a shout, although he knew he had said enough. He had expected his youngest to have been muttering an apology, but when the boy raised his head he could see the blazing defiance in his eyes.

"I said: "It is not just my fault that Alex is hurt. You should be thinking about what you've done as well"," he replied, his voice a mixture of predictable fear, sorrow and regret, but also a tinge of rebelliousness, and scorn that Marik had never heard in his youngest's timid and soft voice before.

"What do you mean?" Marik demanded, roughly shaking the boy's shoulders before he could stop himself. Instead of backing down from the confrontation, Caiellis latched onto in, using it to fuel his form of the anger they all felt at the oldest prince's injuries.

"Maybe if you had listened to me when I told you it was a bad idea to go into the negotiations with Welkalites, then none of this would have happened!" he shouted, shocked at the vehemence and contempt in his own voice, but his mind wouldn't let it end there. Marik rocked back as if slapped, and Cai capitalised on it, unleashing his own barrage of accusations.

"But no, I'm the king, I know best, better not listen to my son's concerns and just dismiss them!" he yelled, and then it was Marik's turn to slump. "You really do have a problem with listening to people."

Marik knew what he was talking about there: when the war had just started, him and Emili had argued loudly about taking their sons to Scientia Mos, but Marik had maintained that the palace was much safer for his young family. A little four year old Caiellis had wandered into the nursery, where the couple were having a shouting match, crying and telling them that he had had a horrible nightmare. Emili had quickly given in to his demands there, not wanting to argue in front of their youngest and instead switching to comforting him instead. Marik had left just after Alexander had entered the room, looking for his little brother, and then only a few hours later Emili had been murdered. He had always assumed that the boy hadn't known what they were arguing about and hadn't heard much of it, but Caiellis had always been an intelligent and perceptive child so probably had picked up on it. This was now confirmed by his words, but before Marik had chance to respond to the statement Caiellis launched another tirade of yells.

"And really?! Marik-Sweetie?! Sweetheart?! Former lover?! What the fuck was that all about?! You knew her name! You knew that a vampire existed!" Caiellis snarled, and Marik turned away, not willing to meet his fiery gaze. "You _told _her about us, didn't you? That's how she knew our names, and what we were! Why? Was your urge for a lover really that strong to risk your sons' lives?"

"... She was supposed to be dead," he mumbled, though the words sounded hollow to even his ears, so only the angels knew how badly his son would take that, though he was sure to soon find out. The green orbs filled with disgust, and Caiellis turned away, uttering. "You desecrated mum's memory."

Marik's anger then started to rise again. Yes, he may have made he fair share of mistakes in his time, but he had treated Emili with all the love that he had. He would not be told what was right or wrong by a _child,_ and certainly not his own child!

"How dare you say that. All I wanted to do was show you that you were wrong to just abandon your brother like you did. How dare you even think that I treated your mother's memory with any less than the respect it deserves," he growled, and Cai blinked in hesitation for a second at the threatening tone, before recommencing the argument. "What, and you think I don't already know that what I did was pathetic? Unlike you, I actually punish myself for my mistakes. Unlike you, I-"

"BE QUIET!" Marik exploded, grabbing his son's shoulder and twisting him around, his hands grasping the boy's collar and half-lifting him off his feet. "DO NOT EVEN THINK FOR A SECOND THAT I DON'T SPEND EVERY SINGLE DAY REGRETTING NOT LISTENING TO YOUR MOTHER AND TAKING YOU TO SCIENTIA MOS! IF I HAD JUST DONE THAT, SHE WOULD STILL BE ALIVE! YOU WOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO SPEND EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THAT WAR SCARED AND TERRIFIED FOR YOUR LIVES, BUT YOU DID BECAUSE OF MY MISTAKES." he reigned in his volume, with deep, shuddering breaths, dismissing the mana that had risen up inside of him at his outburst.

"Do not even suggest that I don't feel like I should die a thousand times over for what I have done, but it is the duty of a Lucerna to protect the kingdom, not wallow in despair," he finished, and the hatred and terror in his son's eyes could have broken his heart. He let go of the boy, who scampered away, before composing himself and rising to his feet.

"_Never_ touch me again," Caiellis spat, although his voice quivered, and walked back towards the room with his brother, mentally cursing and trying to control his frightened shaking, although at least some of them were mixed with anger. When he opened the door, he turned back around for the last time, seeing his father looking at his hands in despair. He quashed the sudden, almost overwhelming urge to run up to the man, hug him and apologise for what he had said – dad didn't deserve his forgiveness, and doing that would show that he had given up. He felt like slamming the door, but didn't want to disturb his brother, who was back asleep.

"Cai," Tristram said quietly, debating on whether to hug the boy or not, but they had more pressing concerns. "This is going to sound awkward, but could you get in with your brother. I know it is only five o'clock, and that you are both teenagers, but he has been shaking ever since you left. I was planning to do it myself had you not come in now, but to be honest I think your brother would prefer his little brother to a random man."

The boy nodded slowly, realising that his brother was in fact uncharacteristically trembling and sobbing quietly, and didn't hesitate. He pulled off the jacket he was wearing, giving it to Tristram as a wave of exhaustion washed over him as well – he was drained, though not literally like his brother, by the escape from Welkas, and if his brother needed comfort then he wouldn't waste any time. He crawled under the blankets, plastering his chest to Alex's back and throwing his left arm protectively around him, taking care to not put too much pressure on his big brother's bruised abdomen and cracked ribs, or disrupt any of the newly stitched wounds. Tristram turned the light off and went to stand outside the room, feeling like he was intruding on something.

He flashed back to a time when Alexander would always do the same to him after a horrible nightmare, a storm or he felt scared about the war, sometimes humming the reassuring tune of the _Canticia Luxia, _sometimes telling him small stories, sometimes just comforting him with his presence alone. Though the roles were reversed, he still felt that extra sense of security being so close to his brother, especially after the horrible argument he had just had with their father. It appeared that Alex felt the same, after at first tensing as he felt someone grab his from behind, before unconsciously ascertaining that it was just little Cai. He relaxed against his little brother, encouraged to know that someone had his back, that someone could protect him from reliving the experience only a few hours ago. He finally felt safe. Though still he couldn't stop himself from mumbling something inaudible.

"Shhh... Just go to sleep, big brother. I'm watching over you. I promise that I won't fail you again, not now, and not ever," the older boy relaxed at the words, burrowing further into the blankets and pillows.

After a few minutes, the door creaked open, some light spilling into the room, and Marik quietly snuck inside. Caiellis's sleepy eyes flashed to the man, still full of angry defiance, baiting their father to continue the argument and wake up Alexander. The king sighed quietly, realising that he could have easily lost both his sons on this day, and sat in the chair next to the bed. Caiellis visibly braced himself as the man's arm hovered over him, but instead Marik chose to tenderly stroke Alex's hair, not forgetting his youngest's words but just wanting to hug him after the argument. Caiellis would forgive him when he was ready, and the king didn't want to rush that.


	18. Sadness and Laughter

_Day 7 – This chapter._

_Also, Happy New Year to my readers!_

The first thing she felt was pain, an awful burning stimulus pushing its way through her nerves and making her want to scream until her voice died and her throat became raw. Then, came the confusion, along with a flood of jumbled memories that made absolutely no sense. _If that really happened...how am I still alive? _She thought, before ignoring that and focussing on her current situation. She was ravenous, and needed to feed to ensure her own survival. As usual, that came before anything else, she could find out how she was still living after securing that life.

She blinked in shock when she realised that her eyes were already open, she just couldn't see anything in the complete and utter blackness. That was unusual, normally even in the eternal night of her homeland she could still perceive things from miles away, her post-human eyes allowing her to see through the darkness, but now she couldn't. Had her deal with the horror utterly removed her vampiric powers? Panic shuddered through her mind, but even existence as a normal human again was preferable to the fate that her bargain with Nocturon should have consigned her to – she would persist, make more contracts with demons to secure her immortality again, sell her soul a thousand times over and commit unspeakable atrocities if it stopped her from having to die. _I don't want to die! I don't want to die! _Her mind wailed, before she quickly brought herself back under control again.

_Alright, calm yourself down, you need to stay calm if you are going to escape this place, _she told herself, concentrating on the issue of her survival and pushing it in front of the desire to live forever. That could be thought about once she managed to find her whereabouts and leave. She made to stand up, but with that came a nauseating sensation that made her want to throw up. She couldn't feel her limbs – more precisely, she couldn't feel anything, not even the inside of her own mouth with her tongue, or the breaths of air that should be passing in and out of her nose. All she could feel was the constant burning, but the woman didn't actually know whether she was actually on fire or if it was just her nerves making her feel the pain, blocking out the possibility of any other stimuli. That seemed more likely. What was she supposed to do if she couldn't feel, see, smell or taste anything? She suddenly thought with a jolt that if all four of those senses were gone, then how would she know if she could detect sound or not? She couldn't hear anything, but that didn't necessarily mean that her hearing was gone.

_Breathe, breathe. Sensory deprivation isn't the worst you have gone through. Well, it is, but at least you are still alive._

"Unfortunately not for long, Aksua-Dear," a voice, one that she had encountered before, pushed itself into her mind, a piercing pain overriding the burning one and making the vampire instinctively try to clasp her ears, although she didn't know whether or not she had completed the action. It was familiar, this sound, and although two people owned this voice it was clear to Aksua which one was talking to her. The darkness suffused within the tone, the unadulterated evil, had grown a significant amount since she had last heard it, completely at odds with his twin's determined and less expressive voice, although the man still hid it within the mask of charming civility that fitted his noble heritage.

_Johnias,_ she mentally growled, assuming that the fallen Lucerna would be able to hear her mind-voice considering he already had done once. She thought about taunting him, asking how the war was going, before quickly dismissing the notion. Provoking the thing that may have the key to her continued existence may not be the smartest idea, and Aksua colourfully curse when she heard Johnias laugh loudly, the beguiling noise infused with a merriment she knew to be false, though the man's natural charisma had carried over through his descent into darkness. He would have made an excellent king, if he could ever have got over how obsessed he was with himself.

"Tut-tut. Aksua-Dear, I'm disappointed: You decided not to insult me, and then forget that I can see into your mind whilst thinking thoughts like that," he scoffed, and Aksua felt real fear flow through her.

_I'll do anything you want, please! I can do anything, just let me live! Name your deepest desires, and they shall be yours! _She pleaded before she could stop herself, resorting to metaphorically throwing herself at Johnias's feet in her primal need for survival.

"Don't be silly, Pretty. You've already done more than enough for me," he purred, his voice like poisoned honey, and Aksua was sure she gasped in shock.

_What? I never killed Marik! I don't understand,_ she thought in bewilderment.

"Oh, rest assured everything is going exactly to plan," he laughed, and Aksua could have sworn that he was wearing a huge grin. "Not that you will live to see these plans reach fruition."

_No, please! I can still serve you! I can still help you! _Aksua's mind voice was frantically screaming now, desperate with the need to carry on living, and Johnias chuckled, amused.

"Don't you think around 140 years of life is enough? That's far longer than most other humans will ever live," he jeered, his words splitting through Aksua's brain and drowning out her pleas. "I may not seem it, but I am wounded, and very close to death. That wouldn't do at all, but I'm not making any bargains with demons for my continued life. They would just turn them against me, but I need to live should my plans ever be enacted. Therefore, I'm going to take the immortality you gained. Don't worry, it's going to a good cause."

_You bastard! _She shrieked, trying to do something, _anything_, to free her from this mess, free her from Johnias's clutches.

"Seizan, if you please," he commanded, the words coloured with a demonic imperative that carried the voice of the abyss. A huge horned beast, the same colour as yellow and aged bone, appeared in her line of sight, like it was floating aloft in the impenetrable void, grinning maliciously, though that was the only expression it had ever worn, perpetually mocking those that looked upon it. She screamed in panic, trying to move away from the Perverter of Truth, and then suddenly recalling that Johnias had just said her demonic master's name, and she had heard it without her mind exploding. The dark lord laughed then, the sound full of genuine amusement, giggling wildly at her thoughts.

"Really, Seizan said that? He is quite the trickster, isn't he?" he sniggered, and the demon's face half-twisted into a frown. "He does fancy himself quite the master of deception, although in reality he is simply a pawn of my resident Archdemon, and therefore a slave to me. Now get on with the extraction. I'm bored."

Aksua shrieked with fury as the realised that her destiny had never laid in her hands – first, she had been given over to the vampire clans by the controlling elders of her village, who had regularly donated innocent young women to them to spare their own hides. Then, she had been manipulated by the vampires themselves, groomed to become a slave, a _toy_, of their ruler. When she finally obtained freedom from Kalitas, she then had to be a slave to her vampiric needs, and in her effort to escape them and wreak her vengeance upon the society that had abandoned, abused and persecuted her, ultimately becoming a pawn of Seizan. No longer.

"It's a bit late now, isn't it?" Johnias scoffed mockingly, as the demon advanced through the midnight murk towards her, the vampire rooted to the spot inside her own mind as three-fingered hands reached towards her.

"I've always wondered how a vampire's soul would taste."

.*.*.*.

Caiellis awoke quietly, trying not to disturb his brother who snored peacefully next to him and feeling unexpectedly refreshed, until he fully remembered the events of the day before. His eyes snapped over to the chair beside the bed, but it was empty, and Cai stifled a yawn as he attempted to silently get up, realising that he was still in the operation room that seemed surprisingly more pleasant in the absence of the vast majority of medical machinery, including the needle device that had been the source of much of Alex's agony. He couldn't disentangle himself from the blankets that were wrapped around him and his big brother, so resolved to debate upon whether to break his older sibling's sleep so he could get out or to just snuggle back down against the protective form of the older boy, though he probably wouldn't be able to sleep.

The door quietly opened, and Caiellis automatically moved protectively in front of his wounded brother, before identifying the intruders as the grizzled surgeon-general, who regarded the muddle of limbs comprising the two princes with slight levity, and the singer of the purification ritual, who smiled down at the tired junior prince as the boy rubbed his eyes with his left hand, the right somehow trapped beneath his brother. The lights turned on, although not quite to the oppressive intensity that they had the day before.

"Lord Caiellis, do us a favour and wake up your brother please. We need to perform some tests to ensure Lord Alexander is recovering properly," the woman said, her voice friendly and encouraging, quite at odds with the loud and devoted singing she had shown yesterday. Cai prodded his brother on the nose with his free hand, met by a groan of annoyance. "Come on Alex, rise and shine."

"Can we just stay in bed a few more minutes, Santhia?" the boy moaned, slowly opening his eyes and blinked in surprise when he met the entertained eyes of his little brother, instead of the granddaughter of the Scientia Mos Hierarch, a full year older than him – at the time he had been fifteen. Cai grinned mischievously and snickered: "Oh, so that's why you refused to take me around the Scientia libraries, and weren't at the house when I got back. That explains a lot."

Alexander twisted his little brother's arm painfully behind his back, still much stronger than him even in his injured state, eliciting a yelp of pain, and whispered threateningly in his ear: "You tell anyone about that, baby brother, and you're dead." He increased the pressure to emphasise the point, and then went bright red when he noticed the two Ordo Medella doctors glancing down at him.

"Are you quite finished?" the man asked sternly, though there was a glint of amusement in his otherwise harsh and clinical eyes. Alex patted his brother on the arm gently and released him, a smile that was both innocent and sheepish at the same time, not willing to reveal that his little wrestling match with his younger brother had hurt him under the calculating gaze of the Ordo doctors. Caiellis slid off the bed, stretching and then walking to the side of the surgeons, as the woman increased the light so that they could better examined the older prince's injuries. Alex felt like an animal on display at the zoo, and shied away from the pitying glances they gave him, burrowing further beneath the blankets. He wished they were paying attention to someone else, but then no one had been hurt as badly as him and his little brother's wounds had most likely already healed.

"Don't be shy, Lord Alex," the woman gently chastised, slowly inching towards the boy in an attempt to soothe him. Alexander hated the soothing tone, the pity in it, feeling that a Lucerna shouldn't have to face that. He felt stupid for not being strong enough to both protect his little brother and let the vampire wound his as much as she had, and pushed the awful memories of the previous night back down as the doctor peeled the blankets off him, trying to ignore the seductive purrs of Aksua that were striving to break past his barriers of self-control and make him fight back against those that were endeavouring to aid him.

Sensing his brother's distress and also knowing how much he hated hospitals and being the centre of attention because of his wounds (Alex thought it looked pathetic), Caiellis placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled down at him, the comfort of contact calming his brother's breathing and slowing down the beating of his heart. He sat on the side of the bed but ensured he was still out of the way.

"Well, the first question is how do you feel?" the eldest doctor asked once the boy was free from his cocoon, expert eyes analysing the stitches and bandages to see if any needed altering or replacing. Alex replied with a simple and diverting mumble of: "'m fine"

"And by fine do you mean aching, with stinging pains around the nail and magic wounds, completely exhausted and mortified by all the attention, correct?" the surgeon-general snorted at his look of incredulity, "Don't play "fine" with me boy, I've often had to deal with reckless Lucerna princes and nobles in my time, including your father, who said the exact same thing after defeating the traitorous Light-bearers of Epulaeous and their new greater demons and was greatly wounded. I've had my fair share of "fine" in my time, so don't try and pull the wool over my eyes."

"Please excuse Surgeon-General Mortan, sometimes he does go on rants. It must be due to his age," the other doctor cut in, winking at the boys and checking the data shown on the single machine plugged into their patient. "All seems to be well, although you will definitely be bed-ridden for the next few days as your body recovers."

"Don't look so glum, Alex," Cai offered when he noticed how down the other boy had become, "It is a miracle that you survived these wounds without permanent physical damage."

"Do not get hasty, Lord Caiellis. Lord Alexander may receive numerous scars, and his physical ability could be impaired forever," the grizzled doctor added, as if he was trying to undo Cai's work to make his brother feel better. "Although I highly doubt it with your fortitude. You Lucernas really are stubborn bastards."

"Mortan!" the woman gasped, aghast at the disrespect he was showing to the two potential heirs to the throne. The man replied with a sarcastic, "Yes Esmelde? How may I help you?"

Caiellis burst into laughter, almost falling off the bed, the noise very welcome to Alex's ears after the days of a depressed little brother and the news that he would have to remain in bed-ridden limbo for the next few days. The surgeon-general couldn't stop a small grin from coming onto his face, and turned away to adjust dials on the machine before his companion saw.

The door opened, and Cai instantly stopped laughing when Marik strode in, the man's gaze immediately halting on his eldest's injuries. He walked next to the bed, ignoring how his youngest silently slid to the back of the room, and grinned at Alexander.

"How are you feeling, Alexander?" he inquired, his voice more cheerful knowing that the boy was awake and seemed well after almost losing him the day before.

"I'm good," he replied, looking down when his father arched an eyebrow in dubiety, sharing a glance with the surgeon-general, who just shrugged despairingly. "If you say so. And how are you, Caiellis?"

The younger boy was opening the curtains under the pretence of checking for sunlight, something he was sure that his father didn't know he did (he wasn't convinced that the man knew anything about him at all) and took no notice of the question, scowling when he heard the man sigh loudly.

"The king asked you a question," Mortan interjected, not used to a child showing disrespect to their parent and entertaining the notion that the boy had not heard. "He asked how you were."

"I'm fine, thank you," he answered pleasantly, giving a small smile to the doctor and completely blanking out the presence of his father, who exhaled a frustrated breath.

"Caiellis, if you want to persist in acting like a five year old, then please be my guest, although holding childish grudges isn't helping anyone," he scowled, and added: "Least of all yourself."

He looked at the back of the boy's head, sensing his eldest's demeanour change, no doubt worrying about whether or not his little brother and father had fallen out again, and wished his youngest would stop thinking about solely himself for once. Marik could perceive the "gears in Caiellis's mind twirling" as his wife had always used to put it, so proud of her youngest's intellect and perception of a far higher calibre a child his age should have been. Cai was carefully considering how he should respond, not really caring what his father thought of it but more concerned about the impression his brother would be getting about him and dad. Alex shouldn't have to worry about anything other than his own recovery.

Staying silent would make him look petty and sullen, whereas what he wanted to do, which was shout at his father, would definitely make Alexander more worried than he was already – had dad really expected him to forgive him overnight for the things he said; Cai thought it was quite understandable that he was annoyed about his own _father_ lifting off his feet by the collar and shouting in his face.

"I'm not holding grudges, dad, I just don't want to talk in case I can't control my emotions and start another fight," he responded maturely, grinning inwardly. That was good – the tone had been inflected with enough guilt and child-like innocence to make Marik feel sorry for his actions and surprise the man, whilst also diffusing the tension that was building up in the room around them. Furthermore, the words still informed Marik that his son was still annoyed at him. He was more than happy to have another shouting match with his father, but not in front of his big brother. Poor Alex had enough on his plate, he didn't need to see his precious little brother and father he looked up to fighting. "Surgeon-general Mortan, can Alex eat? I was just thinking about getting breakfast."

At the mention of the prospect of nourishment, the older boy's stomach rumbled loudly – neither boy had eaten anything since yesterday morning (actually, come to think of it Cai had barely touched the Welkalite food anyway), the pastry cakes they had taken from the Glutton's Quarter incinerated in the wreckage of the automobile, and Alex looked hopefully up at the doctor. He was starving.

"I suppose he should have something to provide sustenance and aid with his recuperation," the doctor admitted, and then narrowed his eyes at the jubilant look in his patient's eyes, "Although only get him something small. His body is still recovering and won't be able to keep down a large meal."

Caiellis nodded and left without another word, not asking his father whether he wanted something to eat or not, though the man hadn't had any breakfast he wasn't going to leave his eldest's side until the boy wanted him to.

"Dad... are you and Cai alright?" Alex's concerned and slightly hesitant voice cut through the silence, worried about the strange actions of his little brother and the fact that their dad had mentioned holding grudges, indicating the two had an argument. Marik decided to play down the massive row that had taken place for the sake of his older son, replying: "Me and your brother did have a little shouting match, but it was mostly because we were so stressed as we were both extremely scared for you. Anyway, he is a teenager now. That sort of thing is to be expected."

"The little dude doesn't usually start arguments, he just responds to anger in the same way," Alex mused, and Marik couldn't help but feel that the boy was in the same sentence either accusing him and trying to give him advice. He was so protective of the younger boy, but that was what had led to this mess in the first place. The king sat on the chair beside his son, checking his chronometer – the time was 08:47, and the first meetings discussing the war effort would begin at ten, so he had enough time to spend with his son, although he wished he could have sat all day beside the boy and never leave until he recovered. The doctors took their leave, and Marik stood up, his eyes flicking to Alex, "Do you mind if I leave you alone for a few seconds? I just need to do something. I'll promise I'll be back soon."

"Dad, I'm not a kid. I'm sure I'll be fine for a few seconds," he responded, feeling a slight shiver of fear go up his spine. In fact, he was terrified of being alone, where the memories of Aksua would rise up and no one would be there to stop them, but he needed to face his fears and stop acting so pathetic. Marik smiled back and left, swiftly striding across the hallway of the Medella hospital in the tracks of the doctors. He quickly found them, and then declared: "Surgeon-General Mortan, Choirmaster Esmelde, please give me a moment of your time."

Both doctors turned around, surprised, and Marik fell to his knees, pressing his forehead into the ground.

"Thank you for saving my son!" he shouted, tears filling his eyes as he infused the words with all of the relief and gratitude he felt after Alex's life was saved. The older doctor chuckled quietly. "We were just doing our duty to the royal family."

"Name anything you want as a reward, and it shall be yours," Marik stated, fully willing to give these people anything they desired (within reason) for rescuing his eldest from death's door. Mortan then laughed, amused. "Saving lives is enough of a reward, King Marik. And anyway, without you, my family would have died in the siege of this city, so for that I am immensely grateful also."

Before Marik could respond, an angry gasp sliced through him, and he raised his eyes to see a furious Caiellis holding a platter covered with appetising looking food from the hospital restaurant glowering at him from behind the doctors.

"What are you doing here? You haven't left Alex alone, have you?" he hissed as Marik got to his feet. "Your brother said that he would be fine alone for a few seconds. And do not use that tone with me, young man, unless you want to be disciplined."

"Of course he said he would be alright!" Cai almost exploded with anger, shouting Marik down before he could reply. "He doesn't want to worry us, but every time he is alone he is terrified! You are such an idiot!"

Marik stood, stunned for a second, before his youngest pushed past him, the food forgotten and the tray dumped on a nearby cabinet, shooting down the corridor to his brother's room. He hoped the older boy would be alright after their stupid father left him alone: did the man not realise what his big brother had gone through, and that he would be scarred by the memories of the day before? Cai slammed the door open and his eyes landed on the trembling form of his brother, who tried to hide the fact that he was underneath the blankets.

"Alex," he soothed, sitting beside the boy on the bed and wrapping his arms around him. "Calm down. Everything is ok. I'm here for you."

Alex slowly stopped his shaking, and Caiellis wanted to start crying when he saw the tears in his brother's terrified eyes, the wide blue orbs full of fear and disgust. He forced himself to calm his breathing, hugging his younger brother close and concentrating on the boy's voice. _Angels damn it! I'm so pathetic! _He thought, before giving the smaller boy a rough noogie and assuring him: "Don't worry, kiddo, I'm ok now. I just panicked a tiny bit. Don't blame dad, it's not his fault."

"It is his fault! He should know better, he's your father!" Cai cried, pressing his head into the older boy's arm and violently crushing the urge to sob under the heel of determination and anger. "Why would he ever think it would be ok to just leave you alone?"

Marik sped into the room a moment later, the two Medella operatives following close behind him, Esmelde carrying the abandoned platter of food, and the instant he arrived Cai extricated himself from his older brother and shoved past their dad before he gave in to the urge to scream furiously at the man, fiercely wiping away the tears that were emerging from his green orbs before any of them could see. He slammed the door behind him and took off.

Marik sighed loudly, feeling drained already despite the fact it was only morning and there would be plenty more duties to complete before the day concluded, and that he had barely even argued with his youngest, though it still exhausted him. Fine, if Caiellis wanted to work against him rather than with him then he wouldn't give into the boy's game, but he just didn't want Alexander to have to suffer for it.

"Are you alright, champ?" he asked, his voice full of concern but still tinted by a minute slice of volcanic irritation that he tried to keep out of his tone. "I'm sorry for leaving you alone if you weren't up to it."

"I'm fine, dad," Alex insisted, glad that the expression of pity on his dad's face was slowly exchanged for one of parental pride. "Don't get angry at Cai, it was my fault he reacted like that. I shouldn't have been so weak in front of him."

Marik's mouth almost gaped open. His eldest was actually blaming himself for the argument between his father and little brother! Was he that loving that he was unwilling to accept that it was their fault for the animosity between them, and that meant he had to accuse himself of being at fault?

"No Alexander, this is not your fault. You shouldn't have ever been hurt in the first place, it was your brother that left you to face the vampire alone, and I have clearly been too soft on him if he thinks that I will just accept this from my own son," Marik affirmed, his authoritarian and kingly voice brooking no disagreement and making Alex hang his head in shame, "But anyway, enough about Caiellis. He can continue to stay in his teenager tantrum, I won't let it affect me or your recovery. Would talking about what happened help at all?"

Sensing that they were no longer needed, Mortan briefly check the display of the monitor while his compatriot placed the tray of food on the opposite side of the room, away from the equipment, where the king could easily get it for his son, before leaving the father and son alone. Alex didn't respond, so the king broke the silence that had descended, punctuated only by the languid beeping of the machines.

"You know, I am sorry. I am sorry for leaving you alone in the war, I am sorry for sending you both away after only a month when I should have held you close, and I am sorry for letting you get abducted and hurt this badly." Marik said, his voice uncharacteristically soft and coloured with sadness.

When his heirs had been young, he had often wished for them to grow up faster so that they could be at his side and help him rule, and watch them grow into young men – it was Emili that was better at dealing with children, but now, even though his youngest had only just breached his teenage years and his older son hadn't left them yet, he found himself increasingly wishing that they were both small children again, and he could just gather them up in his arms and guard them from the world. He pushed the thoughts away – his sons were in a very hormonal and fragile part of their lives, as Alexander was becoming and adult while his youngest was going through puberty, and he would be there to support them ever step of the way, no matter what age they were, and his stricken eldest didn't need to see him emotional.

He just hoped that Caiellis would stop being angry at him, though he feared that there would be many more arguments and disputes to come – the younger boy was very intelligent, but he didn't quite have the experience or maturity to interact with people properly yet. Marik wished he would be more like his brother, before crushing that thought as well – both his sons were unique, and that should be celebrated. Just because Caiellis didn't necessarily react as well towards his father didn't mean that the man should desire for him to be like Alexander.

"Dad, this is probably going to be a stupid question, but did the runt tell you about the Resistance?" Alex's voice broke through his reverie, and he looked back at his son who was now sat up, rolling his muscles and flexing his muscular arms. He sat down on the chair when he realised that he had just been towering over his confined son, knowing that the boy would be irritated that he couldn't complete the daily workout he set for himself now that he was back in Lucael.

"No, your brother did not. Did they help you escape Welkas?" he asked, assuming that this what the group was, most likely remnants of the Ja'an Guard that hadn't been corrupted like the rest of the Welkalites apparently had. He found it ridiculous that Jarred Redhand battled for so long to secure the freedom of his people from the despotic and autocratic lineage of tyrants that lorded over them, but only twenty years after he had done so the society of the New Empire reverted back to that way of life, although he could well empathise with the man succumbing to grief when his children and wife had been assassinated – he doubted the Protector was even still alive; Redhand probably having taken his life and the Orders just pretending he was still living to assume control. When his eldest nodded, about to elaborate, Marik unintentionally interrupted him, "And I assume that they want our help to free the civilians of Welkas from the Orders of Passion, insisting that the forces of Lucael should not pillage and slaughter them when we lay siege to the New Empire?"

"Pretty much," Alex replied, and he stopped his stretching, annoyed that he couldn't really do it properly in his bed and that there were no weights. He was glad that his father understood, and after a few seconds of silence Marik offered: "I also apologise for not telling you or your brother about Aksua."

"Wait, what? You knew that bitch?" Alexander questioned, a quizzical look on his features, and Marik belatedly remembered that he had been unconscious at the time, not overhearing it like his younger sibling. "Yes, she tried to kill me during the second year of the war under Johnias's orders, though I did think she had died to Akroma. She must have fled to Welkas to lick her wounds. I'm ashamed to say that she did manage to seduce me after several months, and that I did tell her about you two."

"Dad, it's fine. You thought she was dead, and you probably didn't want us thinking that you had desecrates mum's memory," Alexander said softly, and Marik smiled. _Bit late for that._ He had definitely inherited Emili's thoughtfulness for emotional situations, and he was so proud of how kind this boy had become even without a father and mother and being one of the targets of the perpetrator of the civil war. "If I had told you, you might not have suffered as much in her hands, or known more of her abilities."

"Well she was quite persistent – she followed us all the way to where we were when we fought yesterday from Welkas even though we were in a Yentarian vehicle," Alexander added quietly, and then, trying to make it sound like his experience hadn't phased him, joked: "All things considered, she wasn't the _worst_ person that could have attacked me, I mean-"

"And that's the end of _that_ conversation," Marik quickly cut in, though he couldn't quite keep a smirk from his lips. He knew full well that Alexander had disobeyed his orders not to have a partner until he was eighteen in the civil war and after, but was willing to ignore that because he was a teenager, and a model child otherwise. He recalled his father beating him after he had done the same, flirting with the daughter of the then-Guardian of Cassida Principia, one of the first people that had wanted him to break out of his shell. If he could help it, he didn't want to act anything like his father, despite the man's methods working. He grinned reassuringly at his son, who looked as if he was about to fall asleep again

.*.*.*.

Caiellis left the hospital quietly, pulling his scarf up across his face to conceal his identity and protect him from the cold of the gently falling snow. The frost covered the predominantly golden-adorned architecture of the City of the Sun, so named because of it's closeness to the edge of the abyss and the fact that angelic sunlight more regularly pierced the midnight veil, although even with that it hadn't been sunny for fourteen years, the longest period without light in the history of the kingdom.

The youngest prince didn't want to stray far from the hospital, which was across the street from the magnificent Cathedralis ex Sol, the ornate building almost as large as the one in Capitalia Lux but arguably just as impressive, as the stained glass windows emitted a golden glow that illuminated the nearby streets and the fallen snow in light. Civitas Sol was by far the most religious of the cities, followed by the capital, and Hierarch Aretis and his clerics led hundreds of different sermons in the many chapels scattered across the metropolis. It was said that while Capitalia Lux was the throne, the seat of power for the blessed Lucerna monarchy, Civitas Sol was the glittering jewel of Lucael, foremost in grandeur out of the non-capital metropolises, and the prince didn't want people throwing themselves at his feet and begging for a blessing – or worse, causing a panic because the host of the Angel of the Black Sun was in their midst, as Caiellis knew that out of all the cities, the civilians of the City of the Sun feared him the most. Cai could sympathise with them though, as he also hated Black mana, despite using it often.

He only wanted to find somewhere quiet to relax and calm himself for a few minutes before going back to his brother. Cai felt that he would have exploded if he had stayed in his idiotic father's presence any longer. _What was he thinking, leaving Alex alone? I should never have left to go get food, but then again, I didn't anticipate him being so stupid._ He sighed, before realising that maybe such an action wouldn't be befitting of the normal thirteen year old he was trying to portray himself as. He had never interacted well with people his own age, finding them immature and too concerned in inconsequential things to be interesting.

_Speaking of interacting with people..._ the boy thought, recalling that he hadn't spoken to Orzhova in the Mind Realm in a couple of days, though he had Summoned her. He walked inside the church, wishing he had a golden coin to press into the hands of the donation collectors, and went straight into the nearest empty self-reflection booth, where civilians could pray privately. He found it wonderfully ironic that he was going to contact one of the most hated beings (other than named demons) of those in the Cathedralis ex Sol in an area usually used to pray to her sisters.

He relaxed and let the transference into the Mind Realm take him, depositing him into the familiar location of his lonely cathedral of iridescent purple stained glass and choirs without mouths. The boy slowly stepped towards Orzhova, who was knelt in front of the largest window, wondering whether she knew he that he was there but assuming that the seraph must have done.

"I didn't know Avacyn was so preferable to me," the angel's voice, melancholy and sombre, hit him unexpectedly, and Caiellis sensed an undercurrent of malevolence that made him feel apprehensive, though not quite scared. "Wha-What?"

"Do not feign innocence with me, Caiellis, or have you forgotten that I live inside of your mind?" the angel fully unfurled her awe- and terror-inspiring black wings to their fullest extent, standing up. "So what is it about her that is so much better than me? Is it her strength? Her fearlessness? The fact that she has accomplished so much more than me?"

"What are you talking about?" the boy hesitantly asked, feeling the cold fury emanating from his Summoning and trying to ignore the part of his mind that screamed for him to leave while he still could.

Orzhova spun around, and Cai noticed for the first time that she had been crying, very real tears spilling down her face to join the golden ones etched on her pale cheeks. Her midnight eyes reflected the amount of sadness the angel felt, and Cai took a step back.

"Your dream! Avacyn was your Summoning!" she snarled, her voice getting louder and shaking with an otherworldly anger, yet one that was still all too human. "And do you think I like having Black mana?! Do you think I enjoy living as a pariah, an outcast, a _disgrace_, amongst my sisters?! I thought you understood me! I thought, after all these years of looking for the perfect Summoner, I had finally found the one. I guess I was wrong..." her voice drifted, becoming progressively quieter and softer before breaking off completely. _Fantastic,_ the boy thought before he could stop himself, his mental state souring. _Not only do I have to deal with an irritating father and a recovering brother, but now Orzhova has gone into tantrum mode as well! I don't have enough time for this. It's not like it was my fault I dreamed about Avacyn being my Summoning._

"Oh, so is that how you feel?" Orzhova demanded, and Cai quickly raised his hands to try and placate the furious dark seraph. "Fine then. I won't waste any more of your _oh so _precious time. Get out."

"What?" Caiellis asked, stumped. He took a step towards the angel, trying to comfort her, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean-"

"GET OUT!" she screamed, grabbing him by the collar and hurling him across the cathedral, where he slammed into the huge mahogany doors on the other side and tumbled out. Such a fall and impact should have hurt him, but neither his skin nor his clothes scraped on the ground outside, and the explosion of pain he should have felt simply didn't come. As he managed to get to his feet, the doors crashed shut in front of him, and instead of physical torment, it was emotional agony that assaulted him when he realised that Orzhova was his Summoning, and he shouldn't have thought those things about her. He bashed his small fists against the door, angry and disgusted with himself as once again he failed. "Please, let me back in! I'm sorry! Please, I'm sorry!"

Caiellis felt alone, like when he hadn't completed Orzhova's trial, but now instead of a crushing pressure and the weight of failure, he knew that he had destroyed his chances of ever being on good terms with the dark angel. Cai forced the guilt to turn inwards and focus on himself, instead of becoming fury and directing it outwards. "Orzhova, I'm sorry. Let me in, please..."

He pounded his fists on the door a final time before becoming wracked with tears, almost starting to sob uncontrollably as he realised how lost he felt, the loneliness of his mind without Orzhova overcoming him. He wiped his face, refusing to act pathetic even though no one but his angel would know.

"Orzhova. I am sorry for what I thought and what I said. And yes, I do not even begin to understand how your existence is with Black mana. I don't know what it is like to be treated as an outcast, but I can empathise slightly with you on being hated for something that wasn't my fault, though I have been kept away from it all my life. I'm not the perfect Summoner, and I'm not going to pretend to be. I'm just a failure in general, but I'm sorry for taking out my weakness on you. You didn't deserve it. If you want to stay angry at me, I understand and I don't blame you," Caiellis spoke quietly, though he was sure his words penetrated into the sanctum and that Orzhova could hear them. He wasn't entirely sure where the words were coming from, but they were infused with such a large amount of emotional resonance that he continued, though he didn't know how his angel would react. "But please, let me back in. I need to be with you. I don't think that you are inferior to your sisters simply because you have achieved less in the material world, nor do I hate you because you utilise Black mana or for what you did in Xarius's reign. But you are the only person I can talk to, with my brother recovering and me and dad constantly arguing. You are my only friend, and I am truly sorry for hurting your feelings. I should have taken it out on myself instead of you, and listened to your concerns."

He waited for a long moment, silence eclipsing the world and making the few seconds seem like aeons, and then sighed. Cai had poured his heart out into that speech, and if that wasn't good enough for Orzhova then there was nothing else he could do. Just as he was about to depart from the Mind Realm, leaving sorrowfully and feeling like he had screwed up even more, the angel's voice rang out. "Wait. You said friend, didn't you?"

Caiellis paused for a second, and then answered with a simple: "Yes."

"Do you really think that I am your friend?" Orzhova's sad voice reached his ears, tinted with hopefulness, and the youngest prince was reminded of a time long past when a tearful eight year old him had despairingly asked his older brother the same just after the twelve year old had prevented him from ending his own life when he finally discovered what his First Sisterhood angel had really done after the topic had been hidden from him. Maybe those weren't the best memories to bring up when he was trying to make amends with the Angel of the Black Sun, but Orzhova would already know, wouldn't she?

"Yes, I do think you are my friend. You are the only person other than myself that can comprehend how hard it is to live with the opposite forces of light and darkness roiling with you, although my life had been a walk in the park compared to yours," Cai replied, capitalizing on the moment, smiling sadly when the door began to creak open once again, before he was yanked inside and they slammed shut.

"I'm still mad at you," Orzhova insisted, though her eyes were no longer dejected, and she turned away before her Summoner could glimpse the tiny smile on her face, folding her arms and furling her wings. "Anyway, you should leave, reality is calling."

Cai let a cheerful smile split his melancholy features, sensing that his angel was no longer truly angry at him and was just putting on a show. "Thank you," he said, solemnly, before exiting the Mind Realm, feeling slightly better about himself.

His eyes cracked open, and he sat up in the chair of the self-reflection confessional, a strange exhaustion encompassing his mind as he stretched his arms and legs, before jolting backwards, startled at the presence of someone else in the booth. Hierarch Aretis smirked down at him, though he concealed it when the prince's eyes met his and made his expression drastically more respectful, kneeling in front of the seated boy. That made little sense to Caiellis, who was sure he had entered at the start of the twenty-two year old's sermon, which was supposed to last about an hour. Had the ambitious Hierarch called it off when he detected the magical potency of the prince entering the Cathedralis ex Sol? He wouldn't put it past Aretis to be more interested in gaining favour with a member of the Lucerna family than giving out religious speeches.

"My lord Caiellis, would you care to accompany me to the Sola Atria for the beginning of the strategy session?" the young man asked, his golden-brown eyes belieing little of his intent under Cai's scrutiny. The prince narrowed his own eyes, wondering what his motive was or whether the man was just being pleasant to get on good terms with him, when with a shock he realised that Aretis had mentioned the strategic planning to be starting now. Just how much time had passed in the real world? "I thought I would ask since you had spent almost an hour in the cathedral, though I do not presume to understand the whims of one as powerful as you."

_W__as that a hint of jealously in his voice?_ Cai thought, getting to his feet and ignoring the proffered hand. Whatever. He wasn't that concerned about what the Hierarch thought of him, but he may as well accept his offer. "Thank you, Hierarch Aretis. We go to the Sola Atria." he declared, masking the apprehensiveness he felt and putting on a confident face. While he may despise his position as the potential heir to one of the most powerful factions on the face of Magnus-Primae, it was his duty to act like he was suitable for the role as monarch in front of future subjects. He tore the scarf off and held his head high as he strode into the main chamber of the cathedral, in which golden light illuminated him and made the birthmark on his cheek seem even more stark and obvious. Cai smiled graciously at the people who gasped in astonishment and fell to their knees, feeling Aretis's judging eyes analysing his every movement as he amplified his voice so it would reach far into the building, giving a small: "Ave lux, citizens of Civitas Sol."

The boy favoured them with a magnanimous smile and bowed, mentally trying to stop his cheeks from burning and his body shaking from the attention. He would not have a repeat of the debacle in Capitalia Lux, especially since there was no one to rescue him this time around. The Hierarch followed him as the prince swiftly left, feeling ashamed at the equal amounts of respect and fear the people showed him, but unwilling to let Aretis perceive that. He swiftly walked to the ornate city hall where the strategy session would take place, the old clock on the central spire of the building informing him that they were almost late, a fact that no doubt his father would be thrilled about, having his son appear tardily to an important planning assembly. He brushed off the concerns, figuring that he didn't actually care what the man thought.

Caiellis pushed open the doors to the large room, giving a brief nod to the guards stationed either side, and was met with a disapproving glance from Marik, who said: "Nice of you to join us, Caiellis, Hierarch Aretis. We were just about to begin."

He beckoned over to a large table covered with an extensive map of Magnus-Primae, showing the positions of each different city or important location of the continent that was known by Lucael (Only Geansse of the Erian Conclave was labelled in their area, the rest simply known as the Deep Forest and a mysterious mass of green), with the exact positions of each Lucaelian army highlighted. There were several others sat around the table – Guardians Oleic and Tristram, Uncle Tybalt, general Carlis Montlea and his daughter Elizabex (Cai assumed Leo's absence indicated that he was with Alexander), and a man and woman that he didn't recognise from a brief glance alone, though the boy would probably be able to dredge up their identities from his memory at some point.

Only the most influential generals and Lucaelian figures were able to participate in the strategizing, who would then relay it to their captains and subordinates, although today's session would only be discussing preliminary plans for the assault as none of the Light-bearers from other cities had yet arrived. Cai knew that when his brother's condition had improved then their father wanted them to go back to Capitalia Lux and meet with all the Light-bearers, but meanwhile the Sola Atria would provide ample accommodation for the royal family.

The youngest Lucerna took the empty seat to the right of his father, although he was tempted to be petty and sit far across from the man and force Aretis to sit next to his king, but acting up in front of the commanders would make him look extremely childish. His dad regarded him impassively, his blue eyes as inscrutable and cold as ice, and instead of returning the look Cai examined each of the commanders, most of whom he knew anyway.

Tristram grinned back at him; Tybalt gave a tiny wink but otherwise his ancient face remained focussed; Carlis temporarily bowed his head while his daughter gave the little brother of her twin's best friend, and her own friend, a smile that showed how enthusiastic she was. This would be right up Elizabex's (and his own, he supposed) street, using logic, intellect and cunning to outwit their opponents while having to use mathematics to manage the forces, but he also wasn't surprised that Leodred hadn't come – the older boy would find it immensely boring, although he enjoyed combat and Carlis would no doubt want his son to follow in his footsteps. A smile almost ghosted itself over his features before he repressed it – how many other thirteen year olds would be allowed into war councils potentially deciding the fate of their faction's entire army?

The other members sat around the table reacted in the same fashion as the esteemed general, although Oleic sneered almost imperceptibly and Aretis smirked. Cai's eyes flicked over the empty chair to the left of his dad, imagining his big brother there, looking bored at the strategizing but giving his little brother a smile or an encouraging thumbs up when he glanced at him, and tried to ignore the emotions of loneliness and longing that welled up inside of him.

Marik slammed his hand on the table, instantly attracting the attention of his generals, and readied himself for using his kingly proclamation voice that would boom across the room and hopefully inspire them.

"My commanders, too long have we tolerated the menace of the New Empire of Welkas as they blamed minor attacks on bandits and continually harassed us as we concentrated on the greater threat of my own traitorous brother," he bellowed, noticing the enraptured gazes of his audience as he infused his voice with a small amount of motivational White mana to augment the message in the words. "I know that some of you advocated war from the very beginning, but I was unwilling to risk the safety of the kingdom after we had just ended a civil war. Instead, I argued that diplomacy was the correct way forwards. Clearly, I was wrong, and it led to the abduction of my precious sons (Caiellis could have snorted – _surely he means precious __**son**__?_), the only heirs to the Lucerna throne. Luckily, through their fortitude and strength, they managed to escape (_it would help if you actually told us that_) the despicable New Empire, although in kidnapping my sons they made a grave mistake. I also made a mistake in entertaining the notion of negotiating with these cowards. Now I say, no more! We strike to wipe the Orders of Passion from existence!"

A small cheer erupted from the commanders, quiet only because of the lack of people, although the guards at the door also joined in. Caiellis was busy realising just why he despised his father so much – it was the fact that he couldn't help but admire him, couldn't help but look up to him and think that if he was only half as successful as his dad then his reign would be worth it. That in turn led to him brutally crushing the emotions, reminding himself that this was the man that had caused his mother to die and wasn't close enough to his brother to prevent him from ripping Caiellis's and his brother's life apart, the man that had made him want to cause himself pain or even kill himself, the man that couldn't prevent his own children from being taken away despite being the king, the man that through all that still acted like he knew what was best for Caiellis, still acted like he knew his son when in reality he knew _nothing!_ It also didn't help that the limbs on the left side of his body were throbbing painfully.

Marik didn't fail to notice that his youngest didn't deign to join in with the cheer, the boy instead turning his gaze upon the table to avoid eye contact with his father, and once again Marik could see Caiellis's mind working, tracing mental paths around the armies and forces and imagining them dancing around the cities of Welkas in a battle for supremacy, calculating expected losses from what he anticipated now he had visited the Empire (though he did not presume to know the true extent of Welkalite forces, especially since they consorted with demons, so made a wide margin for error), going over numerous different scenarios in his head at once and selecting the ones he thought best. Even though the boy was still angry at him, still locked within his teenager tantrums, he was glad to have Caiellis with him, and was certain that with all these generals at his disposal he should be able to work out an optimal strategy before going back to Capitalia Lux, saving tremendous amounts of time and allowing him to simply relay the orders to the commanders not present.

Once the noise had died down, Marik spoke again, this time outlining the plan that he himself had come up with so that his generals could pick it apart and improve sections of it, though he was confident it was pretty much the correct course of action. It involve a large amount of offence and seizing the initiative to devastate the Welkalite capital before responses from the other cities could come in – then, if they didn't surrender, they could focus their efforts on each other city one after another until either they did or Welkas was obliterated. It would involve lots of bloody fighting and quick deployments of armies, but Marik had often done so in the civil war (and others) and was familiar with that fighting style, it also being his most preferred. When he had finished, he asked: "Any questions, or improvements?"

"Yes, actually," Caiellis put in quickly, and his father turned to him curiously, "This whole plan is illogical. Instead of throwing all our soldiers into a single battle against the capital city, we should instead enact a long, protracted siege that forces them to draw their resources inwards, detracting from the forces in other cities. Then we can attack them and easily overwhelm them, draining away all their assets and materials from the rest of the empire. Then we can wait for them to make mistakes – if they leave the safety of the capital then we can annihilate their army, whereas if they don't then we can slowly surround and crush them until they are forced to react. We are better equipped for a long engagement, so I personally don't see the need for any rush that could compromise the whole war."

"Interesting," Marik replied simply, irritated by his son's tone, turning back to the rest of the council, "Anyone else?"

"Aren't you even going to consider it?" Caiellis demanded, not noticing the warning glance Tristram shot him. "I thought the whole purpose of the strategy council is to debate the plan, but it you don't want to even thing about my input then there is no point in me being here."

The king turned his coldly frustrated gaze back to his youngest son, who returned it defiantly, meeting his eyes and silently goading him to snap. Instead, he relaxed himself, refusing to shout in the middle of a war council, and alternatively responded calmly, "Caiellis, fix your tone, it is not suitable for a gathering of generals. And yes, while I have considered your ideas, I want this war to be over as soon as possible – first to prevent any other factions from trying to interfere, namely the Yentarian Republic, and also to ensure that the main body of the army does not spend too long out of Lucael, as for all we know Johnias is still active in the abyss and plotting to overthrow me."

The boy nodded, though he still didn't agree, and Marik then asked, "Any more suggestions."

"The part of the plan that-" his son was about to say, his disrespectful tone the exact same as before, still infused with annoyance and an accusatory tint, before Marik angrily slammed his fist on the table. "Caiellis!"

The boy rolled his eyes as if he was the one that had to deal with a petulant and insolent child, and sighed. "Oh I do apologise. My esteemed King Marik Ensis Lucerna, may you spare a moment to grant me your exalted permission to contribute my humble ideas to the discussion?" he half-sneered contemptuously, imitating some of the frightened servants that weren't familiar with their monarch, though both him and his father knew that Marik had snapped unnecessarily and that Caiellis had been perfectly reasonable in wanting to help. Marik scowled, his son making him look like a fool, and muttered: "Permission granted."

"Thank you," he smiled innocently, looking exactly like the diligent and helpful son Marik knew he would be if they got on better, "I was about to say that the fact that we are risking everything in a single battle is extremely reckless and not really necessary when we can take fewer risks and still achieve victory just as decisively. Furthermore, the Welkalite military is suited for huge amounts of violence in short amounts of time, so the plan that I suggested would help to counteract that. Finally, Usnaan is the capital of Welkas and we all know that they consort with demons – in fact, judging by the example of Ershun Firefist, Master of Gluttony, who me and my brother defeated in our escape, each Master of and Order of Passion has access to a greater demon – in his case it was Azarklak, Lord of the Everlasting Banquet, and although he stood little chance against two First Sisterhood angels, he still was a formidable foe, and if there are more powerful demons there then you could end up sending our army to all die in the first engagement. To conclude, I think that the plan that you have put forward is illogical, reckless and smacks of arrogance and not truly understanding our foes."

Although his son did raise thought-provoking points, the way he said it incensed the king, as well as Caiellis's clear intentions to insult him. "Show some respect, boy, or I will have you removed from this council and further ones."

"Why, are you not willing to admit that you could be wrong? You really do have some problems with listening to people," Caiellis spoke perfectly evenly, though each syllable was suffused with resentment and hatred. Before Marik could react and explode in front of his son, Tristram got up from his seat and yanked Cai out of his, pulling the weightless prince outside and placing his large hands on the boy's thin shoulders, who was beginning to tremble with rage.

"Cai, you really need to stop jabbing at your dad in the middle of a council session," he chastised, using the gently admonishing tone he had developed when he had to care for Alexander and his little brother during the civil war, though he had normally used this one on the older boy after the siblings fought, the younger prince at first not wanting to speak to him and preferring to talk to Uncle Tybalt. "While I don't know exactly what has happened between you two, though I did hear some angry shouting yesterday, I know that you and your dad aren't on the best terms at the moment, but you shouldn't let that get in the way of forming a strategy that will put soldiers' lives at stake, ok?"

"He's just so stupid!" Cai yelled, frustrated tears starting to well up in the corner of his eyes. "He refuses to accept that anyone but himself could be right, and he thinks that he knows me and Alex when in actual fact he doesn't know anything about us!"

Tristram sighed, knowing well that the volatile combination of the king's pride and his son's dislike of him due to what he had said to him when he had returned from the war, greeting to boy with disappointment and censure instead of love after nine years of not seeing him would have been bound to detonate sometime soon, and Alexander's wounding was evidently the perfect catalyst for it. He pulled the boy into a hug, resting his stubbled chin on his head in a manner that the boy's big brother had often done. "Caiellis, if you ever feel like you are under too much pressure, or that you don't want to talk to your father (he heard Cai snort) or brother about something, then me and Uncle Tybalt are always here to give advice or comfort you. I know you don't want to worry Alex, especially in the state that he is in, so if you want to talk to someone then don't forget that your Uncles are always willing to help. Just because the civil war has finished doesn't mean that we have stopped caring about you."

"Thanks, Uncle Tristram," the boy sniffed, and although the words were genuine and heartfelt the Guardian knew there was little chance that young Cai would want to share his worries or burdens with others, but he needed to know that just because his big brother was out of the picture for the moment and he felt animosity towards his father didn't mean he was alone. "I'm ready to go back in now."

They returned to the room, Cai becoming blank-eyed and shutting away his inner emotions in the fortifications inside his mind, and Marik smiled at Tristram, wondering just how the man and his fellow Capitalia Lux Light-bearer were so good with his children, and massively grateful he could call upon them as friends. His son still contributed to the planning, but never spoke out of turn or argued with his father, dispassionately inputting his thoughts on the situation. After the best part of two hours, he called the session to a close, very glad with the amount that they had done for the day; and anyway, it was time for lunch – unless his youngest son had gotten his own food, the boy hadn't eaten anything, which meant that the last time he had eaten food was yesterday morning. He meant to go and speak with Caiellis, but he slunk away before his father could reach him.

.*.*.*.

"Dammit Alex, you _always_ get me with that!" Leo exclaimed in over-exaggerated indignation as his bed-ridden friend used his sappers to destroy the walls of Leo's city. They were playing the same card game that Elizabex had won on the monorail journey to the Scholaria Magnus to try and combat some of the boredom Alexander was feeling. The door was then pushed open and the boy's twin sister entered, followed quietly by the smallest Lucerna, whom Alex thought always looked too shy in the presence of his friends, despite the siblings knowing Cai ever since he was born.

"How was the war council?" Alexander asked, raising his eyebrows slightly as his little brother's lip twisted into a small frown before the boy returned to his previous blank expression. Elizabex replied enthusiastically, "It was as interesting as I thought it was going to be."

"So not at all," Leo sniggered, chortling with Alex at the impatient sigh his sister gave him, looking as if she was about to burst into one of her lectures about how strategy and forethought were just as important as martial skill. "What about you, short-stuff? How did you find it?"

Leodred grinned at the glower directed his way by the older brother, and Cai uttered: "Acceptable." Elizabex pondered informing her friend about the arguments his dad and brother had taken part in, but decided that of Cai wanted Alex to know then he should be the one to tell him, but if not then she shouldn't be blabbing her mouth about something the younger boy would want to keep secret. Her twin asked: "So is that good or bad?"

"Are you telling me that you don't know what acceptable means?" Caiellis let out a hint of a smile at Leo's annoyed glare and the warning glance Alexander gave his best friend, despite the fact that he had never hurt the younger boy and never would. "Of course I know what it means. I just wondered if you found it good or bad."

"I found it acceptable," Cai was grinning now and Elizabex ruffled his hair, "My student has learnt well."

"Your student?" Leo laughed, "Since when?"

"Since you always used to leave him with me when you took off to cause trouble," the girl smiled fondly at the memories of the two boys playing pranks on their teachers and getting caught and disciplined each time, even though she was sure Hierarch Tybalt had enjoyed the little games and discovering their new plans. "And he forced me to read him books that even I barely even understood at the time."

"Yeah, even at the age of two my baby brother preferred adult novels and history books to children's stories," Alex winked at his little brother, who scowled at the nickname he hated most. "Angels, he was a strange child. I'm still sure he's a Yentarian in disguise."

"You mean _is_ a strange child," Leo added, turning his attention back to the game and staring intently at the cards in his hand. Elizabex shared an evil and conspiratorial glance with Cai, reaching out to her brother and dragging him off his seat. "Come on Leo, let's get something for us all to eat."

"But sis!" the almost-eighteen year old huffed as his stronger sister pulled him off the chair, though his struggling made the task exponentially harder. "We were in the middle of a game! Why can't you and Cai go?"

"Because," she answered, knowing just from the look in Alex's eyes that he wanted some time alone with the younger boy. "Anyway, you can return to your game when we've got lunch. Plus, you're Alex's best friend, so you should be able to choose a good meal for him."

Leo pouted and stopped resisting, walking out of the room with his twin sister. Elizabex was going to make sure they spent as long as possible getting the meal, just so her friend had more time to spend with his own brother.

Cai's green puppy dog orbs took in his brother, who stuck his tongue out at the look of concern the younger boy gave him, preparing himself for the flood of inquiries about his health and well-being, knowing that if the positions had been reversed then he would be doing the exact same as his sibling. He shook his head as the image of a contentedly smiling Caiellis with his eyes shut surrounded by pulsating tenebrosity, tried to usurp the real one.

"Alex, you ok?" the boy asked after a short pause, sitting down on the edge of the bed and reading the information on the single machine that was connected to his brother.

"I'm fine, runt. Just a little restless, that's all," Alex flexed his biceps meaningfully, "Can't stand all this damn resting. Not my style, little dude."

Caiellis let out a small chuckle. "Yeah. Because you're in the right condition to be up and about or training. It's not even been a day yet."

"Hey!" Alex protested indignantly, "I can still kick your ass, bitch!"

"Sure you can," Cai smiled, glad that his brother was at least acting normal, sliding further across the bed, "I would like to see you try it."

A half-hearted swipe at the youngest prince's head that was easily evaded was all it took to deflate the older brother, who groaned loudly and slumped back into his cushions. "Angels! Kill me now!"

Grinning from ear to ear in a way that he barely ever did, Caiellis reached out and ruffled his brother's spiking blonde hair, earning a deep growl of disapproval from Alex.

"_Cai, do that again and I swear I'll-"_

"Do what, Alex?" Cai taunted, though he posed the question as an adorably innocent inquiry, moving further backwards as a foot swung a bit too close for comfort, "What will you do, big brother?"

Alex scowled. His little brother was _not_ going to get the better of him; "I'll..." he noticed how Caiellis still looked concerned for him beneath the annoying little brother persona, and he had to stop a grin from working its way onto his face. _This could be profitable..._

Coughing loudly and clutching his stomach, Alex's scowl suddenly faded, and it worked like a charm. Abandoning his quest to tease his older brother, Caiellis stepped closer, bringing out the puppy eyes in preparation for his brother to try and brush off the pain he was feeling. "Alex? Are you alright? Do you need any painkillers, or healing?"

"N-no, it's ok. I'm fine, urrgh," Alex rolled his head to the side, a flawless fake grimace plastered on his face that threatened to crumble when his little brother came within reach, mortified that by making Alexander move that the older boy had hurt himself. _Just a little closer, baby brother... Ah, perfect!_

Cai leaned closer to his brother, a small hand on his shoulder, and the next moment he was on his back, the boy's arm around his neck in a headlock and pinning him down. He blinked, dazed, up at his big brother, a wide grin on the upside-down older boy's face. Alex offered his little brother a bright and victorious smile, before promptly beginning to tickle the small boy, running his free hand through all of the perfect spots that a younger him had memorised that made the kid hysterical. Cai giggled uncontrollably, trying to futilely pull his brother's muscular arm off him and escape from the tormenting, though his body shook with laughter. He tittered hysterically, gasping for breath, his healing left arm complaining loudly at the mistreatment. "Ow-ow, hahahaha, please, ahahahaha, big brother, hahahaha, please, hahaha, stop."

Alex halted immediately, though his little brother laughing had always brought a smile to his face and provoked more laughs from him.

"Truce?"

"Truce," Cai gasped, still giggling even though his brother had stopped. Before he released the kid, Alex planted a kiss on his head, a rare gesture from the older boy, and said: "I know you are concerned for me, but I'm alright now. I know you blame yourself, and you shouldn't. Ok, little brother?"

"It was my fault," Cai sighed, the voice full of self-loathing, and Alex grinned: "If you say that one more time I'm gonna start tickling you again. So, is it ok, little brother?"

"Yes, yes, it's ok!"


	19. Sides of the Spectrum

The woman whose name Tradax had already forgotten panted for breath as she dragged her huge body up the obsidian steps on the side of the Palace of Desire's uppermost floor, her blubber slowing her down tremendously and making the Master of Rapture's already short temper begin to fray even more. He scowled as the woman sat down, exhaling and inhaling at a fast pace, contemplating killing her before pushing the murderous thoughts from his mind – she was the best candidate for replacing poor Ershun, and ideally he needed a new Master of Gluttony for the war effort, as another greater demon Summoner would be quite beneficial.

Anyway, it wasn't as if any other important member of the Order renowned for the consumption of excessive amounts of food would be in shape, and he had forbidden the usage of human-drawn palanquins favoured by the leaders of Gluttony. He idly wondered how the woman had made her way to this position of power, how many other members of the Order she had had murdered to secure her place as second in command, before soon realising that he didn't care, the more the better as far as he was concerned.

Tradax made no move to help her as she stood up again, her massive and bloated chest heaving for breath and sweat trickling unpleasantly down her face, and her lips twisted into a grimace, her voice an irritating and vaguely challenging half-gurgle: "How much further?"

The man paused for a second, before anger exploded in his mind. He opened his palm and a bolt of weak lightning shot out of it, crashing into the candidate and sending jolting spasms of crimson agony through her nerves, though the attack wasn't meant to kill. She shrieked in pain, falling to her knees, and Tradax sneered maliciously, his smile like a cat's sadistic joy in playing with its helpless prey. "Surely you mean, how much further, _my lord_?"

The candidate tried to respond, but her tongue lolled in her mouth as the paralysis-inducing torment continued, the sounds coming out as an indecipherable mixture of pain and the half-formation of some words, similar to how a small child speaks in its own babbling language of meaninglessness. The Master of Rapture upped the intensity, figuring that if the woman couldn't withstand this then she would be no use as a host for a demon, and the Infernal Bargain would fail.

Also, he enjoyed causing her pain, and she needed to be taught to respect him like Ershun had done, so that she didn't question his orders – Arendus Draal was enough to contend with, but at least the new Master of Wealth obeyed him completely after Tradax had almost killed him because of the debacle that had allowed the upstart Lucaelian princes to escape. He should have never followed the fallen Lucernas orders in the first place, as killing to only heirs to the throne of Lucael would cripple the kingdom, and if he extended his own life through demonic pacts the unnatural longevity would allow him to wait until King Marik died and then take over Lucael and gain access to the abyss. But no, of course the princes should be kept alive when it would have been child's play to murder them without access to their mana, just because Johnias wanted to see them and Tradax was too much of a coward to incur his displeasure.

The Master of Rapture idly registered that he had been torturing the candidate for over a minute, too wrapped up in his own thoughts of failure and his ambitions that had made his spells all the more lethal despite his original intentions. He smelt sizzling flesh, and sighed, knowing he would have to select another member of the Order for signing of the demonic contract. The woman was slumped on the step, half falling off, blackened by the crackling electricity of pure agony he had sent through her and filling the air with the strong scent of charred meat that wasn't entirely unpleasant to Tradax. He licked his lips, wondering whether he should indulge in her flesh or not, but deciding not to after figuring it would be too fatty and burnt for his liking, and the stairway leading up to the Chamber of Blood wasn't the most comfortable location to be eating a meal.

Tradax stepped lightly down the stairs, pondering kicking the woman off them to see whether she would bounce or roll and how far she would get, and the actions would definitely extinguish the last vestiges of life that may have clung to her destroyed body. His booted foot clacked on the obsidian stone, and he yelped in shock as a pudgy hand, still white-hot from the Master's magic, clamped around his ankle, burning through the extravagant and expensive robes that covered it.

The hand emitted a fiery heat that didn't just derive itself from the residual heat remaining from the crimson lightning, and it burst into scorching flames, searing the flesh from his bones and burning it away in an intensely painful sensation, and Tradax met the woman's eyes, the orbs filled with Red mana and a stubborn defiance that shocked the Master of Rapture, as usually he was excellent at analysing a human's personality and hadn't detected any inner strength to the woman when he had met her, assuming that she was just as petty, short-sighted and obsessed with food as the rest of her Order. This was wrong, but it was a great surprise. He shuddered in ecstasy, delighting in the feeling of unexpected pain cascading through his nervous system, and the woman let go of his leg, the last remnants of strength fading away.

_No! This will not do,_ Tradax thought – he had sensed something very powerful in the candidate before she began the fading plunge into death's embrace, and necrotic Black mana swirled around his hand as he dragged it up from the more corrupt well of mana in his mind, one that he had often dipped into ever since the fateful night where he, Arendus and Ershun had partaken in the Infernal Bargain Aksua created.

The flesh sloughed off from the woman's bones as he pumped reanimating mana into her – as the useless blubber and fat dissolved off her, a new skin was formed by the Master of Rapture's dark magic, a flawless shell that clothed her bones and organs again. After a few seconds, the candidate rose to her feet, and Tradax admired his handiwork – he had dabbled in necromancy to reanimate corpses to use as slaves in construction, but then realised that he much preferred living workers that he could torture or infuse with perception altering narcotics and then ask them to build – the whole empire was founded upon passion, so what was the point in employing empty husks of beings that felt no emotion at all?

Though he had utilised the same principle to save the woman, he wasn't just animating a corpse with dark energies, he was bringing her back from the brink of death – Tradax was immensely pleased that the dark defiance in her eyes remained when she snapped them open again, which would perpetually endure until her life ended now that her mind would forever stay in the state of focus it was in just before her death, even though she had been given new life in her malevolent rebirth. She blinked in confusion, and Tradax took in the rest of her – emerging from the puddle a fat and flesh that had once constituted a large proportion of the candidate's abnormally obese body, the slender woman was now clothed in billowing robes far too large for her, and malicious energies played around her. Long white hair cascaded down from her head, although instead of a silver purity the hair was the colour of pale death, suiting her story of almost being killed but revived by necromancy. Tradax looked deep into her eyes, perceiving with a jolt that although the woman remembered all that she had known before her dark rebirth, all traces of her former personality, the woman she had been, were gone, and she stared back before swiftly falling to her knees.

"My lord," she uttered, and Tradax smiled – though not a zombie, his new creation still viewed him with the same undying devotion the reanimated corpses felt towards their masters, though she would be far more formidable than a simple stinking corpse. "What is your command?"

"We ascend to the Chamber of Blood, -...," Tradax answered, the first part of the sentence suffused with a triumphant arrogance, but then he remembered that he had discarded the woman's name the instant he met her. He continued anyway, "Though I have already given to you gift of rebirth, I have more in store for you. To signify your resurrection, you must first cast of the constraints of your former identity to become an avatar of pleasure itself. Therefore, your new name shall be Ilentia, Master of Gluttony."

The Master of Rapture thought the name apt, as it was a character from one of the ancient myths of Welkas he had read as a child, too young to fight in the rebellion that had claimed all his brothers and sisters.

Ilentia had been the daughter of a monarch that ruled a peaceful kingdom until a huge dragon attacked, slaughtering thousands and reducing the once paradisical plains to desolate and scorched fields. The princess had led an army to slay the beast in its home in the mountains, though her band of adventurers was massively outmatched.

As she lay dying, Ilentia managed to crawl to the pinnacle of the mountain whilst the dragon was distracted by playing with her comrades and killing them slowly one by one, she found the true reason the dragon was there – the Forbidden Orchard, a garden of the gods that was said to be hidden from mortals, that apparently gave immortality to those that ate from the fruits of the trees. She consumed some of the forbidden fruit, promising herself that she would only eat one so that she could gain divine power and end the life of the dragon, saving her friends and kingdom, but the temptation to devour them all overrode any compunction to aid her comrades. Ilentia gorged upon them, gaining tremendous amounts of power as she did so, and when the magic of the fruit repaired her crippled body it also changed her.

When she emerged from the Orchard after her dark revival, all her army had been slaughtered, but Ilentia found that she didn't care. She was more powerful than she imagined, but soon noticed that the dragon was no longer there. The princess returned to her kingdom to see it in ashes, the dragon lounging in the burnt cadaver of the palace and her people wiped out by its fiery fury. Ilentia fought the beast and bested it with her new malevolent blessings, but instead of slaying the dragon, a prime specimen of its kind, she found that her priorities had changed.

The queen (or Empress, as she called herself) used her powers to conquer the nearest kingdoms with her new mount, promising to create a paradise of deepest desire. Ilentia was said to be the first in the line of the Old Welkas line of tyrants that had been overthrown twenty years ago, and although Tradax wouldn't put it past the old rulers to have invented the myth to cement their position of dominance, saying it was their divine right to rule, he had enjoyed reading the story and supposed that all myths had a modicum of truth in them. More likely Ilentia had simply been born with a draconic Summoning and used to to terrorize the populace into compliance, never a hero in the first place, but Tradax had always found it deliciously ironic that a heroine that had set out to save her kingdom instead became enraptured by desire. He thought the name was fitting for the new Ilentia.

"My life is yours, my lord," the woman replied, and the Master of Rapture put his arm around her shoulders, just now noticing how beautiful his new servant was, and how utterly devoted she was towards him, "Come, Ilentia. We go to the Chamber of Blood to begin your demonic ascension."

The walk up the stairs was exponentially quicker now that Ilentia was actually in shape, and the new Master of Gluttony moved purposefully, not stumbling like other reanimations and perfectly in tune with her new body, as if she had lived with it all her life, moving with a feline grace that reminded Tradax strongly of Aksua, though he quickly purged that thought from his mind.

The Chamber of Blood was an ancient room utilised by the old rulers to reach the zenith of absolute pleasure, the epitome of ecstasy that the tyrants soon became addicted to – however such a thing required monumental sacrifices to satiate the dark beings that provided the euphoria and weaken the barriers between the material plane and Sancturia, meaning that the obsidian stone of the chamber was permanently stained with the blood of thousands of innocents, turning the once black rock a deep crimson. Tradax could feel the power thrumming in the room, although it had not been used for its original purpose ever since the Last Tyrant was deposed in the revolution. This was where Aksua had given them to tools to sign the Infernal Bargain roughly seven years ago, and the place he had given the Master of Wealth following Gretia his demon.

"What is this place?" Ilentia asked, her voice no longer an irritating gurgle and instead a melodic growl reflecting her final mental state of defiance. Tradax smiled indulgently, and explained the significance of the chamber to the wide-eyed woman. He conjured up a small flame and used it to light candles around the room, exposing an inverted seven-pointed star surrounded by a circle etched into the centre of the floor. Infernal Bargains were laughably easy to do if one was powerful enough to withstand the sacrifice of their original Summoning and the new demon's temptations – all one needed was a location for contacting the demons, although Aksua had told him that it was only easy because the demons wanted it to be so more succumbed to the lust for power and their souls ended up in their claws. Having his own greater demon would make the process safer (if said greater demon didn't try to betray him, which he doubted).

Tradax channelled his mana into the ritual circle, feeling the veil that had already been thinned by countless deaths in the room begin to crack. Ilentia's red eyes were full of apprehensive awe, and Tradax's grin widened as physical space warped around them, plunging the two into the space between Sancturia and reality that did not conform to the laws of either plane, but still outwardly appeared like the Chamber of Blood. He swiftly looked inside himself, concentrating on the inner darkness deep within him, the pulsating heart of the corruption that had blossomed within his soul, as Red and Black mana erupted around him and a manic cackling sprung into life. The Summoning was significantly easier to do in the unknown plane due to its proximity to Sancturia, and Tradax grinned wildly as his own demon ripped through the walls of existence and plodded into the room.

It was a huge, lumbering red beast that was covered in wicked spines that were as tall as the humans, and instead of wings these spikes thrust out of its back. A gigantic tail snaked out of the back of the hunched demon, next to tree-trunk legs that made the ground shake with every footstep. Gargantuan arms extended from the demon's muscular chest, holding a naked human that cackled with pure insanity that must have been a soul claimed by the denizen of the darkness. Strangely-shaped horns curled out of its head, looping back on themselves like the antlers of a corrupted nature god, and a large maw gaped open and was filled with bone-white teeth. The demon was unique amongst its usually bipedal and winged kind, much more akin to a limbed slug than a humanoid demon.

However, it were the eyes and the aura the demon exuded that were the most terrifying aspects – the creature's small eyes glowed with an unnaturally bright green light that promised an eternity of madness, and the sounds of extreme pleasure mixed with screams of lunacy echoed throughout the chamber. A being of the demon's size should not have been able to fit within the Chamber of Blood, but the fact that it did was a testament to the physics-altering properties of the void between planes.

"This is an honour," the demon gurgled mockingly, violently shaking the screaming lunatic soul in its hands before taking a huge bite out of the middle of it and tossing the halved remains across the room, splattering the walls and floor with insubstantial soul-blood. That was the price of Infernal Bargains – yes, they gave huge amounts of power, but that power came at a steep price – the corruption of the Summoner, the sacrifice of the Summoning and the fact that the soul of the one who entered in the contract would forever belong to the demon instead of progressing to whatever afterlife existed.

Tradax's demon, Carramoshk, liked to slowly render his victims insane whilst said victim thought it was experiencing the apotheosis of bliss, and then swiftly dispel that illusion by consuming their essence once he tired of them. Whilst some Sancturia creatures presided over potentially thousands of titles in many different languages, human and not, (Azarklak, Lord of the Everlasting Banquet, Arch-Patriarch of Gluttony and so on came to Tradax's mind) Carramoshk preferred the simple and fitting moniker of the Sire of Insanity. The upper body of his most recent victim landed with a wet _splat _at Tradax's feet, and the Master of Rapture rolled his eyes when he noticed it was his predecessor in the role that he had had Carramoshk kill, snorting at the melodrama of the act.

Clearly his demon was trying to tell him something, although to be fair Aksua's method of an Infernal Bargain dragged the three demons in to it without their consent in the matter – the vampire had told Tradax, Arendus and Ershun that their Summonings were nowhere near potent enough to be offered as tribute in a normal contract, but the one the Perverter of Truth had taught he forced the demons into it (as was the one he was about to enact with Ilentia). Evidently Carramoshk was eagerly anticipating his demise, but if things progressed as Tradax wanted then that would not be happening in the foreseeable future, if at all.

"You barely ever Summon me," Carramoshk spat, his deep, growling voice halfway between a sarcastic whine and a threatening snarl, exposing the desiccated shreds of flesh stuck between his razor-sharp teeth and pulling at them idly. "Though at least you did supply me with a large amount of victims the last time you did. What is it that you want, Tradax Yulica?"

"You know full well what it is that I want," Tradax replied, knowing that Carramoshk was just playing with him and was already aware of his Summoner's agenda. The demon grinned widely at him, and then his insanity-inducing gaze swept across the chamber and landed on Ilentia, who viewed the demon with her unending defiance but also a modicum of curiosity, and absolutely no fear. The demon let out a booming laugh and then suddenly began to lend Tradax huge quantities of mana so that he could begin the contract. "I know just the demon for her, another of my Brotherhood if you were wondering."

The vampire had outlined a brief description of the hierarchies of demons to him, but Aksua clearly only knew what her own demonic patron had told her, that it was a mirror image of the Sisterhoods of angels but with different numbers and power levels. There were seven Archdemons, and each one had a strain of greater demons that it created or enslaved – however their was no respect between "fathers" and "sons" (or brothers), with each plotting against each other to gain greater power and control and often slaying one another. All of the few demons that Welkalite Summoners had access to were from the same Brotherhood, so this news came as no surprise to Tradax.

"Ilentia, please begin your Summoning," he ordered, and the woman did as she was told, using up a large amount of Red mana to form her Sancturia creature, and sneering in disgust at the cyclops that emerged from the pool of mana, an ungainly and flabby creature that aptly represented the woman that Ilentia had once been. It roared at the demon, who smiled mockingly back, as Tradax began to speak the ear-splitting words of the Infernal Bargain, feeling the magic, directed by Carramoshk's malignant will, latch onto a creature and begin to pull it out. He felt screams of pure anger and hatred echo through the void as the power of the contract started to drag the essence of its captive demon out of Sancturia, and couldn't help but feel satisfied at the fact that this arrogant creature would be forced to follow the commands of Ilentia, before noticing Carramoshk's amused leer and smothering the thoughts.

A ball of pure darkness that spat curses appeared in Tradax's hands, and as Ilentia's cyclops swung a ponderous punch at his own Summoning he threw the ball at it. The sacrifice of the Summoning in the demonic covenant could happen in numerous different ways – he himself had been forced to slit the throat of his former Summoning, an elemental hound, with an enchanted blade and feed its fiery blood to the ritual to satisfy Carramoshk, so a part of him was mildly curious to see what would happen.

The swirl of shadow played around Ilentia for a few seconds, before plunging straight into the single eye of the cyclops. The humanoid beast roared it pain, immediately halting its attack and clawing at its eye, before it began swelling and started to make a pathetic squeaking noise. Then, it exploded, detonating in a spray of solid darkness and blood that drenched the chamber and its occupants in stinking viscera – Tradax had noted that in this realm between realms, corpses of Sancturia creatures remained, echoing the plane where they originated from and signalling the actual death rather than the dissipation of the beast.

Stood in the brutalised carcass of the cyclops was a figure of very human-like proportions, though still far more muscular and bigger, covered with stark white flesh splattered with droplets of the cyclops's oleaginous blood. The demon was quite plain, though it still had the huge curling horns reminiscent of the rest of its dark race. It hunched, a sneer on his features, and it oozed malice as well as an aura of ravenous hunger akin to Azarklak's, although the Father of the Feast's was more about gorging on an eternal banquet whereas this demon emitted a desperate need to feed on flesh, fitting the Summoning of a Master of Gluttony.

"Carramoshk, you bastard!" the demon suddenly shrieked in fury, bounding towards the Sire of Insanity, long talons outstretched and poisonous dark mana increasing their length. Ilentia reacted instantly, impressing Tradax who was just about to prepare his own spell, stamping her foot on the ground as a chain of substantial shadows wrapped around her Summoning, dragging it to heel. It thrashed, screaming unknown words in defiance and pulling at the chain, but Ilentia's molten will held fast and it didn't budge.

"What's wrong, Arrapackxia?" the crimson demon laughed, flexing his biceps and standing straighter as if in a contest with the other demon, "Hadn't eaten yet?"

"You know full well that if I had, I would be killing you now," Arrapackxia hissed maliciously, smiling malevolently at the expression of incredulity that eclipsed Carramoshk's demonic features for a split second, before they returned to derisive and the demon snorted, "I would like to see you try, _little brother_."

The new demon ignored its sibling then, turning its eyes upon his new Summoner who glared down at him. "She's a pretty one, isn't she? I would love to sink my teeth into her flesh..."

"Silence, beast," Ilentia spat, squeezing her hand closed, her expression remaining stony as the demon shrieked in pain and clawed at the chain. "I am your master now. For now, you will do as I command, and when my life ends you may do as you wish with my soul."

"Hmph," Arrapackxia pouted, Unsummoning himself with a flash of spiralling darkness and entering Ilentia's Mind Realm. Carramoshk regarded the whole affair with barely concealed amusement, and leaned next to Tradax, who could smell the demon's foetid breath, whispering in his ear, "She is a strong one. Just what have you created, Tradax?"

And with that, he returned also, and the Chamber of Blood snapped back into reality.

.*.*.*.

Arguing. Alex recognised the sound immediately, raised voices duelling in a cacophony of disturbing sound that echoed throughout his mind. _What is happening?_ Alex thought, registering that he should be getting up but unable to move, the darkness all-consuming and preventing his eyes from opening. He felt weak, like he had done just after Aksua wounded him, though the doctors had said he was getting better. _Why then can't I move? Why can't I open my eyes?_

He needed to get up and put a stop to the bickering, it must have been quite serious if dad and Cai were arguing directly in front of him, and to be honest their raised voices were making his head throb in alternating bursts of sharp pain and aching agony.

"What the hell did you do?" his father's voice boomed, crashing into his ears like a rumbling shockwave of sound, making the bed seem like it was shuddering underneath him. _Alright, that's it... Alexander Ensis Lucerna, you have got to get up and stop this before it goes too far and someone says something they will regret._

"_Me_? _I _didn't do anything!" the shouting protest of his little brother cut like a knife through Alex's mind, instantly reminding him of what had happened before the fall into unconsciousness the boy assumed he must have undergone – everything had been perfectly fine, he had been teasing the younger boy, but Alexander couldn't recall anything past the point where he threatened to torment Caiellis some more and the younger boy had acquiesced to stop blaming himself for his older sibling's wounding. Judging by the kid's raised tone, the argument in the room had been brewing for quite some time, probably both of his family members wanting to wait until they could leave to shout at each other but dad exploding before they could get the chance. "_You _were the one that let the doctors remove the machines! If it had been up to me they would have been kept on, but no, Alexander is a Lucerna, so his body should just recover instantly after near-fatal wounds! Just because I was the one with him when the last of the drugs in his system gave out and Alex had no more energy to stay awake doesn't mean that it was my fault!"

_Cai, dad was just trying to make it more comfortable for me. Obviously the doctors had no idea how much I must have relied on these drugs, but I appreciate your concern lil' bro. Plus, I do wish that dad wasn't blaming you for it, it wasn't your fault._

"Were there no signs that he was going to fall unconscious before he did, Lord Caiellis?" the clipped and clinical tone of Surgeon-general Mortan sliced through the bickering before the king could respond. Alex felt his little brother about to yell furiously before realising who it was that had spoken, and that there was no thinly-veiled accusation in the tone, just a desire to help the older prince. The youngster took a deep, shaking breath, and all Alexander wanted to do was get his father and brother to just sit down and solve the disagreement with them, although there was no guarantee that that would work and he couldn't do much in his current state. "No. There was nothing to suggest that my brother would lose consciousness, although I couldn't see his face and by extension his pupils because he had me in a headlock."

"So that is what you were doing? Messing around with him while he should be recovering?" Marik thundered, and Cai shot him a look that mixed despondency, worry for his brother and furious anger in a volatile combination of negative emotions. _Dad, please, we were just having fun. It wasn't really his fault, __it's not like he could get out of it__, and I should have known not to push myself too hard in the state I was in. _"Sometimes it feels like you just want your brother to get hurt, what with just leaving him alone with the vampire!"

Alexander wanted to shout, to punch something, to let out a huge burst of mana and yell "I'm right here, people!" but all he could manage was to make one finger twitch ever so slightly, something that would have just been passed off as unconscious movement – even without his eyes open, he could still feel the pitying glances spearing into him. Whatever Aksua had done while feeding on him, it left him drained now that the medicine was out of his system, although he could feel fresh mechanical equipment plugged into him and rejuvenating mana periodically pumping through his veins. _I can't do this right now, please, Cai, dad, drop it, please, just stop fighting... _And then the true darkness of sleep took him once again, squeezing him tight within its gloomy embrace and nullifying his resistance.

.*.*.*.

Alexander had no idea how much time had passed before he clawed his way back to the state of semi-awareness again, though soon realised what it was that had dragged him back from the nightmares of Aksua mixed with images from the brothers' abduction and the youngest prince asphyxiating in the arms of Arendus Draal.

The argument had stopped, though whether it had only just concluded or the room had been quiet for hours was a mystery to the boy, leaving the room peacefully tranquil, the hush punctuated only by the languid beeps of the machines and a much sadder noise. Someone was leaning against Alex's shoulder, small hands wrapped around his bicep, and that someone was crying, almost sobbing uncontrollably, and the soft mop of hair brushing against his bare shoulder left no doubt in the eldest prince's mind as to who that someone was. _Aww, Caiellis, don't cry little buddy._

"P-please wake up, Alex. I n-need my b-big brother. I'm s-so s-sorry. I m-messed everything u-up again," he mumbled in between sobs, and Alex thought: _Don't worry about that, I should have just told you that I wasn't up for it instead of tormenting you back, _before sensing that the boy was talking about something much more sinister. "I-I d-didn't mean for y-you to g-get h-hurt. I j-just t-thought t-that S-Summoning was t-the r-right thing t-to d-do. I'm s-so sorry for leaving you all alone. This is a-all m-my f-fault," he wiped his eyes and blew his nose on a piece of tissue, determined to continue with his apology, despite the fact that the one he was addressing was unconscious.

"I should never have believed what Aksua showed me, but it just seemed so perfect and real. I'm so sorry, but if it makes you feel any better you were exactly the same in the dream world as you are in real life. E-Except you were g-getting hurt b-because of me," a fresh flood of tears cascaded down his face, and all Alex wanted to do was to sit up and comfort his brother, assure him that none of this was his fault. "And I should have stayed out of the negotiations at the Scholaria Magnus. It was my fault that we were in Welkas in the first place, and … I suppose I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry. Ha. Ha. I'm too pathetic to just say it to your face, so instead I come snivelling to you when you are unconscious. My entire existence is just so damn lamentable. I'm a failure of a prince, and a failure of a brother. I should have been there for you..."

_Don't think like that, little brother. You know full well that this isn't your fault, and personally I'm extremely glad it was me that was hurt instead of you. I get why you wanted to Summon, you wanted to prevent either of us from getting hurt. And you are the best little brother in the world, do you hear me?_

Cai kept crying, pressing his face into his brother's solid shoulder in the hope that the reassurance of contact would stop the feelings of shame and guilt from pressing into him, but it just reminded him of what he could have lost because of his own stupidity and uselessness.

… _Of course he doesn't, you damn idiot! You're not actually speaking out loud! Wake up, dammit! Wake up and be there for your brother!_

Alexander focussed all of his energy, all of the determination to make his sibling feel loved and safe, to move his arm in order to give his little brother an indication that he was still there, that he was listening to him and wanted him to know that he didn't blame him, though it was a testimony to just how much Caiellis loved his older brother and how low his own self-esteem had become that he kept accusing himself of failure despite the older boy repeatedly telling him that it wasn't his fault.

It took far longer than he had hoped, but eventually he managed to flex his bicep a bit, which immediately attracted the attention of the kid. Cai sat up, wiping his eyes and staring hopefully at the prone form of his sibling. Alex smirked inwardly when he visualised the doleful puppy eyes of the squirt, brimming with hope, though the image was tainted by the huge fat tears that would be pouring out of them. If there was one thing Alex wanted to achieve by this movement, even if for now he couldn't get his little brother to stop blaming himself due to his inability to speak, it was to erase those tears and maybe make Caiellis feel happier.

"Big brother? Are you in there?" the boy asked expectantly, though Alex had exhausted the last vestiges of energy in his prior movement. _Where else would I be, Boy Genius? _he thought sarcastically, hoping that Cai wouldn't just dismiss all his effort to move the limb. "Well, I certainly hope you were listening to that. I'm not repeating it when you are conscious enough to kick my ass for this extremely "girly" moment. And I know that you don't blame me for any of this, but then again you barely ever blame me for anything..." Cai's voice drifted off, as if he had nothing more to say, although Alex knew that to be false. _I can hear you, little dude. But I'm not going to admit it when I wake up. This whole situation is humiliating enough, so I'm better off just pretending that I was asleep._

The younger boy stayed silent for a few minutes, certain that somehow his older brother was listening to him, and then tried gently shaking his shoulder, not wanting to disrupt the machines freshly plugged into the older boy because he was aware that if his brother was able to hear him, then altering the flow of medication could end that state of semi-awareness.

"Alexander?" he asked after a moment, his soft voice piercing the veil of tranquillity that had descended upon the room. _Yeah, Cai?_

"I love you, big brother."

_I love you too, kiddo. Now get going. Don't mope next to me all day. Besides, I can feel myself going back to sleep. I'll see you soon, I promise. And try to stop arguing with dad if you can._

.*.*.*.

Caiellis stood in the centre of the training hall of the Sola Atria, the circular golden room covered in stained glass windows depicting the scenes of many different Lucerna rulers and other Lucaelian heroes facing off against numerous varied enemies of the people. They were easy enough to recognise, although Cai assumed they had been greatly overemphasised – although he did know just how powerful a First Sisterhood angel was, so he reasoned that some of the art would have been factual. There were several scenes of his first recorded ancestor battling alone against hordes of demons with the First Angel, progenitor of the First Sisterhood and apparently known to her daughters as Serra.

Many other early monarchs were shown in their own conquests, and he paid each one their respects with a humble nod of his head, though he didn't worship the rulers like many not directly related to them. He identified Queen Arie with her tricolour angel Jenara holding off the might of the Erian shamans and their war beasts, the panel illuminated by mana glowing a deep green that made the brutal battle seem all the more peaceful, although many crystallised corpses were strewn around the defiant monarch.

A huge window representing the defeat of the once-mighty Grafnica nation showed his grandfather, King Garius II (the first being his great-grandfather who had died shortly after his coronation when he had been assassinated by the Grafnica, leaving his son on the throne at the young age of sixteen), annihilating the capital city of the race with Iona. Though the picture was magnificent, the cleansing incandescent rays of the event known as the Day of Judgement shining with an inspiring light, Caiellis felt awed and terrified that the man and his angel had exterminated the entire population of the city, even though they had consorted with demons and been the greatest nation-based threat to Lucael in the kingdom's history.

He had never met the man, as Garius had already died three years before his birth, and not really heard much about his personality since he hadn't really talked to his mother or father either concerning things like that, despite knowing all of his major achievements off by heart and learning about the spells he and Iona had utilised. Cai had always imagined him as a very stern and cold man (just like his own father), maybe haunted by the amount of lives he had taken.

If he looked deep enough, he could sense that in Marik also, and although the information was highly propagandised, portraying the inhabitants of Vectura, Epulaeous and Crescia as corrupted demon worshippers, when ancient relics had been used by the king to eliminate them there must have been many innocent civilians caught in the destruction. The man kept it hidden quite well, but if Caiellis focussed exclusively on him he could occasionally catch a haunted look in dad's eyes, showing just how much he regretted doing what he had to.

The defeat of the treacherous Light-bearers of Epulaeous by Marik and Akroma was the most recent window, only small compared to some of the others due to the relative lack of space but still signifying the victory over Johnias in the most brutal civil war that had been known to Lucael apart from Xarius's reign and dethroning. When he looked upon his father's visage, a steely resolve to protect the people etched upon his austere and perfect face, he was unable to prevent a surge of admiration and pride, before sternly reminding himself that the art was created for that purpose and deliberately declined to show the flaws of the rulers. Well, apart from one of the rulers, that is.

Completing his brief and mostly inaccurate tour of Lucaelian history, the boy's green orbs landed on the final panel – technically it wouldn't have been if he had viewed the images on the dome of stained glass in the proper order, but Caiellis had intentionally left this image to be the last one he viewed. Aurelia was aloft in all her fiery glory in the throne room, aptly exhibiting the righteous fury highlighted on the then Princess Matrice's aquiline and beautiful face, her red hair unique amongst Cai's family tree and serving as a stark reminder of the Red mana that had been present in her that his own brother had inherited. The Lucerna held a long halberd that was alight with white flames, and her right hand was stamped by the birthmark of the Swords of Flame. Like many of the other panels, this one showed an artist-mage's depiction of a point in time that a hero defended Lucael from an enemy that would bring about it's utter demise, although this glittering panel was unique – only on this window was the enemy from the exalted Lucerna line itself.

Exuding a ludicrous amount of haughtiness and arrogance, Xarius Drakis (a middle name that was no longer used) Lucerna lounged upon the imposing Golden Throne in the highest room of the Capitalia Lux royal palace, not even deigning to stand up and face his opponent. A staff topped with an ornate representation of the Black Sun hung loosely in his gloved grip, contrails of tenebrosity and radiance languidly swirling around it, and the true Black Sun was in the centre of the man's forehead, framed by a baroque crown of gold and ivory that's centre was left empty, allowing the birthmark to crackle with coruscating arcs of purple lightning.

Orzhova stood dutifully to the side of her previous Summoner, her scythe held horizontally and her spectacular midnight wings only half-unfurled. The dark angel's eyes were open and fixed upon her heavenly sister, the onyx orbs showing absolutely no emotion and simply showing the eternal darkness of the night that perpetually surrounded the kingdom, the pure emptiness and nothingness of the void. Orzhova was completely different to how she appeared to Caiellis, though the boy what he saw of her in the present was the true representation of the angel – when she had served under Xarius she had suppressed her emotions and feelings and obeyed her duty to the letter. He could empathise with those that were frightened of the angel, as she had looked like a soulless killer with no remorse or feelings – Cai knew that this wasn't true, but it greatly reminded him of Akroma, though the Angel of Wrath had shown her hatred of the darkness when battling Aksua.

Caiellis was deeply surprised, actually – he had expected Xarius and his angel to be shown as evil and detestable as the other villains of the past, but the artist had done a sterling job of portraying the mad king as what Cai had thought he would have been like. Xarius had the blonde hair common to the Lucerna line, and was clothed in a magisterial and ornate outfit of interlocking pieces alternating between solid gold and a chequered black and white pattern. The man's face was still young, despite him being at least forty-four at the time, a testament to the life-draining powers of White and Black combined that he abused to extend his own eternal youth, remaining with the appearance of a man half his age.

His green eyes were suffused with a huge amount of the familiar Lucerna pride twisted into something far darker and exacerbated by his malevolent powers, but the thing that stood out to Cai the most was the utter certainty present in both his and Matrice's eyes. Both were completely sure of victory, and although obviously the niece had prevailed and claimed the throne, Cai wished he could have been there to see the battle – both so that he could see how Xarius used Orzhova and different spells they were using, but also so that he could see just why the self-styled Emperor of Light had lost – despite the fact that history books liked to insist that Queen Matrice was infused with divine purpose and was pure while her opponent was corrupted, and that was why she had won, Cai knew it must have been much deeper than that. He had experienced the sheer power of light and darkness combined, so the battle can't have ended in just three blows like all of the historical accounts had said.

Cai could have slapped himself. Why was he wasting time trying to figure it out for himself when he had access to one of the members of that fateful confrontation? Besides, he had been intending to Summon Orzhova so that he could get more comfortable with Black mana and perhaps add some new spells to his arsenal, and the training hall was restricted to Lucernas anyway (he found that hilarious – why would you build something in a city that the ones who live in that city can't even get in?) so no one would just walk in on him when he was in the middle of casting a spell of Black mana.

He shut his eyes, breathing in deeply and preparing himself for the ritual motions that he would go through that he was intimately familiar with, despite only doing it successfully twice and the fact that it had only been three days since he had passed Orzhova's trial of mortality. Cai debated upon channelling the magic of darkness first, like he had done when he had almost completed his most powerful Summoning yet before Aksua thrust him into the dream realm, but soon came to the conclusion that such a state could only manifest if he felt intense hatred. Anyway, it wasn't exactly like he was experienced in Summoning in general, so any practice could be vital. Cai still wasn't happy with how long it took, though he knew that First Sisterhood angels generally required lots of time and power in their rituals – if he was ever in a battle, he was sure that the soldiers and other Summoners would protect him, but even a slight delay could be costly. However, he still wouldn't rush, as that could easily be catastrophic to both him and his surroundings.

Caiellis conjured the golden White mana that swirled predominantly around his left side and reopened his left eye, the orb saturated with pure luminosity and the boy's vision was augmented (or distorted, he mused) by the Lens of Innocence, patterns of emitted mana playing over the art and making it look even more impressive. As usual, his ominous birthmark began converting the positive magic of light into dark energies, and the youngest Lucerna concentrated on those awful emotions of hatred and loss he had felt on the night of the death of his mother that were sadly more familiar to him than any friend he had ever attempted to make, as the sensation of tears dripping down his face and the crackle of midnight tendrils of energy altered him that the Black mana he had generated was enough, so opened his left eye.

He quickly grabbed the star of darklight forming above his birthmark, tossing it to where it hovered in the air and pouring vast quantities of opposite mana types into it – Cai decided that while the generation of mana was vital and shouldn't be rushed, the expansion of the Black Sun didn't need to take nearly as long as it currently did. The sound of the choir sprang into existence, rapidly increasing in volume as he infused the sphere of un-light with more and more energy. The prince drew his crystalline sword, the relic blade shining with almost equal amounts of radiance and dripping shadow, with only just more of the former. He glanced up, half expecting the depiction of King Xarius to be pulsing in the Lens of Guilt, though obviously malicious mana wasn't used in the creation of the art. He etched the symbol of a shadowy scythe in the air as the Black Sun began to grow to critical mass, glad that the Lucerna-exclusive training hall was warded to prevent excess mana from escaping. Cai closed his right eye and saw the world through Innocence once again, going through the motions of coating the gloomy weapon in golden magic that coursed through his right palm.

The boy smiled as he relished in the addictive sensation of Summoning – though many of the benefits were evident, such as having access to a First Sisterhood angel to fight for you, something that was often more subtle was the increase in potency of the Lucerna themselves, acting in tandem with their angelic guardian as their power rose to match its. Amethyst and white lightning coruscated across the circular domed room as a gloved hand gripped the ornate scythe tightly. Orzhova swiftly absorbed the star of darkness that radiate light into her own being, the dark seraph's appearance heralding another burst of mana within Cai.

"You're getting quicker," the Angel of the Black Sun commented, utterly out of place after the drama of the Summoning ritual, and the boy nodded, pleased that she noticed, though perhaps she was just making an idle mention and didn't know that he was deliberately trying to speed it up. "So, Caiellis, what did you want to learn about? Your incessant thoughts about becoming stronger and "not being so pathetic" as you so eloquently word it are getting quite annoying." the angel smiled jokingly, her onyx eyes twinkling with a mischief her Summoner had never imagined Orzhova possessing after the dire things he had heard before actually meeting her.

Eschewing words, Cai looked past the reality of his angel and into the stained glass representation of her, trying to imagine how hard it must have been for Orzhova to have thought that after all the time waiting while her sisters made names for themselves in the material plane, she had finally found the ideal Summoner – one who was born with White and Black mana, just to have her dreams dashed and be forced to serve in Xarius's ambitions. She turned around, furling her dazzling midnight wings and idly twirling her huge scythe, staring at the picture.

"Oh," she voiced softly, the short sound tinged with sorrow and regret that ate at Cai's heart, though Orzhova made great pains to brighten herself up for the next sentence, as if reminding herself that what was done was done and that she no longer had to serve under the arrogant, selfish and sadistic Emperor of Light and that her new Summoner was presently much more to her liking. "So, before I teach you some spells you want to know from me why Xarius lost, correct? Clearly you don't believe the lies about Matrice being drastically more powerful than the doomed king."

The boy nodded, his eyes focussed and intent, and Orzhova smiled indulgently. She really did like Caiellis's penchant for learning and eager curiosity to discover as much knowledge as possible, as well as his determination and thoughtful, analytical mind and patience. However, though she did paradoxically wish it was otherwise, the part that she liked best was the aspect of dissatisfaction with himself – although it did pain her sometimes to sense just how much the boy despised himself, Orzhova would rather he just the a drive to improve rather than the self-loathing that always arose when something bad occurred. Maybe she could help him change that – besides, he was still young and his personality could alter dramatically. That was why she had felt awful after their argument and the fact that she threw him out of the cathedral – instead of being angry with the angel's pettiness, like any normal person would have been, Caiellis focussed the guilt of what he had done at himself instead. Orzhova should have waited to raise the issue in a less emotionally strained time for her young Summoner, what with the older brother that he dearly loved significantly hurt and Caiellis blaming himself for it – she was also annoyed at how Marik was treating the situation, though his Summoning was her detached sister Akroma and wouldn't be any help in that case.

"Do you remember I told you that Xarius could only control light or darkness? That was slightly untrue, I suppose, but while he could wield both simultaneously he was never able to fuse them like you have already done without my aid – that was because his drive to use Black mana was far higher than for his White, and so the magic of darkness responded more to his inner personality – his ambition and selfishness – than that of light magic," she explained, and though they had conversed in the Mind Realm in the short time after Caiellis passed her deliberately extremely difficult trial that only a person with the unique perception of life required not to abuse Black mana but still be able to utilise it could complete Orzhova much preferred speaking to the youngster in his natural habitat, though she had to be reasonably quick as not to drain too much of his mana and exhaust him.

"Don't be alarmed, Caiel- Can I call you Cai? - Anyway, don't be alarmed, Cai, but Xarius fought in a style very similar to yours. He was patient, logical, systematic and methodical, waiting like you do for an opponent to expose weakness before striking when you are sure of victory – using White mana to sustain and protect himself while Black exacerbated his foes' flaws, eliminating any advantages they had whilst slowly accumulating his own until the difference was far too massive for the enemy ever to win. Though I can tell you have almost perfected this fighting style, despite appearing dynamic in an attempt to confuse your opponents, who will think you are an extremely offensive warrior, while also preventing them from gaining profit because of your relentless attacks – something that you have inherited from your father," she continued, noticing his expression darkening at the mention of the monarch,

"However, the main difference between you an Xarius is that even though you both examined potential moves a foe could make in an attempt to nullify them, the fact is that you actually consider defeat as a possibility – one to be avoided at all costs, of course, but still something that could happen should you make a mistake or miscalculation. Meanwhile, Xarius was so self-assured, so convinced that he was perfect and that his fighting style was flawless, that him losing was utterly alien to the man. So yes, his arrogance was his downfall, as while lesser enemies would certainly never defeat him as he drained their vitality to better his own, when he fought Matrice and Aurelia the fact that he believed he couldn't ever lose was precisely why he lost. He refused to accept that anyone was his equal, or better, and paid the price because of it – Xarius thought that his victory was inevitable, assured, so when faced with an opponent that took the advantage from him he didn't know how to react. It perhaps didn't help his case that I was never inclined to throw myself in front of blows for him or heal him, so he had to consciously direct and command me at every turn, otherwise I would just stand still." Orzhova grinned slightly vindictively at the boy, who couldn't help smiling either.

"Satisfactory?" she inquired, resisting the urge to bend to Cai's height as she knew he would find it patronising. He nodded, "Fascinating. Thank you."

"No problem. You wished to expand your arsenal of spells?" Orzhova asked after a brief pause, already sensing the boy tiring, imperceptible to one that was not mentally linked to him. He still had huge amounts of mana as yet unused, though he probably would expend them perfecting the list of spells she was already mentally drawing up that were appropriate to his skill level – though she wouldn't like to admit to herself or him, Cai's age and inexperience with Summoning (factors that he couldn't change without the progression of time) meant that he couldn't yet access some of the extremely high-tier magic, magic that she had never taught to Xarius for fear of what he would do with it. Orzhova would assess Caiellis when the time came to see whether he was worthy or not. "Right, first tell me what you know about Black magic, since Lucael ironically doesn't have much information on it and you had only used it once before passing my trial."

Cai took a moment to analyse the wealth of knowledge in his young mind, selecting the most relevant facts and inferring what he could from them. He wasn't entirely sure, but the encouraging look in Orzhova's eyes made him feel more confident. He uttered: "Black spells are primarily concentrated on the creation of advantages for the user, as it is selfish. This can involve removing threats through destruction magic, or gaining more power – though this power often comes at a price, as after Red Black mana is the most self-destructive energy. However, while Red mages simply don't care what happens to themselves, Black mages lust for power and are willing to do anything to win, including sacrificing allies and their own health in order to be the victor. This means their spells either kill or make some sort of pact to ensure they have more power."

"Excellent," Orzhova nodded, thoroughly pleased and very proud of the boy, "So, because you are already familiar with White magic and I'm confident enough that you don't have to explain it to me, how do the factors of Black link to the magic of light?" She knew that although Caiellis wanted to learn spells, he understood the nature of the questioning and the motives behind it, and was glad of his intellectual and patient aspects – many other people would have become annoyed at her when she promised to teach them more magic and then launched into a full-scale interrogation.

"White mana also deals with the formation of advantages, although relating more to groups than the individual. It can also stimulate the direct removal of opposition when that opposition threatens the mage and those they have to protect," Cai started, conjuring a small ball of light for effect, "The magic of light also heals and repairs, which can be useful if one wished to damage themselves in return for more mana." _He's got it,_ Orzhova thought proudly, Cai's expressive orbs, one of gold and one of ink, highlighting his thought processes as the true correlation between White and Black mana began to click within his head. She motioned for him to go on, satisfied that he didn't need her help – that was good, better than she expected in fact, because that meant she didn't have to teach him about combining the mana and what results one would get from that and could move straight onto individual spells.

"White and Black combined seeks to patiently win while depriving the opponent of all resources, grinding them to defeat in a war of attrition that they can't hope to win – advantages are gained by draining life to both hurt the enemy and replenish the wounds of the user, by participating in Black pacts and healing yourself with White mana so the detrimental effects of the pact are nullified, and by simply annihilating anything too potent to be waited out," he finished quickly, wanting to hurry up and learn some spells, though the talk and introspection in such a beautiful room was enjoyable.

"Since you are already using the stained glass wings I like to call the Gift of Orzhova, without my tutelage, I'll begin by teaching you some offensive spells that combine the mana types together. I know you're a bit uncomfortable with the concept of draining life, but put it this way – what is the point in you getting hurt when minor damage is preventable?"

The two spent around ten minutes with Caiellis learning a new spell before he couldn't sustain Orzhova any more and had to bid the angel farewell. He felt exhausted, but pleased, glad he had another method of attack to expand his already quite diverse array. The prince resolved to try and do this every day, perfecting his range of Black and White magic whilst also becoming more accustomed to Summoning. The angel smiled at him as she disappeared, leaving the boy feeling drained as he sat down, again gazing at the art of the domed ceiling and the windows underneath it and imagining himself in those positions. Then, suddenly, he detected another presence – it wasn't one that had just appeared, he had just been too fixated on his training and conversations with Orzhova to notice the more background shift in mana, and his mood instantly soured.

"How long have you been here?" he questioned, not even directing a glance at the figure who must have been in the doorway. The room was huge, and so as he moved round it while casting spells and training against Orzhova he hadn't noticed the man who had stood silently. The reply took a few seconds, the man's voice that uncharacteristically awkward murmur when he actually tried to interact with his youngest and didn't quite know what to say, though there was more than a hint of parental pride in the words that made Cai's heart soar before he crushed the feeling, "Long enough. Caiellis, I don't often get to tell you, but I am proud of you, and will always be, despite any mistakes you may make in the future."

_O__r have already made, I wonder, _the boy thought, sensing the hidden meaning behind the words but dismissing the half-attempted apology. _He's going to have to do better than that if he wants my forgiveness. _

There was something that he couldn't quite place that just made him irritable in the presence of his father, and the fact that he didn't quite know what it was made him even more likely to shout. He heard the sound of footsteps making their way over to him on the mosaic floor, and was vaguely surprised that his father wasn't armoured, meaning he had got out of his favoured king attire before coming to see his son. Cai dearly hoped the fact that Marik was here with him didn't mean that Alex was left alone, despite his big brother probably still in the throes of exhausted unconsciousness, though their dad usually didn't make the same mistakes twice. _Well, make the same mistakes twice __**with Alex.**__ He's made the same mistakes numerous times while talking to me, which just goes to show how much he cares._

Instead of using words, Marik walked to his son and sat down next to him, although not too close, though the boy still didn't turn around or acknowledge his father. That sparked a pang of vexation, though the man quickly smothered it, honestly quite shocked that his son hadn't got up and left yet and was indulging Marik, for now – and the king didn't want to waste that.

"So, you can use Black mana?" he asked nonchalantly, hoping his tone didn't betray the natural apprehension he felt towards the boy because of it that he constantly had to focus on crushing, knowing his youngest son had a gentle heart despite being able to use the magic of darkness – plus, the boy would never use it on friends and just because Black mana was present inside of him didn't change the fact that he was a kind soul, though the horrors he would have seen in the war, including his mother's death, which had coincided with the boy's first usage of Black mana – come to think of it, if not for Caiellis then him and his brother would have been killed as well as Emili. Marik had never thought of that, and then mentally cursed, realising his blunder too late – why would his son ever want to talk about something that made him despised that the boy himself also hated, especially with his father, who's brother had defected to that same darkness and murdered the love of his life with it?

"Yes. Orzhova said that it had always been present in me, even before she selected me as her Summoner just after my birth," Caiellis replied, uncomfortable with the topic and itching to just leave – he had plenty of things to do, such as go see his brother, go to the main libraries of the city to find more books on magic, and go back to the strategy chamber to pour over every bit of information on Welkas and the positions of both sides' forces to formulate an even better plan, not that his father had taken too well to his clearly superior. suggestions in the first place. He decided that if dad didn't have anything interesting to say then he would, but right now he could maybe tolerate him considering the man wasn't accusing or silent and seemed to want to be with him.

"Ah," Marik responded simply, tempted to put his arm around his son's painfully thin body but knowing that would definitely repulse him. His mind became concerned when he realised that with the argument when the boy had gone to fetch breakfast and the fact that Alexander had gone unconscious before Carlis's twins returned with the food "Caiellis, how long has it been since you have eaten anything?"

His son paused to consider the question, playing the events of the day, and then the one before, backwards in his head, noticing that he hadn't actually consumed anything since the morning before the escape a day ago, and to all intents and purposes should be ravenous and starving, but he didn't feel hungry. Food could wait, he presently had other things to do.

"Caiellis?" Marik repeated, and the youngster shot a blank glance at him, the shell evidently reconstructed and the fortified gates clanging down in his green orbs, heavily restricting the passage of emotions. "Yesterday morning was the last time I ate. It was a Welkalite breakfast, but I didn't touch that much of the food," he commented idly, analysing how his father would respond but already knowing the man would want him to eat. Dad would probably suggest that they went and got a meal together, which the boy ideally wanted to avoid.

"Alright then. When was the last time you had a good meal?" Marik questioned, feeling slightly sick at the thought of the boy going without sustenance for the time he had – he also experienced a twinge of guilt, knowing just how irritable and tired he became bereft of food. Caiellis wondered why he was even talking to the man, but replied with a deadpan, "Three days ago, on the monorail journey to the Scholaria Magnus."

"What? Why?"Marik almost exploded but succeeded in restraining himself. Wasn't Caiellis supposed to be extremely intelligent? In that case, why had he deprived himself of food when it was easily obtainable? Surely he understood the importance of having energy? The boy simply shrugged, getting up off the mosaic floor and making to leave before a large hand encircled his upper arm. He glared down with unconcealed resentment at his father, who brought the weightless boy into an awkward hug, realising with a slightly queasy feeling that he could just easily choose to crush his son if he wanted, before mentally frowning at the disturbing thoughts. He rested his chin on the mop of hair on the boy's head, who suppressed a smile at how similar his father and Alex were when it came to comforting their youngest family member, though his older brother was infinitely better at it, _because _he_ actually loves me._

"We are going to get something to eat. It is around dinnertime anyway," Marik proclaimed, choosing to ignore his son's sigh but not the words that followed. "Let go of me. I'm not interested in food. I have other things to do."

"Not happening. Aren't you starving? Anyway, you are coming with me and having food whether you like it or not," Marik stated, beginning to carry his youngest son out of the domed training hall. A moment of feeble resistance was all it took to dishearten the boy, who quickly deduced there was no getting out of the situation until his father put him down, muttering, "Incorrigible nuisance."

"Incorrigible, that's a big word, isn't it? Did you learn it today?" Marik joked back, grinning wickedly at the boy's quickly-disguised look of surprise at his father making jokes. He pouted, and glanced bemusedly up at the man. "That was petty. What are you, five?"

Marik resisted the urge to lightly punch his son on the shoulder, glad that the risk of using humour had paid off – had Caiellis been in a worse mood, he would have probably set off on one of the teenager tantrums that frequented the only-just-teenager at his father's insult. He was glad that they were actually able to have a conversation for once instead of one of them starting to shout.

"And do not worry about Alexander. Your brother is fine, and the twins are with him. He isn't awake yet," _and I'm sorry for blaming you for his unconsciousness, _he almost said. "Anyway, if it makes you more inclined I can get Tristram and Tybalt to come and eat with us."

Cai nodded, more at ease in the presence of the other men than just with his father, as he wasn't entirely sure what the man would do to him if they inadvertently started another shouting match – sure, he hadn't ever hit his son or caused him physical pain, but the argument that had sparked the animosity between them involved dad picking him up threateningly by his collar. He found it vaguely odd that he was willing to forgive Alex for strangling or hurting him almost instantly, but then again his older brother had brought him up and always tried to help and nurture him, and there was a purpose to the pain that his father's anger didn't quite have.

.*.*.*.

Only around ten minutes later, the Lucerna monarch, his youngest son and the Capitalia Lux Light-bearers were sat around a large oak table that must have been imported from the Erian Conclave but decorated with Lucaelian heraldry and the typical images of the Kingdom of Light. Marik had insisted they have a proper meal consisting of three courses, which Cai thought as completely inessential, although the fact that his Uncles were there made him more liable to stay. His dad and the Hierarch were idly chattering, although the prince occasionally caught furtive glances directed at him from the members of the table when they thought he wasn't looking. But then again, Tristram and Tybalt sometimes examined Marik, so he assumed that they were attempting to detect the prior signs to an altercation between father and son so that they could diffuse them. The boy found it quite amusing that both men were doing it automatically and evidently without conferring beforehand, judging by the surprised meeting of eyes approximately after five minutes of being sat around the table.

Marik smiled magnanimously at the waiter as their orders for starters and main meals were taken, though his lips nearly curled into a frown when he heard Caiellis electing to order the lightest dishes. He checked his chronometer – 18:27 – which sparked a sudden thought from his youngest son.

"Um, dad?" he began nervously as three pairs of eyes converged upon him, though they belong to smiling faces that encouraged him to go on. It was not lost on either Lucerna that this was the first instance Caiellis had willingly sought the notice of his father and started a conversation since before the civil war, when the four year old had no compunctions about asking his dad for something. "Yes, Caiellis? Go on."

"Can I have a new watch? My other one will still be at the Scholaria Magnus?" he requested anxiously, knowing how much he loved to have a precise track of time's flow – it was something that he just felt was natural, and couldn't understand how people like his brother lived without it. The man smiled, glad he wasn't a father to two extremely spoilt brats like the stereotypical image of royal children. "Of course you can. What type?"

"What?" Cai responded, taken aback.

"What type of watch do you want?"

"Um," he paused, "I don't really know."

Marik sighed. "Caiellis, you are the son of the king of Lucael. Artificers across the kingdom would fall head over heels to make you a watch of any design you could ever want."

"Oh." He hadn't really thought of it in that way, "In that case, I just want the same type of watch I had before." Tristram snorted and ruffled the boy's hair fondly, eliciting a scowl because of the roughness of the act. Halfway through the starter, Marik said, "You know, Caiellis, if I'd have known you hadn't eaten properly in several day I wouldn't have been so harsh on you. Exhaustion and energy deprivation can make a person act a lot differently."

Cai put down his fork with a clang that instantly changed the atmosphere of the once-pleasant dinner. "You are so eager to just pass off my quarrel with you as any excuse you can muster, aren't you?" the boy spat, bitter anger infusing his tone. Marik sighed disappointedly, his heavy gaze landing on the boy. Though his words had been spoken good-naturedly, Caiellis had evidently taken offence. Marik wasn't going to let his petulant son ruin the dinner, but before he could say anything the boy launched another accusation, following up on his prior point in that way he often liked to do: "Can you not just accept that I am angry with _you? _It's not because of my hormones, nor is it because I haven't eaten!" he pushed away his plate and stood up, suddenly losing his appetite, and Marik sighed once again. Tybalt and Tristram shared a nervous glance, unsure of whether to intervene on Marik's side or just remain neutral.

"Caiellis. Sit down," Marik ordered at his glowering youngest, the tone tinted with a dangerous amount of anger, "Sit down and finish your meal. Stop being pathetic, or do you want the food that the chefs have spent time, effort and money cooking to go to waste?"

"Feed it to the homeless or something. I'm not hungry," Cai murmured, just wanting to leave and not argue further, isolate himself from other people before he became even more annoyed. Maybe he would go and see his brother – even asleep, Alexander still made him feel safe and protected. Tristram stifled a laugh at his reply, aware that it would just serve to incense both Lucernas further.

"_Sit down right now_!" Marik shouted, his hands bending the cutlery held in them as he subconsciously squeezed them into fists. _Right, that__'s__ it, _Cai thought, turning to leave before the urge to scream back became too much to handle. "Sit back down and finish your dinner, young man."

Ignored. Marik could see how his youngest's fragile body was tensing, and it took all of his willpower not to stand up and go after him, maybe slam him up against a wall and teach him some discipline. _Where did that second thought come from?_

"Caiellis!" Marik thundered as the boy reached the door, opening with full force, "Don't you slam tha-"

Tristram despairingly rested his head in his hands as the door slammed shut with a resounding crash, signifying Cai's departure. Marik crashed his fist down on the table, cracking apart some of the ornate wood. There was something about his son's defiance that seriously incensed Marik, the challenging tone his youngest used just baiting him to react like any normal person would and slowly niggling at him until he had to shout back. It shouldn't be like that. Fathers and sons shouldn't interact in such a way – why couldn't Caiellis just be more like Alexander when talking to his father? He enjoyed being with both of his thoughtful and intelligent sons equally, but the constant arguments were going to destroy him if he didn't do anything about it.

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Illentia (formerly): Gluttonous Cyclops

Illentia: Ravenous Demon/Archdemon of Greed

Tradax Yulica: Sire of Insanity


	20. Refraction

_Day Eight._

* * *

It was the middle of the night, the perpetual darkness around the city seemingly more solid and suffocating with the coming of midnight, wrapping around the gothic and ornate architecture. It was the middle of night, but someone was still awake, and the scratching of their quill could be heard by the one outside. Tristram sighed, waiting patiently by the doorway until the writing stopped, which could be any time within the next hour.

The Guardian was tempted to just barge in, but the king's mood probably wouldn't have changed since the argument with his youngest son, and would not take well to being interrupted. After the heated dispute between father and son, the man had gone to see his eldest, who had been half-awake – a huge relief for everyone, even though the boy seemed like he wanted to be alone, possibly waiting for his little brother to come see him.

If that was the case then the likely possibility would be that Alexander would unfortunately become severely disappointed, because although Cai could maybe sneak into his room without anyone noticing Tristram thought that it was very believable to suggest that the youngest Lucerna had left the Sola Atria and gone to wander the city alone. Caiellis had mastered the hiding techniques shown to both the boys right at the start of the civil war when neither of them had passed their Summoning trial (little Cai had been too young to even start attempting it) and were too weak to be of any help in the desperate fighting undertaken by the Hierarch and Guardian (despite the older boy's numerous protestations).

However only two years later Alex was able to Summon Aurelia, though only for a very short period of time, and so the ten year old never needed to focus as much on hiding on his four years younger brother. Evidently Caiellis had perfected the spells, as normally Tristram was very good at sensing mana entities (a skill that few gave him credit for but had helped immensely in the protection of the royal family), and while he could locate the king and the eldest son, the whereabouts of the thirteen year old were a complete mystery, even if he concentrated extremely hard.

At first the Guardian had debated searching for the boy, the unconscious need to protect him constant, having not eroded much after the civil war before being once again thrust to maximum after the princes' abduction, but he reminded himself that Cai was far from stupid or careless, and almost certainly wanted to find a place of quiet introspection – especially since he knew the training hall of the Sola Atria was off-limits due to his father being able to access it. It had been the third time the kid had left to go be on his own in a single day rife with quarrels with Marik, which had undoubtedly eroded both of them much more than it caused Tristram to worry, despite the fact he had only been present at two of them.

He supposed it had been inevitable that the personalities of the two Lucernas would eventually clash because they were so similar – Tristram smirked, knowing that he would be exceptionally hard-pressed to get either to admit it.

It doubtlessly didn't aid the situation that the two barely knew each other because of Johnias's treachery, as while Cai had always been an intelligent child, Marik knowing him only up to four years old meant the man had missed a gigantic amount of mental development, both of the boy's intellect and, far more importantly, his personality. Then once the war had finished, the king had made his youngest feel unloved and under a huge amount of pressure, greeting him with censure and disappointment after the kiddo had spent every day of his life as a refugee looking forward to seeing his father, echoing his brother with that but perhaps even more so than Alex, who had been given more time to be with his parents due to his position as eldest. And every attempt Marik made to learn more about his son by talking to him ended in disaster as the two apparently argued unavoidably.

Tristram heard the sound of the quill being dipped into its ink and left to clatter on the side of the pot. He waited a second until a large sigh escaped the man in the private Lucerna quarters, and then politely knocked on the door, although he ensured to infuse enough strength into the action that would make Marik know it was him and also know that he wouldn't go away.

"Come in, Tristram," announced the king, his voice soft and extremely tired. The Guardian knew that the man hadn't slept in at all the past two nights (three, if this one was to be counted) – in the first, he was too busy worrying about his sons and mobilising the military to go after them, whilst in the second he had watched over both as Cai curled up with his injured brother just after the argument that had been the catalyst for the ones that followed, maintaining his parental vigil in lieu of claiming sleep. When he had left at around four in the morning, the king had immediately gone to use the mana-communicator with the purpose of speaking to the Council of the Yentarian Republic, as it had been approximately ten o'clock there, announcing his intentions of declaring war upon the Empire of Welkas to them and warning what would happen should they interfere.

The brawny Guardian stepped lightly into the room when the door swung open, Marik remembering that only Lucernas were permitted access so Tristram couldn't open the door, and he smiled bleakly at his champion, the dark rings stark under his eyes. It was strange, to see the man reduced to this, as Marik appeared every inch of the shy and quiet boy he used to be (or like Caiellis presently was), not the determined, strong and austere king he had become almost used to seeing after a month of being with him, though the ruler still possessed some of the parental warmth and pride in his sons he had before the civil war, it had just taken time to rise again after being repressed for so long – Marik had almost succumbed to his emotions at the start of the war, costing him several engagements and almost the entire war before he locked them away.

The thirty year old's eyes swept across the room, landing on the documents Marik had been writing, certificates of Lucerna authentication concerning multifarious different issues, but the ones that caught his eye were four that he recognised as being the recruitment slips for an advisory role to a member of the royal family that King Garius had done also for his sons, and one that authorised a transportation to Scientia Mos as well as temporary control of the city, and by extension its military – though the monarch of Lucael could commandeer any force in the kingdom of their choosing, others, even heirs to the throne, had to request permission from the ruler to take command of an army or city from its respective Light-bearers, though it was unlikely the Hierarch and Guardian would resist if a Lucerna asked.

"So, what's that about?" asked Tristram, cutting straight to the point and motioning towards the slips of paper that had already been signed by the sigil of the Sword of Wrath in the way that Lucernas did, magically implanting their birthmark onto a piece of paper so that the orders were of assuredly royal roots. Though they were upside down, the occasional word stood out to the thirty year old, and the one that attracted his gaze most was the full name of Cai, his youngest student, on the papers concerning Scientia Mos. Marik didn't respond, though his blue eyes showed a slight bit of bittersweet guilt, confirming Tristram's suspicions. "So you're just sending Cai away again?"

"It will be a learning experience for him," Marik shot back, though he knew the words would sound hollow to the Guardian, "And anyway, it is not your place to question my decisions, just follow them."

"It is my place to question if these decisions are made because of your blind pride," Tristram replied calmly, locking eyes with the man, using some of the disrespectful streak of his youth that had often earned him the censure of his parents and superiors, but he knew that out of all of his qualities, the one the king liked the most was his honesty and unwillingness to pull punches because of the man's "divine" role as ruler. In that, he reasoned he was much like Tybalt, although the much older man's grounding for it was because he had taught Marik when he and his twin were young children and so could never quite get close to kneeling before him. Marik glowered back resentfully, although Tristram knew the anger wasn't directed towards him, before almost petulantly crossing his arms. He was conscious that what he was doing would only irritate the man, but with the death of his wife it was up to the king's advisers to speak some sense into him – to that end his next words were reminiscent of the admonishing tone he had often used with the man's sons, "Marik, you need to talk to him instead of just pushing him away."

"I can't talk to him when he insists on shouting and insulting me!" the man exclaimed frustratedly, scowling, "Anyway, he likes books, doesn't he? This will be good for him. And he won't be disrupting any more council sessions."

"You know full well that he stopped after I had words with him, and that he was invaluable during them," Tristram cut in, "And you need to remember that you are the adult, and that Cai is only thirteen. He has had an extremely hard life in his short amount of years, what with his mother being murdered right in front of his eyes at the age of four and having to life within war for the largest part of his life."

"When you have children I'll be sure to ask you how to deal with them," Marik snapped, though Tristram paid little attention to the insult present in the words – the king was being low, trying to poke fun at the fact that Tristram hadn't yet found a woman, but Marik wouldn't normally do something like that so the Guardian ignored it for now, attributing it to his friend's tiredness and irritation. "And in any case, Caiellis is my son and it is up to me as his parent to decide what is right for him."

"Are you forgetting that I have spent more time with both of your sons than you yourself?" Tristram asked, completely evenly, not a hint of defiance in his tone – he didn't want to anger Marik more, as the man had obviously taken a long time to debate whether or not he should send away Cai, and felt guilt because of his resolution. The words had their intended effects, making Marik sigh in despair and slump back down in the chair. "I'm sorry, Tristram. I'm not angry at you, and I didn't mean what I said. I do value your advice, though I don't often seem like it. It's just … that boy …"

"_That boy _is just releasing his anger on you," Tristram replied patiently, "Caiellis has a lot of emotional turmoil going on inside of him right now (_and you treating him like a failure the second you met him after nine years __of him waiting to see you__ didn't help_), what with his brother being injured so badly and thinking that the civil war ending meant that he and Alex would be safe. I'm going to be honest with you, Marik, the kid has had a pretty awful life so far, but now that the war has ended you should be holding him close instead of pushing him away … again. Plus, instead of dying down Caiellis's current resentment of you will probably just grow because you aren't doing anything about it."

Marik put his head in his palms, a look of utter defeat on his face before he concealed his features with his large pale hands. "What am I doing?" he muttered, the tone full of scorn directed towards himself, and Tristram, instead of reacting to the extremely rare, almost unheard of moment of weakness, pulled up a stool and put his arm around the other man's shoulders in a gesture of friendliness the king never received now that his wife was dead. The king stammered the words, "I'm such a terrible father … and I just let my children get taken away from me … and instead of comforting them when they got back I shouted and blamed Caiellis when he was already under trauma from Alex's closeness to death. I'm so useless … I need … I need Emili..."

"Marik, you are many things – a stubborn, prideful bastard sometimes for one – but you are _not _a terrible father. You are just not used to dealing with your children after nines years with them miles away and without your wife, but even so you are balancing ruling the entire kingdom with being a single parent alone, an impossible task for even the most devoted parent and the best king. I can understand why you are having difficultly with young Cai – heck, it took me around six years to earn his trust and respect – as the squirt is naturally untrustworthy and probably finds it hard to accept you after all these years, just as you find it hard to adjust to being a father again," Tristram coaxed, trying to restore the man's self-confidence back to the state of it radiating from him – truth be told, seeing his king in such a way unnerved him slightly, though not to the extent that the twenty-one year old him had been scared when the man discovered his wife's murder, but he knew for a fact that the Lucerna family was still human, despite what many in the kingdom would like to believe, due to having to care for two scared heirs to the throne.

Marik removed his hands, smiling, and Tristram grinned as he saw the barriers of resolve and determination clang down again, restoring the king. "You should become a post-war psychiatrist," the monarch joked, and Tristram wasn't sure whether the man would take lightly to a friendly punch, which is how he would have responded if Marik had been one of his sons of one of Tristram's other friends.

"So," the Guardian began, standing back up as the king rose also, "What are you going to do now?"

"What do you mean?" Marik replied, confusion creasing his austere features for a second. Tristram sighed, feeling like the older man was being wilfully ignorant, "Are you still going to authorise Cai's departure?"

"I've already contacted Hierarch Martha and she was perfectly happy with it," Marik replied succinctly, avoiding fully answering the question posed to him.

"Does that mean he is still going?" Tristram asked again, unwilling to let the topic drop until he got a clear answer and getting a bit annoyed, though he wasn't going to show it to his ruler. Marik avoided his piercing gaze for a second, and then stared up at the slightly taller man, meeting his eyes with the adamant blue irises of his own. "Yes, Guardian Tristram, it does. Despite what you may have said, the fact that my son is here is directly reducing my efficiency, and it will be a fantastic opportunity for him. Besides, the boys' grandparents live there, as you already know, and it won't hurt him to see other members of his family. Especially ones on Emili's side."

"You really are impossible," Tristram shook his head but made no other moves to dissuade the king, knowing from experience that once the man was set on something nothing could change him from that course. "Sometimes I think you forget that Caiellis is only thirteen. He's too young to be getting involved in war." And with that, he left.

.*.*.*.

The boy that was the centre of the discussion between the Guardian of Capitalia Lux and the ruler of Lucael himself slipped through the almost-empty streets of the city – though the coming of night had only been signalled by an intensification of the darkness and so the light levels didn't actually change that much, many, if not all of the civilians chose this time to go to sleep, huddling inside their homes with their family. It was snowing quite heavily, and he fondly remembered having snowball fights with his big brother in the past, smiling when he realised that Alexander would still almost definitely throw some at him had he been up and about because the older boy took any chance he could get to playfully tease his little brother.

Those that were around at this time were either guards or others that had professions requiring them to stay awake through the night. That, or the lost, the people with little to live for apart from the oblivion provided by alcohol of other narcotics. The taverns were still open, of course, but Cai wouldn't be allowed access because of his age unless he revealed his identity as a potential heir to the throne, and couldn't think of any reasons for doing so anyway. He stuck close to the shadows between the street-lights, as although his birthmark was concealed the fact that he was a child wandering the city alone at midnight would definitely attract some guards or another caring person wanting to ensure that he was safe. That was the beauty of Lucaelian society – most of its inhabitants cared deeply about the others, as they all knew that it was unification that had led them to survive in arguably the most inhospitable environment in the whole of Magnus-Primae, but that also meant that if someone spotted a small boy alone in the middle of the night those with nocturnal jobs would be concerned if they saw him.

He heard the sounds of laughing voices and spied a family walking out of one of the restaurants still open, giggling and joking with each other after what must have been an enjoyable night out celebrating something, a fortieth birthday of one of the adults judging by the large and colourful badge pinned to his grey jacket. Cai saw two teenagers around his own age but most likely a year or two older conversing quietly in the background as a younger child ran around in front of them, waving a toy sword around.

"James, Liana, look!" the boy repeated the shout when the teens ignored him at first, scowling at their ignorance. He twirled in front of them, slicing the wooden sword around and making over-exaggerated noises of combat, "Look! I'm Prince Alexander! Have at you, Welkalites! HYA!"

The sandy-haired girl smiled affectionately and patted the boy on the head as the other adolescent repressed a laugh, "That's all well and good, Marcus, but we both know it is Prince Caiellis that uses a sword, not his brother."

Cai raised an amused eyebrow as the boy frowned, his bottom lip stuck out sullenly, stopping his sword waving. "But I don't want to be Prince Caiellis..."

"Why not?" the girl asked curiously at her younger relative, who shook his head, "He's not as big and strong as his brother, and you know what Mummy and Daddy say about his angel..."

The prince felt the sudden urge to step out of the shadows and reveal himself, but soon dismissed the amusing thought, also knowing that the people would just kneel to him and secretly wonder why he was out this late at night. The girl, who Cai realised was certainly older than him now that she had got closer to his refuge between the lights, stopped walking, the fond smile on her face replaced by a contemplative and wistful expression.

"You know, Marcus, it's not his fault that the Angel of the Black Sun chose him. Besides, I think that it was King Xarius that was the problem, not the angel, and that Prince Caiellis shouldn't be stigmatised because of something he had no control over," she uttered, and the small boy looked confused. The girl glanced into the darkness where the prince was hidden, and the boy felt a small shudder of panic run through him as her bright brown eyes bored into the exact spot he was in. He held his breath, hoping it was just a coincidence the girl had gazed in this direction, and to break the awkward silence that had descended the older boy, probably James, pulled Marcus close and whispered conspiratorially to the youth, although his words were loud enough for everyone including the prince to hear. "We both know that Liana fancies Prince Caiellis anyway, don't you, Big Sis?"

"I do not!" the girl exclaimed indignantly, her cheeks lighting up in an embarrassed blush that reflected the redness of Caiellis's cheeks when he heard it, breaking off her staring into the shadows and turning away from her family members. "Yeah, yeah. Why else would you be going red?"

"I'm not going red!" she insisted, and the other teenager laughed, "Marcus, that's why she wants to join the Mage Corps of the army, so that she has a greater chance of seeing the prince."

"James, I've told you a thousand times, I'm joining because I want to make a difference to the kingdom, and my Summoning is powerful enough according to my teachers," Liana sighed, looking back into the darkness and making Cai almost certain that she was purposefully glancing at him, though if so he was glad that she was keeping that information to herself. The girl reminded him of Annia, who Caiellis realised he hadn't thought about since the abduction – neither had he spared any time for Freya or Kaled past their short communication with him in the Resistance Headquarters. Cai knew that his father had pulled out the Lucaelian students before declaring war in order to not endanger them, and pondered whether the Welkalites were doing the same – if so, it was likely that he would be seeing Kaled again, as Sergeant Tarkos had mentioned wanting the fifteen year old to join the Ja'an Guard. Too caught up in his thoughts, the prince had failed to notice the happy family leaving, and now that the coast was clear he walked into the middle of the street, darting between the illumination of the street-lights.

Caiellis contemplated whether his father or brother ever wanted to just fade into the background and observe around the world around them like he did, but soon decided against it – being the king, there was too much pressure on his father for the man to be able to just slip away like Cai was doing now, and Alex was far more confident than him and enjoyed interacting with the people instead of just watching them, which the boy supposed was a bit creepy, though he did like to sometimes pretend that the fate of the entire kingdom might not weigh on his shoulders – even if he didn't ascend to the throne, he would still probably become a Light-bearer or influential general serving under his big brother, and his royal blood meant that he was expected to be extremely successful. His mind went back to the dream realm that had ensnared him – the cousin whose name and face he had forgotten would have become queen, and although in that scenario he was still a Lucerna, the fact that the possibility of ruler-ship wasn't upon him made the dream even more enticing.

A large black raven cawed and landed next to him, pecking at some crumbs on the ground before flapping away, and Cai gazed at the animal. He knew he should return to the Sola Atria – he had been out for over six hours already, at first obtaining some fruit to eat as he was starving, but it was a testament to the potency of his camouflaging magic that his father's soldiers hadn't yet been sent to fetch him, though he doubted the man would want to see him after their argument. He also knew that his "Uncles" were aware that he wasn't stupid or careless, so would be fine with him being unaccounted for a while – though if his brother had awakened the older boy would surely be worried.

Cai stepped forward just as a spiking pain lanced through his head, a simultaneous pounding and burning torment that increased in intensity every second. He fell to his knees, holding his head as the familiar sensation of agony overcame him, like what he had felt in the presence of the Welkalite representatives in the Scholaria Magnus negotiations, but ten-times more intense and paralysis-inducing. The boy had experienced semi-regular migraines before throughout his time in the civil war, with the time period of around two months between them, though the last one had definitely been because of Tradax and his allies, and he thought it had stopped when the war had finished. Only his brother and "Uncles" were aware of it, as he had begged them not to tell Marik, insisting that because they had stopped his father shouldn't have to worry about them, though that had been before he finally met him and now knew dad wouldn't care.

Cai thought they had stopped plaguing him, and had put the last one down to the demonic magic of the Welkalites. Evidently he had been wrong, and automatically gasped in pain, pushing his head into his knees in a vain attempt to lessen the pain that kept getting more and more excruciating. His mind beat with pulses of agony that combined with the constant fire in his brain in sickening bolts of torment. He needed his big brother here; Alex had always known what to do to comfort him and save him from them, as when the migraines happened all his thoughts became jumbled up in the pain, and he couldn't focus them. His mind painfully reminded him that his sibling was bed-ridden, and Cai resolved to suck it up before his determination was instantly erased by a blast of pure suffering that resounded through his mind like he was in the heart of an explosion.

_It hurts … I can't _he desperately thought, not entirely sure whether he was laid on the ground or his head was still pressed into his arms, as he rolled in the pain. He needed to get away from it, so Cai did the only logical thing and looked inside his mind, attempting to flee to the Mind Realm and away from the pain. That was a mistake. The moment he partook in frantic introspection, pulsing waves of pure torment reverberated through him, the usually short journey to the Mind Realm a shuddering display of intrusive and oppressive rings of light that shot past the floating form of the boy. Then after the agonising light came the darkness, consuming him in a wave of pure blackness that flooded down his mouth and nose, much like when he almost drowned within his mind undertaking Orzhova's trial at the academy.

He couldn't breathe, and was washed back to the ground, the strange physics of his torturous mind making nausea flow throw him as the liquid darkness starved his lungs of air. Cai could hear booming laughter, the malevolent and demonic noise freezing him in place as the abyssal water rushed around him, and the sudden feeling of being watched by sinister powers gnawed at him before once again the pain overrode all other sensations. The boy felt a hand, gloved in leather and with the pale fingers bare, grab onto his shoulder and yank him backwards, out of the torrential passage of gloomy fluid. He coughed violently, hacking up half-solid black globules in a way comparable to what Alexander had suffered through because of Aksua's curse, and although the rational part of his psyche tried to tell him it wasn't real it was soon drowned under unrelenting agony.

Caiellis was forcefully thrust out of the Mind Realm, tumbling back into his physical body as another spike of mental pain rammed through his head. This was by far the worst migraine he had ever experienced – he could recall some pretty awful ones, especially right after his mother had been killed, but the amount of pain he was being caused now was the most intense his fragile body had ever undergone. The boy couldn't see anything past the street-light he blearily stared up at, the pounding in his head exacerbated by the illumination that he knew wasn't normally this harsh; it seemed to burn through his retinas like a magical beam of destructive light, scorching every nerve ending in its path. He shut his eyes to escape the radiance, but soon reopened them as the dancing circles of shadows spun vindictively behind his eyelids and the maddening laughter sprung into life again. The burning light was preferable to that.

The youngster felt his hands already compressed into fists, the nails digging into the skin and almost drawing blood he was squeezing that hard. He felt the numerous tiny trickles of blood falling down his face and past his lips, infusing his tongue with the taste of copper as he whimpered in fresh pain. The blood was coming from his nose, which had happened before, and more disturbingly his eyes, which had not, crimson tears much thicker than the usual water variety dripping out of them and down his cheeks. He could hear the Black Sun crackling when it met the blood, but luckily he wasn't unintentionally emitting any mana other than that – a blast of murderous Black mana or purifying White could kill everyone in the vicinity if he wasn't careful, though the migraine prevented him from getting a hold of his magical energies.

A face appeared in his line of sight, the still-youthful features of the guard distorted by the unbearable luminescence and twisted into something much more sinister menacing by the baleful shadows that occasionally broke out from where they had been behind his eyelids and wreaking havoc with his vision, making the boy see the two opposites of light and darkness combined, which the former more potent in this case – he had no doubts that if he shut his eyes, as well as the laughter and the dark there would be streaks of shining light, but soon stopped thinking hard after another lance of torment was driven into his mind.

"**LORD CAIELLS! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?**" the fresh-faced guard asked, and in spite of the reality his voice was only raised ever so slightly in urgency it slammed through Cai's ears, making his skull feel like it was rattling as it shuddered into his eardrums and brought on another burst of torture. He knew he would have whimpered, but couldn't hear anything over the words echoing extremely loudly in his head, swatting down any resistance he tried to put up to the pain. He felt strong and armoured arms wrap around his thin body and lift him of the floor. The sudden shift in altitude summoned more white knives of agony that repeatedly stabbed his brain, and he stifled a scream of agony despite the fact that holding it in brought on more.

His head slumped against a broad chest, and Caiellis allowed himself to think that he was in his big brother's embrace and that the older boy would take him away from the pain like he always did – or perhaps it was Uncle Tristram, who also knew how to react when a migraine ripped through his youngest charge. His mind then turned to the possibility of his father, before it dismissed it. The option of dad holding him didn't equate to a feeling of safety so was removed by his unconscious mind, who instead presented him with more pain and also the identity of the youthful guard alternating between Alexander and Tristram, though the former stayed much longer than the latter. Cai inhaled deeply, halting the cycle of frantic hyperventilation that he didn't even realise had started and wouldn't have been doing any good for his pained brain, though that was what usually occurred in the worst of his migraines – if he knew he had been breathing fast then he would have stopped it.

_Right, Caiellis Noctis Lucerna, everything is fine now, _he told himself, repeating the mantra over and over again as the pain slowly faded. Though the worst was over, it still damned hurt, but at least he was regaining control. Cai was immensely concerned that another migraine had resurfaced after the war, as Tybalt had said that it had been his incredibly receptive mind and the fact that he had a huge amount of mana inside of him that caused him the pain – the Hierarch had explained that he believed the amount of suffering being caused was picked up on by him and transformed into agony by his mind, which was reinforced by the fact they happened more regularly and with much more intensity just after they escaped from violent battles, or other significant engagements came about elsewhere in the kingdom.

He had found a correlation between the dates of migraines he remembered – in other words the worst ones - and particularly brutal battles. It disturbed him that it had just sprung up out of nowhere, as usually they started by building up background pain that was tolerable and then exploding into agony later. Maybe it something to do with his other strange talent of being able to sense impending violence just before it happened, though that never came with pain, just a sensation of anticipation and fear, and sometimes other emotions. They normally did coincide with the migraines, but he had thought it had stopped after the boys fought through Usnaan without him feeling any pain afterwards. Cai smiled grimly. _How could I ever become a king if I can't stop this from happening? I really am just pathetic._

He tried speaking, but the words just came out as a stifled whimper. Cai focussed his mind, forcing the pain to dissipate faster than usual and regaining control, walls of resolve crashing down within his mind.

"Where are we going?" he asked, his voice soft and quiet and sounding too much like a weak child for his liking. He was Lucerna, whether he liked it or not, and would not be babied by guards. The young man carrying him looked down, and although the pain had made the awful incident feel like it had taken years, he could still see the restaurant the happy family had emerged from – they were still on the same street, which meant that it had only taken him a few seconds to recover from the migraine and even less time between now and the guard picking him up.

That was acceptable, he supposed. Amazement creased the guard's face at the almost immediate recovery of the prince, who he thought had been dying as blood ran from the boy's nose and mouth and his pale face had been screwed up in unrelenting pain. Another guard answered, a woman, young judging by her voice but faintly older than her taller companion, and she turned around, her face coloured with sympathy underneath reverence and respect, and not even a hint of fear which made the boy a bit happier. "We were going to take you to the Sola Atria, but en route was the rest of our squad and our battle mage may have been able to stabilise your condition, while went to the hall, my lord."

"Just call me Caiellis. And anyway, thank you, um..." he broke off, realising he didn't actually know the names of the guards that had just happened upon the stricken prince in the middle of the night – he had no idea if they actually helped him, but was going to assume that they did – the guard that still held him protectively had made him feel safer, reminding him of Alex and Tristram. The woman replied, "I am Gweneth, and my subordinate, who seems to be lost for words, is Armen."

"Thank you, Gweneth, Armen," Cai bowed his head, suffusing the statement with deep gratitude before looking Armen in the eyes, "And you can put me down now, please."

The young man blinked as his companion snickered, placing the prince on the floor, where he swayed unsteadily as the effort of having to walk sent pains through him – he was glad it was night time, because usually he was bed-ridden of forced to stay stationary for a few hours after a migraine, just like he would be if he had attempted Orzhova's trial in the day also, though not to the exhaustive extent of endeavouring to pass the Summoning. He ensured that he quickly hid the momentary weakness, though there was little to no point considering these guards had already seen him in the throes of the migraine. Instead of what Cai thought, which was that Armen and Gweneth would have lost respect for him after seeing one of the heirs to governing the entire kingdom in that state, which he deemed pathetic, in fact seeing him refuse to give in to the fragility of his body after the incident made them admire him even more.

Caiellis then detected the presence of two familiar people coming round the corner, belatedly realising that in the pain he hadn't been able to control his mana and as such had accidentally de-activated the concealment spells. He didn't think that it was a bad thing though, as at least it wasn't dad coming to look for him. Background pain still pulsed within his head, but it was bearable and a far cry from the overwhelming force of earlier. Tristram was the first to sprint past the street corner, followed a few seconds later by a grumbling Tybalt who was muttering that he was: "Too old for this kind of thing..."

"Cai! Are you alright?" the Guardian asked quickly, both of the Light-bearers having perceived his distress and recognised it to be the sign of a migraine that the youngest prince hadn't suffered for many months now, though one much worse.

The boy looked dramatically more pale than usual, which was a feat in itself, his skin white like that of a ghost's, or one of the ancestral spirits that very specialised mages could call upon, though it was forbidden to force the souls of the dead to fight for you so that meant only a few departed with debts to repay appeared alongside the legions of Lucael, though all refused to speak about the path beyond. Faded tracks of blood were evident on his white and gaunt face, though the bleeding had stopped. Tristram swiftly made his way to Cai's side, putting a supportive arm around his shoulders and feeling the boy gratefully place his weight on the man – despite the illusion of strength he tried to keep up, simply remaining upright was a battle in itself, one that he had been losing.

"I'm fine now. I had a migraine," Cai stated simply, leaning against Tristram's arm as the man gently pushed his chin up to the light, looking into his deep emerald eyes to see if it had caused any lasting damage.

Satisfied that the boy's eyes weren't glazed over, nor were the pupils dilated excessively, Tristram examined the rest of him, noting that the tracks of blood led from his eyes as well as his nose, which meant that the migraine must have been much worse than any he had experienced before. It was amazing that the kid was still standing after it, but knowing his migraines he would still be in quite a bit of pain, though hopefully nothing a bit of sleep could handle. He switched his tone to be more like an order, as Cai wasn't revealing everything but the boy knew he should be open after them, as the two men could only handle the situation if they had all the information at their disposal. Tristram knew the boy would be more at ease in the presence of his big brother, but the older boy had been asleep after he had gone to check on him following his dispute with Marik, and Alexander still needed to recover.

He was glad that Tybalt had the foresight to dismiss the guards that had fortuitously discovered the stricken prince, meaning that his interrogation of the youngster could begin without them overhearing it and therefore giving Caiellis a greater incentive to properly open up. He started with a bit of conversation while the two left the area, trying to make the kid feel more comfortable, "I thought you had stopped having them when the war ended."

"So did I. Evidently not," Cai kept his statements brief, an obvious sign to the two men that merely talking sent pain through the boy's head. Tybalt then stepped in: "Look, I know it hurts Caiellis, but you have to tell us exactly what happened. You know the drill."

"It just arose for no reason. There was no warning of it, no build up of pain or anything, but it was by far the worst that has transpired," the boy started, rubbing his eyes sleepily and smiling wryly, "I thought I was going to die. I couldn't think properly, like what usually happens, and I couldn't move either. I tried to go into the Mind Realm to get away from the pain, but that was a massive mistake as the pain was even more intense there. And it does still hurt now, but it is bearable" he stated clinically, though not mentioning the booming and demonic laughter inside his head and hoping that his honesty with the rest of it would stop them from seeing that he wasn't quite saying everything.

"You may not look it, but you are a tough lad," Tristram grinned, and Cai took the compliment silently, already knowing that it wasn't true. Tybalt added, "Normally you wouldn't be able to speak that well after it, so it seems that instead of the agony being spread out it was more condensed into a very small period of time."

Caiellis nodded, seeing sense in the words although he didn't quite think that was the only reason, "I just wonder why it occurred. I thought they were only supposed to happen when there was large amounts of violence or death."

"It could be that you have caught an illness of some sort – you have been out in the freezing cold of winter with just thin clothes and a scarf for _over six hours,_" Tristram chastised, and Cai looked glumly down at his feet. He hadn't realised that he had been out that long, and suddenly felt incredibly guilty and selfish – what if Alex had woken up while he was gone? He opened his mouth, and Tybalt cut in with: "Your older brother woke up temporarily a few hours ago – we moved him into a more comfortable room so that he could go to the bathroom in the night if he wanted – but he is now fast asleep. As you should be." Caiellis nodded, he did feel extremely tired, and although he was tempted to ask Tristram to take him to Alex's room, though his low temperature would probably just wake the older boy up so instead let the man take him to the small but cosy room connected to his own bathroom in the Sola Atria that had been given to him.

He almost fell asleep in Tristram's arms, briefly wondering what percentage of his life he had spent being carried around by those stronger than him and unconcerned by his weightless form. He sleepily opened his eyes as he heard hushed voices, blinking tiredly when he realised that he had in fact drifted off, and saw his father's concerned face staring down at him. Cai dearly hoped that the Light-bearers weren't going to tell the man about his migraines – they had promised not to only if they truly did stop, but since another had resurfaced dad would most likely be told. Hopefully his Uncles obeyed his wishes and kept quiet; he didn't want his dad to have another reason to not blame himself for Cai's anger. He felt himself being placed up warm covers, a hand fondly ruffling his hair before a door creaked shut and he was left alone in the night.

.*.*.*.

Though the fact that the short sleep removed the aching pain in his head didn't reduce the malevolence of the event, it made Caiellis feel a lot better as he finished the fruity breakfast he had been eating in his brother's room, the older boy snoring loudly but peacefully. Despite the fact that he had only slept until approximately eight in the morning, he felt refreshed, but couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was going to change this day. That something unfortunately wasn't the eternal gloominess, and Cai rolled his eyes when he opened the curtains to be greeted by darkness, but at least it was still gently snowing which made everything seem nicer.

A loud and brisk knock rapped on the wooden door, and Cai suppressed a scowl at the volume of the noise, though his sibling didn't awaken. Expecting the person to let themselves in, he sighed when another knock resounded through the room, getting up out of the chair next to Alex's bed and opening the door.

"Lord Caiellis," someone in the uniform of the Civitas Sol guard that he didn't recognise saluted the bemused prince and bowed his head quickly in respect, "King Marik requests your presence in the council chambers of the Sola Atria." the man announced, and Cai nodded his head, saving the sarcastic comment brewing in his mind for himself. _There was no word of a strategic meeting today, although it is likely, but not this early in the morning. That probably means either my father wants to show me something or ask for my help, the former infinitely more likely. I'll indulge him for now, but if he starts an argument I refuse to have to deal with him for the rest of the day._

The man smartly twirled around and began to march towards their destination, and it occurred to Caiellis that this guard was trying to impress him – his golden and silver armour was polished to a mirror sheen, the vast majority of the snow he had collected in the short journey from the hall to the Ordo Medella hospital brushed off before knocking on the door. He didn't quite know what to say – Cai didn't want to disappoint the man by not mentioning it, but adversely didn't want to sound extremely awkward, as awkward statements were the only things coming to mind. He was certain that Alexander would have been able to say something to inspire the soldier, but idly commenting that the man's uniform looked nice would be more creepy and weird than anything. Cai elected to say silent, figuring that if he looked like he was deeply contemplating the nature of his summons then the man might forgive him. Or maybe the guard just liked to look presentable anyway, and didn't need him to notice.

Drifting off within his own thoughts, he blinked in surprise when he realised he was just stood outside the council hall, waiting silently at the door, and the guard had already left. _So much for complimenting him then. _He momentarily pondered whether he should knock or not, and settled for knocking once and then letting himself in. Dad was already sat at the head of the table, tapping his fingers on the desk in a vaguely impatient manner, and looked up at his son when he entered. The man's face twisted between two expressions – one of warmth and a slight bit of guilt, the other of determination and stubbornness. _Father o__r__ king? _Caiellis wondered as his father beckoned to the seat next to him, which the boy took, briefly examining the sheets on the desk before meeting the man's gaze.

"Caiellis. Good morning," the man began, noting that though his youngest had already adopted the blank expression he usually wore that gave nothing away, his green eyes narrowed for a split second, telling Marik to get on with it and do away with the meaningless pleasantries.

The king sighed, trying to ignore the niggling voices informing him that was he was doing was wrong and unbefitting of a loving and caring parent, especially since the revelation of the boy's migraines that still happened. He was annoyed at his Light-bearers and Alexander for not telling him that, though they were only following Cai's wishes. It made him feel awful that the boy had feared his censure that much that he wanted to hide his weakness from him, and what had he gone and done? He went and damaged the boy's already low self-esteem to the point where the only way Cai thought he could escape from the pressure was to cause himself pain. _How selfish I am..._ he thought, realising with a sick feeling that he actually preferred Caiellis in that way to how he was less than two weeks later.

"What did you want me for?" Caiellis asked, his voice almost deadpan but coloured slightly with irritation, snapping Marik out of his reverie. The man almost snapped back, telling the boy not to use that tone with him, but suppressed the anger that swelled up.

"My son. I wanted you here to talk about three things – firstly, I have arranged for you and your brother to have two advisers each. As my father did with me and my own brother at the age of seventeen, so too will I with you. Each advisor has a specific role – first, the champion can act as your representative in duels and is a bodyguard and friend, while the other is more of an intellectual aid, relating to administration, management, information gathering and magic," Marik explained, carefully examining his son to see if the boy's expression changed at all, which it did not. Caiellis thought that he was perfectly capable of doing all those things himself, and would prefer to be alone and self-sufficient, but supposed that if the advisers didn't get in his way then he would have no cause to question his father's decision. The man continued, "I have already selected who they will be – I tried to keep them as close to you and your brother's age as possible, although there were none suitable that are the same age as you, as mine were. At least it was easy to find Alexander's."

"Leodred and Elizabex," Caiellis stated, and his father nodded proudly. It wasn't really that hard to deduce, considering they were the two that immediately came to mind when he thought about the descriptions Marik had given him. "I haven't done the same thing as your grandfather and choose people that you two had never met before."

"Who were your advisers?" the prince asked suddenly, which was a good sign – it meant that he was actually interested in taking part in the conversation rather than just staying blank and silent. Marik felt his cheeks light up in a bit of embarrassment, though if he noticed Caiellis gave no overt signs. "Well, my champion was Carlis, who fully agreed to this course of action."

"And the other?" Caiellis prompted after a few seconds of silence. Marik smiled, "Ahem, my other advisor was your mother, and that was how I met her."

Instead of laughing like Marik expected, his son kept his features locked within the cold mask he seemingly perpetually wore when not shouting at his father or speaking to his brother, though the man did know his son had emotions – despite the fact that he hadn't seen much of happiness. He could empathise with Caiellis, as the prince had definitely inherited that from himself, who often used to do the same at his age.

However, there was a glint of twinkling amusement in those expressive emerald orbs before his youngest hid it. "Anyway, though you may be sceptical of my decision making skills (_as you have informed me on numerous occasions_) I'm sure you will be pleased with who I have chosen. They are ready to meet you in the secondary meeting room when we have finished. That brings me onto my second point."

The monarch pushed a sheet of paper over to his son, who picked it up and quickly scanned it, his expression souring slightly before attempting to return to the blankness of before, which he couldn't quite manage. He glowered at his father for a second, repressing the spontaneous temptation to rip the sheet in half, and then reasoned with himself – despite preventing him from seeing his big brother, his exportation to Scientia Mos would allow him to get away from dad, which was a victory as far as he was concerned. _So I've won, _he thought, though it left him feeling hollow inside that he had driven his father to this. He couldn't deny that the arguments were petty, but the fact was they happened and both put their full force into it. He felt like apologising, but knew that would just make him seem even more small-minded and spiteful. Instead he tried a different tact, "So you're just sending me away again. But to be honest I'm surprised that you trust me enough with control of one of the metropolis's armies."

Marik nodded, glad his son wasn't arguing for once, and nearly regretting his choice – his son had only spent just more than four years of his life with him, and in most of the time he had been a small child, and now he was just getting him out of the way a second time in the past fortnight. He passed the boy a small metal device; the mana communicator would allow him to contact Caiellis should he need to before the large scale communication devices were finished – Marik told himself that his son would only be away for a few days at the very most before he saw him again and thrust the boy into another war.

On one hand Caiellis would be an indispensable asset to the war effort, as would his older brother if he recovered enough to be able to help, but on the other his son was still only thirteen years old. The boy accepted the proffered device without comment, already busy thinking about what he would need for the monorail journey later today – because he was going to arrive in the late evening, he was planning to visit his grandparents while his adjutants went to the main hall of the City of Books, and then get into the swing of things tomorrow.

"You'd better take good care of Alex," he told the man, his tone full of seriousness that gave Marik no illusions about what would happen should he fail in that task. The king snorted, "Caiellis, while we may not see eye to eye on things, you sometimes seem to forget that I am you and your brother's father. I will make sure Alexander recovers fully." The two stared at each other, their eyes locked in a battle for dominance, and eventually Cai broke away, his green eyes losing their defiance. "When he says he is alright he's almost definitely lying." he murmured, wondering whether he should actually tell his brother that he was leaving or make dad do it instead. No, it was his duty as a sibling to tell the other boy, though he knew how unhappy Alex would be about this new development. Actually, he hadn't yet informed the older boy about the resurgence of the migraines, but would maybe conceal that titbit of news, as he didn't want his brother worrying even more about him instead of focussing on his own recuperation.

"He is not the only one," Marik muttered, "And that leads on to our final topic: your awful migraines. Anything you want to say about them?"

"No, actually. I don't," Cai spontaneously blurted out, standing up from his seat and turning around. He didn't want the man to know about that. Why did Tristram and Tybalt have to go and tell him? A large hand encircled his forearm, firmly preventing his movements, and he turned around, glaring at his father, who commanded: "Sit down, Caiellis. You shouldn't be afraid of telling me about your pain. If I had known you had that going on as well, I-"

"You're so damn predictable!" Caiellis shouted, releasing the anger that he hadn't noticed build up behind him because of his exile to Scientia Mos, the fact that the father who professed to love him would rather see him sent away instead of putting effort into mending their relationship. "Can you not remember what caused our argument last night? Are you an idiot? You really – arghh, let go! Dad, let go!"

Marik blinked in confusion as his son started frantically trying to pull away, pain clouding his youthful and cute features as he cried out, and then registered that his hand was clenched into a fist, crushing Caiellis's fragile and thin forearm with full force and making the boy squirm. But for some reason he didn't let go until a few seconds later, requiring conscious effort to release his grasp on the arm. _Where was this urge to do violence to the boy coming from? _

He had definitely felt it before, starting from when he had exploded the night of Alexander's wounding and lifted the poor kid off his feet by his collar. It wasn't as if what Caiellis had just said was even that bad, it was just something a normal teenager would have said to their parent – something he would have said to his own father at a similar age and been beaten for it, although the pain inflicted by his son's grandfather was more detached and dispassionate, whereas this desire to hurt was fuelled by fiery anger. It probably didn't help that the boy's arm was still rejuvenating from the damage it had sustained from Aksua's horror snapping the bones. He felt disgusted with himself, and was hugely glad he hadn't grabbed Caiellis by the shoulders otherwise he could have found his hands wrapped around his _own son's _throat. Marik stood up, backing away from his son and knocking the chair over, raising his hands to show his son he wasn't going to hurt him any more.

To his credit, Caiellis didn't cry or whimper, just stared accusingly at his father like a wounded animal, his whole body tense and the birthmark on his cheek coruscating with arcs of purple and gold, showing Marik how close his son had been to using mana to try and break away, which also emphasised how scared the boy was of him, something that just shouldn't be. Marik and Emili had agreed to never hit their children, no matter how dire the misbehaving, deciding that words would make so much more of a difference. It was greatest shame in the entire world that the loving woman who sacrificed so much for everyone and had gone through so much pain to have children never got to see them grow up. _Dammit Marik! Focus on the situation at hand! Whether you would like to admit it or not, Emili is dead, and nothing you can do will change that! You can, however, act like a parent to your sons who are still living: such as little Caiellis, who you have just hurt!_

"Caiellis … I'm so …" he began, stammering nervously at the look of pure hatred his child gave him. The boy spat, "Save your words. Nothing you can say will help anything. I told you to never touch me again. I already know that you hate me, but if you ever, _ever, _touch Alexander in this way, then I will make you pay." Marik didn't doubt it, and all he wanted to do was pull his poor son into his arms and hug him close forever, but moving towards him would be a potentially fatal mistake. A melancholy expression meandered over his gaunt and pale face, and for a second Marik thought his youngest was either going to run towards him and bury himself in his father's arms, or explode into tears, or both, but instead the moment passed and Caiellis's face became blank again, and it broke Marik's heart.

"Don't expect to see me until after I get back from Scientia Mos," he stated robotically, turning away from his father as his limbs relaxed and the emotion poured off him in shuddering waves, "I'm going to go meet the advisers you requested for me, and then I will tell my older brother what is going to happen. Feel free to go see him first, but if I see you in there I'm not going in. Goodbye." He left, trying to stop tears from pouring down his face – _does dad really hate me that much? He's never been violent before … I don't blame him really. I would be disappointed in a child like myself, one who is too weak to do anything, one who is too weak to help his own brother. But that still doesn't excuse him, and if he touches Alexander while my big brother is still weak and can't defend himself then he will have hell to pay. _

Cai composed himself before entering the secondary hall, not wanting to have a bad first impression with those that he would have to work with in the future, and when he opened the door into the long room he gawked in happy surprise. Mysos Grandé and Jenna Bylae stood up from their seats, the former bowing deeply and reverently while the latter suppressed a smirk and did the same.

"Oh. Well I have to say I wasn't expecting you two," he grinned, feeling something akin to actual happiness as the familiarity of his seconds in command, "Mysos, Jenna. How are you?"

"Honoured, my lord," the former spoke first, the tall fifteen year old reminding him of the Scholaria Magnus not too long ago and his first Summoning of Orzhova. He was glad to have his and Iridis's swords at his side, though hoped the Seraph of the Sword wouldn't be too offended by what his dark angel had said to her before annihilating the Sister of Wrath. He looked over at Jenna; the elder sister of Annia's sea-green eyes were twinkling with amusement, prompting to remember the girl that he supposed had become his friend. She then spoke, "The same as Mysos, though I think it's going to be entertaining working with you two."

"And why is that?" Mysos asked, his face clouding with perplexity. Jenna laughed, "Well, firstly you are both still kids, and second Cai is one of the most interesting Lucaelians I have ever met, though if he uses those puppy dog eyes on me then I'll have to kill him."

"That is "Lord Caiellis" to you, or do you Yentarians know nothing of respect?" Mysos bristled at the perceived disrespect, and Cai sighed. He was just recalling how obsessed the older boy was with protocol, similarly to his father and most probably his two older sisters. He wondered what Xathan thought of his son's secondment to the prince – the Guardian of Cassida Principia had been one of the Light-bearers vehemently against killing him as a child which he reasoned was good, though didn't really feel anything negative or positive to those that had advocated his death. "And we are not children."

"Oh really?" Jenna asked, and Cai could tell she was enjoying herself by pretending to fully throw herself into the bickering, "Your nation, like mine, considers those at the age of eighteen to be adults, not fifteen, or, even younger, thirteen. Your beloved prince is even more of a kid than you."

"My lord! I request that you find a new advisor!" Mysos declared, and Cai smiled, feeling the fear and sadness he had felt when his father attacked him evaporating away from him – he was glad that he wasn't wearing a short-sleeved top, as he could feel a hand-shaped bruise forming underneath his sleeves. "Don't be silly, Mysos. Jenna is just teasing you. And please stop calling me "lord"."

"But it is proper protocol," he half-stated, half-whined, and Caiellis walked closer to him, the muscular but still teenage-proportioned boy quite a bit taller than him although not as tall as Alexander or the twins, though Jenna was slightly shorter than the Principian. He then deployed the famous puppy dog eyes that he hadn't utilised in a while, looking up into Mysos's brown orbs. "Mysos. I don't want you to call me anything other than Caiellis or Cai, understand? I'm no more important than you are."

Though the older boy clearly disagreed, he nodded, taken aback by his liege's seriousness of tone despite his wide eyes. Cai turned to Jenna, who was relatively impressed, and said: "I'm already aware of Mysos's combat capabilities, having fought him at the Scholaria Magnus, but I don't even know what your Summoning is. Could you demonstrate it for me?"

The Yentarian nodded, breathing in deeply and drawing Blue mana from the air into her, swirling contrails of disturbed air flecked with flecks of sapphire light flowing around her.

"As you already know, my little sister Annia's Summoning Quioni is a water elemental," Jenna explained, her voice not even tinged by the strain of the magic, although Caiellis detected that her Sancturia creature was of a medium mana cost. "My Summoning is also and elemental, although Ciewan is a manifestation of the air itself. Ciewan, come forth!" she cried, clapping her hands together as a humanoid shape emerged from the roiling tempest of air, curling around his Summoner and regarding the two Lucaelians curiously, though there was no malice in the gaze. The insubstantial creature was mostly made up of the air, though was quite large, and blue light shone from within it.

"Why have you Summoned me, Jenna?" he asked, his voice a mixture of hissing wind and a quizzical, sing-song tone. The young woman grinned as it flowed around her, "Caiellis just wanted to assess my Summoning."

"Is that so?" the elemental replied, cocking his cloud-head to the side and making to move towards the prince, "What do you think then, Host of Light and Darkness?"

Cai narrowed his eyes at the name the creature gave him, and responded tersely, "I imagine that you could be useful in hit and run engagements or ambushes, and as you are gaseous you could fit through small gaps. Your natural Blue mana could also help conceal your presence from those that would sense it. You are a much more subtle being than most Summonings, though I suppose that is to be expected from the magic of cunning."

"You can go now, Ciewan. Thank you for appearing," Jenna said, and her elemental bowed in a half mocking gesture to the prince. The boy made a "huh" noise and then turned to his lieutenants, saying: "I trust you are prepared for your departure tonight?"

"Yep. I am a master of logistics after all," Jenna joked as Mysos glowered at her, muttering, "Arrogant Yentarian," under his breath. Caiellis was quite surprised at his father's choices, though he had to admit they were very good: Mysos was still not yet an adult, though Cai postulated that he was actually younger than the other boy, whilst Jenna was a Yentarian and Lucaelians naturally distrusted the other nations. He was sure that there were quite a few people he had never met before that would have wanted to become his champion or advisor given the chance. Though he couldn't help but find Mysos a bit infuriating.

.*.*.*.

Alexander was awake again, trying to avoid the pitying gazes of the Ordo Medella doctors, his father and Tybalt as the former conducted a few tests on him.

"Are you feeling alright, champ?" Marik asked, though the familiarity seemed quite forced, as if the man was attempting to break the tension in the room or appeal to his eldest, suggesting that something had happened between him and Caiellis again.

"Yeah, I'm good," Alex replied, though he knew full well that he wasn't – the wounds had been worse than originally envisioned, and though they would still recover he needed to get away from the pity they were drowning him in before he cracked. Besides, it wasn't physical harm that was the problem – nothing his body had sustained would leave permanent damaged, but the emotional hurt was killing him. He just wanted to cry, to be left to face his fears alone, to let out all of the anguish he felt at being violated and fed upon by the vampire, however he wasn't willing to show it in front of those who cared about him. At least his little brother wasn't here – though the boy didn't make him feel pathetic or like an animal on display, he never wanted Cai to see him weak for his sake, as the boy would start blaming himself. Plus, the squirt had already suffered enough wounded Alex for quite a while.

"Alexander, don't lie to us. I can already tell that you aren't feeling good – you can share emotional pain with me, you know," Marik tried to assure him, sitting down in the chair beside the bed and turning to the boy, who squirmed under his father's calculating gaze.

"Really dad, I'm fine," Alex insisted, just as the images of Aksua began to assault him again, his body aching in empathetic and remembered pain. He pushed them back down, hoping no one had noticed the brief frailty – if they had, then there would be no chance of him being left alone to vent his emotions. The man the questioned: "Do you want anything? Food, water, a book?"

Though the question was filled with the desire to help Alex, the adolescent felt like he was under an interrogation, with the harsh and oppressive lights shining down on him and exposing his emotional torment that he needed to hide. Fury was beginning to rise up in him, though he didn't know where it was coming from – yes he was annoyed at being babied, but that didn't mean he should feel this angry – just as more of Aksua's seductive purrs filled the room with malevolence and making Alexander feel even more trapped, desperately needing them to leave before he exploded and he made them even more worried.

"I could use some time on my own," he admitted, as to be fair constantly having someone in his room was grating him a bit – but more pressing was the issue of the volcanic anger appearing from nowhere within him and the increased frequency of half-flashbacks of his abuse under the vampire. He knew it was getting worse when actual words started to push their way into his mind, like his tormentor was whispering in his ear and he was powerless to do anything about her, just like he had been powerless to stop her when the vampiress had fed.

"_Now we can enjoy ourselves._"

"Sorry, but that isn't happening, not after last time. You could just pick one of us to stay though," dad suggested, placing a calming hand on his son's shoulder when the boy started to breathe faster. _One is too much! _He almost shouted into Marik's face. But it wasn't his father's fault. It wasn't anyone's fault other than his own and Aksua's, and none of them deserved his rage. But he wanted them to leave. He wanted them to leave before he couldn't hold back his rage, his pain, any more. Alex pleaded: "Please guys, just leave me alone for a few minutes. I'll be fine."

Marik shot a dubious glance at the others in the room, waving his hand so that they backed off from the bed, hanging in the doorway in case Alex wanted any of them to stay. "Alexander, I've already made my terms clear. I know this is hard for you. I'll just stay if you want, or perhaps you would prefer Tristram or Tybalt. I could even fetch Caiellis if you really want. But I am not leaving you alone."

"Just get away from me! LEAVE ME ALONE!" Alex shouted as loud as he could, the volume of his voice augmented by a resonance derived from the mana he was emitting. A wave of White and Red washed out from him, forcing the others to cover their eyes as Marik instinctively raised a shield of defensive mana to protect them. The wave began to coalesce into a more solid form, and Aurelia Summoned herself, the angel reacting to his desire for freedom and a release by taking it upon herself to appear, though only with her wings furled did she fit in the medium-sized room. A Summoning could conjure itself into reality at the expense of its user's mana, although it was very rare that they did so – only demons reputedly forced themselves into the material plane through their Summoner, as normally the Sancturia creature didn't want to use their Summoner's mana.

"You heard Alexander. Leave now," Aurelia commanded, her angelic voice brooking no dissent and making Marik feel slightly scared, although more awed than that. He made to move towards his son, but the angel drew her swords, crossing them over each other and standing protectively in front of Alex, whose blue eyes were wide open in shock. "King Marik, that also includes you. I would not wish to force you to leave, but is the express wish of my Summoner that you do so. Get out. Now."

Marik held up his hands, shooting a worried glance at his son, who returned it with a weak smile, though his eyes still reflected the desperate need to be alone.

"Dad, I'll make it quick. I promise."

"Fine, Aurelia. I will let him have as much time as he wants alone. Alexander, I will wait outside. Call me if you need anything," he said softly, walking towards the door. The angel followed him, walking in a way she didn't have to do often, and slammed the door shut behind her, ensuring that no one would enter.

By the time the door closed shut, Alex was fighting his urge to smash his fist through the wall. He had no idea where the anger was coming from, but he glad there were walls now separating him from the concerned and pitying faces on the other side.

At last, for the first time in two days (not counting dad briefly going to talk to the doctors and his breakdown then), he was finally alone. He got off the bed as more images attacked his mind, going into the bathroom and quickly stripping off the clean Medella clothes someone must have put on him when he was unconscious. He turned the shower on as hot as it would go, although each hospital room had a limit on the amount of water the patients could use. Alexander felt like he needed to cleanse his body, not realising the feeling of being sullied and corrupted wasn't physical, but mental.

Aksua … whispering in his ear as his body shut down to her lulling voice … pinning him down and undulating against him … scratching his skin open with her nails and biting his flesh, sucking the blood from within …

Even as the scalding water burned his skin, he could still feel the vampire's icy and unnaturally cold hands all over his body and it made him want to throw up. He grabbed the fragrant bar of soap on the stand underneath the shower head, starting to scrub frantically at his arms, his chest, his thighs, until the skin was painful and red. No matter what he did, how much flesh he tore off, he couldn't feel clean again.

Her groans of delight filled his ears as he was presented with the most terrifying image yet: Caiellis with the innocent and contented smile on his face as the vampire tore his big brother apart. Alex didn't want to blame his little brother, but it was hard knowing that the younger boy had just left him for dead.

_No, you disgusting idiot! How dare you blame poor Cai for your own weakness! Your little brother is not at fault! You shouldn't have let the vampire hurt you as much as she did!_

Tears of frustration were mixing with the water droplets on his face and he had no other option but to admit defeat. He sank to the floor of the bath, pulling his knees tightly to his chest in a way his little brother often did when the boy felt scared or alone. Alexander buried his face and weakness behind them, hoping to muffle the sobs so that no one would know, despite the reality that there was no way they could be heard by anyone else. He lost track of the time, but was still crying when the water shut off, leaving him shivering, cold, and alone.

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Jenna Bylae: Air Elemental

* * *

_Alright, well I originally wanted Cai to depart in this chapter, but there are still couple of scenes to go and I didn't want it absurdly long. If you are bored with all the emotional stuff, then I'm sorry, but I promise it will become more action packed soon!_


	21. Kaleidoscope Heart

Caiellis stepped quietly into the Ordo Medella hospital, smiling shyly at the pleasant young receptionist who bowed her head and then waved back. He distractedly thought that if his big brother had been up and active, then he would almost definitely be flirting with her right now, though felt no inclinations to do so himself. Cai felt a jolt of panic when he entered the building proper, sensing a very large build up of Red and White mana on the corridor exclusive to Alexander, telling him that the older boy had Summoned – but what for? Why? Was he in danger?

The prince ascended the stairway quickly, almost tripping and tumbling down them when he put too much pressure on his wounded arm on the banister. Though he knew he needed to be quick, a kind of sick curiosity overcame his urgency and he pulled back the sleeve, a large hand-shaped bruise coloured with a mixture of alternating throbbing red and aching purple and black imprinted on the pale skin of his thin forearm. Cai then realised that his father would probably be with Alex, and despite his need to make sure his brother was alright the thought filled him with fear. Yes, while the man may have looked apologetic and crushed by guilt, it hadn't stopped the actions, and Cai didn't want to take any more chances in case he became seriously hurt. Again he wished he had been gifted with a frame more similar to Alex's and their dad's so that he could fight off Marik without having to use mana.

Then the emergency issue of Aurelia entering reality once again pushed itself to the front of his mind, and he shot to the required corridor. He skidded to a halt when he saw his father, Surgeon-General Mortan, Choirmaster Esmelde, and Hierarch Tybalt stood dejectedly outside the doorway, but their presence was soon eclipsed by the awe-inspiring figure of the Warleader blocking the entrance to his sibling's room, the angel a huge beacon of mana in his mind. Cai then perceived that the situation had been going on for quite a while, as otherwise Marik would still have been shouting furiously at Aurelia. Dad appeared drained, though whether that was a combination of hurting his youngest and then being prevented from seeing his eldest – as that was what had evidently happened – or just the latter was a mystery to the youngest Lucerna.

"What's going on?" he directed the question outwards, a general inquiry that anyone could answer. As he predicted, Marik opened his mouth before staring at Cai with pure disgust at himself, his eyes full of guilt, and Aurelia took the chance to interject and explain: "Young Caiellis, your brother requires some time alone. I Summoned myself so that I could give him that."

Cai nodded, and walked towards the angel, who shook her head sadly, "I apologise. Not even you may see him."

"Don't be stupid, Aurelia. I am his little brother. Of course I can go see him," the boy stated it like it was an undisputed fact, causing Marik to raise a bewildered eyebrow – what made Caiellis think that he would be allowed in if Alexander's own father, the king of Lucael, wasn't? The angel turned round to block him, her fiery eyes full of uncertainty, and Caiellis met them with his own, hoping his green orbs conveyed his utter determination to enter the room and ensure his brother was fine, and that nothing would stop him – not even a First Sisterhood angel.

"He's going to kill me for this," the angel sighed in a very uncharacteristic and human manner, and stepped slightly out of the way of the door. "But only Prince Caiellis may enter. The rest of you can wait until Alexander wishes to no longer be by himself."

"What? That is ridiculous!" Marik bellowed, moving threateningly towards Aurelia, who stared at him impassively, reminding the king of his own angelic Summoning, who barely ever reacted to anything with passion. A small hand was placed over his forearm, the arm it was attached to pointing accusingly at the angel, and Marik felt a calming energy flow through him, though the hand wasn't emitting any mana – it was the significance of the gesture that mattered. He was shocked that his son would actually touch him after what he had just done to the boy, but when Caiellis's eyes met his he realised that the only reason the prince had done so was to shut him up.

"Dad, don't argue, please. I will make sure that Alex is alright. And then I'll see if I can convince him to let you in, ok?" Caiellis's eyes were steely but sympathetic, leaving Marik quite proud of his smallest son, though he was still angry at the boy being permitted entry but not him, but he supposed that if there was anyone that knew Alexander really well, it would be his little brother. He backed down when he noticed the almost imperceptible faint glimmer of fear in the boy's expressive eyes, although Caiellis had obviously tried to hide it away.

"Alright, my son. And I am sorry about earlier," he added, quite awkwardly, though his youngest's expression didn't change because of the apology.

"Thank you, Aurelia," he bowed his head and intoned the words, fusing them with gratitude at the act – something must have been quite bad for her to Summon herself into the material plane if Alex's desire to be alone had been potent enough to requisition such an act, and moved past the imposing angel and into the room. It was empty, which suggested that his older brother would be in the bathroom, and he could hear the slow _drip-drop _rhythm of water indicating that the shower or taps had been run. He crossed the thresh-hold to the door, and knocked timidly on it. No response.

"Alex?" he asked, knocking again and then opening the door. Alex was so caught up in his own misery that his little brother was halfway across the room before he registered that he was no longer alone. He dragged the towel that was hung over the side of the bath around him, the fabric still dripping with cold water because he had forgotten to remove it in his haste to cleanse himself. Alexander huddled behind the shower curtain, hoping his little brother would go away and wouldn't see him in this state, whilst the rational part of his mind told him there was no chance of that happening.

Instead of his brother's poor rendition of Lucaelian hymns and songs that Alex usually hummed whilst he was in the shower or just getting dry, muffled sobs emanated from behind the cyan shower curtain. When Cai reluctantly slid the cloth to the side, his brother's state was enough to crush his heart to a pulp, just like it had done when the older boy had thought he was still with the vampire in the middle of the purification ritual. However, this somehow seemed even worse. Alex quickly turned his head towards the wall, hoping to hide his tears from his little brother, but the effort was fruitless. Between the terrifying memories and the shivers that wracked his already wounded and huddled body, he couldn't stop shaking and his ragged breathing was making his already damaged ribs throb as the lungs scratched against them.

Life was so subjective sometimes, the younger Lucerna marvelled, thinking that Alexander always looked so big when he was on his feet, like an invincible and strong big brother that was impossible to bring down, but he looked so frail and small wrapped up by the towel in the bath. He briefly wondered if he appeared that way to other people, and that was why they felt protective of him.

"Alex? Hey..." he reached out a tentative hand to his brother, but involuntarily jumped back the second he touched the skin – despite the older boy releasing a large amount of fiery Red mana, Alex was ice cold to the touch, and still dripping with water that had turned freezing. Cai snapped into protective mode, pulling out another towel from the stand and wrapping it around his brother's shoulders, who was still stuck in a vain attempt to conceal his tears. Trying to offer comfort, Caiellis rested his arm over the back of Alex's neck and shoulders, but the elder Lucerna wincing underneath his touch increased the younger boy's worry tenfold. The angry red patches of skin scattered across his brother's arms didn't help assuage him, and Cai pondered whether Alex could have fallen over.

"What's wrong, big brother? Did you hurt yourself?" Cai asked in the most calming and adorable tone he could muster, and Alexander rolled his head against his knees in a negative gesture as he concentrated on getting his breathing under control. How had his little brother got in here? Wasn't Aurelia supposed to be guarding the door? Cai could feel his sibling shaking underneath his touch, and used his other hand to rub gently against Alexander's towel-clad bicep.

"Alex, you are freezing! Can you stand up?" he inquired, though his brother's head was still buried in his knees so Cai couldn't see his eyes for any insight into what Alex was thinking, although it quite clearly had something to do with overwhelming sadness.

"Don't w-wanna..." the older boy forced through chattering teeth, trying to stifle more tears and dearly wishing Caiellis didn't have to see him like this. Cai responded back, "Well, if you stay in there your condition is just going to get worse."

"Don't c-care..." he muttered. Caiellis sighed sadly and rested his head on his brother's shoulder, listening to the rhythm of his breathing that was occasionally replaced by suppressed sobs. "Come on bro, talk to me. Are you in pain? Do you need any healing, or medication? I can heal you if you don't want anyone else to come in..." he drifted off.

"N-no. J-just w-wanna be alone," Alexander insisted, attempting to turn away from his little brother, though there was no more room to escape to in the bathtub. He idly realised that Caiellis had just got in whilst still clothed, so would have been moistened by the dregs of the water from the shower still at the bottom of the tub, but of course it hadn't fazed the squirt. Cai sighed again, wishing that he could accede to the older boy's request for his sake. "Can't do that, big brother. Sorry."

Alexander's frustration was building up again, and it took all of his self-control and effort not to direct it at his innocent little brother, who he reminded himself was just trying to help. He wouldn't have left if the situation was reversed, but that still didn't stop him from trying. "Go, C-Caiellis. I'll b-be ou-out in a minute."

"Let me help you," Caiellis sat up and moved round to face his brother, for once glad that he was so small, otherwise the manoeuvre wouldn't have been possible, what with how large his big brother was and how much space he took up.

"Just leave, Caiellis!" Alex yelled, raising his head and threateningly shooting daggers at his little brother, who didn't move and just glared back defiantly. "Fine, if you don't want to talk to _me_, then I'll go get dad."

Alex paled instantly, his anger turning to fear. When Cai started to rise to his feet, he threw and arm out and latched onto his brother's wrist. The boy hid a grimace at the force of the grasp, though luckily the older boy was holding his right arm instead of his left. He wasn't going to reveal what Marik had done to anyone, and just wanted it to die down – if his brother found out then Alexander would make a massive deal of it and wouldn't concentrate on his own recovery. "No, Cai, please don't!"

"Why not?" he quirked an eyebrow at his older brother's reaction, though was secretly glad Alex would rather have him here than their father. Another flood of tears wanted to cascade down the older boy's face, so he pre-emptively turned it away from Caiellis, but the kid could still clearly see. "He can't know, ok? P-please d-don't tell him, Cai. Please..."

Fresh tears began to slide out of the whirlpool of blue emotion that Alex's eyes consisted of, meandering down his cheeks and infusing Caiellis with a guarding instinct that made him determined to help his big brother, as the older boy had always done in the past – and still did. He sat down on the side of the tub, trying to gently prise Alex's large fingers from digging into his wrist, otherwise he would have two hand-shaped bruises before the day's end, but the effort was pointless – though at least he wasn't squeezing as hard as dad had been, and Cai could forgive his big brother because of his condition and evident need for comfort, despite his protestations and desire to be alone. "Ok, I won't say anything. You know you can trust me. But you've got to tell me what is going on, alright? You've got to let me help you."

Alex belatedly realised that he was crushing his little brother's fragile arm, though Cai wasn't complaining, and released it in favour of wrapping his arms around his knees again and huddling them to his face. Cai sighed for the third time, knowing that now was good a time as ever to launch his interrogation, and knew that his big brother was exceptionally obstinate in telling people his problems, as in that he echoed his younger sibling's fortification building.

"Are you having flashbacks again?" he asked quietly, though there was no response. Seeing his big brother as broken and destroyed as this made him wish he had killed Aksua himself, given her a death much more painful than the one she had suffered in Akroma's Vengeance, before removing the brutal thoughts from his mind, knowing it was just his desire to lash out at seeing Alex hurt speaking and that he didn't wish to inflict pain, just justice. Besides, there was another person much more deserving of agony than the vampire. Caiellis reached out and draped a third towel over the hard floor right next to the bath, idly wondering why the bathroom had so many of them. "Come on, Alex. Let's get you out of there. I can't do it on my own, ok? You're too big. You're going to have to work with me."

"Not c-clean yet," Alex mumbled blankly, and the nature of the words scared his younger brother, who replied with an incredulous: "Not clean? Judging by the fact that the water has been shut off, you have been in here for over half an hour, Alexander. Come on, look at me big brother," Cai gently jostled his brother's shoulder, hoping that the larger boy would focus on him instead of the haunting thoughts probably going through his mind and imposing themselves on his vision.

After a few seconds of silence, Alexander finally turned his head towards the youngster, his eyes filled with a desperate need for the thirteen year old to understand. "I t-tried, l-little b-brother. S-still in my s-skin. I t-tried to r-rub it out, b-but it's s-still there. Still n-not clean..."

He loosed the grip around his knees enough to lean backwards slightly, exposing his chest and some of his legs and revealing his attempts at scrubbing the skin raw. Cai's jaw fell open, and the silence in the room drew out. The boy was reluctant to break it, but gasped: "Oh angels, Alex … What did you do?"

Cai was horrified – deep scratches marred his brother's muscular body, some deep enough to bleed, and he almost burst into tears himself. Alex had reopened some of the wounds he had sustained from the vampire, and the back of the towel that still covered his lower body was stained crimson.

"I'm so sorry, big brother, but I've got to get dad to see this. Just sit still and don't hurt yourself..." Cai reassured him shakily, and made it to the door before a heavy thud resounded across the room behind him. He whirled around, and was presented by the heart-wrenching sight of Alex sprawled on the hard floor, frantically trying to get his injured limbs to respond, but just kept slipping on the third towel his little brother had placed on the floor a bit earlier. "Alex, stop!"

"Don't g-go, Caiellis! You c-can't tell him! P-promise me!" the middle Lucerna held a hand out towards his brother, wishing he was close enough to grab hold of him again and prevent the smaller boy from getting away, an easy enough task even in his present condition. Tears were blurring Alex's vision once more, in a way that before the past few days they hadn't done so for many years, and he was ready to abandon all hope – just curl up into a foetal ball and stop caring about what the rest of the world thought and did, but then a small hand clutched hold of his outstretched and much larger one, and Alexander was anchored back to reality again.

"I'm not going anywhere, big brother. I'm right here, and I am not going to leave you, ok?" Cai uttered, and helped the older boy rest against the side of the bath, re-securing the towel around his back, and slowly sank down next to him, throwing his right arm around his shoulders despite the fact that it didn't even get all the way to the other side. Alexander continued to shake violently, but at least he made no move to push his sibling away, a victory in Caiellis's book. "Alex, how long have you been sat in the cold?" he asked, though didn't expect a proper response – he wasn't disappointed when the bigger teenager replied with a shake of his head, signalling that he didn't know.

The youngest prince gently pulled Alex towards him until his head was resting on Cai's shoulder, surprised at the lack of resistance but grateful for it. "I've got you, big brother. You're safe with me," he soothed, resting his cheek on Alex's spiky wet hair and ignoring the painful throbbing of his left arm. A loud knock on the door startled them both, and Cai automatically moved in front of his brother.

"Boys? Are you ok in there? It sounded like someone fell..." the concerned voice of their dad sliced through the air, and Cai repressed a venomous and sarcastic response that also slipped out of his lips. He glanced back at his silent brother for conformation, and the unadulterated terror in the wide blue eyes served as that. "Everything is fine, dad," he swiftly answered back, "I just slipped when I was trying to help Alex get out of the shower. I think I underestimated just how heavy he is when leaning his full weight on me."

"Do you need any help with him?" Marik questioned, almost about to barge into the room but restraining himself. _Please don't let him come in, Cai, please – it's bad enough that you are seeing my like this, but dad, the king? No way. _Alexander hoped that his eyes conveyed his desperation, when his little brother settled down back next to him and looked into them for the second time. "I can handle it, dad. We'll be out in a few minutes." That reminded him. He hadn't yet notified Alex of his departure. Shit.

"Ok, Caiellis. Make it quick, though. Alexander needs to be back in bed, especially after releasing so much mana," Marik said, and then waited a few seconds awkwardly to add: "I love you both."

"We love you too, dad," Cai replied smoothly, biting his lip at the utter hypocrisy of the statement coming out of the man but unwilling to let Alex perceive that, and also hoping the monarch couldn't detect the falsity of the words. Both brothers breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the man's footsteps faded away from the doorway. Caiellis turned back to Alex, who looked immensely glum but no longer panicking, still shivering, and a half smile worked its way onto his features. "Your secret is safe with me, big brother. I promise."

Alex let his head fall back on his brother's bony shoulder again, feeling completely exhausted now that the exertion of Summoning Aurelia caught up with him after his desperate panic. Cai tightened his grip around his stricken sibling, wishing he could do something more to help and considering gently humming the reassuring tunes of the _Canticia Lux, _but chose not to, as the silence wasn't uncomfortable and he was content to let Alexander slowly recover. They stayed like that for a few minutes until Alex finally stopped shaking, sitting together in total silence apart from the middle Lucerna's periodic hitches of breath and sniffles. This was the first – and hopefully the last – time that he allowed himself to appear vulnerable in front of his innocent kid brother again.

Yes, while Caiellis had seen him wounded and crying, particularly in the past couple of days, that had been understandable because he had just crawled back from death's door. This was not acceptable. Although Cai wanted to hold this moment forever, he knew that if the king came to check on them again then the man wouldn't settle for his youngest's spoken reassurances and would want to see Alex with his own eyes to ensure his safety. He was actually shocked with himself, as he didn't feel angry at Marik for letting Alex get into this state, but was still annoyed about the man almost snapping his already injured arm.

"Alex, it's probably time that we get you up and dressed. I want to get you back in bed before dad comes again, ok?" although he posed it as a question, it was rhetorical, though if his brother hadn't been so distraught he probably would have answered it just to annoy him in the way he often did. Alex nodded into his brother's shoulder, before slowly sitting back up and forcefully wiping his eyes on the corner of the towel, annihilating the tears before drying the rest of his body. _Pull yourself together for angel's sake! __**You're **__supposed to be the big brother in this relationship, not him! _For some reason, he just felt like saying something, but didn't know what, so instead settled on, "You're all bones, little man. You should eat more."

Cai raised his eyebrows at the random statement, but at least it meant the older boy's mental state was improving for now. He sent the seventeen year old a furtive glance to ensure that he was ok, before standing up and retrieving his brother's clothes from where they were strewn around the room, and had the situation been less dire he would have feigned a squeal of disgust at the boxer shorts lying next to the long trousers.

He recalled one day where he had put on his brother's jacket when he felt scared, though it was way too massive for him. Alex had said that he looked far too adorable to properly kick his ass for it, which is what he had been planning to do in his outrage at the younger boy touching his clothes, so instead resorted to "playfully" pinning him down and wrestling the jacket off him. Cai wasn't entirely sure why that particular memory sprung to mind, but it was a relatively pleasant one so he let it stay. When he returned, he stood nervously in front of Alex, perfectly willing to help but unsure how to prosecute that task without making the state of affairs exceptionally uncomfortable and embarrassing for his big brother, something he didn't want to achieve at the present moment. Alex glanced up at him and then dropped his gaze to the floor, tightening the towel around his shoulders. "Just put then on the floor, little brother. I've got it."

"Are you sure? Because I can, um..." Caiellis was cut off by his older brother, who smirked, "I didn't know you were so interested in me. Anyway, I'm good, little dude. Thanks."

"No problem," Cai did as he was told, turning around to give his elder sibling more privacy while he got dressed, inwardly glad Alex felt that he didn't need help – not that the older boy would tell him if he did. Cai was certain that it wasn't a trust issue, as Alex had shared many things with him that he hadn't with anyone else, but the older boy generally hated people worrying about him, especially his precious little brother whom he apparently thought worried too much anyway. Alexander rose shakily to his feet, using the walls and the bathtub to steady himself. Once the kid's back was turned he loosened the towel, carefully pulling his clothes over the raw and tattered skin whilst also making sure that all traces of weakness were erased from his expression. _Emotional meltdown is officially over. Caiellis no longer has to worry about me, though I'm sure he will._

As if in response to his internal thoughts, as Cai waited for his brother to get dressed he decided he wanted some answers on exactly what had taken place when his big brother had been alome, "So, Alex, do you want to tell me what happened?"

Alexander cleared his throat – he could do with a drink of water, maybe admitting to that would make people less concerned – and made sure that all evidence of his previous sadness was wiped out from his next few words. "Nothing, little dude. It has just been a few long days, that's all, and I'm tired."

"Alex, just stop," Caiellis spun around the second the rustling of clothes stopped, presented with his fully dressed brother, his green eyes blazing like a forest fire, "I know you better than anyone, and whether you would like to admit and face facts or not, you can't always be invincible. Sometimes you have just got to admit that you are human, and do suffer from moments of weakness. All I want to do is just help you, but I can't if you won't let me."

Alexander took a breath to reply, wincing as his abused ribs protested against it and the pain of his wounds seemed to intensify in time with his brother's utterance. Caiellis didn't miss the grimace that crossed Alex's face, and cut in before he could reply.

"I know it sounds hypocritical, but you should really talk to dad, Alex," he half-suggested, half-pleaded, and the icy glare in his brother's eyes made him want to move back a couple of steps for fear that the older boy would hurt him.

"If not him, then Uncle Tristram, Uncle Tybalt, Elizabex, Leodred – someone! You need to talk to someone, Alex, because-" he began, and his brother interrupted, "Because what, little brother? Because I'm pathetic, a poor excuse for an older brother let alone a prince? I'm sure they all know that," he raised his voice slightly, although it was tinged with self-loathing more than anger directed at Cai. The younger boy felt worse than he had during his migraine, realising how similar he and his brother were, though he was sure that the older boy also knew it considering how much he had conferred with him in the past. He let out a tortured sigh, "You know that none of that is true, Alex. You are the best big brother in the entire world, and the toughest person I know. I was going to say that you should tell them you need more time alone and that you aren't ready to deal with it just yet, especially since-"

"I am ready to deal with it! It's just I'm too pathetic to do it!" he roared, grabbing Cai by his forearms and slamming them against the bathroom wall. His volcanic rage that had erupted past his barriers due to Cai's constant prodding was immediately cooled when the younger boy gasped in agony and stifled a cry of pain, and the anger instantly turned to brotherly concern. "Oh shit, Cai, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to-"

"It wasn't your fault," the younger boy murmured, his soft voice tinted with resignation, and the older brother said, "Sorry, I forgot your arm was still healing." He moved forwards and pulled down the sleeve of his sibling's left arm, before gasping in horror. "Angels! I really didn't mean to do that! I'm really sorry, little brother."

"That wasn't you," Cai scowled, irritated that his father had inadvertently given Alex an excuse to avoid his own pain and focus on someone else's. "I wanted to hide it from you because of your condition, but there is little point now. Dad did it. But it's fine, so don't try and change the subject."

"It doesn't look fine," Alex looked down guilty, incredibly annoyed that he had lashed out at his little brother, but the squirt had been getting into dangerous territory that Alexander wanted to stay far away from, even more so with little Cai. The boy pulled away and Alex took a step back, asking, "When did it happen?"

"Irrelevant," Caiellis replied coldly, "We weren't talking about me; I am perfectly alright." There was a pregnant pause in which both brothers tried to stare the other down, their eyes locking in a silent confrontation. All Alexander could focus on was the bruise on Caiellis's arm, and Cai could see his brother reconstructing his barriers against showing frailty. _I should have been there to protect him,_ the older boy thought, and broke the silence first.

"C'mere, kiddo," he ordered, and Cai decided that he may as well follow the command, eyeing his sibling quizzically as he did so. Alex gently grasped his younger brother's left arm and angled it towards the light so that he could better examine the bruising, both from their father and from Aksua's Nocturon. Cai let out an exasperated exhalation but let the elder Lucerna complete his ministrations. Wincing with sympathy, Alex voiced: "It looks like Aksua's horror got you good."

"She hurt you significantly more than me," Cai pouted, carefully encircling his brother's wrist and pulling out of his grip, an irked look in his bright emerald irises. He grumbled, "Stop changing the subject."

Alex played innocent, earning a deep scowl from his smaller sibling, "What subject?"

Caiellis gave him a frown and crossed his arms with a huff, sighing, "Why do you keep pretending that you are fine? No one expects you to be after what you have gone through, so why do you refuse to share the pain with anyone?"

"Why do you?" Alex returned the question, sensing that Caiellis was becoming more irritated with him, "Look, I'll make you a deal then, little man: If you do the same, then I will share all of my worries with you, ok?"

Though he had no intentions on following through with his end of this bargain, Alex smirked when Cai's eyes lit up – he supposed that it wouldn't hurt to share his concerns with the younger boy so long as he didn't appear vulnerable or pathetic and didn't make his brother worry. "There may be a slight problem with that, and I'm not talking about the fact that you are clearly lying to me."

Alexander blinked. He hadn't expected to be cut down so quickly, however the boy wasn't as much of a little kid anymore, so should have anticipated this sort of response. It was his turn to sigh, realising there was no point in pretending to be hurt or betrayed by the prince's statement, "Right, fine, maybe I was planning to hide most of it from you, but that is because you worry yourself to death and a little brother shouldn't have to do that. But what is the other problem?"

Caiellis mumbled something under his breath, lowering his gaze to the floor, and Alex cocked an eyebrow at him, curious why the kid seemed so guilty. "Speak up. I know you are small and it is hard to hear what you are saying from all the way down there, but that was way too quiet."

"Dad is sending me to Scientia Mos," he blurted out, and Alexander masked the sharp pang of negative emotions he felt, instead concentrating on the positive ones and plastering them on his face, giving his kid brother an enthusiastic smile. "Cool! Are you going there to prepare the legion? Don't look so down, you're gonna love it. Trust me."

Cai considered the words in great detail for a few seconds, before glancing back at his brother, a small smile forming on his own face because of the older prince's infectious wide grin. "Yeah, I suppose it will be good. I guess I was just worried about you."

"You shouldn't worry about me, I can take care of myself," Alex stated, though he knew the words would have no effect. That explained why Cai had been so insistent on making him talk to someone else because he wasn't going to be there, and felt a mixture of worry about his sibling's safety and a more selfish sadness at not being able to see Caiellis for a while, before crushing the emotions. He reminded himself that the younger boy would be just as safe in the City of Books than in Civitas Sol in him, but it still didn't quash the protective notion that automatically rose up inside of him.

"You know, big brother, if you keep piling up problems inside of yourself you are eventually going to explode," Cai cut into his thoughts, breaking the boy out of his reverie and making him roll his eyes. "You're just like a hound with a bone, aren't you? Can you not just let the issue drop?"

"Not until I know that you are alright. Besides, that is a bit rich coming from you," Cai replied evenly, though his eyes emphasised his determination. Alexander sighed in frustration, "Cai, I did it because no one is going to be able to get over this if they all think I need to be coddled, least of all you. All I needed was time to deal with it myself, and that's exactly what I did. End of story."

"If you can _that _dealing with it then I hate to see you not," Caiellis muttered under his breath, though the older boy still heard. "You are just asking for me to beat you up, aren't you baby brother?" Alex smiled, and the words were not intimidating. Cai then asked again, "Are you sure that you are alright?"

"Yes, I think your ultra-girly moment healed me. You must have had a gender change overnight," Alexander smirked at the furious expression creasing over Cai's gaunt and pale features. "Alex, I'm being serious!"

"Look, Cai," Alex said, swiftly crossing the short distance across the room to his brother and placing his large hands on the boy's thin shoulders. "I promise you that I am fine. But if I ever feel this bad again, I am definitely going to tell you. No more secrets. From either of us."

As he spoke the words, he switched his grip and lifted his brother into a hug, and although it wasn't quite at the bone-crushing intensity as normal Cai still couldn't break out, even if he had wanted to. He dolefully rested his head on the older boy's shoulder, breathing in the familiar and reassuring scent of the leather jacket his big brother often wore, and suddenly a thought came to mind. "In that case I had an awful migraine yesterday … actually I guess it was this morning. Midnight, anyway. I'm fine now though."

"It's just joy and happiness in Cai-world isn't it?" Alex joked, resting his chin on his little brother's head as he shuddered at the thought of his little brother all alone in the city in the throes of one of the worst migraines he had ever experienced – just after Caiellis had left him to go see his father and Tristram had taken over watching him, he had woken up and the Guardian had informed him. He felt awful because of the fact he had almost forgotten about it, "But I already knew. Sorry for not asking you if you were alright or not."

"It's ok, big brother. I probably would have just accused you of changing the subject," Cai smiled and pushed his head further into his brother's chest as a wave of sadness threatened to overcome him. He just felt depressed at the fact that he wouldn't be able to see Alexander when he was in Scientia Mos.

"Aww, what's wrong short stack?" the older boy asked, and the younger snorted, "I've not heard that one before."

"Being confined to my bed has given me a lot of time to think," Alex let go of his brother when the boy started to move away, who raised his eyebrows. "You know, one day I'll be taller than you and you'll regret all these stupid nicknames."

"I'm sorry to dash your dreams, but you are never going to be taller than me baby brother," Alex grinned, "And what makes you think that I would stop calling you them even if the unthinkable happened and you got bigger than me?"

"You're impossible to live with," Cai jested back, and his sibling's response was, "I try."

They stood in brotherly silence for a few seconds, both boys thinking about what it would be like without the other there, and once again the eldest broke it. "Come on kiddo, we'd better go out and I suppose I should get back into bed."

"I'm gonna miss you," Cai said, and his brother laughed, "You're only going away for a few days, a couple of weeks at the very most."

"Yeah, but what is the longest amount of time I've spent away from you?" Caiellis shot back, and the older boy paused. Both of them knew that it had only been the very short period at the Scholaria Magnus, less than a day in total, "Fair point. And I'm gonna miss you too, little buddy. Make sure you call me every day on the mana communicator."

"How do you know that I have one?"

"Big brother instinct. Plus, although dad may want you gone because of your incessant arguing, he's not an idiot, nor does he hate you," Alex's voice took on a nurturing resonance, "On the bright side, at least you can't shout at each other if you are miles away."

"Yeah," the youngster stated sullenly, and his brother punched him on the right arm, eliciting a loud yelp followed by an annoyed scowl, "Stop being so depressing, Caiellis. Don't let your worrying about me spoil an educational and enjoyable trip. I mean, at least dad picked your favourite city, and you can go see mum's parents."

"Just promise me you'll be alright," Cai said, and Alex saw the tears in his wide green eyes before the boy wiped them away, "Yes, Boy Genius, I'll be fine. I promise. And have I ever broken a promise to you before?"

"There's a first time for everything," Caiellis murmured, a melancholy aspect infusing his voice, but then resolved to brighten up – he refused to leave on a negative note with his brother. "Thank you, big brother. I-"

"Are you two coming out this century?" another impatient knock resounded through the room, and Cai growled in annoyance before repressing it under Alex's admonishing stare. The older boy shouted, "Yeah, we're coming!"

He leaned a good proportion of his weight on his little brother as they emerged, hoping he was strong enough to help him, who took it without comment, his eyes fixated upon the bed and completely avoiding their father, who moved round to the other side of his eldest to help manoeuvre him back into the bed. Cai then half-leapt into his brother's arms, wrapping his own carefully around the middle Lucerna's chest as the larger boy patted him comfortingly on the back. "You should get going, little man. I wouldn't want you to miss your train. Have fun, and make sure you contact me as soon as you arrived, every day and if you need help, got it?"

"Control freak," Cai teased, but nodded solemnly as both simultaneously said, "Goodbye."

His eyes then flicked to Marik, who stood despondently on the other side of the bed, and spoke: "Dad, what you did was wrong, and you should be sorry for it. But I'm willing to forgive and forget over time, and I think this will be good for that."

Marik looked up from where he had been staring at his hands, imagining them crushing his little boy's arm and feeling sick because of it. "Are you willing to humour your old man and give me a hug?"

Cai shook his head slowly, and the monarch smiled understandingly and sadly in the same instant. His son evidently didn't want to leave on bad terms, judging by his thoughtful earlier statement, but still didn't trust him with contact.

"That's fine, my boy. I hope you find your trip educational and successful. I can go with you to the monorail station if you want," another shake of the head, "Well in that case, goodbye, and Ave Lux."

"Ave lux." the boy replied, before exiting, and Marik turned his anxious but still calculating gaze upon his eldest, who was doing his best to appear nonchalant and avoid it. He sat down in the chair, sighing, "Are you alright now, Alexander?"

"Yeah, yeah," the boy rolled his eyes at his father's dubious smile, who then stated: "I will speak with you later. But despite your brother's wishes, I should go and see him off. I'm positive I can catch up with him before he embarks."

"I'm not sure he'll like it, but I think that is a good move," Alex replied, glad that his father was actively trying to heal the relationship between him and his youngest son.

.*.*.*.

Ilentia strode across the front rank of the garishly garbed Order of Gluttony Enforcers, glaring at the sweating figures in the small squad in front of her. She had soon found that she despised each and every member of her Order, especially the severely lacking Enforcers, but unfortunately she would have to wait until changes could be made, as Tradax had forbidden her from turning it into a potent fighting force like she had wanted, telling her that the Order of Gluttony was an essential part of the Empire and the City of Pleasure. Ilentia briefly mused about how in her past life she had ever let herself get so ridiculously obese, before focusing on her current objective.

They were stood in the humid and dank sewers running underneath Usnaan, the air misty and permeating everything with its entirely unpleasant moist heat. Though they were out of the baleful red orb of the baking sun, its effects could still be felt underground, though Ilentia was not bothered in the slightest. There was a stream of murky brown flowing beneath two pathways encrusted with dirt and excrement, and the passageway down further into the sewers was pitch black, though a wan red light illuminated the small party.

She wished that she could have brought the only Enforcers that she could actually stand with her, but those that had been turned into lumbering Gargantuans wouldn't be able to fit into the sewers, let alone be graceful enough to navigate them. That left her with the normal, and extremely unfit, generic human Enforcers by her side, though she was confident that if it came down to it her might alone would be enough to prevail. Besides, the Enforcers could serve a much more malignant purpose should Ilentia so desire, as she had been begrudgingly taught by Arrapackxia.

The Master of Gluttony's first mission was to annihilate the Resistance that had been so disruptive of Tradax's plans, and it was rumoured that their base was in the sewers, so Ilentia had led her troops there. The Ja'an Guards were masters of infiltration and escape after perfecting such techniques in the Revolution, though Ilentia hoped that they wouldn't be able to conceal themselves or disappear from what was coming. The Master of Gluttony certainly wasn't as easily eluded as the periodic packs of Enforcers sent to locate and destroy the rebels, though there was little to no information on them because of their lack of activity up until this point.

There was no clear plan past simply finding them, as Ilentia had always worked best on impulse before her dark revival, and that particular trait had carried over into what she was now. She knew that Tradax had very deep doubts about her, as she simply wasn't interested in indulging in the pleasures on offer throughout the Empire, which was not fitting for a Master of an Order of Passion. Ilentia's main priority past survival was to faithfully serve the one who had brought her back to life, though she would have no compunctions about killing the Master of Rapture should he try to impede her first concern. She intended to impress him by eliminating the Resistance that had unwittingly led to her creation, and stalked forwards with a feline grace, her long and thin limbs tensing as she made her way across the passageway, beckoning the Enforcers to follow her.

"My lady, what are your orders?" one asked, and she turned around, feeling a violent anger welling up inside of her. They were seriously grating on her nerves, and contemplated why she had actually ordered them to accompany her. A malicious smile crept onto her lips as she remembered the reason why the Master of Rapture had killed her former self – simply because she had been irritating him. Then, he surely wouldn't mind her emulating his example? No, she would restrain herself for now, because there was no point in killing them if she wasn't going to feed them to Arrapackxia just yet, and she needed the demon hungry so that she could find the Resistance headquarters.

"Just follow me," she spat, drawing upon her reservoir of mana as malevolent laughter laced with ravenous hunger echoed through the sewers, causing her soldiers to huddle closer out of fright. The darkness became more solid, and tendrils of shadow dragged themselves out of her outstretched palm, billowing around her and coalescing into a humanoid form. Though her demon didn't seem that impressive, Arrapackxia required feeding to unlock his true potential, and only the meat of living humans would do. She heard one of her Enforcers whimper in terror at the sight of the demon, but ignored the man as the being of Sancturia sneered at her, his eyes glinting with hunger.

"What is it that you want, wench?" he snarled, his tone softening grudgingly after chains of gloom wrapped around him and Ilentia cocked an eyebrow, "Fine, fine. I will located the rebels for you. I can smell their scent from here. But first I require a meal." he licked his lips in anticipation, swivelling his gaze from his Summoner to the petrified Enforcers.

"No, you do not," Ilentia snapped, yanking on the tether and forcing the demon to meet her red eyes. The beast growled deeply, and muttered, "I am going to enjoy killing you." Arrapackxia then took off, loping along the ground on all fours instead of running with just his two legs. Ilentia ran behind him, and the Enforcers followed, their armoured footsteps clattering on the ancient stone of the sewers as they ensured that they stayed at a safe distance from the demon. Ilentia narrowed her eyes as Arrapackxia slunk into a side passageway that to all intents and purposes shouldn't have been able to hold the demon, and swiftly ran after him. She emerged onto a ledge overlooking a wide, more open area than the claustrophobic tunnels, filled with a few terminals that sparked hazardously. The room had about fifty people in it, going about different tasks such as analysing a paper map of Usnaan on a decrepit wooden table, sharpening weapons and cooking. Two men joked and laughed as they played cards on a stool, a woman wielding a curved scimitar attacked upturned chairs to practise her combat skills. Each person below was wearing two gauntlets, one red and one black.

Ilentia felt her limbs fill with expectation, noticing that Arrapackxia had concealed his mana presence with dark magic as to not attract their attention. She drew the elegant twin sabres that had been the former Master of Gluttony, Ershun Firefist's prized family heirlooms despite never actually ever using the blades in combat and that Tradax had gifted to her. She tensed her limbs, and leapt, just as a pale and huge hand grabbed hold of her waist and dragged her forcibly back into cover. It took all of Ilentia's self discipline to not scream in indignation and revulsion at the demon's flesh touching her own, and glowered at Arrapackxia's malicious snicker.

"Patience, my dear," he whispered, and Ilentia had to restrain herself from using her shadow tether and making her Summoning scream in pain, "Look closely at the Resistance members. What do you see?"

Ilentia growled under her breath at the demon, who let go of her, but instead of leaping back into the combat she had been about to start she took Arrapackxia's advice and intently examined the humans below. After about a minute, her frustration slowly building every second, she was about to turn back to the demon before she saw something strange.

The woman, her curved scimitar flashing in the crackling fire of the cooking pot, repeated her motions of slicing into the chairs, using a completely identical technique to the one before. That in itself wasn't that unusual, as a flawless swordsman could easily replicate a series of attacks, but the thing that caught Ilentia's red eye were the chairs. No one had replaced the ones she had destroyed earlier, but here the woman was, attacking the chairs and breaking them in the exact same manner. To confirm her suspicions, Ilentia looked down at the two men playing cards, noting that the one on the left had three different cards in his hand. He played one, and his opponent played another. Then, abruptly, without drawing another card, the first man had three slips of cardboard in his hand again.

"I see," Ilentia nodded, knowing that the demon was able to sense living souls in his hunger, and that those below were anything but. She was honestly quite shocked Arrapackxia had stopped her from jumping down there, considering the amount he seemed to resent her. The demon shrugged, sensing her thoughts, "There is more in the material world to feast upon than in Sancturia, and in my opinion living humans are much more tasty than their soul counterparts."

Ilentia spun around as her Enforcers finally caught up with her, pointing at five of them, "You, you, you, you, and you," she declared, not having bothered to learn any of their names, and elegantly twirled back to the ledge, concealing her smile at the woman obliterating the wooden chairs again. "You have the honour of leading the attack. Now go, for the glory of the Empire!"

The men and women whooped in joy and jumped down onto the lower room, brandishing their weapons and beginning to charge at the figures of the Ja'an Guard, who didn't react in any way. Then, Ilentia felt it. A huge release of Red mana gave the air an actinic smell and she could taste ash on her tongue. The Enforcers remaining behind her covered their eyes at a massive detonation of light coming from the chamber below, and Ilentia looked impassively on as the clones of Resistance members exploded in a spray of molten metal, immolating the screaming soldiers down below in a wave of fire and flowing metal. The sewers shook, depositing rubble and dust next to her party and making some of them cough as others shouted in panic.

"For freedom!" a cry rang out, and her Enforcers turned around as black-clad figures wielding Red magic and a host of Summonings crashed into them. Blood spurted into the air as the ambush commenced, slaughtering the unprepared Enforcers. Ilentia had predicted this course of action the second she knew that the Resistance below had been an illusion – they would be trying to split up the party of Welkalite military, by making them take casualties from the explosion and then assaulting them from the back. Ilentia saw the woman wielding her scimitar hacking through the Enforcer that had asked for orders earlier, her fiery blade turning the man to ash as her Summoning, the Oread that must have created the metal clones of the Guard, incinerated another one of her soldiers. The Master of Gluttony was perfectly content to watch the massacre and intervene when she felt it was right, sensing Arrapackxia's lust to feast increasing every time one of her Enforcers was cut down.

A kind-faced man with a crackling crimson elemental at his side then broke through the ranks, his spear fizzing with electricity, turned in her direction, and his eyes widened in shock. Arrapackxia lowered his concealment magic, and the darkness of a greater demon permeated throughout the tunnel, filling its occupants with dread.

"Get back!-" the man shouted as Ilentia's demon sprang forwards grabbing him around the throat and biting off his head, blood fountaining from the stump as he greedily devoured the corpse, his power levels rising exponentially. He stood up to his full height just as the last of the Enforcers was finished off, huge black wings extending out of his back and scraping the ceiling before Arrapackxia released mana from his hands and annihilated the obstruction, laughing at the terrified faces below.

"DEGAN!" the woman with the Oread shrieked in fury and loss as Arrapackxia consumed the last remnants of the man's body, leaping forward as her weapon glowed with rage. The greater demon bellowed with laughter and back-handed her, and although her fall was minimised by her Summoning Ilentia still heard bones cracking. Arrapackxia shot into their ranks, extending his claws and sweeping them in a wide arc, dismembering and maiming at every attack as a fiery spirit in the form of a woman clothed in robes of smoke and steam shot sparking flames at the demon, who laughed again and battered them away.

"Messa! We need to retreat!" a Resistance member shouted, just as a lance of pure darkness pierced through his stomach, forcing him to cough up lungfuls of blood.

"Now that wouldn't be fun at all, would it?" Arrapackxia's spiteful voice rang out as he sent out bolts of darkness that impaled the spirit that was attacking him, though with the wounding of her Summoner the creature had started to fade already. Ilentia augmented her speed with Red enchantments and sprinted at the group of Resistance members that had been trying to leave, but somersaulted backwards as a pool of magma erupted from the ground she had been about to run on.

The woman who must have been called Messa swung her sword at Ilentia, who blocked it with both of her own and twisted as a bolt of fire came dangerously close to impacting on her side. The Master of Gluttony felt empowered by her Summoning, but Arrapackxia was drawing on her reserves on mana and if she didn't eliminate the party of Ja'an Guard soon then she might end up dying. She wished that her Enforcers would have lasted a bit longer so could be distracting some of the Resistance, as instead of concentrating their attacks on the huge distraction of the fully awakened greater demon they were trying to kill its Summoner first.

She slammed her foot on the ground, mentally ordering Arrapackxia to attack to the group of rebels assaulting her instead of eating the ones he had just killed, but the demon was able to ignore her now that he was fed and did so, continuing to slowly feast upon the humans that tried to flee from him. Ilentia realised that if the Resistance was allowed to escape, it would take huge amounts of searching to locate them again, but for now if she let them get away she knew that they would return and kill her when she was forced to Unsummon Arrapackxia.

Ilentia flipped back from Messa's second swipe, the woman's technique not lost in her rage and forcing the Master of Gluttony into some unfavourable positions. Ilentia snarled and twirled her swords, creating two waves of fire and shadow and sending them at Messa. The Oread intercepted the first wave, nullifying the flames with its own, but the second sapped some of Messa's strength and reduced her energy.

Ilentia frowned as she heard a huge release of Blue mana, and then suddenly the Resistance members were gone. Her eyes widened at the sudden disappearance, and at the fact that the Ja'an Guard had access to such potent teleportation technology, meaning that at least one League of the Yentarian Republic was aiding them, before pure and unadulterated rage coursed through her mind. She turned furiously to Arrapackxia, whose wings were forming back into his body as he hunched over a corpse, and the greater demon took one look at her face and returned to the Mind Realm, escaping her wrath for now.

Ilentia screamed in anger and punched the floor, knowing that she had failed Tradax – although she had killed some of the Resistance, she didn't know where the rest had gone, and the fact that they now knew her strength meant that she would probably never be able to hunt them down again. Her fist was covered in the gore, the blood of her Enforcers and the rebels she and her demon had murdered coating the sewer tunnels in thick, sticky red fluid.

_You win, for now. But rest assured, I will find you, and you will pay for this._

.*.*.*.

Caiellis walked slowly to the monorail station, as he had set off far too early so that he could ensure everything was in place for his departure. His booted feet crunched in the snow, and he carried a large book he had recently purchased with him for the journey. As usual, the scarf he wore hid his identity, though he would have to take it off before boarding the train. As well as Mysos and Jenna, his father had seconded a squad of four elite royal bodyguards to him, but he had told the men (who had been waiting dutifully outside of the Ordo Medella hospital) that as long as they got on the train on time, he didn't mind what they did. It was approaching midday, not that he would know without the new watch he had found in his room when he had gone to it just after leaving his relatives, and after that he had said his goodbyes to Tristram and Tybalt.

Despite his misgivings about leaving Alexander alone, he was massively looking forward to the trip – Scientia Mos was his favourite city apart from Capitalia Lux because of the latter's sheer impressiveness and historical relevance, and he had gotten on well with Hierarch Martha and Guardian Weiss when he had stayed at the city a bit in the civil war, although he hadn't spoken to either in two years.

The boy sensed a familiar presence striding quickly towards him, and exhaled frustratedly, trying to curb the rise of annoyance that tried to disrupt the peaceful state of mind he had created for himself. The man just didn't know when to quit, did he? Cai sighed exasperatedly, irked by the fact that his father had gone back on what he said and decided to in fact come and see him to the train station. However, he still stopped, not wanting to seem petty or ignorant and knowing that if he did increase his pace then the much taller Marik would just catch up with him.

"Why are you here?" he asked, not turning around but directing a sideways glance at dad when he reached his son's side, the king's face cast in resolute determination mixed with parental warmth. Cai would be lying if he said that he wasn't grateful for the man appearing, as it showed that he did care, but they had left each other's company on a positive tone and the fact that his irritation was rising meant that that probably wouldn't last. He knew that if they argued now, just before he left, both would foster the resentment of the other (unless his father decided to act like an adult) until it evolved into something much more foetid and sinister, possibly even directly influencing the war.

"Caiellis, I am aware that you are annoyed and put a lot of effort into ensuring that we parted on good terms, but what sort of a father just lets their children leave without seeing them off and making sure they are safe?" Marik stated, suppressing the desire to embrace his son after the boy's eyes clearly told him he wouldn't welcome that. _I wonder if he __is ever going to apologise properly for what he did earlier, or try and explain himself to me. I doubt it,_ Cai thought, his mind voice clinical and speaking with a detached, surgical precision. He stayed silent, hoping Marik would infer that now his youngest was no longer in the presence of his brother, there was no need to hold up on the pretence of being comfortable near his father.

The king's blue eyes were inscrutable and he also said nothing, so Caiellis set off again with his father pacing at his side, often directing glances at the prince, who kept his eyes fixed on the path ahead, endeavouring to slow down his breathing and trying not to think about his father attacking him. He wanted, no, he _needed _dad to speak, to break the silence and show that he still loved his child, but the king seemed perfectly content to walk in quiet, as if the man thought the silence between them was companionable instead of forced and tense. A couple of guards bowed but otherwise made no moves to prostrate themselves in front of the king, thinking that the man just wanted to act as a father instead of a monarch.

Sighing at his parent's density, Caiellis let his soft voice cut through the quiet, "Was Alex alright after I left?"

Marik smiled at him, though the gesture wasn't entirely suffused with happiness, registering that he had become lost in his own thoughts and that he should have been the one to begin the conversation considering the fact that he was the one who sought out Caiellis. "Your brother still seemed a bit … scared, I suppose, and I am planning to talk to him after you get on the train, but was definitely better than before. Whatever you two did in the bathroom, it certainly healed him."

Cai could feel his father's analytical gaze scrutinizing him, examining him closely for any subtle clues that would allude to what had happened, so ensured that he kept his posture, and expression, neutral. The younger brother was not going to give away Alex's secret, and would just ignore his father if he asked what had occurred, though he doubted the man would be that brash. He refused to give away any information, figuring that if Alexander wanted to reveal his fears to anyone else (unlikely), then it was the older boy's choice, and he knew that if the roles had been reversed then Alexander would preserve his secrecy.

"Just make sure he is alright," Caiellis said quietly, and Marik nodded dutifully. At least neither of them were shouting at each other, though the king had had his hopes dashed numerous times before when he thought they had been making progress. "Anyway, thank you for asking, I'll be fine in Scientia Mos. I will make sure to report back to you or Alex every day on the mana communicator on the state of affairs, but I will need orders so that the mobilisation can be done in synchronisation with the other cities. I assume that we are still following your plan?"

Marik nodded, proud of his son not allowing the animosity that he wished didn't exist between them get in the way of the kingdom's future. What he had done was inexcusable, but he had apologised for it and didn't want the moment of peace between them to end. "Yes, we are still following my strategy. However I have incorporated some elements of yours into it, as they were masterfully done, so instead of a rush at the capital we will destroy other armies to prevent them from reinforcing it before besieging Usnaan."

Cai raised his eyebrows at the compliment, sceptical of whether his father was saying that in some vain attempt to improve their relationship or actually thought that. "You know, sometimes I wished I knew which one of you would be king." Marik stated idly, "Then I could focus on their development instead of having to train you both, and so you didn't have to live your lives in uncertainty."

Caiellis thoroughly disagreed with that – having knowledge of which child would ascend to the throne would create favourites, and the other child would be neglected and ignored in favour of making sure their sibling was prepared to rule, though he knew his father would agree with him on that. However, he couldn't help the irritation from entering his voice the next time he spoke, aiming the question like an accusation, "Did you not think of that?"

"What?" Marik replied, utterly bemused by his son's enigmatic question. Caiellis sighed like he was being forced to speak to an idiot and was indulging him just by deigning to talk, and elaborated, "Did you and mum not think that after you had Alex, it would have been better for the kingdom just to have one heir and not had another child, especially after you were crowned king?"

"To be honest, the thought did cross my mind, but your mother would never have agreed to letting blind loyalty get in the way of what we wanted," Marik said, nostalgically recalling the argument they had had about disciplining their children after three year old Alexander had a tantrum – Marik had originally wanted to follow his father's example, as they dispassionate violence did make him and Johnias respectful, obedient and dutiful, but Emili had vehemently opposed hitting their children. He had relented after a few minutes, knowing that what his wife said about words being far more powerful being right, and wanting to be as far removed from King Garius II as possible. Though he respected the man as a king and sought to emulate that within his own reign, he had never loved him and wanted to be far closer to his children then the man had ever been to him and his twin. The civil war had put a stop to that. "And anyway, we didn't exactly know you were coming."

Caiellis's eyes widened. _What? They didn't know I was coming? That means... _"So I'm a mistake?" he demanded, his voice coloured with rejection, despondency and anger. _Oh shit_. Caught up in his introspection, Marik had forgotten who he had been talking too for a second. He should not have said that. "No, Caiellis, you were never a mistake. You were the happiest surprise that ever happened to me and your mother."

"So you never did want me," the boy sighed, turning away, and although he tried to be cold Marik could clearly see the wide green orbs so reminiscent of Emili's beautiful eyes misting up and beginning to brim with tears. "Caiellis, don't be silly. Of course we wanted you, and I still want you now-"

"So why are you sending me away?" Caiellis raised his voice, the words caught in between an enraged yell and a soft sob, making Marik's heart ache, "Why did you tell me that I was a failure the first time I had spoken to you in _nine years_?! Why did you send me away after only speaking to me properly after one month? Why … Why?" Caiellis's voice drifted off and his pushed his face into his sleeve, "W-Why did y-you attack m-me?" Tears were fully cascading down his face now, so he wiped them away vigorously, and when a hand lightly brushed onto and gripped his shoulder he jerked away, out of reach.

"Caiellis..." dad said as the boy turned back around, looking like all of the thirteen year old he was instead of the adult everyone - including himself but excluding his brother and Uncles – expected him to be. Marik didn't know what to say, he wanted to apologise, throw himself at his son's feet and beg for forgiveness, but couldn't find the words so Cai spoke instead. "Dad, j-just leave. I'm s-sorry, I'm n-not myself. I w-wanted to e-end on a g-good note. Just leave before this escalates further." his voice hardened, "We can start fresh when I get back, ok?"

"Yes. Yes we can," Marik replied softly, reaching out to his son, but the boy started moving away before he could embrace him in a hug. He inwardly smiled at how ridiculous he must have looked, with his hand outstretched and his mouth gawking open, so returned to a normal posture. "Goodbye, Caiellis. I love you, and look forward to seeing you again."

_Sure you fucking do,_ the boy thought, before hiding the emotions under the determined, intelligent and reserved prince persona he often wore in preparation for alighting. _Dad just had to go and ruin everything, didn't he?_

Marik sighed deeply, realising just how much he had screwed that up. Caiellis had been right; he should have just stayed with Alexander and let the goodbyes that had been said earlier be the last the two had seen each other before his youngest's return. He turned around – he may have ruined his chances with one son, but his other still needed his love and help to get through his wounding at Aksua's hands, and Marik knew that by aiding Alexander he was indirectly helping Caiellis as well.

When he entered his eldest son's room, the daughter of his friend Carlis, Elizabex, smiled and bowed respectfully at him and took her leave. He didn't fail to notice Alexander squaring his shoulders, and not meeting his gaze, an instant sign that something was wrong if he needed any.

"Alexander. Are you feeling any better?" he asked, and his son grinned in his direction – he certainly did look significantly improved than before he Summoned Aurelia and forced his father to leave. The boy still had that haunted and vacant look in his eyes, and occasionally the pale blue orbs flicked to the side, as if checking that the room was empty apart from him and his father, and that most likely Aksua wasn't there. "Yeah dad, I'm good. I just needed some time alone. Seriously, I wish everyone would stop asking."

"I'm sorry, but you are _not_ fine, bud. Not by a long shot," Marik stated, attempting a more informal tone once again to put the lad at ease, though he could well empathise with trying to conceal weakness. Alexander's eyes narrowed, and he instantly demanded, "Did Cai say something?"

"About what, my son?" he inquired, sitting down in the chair, and he saw the boy falter. That had been stupid of him – his little brother and their dad never interacted, and although Marik had gone to see him off it didn't mean the squirt would tell him anything. Most likely Caiellis had told Marik to take very good care of him, but not revealed any information as to what had occurred in the bathroom, however Alex was annoyed that he had automatically blamed his innocent younger brother. "Nothing. Forget I said anything."

"I'm willing to bet you had some sort of breakdown the amount of time you spent in there," Marik idly mused, and the visual cues of Alexander's body tensing defensively confirmed his suspicions. "Clearly, you are not in a talkative mood today, with me anyway, so just listen." he received a tentative nod, "I know that you are trying to hide your inner fear, which is admirable, but I am your father. I am not judging you, nor do I expect you to be emotionally unscathed after what happened. You may think that my opinion of you has lessened because of you being what you perceive as weak, but you couldn't be further from the truth. I love you, Alexander, and no matter what happens I want you to know that that will always be true, ok? You are one of the strongest people I know, and I am incredibly proud to be able to call myself your father, although how you are now is not because of me. And I know that you just want to recover and forget about this, like we all do, but don't think you have to carry the burden of what happened on yourself, and if you ever need any help then I am here."

"Thanks," Alexander responded simply, though Marik could sense that his father/son talk had made the boy feel better. Unwilling to focus on himself any longer, the prince diverted the conversation towards his little brother's departure, "So was Cai alright? Did you seeing him off work?"

Marik shook his head sadly, "Suffice to say I wish I could be as eloquent with him as I am with you, and that I should have taken his advice on staying here with you."

"Don't blame yourself, dad," Alexander voiced thoughtfully, "And I know that you aren't, but don't blame him either. I'm sure you two will be able to make it up to each other soon, and I will be with you both every step of the way." _This is just a day of emotional and inspiring speeches, _Alex thought.

.*.*.*.

The vibrations of the monorail train beneath his comfortable and padded seat juddered through Caiellis's trembling body, though he no longer noticed the feeling after two hours of being sat on the train. Mysos and Jenna were in the same booth as him, although the two had given him a wide berth when they saw the mixture of hollow sadness and stormy anger that he couldn't hide on his face, sat in the seats opposite him. He was reading the book on the war against the Drenure kingdom, prosecuted in the ninth century by Queen Arie, and although he already knew quite a bit of information about it the book detailed some battles that he didn't know, as well as more depth into the culture of the Lucaelian's enemies than usually found. Cai was deliberately and utterly ignoring his two advisers bickering about _something,_ though was still listening in, his mind simultaneously processing the inked words of the book and the spoken argument in front of him. The Bylae sisters undoubtedly had a knack for arguing with people.

Then, a strange sensation dragged its way into his mind, demanding his attention and refusing to allow the boy to ignore it and focus on anything else. He mentally smiled in what would have been a grim and wry manner if it was physical when he identified what it was – every time it emerged, it did so in a different form, though still bringing the same ominous message. Now all that was to be determined was how early it had come relative to what was going to happen.

Jenna completely blanked out what Mysos growled back at her, noticing that the fast paced flicking of pages had ended – Cai seemed to be an exceptionally fast reader, though knowing him he would have still absorbed the knowledge present in the pages with that sponge like mind of his – suggesting that the prince had ceased reading. The Yentarian looked at the boy's face, and although the blank mask he had worn when first meeting her in the palace library was still there, there seemed to be a sense of introspective contemplation that was quickly dissolving into something far more urgent.

"Lord Caiellis, is everything alright?" she asked, intentionally using the title to see if he noticed and also to see if the thing Cai had discovered was important – if it was, then either he wouldn't realise she had said "Lord" or he would ignore it in favour of talking about what was going on in his mind. The boy's eyes flicked up at her, his brow creased in consternation and his emerald eyes full of apprehension, though he hid it underneath resolute steel.

"No, actually," he said calmly, standing up out of his seat.

"We are under attack."

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Degan Onkoda - Generator Servant

Resistance member: Lavaborn Muse


	22. Broken Glass

"What? We're under attack? How do you know?" Jenna fired off the questions one by one, and although she didn't doubt the prince's words the perceptive Blue spells that she employed specifically to detect potential enemies weren't showing anything – she knew how inhospitable the abyss was when her and Annia's favourite uncle had once led a research expedition (unbeknownst to the Kingdom of Light, as there was no way Lucael would authorise it) but never returned. The only thing that had been transmitted back to the research base was the team being torn apart by nameless horrors, and although their mother had carried Annia and Jenna out of the room she could still sometimes hear their screams in her sleep, and she was pretty sure her five years younger sister had been too young to remember. That was what had motivated her to – _ok, don't think about that. I need to focus on the current situation._

Caiellis just shrugged, and though his posture didn't seem like one that was about to be thrown into a battle, his eyes conveyed the intensity of his urgency, "I can't explain it. This has happened before, though, and I have a one hundred percent accuracy rate so I'm quite certain. I can't detect them with my mana yet, but one tactic the forces of Johnias often used was the Cover of Night, whereby they concealed their presence in the realm of sense," he explained, and Jenna nodded.

The prince had seemed depressed earlier, but all traces of that had gone, replaced by the brusque warrior she was now talking to. Mysos, overhearing their conversation, also got up out of his seat, and followed Cai to where the boy was walking over to the amplification device on the wall of the carriage. Attacks on the trains had been extremely common during the war, which is why the building of them had taken so long, but after the final battle outside of Cassida Principia there had been no more attacks.

However, that had only been a single month ago, so the ever opportunistic servants of Johnias had evidently decided that now was the time to start again. He was immensely glad that the train was purely for royal purposes, and as such was filled either with military or advising personnel instead of civilians. That meant that, as well as the trained soldiers that were present on every train, Cai had quite a good fighting force at his disposal, although it may prove to be inadequate. Caiellis wondered if those assaulting the train knew that he was an occupant, or if it was a military journey – hopefully not, as that would give him the element of surprise and might mean whatever forces were arrayed against him weren't huge.

He reached the amplification device and turned it on, gulping nervously before putting his mouth to the microphone – if he was wrong about this, he would look like a complete idiot, but much worse than the personal embarrassment would be shaming himself as a Lucerna.

"Do not be alarmed," he started, hearing his own shaky voice played after a short delay, mentally cursing at how young and inexperienced he sounded and how stupid the words he had just spoken were – most, if not all of those on this train had been trained for war, so of course they would not be alarmed. He took a deep breath, ensuring that his voice was much more confident and self-assured this time around. "But I have detected enemies coming to attack. I cannot yet ascertain their nature, nor the size of their force, but I am certain. Expect to receive further orders once I have. Ave lux."

He turned off the amplifier, trying not to let anyone notice his hands shaking and finding it slightly paradoxical that he was perfectly fine with violence yet public speaking made him feel anxious. Cai turned to look at one of the train attendants, commanding, "Open the door." The man swiftly did as he was told, though if the one ordering him hadn't been a Lucerna then he would have questioned the strange instruction. Caiellis activated the seemingly much more useful than its counterpart Lens of Guilt, his left eye filling with inky darkness as he looked out into the night, the high speed of the train sending air blowing at him that would have knocked to boy off his feet if he hadn't been anticipating it. He heard a sharp intake of breath when one of the soldiers must have seen him, sensing the Black mana their liege was utilising, but he hoped that they could also perceive that it came without ill will directed towards them.

The interior of the train became pitch black, just like what he could see outside, though after a few seconds the youngest Lucerna began to see faint contrails of red, and the second he noticed them they pulsed vividly and lashed violently forwards, as if responding to his scrutiny although he knew that not to be true. The tendrils of scarlet arced across the blackness, and extrapolated that they would intersect the train's position in a few minutes' time. The force was sizeable, probably outnumbering his own, and a nimbus of crimson played around someone, or _something,_ at the centre, a power level matching that of a Light-bearer from what he could tell, though twisted by evil intent and as such showing up in Guilt. The boy recognised the familiar pattern of a Sancturia demon, though it was significantly different to Ershun's Azarklak. The prince smiled, though the expression was completely bereft of warmth – he was reasonably sanguine that the warriors he had at his disposal could take on the enemies, and that left him to deal with the leader, the identity of which was unknown but as the foes approached Caiellis became certain that he or she was a traitorous Light-bearer.

The Dark-bearers, as Tybalt had once mockingly called them, were very powerful, having traded away their previous White Summonings for greater demons. This potentially made them more potent than their loyal equivalents, though a lot less consistent. However there were only four out of the six that had defected left, Cai's father having single-handedly killed two of them, those from Epulaeous, City of Nourishment, with his own First Sisterhood angel, and though the boy knew he was nowhere near as strong as his dad the enemy presented to him would be a perfect challenge, should he be inclined to view it in that way – Caiellis preferred the think of Johnias and his compatriots as traitorous scum that didn't deserve to live on this planet.

"Mysos," he spoke the older boy's name, his voice already suffused with resonance as he began channelling magical energy in preparation for the fight, though not to the extent to notify the enemies, "The amplifier, please."

"Yes lord," he replied solemnly, and Cai would be glad to have him and Iridis at his side in the coming engagement, as a Second Sisterhood angel could easily turn the tide of battle. That reminded him – his "personal" bodyguards could also access formidable creatures of White, and one could also Summon an angel, a daughter of Razia, the other First Sisterhood being that used White and Red. Ruthia, if he remembered her name correctly, was on the way to becoming a Guardian or general, and her secondment to the royal praetorians was to give the young woman more experience and a way to serve to Lucerna line by Oleic, Civitas Sol Guardian and her teacher. Cai idly mused whether she had inherited the man's clear dislike of the smallest prince, but if she had done Ruthia didn't show it.

"Our enemies outnumber us, though only by a slight margin. They are using the night to conceal themselves, which is why we cannot detect their mana presence, but I am quite confident they are led by a Fallen Light-bearer. I will engage them eventually, while the rest of you deal with the others. But for now, continue on our current course," he spoke softly, though the tone was filled with determination – Cai found that now others' lives were at stake, he no longer felt as nervous about speaking to lots of people, his subconscious processing that it was necessary for him to suck it up to save other people.

"Should we not stop the train, or get out and attack them?" one of his guards asked, and Caiellis resolved to learn each of their names and individual personalities, strengths and maybe weaknesses after this battle was done – if they survived – because he didn't know who was speaking. The boy activated the Lens of Innocence also, so that he could view the room and look at the man, and then responded, "No, we keep going. Currently, we shouldn't know that they are attacking, so if we start acting suspicious they may call the assault off or change their tactics to better anticipate who is on this train. We have the element of surprise on our side, and this advantage should be preserved as long as possible. And we will fight outside the train to avoid damage, but we will disembark when they are close to us and we can spring the trap. We need to be patient if we are to win this battle with the least casualties possible. I can hold them off while you quickly Summon, then you can do the same for me."

Now that he was in command of soldiers for the first time ever, the lessons that Tybalt and Tristram had taught him and he had ingrained deep into his mind were flowing to the surface, interacting with his strategic penchant. He felt an emotional detachment, although knew that would soon change when he came face to face with the Fallen, the betrayers that had helped tear his and Alexander's young lives apart, kill their mother and consign their father to grief and self-loathing, though for now he pushed the hatred down. He wondered what impression he was giving off to his men – had Alex or their dad been in command, they would have probably alighted from the train and gone to face that corrupted army in combat, whereas Cai was luring them in and patiently for the best time to strike.

"Turn of the lights in the carriage," he instructed, and the attendant complied, pulling on a panel and pitching the room into darkness, though Caiellis's right eye illuminated the things that he looked at in a very weak glow. He had done that in order to avoid the servants of Johnias seeing the lights beaming out of the open door, as each other window was shuttered to prevent light from getting out and attracting the Unbound inhabitants of the abyss. Nevertheless, he still needed to door open to track the movements of the enemies, though the picture shown to him through the Lens of Guilt was confusing and at points contradictory, showing the vein-like lines of red looping back on each other or going in a completely different direction.

Then, a sudden thought occurred to him, and he cursed his stupidity. He drew the Sword of Glass, but ensured that only the pulsing tenebrosity was present by suppressing the White mana to the centre, and ignored the others' gasps of shock as he stood up on a table that could easily hold his weight and cut through the ceiling, the artefact armament effortlessly slicing through the thick metal as the square clanged on the floor. The prince paid no attention to the voices, one from Mysos and another from a member of his bodyguard, and leapt upwards, clambering onto the exterior of the train but keeping low to the ground to prevent being blown off, as despite the fact that he could use his wings of stained glass to propel him back on doing so would be utterly contrary to what he wanted to achieve.

He turned off the physical Lens of Innocence, quashing the nausea that rose up unbidden within him at the disconcerting sensation of not being able to see anything underneath him as the fast movement blew air over him, and looked further down onto the enemies he could see approaching through Guilt, their malicious intent stark against the dark background. Cai slowly and carefully swivelled his head to the side, hearing Mysos shout him again but not able to understand the words over the rush of freezing air, and looked at the other side of the train, the expanse of shadow that he had been unable to see.

Caiellis almost sighed with relief when he couldn't see anything on that side, suggesting that his instincts to look at the side with the door had been correct. The youth snarled in irritation when a strong hand encircled his thin ankle and dragged him back down into the interior of the carriage. The second he re-entered, Cai reactivated the Lens of Innocence so that he could actually see. He glared balefully at the face of the praetorian, Drax Gloria, older brother of the Scholaria Magnus teacher Alissa Gloria that had fought by the side of the king during the civil war, the relatively young man around the same age as Uncle Tristram. He was lucky to have Drax at his side, but was annoyed that the man had taken it upon himself to pull the littlest Lucerna down instead of waiting for him.

He was looking forward to seeing the warrior's Summoning in action, as Drax was one of the most accomplished fighters in the kingdom and received a chance of becoming part of the Lucerna guard at the young age of sixteen because of this, though he would have never been able to progress in the army otherwise because of his lack of leadership skills and strategic knowledge. The man looked patiently back at him, and Caiellis backed down instead of snapping, turning his gaze back to the progression of the crimson lines that signified their enemies. He opened his hand, about to ask for the amplifier before Mysos gave it to him prior to the prince speaking.

"Not that long to go now. Be ready to stop on my command," he could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, the speed of the rhythm heightened because of the prospect of imminent violence. Caiellis was happy the train was small, only three carriages, two of which were for passengers and the other one was for the drivers and mana-engines, as that meant his own troops wouldn't be disparate and spread out. The enemy force was relatively small, the Fallen general likely thinking that with their demonic might they could easily overwhelm the train.

"Thirty seconds," he said softly, though the tone was filled with resolution. He could hear several members of the compartment finishing their pre-battle prayers, and wondered if he should have recited one over the communication, but the soldiers were very elite and so would have trouble inspiring themselves. Caiellis focussed his gaze on the nimbus of arterial red that represented the main heretic against them, slowly raising the barriers that he had placed upon his hatred and gradually allowing the Black mana to well up more inside of him. He smiled grimly, realising that he would possibly be able to Summon Orzhova in that method when he established the Light-bearer's identity.

"Fifteen seconds, get ready to stop the train," he intoned, his eyes flicking over to where Jenna looked noticeably more pale, though she held herself quite confidently. Dragging a Yentarian researcher into an internal conflict would not be good, especially since Lucael hadn't yet revealed anything about the civil war to outsiders, maintaining the illusion – _or was it still the reality?_ \- of strength, and so by extension Jenna wouldn't know who the attackers were, though she would be aware of how dangerous the abyss was. Oh well. Exposing her to the violence of the conflict between the heretical traitors and the forces of the king wasn't anything near ideal, but there was nothing to be done about it and the fact that they had a foreign Summoning available would be unexpected, but maybe not so much as the darkest of First Sisterhood angels, though ironically (or perhaps not) Orzhova despised the traitors as much as he did for the murder of Serenity, the only angel of the pinnacle of the hierarchy to be traded for a demon and the only one Cai knew for certain had properly died.

"Stop the train! Ave lux!" he shouted, and although the battle cry was a bit force it carried his detestation of their foes in it, and was replied by many others devoted to the protection of the kingdom and its royal family. Caiellis instantaneously enchanted himself with his favoured wings of crystal-esque stained glass and jumped out of the train, the Black Sun birthmark on his cheek shining with immense amounts of luminosity, and conjured up a huge beam of light that he swept across the locations of the enemies. Though it only killed a few, charring their corpses in holy immolation, the pillar of radiance erased the shadowy dark magic that the foes were using to hide themselves, allowing all of Cai's men to detect them as well as see them.

His eyes fixed on the tall, almost monstrously muscled but still somehow lean figure that was clad in spiked black armour, a very large and brutal battle axe the corrupted sibling to Uncle Tristram's own weapon in his midnight gauntlets. The man sneered up at the prince, half his face torn away in a grotesque battle scar that he had sustained from the father of Mysos, Xathan's energised broadsword carving his face apart in the horrific battle for Cassida Principia.

That had been seven years ago, and Cai sensed Mysos's itching desire to meet the Fallen in single combat and avenge the ruination of his city (Cassida Principia had taken the second most casualties after Gol), but that wasn't the plan and Caiellis wasn't going to deviate just because of one person's desire for vengeance. The youngest Lucerna had only seen Garod Morr, former Guardian of Crescia, City of Commerce and last of the dark bastions to fall to his father's wrath, three times before - once when he had been three and wandered into Marik chastising the man for his recklessness in leading his army against Welkalite forces and slaughtering the opposing army instead of offering forgiveness, also leaving his own force that could have been picked apart if not for the resourcefulness of his seconds in command in favour of duelling the enemy general, then just after that when he had ruffled the youngest prince's hair and winked at him as he hid behind his father's leg when Marik was seeing the man out of the palace. The next time he saw him was three years later than that when the Fallen Guardian had abandoned the battle outside the City of Swords to hunt down the fleeing Lucerna youths and their protectors, but had been intercepted by Guardian Xathan who had left the Hierarchs to lead the armies against one another.

Garod had been a general with a predilection towards brutality even before his betrayal, and the fall into darkness had turned him into a sadistic and savage murdered, wont to displaying the trophies taken from those he had slain like some sort of Erian barbarian, though the act was made even more sickening by the fact that the bones were of human origin. His single working eye was a baleful orb of blue and black that glared at the prince, the other a milky sphere of pooled blackness quite similar to Cai's Lens of Guilt, though the dark was more grey and less intense, and peeked out from behind dirty brown hair that cascaded down half his head and back – Caiellis recalled the man taking great pride in his long hair, a cut generally not favoured by military personnel because of its relative impracticality, but the wound he had sustained from Xathan must have burnt it off.

Caiellis slammed down amidst the soldiers of Johnias, the rabble at the front barely-human scouts that had been gifted with several animal mutations that augmented their tracking ability and speed, arcing his sword into one of them. The man shrieked as he was cleaved cleanly in half, the bisected pieces of his body falling away as Cai swept his weapon around, darting back from an aerial strike of the huge bat one of them had Summoned. The creature belched noxious purple smoke at him that ignited when he blasted White mana into it, overwhelming the bat in a detonation of light that left the other members of the scout squad dazed. The forces of Garod had been split into roughly two halves of completely alternate power levels – the scouts were corrupt civilians, or those wretches that had eked out a pitiful living in the abyss before being recruited during the civil war, and basically chaff to throw at the phalanxes of legionaries to cause confusion or a delay, whereas the ones that ran with the Fallen Guardian were soldiers, trained veterans of the civil war that had been schooled in the same manner as their loyal opposites, albeit adorned by sigils of darkness that defaced the once pure and honourable Lucaelian iconography.

Cai let the hatred in his mind explode out, globules of darkness mixing with the remains of the radiant explosion and flying into the other scouts, the White and Black mana instantly sapping the life from their bodies and infusing the Lucerna with their life force, returning to him as shimmering particles of gold. That had been easy, and if he hadn't of ambushed the scouts then they would have been much more formidable.

However, the real battle was only just beginning, and Summoners on both sides were concluding their rituals, the denizens of Sancturia entering the material plane to do battle in the age old war between Black and White that was carried over by humans. A lumbering, necrotic undead giant that must have been reanimated and enslaved by a demon or other influential Black lord in the other realm, pieces of decayed flesh sloughing off as it shambled towards the Lucaelians, its footfalls shaking the ground. Drax's Summoning emerged from a blazing portal of holy White mana, a hooded figure armoured in intricate and interlocking silver plates mounted upon a shining pegasus that had horns of elegant bone.

The archon raised his longsword to the sky, just as it was joined by two Second Sisterhood angels, Iridis silently elevating her own blade as a rush of holy flames signalled the entrance of Ethé, daughter of Razia and of the Firemane. The angel had the majestic white wings derived from the Archangel of Purity herself, with a much smaller pair emerging from her waist. She carried an elegant sword and shield, and was armoured in a material made from a burnished red metal, though the exotic blade of her weapon was perfect silver. A helm of a similar shape to Aurelia's adorned her head, though it was also scarlet and more conical, and Ethé held herself with the more aloof bearing of Razia's daughters that Aurelia had once told Alexander about, and the middle Lucerna had shared that with his little brother, knowing the boy's fascination with the angels and Sancturia.

However, although Caiellis thought he may have quality on his side, her certainly didn't have quantity – counting himself, he only had around thirty troops, whilst Garod seemed to have over twice that number even with the scouts annihilated, the Lens of Guilt showing him a grossly disproportionate number of enemies, though perhaps he had been distracted by the main focus of the negative energy and that had distorted his perception. A clawed and horned horror pulled itself up from the ground, as another undead giant entered the world, this one armoured in midnight steel and glaring menacingly out of purple flames billowing from its exposed chest. Jenna stood behind the boy, her own Ciewan regarding the foes with undisguised curiosity.

Garod Morr looked directly at the prince, and beckoned him forwards, challenging the boy to a duel, and Cai almost laughed. How blinded, or stupid, did the man think he was? The Guardian was far superior to him in close quarter combat, and much stronger than he was physically – that coupled with the fact that he had analysed some of the man's victories and knew that he much preferred – no, excelled almost exclusively in - fast engagements as opposed to a long, drawn out battle, made Caiellis very reluctant to accept the challenge. He hoped that none of his men would think he was a coward because of it – Cai was intending to kill Garod, but he would do so when the time was right instead of rushing blindly into combat. The Fallen made a pouting face at him, and turned to one of his lieutenants, the one who was controlling a large cloud of billowing smog that roiled across the darkness, casually sidestepping a bolt of darklight the prince blasted in his direction as it drained the existence from a man behind him.

"For the light! For the king! For Prince Caiellis!" Drax shouted, launching himself into battle with his archon at his side and diverting a large amount of attention towards himself. Garod raised an eyebrow at Cai, as if pretending the boy was still three years old, just as his lieutenant intercepted the praetorian, the man's elemental of pollution and smog surrounding the archon as it flew straight through.

Just as the battle lines were about to clash, and Caiellis sensed a huge rise in mana from the Fallen Guardian, he let his full force of hatred spill out him, coursing through his veins and pouring out of him, wrapping his right side in night as his birthmark shone with unholy resonance, his abhorrence of his current foe overcoming all other thoughts as it mixed with the familiar feelings of his mother's death, the demonic claws plunging through her chest and stomach as she coughed up blood before a horrified Caiellis, the four year old screaming in agony no one his age should ever have to feel. He then moulded his desire for vengeance into one wanting holy retribution, coils of golden incandescence pulsing in time with the tendrils of hatred and bonding with each other, swirling around the young prince in a maelstrom of opposite energies.

Shining tears dripped down his cheeks, mixing with the Black Sun in a coruscating display, and underneath his hatred and desire to kill Garod Morr Cai was intrigued to see how Orzhova would turn it as this would be the first time he conjured the negative before the positive. The dark star formed above the birthmark depicting it, and the prince infused it with a tremendous amount of mana at an extremely fast rate, the hymns commencing and rising to a crescendo within a few seconds, though this time a child's sing-song voice could be heard singing the words, completely out of tune with the rest of the voices.

Caiellis drew Orzhova's scythe into the air out of shadow substance, and coated it in golden White mana just as the angel's hand reached out and gripped it, the sphere of unlight dissolving into her and forming her shape. Orzhova's face was twisted in loathing, and dark purple lightning crackled around her, making the Angel of the Black Sun look far more terrifying. He saw Garod's single responsive eye open wide in equal amounts amusement and shock, just as the man dragged one of his soldiers over and, wielding his huge axe one-handed, slammed the blade into him, crushing the traitor to a bloody pulp as it hacked through him.

As the blood sprayed out into the air, the Fallen Guardian swept his other hand through it, his fist already coated in a shroud of darkness and ash as it mixed with the particles of crimson vitae that seemed to be attracted towards it, as the corpse of the soldier detonated in an expulsion of blood, bone and vital organs, and a portal into the dark heart of Sancturia was opened from the ruin of the corpse. Caiellis heard Orzhova snarl as a greater demon was Summoned into reality, idly registering that the dark angel hadn't greeted him with her customary sarcastic or approving comment, and that the seraph's dark eyes were not glinting in their usual manner, reminding him more of the portrayal of her by the history books than the Orzhova he had come to know.

"You Summoned me using hatred as the predominant medium," she snapped condescendingly down at him, although the annoyance wasn't aimed at him, "What did you expect?"

Garod was laughing now, a brutal and sadistic noise that was echoed by a much more malevolent and otherworldly voice not belonging to the former Guardian, though Cai was not fazed. The laughter in his own mind had been much more terrifying. A footstep cracked the ground, the hoof of the demon connected to a backwards-jointed leg much more reminiscent of an animal than a humanoid demon. Then it was followed by a maliciously clawed hand that ripped the portal further open, exposing a forearm protected by segmented and spiked plates that seemed be former from the demon's own skin judging from how there was no overlap on the bare bicep, which was lean like an animals.

The demon roared as it pulled itself into the material plane, revealing a vicious head nestled in a sea of serrated black plates. The being's head was large, and it leered bloodthirstily at the First Sisterhood angel with rows of gleaming white teeth, its small black eyes singling out Orzhova with predatory intent, and hugely oversized curling horns rose up from its head. Its skin was a pale, dirty brown colour, and it held a huge but surprisingly elegant sword of bare steel in its right hand, the blade clean of evil symbols though Cai knew it would soon be dripping with blood.

"Meet Vaikadar, Harvester of Souls!" Garod announced maniacally, as the demon glared at him for a second and then turned to Caiellis, the atavistic need to kill the only thing he could glean from its black pearl eyes.

It loped straight towards him, ignoring the wider battle – that Caiellis's soldiers seemed to be winning, Garod's force better equipped for a fast ambush than a pitched engagement, though he knew Morr had often been admonished for they way he abandoned his army in pursuit of personal goals such as the enemy's leaders. Cai was happy to indulge now that he had Summoned and was confident his army could handle to other forces – when the ambush had been sprung, if he had been Garod then he would have made a tactical retreat and attacked a different train, but the man's hunger for the glory he would gain from his dark patrons by killing a Lucerna had evidently eclipsed his strategic and rational thoughts. _What an idiot._

"I'm going to enjoy tearing you apart, my prince!" Garod roared mockingly, charging towards the boy, his limbs augmented by shadowy energy that made the man run much faster in the abyss, almost catching Caiellis off guard with his sudden speed. The boy rolled back as the axe cleaved apart the space he had been stood, Orzhova's golden scythe intercepting a second strike and sending the man back with a pulsing blast of blinding light. The demon then leapt at the angel, his sword pulsating with blood that suddenly poured out of it, slicing into defensive enchantments the dark angel just managed to create and shattering them apart.

"I will make you pay, wench!" it growled, a reflection of Morr's threat to the littlest Lucerna, and grabbed at Orzhova with its left hand – the angel battered it away with her scythe and took to the air, bombarding the beast with alternating rays of light and shadow that it blocked on a large shard of bone that grew out of its wrist in a sickening extension of bone. Orzhova arced her scythe around to a horizontal position in front of her, golden characters spilling out of her outstretched left palm and beginning to form words, though their meaning was alien to her Summoner as the letters were not of human origin. He had no time to concentrate on what his Summoning was doing as Garod swung another attack at him, which he blocked with his Sword of Glass. Cai grimaced at the astounding strength behind the blow, swiftly disengaging in a spray of sparks as the axe crashed into the spot he had been in, then quickly whipping back around and at him.

Caiellis darted backwards and flung chains of gloom at the man, who sneered and batted them away, "Children shouldn't be messing with forces far beyond their control," he insulted, as Cai glared in hatred and let out a ray of purest shadow that lanced into the man, eliciting a grunt of pain. Even though the shadow pierced straight through Garod, the Fallen Guardian seemed unconcerned, as demonic gifts repaired his skin with their unnatural vitality.

"And children should not be going to war," he spat, and would have grinned wolfishly if he could manage any other expression, "Yet here I am, fighting in a war against darkness because of you and Johnias. You were so damn blind, to think that your betrayal could ever prevail against the might of Lucael."

"Were we? We almost succeeded in toppling your father," Garod bellowed, swinging his axe at the prince whilst reaching out for his throat with his left hand. Cai jumped over the blade, and as the gauntleted fingers brushed against his neck he hacked the arm off at the elbow, the holy magic infusing his Sword of Glass sizzling as it destroyed corrupted flesh. He then blasted a wall of light out of his left hand, sending the Fallen Guardian tumbling backwards.

Meanwhile, Orzhova's ritual was coming to a close, as thousands of words filled the air, some dark sigils of vindictive intent whilst others were luminous declarations of justice, etching themselves into the night and overlaying on top of each other. The dark angel rotated her scythe to a vertical angle, and slammed the bottom of it into the ground, sending a reverberating wave throughout the entire battlefield, as both types of words combined with each other and began to flow through the loyalist Lucaelians, empowering them with armour of White mana that guarded them with ethereal protection made from scintillating layers of shining glass, as dripping tenebrosity ensorcelled their weapons, though Caiellis wasn't entirely sure his men would appreciate that.

"Your magic will not help at all, Orzhova!" the demon shrieked at her, grabbing hold of a nearby soldier and detonating his body through the usage of dark magic, contrails of shadow bursting out of the howling traitor as shards of bone ripped from him and launched themselves at the dark seraph, leaving the man's body a formless mess of flesh. As the man died, his life force pulled out of him and circled round the cauterized stump of Garod's left arm, a fresh new limb regenerating and bursting free from it. The man flexed the new hand, the skin crimson and wet with blood, and grinned at Caiellis, who concealed his shock.

The Sword of Glass was supposed to prevent regeneration, the wounds inflicted by it unable to be healed, but here Garod was with a completely new arm. That dramatically ruined up Caiellis's battle plan, as he had been planning to degrade the Fallen Guardian's strength in a war of attrition and then deal the finishing blow when the man would be too weak to respond, but this meant he had to play in Garod's game of one strike deciding the outcome of the entire duel, which was something he disliked quite a bit. The much-stronger man was the perfect executioner, a terrifying butcher with no need to think about his own safety and the lack of empathy required to sacrifice his own troops, and Cai found it hard to imagine Garod Morr as an emissary of loyalist Lucael despite having seen him in that way, though that instance had been ten years ago. Actually, the regenerative powers of Garod sparked a thought in his mind – why then, had Morr not rejuvenated the part of his face that had been torn apart by Xathan's broadsword? Was there a specific type of magic required to counter the Fallen Guardian's specialised physical reconstruction?

"You are probably wondering why, if I can repair my body so easily, do I leave my face like it is?" Garod sneered, lashing forward with his axe, the edge coated in venomous darkness that would no doubt kill Cai's fragile body the second it entered his bloodstream, and the prince somersaulted away from him, leaping into the air with the Gift of Orzhova and glaring down at the Guardian from his aerial vantage point, not wasting his mana by blindly firing at his opponent when the traitor could just nullify the damage, instead turning the spells inwards and healing himself even though the boy was perfectly fine – it would give him even more life, maybe allowing him to withstand Morr's strikes. "I want to keep the wounds until I can kill Xathan, hack him apart with my axe and feel his warm blood splatter onto me," he smiled maliciously, and Caiellis could see his champion visibly tensing as he listened in on the conversation whilst fighting against the enemy Summoner controlling the darkfire giant, and the boy almost thought the older adolescent would disobey his commands and enter the combat with the Fallen Light-bearer, which would have been a fatal mistake, but luckily Mysos was too concerned by the implications of defying his prince then extracting his own vengeance – Cai made a mental note that should he ever fight against Uliea Chrysos, former Hierarch of the City of Commerce, then he would let Mysos kill the woman if he was strong enough.

"Until then, I will remain scarred as a reminder of the only duel I have ever lost, though killing the man's son after I finish with you will be almost as sweet," he spat, jumping into the air with his own shadowy wings and attacking with another series of blistering strikes that left Cai hard pressed to avoid, as he just twisted out of the way of a cleaving blow and his one of his wings was shattered. The prince tumbled to the ground, rolling frantically out of the way as Garod crashed down beside him. He flipped to his feet and dodged another arcing strike, conjuring up another pair of wings. The Guardian growled, a pulse of destructive Black mana breaking apart the stained glass. He paced forwards menacingly, snarling: "Stop trying to delay! There is no way you can hurt me without killing me in a single blow, my liege!"

"A single strike is all it will take," Cai responded calmly, slightly savouring the Fallen's expression of incredulity and shock as Orzhova knocked the opposing greater demon away from her and gifted Caiellis with a huge amount of mana – whilst Garod had been too distracted by his hunger to kill the youngest Lucerna, Cai had been carefully calculating their positions in the fight, precisely controlling it so that they were in the perfect place for his _coup de grâce. _He pointed his artefact armament to the sky, the sword glowing with purple light as the same colour of lightning fulminated through it, as his Summoning raised the golden chain in her free hand, the amulet emitting the same purple light as Caiellis's blade.

The remnants of the two pairs of smashed stained glass wings levitated into the air, the shards firing upwards and joined by more that started to form something huge above the Fallen Guardian, who tried to rush the prince as a ghostly pillory appeared around him, restricting his movements as he tried desperately to remove it. A gigantic representation of the stained glass image of the Black Sun in Caiellis's abandoned mind cathedral was created from the shards of glass, shining down onto the man with a baleful light that slowly sucked the life out of him. Garod broke free of the restraints and screamed as the vitality was drained from him, and then started laughing. The Guardian went into hysterics as he realised he wasn't dead, and even with the ritual above him sapping his life essence from the man his unnatural replenishing powers healed him at a rate far faster than the damage was done.

"What did I tell you, boy? Only one single attack can kill me! This barely tickles!" he burst out in giggles at Cai's shocked expression, before snapping into a battle pose and hefting his axe, "You're going to pay dearly for that mistake." He began to charge, and Caiellis smiled, spinning the Sword of Glass around so that its tip was almost touching the ground, and as the rays of deathly light from the sun above hit Garod, they reflected straight into his weapon, forming a perfect image of Garod Morr. The Guardian narrowed his eye, and then it widened in panic as he discerned what was going to happen, his demon growling and charging at the prince. Iridis dove directly at the beast, who dodged her sword strike and impaled the Daughter of Wrath with his own blade, the unholy poisons on it turning her to dust within a second, making Mysos gasp as she returned inside of his Mind Realm, but the delay had been cause and Vaikadar would be too late.

_Too late, traitor scum. Your arrogance and recklessness was your downfall,_ Cai thought, making sure that his features were twisted in a mixture of sorrow and disdain instead of a triumphant sneer as he gripped the crystal blade, his magic closing around the reflection of Garod, who shuddered in empathetic pain as the mirror image of him was subjected to magic. He tried to heal himself, repair the cracks that were starting to appear in his body, but as he wasn't the one directly being damaged he couldn't – it was his soul, trapped in the reflective material of the Sword of Glass, that was being damaged. The Fallen sprinted towards Caiellis, his axe clattering from his grip when he decided that it was slowing him down too much despite him being much faster than most people with it, and growled, fingers outstretched and aiming for the boy's throat.

_Not fast enough, Garod Morr. _A gurgling, wet sound erupted from the former Guardian of Crescia's mouth, as more cracks appeared through his body. Cai made no move to avoid the large hands that wrapped around his thin neck, and simply stared straight at the man as his single working eye glazed over, becoming unfocussed like the other, and the hands didn't squeeze, not restricting his breathing in any way as the life left Garod. The youngest Lucerna tapped the side of the gauntlets weakly gripping his windpipe, and the man shattered, the shards of him smashing as they hit the ground and dissolving into even smaller particles than gradually dissipated into the air.

Cai pondered whether he should say something poetic, inspiring, motivational or thoughtful to do with the lesson learned from this day, but all he could think of that he had brought Garod Morr to justice for his crimes against Lucael, nothing more. The killing shouldn't be over-glorified – besides, once the rest of the kingdom was informed of the battle there would no doubt be many willing to do that for him, so the boy didn't have to bother. He quickly turned away from the remnants of the Fallen Guardian, his motions quick and efficient, as his soul reflection screamed in panic and pounded the interior of the Sword of Glass. Cai undid the magic, and the soul, with no body to inhabit, disappeared, though the prince knew that it wouldn't enter the afterlife – he was sure that Vaikadar would have some temporary fun with his new toy before Garod's soul was eventually discarded or used for something else.

His snapped around, scanning the area around him for enemies and trying to analyse the battle and finding that there was no longer one. The few enemies that still lived after being defeated were in the process of being systematically executed, and he heard someone jogging to his side.

"Casualty report?" he asked abruptly, sensing the presence of Mysos and knowing that he would just get an approximation, but that was better than the present situation of knowing nothing as he had been too focussed on his duel with Garod. He turned around, feeling a surge of irritability mixed with the exhaustion of Summoning and the spells he used, narrowing his eyes at the goofy grin on the older boy's face. Mysos beamed at him, and Caiellis hid his scowl, knowing that technically he should have been celebrating over the victory but feeling nothing but a slight sense of fulfilment completely eclipsed by and hanging precariously over a yawning chasm of hollowness.

Cai then realised that no matter how many traitors were put to the sword, the death wouldn't make him happy, wouldn't bring his mother back or fill the hole in his heart. He wondered if his father had reached the same conclusion, though he doubted it as he thought that Marik would stop at nothing to kill his brother. However, at least Alexander didn't seem that concerned by the war overall, though obviously his big brother was still sad about Emili's death and the brutality of it, but Alex seemed to be driven by the need to help the people and protect those weaker than him (_such as me,_ he mused).

"Burn the bodies," he heard Drax instruct, and agreed with the man's orders – they certainly didn't want any of the corpses to be reanimated by a budding necromancer, part of Johnias's forces or otherwise, though there was no chance of Garod Morr ever returning to the realm of the living – his body had been completely obliterated, but Cai's magic had also left permanent, irreversibly damage on the man's soul, meaning that it could never be used for nefarious purposes – as the Harvester of Souls would soon find out when he came to toying with the demon's latest prize.

"I asked for a casualty report, Mysos. Could you please give me one?" he inquired again when the expression on the older teenager's face didn't change and he didn't answer the prince's prior question. Mysos's grin widened, which Cai didn't think was possible, and he said: "None, Caiellis."

"What? Are you serious?" Cai responded sharply, bewilderment crossing his expressive eyes as he looked around locating each individual member of the train that he had imprinted into his mind despite unfortunately not having the time to learn all of their names – some were battered, and a couple of the monorail's security guard were injured, but Mysos was right – none appeared to be dead, and the only corpses littering the ground were from their foes. "Oh. I didn't expect that." was his simple statement.

"They were not prepared for a proper engagement, or an ambush from those that shouldn't be able to detect them, my prince," Drax came to the two boys' sides, taller than both and smiling uncharacteristically down at Caiellis, who detected pride in the praetorian's golden eyes, both in his young general and the Lucerna family who once again failed to disappoint. "That definitely tipped the tide in our favour, as well as the enchantments the Angel of the Black Sun blessed us with – at first I have to admit I was sceptical of her, and you as well, but you both proved yourselves today. There was little way we could have won this day if you hadn't killed Garod Morr, as even Xathan, Slayer of the Wicked, failed to end the bastard's life when he defeated him."

Caiellis was glad it was dark so that Drax couldn't see his cheeks flushing ins light embarrassment, and turned to look at Orzhova – now that the hatred had retreated back inside of its cage in his mind, the dark angel looked drastically more amiable and she smiled proudly at Cai, her black eyes twinkling with equal amounts of her almost-constant amusement and happiness in her young Summoner.

"You executed that spell perfectly, Cai, though I don't recall teaching you about that second part," she laughed, twirling her scythe in a graceful arc and ignoring the startled backing away both Mysos and Drax prosecuted, and how the former almost instinctively raised his halberd to both defend himself and protect his youthful lord, though Cai was positive she noticed as her posture slouched. It was imperceptible to someone that didn't have the angel inhabiting their own mind, and although he had only passed her trial four days (that felt like months, or even years) ago, Caiellis thought he knew her quite well. "Anyway, I'm going to return to the Mind Realm now, since I look out of place being the only resident of Sancturia left here, and I've used up enough of your mana already. See you later, Caiellis." Though what she said was true, the Lucerna discerned that the real reason behind her departure was the fact that she felt uncomfortable and guilty in the Lucaelians' stares, as now that the battle had ceased the survivors, all of Caiellis's force which was quite frankly unbelievable, had gravitated towards the location of the member of the royal family in their midst and were showing the angel fearful and untrustworthy gazes. Cai felt a stab of empathy for Orzhova, as he had often experienced the same, but patently not as much as his angel in her own realm of Sancturia and now in the material plane.

"I've already told the train drivers to start up the train again," Jenna appeared next to Caiellis, who nodded approvingly at his subordinate's foresight. Jenna seemed relatively unfazed by the brutal battle, though she did look a little green so was evidently trying to hold in her revulsion.

He didn't blame her – coming from Yentar, a place mostly bereft of violence apart from the occasional conflict between Leagues as they wrestled for scientific or enlightened supremacy, to Lucael, a kingdom afraid of the dark and the creatures that lie within and forced to fight those that had traded the safety of the cities for their own dark ambition in savage conflicts. He smiled at her, though there was a strange glint in her sea-green eyes that was not present in any of the Lucaelians' – or if it was, Cai couldn't see it. In a moment of confusion he realised what it was – pity. Not pitying him because she saw the weakness that her perceived himself to carry, but feeling sorry for the fact that he was so young and yet seemed no stranger to war or death. Every now and then he saw the same thing in his father's piercing blue orbs, though Marik's version of it was tinted by guilt and sorrow at his son being forced to grow up much faster than he should have.

That annoyed Caiellis immensely. Why should he waste time being a child when it was an adult's world that he lived in? Life as a child was just a lie, an illusion that children used to hide behind so that they didn't have to abandon their fairy tale perception of the world, and the sooner they escaped from that and faced reality the better as far as Cai was concerned. The fact that he had been dragged out of his perfect life and thrust into the harsh truth of the world far earlier than most youths, some who clung to their delusions even into their teenage years, worried him not a bit.

He had little time to ruminate on the thoughts, as now that his angel had retired back inside his head the soldiers under his command were looking expectantly at him, the task of immolating the corpses evidently complete. Cai briefly pondered how long he had spent in thought, but judging from the lack of impatience in the gaze of the men and women (though Mysos was only fifteen and Ruthia was eighteen) they hadn't been waiting for long. Cai tried to halt the rush of panic that seemingly poured out of his mind the second it registered he would have to speak to all these people, as now that the battle was over his nervousness returned twofold.

_Don't be silly,_ he told himself sternly, sweeping his eyes over the soldiers who smiled proudly at him, invigorated by their flawless victory, _You were perfectly fine earlier, when you had to command them and tell them your strategy. They aren't judging you – but what if they are? What if they don't think I'm a good candidate for ruling the kingdom because I'm incapable of public speaking? What am I supposed to say? Don't be stupid, you just led them to triumph over the forces of darkness, of course they don't think you are an awful heir._

"Well … Um," he started, irked by the anxiousness and quietness of his voice and wishing he could just slink away from them and board the train again, his mind involuntarily dragging him back to when he had almost gone into shock in Capitalia Lux, and his big brother had been forced to come rescue him – who knows what would have happened if Alexander wasn't as prone to worry about his little brother as he was, and hadn't turned up? There was no one to save him here, and as he turned around, his rhythm of measured breathing hitching as the rate of inhalations and exhalations increased exponentially every second, and his mind able to apparently twist the stares of his soldiers into a combination of contemptuous leers and disappointed sadness, the pride and happiness in their eyes distorted into judgemental glares of disapproval, like the one his father had first met him with after nines years when he discovered that his thirteen year old son had not yet passed the Summoning trial.

_Maybe they will understand if I just leave without speaking, _he thought, the mind words an amalgamation of idle musing and the desperate need to blend back into the background, _I mean, I have Summoned a First Sisterhood angel, fought against Garod Morr, one of the most brutal and powerful Fallen Light-bearers aligned with the Arch-Heretic, and led them to victory against an ambush they would have succumbed to if not for my premonitions and instincts. Surely they can't expect any more? _One of the voices in his mind, sounding significantly like a whining just-teenager and the tone he had used on his big brother when he was pleading for something and he had been only a few months younger, was silenced by another, a much more pragmatic and rational voice that comforted his anxious psyche, speaking over his mind's fear, _Stop making excuses. Just say something short and succinct if you don't want to do a massive speech. Angels, I'm sure they don't really care what you say after that battle._

"Uh … Ave Lux?" he offered, the saying phrased more like a question than a confident statement. He noticed Jenna concealing her quiet snickering, his cheeks going red, and the researcher hung her head guiltily when she realised that she was making the poor kid even more apprehensive and tense. However, instead of his elders reacting in a negative manner, they just repeated the saying loudly, pumping their fists in the air, and Caiellis thought that his cheeks were incinerating they felt that hot. "Ave Lux! For Lucael, King Marik and Prince Caiellis!"

Some of the older, more experienced veterans of the group – such as Drax and the two other members of his royal bodyguard that he still needed to learn the names of, celebrated the victory quietly, used to the aftermath of a brutal battle but still shocked that there were no casualties to speak of because of the Angel of the Black Sun – the angel that they were taught had been a merciless and unempathetic murderer, who had stopped any of them from dying and bolstered their resolve and strength – whereas the younger members of the military party, like Ruthia and some of the newly-trained train custodians, were loudly congratulating each other and boisterously boasting, though it wasn't arrogant or belligerent – they were revelling in each others' achievements, just like Caiellis and his sibling did to each other. Mysos in particular seemed exceptionally ecstatic, and turned to Cai and Jenna, his eyes shining with pride at what had been done.

He heard the train starting up, and the general unspoken consensus seemed to be getting back on. In front of him, he saw Mysos roughly clapping Jenna on the back, who raised her eyebrows in amusement, and declared: "You fought well!" the Lucaelian added under his breath, "For a Yentarian."

"You too, muscle-for-brains," the young woman sniggered, elegantly extracting herself and turning to the prince, who hadn't yet moved from the spot he had killed Garod Morr, who was staring in the floor, deep in thought. Though there was absolutely no way the train would leave without everyone being back on board, least of all one of the potential Lucerna heirs to the throne, Cai didn't want to be the cause of delay, principally since they were still out in the hostile environment of the abyss, and anything could appear out of the darkness without warning, souring the flawless victory. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Caiellis felt the sudden urge to join in the friendly banter of his advisers, but didn't really know what to say so just trotted behind them, looking forward to getting to Scientia Mos and slinking back into the background – he was also eagerly anticipating seeing his two remaining grandparents, as with good reason they reminded him of his mum, and the "wrinkly ones" as Alex had jokingly called them before Tybalt amusedly reprimanded his eldest charge made Cai feel like the weight of the world didn't rest on his shoulders and forget that he was a prince. Besides, the Scia Atria, main hall of the City of Books, would provide ample accommodation for his four praetorians and two other subordinates, and he could begin his duties in the morning.

Jenna snorted at him, smiling and saying: "Not feeling talkative, Cai? What's wrong?"

"I'm normally this quiet," he replied softly, slight confusion entering his voice at the researcher's look, the sister of Annia rolling her eyes, "Yes, I know that your silence is customary, but I thought you would be happy – we just won a battle against some important enemy to Lucael, though I don't pretend to know who as I know nothing of this war, with no losses. I don't know about you, but I'd be ecstatic if I was the leader of the winning side. Plus, you have that melancholic look in your cute baby eyes, just like when I first met you."

Cai stayed silent, a brooding look that suggested he really didn't want to talk about what was going on in his mind imprinting itself over his gaunt features,

"Wench! How dare even suggest that Prince Caiellis is a baby," Mysos growled, stepping in front of the brown-haired boy, though whether the older adolescent truly thought he was actually defending Cai's "honour" or was doing it satirically was beyond the littlest Lucerna, who couldn't help but break out in a smile at Mysos's bull-headedness, so much like his father, Guardian of Cassida Principia, though if their partnership was almost half as successful as Xathan's and Marik's then it would be worth it.

"Come on, Mysos. Tell me with a straight face that Prince Caiellis isn't the most adorable thing you have ever seen," Jenna giggled at the blinks of shock and bemusement from both boys, and Cai was certain that if he hadn't been royalty then the Yentarian would have pinched his cheeks like Alex had once done when introducing his "endearing" little brother to a group of girls he had befriended, and subsequently dated several members of, though obviously not at the same time. He went bright red when one of his bodyguard, around the same age as Marik but perhaps slightly older, not that the fourth decade of life was old, glanced back, a quizzical look on his face, and muttered, "Children these days..."

All three laughed, and Caiellis allowed himself to feel happiness – he deserved it, for now anyway. He was eager to use the mana communicator to contact Alex and tell him about what happened, but that could wait until he was settled in Scientia Mos.

.*.*.*.

Kaled followed Sergeant Tarkos into the city of Ja'an, the birthplace of Jarred Redhand and the only remaining Welkalite territory not utterly controlled by the Orders of Passion and thus free from Tradax Yulica's manipulation. The city had been the first one to be freed from the lashes of the Old Empire's ruling line of tyrants, and so it was fitting that it was the main stronghold of the Resistance.

When they travelled there by a boat driven by some other members, who seemed quite terrified of the imposing Sergeant, the man had informed Kaled that the leader of Ja'an, Lady Ullfaer, a member of the old and a proud supporter of the new Resistance, had officially declared the city's secession from the Empire of Passion, knowing that Usnaan and the other cities would be too occupied preparing for the war with Lucael to deal with dissidents, and that the unique terrain of Ja'an – mountains east and west of it, and the ocean to the north – would make it too unprofitable and time-consuming to assault, though if the Kingdom of Light lost the war then Tarkos had said he had no doubt that Tradax would besiege the rebellious seaside city.

Contrary to the Lucaelians, who had pulled all of their students out of the Scholaria Magnus under the fear of attack from Welkalite troops and not wanting the prodigies of the next generation to be butchered, Kaled was the only Welkalite pupil enrolled at the academy that had left as the Masters knew that King Marik would never attack children despite their connection to the enemy. Kaled had only left because of his compunction to help others, and being part of the Ja'an Guard would certainly achieve that – he thought back to his poor ma, the aged woman that had pulled him off the streets and given him a home in all of the poverty of Usnaan, ignored by the rich as they indulged in every pleasure available, their ridiculous expenditure of money catered to by the poor and the taxes enforced by the Collectors.

His ma had saved the starving him from two brutes that had fought in the Bloodsport Arenas for their own money – Kaled had stolen it to buy some food for himself, needing to eat before he died of starvation, but the men had cornered him before he could escape and were going to kill him, or sell him to the Artisans of Pain in the Order of Rapture for money. His ma had just happened upon the two brutes beating the malnourished street urchin into submission, one of them pulling out a knife and inflicting him with the jagged scar that still remained above his left eye, and utilised a charm that her long-dead husband had given her to drive them off.

She had taken the poor boy in, never once complaining about the extra economic strain, and insisted he went to the run-down establishment that constituted the local school, despite the cost it would entail. She had taught him the value of kindness, and had been willing to give up her own life in order for him to make a better one – him, who she wasn't even related to. Kaled had never known his own parents, didn't even vaguely remember loving hands touching him as an infant, but his ma had been more than enough for him. He knew that what he was doing was right; freeing the population from the Orders of Passion so that all could have the chance to have a good life, not just him, instead of being born into a down-trodden society that catered to the whims of the pampered rich as they lounged in their pleasure dens.

He was aware that it irked the proud Sergeant Tarkos that they had to rely upon the notoriously cold and xenophobic Lucaelians to aid them, recalling the days when it was just them and Redhand's strategic brilliance and radiating charisma had been enough to triumph over the Last Tyrant (an incredibly ironic name, come to think of it), but personally didn't mind so long as they didn't leave the nation in ruins because of their desire for vengeance of the abduction of the king's sons, and Kaled's own friends.

As he walked through the streets, illuminated by the gentle orange light of the evening sun, children playing happily on the beach and tanned civilians tipped their heads in respect to the members of the Resistance – Kaled had been given his own shiny new red gauntlet, showing that he was a representative of freedom, but felt as if he shouldn't wear it until he had actually made a contribution to the cause – the young Welkalite's mind drifted on to his enigmatic roommate that he had felt like he was befriending, but had been ripped away by the leaders of his own people before that could happen. He wondered if he would see Cai, or Alex, in the violence, as being princes they would probably be at the forefront, but hoped that he would see them after. Kaled hadn't seen Alexander's Summoning, but Caiellis's had been scarily powerful and could easily decide entire battles. When he had first met the little kid, he had never anticipated that the boy had that much power locked inside of him, but it explained his coldness towards others and the difficulty of his Summoning trial, though Cai had dispassionately told him that the one he had passed had been different to the one Kaled had disconnected him from.

"We're here," Tarkos gruffly announced, pushing open the door to the city hall as the Enforcers either side smartly saluted him. Kaled trailed him nervously, though he hadn't felt that emotion much before, as normally he was confident and reckless and prone to showing emotion. He stopped when he noticed that something was wrong – there seemed to be an atmosphere of defeat in the room, utterly at odds with the triumphant expressions of the Resistance members after Tarkos and him had contacted them following the victorious evacuation of the princes and the death of Ershun Firefist, former Master of Gluttony – even aloof Messa had showed some emotion at that. But now the merriment that had infused them with fresh purpose had departed, leaving behind an air of dejection and despondency. Messa was crying, sobbing uncontrollably into the arm of a burly companion that had his other arm in a sling, Jaltan if he remembered rightly. The look of utter despair on the faces of each of the Ja'an Guard brought on a wave of terror and panic, and he noticed Tarkos stiffening at the awful state of the men and women.

Lady Ullfaer, an aged, short and portly woman with greying orange hair that would have been dazzling in her youth, nodded her head to Sergeant Tarkos, her wrinkled features twisted in shame and sadness.

"What happened?" Tarkos asked, his voice stuck in between shock and furious, threatening anger directed at Tradax and the other bastards in control of the Empire, and a sudden though occurred to Kaled, who pictured Annia and Cai sniggering at his stupidity – how had Messa and the others got from the sewers of Usnaan to Ja'an in such a short amount of time? It had taken him the best part of two days to get there after his ma had died, but the vast majority of the wounds looked fresh and like they had only just been dressed.

"We had prepared an ambush for Enforcers, as we knew they were looking for us," the man who had been comforting Messa spoke up after a long moment of depressing silence that had seemed to stretch on for aeons, "And when we sprung the trap, everything was going perfectly -we had killed all of the Enforcers with no casualties … but..." his voice broke off as he became wracked with shock, and Kaled realised with a jolt how many members of the Usnaan Resistance were missing – it had been reduced to much less than half its original number, and although there were still cells operating (or at least, he assumed they were) in each other city and the entire military of Ja'an was on their side, it was still a huge blow.

"They were counter ambushed by Ilentia, the newly-instated Master of Gluttony, with her new demonic Summoning, and I had to initiate an emergency teleport," a robotic voice spoke, that heavily reminded Kaled of the Uverian Doctor Argyle, the tone bereft of emotional resonance, and the fifteen year old glanced sideways to a large holographic screen. Tarkos had mentioned the Resistance's mysterious benefactor, an inscrutable Yentarian scientist from the League of Uveria that was acting of his own accord, and against his consortium by helping them, as the aloof League was completely against taking part in the affairs of "lesser" nations, more content to just invent additional masterpieces of artifacts in the pursuit of technological enlightenment.

The man – well, Kaled just automatically assumed the person was a man, though there was nothing to suggest the scientist belonging to either gender – wore a bulbous glass mask that aptly concealed his identity, probably afraid of repercussions if any of the Uverian leaders found out about his involvement in the revolution, and went by the enigmatic name of "Gamma," suggesting that there was an "Alpha" and "Beta" according to Tarkos. Despite his reticence to ever meet the Resistance or reveal who he was, there was no doubt in any of their minds that the advanced technology provided by the Uverian had been invaluable in their success so far, and was definitely the only reason the few members of the Usnaan Resistance had survived.

"I see," Tarkos sighed, pursing his lips, though Kaled saw a deep sadness in his eyes that the man tried, and failed, to hide, "So it is up to the Lucaelians now. Damn that scum Tradax to hell for what he has invited upon Welkas."

.*.*.*.

Caiellis disembarked from the train, waving at Jenna, Mysos and his bodyguard – whose names he had learnt, as the one around his father's age was called Lancalo whilst the other, a brawny giant of a man that would make even Tristram seem small, was named Aymer, and wielded his spear with an elegance and grace that belied his immense size (Cai was pretty sure his waist was thinner than one of the man's thighs) – as they left for the Scia Atria, to be welcomed by Hierarch Martha and Guardian Weiss and have their evening meal, though of course they had arrived much later than anticipated because of the not so slight delay of a Fallen Light-bearer's army.

The train had a facility for the passengers to clean themselves up, as usually journeys took more than a day so they needed to be able to shower, and Cai had a private one located within the first carriage of the train so spent a long time washing the corrupted blood from himself, and changing into his other clothes. The boy also carried a small briefcase with a spare change of outfit within for tomorrow, as the rest of them had been taken to the Lucerna residence in the Scia Atria by Aymer, who had insisted.

He smiled at the brilliant city he was now in, though it was disguised by his scarf that also hid his birthmark, though he knew the residents of Scientia Mos were nowhere near as terrified of his as those from Civitas Sol, and to an only just lesser extent Capitalia Lux. His emerald green eyes were drawn to the many libraries that he knew the locations of off by heart, having imprinted them in his memory the first time he visited with his mother and brother at they age of just three, and stayed at Emili's parents homely and welcoming house and then Martha's, his mother's mentor.

It was fantastic, the amount of knowledge hidden within the pages just waiting to be discovered, as although individually none of the repositories of books matched the palace library in its ancient splendour and uniqueness – as the true Codex Angelica cold only be accessed from there, as well as other documents exclusive to those of the Lucerna line or with their permission – together they held a vast quantity of information that dwarfed the Capitalia Lux library, and Cai could easily just lose himself in there with all the books – as he had once done, much to Alex's chagrin as he had completely forgotten about the older boy wanting to practise his mana generation with him, though his big brother had apologised after he had shouted at Caiellis and the younger boy had ran crying to his room. That had only been a year after his mother had died.

He had politely asked Hierarch Martha to inform his grandparents of his arrival there, also telling the venerable woman his plans, though he had no idea whether the busy woman would have been able to or not, as unlike many others who would fall head over heels to prosecute the orders of an exalted Lucerna, Martha had her priorities right and an inconsequential request like that would most likely be near the bottom, after contacting the rest of the kingdom over Garod Morr's demise. The Hierarch had seemed proud of him, as he had been relatively close to the woman whenever they came to stay at Scientia Mos, which was comparatively often because of its moderate safety relative to the other cities, though it was still besieged near the end.

Cai was pleased with his first military victory, as although it was only on a small scale one of the Fallen had been eliminated, which was one step closer to triumphing in the civil war, as despite the fact that it had technically been won by his father Johnias and his treacherous compatriots were still lurking somewhere in the abyss, though now the number of Fallen Light-bearers had been halved. He idly wondered whether or not his father would be proud, as Drax had said that he was going to contact the king tonight, though Alex would be no doubt equally overjoyed and worried.

He paced slowly through the streets, nodding his head respectfully at the adults who smiled curiously at him, no doubt noticing the sword at his waist, though it luckily wasn't late enough to requisite their concern for a small boy out alone in the night, and walked down the alleyway that was quite familiar to him, although an all previous occasions it had been filled with kneeling people instead of those ignorant to his true identity carrying on with their lives as normal, making a five year old him scared and cling to his brother's leg before the older boy shoved him away. He then took a second turn, stepping into a photo-garden that shone with twinkling light blue lights, shimmering pleasantly around the boy – the wisps were some of the only nature spirits of Sancturia present in Lucael, and facilitated the growth of plants, allowing the humans to eat. Each city had a titanic photo-refectory underground, though one could make their own gardens and grow their own food with the wisps if they were the person's Summoning. The boy lowered his scarf, the danger of someone recognising him gone.

His grandparents' garden looked overgrown, but Cai knew from experienced that it was carefully cultivated by his grandmother (or "Nanna", as she was known by him, though his big brother had sometimes adopted the title also) to give the illusion of nature rampant. It was dark, and quite large, as his mother's parents had been reasonably wealthy nobles and so could afford a large private garden, and although the palace also had a larger one Caiellis had never found it as nice as his Nanna's. He stepped over snaking roots, heading towards a warm and welcoming orange glow that signified the entrance to the house.

He pressed his hand to a tree, feeling the wisps resonating within, reacting to his huge stores of mana and fully empathising with the Erian Conclave's connection to nature, but like everything apart from holy Sancturia beings it was just another tool to bend towards the survival of the people. He briefly mused about what life would be like for someone without powerful and receptive magic like him, having never really considered it before – Caiellis thought that maybe the world would seem a lot more dull, but then again perhaps they saw the true beauty in physical things, instead of its mana presence.

He walked up to the doorway of the old house that his mum had grown up in, the doorway bathed in the wan light of the flickering lanterns either side of it, and quietly wrapped his knuckles on the wooden door, though he ensured the gentle action was loud enough to echo throughout the house. The door almost instantaneously swung open, and Cai was greeted by the stern visage of his grandfather, Percival Noctis, who glowered down at him with his green eyes very similar to Caiellis's and Emili's but still noticeably different to his grandson's.

"Whadd'ya want?" he demanded gruffly, and Caiellis was taken aback. "Erm … I just wondered if I could stay the night..." he began anxiously, entertaining the notion that they didn't know about his arrival despite everyone else in the city being aware, as there was no way Percival didn't know who he was because of the ominous birthmark imprinted onto his right cheek. The old man was still taller than him despite his back being slightly crooked, and was quite portly but that was to be expected – it seemed to Cai that with "old people" it was either that or they were decrepit and thin.

"Well you're going to be disappointed. We want no more business with Lucernas," the man replied huskily, and slammed the door in the boy's face. Cai blinked in startled surprise, his thoughts of not having to throw himself in his royal duties and enjoying a quiet night with his family shattered like the body of Garod. He stood still for a few seconds, his mind taking a while to process this new development, until he heard an annoyed female voice and the door opening again.

"Sorry about Percival," his Nanna, Rosia Noctis, smiled warmly at her grandson, turning around and glaring at her husband and disdainfully adding, "He thinks of himself as quite the joker. Come in, Caiellis, and make yourself at home. It's so nice to see you again."

"I apologise, laddy, but the look on your face was priceless. You always did fall for me and Alex's jokes," Percival laughed, yanking the body into an affectionate hug and squeezing him tight – Cai knew how much his grandparents loved him and Alex, and wished the older boy could be here to see them as well. His brother and the man got on brilliantly, with them both having a joker's streak – much to the annoyance of Alex's little sibling and Hierarch Tybalt. "Arrgh, you're still all skin and bones kiddo, just like you were last time. Bloody hell, don't they feed you at the palace?"

"Percival!" Rosa snapped, her face contorted in irritation that disappeared the second she turned back to the youngest member of her family, the one who had inherited the family name, not that Noctis would ever be as famous as Lucerna. "Caiellis is a teenager, so it's to be expected. And you know he never eats much."

"Not like his brother then, though that boy never seemed to put on any weight as well. You young'uns are all so damn lanky!" Percival joked, and Cai smiled.

"Alex isn't exactly thin anymore," he said softly, though he had never thought his big brother had been at any time – he supposed that because Alexander had always been more muscular than him, and older, Cai couldn't see it.

"Angels above, I know," Rosa grinned, a nostalgic look entering her brown eyes, "I saw the holo-picture of you both that your father had taken after the war ended. He's grown up into a fine young man."

"At least one of our grandsons is still a little cutie," Cai's granddad joked, ruffling the boy's hair, "I bet your brother is a right pain in the arse to deal with, what with him being twice the size of you."

Caiellis grinned widely, nodding his head, as his grandmother tutted at her husband's usage of colourful language.

"Are you going to stand in the doorway all day and let the wind freeze the entire house, or would you like to come in and take off your coat?" Percival asked, gently ushering his grandson through and closing the door behind him, as Cai took of his shoes and passed his Lucerna prince jacket to Rosa when she beckoned for it.

"Armed for war, I see," Percival stated when he saw the sword strapped to Cai's thin waist, the ornate scabbard reflecting the yellow light of the bulbs inside. The boy's face instantly fell, his eyes misting up and becoming much more melancholic, and he quietly said, "So that means the information hasn't been spread yet."

"Oh, I know about the war with Welkas alright," his granddad responded sadly, and Caiellis shook his head slowly, "No. On the way here, the train was attacked by Garod Morr and a party of traitors, though they didn't expect it to be a military train, or for me to be there and able to detect them. We ambushed them, and killed them all. I ended the life of the Fallen, and there were no casualties amongst my troops," he uttered unemotionally, though he wondered if he should be saying it with pride to dissuade the parents of his mother from worrying about him.

Percival shared a saddened look with his wife and brought the boy into a hug, wincing at how painfully thin he was, all of his joviality and jokes gone. Caiellis tried to repress the sudden urge to cry, and ended up half-stifling sobs that made him sound like he was in pain, so gave up and let the unexpected tears roll down his pale cheeks, the Black Sun shining with purple light but not crackling with lightning.

"Why … Why am I crying? I don't understand … W-we won … Shouldn't I be happy?" he sniffed, mentally cursing inside at the amount of fat tears cascading out of his eyes, as his granddad rubbed soothing circles on his back and Rosa placed her wrinkled hand on his shoulder, gripping it reassuringly. "Why does it feel so bad … why does it hurt?"

"Look, my grandson," the man said, locking his eyes with his wife's and silently telling her that he was going to speak, "I know that war is supposed to be glorious, and the fact that none of your men died is even better, but you are still extremely young, and I know that you hate killing – Alexander told me about what happened in Civitas Sol the last time you visited, and I can't empathise with you. I have never killed anyone, so I don't know what it is like. But you know something, Caiellis?"

"Wh-what?" the boy rubbed his eyes on his sleeve, thinking it was about time he grew up and stopped crying at everything, actions unbefitting of an heir to the throne.

"The fact that you are crying now over killing doesn't make you weak, as you might think," Percival hit the nail on the head with that statement, and Cai buried his head in the man's shoulder for a second before extricating himself. "It means you are human, little man."

Caiellis let the words sink in, saw the truth in them, and stopped crying.

"Thank you, granddad," he whispered quietly, infusing a tremendous amount of gratitude in the words, and the man smiled patently – that must have been where Alex had got it from, as well as his aptitude for making his little brother feel much better.

"No problem, Caiellis. Now, what do you say we have tea? Rosa was just finishing up the meal before you arrived," Percival suggested, turning to his wife, who nodded proudly, marvelling at her husband's talent for solving emotional issues – he had done it with his own daughter, with Rosa herself, and then to his grandchildren when they had vehemently argued in the past, and now to Caiellis, the littlest Noctis Lucerna.

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Drax Gloria: Archon of Justice

Ruthia Veruna: Firemane Angel

Traitors: Gloomhunter, Cyclopean Giant, Nightfire Giant, Mindslicer, Smog Elemental

Garod Morr: Harvester of Souls


	23. Set in Motion

Caiellis felt exceedingly stuffed, and he was sure that his Nanna had made enough of the tasty and homely meal to satiate them if Uncle Tristram, Tybalt and Alexander had been here also. It was the most he had eaten in a long while, though he could picture his older brother scoffing at that and his weak appetite. He wished that he could just stay here forever, away from the pressure of being an heir to the throne and his father – the only thing that could possibly make this better would be if those aforementioned could be here as well. Cai graciously declined one of the proffered buns that his grandmother wafted in his direction, feeling a bit sick at the prospect of further nourishment but not willing to show it and seem ungrateful.

"Oh come on, Caiellis, I baked them specifically for you – honey liquorice is still your favourite, right?" Rosa inquired, and Cai nodded and weakly held his hands up. "Look, you're thin as a stick anyway, so what does it matter that you eat one?"

"Please Nanna, they look delicious, but … I'm full," he mumbled, feeling guilty about not taking one since she seemed insistent on it, and not wanting Rosa to think they were by any means low quality – the cakes were quite the opposite, but he didn't want to be sick or throw up when tomorrow was such an important day. Percival snorted and patted him loving on the back, sat on the comfortable sofa next to his slender grandson, "I swear, if you had been your older brother then you would have eaten all of what Rosa made and these cakes!"

"My brother does have a … monstrous appetite," Cai smiled and said softly, when a sudden though clicked in his head. _Speaking of Alexander,_ he thought, glancing quickly at his watch and inwardly cursing when he saw that an hour had passed since he had arrived in Scientia Mos, and that he had promised to contact his big brother the second he was settled in his grandparents' house. He had forgotten about his agreement after his emotional meltdown, but now that he was fine and had been for a while there was no excuse for not calling the older boy, who could be worried sick not being able to ensure that his little brother was safe.

As his Nanna walked into the kitchen, ready to start her washing up that Cai usually helped her with, the boy pulled out the mana communicator that he had turned off just before the ambush in case someone decided it would be a good time to ring him and compromise the entire plan. The holographic mana panel casually informed him that he had missed seven attempts to get in touch with him, and winced inside, knowing how mad his brother would be.

"What is that?" Percival asked quizzically, and Cai turned the device to his granddad, explaining, "It's a mana communicator. The Yentarians developed it, and it allows you to contact the holder of the other one by using your mana. I was just going to tell Alex I was alright, which I should have done quite a while but I forgot..."

"You kids and your toys," Percival shook his head in mock despair, "Back in my day, the fastest way of sending a message was by delivering a letter, and if the person was cities away the couriers could take weeks. Then that boy Marik ordered the construction of the monorails, which cut the time to at the very least an eighth, and now this. I feel outdated."

"The benefits of your father allying with the Yentarians really are marvellous," Rosa shouted in, evidently able to hear their conversation, and her husband grumbled under his breath, "Damn scientists and their technology. Give me a good old horse and cart instead of fancy automobiles and hover planes any day."

Caiellis grinned at the exemplification of the stereotype of Lucaelians being stuck in their ways, though personally he thought he would actually rather have been born in Yentar than the Kingdom of Light – or perhaps not, as from what he had seen the familial relationships were nowhere near as strong, and the vast majority of the members of their society were indifferent to others, ignoring those less successful in the pursuit of enlightenment. He would have to actually go to the Yentarian Republic to ever be able to find out, and then refocussed on his current objective of assuaging his elder sibling.

"Do you mind if I call him?" he asked innocently, not wanting to be rude or obtrusive, and his grandfather raised his eyebrows in perplexity. "Why would we? It will be good to speak to the kid as well."

Cai grinned, though the facial expression was both happy and apprehensive at the same time, and infused his fingertip with mana, calling the mana communicator that his older brother possessed. It took only a single second to answer, and they were soon all greeted by Alex's voice.

"CAI! WHAT THE FUCK? WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME EARLIER?" Alexander shouted, and his little brother visibly rocked back as if his sibling was physically shoving him back against his seat, almost dropping the communication device. "Mind your language, Alexander Ensis Lucerna!" Rosa yelled from the kitchen, though whether the middle Lucerna could hear or not was a mystery.

"I … I'm sorry..." Cai whimpered at how angry his older brother sounded, how furious he was with him, and he felt like shit for not calling him sooner – he had promised to do it as soon as he got there safely, and Alex was probably still recovering from what happened in the morning. Although Caiellis had felt that he had helped his older brother break out of his depression and terror, the fact that the seventeen year old was still in an extremely fragile state meant that he shouldn't have been so selfish by forgetting about his pledge.

"_Seven _times, Caiellis! I called you _seven _damn times! What sort of an excuse have you got for me now?!" the harsh voice of the elder prince demanded, the tone a slightly threatening growl, and Cai put his head in his hands, bringing his knees up to his chest as if hiding from the accusations and anger that Alex rightly directed at him would make the situation better. He had failed the older boy again, though at least not as dramatically as last time, and it made him feel awful knowing that. He didn't have an excuse, so just repeated, "I'm sorry..."

"Alexander. I know that you were worried about your brother, but please do try not to shout at him," Percival stated calmly, wrapping an arm around his grandson's shoulders as the boy started snivelling quietly – he was aware that the boys had only just got back from being abducted, and that the eldest had been hurt, but other than that the information had been carefully cloistered, even to the boys' own grandparents, which incensed Percival to no end. The younger boy was shaking, and he had sensed that they had gone through a gigantic amount of emotional turmoil over the last four days. The aged man also knew about their short visit to the Scholaria Magnus academy prior to the Welkalite kidnapping – which Percival was sure had caused his poor wife to almost have a heart attack out of worry for their only grandchildren, as Emili had been an only child – and that young Cai had passed his Summoning.

The man heard a series of shuddering, deep breaths emanating from the other end of the communication, as well as a stifled gasp of pain that made the younger boy wince. Alex was clearly attempting to control himself, knowing how easily set off his little brother was with him, reminding himself that because the younger boy valued him so much the kid always took his brother's anger to heart. "Oh angels Cai, you had me worried little brother."

"I'm sorry..." the littlest Lucerna murmured again, and Percival could picture the boy's brother's smile at that, having seen it before when Caiellis had forgotten about their scheduled mana generation practise and spent all day in the libraries after Alexander had shouted at him and little Caiellis had ran crying to his room upstairs. Alex only had to spend about two minutes coaxing his little brother out with his apologies, grinning widely at the tiny boy when he emerged and hugging him tight. One would be forgiven for thinking that because of the select few times he had seen his youngest family member, Percival would think that Cai was absent minded, but he knew how meticulous the boy usually was, having an attention to detail and intellect that far surpassed most people's even at his young age, and the fact that he had experienced the two extremely rare times Caiellis had failed to remember something was just a coincidence.

"No, no, I should be the one apologising. I'm really sorry for snapping at you," Alex apologised, sighing loudly, "I know that you just went through a battle against Garod Morr, and that you hate killing. I was just worried, that's all. Aww, don't cry little dude," he added when Cai had trouble stifling a particularly large sob.

"I'm not crying," he suddenly uttered after a brief moment of silence, and his brother still in Civitas Sol sniggered. "So, Alex, how are you?"

"I'm good. More importantly, are you alright? Drax contacted dad around an hour ago about your flawless victory. I must say that I'm proud of my little boy genius," Alex teased, and Percival laughed at Caiellis's eyes comically narrowing, the boy recovered from the shock of having his brother explode at him. "I'm fine, Alex. I didn't get hurt."

There was a brief but companionable silence, and after a few seconds Alexander spoke up, and Caiellis picked up on the nonchalant quality of his voice, suggesting that his big brother was going to interject some advice posed as an idle statement – he knew it from the numerous times Alex had tried to get him to make friends, "Dad was really pleased, you know," he said, pointedly.

"Fantastic," Caiellis muttered sarcastically, his own tone coloured darkly – evidently his father wasn't in the room with Alex and was too busy to call his son also. Cai hadn't failed to pick up on the fact that none of the missed communications had been based upon solely White mana, the presence of both the magic of light and Red on each of the calls indicating his brother. Marik could have easily just told him it himself instead of using Alexander as some form of messenger, as it wasn't right to just put his eldest son in between him and his youngest. However, if he had just mentioned it to Alex in passing then dad obviously didn't care enough to directly call his smallest son – that meant that Cai knew two reasons behind his dad not calling. Either Marik had been too busy and unconcerned, or he hadn't wanted to speak to Caiellis because of the fear of arguing, preferring to use his eldest as a go between.

"And you should be proud of yourself as well, short stuff. I know you hate violence and killing, but Morr deserved to die for his crimes against the people and you delivered that," Alex encouraged, wishing he was there to wrap an arm around his kid brother's thin shoulders or punch him playfully – that reminded him, he hadn't wrestled or sparred with the kid in quite a while, at first because of Caiellis's utter focus on completing his Summoning trial and then due to their abduction and his recovery. He doubted Cai would miss it as much as he did, or be as enthusiastic about starting it again, but maybe he could convince the boy that if they trained against each other with their First Sisterhood angels than each would get more powerful. The older boy let a slight bit of resignation into his next words, as well as more brotherly teasing, "How embarrassing. My adorable little brother is the first one out of us two to become a hero in the kingdom."

"Yeah, but you basically defeated Ershun Firefist without my help," Cai shot back, his voice vaguely defensive even though Alex was insulting himself, "And you are more of a hero than me anyway. The fact that you got really hurt whilst I remained relatively unscathed from our abduction proves it."

"You aren't still beating yourself up about that, are you?" Alex inquired, and Caiellis sadly shook his head before remembering that his brother couldn't actually see him, though the gesture was actually false. He hoped that his sibling couldn't detect the lie in his words, as Alexander was a lot worse at reading people when he couldn't actually see them for any visual clues – though Cai was pretty sure the older boy had mastered picking out what his little brother felt like through various different things because of the time spent with him, and the only way he had ever managed to hide things was by creating his shell which he didn't have the heart to ever use against Alex again, not after how angry, reckless and self-blaming Alexander had been after discovering Caiellis self-harming. The boy was pretty sure he had only been able to conceal that for so long because he had isolated himself in his constant attempts of Orzhova's test and the perpetual exhaustion that came afterwards. "No, Alex, I'm not. You told me not to, remember?"

_Like that has ever stopped you before when hating yourself for things, _Alex thought sourly, but although he was extremely dubious he didn't want to ruin their conversation more than he already had. He hadn't meant to shout at his brother, but had become immensely agitated when the kid didn't answer his calls after he had started them when Drax Gloria, head of Cai's bodyguard had contacted him and his father. At least he had known that his little brother's journey had been "safe" (not that a brutal battle could be deemed so, but Cai had survived), but agents of Johnias or other assassins of some form could have easily infiltrated Scientia Mos and murdered the vulnerable Caiellis, especially since similar incidents had happened in the past. He knew that most of his worry was unfounded, and that his little brother could definitely handle himself, but considering he had Summoned today he would have been more at risk. Alexander just supposed that it was his big brother instinct thrusting itself to the forefront of his mind.

"Ok, little dude," Alexander replied, though he was very doubtful of his younger sibling, "So, how're the wrinkly ones then?"

"Hey!" Percival yelled in mock indignation, "You're never too big for a good whuppin' lad, so watch your words!"

Alex giggled and Cai smirked, as Rosa walked back into the living room, "We're fine, Alex. It would have been nice to see you as well."

"I'll see if I can visit," Alex put in, and Cai frowned, "No, you will stay in bed until you have recovered."

"And you call me the control freak," Alex sniggered, visualising his little brother's scowl that would be forming on his young features, "I meant when I'm able to, Boy Genius. Obviously."

They talked for a little while after, Alexander firing many questions concerning the battle that Cai had just fought until the younger boy honestly told him that he didn't want to talk about it, and it made him feel sick. Alex had accepted that without comment, and after a few more minutes they had said their goodbyes. There was a moment of silence, before Rosa said, "Caiellis, are you and your father getting on alright?"

_It's none of your business, _his mind spat, but the boy reigned in the caustic tone, knowing it was directed at his father and not his grandmother, replying pleasantly, "No, Nanna, we are fine."

The woman sat on the other side of him, only a slight bit taller than her grandson because of her age, though she had always been a relatively short woman, and smirked, "You know Caiellis, Emili once said the exact same thing when I asked her about another girl that she hadn't been alright with. I just took her word for it, and then the day after me and Percival had to come into the school as your mother had poured some sort of ooze on the girl's locker, ruining the dress she was going to wear for a school dance."

Cai laughed at that, "Really?" he asked disbelievingly, though he had no reason to doubt the words. He just found it hard to imagine the loving, nurturing and kind woman his mother was doing something so vindictive, but then again if he thought hard he vaguely remembered mum having a sarcastic streak. Caiellis had just been too young to understand and fully recall at the time.

"Yes, and we learnt never to trust a teenager's words of being perfectly fine with someone else when the signs are clear to see," Percival put in, jostling his grandson's shoulders lightly in a boisterous manner Cai thought didn't quite fit his age, though then again he had inherited his father's coldness and it was Alex who had gained most of the psychological Noctis traits, ironic in Caiellis's opinion considering he was the one bearing the name. "So, are you and Marik getting on well? You know we won't tell him if you aren't, and that you can trust us with anything," the man added, hoping to put the boy at ease, as because they seemed close he didn't see his grandchildren nearly as much as he would have liked to, firstly because of the war and now their kingly duties – additionally, he couldn't remember Marik, his son in law, speaking to them even once after Emili's death. Then again, the man had always been a bit uncomfortable in the presence of others that he didn't know intimately, which had clearly been passed down to his son.

"I doubt he would send you away just after you got back from your kidnapping in Welkas if there wasn't some animosity between you," Rosa mused, noting how little Caiellis got up from his seat and went to sit in the armchair beside the fire when she and her husband were sat on both sides of him. The boy's eyes flicked to the window, a brief smile working its way onto his features at the huge flakes of snow cascading down, though he hoped it wouldn't cause any delays or inconveniences – a day wasted was just more time for Tradax and the Masters of the Orders of Passion to abuse the populace. He mentally snickered at how adult he sounded – had Alex been here, and it had been only a few months ago, he would have been hugely excited about the amount of snow, just like he had been last year – especially when it snowed on his twelfth birthday. Though he often told himself that it was better this way, sometimes he longed for the days when he was back in the civil war, where the only thing they had to think about was survival and life was a lot more simple. Cai crushed the thoughts, just as his grandma's voice broke him out of the reverie he had drifted into.

"Hierarch Martha and Guardian Weiss are quite capable of running the city and mobilising for war themselves, and although you do ideally need to learn to do it because you are a prince it has only been two days since you battled out of Usnaan," his Nanna continued, as if trying to get Cai to confirm her suspicions.

"If it was up to me a thirteen year old wouldn't be going to war," Percival grumbled under his breath, though everyone in the room heard, "No matter if he is a Lucerna or not. Those living in other cities seem to think they are like gods."

Cai sighed, idly tracing an abstract pattern with his thin finger down the condensation on the window next to the armchair, creating spiralling curls that meandered up and down the glass and could have been said to represent the turmoil in his heart, if he was more romantically minded. According to others, primarily his brother and Tybalt, he was an excellent creative writer as well as a pragmatic one, but he had never really had the time, even in the writing lessons, which were mostly focussed on the method of completion of royal forms and treaties, not expressing oneself.

He pondered that Lucael was probably the worst faction for that, with many suppressing their emotions and simply enacting their duty, though then again many took pleasure in the glory and honour of serving the kingdom, being part of a greater whole that would protect them from the darkness of the world. The boy wondered what it would be like to feel as if he was just a cog in the great machine of the Kingdom of Light, instead of the one possibly going to be controlling it. His green orbs then strayed back to his grandparents, who sat, patiently waiting to see whether or not he would respond. He looked them in the eyes, finding them welcoming and deserving of his trust and confidence, and resolved to at least reveal at bit about the arguments between him and his father.

"We aren't exactly best friends," he began, before snorting quietly, "In fact, I think we've probably passed quite far below mutual dislike. I don't like it, but I can't do anything about it. It seems whenever we talk, unless it is about something extremely important, we end up arguing."

"Parents often argue with their adolescent children," Rosa replied, "I'm sure you will both just get over it."

Caiellis shook his head dejectedly. This is what he had feared – of course they weren't going to understand. And Cai didn't blame them. How could they?

Neither of them had ever felt the pressure he had, neither of them had the weight of the entire nation resting on their shoulders, neither of them were treated as a pariah because of something they were born with, neither of them had been forced to spend nine years of their life on the run, hunted by the agents of their uncle who was the arch-nemesis of the kingdom who had murdered his and his brother's mum and plunged the four year old them into a hell that was only staved off by the presence of his big brother.

Neither of them had looked forward to seeing their father for every single day of that time, had to grow up in the war where each day they could be found and killed, or learn that the kingdom had lost and King Marik slain. And neither of them had been greeted by displeasure and disapproval the first time they spoke to their father, the man who just refused to realise his own mistakes. Despite their warmth, their friendliness, his grandparents couldn't be expected to know that the hostility between him and dad was derived from much more than hormones.

Sensing his grandson's demeanour change, Percival interposed before his wife could say any more, "But it's not just that, is it? I can remember how much you were anticipating seeing him, and while I don't he ever could have been what you were hoping for, particularly because he is a king and the fact that the love of his life died, you shouldn't be this sad."

"All I was hoping for was a father, or was that too much to ask for?" Cai hissed, before restraining the venom in his voice. Rosa looked shocked, but her husband smothered a triumphant expression that threatened to work its way onto his wrinkled features. He had hit the nerve there. The boy's tone was much more dejected and sullen this time around, "Sorry. It's just..." he drifted off, staring back out of the window.

"You can tell us," his Nanna smiled welcomingly, hoping that the openness of her face would convince the kid to talk. The green eyes, so much like Emili's, turned back to her, and Cai said, "He treated me like a failure the second I met him, which was just after me trying to pass the Summoning trial when he finally got back to the palace. I know that I should have done it a few years ago, but Orzhova's test wasn't normal and I only completed it at our first day at the Scholaria Magnus. I think he thought that I wasn't trying hard enough, that I had been coddled by Alex, Uncle Tristram and Uncle Tybalt too much … But I _was_ trying. I was devoted to doing it. I spent every single day attempting it, and subsequently failing and forced to spend the rest of the day resting in bed, though I did that to hide from my brother as well. Eight days ago, when I finally chose not to avoid him and go straight to my sanctum to try Orzhova's trial, we kind of had a playfight … and then he found out."

"Found out what?" Percival inquired, though he knew that he and his wife wouldn't like the answer, considering how melodramatic Caiellis was being about it, though he certainly appreciated the boy's honesty. He was sure that Cai hadn't told anyone else about it, besides of course his brother who was part of the story. The boy lifted up his shirt, giving them a second to look at some of the self-inflicted cuts that were still in the process of healing, staring blankly at the expressions of shock on their faces. "The pain helped with the feeling of failure, but when Alex found out he went and confronted dad over it – something I'd specifically wanted to avoid by not spending time with my brother."

"And then your relationship slowly deteriorated, yes?" Percival asked, and Cai shook his head, a wry smile on his face. "No, actually, he spent time bonding with me, gave me the Sword of Glass, and then when we spoke after I passed the trial he was really proud and loving. When he arrived at the academy, despite not listening to my warnings about going into the negotiations room, dad was still pleasant and friendly, though a bit annoyed. It was just after Alex almost died that we argued for the first time, and instead of just accepting his shouting without comment, as I already blamed myself for it, I challenged him and then it all devolved from there, especially since I brought up mum and then he lifted me off my feet by my collar." Cai wasn't going to mention his arm, as judging by the look on the Noctis's faces they were going to march to Civitas Sol and confront Marik over it themselves, "Don't tell him I said this, though."

"Don't worry, we won't," Rosa assured him with a wink, and both of them got up to embrace him in a hug. Cai yawned after it, and felt immensely tired, though not exhausted, "I think I'd better get to bed now. I did Summon today, and it is going to be a long day tomorrow. Night, granddad. Night, Nanna."

"Goodnight, Caiellis," they replied in unison, sharing a concerned glance when the boy departed up the stairs.

.*.*.*.

Sartorius Gomor, prominent scientist of the League of Uveria, tapped the console in front of him with metallic fingers, the etherium infused with subtle Blue mana allowing him to access the data within. He was in his personal sanctum, one of the many glittering spires in the Sapphire Citadel (Sartorius had always found the name ironic, as the location was actually more like a city, on par in size with many despite being held aloft by powerful magic), the main stronghold of the most technologically orientated League of Thought in Yentar.

Many sketches decorated the crystal walls, some imprinted on paper in the manner of the less advanced whilst others were infused within crystals that could project them holographically, and although new schematics occasionally graced the walls Sartorius knew that his work was just a disguise, a cover up for his true motives.

Inactive thopters hung from the ceiling, a multitude of different designs, and the silver light of the full moon reflected off of them, creating a shimmering display of iridescent light that scattered across the laboratory/sanctum. Several simple constructs whirred elegantly around the room, suspended gracefully on the hover propulsion that had only recently been invented, making their passage almost silent as to not distract their master as they went about their programmed duties, a far cry from their clanking predecessors.

Gomor was a name relatively well known within his League, although he had strived to ensure that he was not too successful he would attract attention, just be consistently good enough despite having a brilliant enough mind to completely revolutionise the production of the ubiquitous automata that perpetuated the territory of Uveria. However, he knew he was a favourite of the Hegemon, the Unbound sphinx that took human form and ruled from the heart of the Sapphire Citadel, which gave him the lease to pursue whatever research he wanted free of observation.

The Hegemon had taken over the League of Uveria a few decades after the Discovery, when the first artifact creatures had been created and the path to enlightenment through the route of the perfect machine was first formed, the third League of Thought after the Isakians and Thrazekis. The sphinx had posed as a human woman, and her inventions swept the League by storm, as she was able to harness the metal of Sancturia – etherium. However, the previous leader, Maestro Ledarae, had objected to the mysterious woman revolutionising the League and completely obsoleting the crude artifacts he and his head scientists had created from material resources, but when the plot to assassinate the woman was enacted she had turned into a sphinx and repelled them, locking them inside of spheres of mana where they presumably remained to this day and declaring herself the leader, and there was no opposition due to the League's fascination with etherium and what could be made out of it.

From inside his bulbous glass mask, Sartorius's unnaturally blue eyes read waves of scrolling data that the terminal was telling him, records of all his activities so far that were terminated when they hit the bottom of the hologram screen. He knew he had been too dangerous, and that he was lucky no rival scientists had yet been able to decipher his encryptions in order to discover his prototype schematics, and inadvertently find out what he had truly been up to. He ensured that everything was truly deleted before accessing the next pieces of data, annihilating them also in quick succession. Just as he finished destroying all records of what he had done, a woman's voice, completely natural and unaugmented by the enhancements undergone by many in the League, and not telepathic either, interrupted Sartorius.

"Sartorius Gomor of the League of Uveria," the clip tones rang out, and the scientist froze, "You have been accused of interfering in the internal conflicts of other nations, as outlawed by the Edicts of the Republic. We have been sent to collect you and bring you to Orchid Eye, and if you surrender peacefully then we will not have to use force."

Sartorius raised his hands, the empty terminal in front of him automatically shutting down as its connection to his mana was severed, and slowly turned around, though he already knew what they looked like due to his augmented metaphysical senses that were far more potent than his still-natural eyes, a rarity in the League.

Two figures, stood perfectly balanced on the metal floor, faced him, clothed in traditional cloths and wearing conical bamboo hats that covered their eyes. They were both wearing plain blue kimonos that reminded Gomor very loosely of someone he "knew", unadorned by iconography that would suggest who they were. Each wielded an elegant weapon that would have been tempered to their specific fighting styles, the woman who had spoken earlier holding a steel katana that reflected the light of the moon that stared down from the circular domed window on top of the spire, whilst the man carried a simple staff of wood topped by a symbol of a lotus that would no doubt blaze with azure light should he activate it.

Sartorius forced his breathing to relax – at first he had wondered how the unaugmented intruders had got into the Sapphire Citadel in the first place, as only members of the League of Thrazek had ever been able to infiltrate it past the untiring sentries and the mathematically perfect security protocols, but now he knew. The two must have been part of the Whisperwind, an elite force of peacekeepers – _or assassins –_ under the direct command of the Elder Sage of the League of Isak, masters of stealth and subtle magic. The Uverian scientist pondered that the only reason the Citadel hadn't yet been sneaked into by them was because – prior to this – there had been no need to, and the Elder Sage was notorious for carefully planning each action to make sure it would not disturb the balance of things – _not that the old fool truly knows about the balance of the world. _

Sartorius didn't move as the two walked towards him, their movements as perfect as non-enhanced humans could get, though that still wouldn't save them. The man then suddenly tapped the side of his helmet, the glass mask splitting apart down the middle and coming together behind him, and a gargantuan amount of Blue mana pulsed across the room, knocking into the Whisperwind monks and coursing through their minds, massively slowing down their mental functions as Sartorius sprang forward, shrugging off his robes and exposing a body heavily improved by etherium, running at the Isakians at a speed far faster than a non-combative scientist should be able to manage.

When he had been younger, Sartorius and his mentor had been experimenting, going deep underground in search for different materials to construct automatons from, when some form of Unbound elemental had emerged, attacking the research party. Sartorius's mentor had quickly killed it, but the creature had exploded into dissolving aether-plasma that had murdered all of the research party but him and his teacher, who had both been gravely wounded.

Then, as their souls were about to depart, they were dragged out of the path to the afterlife and deposited in another realm, landing on a disc split into five equal sections that spun through an oasis of stars and magic, that he had come to know as the Eternal Realm, though it had been empty at the time. There his mentor, who's face was concealed by a bulbous glass mask, had imparted upon him the truth of the world, and Sartorius had inherited the aged man's membership of the Confederacy, assuming the immortal role of Gamma and wearing the glass mask, gaining the memories that came with it.

When Sartorius had awoken, he had opened his eyes and a wave of Blue mana had washed across the hospital room, reducing the two operating on him to drooling, mindless beings as their minds were obliterated by the magic the death of the elemental had locked within him. However, the enigmatic woman that he would soon realise was a sphinx had been perfectly unharmed, and unperturbed by the death of her aids had reconstructed his body out of etherium, the first person to have that done to them in the material plane. She had asked him if he wanted to replace his eyes, and he had refused, instead asking for a helm to be constructed, the design identical to the one he wore in the Eternal Realm when he assumed the identity of Gamma. That had been over one hundred years ago, a testament to the longevity-inducing properties of etherium.

Now that he was in combat, the magic locked within his eyes exploded out, stunning the Whisperwind fighters but not killing them because of the training their minds had undergone to prevent telepathic interference from the League of Thrazek after they had once done so to cause disruption throughout the Republic, although the motives behind it were still unknown though the perpetrator had been killed by the other Thrazekis.

Sartorius shot forwards, two long identical blades of shining metal sliding out of the slots on his etherium wrists as he thrust his arms at the Isakians. The man was too slow to block, his reaction speed dramatically hindered by seeing Sartorius's magic-infused eyes, and was impaled by the left blade that slammed into his throat, blood spraying out over the metal floor of his sanctum. The woman, however, was faster than her murdered comrade, and managed to deflect the point of the shard blade away from her with her katana, forcing the weapons to scrape together in a shower of sparks as Sartorius pushed with his unnatural strength due to his mechanical improvements, the purity of the machine far more potent than any biological force. He then shifted his grip, the woman's mind still fighting against the force of the magic bleeding out of his eyes, sheathing his other blade and letting the body slump to the ground.

Sartorius reached round, enchanting his left arm with ethereal magic that made its metallic form insubstantial, and pushed it through the grinding blades and through the woman's head. He then deactivated the enchantments, his hand becoming solid once again as he opened it out, his metal fingers smashing through the woman's skull from the inside and splattering the remains of her head over the floor and his arm. The man's face was still blank through all of the killing, and instantly began a teleportation spell that only five individuals, including himself, knew, taking him to the Eternal Realm and away from meddling Isakians.

When Sartorius was on the cusp of departing the material plane, he sensed a strong will, more mentally disciplined than any he had encountered before, including the Hegemon, though the sphinx had more mental power to call upon, intercepting him and dragging him back. The neutrality on his face changed into an expression of shock, as instead of emerging onto the disc of the Eternal Realm Gomor was instead deposited on the central courtyard of the Sapphire Citadel, the Plaza of Enigmas. Sartorius's eyes were immediately drawn to a lone figure in the centre of the plaza, his implants informing him that the man had a huge amount of carefully controlled mana inside of him.

"Sartorius Gomor," the man said, his ancient voice cutting through the cold air, as the Hegemon had designed the Sapphire Citadel to be free of the humidity present throughout the other islands of the Republic, though the League of Uveria was mostly situated on mainland Magnus-Primae. The man's voice was deep, like the personification of natural harmony and balance itself, and though his eyes were milky and blind from age they still had an intensity and Sartorius felt like they could see to the core of his being, as if judging whether he was worthy to hear the truth of the world. "You are meddling with forces far beyond your control."

The Elder Sage Juyan, despite being younger than Sartorius by a few decades, spoke down to the scientist as if he was just an unruly student that had failed to grasp the correct method to passing his training, and it clicked in the Uverian's mind that Juyan was not simply talking about his dealings with the Welkalite revolutionaries. Did Juyan know his true motives behind supplying them with technology? He doubted it, as the Confederacy was extremely secretive, so much so that they would put the League of Thrazek to shame, and each member was immune to mind reading, but maybe something had spurred the Elder Sage to look into it.

"I cannot let you leave. The world's balance is fragile, and I can sense that you are subtly tipping it in one direction, though the motives behind your actions are currently unclear. However, you are a murderer, and as such I will be forced to subdue you," the man spoke, and in spite of the age of his limbs the Elder Sage moved each one in perfect harmony, as fit as a man a third of his age. _What a waste,_ Sartorius thought, musing over how powerful the man would be if he could be augmented by etherium, though he knew the inner circle of Isakian Sages found the mechanical enhancements abhorrent, whilst the newer generations of members of the League were indifferent.

Sartorius slowly prepared himself for a fight, tensing his inorganic limbs in readiness, though he silently calculated that his chance of victory was minuscule, unless he revealed his secret weapon – he ideally wanted to avoid using that against someone so historically learned as the Elder Sage, as it may inadvertently reveal his plans and compromise the hundreds of plots set in motion by the Confederacy.

It was bad enough that Juyan was confronting him, but the darkness would consume them all if the plans were discovered before they were enacted.

He fused Blue mana through his etherium body, feeling it coursing through the few biological veins he had left but rising in power when it touched the Sancturia metal, the magically-attuned substance amplifying his mana and making Summoning Sartorius Gomor's usual creature laughably easy.

Juyan watched impassively as a huge vortex of azure swirled above the Uverian, pieces of etherium tearing off from the ground and nearby buildings and being sucked up into it. Then, a huge sphinx emerged, the cat-like body of the creature covered in sapphire feathers leaving the occasion patch of pink skin bare, though they were uniform and symmetrical.

Deep blue wings extended from her back, framing a golden and azure mask that regarded the Elder Sage with the curiosity one shows to an interesting insect before stamping on it, though Sartorius knew Tethius was nowhere near strong enough to defeat the monk unless he got extremely lucky and the man overextended himself. Juyan stood still, poised to spring into combat, and wielded no weapons, but Sartorius was aware of how the man blended physical and magical techniques in consummate accord, and the symbols tattooed onto the back of the Elder Sage's hand flared with White, Blue and Red mana. Tethius called upon Blue mana, and the shards of etherium hovering around her were formed into a large number of thopters, aerial artifacts that were held aloft by metallic wings and buzzed, the sound like a robotic rendition of a swarm of flies.

Then, just as he sensed that the battle was about to begin, another gigantic tricolour mana presence appeared, eclipsing the Elder Sage in its intensity, and Sartorius swept his gaze to the sky as a large portal opened and another sphinx made her way onto the Plaza of Enigmas. Sharuum the Hegemon was significantly bigger than his own Summoning, and the Unbound master of the League of Uveria's face was twisted in annoyance, echoing the expression that her false human form but distorted by belonging to a being of much greater proportions.

Intricate and dark etherium made up the majority of her lower body, with incredibly rare rubies inlaid into her black forelegs.

A huge etherium headpiece surrounded her imperious biological features, and unusual gemstones orbited it, taking their places each side of her head in flawless symmetry, each pair moving at its own speed and with its own position. A single unique crystal of a material unknown to Sartorius took its place in the centre of her forehead, levitating just above the skin, and majestic white wings with colossal natural feathers that reminded the scientist of the few images he had seen of Lucaelian angels, though they exuded a magisterial aura instead of a divine one.

A few figures swathed by robes teleported onto the ground underneath the sphinx, the fabric of their clothes blown about by the beating of Sharuum's wings, and Sartorius quickly shut his helmet, though the magic infused within his eyes since that fateful day would have little effect on those in front of him.

The Magisters, a council of advisers that served the Hegemon and whose members constantly changed due to her whims and little patience for under-achieving, were supposed to represent the pinnacle of human scientists in the League, and Sartorius had once been offered a place there by Sharuum for the help he had given her in overthrowing the Maestro, but he had respectfully declined knowing that she would probably tire of him and discard him like a broken artifact, and that all his time would be taken up by the great work ahead of him – which it had.

The Magisters sneered haughtily at a "lesser scientist", perhaps not aware of who he was or simply not caring because he wasn't a part of their order, though Sartorius could guarantee that after a few months half of those here would be fresh faces. Then, he stopped paying any attention to them, turning his gaze back up to Sharuum, who glared down at the Elder Sage.

"Juyan of the League of Isak," she spoke, the timbre of her mystical voice quite potent, and she spoke as if he had inherited thousands of different factors from many alternate dialects, both human and Sancturia. The tone was imperious and indignant, though there was a malevolent undercurrent that made Sartorius glad he was not the object of her wrath, and the sphinx continued. "What are you doing in _my _citadel?"

"Sharuum the Hegemon," the man replied calmly, as a maelstrom of White, Blue and Black gyrated around the addressed, a force that made Sartorius feel like he was just an insignificant animal in the grand scheme of things, like everything was underneath the sphinx and that mortals were nothing more than idle entertainment before she grew bored of them, "I have come to capture Sartorius Gomor and bring him to a trial in Orchid Eye for judgement. He has already murdered the Whisperwind emissaries sent to detain him, but more than that: that man is upsetting the delicate balance between the material realm and Sancturia, though to what end I do not yet know. I hoped this would allow me to find out. Mighty Sharuum, if you would just let me take custody of him, then -"

"Then what, _boy_?" the Hegemon spat, her face suddenly creasing in anger whereas before it had been set in curiosity, as if she had spontaneously decided she couldn't be bothered listening to the Elder Sage anymore. Juyan didn't react in any way to her insults, though Sartorius supposed that for an almost timeless being like Sharuum, any mortal's life would seem extremely brief, a single grain of sand in the hourglass of time compared to her own sea-bed's worth. "What makes you think that you would just sneak into my domain without my permission, and persecute my scientists? I'm sure poor Sartorius was just acting in self-defence when your assassins assaulted him. You Isakians constantly profess to be wanting to keep the balance, the peace, between the Leagues of Thought in Yentar and the Yentarian Republic with the other factions, yet I see little evidence of this. I will give you one chance. Leave my territory peacefully, or I will personally ensure that your precious "natural wonders" are coated in the purity of metal, and that the remaining members of you League are enhanced by etherium. Waste my time any more and I will have a particularly painful existence in store for you."

"Your threats mean little to me, sphinx," Juyan responded coolly, "But I agree, I shall not waste your time any longer. You are aware that Sartorius is a genius, correct?"

"Of course," Sharuum snorted condescendingly, and Sartorius thought that for a second the Elder Sage was going to reply with an "Evidently not," but the man restrained himself as not to offend the Hegemon. "Do you not think that it is strange that despite his intelligence, Sartorius has only performed at an average rate, quietly succeeding instead of making massive scientific breakthroughs?"

"I wasn't aware you had access to my records," Sartorius cut in, glaring at the Elder Sage despite the fact no one could see, but when Sharuum sent him an irritated and cold glare he backed down.

The situation was slowly spiralling out of control, with the leaders of two Leagues of Thought near him when he needed to teleport to the Eternal Realm, as one of the connections had already begun but could not properly start if he didn't arrive. The thought of being detained filled him with fear, not for himself, but for the failure of a century of planning and the consequences that would bring on the entire world. If it came to it, he would be forced to use his secret weapon, and call upon the aid of his Confederates who would utilise theirs, but even then they might not be able to defeat the Elder Sage and Hegemon if the two worked together without incurring casualties, and there was not enough time to induct new replacement members before the time came for their plans to reach fruition. He desperately hoped that Sharuum's fondness for him would prevent her from giving him away to Juyan, as although he could enact the last resort to prevent him from being interrogated the loss of Gamma could be extremely detrimental.

"Please do continue, Juyan, because although I do like Sartorius I also enjoy watching him squirm," the sphinx laughed, her inscrutable gaze turning to one of amusement and Sartorius was sure he would have paled if he retained that biological function. The Elder Sage cleared his throat, and acquiesced to Hegemon's wishes, "Obviously Sartorius is up to something, and it may come as a shock to you, but he has been breaking the Edicts of the Republic and supplying Welkalite revolutionaries with weaponry, vehicles and teleportation technology."

Sartorius stiffened, but if Juyan had expected Sharuum to react with shock then he would be severely disappointed. The Hegemon idly examined one of her metal nails, and her eyes flicked back to the Isakian intruder. "Oh, I knew that. Do you really think that anything that happens in my Sapphire Citadel gets past me? I let him do it because I find the whole Welkas situation incredibly amusing, and evidently Sartorius does too," the scientist capitalised on the chance to nod in agreement, hoping it didn't reflect the panic he felt, "So what now, Juyan? I'm getting bored now."

"Are you truly that blind to what is happening to the barriers between Sancturia and the material realm?" the Elder Sage demanded, Red mana flaring up inside him, and Sharuum stared back scornfully at the impulsive colour of mana making its presence known in a crimson aura beginning to surround the aged Isakian. "They are weakening, and your Sartorius has something to do with this!"

"Watch your tone with me, mortal whelp," the sphinx growled, raising herself to her full height as she landed in front of Juyan, his robes sent billowing in the force of the displaced air as controlling and dominating mana of Sharuum pulsated around her in intricate patterns that etched unknown symbols around the resident of Sancturia, "And do not presume to think you know more about Sancturia then I do. I have studied it for years, whereas the closest you come to knowing it is through your Summoning. I can detect no problems concerning the barriers between realms, and whatever Sartorius is doing he is not threatening them."

Sartorius suddenly decided then that he needed to leave, despite the Hegemon remaining sceptical of Juyan's beliefs, though the Confederacy was not eroding the fragile walls between worlds, they were responding to it, as something far more sinister was doing that. He primed his teleportation spell, Blue mana surrounding him, and felt the Elder Sage conjuring up his counterspells that would drag him back to the material plane.

"I think not," Sharuum scoffed, the absolute will of her mind smothering the Isakian's generation of mana, who could not begin to challenge her mental might without his own Sancturia creature by his side, allowing Sartorius to dissipate into flecks of sapphire that drifted to the ground, the space he had once been in now empty. Juyan's blind eyes opened wide in shock at the Hegemon preventing him from nullifying Sartorius's escape plan. He turned to the leader of the League of Uveria, his wrinkled feature crinkling in startled surprise and outrage.

"What have you done?" he asked in horror, and the sphinx favoured him with a thin smile. She shrugged her etherium shoulders, the wings beating the air in that motion, and said, "I stopped you from blocking Sartorius's departure. Is there a problem with that?"

"You have no idea what chains of motion he may set in place!" the man cried, as the Magisters surrounded him, though they kept at a safe distance. "Why would you just let him leave?"

"Because," she stated coolly, "I find your indignation incredibly entertaining. I think that you fail to understand that the purity of the machine is eternal, and no matter what Sartorius may be plotting, it will forever remain that way. I have always found you too self-righteous, too convinced that only your view of the balance of the world is correct, and it was about time to put you in your place. Now you will leave, or I will destroy you."

Shaking his head in disgust at what the League of Uveria had become, Juyan left the Plaza of Enigmas in a quiet burst of wind, and Sharuum smiled.

.*.*.*.

Sartorius suppressed his own personality, assuming the role of Gamma as he crashed into the Eternal Realm, instantly assaulted by a barrage of demanding questions from Alpha.

"Gamma! What was the cause of your delay?" the man questioned, leaning forwards out of his section imposingly, his baroque bronze armour seemingly even larger now that he was interrogating Gamma, who replied in the clinical and detached voice he always utilised, "I was delayed by the arrival of Juyan, Elder Sage of the League of Isak, who was aware of my dealings with the Ja'an Guard in Welkas and of the disruption present in Sancturia, though he did not know what it was. He attempted to detain me to ascertain my motives after I had deleted all records of my research in my sanctum, and I was forced to kill two Whisperwind agents when they confronted me before the Elder Sage. However, before he could do so, Sharuum the Hegemon appeared and the two talked." he recounted, ensuring that he did not miss a single detail out.

"She revealed that she knew about the supplying of technology to the revolutionaries, though presume it was because I found the internal conflict in the Empire amusing like her. However, she did not know about the growing threat, and did not believe Juyan's words about it, as he had little evidence past what he felt. I could only depart because she crushed his counterspells, and Sharuum did not seemed concerned at all by Juyan's statements."

"Let us hope it stays that way," Alpha responded tersely, "Apart from that, is the situation in the Yentarian Republic as we planned?"

"Yes. By the time their suspicions grow to the point where they would act, we will have already completed our duties," Gamma answered, "They will not interfere."

"Welkas is also progressing as planned," Alpha stated brusquely, swivelling his gaze to the other members of the Confederacy, all veiled by the masks they all wore, which greatly reduced the amount of trust, and therefore teamwork, they showed to each other. Gamma was fine with that. He preferred to work alone, without others distracting him. "The Resistance has caused enough chaos, and their route will make the Masters of the Orders of Passion feel more confident. The mobilisation of forces is also exactly as we anticipated."

"The Erian Conclave isn't going to cause any problems!" Epsilon squealed enthusiastically, punching the air as if to reaffirm their point, as their gender could not be identified from high pitched voice alone. Gamma scowled behind his helm, but the child had been one of the original Confederates so anyone who undertook the mantle of Epsilon would also be one, despite what they may look like in reality, though if Epsilon was anything like Gamma then they would be very similar to the part they played. "Everything is happy here! Everything is-"

"Excellent," Alpha growled, cutting in and silencing the child's babbling, turning towards Delta, who stared impassively back. "And Lucael? Is the Kingdom of Light in the right position?"

Delta seemed uncertain for a moment, and Gamma sensed that she was feeling guilt over what they would have to do to safeguard the future of the world, but instead of replying nervously she drew herself up straighter and returned with an assured, "Yes. Yes it is."

"I should hope so," Alpha said, "They are arguably the faction we will have to manipulate most, though we all know that."

Beta then sighed sadly, and the armoured man glowered at him, snarling, "Tell me you still do not have doubts, Beta? There is no turning back now: plans have been set in motion, and stopping them now we be even more catastrophic than if we were never to have intervened in the first place."

"It's just … no one should ever have to go through that, especially not a child," he exhaled deeply, the noise immensely melancholic and aptly capturing his doubts, though he had been the one to argue the most about the plan. Personally, Gamma didn't care, knowing that sacrifices would have to be made if the world was to survive.

"We are doing this so that no child will ever have to again. We are doing this so that new children can be born, and live happy lives," Delta put in, her voice infused with a steely conviction, her former hesitation and uncertainty gone.

"Is that what you tell yourself? Is that how you live with the amount of lives we have ruined?" Beta questioned sullenly, though his tone carried anger. Delta glared at him, but it was Epsilon who spoke next, the Confederate's childish voice tinted with a thoughtful sadness far beyond his apparent age. "It is our duty to live with it, for the sake of the world. Once we are done, we can fade into antiquity, and no one will know of the things we, and others, gave up to save the world. No one will know, and the world can continue on. It is sad that we have to destroy lives, and it sometimes makes me cry, but that is what we must do so that everyone can be happy."

Gamma could have snorted derisively at the child's overly optimistic statements – Delta and Epsilon seemed convinced that just because what they were doing would ensure the survival of the world, it would become some sort of paradise bereft of war. How stupid. There would always be war, violence, famine, pestilence and death, and their actions wouldn't change that, but that was the way of the world, and was much preferable to the alternative should the Confederacy not be acting. Gamma briefly wondered who his compatriots were before they ascended, what nation they belonged to, what personal beliefs they had, but soon shoved those meaningless thoughts aside.

"I … suppose," Beta relented, shaking his head, though it was far too late for doubts now. If Beta had wanted to do something else, then he should have never assented to their present course, and now his thoughts were irrelevant.

"So everything is in place for stage two," Alpha proclaimed, "And remember: We do this for the greater good."

"For the greater good," each other member of the Confederacy replied in unison, their all their voices were coloured with different emotions, like a beam of incandescent white light refracted into many different scintillating hues.

.*.*.*.

_Day Nine_

.*.*.*.

"Mu-" Caiellis stifled the cry as he awoke, his tired eyes cracking open and reality whisking him away from the image of the demon's long claws through his impaled mother's stomach as it cackled maniacally, the woman's green eyes full of sadness at never being able to see her children grow up and live the rest of her life with Marik, that Alexander and Caiellis would life the remainder of their lives without a mother, and current horror at the danger her precious boys were in – four year old Cai had realised that in her selflessness, Emili had not spared a single thought for herself, or the fact that she was dying, her eyes suffused with concern for her young family, and nine years later that still made Cai want to burst into tears.

He registered with a jolt that he had never prayed for his mother's soul, but then again he, nor Alex, the Capitalia Lux Light-bearers, or his father, believed in the angel-worshipping religion, and neither had his mum. However, the youngest prince had quietly talked out loud before, an idea coined by Alex to comfort him, who was certain that Emili would be able to hear their words and passing that belief onto his little brother.

Then again, checking for sunlight was another way to remember his mother's passing, as Emili had come up with the idea, infusing her children with excitement though Alex had experienced it before and was more looking forward to his little brother being able to as well. She had invented the game when he was two and Alex was six, and Cai although the older boy had stopped doing it himself, as one could see through the curtains whether or not it was sunny, he had persisted in doing it for Caiellis after their mother's death. Though he still did it, Cai never felt as excited as he had when he was younger and his brother and mum had given it a sense of mystery about whether the next day would be sunny or not, as he guessed he had just come to terms with Lucael not being graced by sunlight.

He remembered lighting a candle with his brother at the first city they came to after about a month, Civitas Sol, and couldn't stop crying despite the older boy trying extremely hard to soothe him, hugging him close and telling him that mum had gone to a better place.

He already knew that it wasn't sunny, but went through the ritual motions of pulling the curtains in his grandparents' guest room that he and Alexander had often shared open and staring out into the darkness.

It had snowed more overnight, but not to the extent that it was unusual because Lucael was naturally a cold nation and winter brought on freezing temperatures, and Cai extrapolated that if the weather continued on at its current rate the only obstructions would be caused to the city in about a week's time, and according to his dad's plan they should be nearing the Lucael/Welkas border by then. Plus, each city had a team of dedicated community workers that would help clear the streets.

He could smell cooking, and though it was mouth-wateringly good his stomach still protested at the prospect of food, despite having the meal last night and the fact that he hadn't actually eaten _that_ much according to other people. Caiellis pondered having his shower before going downstairs, and checked his new watch – 08:32.

It was still relatively early, but then again his grandparents and mother had always been light sleepers, and Cai had definitely inherited that trait. He was sure that Alex could just activate something inside his mind that made him instantly fall asleep, or alternatively wake up whenever he wanted. His older brother slept deeply but could still enter readiness almost instantaneously, whereas Cai drifted fitfully between consciousness and the dream world, and took far longer to get to sleep.

Though his conversations with Orzhova were preferable to nightmares, the dark seraph had insisted that he stop going there when he went to sleep because it didn't give his mind the rest it needed, and thus would feel even more tired in the mornings then he already did. Despite the fact that it was still early in the morning, getting to the Scia Atria before the day's objectives would truly begin wouldn't hurt, and Cai resolved to get his shower before breakfast – maybe then he would have more of an appetite.

He opened up his suitcase and took out his clothes for the day, as in the evening he would be transferring to the Lucerna suite in the city hall, and opened to door to the corridor, his eyes alighting on the mahogany cabinet in the centre of the upper floor passageway between rooms. There were numerous portraits, some framed above the cabinet and some placed upon it, and most of the people depicted were unknown to him, probably Rosa and Percival's other relatives, which also made them his. The boy wondered how many half-cousins he had on his mother's side, as he knew that he didn't have any on his father's, as Garius II and his late wife were both only children and Johnias obviously hadn't had any offspring of his own.

He smirked when he saw the picture of him, his brother, father and mother together captured by a mana camera, something that had at the time only just been invented by researchers in Lucael but had been around in Yentar for years. The youngest prince had been three at the time, though his brother was eight because of the short one month gap between their birthdays, and this photograph wasn't the official one which his grandparents had downstairs. Cai fondly recalled the time, as just as the camera was about to activate and they all looked smart and ready his big brother had pulled him into a headlock with one hand and made the peace sign that some of his older friends had told him about (or it could have been Tristram) with his other, grinning mischievously. Marik looked furious, turning to reprimand his eldest, and Emili was laughing happily just as the picture was taken.

Caiellis liked this one much more than the official picture, as although it was quite nice and the surprised look on his three year old features as Alex grabbed him was embarrassing, it just seemed more genuine than the smiles they all wore on the proper version, after Alexander had been shouted at by their dad.

Marik had purchased several copies of the official version and left, dragging his eldest with him, but Cai had remained with his mum and watched her buy the first one, who couldn't understand why she wanted the one that dad said was awful, explaining to her tiny youngest with a wide smile that she wanted to cherish the memories.

Cai snapped himself out of his reverie, belatedly realising that he had always stared at that photograph whenever he emerged from his grandparents' guest room, and almost bumped into Percival as the man ascended the stairs.

"Whoa there, little one," the man smirked, narrowly avoiding the collision as his thin grandson slipped past him, with a murmur of, "Good morning, granddad. I was just going to get a shower before breakfast."

"Mornin' Caiellis," Percival replied, going into his own room as Cai went into the bathroom, looking forward to revitalising his limbs with steaming water. When he had finished and got dressed, he descended the stairs and was greeted warmly by his Nanna, who looked tired but still pleasantly contented. They sat down for breakfast at the table in the dining room, though Caiellis was certain the table was just the right size no matter how many people sat around it, remembering the short dinner he had had in the Sola Atria with his father before arguing and leaving – then, with four people around it, the oak table in the very formal hall had seemed far too huge.

Just as he was about to finish his slice of toast, feeling full despite the amount of food his grandmother had cooked, figuring that he would need his winter attire that he had also brought with him, which consisted of mittens, a hat and the ubiquitous scarf that helped conceal his identity and had been knitted the last time he saw his grandparents, though if Alex's teasing about him looking adorable would be anything to go by then Jenna would probably think so too, and Cai wasn't entirely sure cute was the impression he wanted to give off, there was a knock at the door.

"I''ll get it," he told them, springing up out of his chair as his grandparents struggled with their old bones, as Uncle Tybalt often put it when describing himself, and walked the short distance to the kitchen, Rosa following just behind him.

He opened the door, and was greeted by the visage of Jenna, who looked remarkably woken up despite the day's earliness and the fact that he knew the Yentarian was an extremely deep sleeper. Cai could see Ruthia, her red hair stark in the whiteness of the outside, who gave him a respectful nod, smiling eagerly. Next to her was Aymer, the armoured and giant man looking out of place in the Noctis garden, and judging by the look on the man's face he was feeling obtrusive. The littlest Lucerna briefly thought about why they had thought it necessary for three people to come fetch him.

"Good morning, Lord Caiellis," Jenna said brightly, noticing the prince squinting in bemusement at her random decision to use his title, and Rosa appeared at the boy's side. The Yentarian and the praetorians assigned to Caiellis nodded their heads at the woman, who looked vaguely confused at the genuine gestures of respect. "You must be the prince's grandmother. I'm Jenna, his logistical aide, and these two are bodyguards. Hierarch Martha decided she wanted a bit of time before the day's agenda commenced to teach Caiellis about the nuances of taking command of a city, so we've come to fetch him. I hope we aren't intruding on anything."

"No, not at all. Well then, Jenna, uh..." Rosa drifted off, glancing at the praetorians, who smiled at the aged woman and introduced themselves, "Ruthia, Aymer, we were just having breakfast. Would you care to join us?"

"That's very kind of you, but..." Jenna was interrupted by the much older woman, "Oh no, I do insist. You must come in out of the cold. Caiellis's appetite is very small, and I always cook too much just in case we have visitors such as yourselves. Tea?"

Jenna smirked, sharing a glance with Cai, who just shrugged his shoulders, "We don't want to be a bother, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt. I'll have three sugars please."

"One and a half, please. And thank you for your hospitality," Aymer added nervously, which made Caiellis narrow his eyes. Ruthia then said, "I like mine black, thank you. I'm sweet enough already." she joked, sniggering at the glance Jenna shot the younger woman.

"Caiellis, be a dear and go make the drinks please," Rosa said, and the boy smiled, replying in a manner similar to his older brother, "Will do, Nanna."

He walked back inside the kitchen, preparing the kettle and infusing it with mana so that it would activate – despite not being as technologically advanced as the Yentarian Republic, Lucael was filled with mana-fuelled appliances, although such things were not used in warfare as technology and the Lucaelian fighting style didn't mix, the army much preferring cold steel, righteous fury and the aid of heaven to artifact constructs.

"Do come in, it is freezing cold out there," the aged woman fussed, beckoning them into her household, but Jenna respectfully declined. "Sorry, but we don't want to cause any inconveniences to you. We will drink out here."

"Besides, I don't think Aymer would be able to fit in the doorway," Ruthia quipped, and the giant man shook his head abashedly, looking very self-conscious when the red-head punched him on the arm, the clang of her gauntlets on his metal armour quite loud and making Aymer look even more ashamed. Jenna glared at the two, and Rosa just laughed as Caiellis returned with the steaming mugs, joined by Percival who carried the last one.

"Here you go," announced the boy, passing over Jenna's drink to her and stepping out into the garden to give Aymer his, Cai's feet crunching on the snow, though he had pre-emptively slipped his shoes on. The man took the proffered cup with a reverent bow, carefully handling the delicate china to ensure that he didn't crush it with his prodigious strength, blushing underneath the prince's scrutiny. The six stood in somewhat awkward silence for a few seconds, before Percival noticed Caiellis's shivering and clapped the boy on the back. "You should probably get your winter outfit on, laddie, before you freeze to death. Plus, you will be leaving soon anyway, don't want to be causing delays, do we?"

"That is true," Cai admitted, turning away from intently examining Aymer, who silently breathed a sigh of relief – he had sensed a slightly common soul in the burly man, how he seemed awkward and clumsy in social situations but could fight with superlative skill and grace. "I won't be long."

"He's a good kid," Percival mused when the boy disappeared, and his wife nodded in agreement, "They both are. Him and his older brother are both lovely boys."

Jenna, Ruthia and Aymer stared awkwardly at each other, wondering if they were intruding on something, and to break the silence the Yentarian added, "Yeah. You must be proud to be their grandparents."

"We are certainly. But angels above do they make us worry sometimes," Rosa affirmed, staring wistfully at the floor, and Jenna was briefly filled with a regret that made her want to sit in a dark room and cry until she was drowned by the tears, but then thought back to her family, her loving and supporting parents in Notoshi, and her kid sister at the Scholaria Magnus who she had spoken to last night using her own personal mana communicator that most Yentarians carried around with her. She thought of her best friend, the emotional young woman who had become part of the, for want of a better word, explosive League of Xechun and bawled her eyes out at Jenna's departure to Lucael, and a steely resolve filled her mind.

"Caiellis is a brilliant fighter though, and his usage of magic is some of the best I've ever seen," Aymer blurted out, his cheeks colouring at the outburst, though there was quite a bit of admiration present in the statement. Ruthia just laughed at her comrade's inelegant manner of talking, though she and Lancalo had often tried to teach him social etiquette in the past.

Although she was the newest member of the Lucerna praetorians, she still missed the eight other members of the group who would still be in Civitas Sol, four of which would be seconded to the eldest prince. She had only been in a single battle as part of the king's guard, the final conflict of the civil war outside of Cassida Principia, but it was one of the most bloody the kingdom had ever seen. King Marik had impressed upon her and the other three elite bodyguards the importance of defending his youngest son, and though he seemed like a necessarily cold and aloof man that was completely infallible and invincible, his eyes shone with parental pride and sadness, and Ruthia got the impression that there was some friction between Prince Caiellis and the monarch, though then again he was a teenager.

It was incredibly easy to forget that the Lucerna family was still human, as yesterday in the battle Caiellis had commanded them with flawless skill and fought with god-like power, the enchantments he gifted his soldiers with protecting them from harm, but now he was completing mundane tasks like making cups of tea he seemed much more like a young boy. Ruthia smirked when she thought about how many people had been afforded the honour of having a Lucerna make them a drink.

"Precisely why we worry," Rosa cut in, and Aymer faltered, staring anxiously at the ground, "People forget that he is only thirteen years old, and it is only those who have seen him out of the persona he has constructed for himself realise that he shouldn't be going to war."

Ruthia blinked in surprise at the heartfelt words, thinking that Drax, the leader of the praetorians, would have found them tantamount to treason. If any adolescent at the Scholaria Magnus thought that Alissa Gloria was strict, then they would soon re-evaluate their perception of things if they ever met her elder brother. Then again, it was a testament to how much the king cared about his youngest son that he had sent arguably the most powerful member of the royal bodyguard with Caiellis.

The grandmother soon shut up when Caiellis re-emerged from the house, clothed in cute woolly mittens, a hat and a scarf that he had pulled over his ominous birthmark, and made Ruthia think he looked adorable and wonder how handsome he would be if he was a few years older, possibly matching his older brother who was undeniably gorgeous. At first the eighteen year old had wanted to be matched with him, not quite trusting a pubescent and hormonal teenager to be her master, but after the defeat of Garod Morr she trusted him entirely.

"Aww, you do look cute don't you?" Jenna teased, patting Cai on the head and ignoring his furious and embarrassed glower, thinking that the older sister had a lot in common with his own sibling and therefore giving him more to relate on with Annia should he ever meet her again. Everyone laughed then – even Aymer gave a little snigger – and Caiellis huffed, folding his arms and pouting childishly. "Are you going to get moving then?" Percival inquired, and Cai looked at him, nodding his head sadly, "Thank you for letting me stay."

"You should know by now that it is a pleasure. You are growing up into a fine young man," Rosa added, making the boy blush even more, though it was hidden when he hugged his grandfather. "Be sure to pop in whenever you feel like it, and tell Alex to come visit us when he has recovered, the war is over and he isn't busy."

"Ok," Cai replied, and a sudden depressing thought overcame him. He had never really considered that the war could last years; for some reason his mind had just never thought about that – if the civil war against Johnias was anything to go by, it could last nine years. He would be twenty two when it ended if that happened, no longer a child, and the thought made him feel slightly hollow, despite wanting to grow up. He waved at his grandparents as he left through the garden, leaving the familiar and cosy home and fully prepared to assume his royal duties, as he knew that King Marik wanted the army ready within the week to begin the march on Welkas, and that there would only be a few battles before reaching Usnaan and the final engagement would begin.

He had a long few days ahead of him.

* * *

New Summonings and Sancturia creatures in this chapter:

Sartorius Gomor: Sharding Sphinx

Sharuum the Hegemon


	24. The Crusade Calls

Caiellis sat around the table in the main strategium room of the Scia Atria, one set up in a very similar manner to the version in Civitas Sol, just with less religious and ornate iconography and more copious amounts of information stacked up in towers of paper sheets that inspired equal amounts of tiredness just looking at the work and excitement to be able to delve into such a vast quantity of knowledge. Hierarch Martha had explained the basics of running a city, though had said that she and Guardian Weiss would still focus on day-to-day tasks whilst he could prepare the armies.

"I've prepared a timetable for you," Jenna stepped into the room, attracting the attention of Mysos who looked bored but still dutiful and winking at the fifteen year old. Caiellis nodded in thanks, accepting the offered sheet of paper filled with Jenna's scrawly handwriting, and then pulled the agenda he had created for himself after the talk with the Hierarch for the day. He cross-checked the two, and Jenna laughed. "You could have told me you had done your own. That could have saved me ten minutes."

"Sorry," Cai muttered absently, making a few changes to his own schedule that would better fit the day, though mostly he was quite happy with the way things were to progress.

He was going to review the different cohorts of the legion individually, with Guardian Weiss at his side, and speak to each leader about the troops and learn the names of the people he would be leading into battle, though personally Caiellis thought it was incredibly foolish that a person with little experience should be allowed to just assume command just because his father said so, and it spoke volumes of dad's confidence in him despite their almost constant arguing that he was willing to trust his thirteen year old with something that could potentially lead to the de-stabilisation of the kingdom if he was to make mistakes. The boy supposed that if he was quickly found wanting then either Marik would stop him from leading, or he would leave himself if he thought he was a failure.

"Do you need anything?" Jenna asked casually, leaning on one of the marble pillars that held the ceiling of the strategium up, and Cai noticed Mysos frowning at her nonchalance, the older boy sat dutifully in the seat to his right and was wearing his ceremonial armour that Xathan had had made for him, though the youngest prince was pretty sure Mysos had worn it into battle as well.

"I could do with a cup of coffee," Cai replied, as he felt exhausted because of his awful sleep full of nightmares and anticipation mixed with nervousness concerning what the day would bring. Jenna shook her head, a smile on her face. "Sorry, I can't get you that."

"Why not?" he asked quizzically, and the young woman just laughed, "Hierarch Tybalt came to me with a list of your allergies and things you shouldn't eat. I quote, "Never give the boy caffeine unless you want a hyperactive little maniac bouncing off the walls for the next two days,", and although I would probably find that hilarious I doubt any of the stony and serious Lucaelians would see it that way."

"Your aren't my mother," Cai pouted, and then added, "What if I order you as an exalted member of the Lucerna line to fetch me it?"

"Then I would have to respectfully decline, and since I am from the Yentarian Republic you technically have no authority over me."

Caiellis paused, mulling over the words and grinning at the victorious smile Jenna gave him, determined not to lose in this little game of verbally sparring, and turned to his champion. "Mysos, would you mind getting me a cup of coffee?"

"Of course, my prince," he bowed his head deferentially, the fact that he had phased out and not been listening to the conversation starkly obvious to his young liege, and stood up. Jenna rolled her eyes, "Mysos, don't listen to him."

The fifteen year old shot her a curious and annoyed glance, confused at why the logistical aide would question Caiellis's orders and attributing it to the stereotype of Yentarians constantly needing to inquire about the state of things, though he silently supposed that Cai was quite similar to one of them and could easily fit into their society, but the thirteen year old didn't possess the incessant need to obnoxiously question everything, preferring to keep his thoughts inside.

Mysos wondered, as he walked to the door to complete the task set to him, what the prince thought of him, and if he could do anything to impress Caiellis further. He hoped he appeared as a loyal, honourable warrior that was willing to protect the younger boy, but also was aware that Cai thought very differently to most people, especially in the fact that he didn't want to be called by his royal titles, and Mysos hoped that the fact he occasionally (_ok, way more than occasionally_) forgot didn't annoy him. Mysos thought about his friends back in Cassida Principia, some of whom had gone with him to the Scholaria Magnus but others who had remained behind, how they had all shared their thoughts and dreams and been open with each other, and found it hard to compare his relationship with Cai as one of friendship.

"Mysos, it's ok. You can sit back down," Cai called to his champion, though if he had anything to do with it Mysos wouldn't remain that way for much longer: not for any personal dislike of him or dissatisfaction with his fighting skills, as he actually didn't mind him and Mysos was a genuinely nice person, if a tad inflexible at times, but because of his age. In spite of the irony of him being younger, Caiellis didn't want children to be thrust into the forefront of brutal battle if he could help it, though he was under no illusions about how the older boy would take the dismissal, and would wait until the war actually started to do so. Drax, Lancalo, Ruthia, Aymer or several others were suitable candidates for the role, and Cai felt no particular chemistry with Mysos that would make him hesitate to give the order.

The champion gave him a bemused glance, replying with, "Caiellis? Do you want a cup of coffee or not?"

"No, it's fine. I was just testing you," he shared an amused meeting of eyes with Jenna, and Mysos shook his head despairingly, sitting back down beside the smaller boy, "Well I hope I passed it then."

"That remains to be seen," Cai said enigmatically, and then broke out in a wide smile that utterly diffused the drama his cryptic words had inspired. He then stood up himself, "Right, I'm going to go greet the generals and captains of the Scientia Mos legion, though only about two thirds of them will be going to war. We wouldn't want Johnias getting any ideas."

Noticing Jenna's puzzled expression, and deciding that since she knew more about Lucaelian culture than any other outsider, he elaborated, "Johnias, the Arch-Heretic, is my father's twin brother and plotted to overthrow him ever since he was named king in the Death Vision of King Garius II. No one anticipated his betrayal nine years ago, where he sold his First Sisterhood Angel, Serenity, to obtain an immensely powerful demon, using to to annihilate Gol and killing about nine tenths of the eight million population with the armies of Vectura, Crescia and Epulaeous, who had sided with him after their Light-bearers also partook in Infernal Contracts."

"At the same time, he had very specialised shapeshifter demons infiltrate the palace and kill my mother, Queen Emili Noctis, forcing me and Alex to be evacuated by the then former Hierarch Tybalt and not yet Guardian Tristram, where we fled demons and took refuge in different cities and in the abyss. The final battle outside of Mysos's home of Cassida Principia, where my father came very close to killing his brother, took place only a month ago. On my birthday actually, 11th of December."

"Holy shit," Jenna breathed, "And you were only four when the war started?"

"Yes. I watched my mum die right before my eyes, and I killed the demons by using Black mana that exploded out of me before falling unconscious," he replied evenly, though the gravity of his words could have sucked Jenna in and crushed her. Mysos put a hand on Caiellis's bony shoulder, who looked up in surprise at the older boy, not expecting it. He hadn't realised that he had started trembling, and hoped his eyes conveyed his gratitude to the larger fifteen year old before he slammed the cage back around his emotions.

"The might of Lucael prevailed again though due to the strategic genius and strength," Mysos declared proudly, thumping his other fist on his breastplate in a salute, and Cai added, "It wasn't just him. Every single person that helped in the war, from the loftiest Lucerna king to the lowliest photo-farmer providing grains for the loyalist armies, made a difference."

Jenna nodded her head in agreement, and then Mysos said, "The tale of the refugee princes is quite a famous one. I even met Prince Caiellis when he was six years old just before the siege of my home city Cassida Principia by the Fallen of Crescia, when my father duelled Garod Morr to protect the princes, the treasonous Guardian that Cai delivered judgement upon yesterday."

"Mysos pushed me into a table," Cai inserted mildly, smirking when the older boy blushed bright red, "So Alex, being the over-protective big brother that he is, beat him up."

"Yeah, sorry about that," he muttered embarrassedly, having hoped the youngest prince hadn't remembered that and honestly shocked that Caiellis had such a comprehensive memory of his experiences in the war considering that he had only been six years old at the time, "I don't know what came over me."

"So Mysos does have a disobedient side?" Jenna ribbed as the champion glared at her. Cai sighed, "No, I forgave him for it. He was only eight, and children do stupid things sometimes. I was definitely being a spoiled brat though. Anyway, enough of this. I need to go to the legion barracks to assess the troops."

He swiftly turned around to the door, quickly glancing at his reflection in a pane of glass to make sure that he looked suitably royal and imperious, though he would soon be covered in snow in the walk across the city, putting on an expression similar to his father's and then smiling at the seriousness of it, and then left the strategium, the information about the names of each captain of each division already memorised and etched into his mind.

The legion of Scientia Mos was far more focussed on magic than any other city, with the largest Mage Corps academy apart from Capitalia Lux in the kingdom to its name. There were many specialised branches of magic users in its military that Cai could deploy to suit a variety of different combat situations, with numerous distinct Summonings that the more prominent mages had access to. In Lucael, there was no shortage of those with fighting prowess, but those that were inadequate with weaponry but had extremely powerful magic were rarer – the prince reasoned that despite often participating in melee combat he belonged to that category, as the only reason he actually fought with a sword was because his was a relic weapon that amplified his magical strength, and it was weightless so didn't require any real physical power to utilise.

If the boy didn't have access to the Sword of Glass or something similar, he would be perfectly content to bombard his foes with spells instead and not get involved in the hack and slash brutality of close quarter combat. Cai saw it as something to be avoided unless it was necessary to accrue an advantage, and didn't see the glory apparently present in the holy task of slaying foes in close proximity in a righteous duel – the only reason he could think of it being so was that no angel as yet encountered fought without a weapon, even more magically attuned ones such as Hierarch Tybalt's Bruna, but then again even before the Unification and the establishment of Matalis Ortus Lucerna as the king and his descendants as the royal family that would protect and lead the people, melee combat had been venerated. Caiellis had resigned to just not understanding some human traits.

His bodyguard, who had been waiting faithfully outside of the room as Caiellis was being taught by Martha in the ways of governing the city, and the boy had told Mysos to come in and listen because there was a possibility he would inherit Xathan's role and not his two older sisters, whilst Jenna had gone to do some tasks she had set herself, snapped to attention the second he emerged, bowing their heads reverently but not staying that way long enough to requisite a response from the Lucerna.

"I am going to the legion barracks to examine the forces that will soon be under my command," he stated, not focussing on any individual member of his praetorians but instead analysing them all intently at the same time: Drax Gloria looked dutiful, and the disappointment that the man who was said to be the most prominent of the Lucerna Guard had shown at being torn away from his king's side and had made great pains to hide it on the monorail journey was now gone, though he was silently judging Mysos, Jenna and Ruthia, and to a lesser extent his other comrades, as if actively searching for mistakes that he could reprimand.

The red-head was eager, relatively enthusiastic for what was to come, though Cai knew her flames of Ruthia's heart were tempered into disciplined molten steel (the analogy didn't scientifically work, but he liked it anyway so was going to continue mentally using it) by the strictness of her mentor Oleic and now Drax, and would gladly lay her life down for her prince, or challenge enemies for him.

Lancalo seemed completely at ease, grinning and winking at Caiellis, a fact which no doubt immensely irritated Drax who was a stickler for protocol and respect, but Cai had seen the oldest bodyguard switch from appeared bored and inattentive to ready to act within an instant, and despite his leisurely manner was constantly examining the area around him for potential threats. Cai was reasonably sure he remembered Lancalo from when his mother was still alive, and that Alexander had adored him like he had adored every single man that was the epitome of how "big and strong" he wanted to become, including his father, who Caiellis had also idolised at the time although for different reasons.

Now that he was no longer out of his depth and clumsily fumbling around in the middle of a social situation that he was completely unused to, Aymer could be perceived as an imposing giant that would eradicate those that opposed or endangered the Lucerna line without mercy or hesitation, impaling them with his spear or crushing them with his bare hands, but Cai had observed his nice side and was much more inclined to view Aymer as a gentle giant, much like the other members of his guard did.

He was ridiculously privileged to have such a talented and potent mix of people at his side, and wondered what it would feel like to have all twelve at his side. The logical progression of his mind then induced a terrifying thought – even with all this, the army and the formidable generals, the Hierarchs and Guardians, and the Lucerna line itself that could call upon First Sisterhood angels, the fact that the forces of the abyss were still a very real threat that could possibility exterminate the Lucaelians at any time was a testament to the power of Black and those that followed its self-serving ways. Then Cai reminded himself that excluding King Acarn's blunder into the Erian Conclave's Deep Forest, which the youngest heir to the throne thought was utterly unnecessary, Lucael hadn't actually lost a war yet (despite being defeated in many bloody battles that less stubborn armies would have cut their losses and retreated from instead of being completely obliterated to the last man). Hopefully the first one he was actively involved in (he didn't count escaping the horrors of the civil war) wouldn't be the first loss as well.

Cai started walking again, with his praetorians falling into step behind him, and the praetorians swiftly came into step with Mysos and Jenna, matching his brisk pace easily because of the fact that his small size made it easy enough to catch up with, and the guards that perpetuated the Scia Atria nodded their heads towards him, saluting as the boy walked past despite him not knowing any of their names and Caiellis only doing one thing so far to aid Lucael (not counting the times he and Alex had helped to ensure their own survival as the heirs to the throne, especially very recently in Usnaan and when Aksua had attacked, though the little brother had done an admirable job of letting his sibling down then), but it would be frowned upon to publicly declare that he didn't want people respecting him for things he hadn't done, and would make him look like an idiot, naive and unready for the role as well as requiring confidence that he just didn't possess.

He walked into the gently falling snow, feeling like he should put his winter clothing back on but not wanting to look "cute and adorable", and anyway, he had put it in his Lucerna residence back inside the Scia Atria and didn't wish to appear stupid or forgetful by dragging them all back inside. Cai shivered in the cold, not able to repress his basic human reaction to it, and resolved to just deal with it as low temperatures were not the most formidable foes he had faced and overcome. In spite of that, he still felt grateful when an inquiring voice asked, "Lord Caiellis?"

"Please, just call me Caiellis or Cai," he responded automatically, attempting to flash a charming smile, but nearly had to crane his neck to look at the one who had addressed him, vaguely surprised to realise it was Aymer, who held out his own coat, his silver and golden armour now bare to the snow. An amused and gratitude filled smile worked its way onto his lips, as he realised that the ceremonial coat that had gone over the man's armour was about as large as him despite it only supposed to cover Aymer's breastplate.

"Thank you, Aymer." he responded pleasantly, as Jenna and Ruthia shared a glance and both almost burst out in laughter, sniggering under their breath as they tried with great effort to hold it in. Drax glared furiously at the two, Mysos looked comically confused, Lancalo just laughed and clapped Aymer on the back, who seemed quite sheepish when he realised how massive his overcoat was in comparison to the small Lucerna.

Cai put it on anyway – he had often worn Alex's jacket in the past when the older boy noticed his little brother shivering in the outside when they were running as Tybalt and Tristram covered their retreat and insisted he was fine (though he had once succumbed to hypothermia when he refused to take it back) in the freezing cold and that he couldn't stand to see the younger boy having difficulty, telling him that because he was more fragile and got ill more frequently, the illnesses also being more detrimental to his health than most Alexander had suffered, that Cai should wear it. The aforementioned Light-bearers had (though mostly Tristram) had donated their jackets to the youngest Lucerna on several occasions, so Caiellis thought he was used to oversize garments, and was correct, though the fact that he was able to wear it more like a shawl than an over-jacket was beneficial.

"Show some respect, Ruthia, or I may have to remove you from the Lucerna Guard, especially if Lord Caiellis is offended," Drax snapped when she and Jenna exploded in giggling when they couldn't suppress it any longer. She paled and straightened immediately, though it took the Yentarian a few moments longer to stop. "I apologise for the disrespect, Prince Caiellis. I swear on my Lucaelian honour that it will not happen again."

Cai narrowed his eyes at how tense the situation had suddenly become; he personally believed that Drax was antagonising the eighteen year old too much for genuine laughter, but then again Ruthia had only just been promoted to the Lucerna Guard and they had a notoriously strict entrance policy: only the best could be allowed to defend the Lucerna line, and if there were other suitable candidates and Ruthia couldn't control herself then maybe she shouldn't be permitted to remain a praetorian. He then almost laughed himself at how stupid that sounded – even though she was still young Ruthia was an exemplary fighter, and just because she had giggled at something actually funny shouldn't mean that there would be severe repercussions that could seriously affect her future career.

"No, it's fine. Ruthia, stand up, and what I said to Aymer applies to you all. Drax, though I do not presume to know how to run the Guard, I like Ruthia, and she is an extremely skilful warrior, so I would prefer it if she was allowed to stay," Cai said calmly, noting Drax bristle imperceptibly before he repressed it when his brain identified who was speaking. Cai ignored the fact that he was blushing slightly, and that he was starting to breath faster, though at least he had stopped shivering because despite how stupid or how much like a boy playing at a man he looked, Aymer's overcoat was well insulated and he could see why the man wore it.

"Of course, L- Caiellis," Drax responded smoothly, shooting an angry glower at Ruthia over the embarrassment she had just caused him, and the girl hung her head in shame. Drax already knew that Caiellis wasn't very strict, and could sense that the prince was subjecting them all to his own private judgements, inwardly deciding whether or not they were worthy to serve him, and that by reprimanding Ruthia he had lowered his own standing in the boy's eyes.

Cai's mysterious, beautiful (like a jewel, Drax wasn't attracted to other men, and certainly not teenagers) and occasionally haunting green orbs swept over him, and he had inherited King Marik's inscrutable eyes, and although they were wide and expressive like a child's (as the boy still was one) they held a wisdom and intellect far beyond Cai's thirteen years of life.

He didn't know if he would rather be serving the youngest Lucerna or his older brother, who was guaranteed to be more open with his bodyguards and treat them like friends, and was definitely a better physical fighter, or King Marik, by far the most powerful of the living Lucernas, and who treated them like what they were: soldiers, though the monarch had said and shown that he appreciated them at his side, which was why Drax had been seconded to the man's youngest.

The reigning Lucerna had asked to see him privately after the order was given early yesterday morning, and had emphasised that he waned Caiellis to be protected, safe and that Drax had his express permission to reign in the adolescent or admonish him if he went out of line. The sadness in the king's eyes, as well as the parental pride, had motivated him to take the duty very seriously, not that he wasn't going to already.

Crossing the city's main streets to the barracks didn't take very long because of the efficient pace, though Drax noted the prince ensured he was in the middle of the group – not because Caiellis wanted to protect himself from any potential attack, but so none of the civilians that walked amongst the streets could recognise or notice him.

Just as they were about to enter through the large fortified doors and into the barracks, Cai ordered them to stop, handed Aymer back his overcoat, emerged from the centre of his praetorians, put on his best and most kingly smile and emerged from them, holding his head high and nodding his head magnanimously at the guards who instantly knelt in front of him. Cai may detest the respect he was shown, and hate the fact that the people felt the need to bow before him just because of the identity of his father and the fact that he possessed a First Sisterhood angel (albeit the most despised one), but angels above he was good at hiding that.

The guards pulled open the doors and Cai quickly strode in, trying to ignore the heightened beating of his heart and slow down his breathing, reminding himself that he knew Guardian Weiss relatively well and that there was nothing to be afraid of. _Apart from failure, appearing like an unsuitable heir to the throne, doing something stupid, freezing up because words leave your mind and you don't know what to say and just standing there, __making a decision that could cost the lives of thousands of your soldiers and potentially hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of civilians. Apart from that, you have nothing to be afraid of, _the pessimistic and worrying part of his mind snidely interjected, the mind voice halfway between a vindictive sneer and a frightened wailing.

The party emerged onto a balcony overlooking the main underground area of the barracks, with a stone stairway allowing one to descend to the lower floor. The interior of the primary barracks was a cavernous room, so big that it may as well have just been outside, and as far as Caiellis could see there were soldiers training with magic or with weapons. Some squads were practising marching in sync, whilst others hacked at wooden posts that seemed like they had been the recipients of millions of blows, and some sparred with each other. The boy could spot the occasional Sancturia creature, but this barracks was mostly concentrated on physical training and he was planning to visit the Scia Academy later to examine the mages that would be at his disposal. Though Caiellis could sometimes see incandescent sprays of magic, and feel White mana thick in the air as two generals, lieutenants of the Guardian, duelled with Weiss watching.

The room echoed with the clang of blades, and the thunderous, drumming sound of thudding boots aptly represented the thumping of his heart. Even though this was the largest barracks, there were many others scattered throughout the city, including the aforementioned Scia Academy, but the amount of people made him feel terrified and awe-inspired at the same time, and every sound seemed amplified by the blood rushing in his ears.

_Remember that you offered to give the speech before the march out of Scientia Mos to the entire army,_ his mind reminded him – at the time, he had thought it would be a good idea to face his fears and overcome them, and Hierarch Martha had been expecting the request, as that was what any Lucerna would have done and she probably wasn't aware of his speech anxiety, but was now regretting that foolhardy and arrogant decision.

As one of the lieutenants, a person that he didn't recognise from appearance alone but one that Cai had heard about through his exploits, soundly defeated the other, his golden glad angel, a Sister of Light and one of Numia's daughters, sweeping into a large elemental of White and Blue mana and slicing it apart, Guardian Weiss turned from the battle and smiled up at the prince.

The man was in his late fifties, but looked none the worse for it, and was one of the wiser Light-bearers. He had a thin, wispy moustache of white that he sometimes twirled in consternation, and a carefully trimmed beard of the same colour, though the rest of his head was shaved clean. Weiss wore his armour, and his two unusual blades were sheathed, the artefact weapons relics from the vaults of the palace that had been gifted to him by the previous king for the contribution to the Grafnica War, and his Second Sisterhood angel was an extremely potent daughter of Jenara, a Sister of Wisdom, and a tricolour angel like Jenara.

Caiellis's eyes flicked to the aftermath of the battle Weiss had been observing, two young men, both in their twenties, were clapping each other on the back, though one looked significantly irked whilst the other, the victor, was happy and playfully boasting in his triumph.

The one who had Summoned the Baneslayer Angel, the former Summoning of one of the most successful non-Lucerna generals the kingdom had ever seen, Seth Sophias, was called Ciaran Benelis and was the grandson of Hierarch Martha, elder cousin of Santhia. He had made a name for himself in the civil war, and Cai had only seen him once before because of the youth's enlistment into the army at the age of seventeen and so Caiellis had only met him a year before that, when he himself had still been four. Ciaran was now twenty-five, and tall and muscular like the vast majority of male Lucaelians, particularly the soldiers.

Just like with everyone who was bigger and stronger than him, Alexander had worshipped the then sixteen year old in their first visit to Scientia Mos without their mother, though Cai had been more disposed to disliking him because of the fact that he and Alex had incessantly teased him, though never to the extent that he felt sad because the older boy still knew how horribly depressed he was over Emili's death – Alex had been much better at pushing it to the back of his mind, but sometimes young Cai had heard his brother crying when his sibling thought he had gone.

_Are there not enough people that are older than me but still act childishly in my life? _He thought sourly, as Ciaran briefly stuck up his thumb at the prince still on the balcony, not long enough for anyone else to notice. Cai simply stared coldly back, pretending that he was too mature to acknowledge the gesture, though if it had been his older brother or someone else he knew better he would definitely have responded. Ciaran would be serving under him, and he didn't have enough time to build up an intimate relationship with every soldier under his command, but knowing about them would suffice.

He saw Drax scanning the crowds, and if anyone had yet noticed the Lucerna watching them to their credit they didn't react – more likely they were too wrapped up in their exertions. The fighting force was efficient and exemplary, despite being the city least famed for its military, but Lucael had been founded upon martial prowess and an attack from the abyss could come at any time (as it often had in the past, though now the metropolises were the safest they had ever been, and travel between the cities was much less treacherous) and tradition was very strong in the Kingdom of Light. The inflexible hierarchy was also a derivative of this, Caiellis had concluded a few years ago when his mind had continuously questioned about why the people were compelled to kneel to a little boy that couldn't even Summon.

The self-elected leader of the royal guard was silently assessing the training methods, looking over the soldiers with an expert eye tempered by many battles despite never actually having led an army himself, and because Cai felt no urgent need to descend into the main chamber he asked, "What do you think then?"

"It is very impressive," the man replied, his generic response not quiet encapsulating what he thought, and Cai responded with, "Indeed it is. But that is not all, is it?"

Drax glanced up at the prince, who was still staring inscrutably down into the crowds of soldiers, his green eyes belieing none of his inner thoughts, and he chuckled quietly, "No, not all. The legion of Scientia Mos relies too much on its magic to achieve victory instead of the power of its soldiery, and it shows in the training methods. Whilst they may look impressive to those not experienced in this field – no offence intended, my- Caiellis, and Guardian Weiss has done a sterling job making them look efficient and unstoppable, the exercises are more like what one would see at a parade ground than a legion barracks – they aren't gruelling enough."

"A parade ground," Cai repeated, wondering what the praetorian thought of the conversation they were having, as the other members of the group had spread out across the balcony and were chattering amongst themselves, and couldn't hear them, making the talk private, "As in, something one would show to the ruler of the kingdom, or one of his relatives? Maybe Guardian Weiss was just trying to make a good impression."

Drax shrugged his shoulders, and Cai could have smiled. While the man was incredibly strict to his equals and subordinates, and the fact that he was part of the Lucerna Guard placed him outside of the military hierarchy gave him a unique position to be able to speak freely about generals and Light-bearers that would otherwise have been his superiors, now that he was talking to someone unquestionably of a higher rank to him he seemed somehow and paradoxically more casual, though probably because his perfectionist streak was subsumed by his desire to be respectful to one of the Lucerna line. "Maybe. As I said, they rely too much on magic."

"Don't we all?" he asked idly, watching as Ciaran and the other lieutenant, who he didn't yet know the name of but would like to, began another duel, the former knowing he was observing but the latter not yet aware of it, "I mean, we all rely upon our Summonings to fight the most brutal battles, and Lucaelian history is full of angels delivering our ancestors from the jaws of defeat – and nothing has changed, or will."

"The history books do generally focus on the leaders of the armies, or those that makes the greatest names for themselves, rather than the more unspoken heroes of the common soldiery," Drax said quietly, as if lowering his voice so that no one would accuse him of treason, despite talking to a member of the royal bloodline. Cai snorted, "I know that. I don't know how blind or jaded you think I am, Drax, but the heroic deeds of the leaders are almost always over glorified. Especially if the leader in question is a Lucerna. That leads onto what I wanted to ask you: What is your opinion of me?"

"You are a-" Drax started, before the boy cut in, "There will be no repercussions for being honest, Drax, so I'd appreciate it if you were."

The praetorian blinked, stunned. He hadn't even started his sentence and Caiellis had already known he would just spout some form of flattery to try and appease him. "Very well then. As you already know, I had very severe doubts about you, because of your age and the Angel of the Black Sun, but after the demise of Garod Morr and your first military victory being flawless I re-evaluated my thoughts. If you don't mind me saying, you are not a typical Lucerna, or Lucaelian for that matter, and you are quite a bit different to your brother and father, though I do see a lot of what Marik used to be in you. You are very intelligent for your age, and certainly not spoilt, and you seem to understand your role in things, whether you like that role or not. From what I've seen you aren't a very passionate person, and your emotions don't have much of a hold over you, and I don't think you possess a sense of honour as controlling as many others."

"So you don't think I am very honourable?" the boy asked, amused. If only Drax knew the stranglehold his emotions had on him – just because he didn't react to perceived slights on some unquantifiable pride, or overtly show them very often, didn't mean that his feelings had any less of a hold upon him than anyone else.

"I meant no offence," the bodyguard quickly added, as a scintillating flash of White mana erupted from Ciaran's angel and destroyed the other lieutenant's Summoning once again.

Cai smiled, "I know you didn't. And it's true, I suppose. There is no honour in death, killing, or throwing away your life because of some meaningless pride or need to gain admiration in the eyes of your peers. I only want to eliminate the enemy leaders because most of the time I am the only one that will be able to prosecute such a task."

"Your father thinks in a similar manner," Drax replied, but the boy had already turned away from the balcony and was about to start walking down the stairs. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw Lancalo smiling at him, a glint of something that he couldn't quite identify in the slightly older man's eyes, but when he spun around to glare at him the glint faded, replaced by indifference. Lancalo had evidently heard his talk with the youngest prince, but the man shouldn't be getting any ideas about him treating the other praetorians any differently just because he had shown a softer side to the boy. Drax did get the feeling that Caiellis liked his advice, or his input, but couldn't be sure as the kid was quite enigmatic and gave little away about his inner thoughts. He was unpredictable, but then again Drax had got the same impression from King Marik when serving under him in the civil war, but what his son had inherited had been amplified.

Cai descended the stairs quickly as Guardian Weiss broke off from his observation of his sub-commanders duelling, striding towards the Lucerna at the bottom of the stairs. Several figures, those wearing the uniform of captains or higher ranks than that following in the Guardian's footsteps, and Cai successfully forced himself to remain calm. He was the one inspecting here, not them, and though he would still strive to appear worthy in their judgement, he wouldn't let it consume his other thoughts and suffocate rational thinking.

"Prince Caiellis. So nice to see you again," Guardian Weiss announced, walking towards the small boy and politely holding out his hand for Cai to shake, who did so. Every time he had seen Weiss, he had at first been formal to the princes but it slowly dissolved into informality, and Cai knew that the well-travelled and cultured man seamlessly blended harshness and affability with others. He had made had a positive impact on both princes, as Alex had admired his fighting skill whereas Caiellis liked his usage of logic, knowledge and intellect in outwitting his opponents – though both had been impressed by the sheer force of his tricolour White, Blue and Green mana.

The man's pale green eyes were lit up with enjoyment at meeting Caiellis again, causing the boy to wonder just how many people genuinely liked seeing him, and concluded that the number would be dramatically less had the war not happened and he hadn't been forced to flee across the kingdom for refuge before Johnias's warriors discovered their current sanctuary and attacked. One could argue – and some had – that they could have just stayed in Capitalia Lux, as even though it had just been proven to be unsafe they could have been protected, but Cai knew that if his father had devoted all his forces to keeping his sons safe then Johnias would be lounging on the throne now. He also pondered how many of the people in question preferred his much more outgoing, confident and amiable big brother to him, and decided it was almost all, with the vast majority of those remaining liking them both equally.

"I trust you find the portion of the army you have seen so far to be satisfactory?" Weiss inquired, stepping to the side of the boy and turning to look at the assembling captains and sweeping his arm out to encompass them. Cai nodded, the words _parade ground_ that Drax had spoken still fresh in his memory, and scanned the eyes of the lieutenants, all of which remained staring resolutely forward, though he could tell that Ciaran was resisting the urge to look back down and meet the smaller male's gaze.

"These are the generals that lead each division of the legion," Weiss explained, and Cai nodded again, knowing that they would be the most powerful fighters out of those under his command – he also knew that Weiss's protégés would be there, as Ciaran, his opponent, and an older and hard-faced woman were the most suitable successors of the Guardian when he either stepped down or died, however Martha's favoured apprentices would most likely be in the academy. The Scientia Mos Light-bearer nodded, a gesture that would have been imperceptible if Cai had not become accustomed to watching intently for movements from opponents so that he could counter them.

The first one stepped forward, an attractive young woman with bright blonde hair that Caiellis vaguely recalled as having dated Alexander at one point, despite being one or two years older than his brother, and proclaimed, "I am Decia, Captain of Division One of Cohort One under General Rateis (a stocky middle aged man that glared at her, probably exacerbating any nervousness she felt)."

White mana began to flare out of her, and Cai noted how she never even peeked in the Lucerna's direction, most likely too afraid to find disdain in the royal's expression, and Caiellis cocked his head to one side curiously before rectifying it as he realised that would put her off even more.

A medium sized griffin materialised into the world, with sparkling glimmers of many enchantments surrounding it that promised a much greater power than the Sancturia being's unimpressive appearance, and the griffin screeched its respects to the Lucerna before disappearing – from what Caiellis had gathered, it seemed like the creatures in Sancturia that were made of White mana mostly venerated the angels, especially those of the First Sisterhood, and so the Summoners of them were also apparently just as worthy of reverence.

Cai simply nodded, electing to remain silent but satisfied, though he was already thinking about what a creature with such an aptitude for auras could be utilised for. Decia then glanced up (or rather, down) at the prince, who favoured her with a quick smile that he hoped highlighted his approval, before turning as the next in line stepped out.

It continued on like this for a few minutes, with each of the higher-ups demonstrating their Summoning, and although he filed all of them away and was already devising some strategies for wielding them, some made more of an imprint on his mind than other's – Ciaran's Baneslayer angel that was called Luncindia was one of the most powerful Second Sisterhood angels he had encountered so far, though still paled in comparison to the might of the First. Then there was Serena, the other angel Summoner and one of Weiss's students, who could call upon the aid of Yuria, a Daughter of Feather that could conjure up flocks of Sancturia avians, who also seemed quite useful. When the last Summoning returned to it's residence in the Mind Realm of the Summoner, Caiellis piped up, mentally grimacing at how cringe-worthy the words he was about to say sounded in his head, "Amazing. I look forward to fighting alongside you all in the coming liberation of Welkas."

"Alrighty then. Let's see yours," Ciaran suddenly exclaimed, and almost everyone either glared at him or slammed their palms into their faces in dismay.

"Uh... excuse me?" Cai stammered nervously, completely taken aback by the random and unexpected reversal of the state of things, and the young man grinned enthusiastically at him, "Well, we just spent quite a while showing you our Summonings. I think it would be fair if you demonstrated yours, Cai."

"Watch your tongue, boy! Show some respect to your rulers!" Drax barked, glaring at Ciaran and placing his hand on the hilt of his sword, and Weiss muttered in Caiellis's ear, "Oh I do apologise. Ciaran seems to be quite like Guardian Tristram, as in he utterly ignores authority. This is quite embarrassing." he moved away, "Ciaran, please be quiet. The young prince does not deserve this disrespect."

"I … um," Cai stuttered, not really sure of how to respond to the spontaneous demand. He felt sorry for Orzhova for thinking these thoughts, but he really didn't want to Summon the Angel of the Black Sun in such a crowded place, as although Scientia Mos cared the least about his Black mana they still possessed the Lucaelian abhorrence of it. If he had any other First Sisterhood angel, then apart from Ciaran's rudeness he would have no compunctions about Summoning to inspire them, but the dark seraph that resided within his mind would almost definitely have the opposite effect.

"Why not? I mean, it's not like any of us are scared of the Angel of the Black Sun," Ciaran continued, ignoring the multitude of glowers he was receiving, and Cai noticed that those that knew the grandson of Martha well were moving closer to him, the lieutenant named Dolor that he had sparred with earlier tugging on his arm and whispering something in his ear, "Actually, since you seem reluctant, I hereby challenge you to an honour duel in the manner of the age-old tradition. First blood, or the first to have their Summoning defeated."

Dolor placed his head in his palms, Ciaran evidently completely disregarding his advice to stand down and stop being impolite, but now he had forced Caiellis's hand.

Due to his and Alex's youth, neither had ever been challenged to an honour duel before to resolve issues or disputes, but not even Lucernas were exempt from it, though they could choose to decline if Cai was inclined to do so – which he was. Marik had participated in a small few, one from his twin brother who had disagreed over the method in which something had been enacted, but his father hadn't lost any.

The duels could be dangerous, but there had only been a minuscule number of fatalities over the history of the kingdom, and Caiellis knew that Ciaran wouldn't hurt him. He was more scared about using his Black mana to defeat him, as his White wouldn't be solely powerful enough to best Ciaran, and the fact that he had to win to uphold Lucerna honour – the only times barring one when a Lucerna had been defeated was when they were pitted against another Lucerna. Cai wouldn't have expected this at all – most people were extremely reluctant to challenge a Lucerna, as it was considered extremely irreverent and disrespectful, and even then he wasn't in Cassida Principia, where honour duels were used to decide upon quite a lot, but in Scientia Mos, supposedly the most intellectually minded metropolis.

Mysos instantly appeared at his side, and said to the younger boy, "Caiellis, let me duel him. I am your champion, and it is my duty to uphold your honour."

Cai narrowed his green eyes, but Mysos's were almost pleading, and he knew this would have been the elder teenager's first contest of honour. He mulled over it, and weighed it up against the other options he had available, and turned back to Ciaran, who had an excited gleam to his bright blue eyes. "Please, my prince. I will duel for you."

"Just don't get yourself hurt," he murmured aside to his _friend, _and then turned back to Ciaran, who grinned as Guardian Weiss shook his head despairingly, and let his voice become stony and cold. "As my champion, Mysos will first duel you to settle whatever unknown dispute you have with me. If you are defeated, consider this business settled, but if he loses then I will fight you. Though mindlessly challenging people to duels will get you nowhere." he admonished, trying to sound adult.

"Good luck, Mysos!" Jenna called out as the two began to walk towards each other, to shake hands before the duel started, and Cai quickly made his way to the twenty year old.

"You must think this is incredibly stupid and pointless," he sighed to the older girl, who smiled back at him, "No actually, I find it quite similar to the sparring some of the League of Isak do to train or solve arguments. It is refreshing to the continuous political backstabbing and the machinations between the Leagues and those not affiliated with them back in Yentar. Sometimes I wish we could have as rigid a system as you Lucaelians, to have more stability."

"Well I think it is," he smirked, "I'd much rather be comfortably sat plotting than fighting against people much stronger than me. Physically stronger, at any rate."

The two finished shaking hands, Ciaran a head taller than his ten year younger opponent, whose eyes were suffused with seriousness and a need to impress the youngest Lucerna, who watched with a mixture of curiosity and apprehensiveness. A beam of radiance illuminated the fifteen year old, and he drew his large broadsword, pointing it towards the sky as the beam's intensity increased.

"Allow me to introduce Iridis, Seraph of the Sword," the boy intoned, as the Daughter of Wrath entered the material plane with a flash of blinding light and elevated her elegant sword, the tip shining with holy luminosity. Ciaran nodded, completely respectful now that he wasn't challenging the littlest prince to a duel – had he not been a Lucerna, Caiellis's age would have exempted him from the trial by combat, but even so it was frowned upon to confront a child.

"I am honoured to be your opponent, Iridis," the young man bowed his head, and the angel nodded, her face set in resolute determination, just as shining orbs of gold began swirling around the Hierarch's grandson. The orbs began to coalesce, gifting one another with their light, and formed his angel. Luncindia was clad in golden armour that left a few places bare, where her perfect and unblemished pale skin shone in the release of White mana from both combatants. Billowing white fabric flowed around her sculptural body, and as well as a large greatsword the Baneslayer angel held a circular golden shield embossed by the Illuminate Crown, the symbol of Numia that would have been imprinted on any Lucerna in the past that was blessed by the Angel of the Light.

"This is Luncindia," he explained, and he drew his own sword, thinner and lighter than Mysos's but still quite weighty and large. His angel spoke, filling the room with her divine voice, "I will not waste time with words, Iridis, as I know that you never speak in a battle."

Cai couldn't tell whether or not Luncindia was as keen as her young Summoner, but the Baneslayer angel spared him a glance, as if sensing his scrutiny and picking it out from everyone else's – most probably due to the Black mana present in his body. Her eyes narrowed, the golden pupils filled with a mixture of sadness and shame, before the emotions were erased and she turned back to the combat.

"Are you ready?" Weiss asked, and both nodded, Ciaran saying, "I don't know you very well, son of Xathan, but I'm sure you will do your father – and yourself – proud. May the best warrior win."

Mysos sprang forward, his ethereal armour already coating his body with milky white plates of mana, and swung his broadsword at Ciaran, who parried with his own weapon. Iridis launched herself into the fray also, pressing the attack against Luncindia, who blocked the first strike on her shield before deflecting the second with her blade in a spray of sparks. Mysos attacked again, and Ciaran darted back, blasting a beam of light at the younger male, which obliterated one of his aura protections but left him unscathed. Caiellis had realised from watching Uncle Tristram duel against Guardian Oleic in the civil war that when fighting not to kill, human tended to ignore angel because attacking them felt like they were marring holy perfection and committing an unspeakable sin, and the pattern was repeated here. He wondered if Ciaran would do so when fighting his angel, as whilst Orzhova inspired the same awe that the rest of her race did she was also an avatar of Black mana.

Luncindia knocked Iridis away and swooped down, aiming for Mysos, but the Seraph of the Sword instantly recovered and barrelled into her side, almost sending both tumbling to the ground as they fought to remain aloft, their swords scraping against each other as beams of light collided with one another in shimmering displays of luminescence. Ciaran then shot towards Mysos, his sword carving an arc throughout the air, and the younger boy swiftly blocked and riposted, wielding his weapon with skill born from training with it all of his life, and Ciaran was hard pressed to dive out of the way.

Iridis opened her wings to their fullest extent and flew away from Luncindia, reversing in the middle of her ascent and plunging down towards the other angel, her sword aimed at her chest, when a magical net of restraining White mana wrapped around her, drastically restricting the seraph's movements until she emitted a pulse of erasing White mana, but by then it was too late. Iridis dodged the Baneslayer's attack, but was unprepared for Ciaran to kick Mysos away from him, leap into the air on holy wings that reminded Caiellis of his own stained glass variety and slice his sword into her, the tip shining with blinding light that exploded out when it hit.

Everyone covered their eyes when the blow hit, but instead of following suite Cai simply closed his left and looked through the Lens of Innocence – he could see Iridis dissipating into a holy glow and Mysos falling to his knees, stunned at the sudden defeat. He shot to the older boy's side, and as the light faded he deactivated the Lens and saw with his normal sight, glaring at the mildly triumphant features of Ciaran. Mysos simply stared at his hands, and Cai placed a slender palm on the Principian's shoulder, attempting to reassure the clearly distraught champion, "Don't blame yourself for it. You did well."

"I'm sorry … my prince, I failed you," he murmured, all of his pride gone, and looked up ashamedly at the youngest Lucerna, who shook his head, not entirely certain how to deal with it and restore the fifteen year old's confidence, and said, "No, you didn't fail me. You fought well, and was just caught off guard."

He glowered up at Ciaran as Martha's grandson crossed the short distance to them, kneeling down to Mysos and looking the boy in the eyes, "Don't be too harsh on yourself, Mysos. You are still young and have a lot to learn, and you did fight well. Besides, the prince shouldn't have made you fight me when he knew you weren't up to it," he turned his gaze to Caiellis, who saw something chastising in the young man's eyes.

"Oh, so we are blaming me now, is that it? Not you for recklessly challenging me to a duel for no apparent reason?" Caiellis snapped back. He was beginning to get very annoyed with Ciaran, how he had randomly declared an honour duel against his thirteen year old prince and was now blaming him for Mysos's defeat, "Anyway, Mysos did lose. Now you can duel me. Happy now?"

Ciaran didn't reply, and just silently made his way back to his side, though Cai had definitely seen a change in his eyes, but couldn't deduce what it was before the older boy had turned away. Luncindia gazed at him, and Caiellis was incredibly shocked to see something resembling fear in the angel's eyes, as well as hatred – was Orzhova really detested that much in Sancturia? But then again, she was the only First Sisterhood angel that had actively aided the darkness by executing Xarius's orders, and she would have been disliked beforehand because of her innate Black mana – additionally, Caiellis didn't know what Orzhova had been up to in her exile. Maybe he would ask her some time in the future.

Cai shook his head. He really didn't want to have to do this. Perhaps he should attempt to annihilate the lieutenant's Summoning with the increase in mana he got from the Angel of the Black Sun's presence, or maybe he should follow his original strategy and inexorably whittle his foe down until there was no way Ciaran could win. At any rate, the chance of failure was quite low, which made Caiellis wonder why he would challenge a Lucerna before pushing his thoughts from his mind in preparation for amassing the unadulterated hatred and sadness needed for the ritual.

He shut his left eye again, beginning the familiar motions of Summoning by welling up his White mana as contrails of golden energy flowed around the left side of his body, his magic levels rapidly rising as he drew upon the huge reserves locked inside of him that Uncle Tybalt had often complemented – he really didn't want to be exhausted, which is what Summoning Orzhova would do to him,, but Ciaran had left him with little choice. He then shut away the emotions of contentment and righteousness flowing through him, replacing them with those overfamilar sensations of despair and sadness that consumed his thoughts whenever he thought too deeply about his tragic mother.

Caiellis heard several loud gasps resounding from the crowd, and at some unspoken order the clanging of blades in the background stopped, indicating that the soldiers were too occupied by watching the duel than training, now that they were seeing a Lucerna fight – particularly one with such an unusual First Sisterhood angel, and the fact that none of them would have ever observed the youngest prince (although a small few would have seen Alexander's Aurelia) fighting before. The White mana began to be converted into Black when it entered his Lucerna birthmark,

He felt tendrils of shadow circulating malevolently around him, the manifestation of Black mana starting to mix with the White and coating each other in opposite energies that represented eternal longevity, power, ambition coupled with the desire to protect the community, and as they passed through the Black Sun imprinted on his right cheek a large sphere of unlight began to form out of it, as well as a simultaneously imperious and haunting choir that echoed across the whole room. The entire barracks was bathed in purple dark-light, just as Caiellis raised his sword to the space in front of the Black Sun, creating a scythe of shadows and coating it with gold coursing through his free palm.

Caiellis felt like a god. His thoughts turned to arrogance, of crushing the pitiful resistance of Ciaran and proving to all who was superior, before he he suppressed the disturbing ideas that were entirely unbefitting of his personality and what a Lucerna was supposed to think like – though he could tell where a lot of Xarius's mindset came from. It was laughably easy to become convinced of one's divinity when they had this much power at their disposal, but as Orzhova had said, one of Cai's greatest strengths was that he always considered failure, and it was possible that Ciaran could defeat him.

When she emerged from the Black Sun, Orzhova shot him a brief but concerned glance, sensing the thoughts going through his mind, and Cai met her eyes and grinned, letting the feeling of power stay but removing the notion of humiliating Ciaran – besides, he was still annoyed at the older male arbitrarily demanding that Caiellis Summon and duel him. He was more than happy to indulge now, and already his strategic mind was processing hundreds of different scenarios dependant on the actions he would take and how Ciaran would respond, deciding what he should do to achieve victory in the most inspiring way possible for the onlookers.

"Ciaran Benelis. This is-" he was about to announce, his youthful and soft voice infused with an otherworldly timbre, but Luncindia interrupted with an outraged, "Orzhova!"

"Were you expecting anyone else?" the Angel of the Black Sun shot back sarcastically, her lip curling into a sneer when she gazed upon the Daughter of Numia, and held her scythe out horizontally in front of her, gripping it with both gloved hands and muttering to her Summoner, "I dislike Numia and her Daughters quite a bit. I find that they are arrogant, self-righteous, and most of all ignorant and blind to the truth of reality. Let's put Luncindia in her place, shall we?"

While Caiellis couldn't agree with Orzhova, as being a Lucaelian he venerated and respected each and every angel (despite not actually worshipping them like many others) for the deliverance from the darkness they offered, he nodded anyway, and held his blade in a ready position.

"A … Are you ready?" Weiss inquired, his voice uncharacteristically shaky, and Ciaran nodded.

"No, actually. I am not ready," Cai responded calmly, and then proclaimed, "Before we fight, I want to know your motives behind this. Otherwise I am going to Unsummon Orzhova."

"Ok then," Ciaran replied, and then grinned, "There are two. First: I wanted to see if you were strong enough to be leading thousands of troops into battle, and by fighting you I would be able to figure that out. Something me and your brother both agreed on was that if you fought someone, you would find out more about them then just talking." Caiellis didn't agree at all, but remained silent, content to let him finish his explanation. He did recall Alex and him constantly wrestling each other, despite his older brother being eight years younger than the at the time sixteen year old, though he assumed Ciaran had gone easy on him like Alexander sometimes did when he had sparred with his older brother in the past, despite the fact that the middle Lucerna did like to prove that he was significantly stronger than Caiellis.

"So you thought that by fighting me you thought you could ascertain whether or not I was suitable for the role of leadership, because you think that actions are louder than words, correct?" he asked when the older male fell silent, glad that he hadn't given in to his thoughts of scornfully crushing the impudent lieutenant, as that would have reflected negatively on his inner personality – it would have showed that he was a lot like Xarius, something that wasn't true and to be quite honest was it had been getting irritating that people automatically compared him to the self-styled Emperor of Light simply because they shared the same Summoning – it made them similar, but what it didn't mean was that he was naturally an autocratic and greedy dictator.

"Yeah. I also wanted to see if I had improved in my training, and battling against a Lucerna would be the ultimate test. Sorry about that, I guess. If you had been Alexander then we could have just done it privately, but I knew that there was no way to get you to do it short of publicly challenging you to an honour duel because you hate fighting," he snorted, probably realising how stupid he had been to ask to battle against one of the "divine" heirs to the throne.

"Repeatedly bringing up Caiellis's brother isn't helping your case," Orzhova scoffed, voicing Cai's thoughts. _Fine,_ the youngster thought, _If you want me to prove to you – and to myself – that I can lead, then I'm more than happy to fight. Though I don't see what a one-on-one engagement has got to do with leadership. I really don't understand some people. And I'm fine with obliging to give you a test._

"Thank you for sharing your reasoning. I am ready now," the boy said, already channelling mana up inside of him, feeling it seeping out of his skin and wrapping his fragile body in its dark luminescence as shadows and light blended around him. He saw that Ciaran seemed both anxious and confident, as if mentally preparing himself for the test to come. The stirring and eerie choir began to increase in volume, and Cai held the Sword of Glass in a ready position, half of the crystalline blade dripping with tenebrosity whilst the other half shone with blinding brilliance.

"Then let's begin," Ciaran grinned. Caiellis pulsed mana through his sword, using it as a way to increase the potency of his magic, but while he was doing that also conjured up his ever-useful stained glass wings. The conditions for winning were first blood or the destruction of the opposing angel, so to that end Cai used a technique that he had developed from watching his own father fight by forming a large selection of magical blades of White and blasting them towards Ciaran. However, as he didn't exactly know how dad had done it because he had never asked the man and had been forced to replicate it from inferring what it would be like, the spell had become something unique to him. Instead of incandescent blades of golden metal, his own were much more like crystal or glass shards, and were saturated with life draining mana that Orzhova gifted him with.

He waved his palm in the direction of Ciaran, and the blades began to bombard the older male as he dodged some whilst Luncindia smashed others apart with her shield and sword, hard pressed to prevent them from drawing her Summoner's blood, but just succeeded. Orzhova flew at Ciaran, her scythe pulsating with purple lighting that coruscated through it and mixed with the shadows surrounding her wings, fulminating through the ground as the twenty-five year old had to launch himself into the air to avoid.

Usually Caiellis wouldn't be this aggressive in a fight, though he was dynamic, but he had decided that the wide disparity between his and Ciaran's internal mana pools and the fact that he had an obvious advantage because he could wield two types of mana meant that he could be less patient than usual, although he had several spells that he could fall back on if necessary. He focussed on his negative thoughts as Orzhova single-handedly distracted both his opponents, etching smoking sigils in the air in front of him whilst watching his dark seraph's battle carefully, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Luncindia instilled her blade with thrumming White mana, and swung it at Orzhova, the energised sword carving with swathes of air apart and only just being deflected by her scythe as its momentum was slowed down just enough by the substantial and solid gloom the Angel of the Black Sun created around her. Caiellis released his spell just as Ciaran threw chains of gold around his angel, the words he had drawn into the air imprinted onto the Baneslayer angel's skin and making her shriek in pain, a sound that made Cai feel hugely guilty and whisper a word of apology to Luncindia. He emitted more Black mana as Orzhova held up the golden medallion representation of her symbol in her left hand, allowing her young Summoner to use it as a conduit to amplify his magic and let her use his spells.

The debilitating dark magic was spreading across Luncindia, and despite the fact that he had poured a tremendous amount of mana into it he didn't give into the temptation to make it corrupting. Wincing in empathy, Ciaran dodged the arcing scythe blow and ran towards Caiellis, his own wings augmenting his already potent speed that he had because of his height and physical fitness, as the youngest prince spontaneously switched the type he was discharging, the malicious glyphs inked across Luncindia's skin and immune to the disenchanting spells she repeatedly cast instantly flaring with fluorescence and converting the pain into banishment, though it wasn't quite powerful enough to remove Luncindia from the material plane without weakening her further – Cai wasn't as powerful as his dad, whose ancient Lucerna sword allowed him to do so.

He repressed his smile as Ciaran charged towards him, releasing more mana as tendrils of darkness crashed into the ground, the grandson of the Hierarch narrowly avoiding them as orbs of White mana detonated next to the lieutenant, almost knocking him off his feet as he was forced to fly into the air. Cai worked with Orzhova, who raised her scythe, as a huge pillar of White and Black mana shot down from the ceiling and obliterated the ground where Luncindia was.

Cai blinked in feigned surprise as the Baneslayer angel flickered out of existence for a split second, her form blinking forwards and dodging the beam of darklight, the enchantments that he had painstakingly cast upon her destabilising without a target. Both Luncindia and Ciaran shot towards him, Orzhova too far out of position to intervene, and he smiled.

He released an imperceptibly small amount of mana, just enough to levitate one of the shards of stained glass that littered the floor after his first spell, and called it back to his free palm. It shot through the air, barely touching Ciaran's calf, but when it returned to his left hand the edge was coated in sticky crimson blood.

"First blood," he smiled, holding out the piece of glass as Ciaran skidded to a halt, the strike that he had almost completed leaving his blade almost touching Cai's thin throat, as he had made no moves to avoid the incoming blow. Ciaran glanced down at his leg in surprise – sure enough, there was a very tiny cut trickling blood there, and he just laughed, Unsummoning Luncindia, who glared at Orzhova for a second as the dark seraph smiled mockingly back, and departed to her Summoner's mind realm.

"Prince Caiellis Noctis Lucerna is victorious!" Drax declared loudly, and there were a few cheers and claps but mostly the soldiers were too stunned to react – they had all assumed that the prince wouldn't be defeated easily, and would have something up his sleeve, but not that. Cai nodded his thanks to his First Sisterhood angel, who winked indulgently and left in a flash, the Black Sun symbol flaring into life and obscuring her from vision, just before Caiellis felt her re-enter his mind.

"Why did you defeat me like that?" Ciaran asked, staring down at the smaller boy, who looked impassively back, "I felt the amount of mana you have locked inside of you that you can release when you Summon. It would have been really easy for you to crush me with it."

"You said that you wanted to see whether or not I was suitable for leadership. Personally, I don't know, but hopefully this has given you an insight into if you think I am capable or not. Plus, how would contemptuously sweeping you aside with powerful spells have proved anything? Everyone knows that a Lucerna has a gargantuan mana base, so how would demonstrating that have any correlation to leading?" he asked, his voice calm and soft. Another benefit to not executing the actions outlined above was that he wasn't exhausted from the expenditure of all his mana, though he still felt tired. Ciaran grinned, and said, "I get it now. You wanted to show me that you don't care about glory, or ending your foes in a dramatic or inspiring way, so long as you win. You wanted me to see that you could concentrate on our fight and also the wider battle. I think you are worthy to command the Scientia Mos legions. You've grown up so much from when I last met you and Alex."

He knelt in front of the littlest Lucerna, a proud smile plastered on his youthful features, and Cai sighed. He knew that Alexander had looked up to the then sixteen year old as an older brother type figure – something that his big brother hadn't had much experience with, reciprocating what he learnt by being with Ciaran onto Caiellis, and wished Alex could see the lieutenant again now. Then again, Marik wanted both his sons to go to war, so when the middle prince recovered Alex would probably find himself by Cai's side.

.*.*.*.

Caiellis gulped when he peeked around the corner of the main tower of the Scia Atria, offering a commanding view of the courtyard filled to the brim with soldiers – though he knew that there would be many more listening to him, as the amplification device Hierarch Martha was holding would allow those assembling in the other plazas to hear his voice, despite not actually seeing him. He felt a fluttering in his stomach, and wanted to vomit because of the anxiousness, but at least he had a few more minutes to compose himself.

He turned back to Jenna, as the height and the amount of people he would be speaking to made him nauseous, like he was plunging into an endless abyss and was forever falling, fiddling with the tassels of the imperious jacket he wore that his father had had made for him just after the war ended for occasions such as these. It made him feel extremely uncomfortable, like a pampered and spoilt brat, and on an impulse he took it off and replaced it with another jacket, one that he wore far more commonly – he had worn it earlier today, in fact – and still was designed for a Lucerna and decorated with the emblems of the prestigious royal family, though not as ostentatiously as the first.

"I wondered when you would do that," Jenna smiled encouragingly, evidently sensing his disquiet and trying to add humour to the situation, "You've been fidgeting with ever since you put it on."

Caiellis didn't respond, just kept staring at an entirely arbitrary but fixed point on the wall and trying to control his breathing. He seriously considered asking Hierarch Martha and Guardian Weiss to do the address like they were supposed to, but then again it had been publicly announced that he would be giving the pre-war speech, and it would make him look like a fool and an unready child if he backed down now. He dearly wished his big brother was here – not just because Alex would be doing it with him, but because of the encouragement and support that merely the older boy's presence would give him – sure, his some of the praetorians, Jenna, Mysos and the Light-bearers were trying to assuage him and help him along in the first public address he had ever done, but none of them knew him like Alexander did so could never do it as well as his older sibling.

He idly traced his fingers round the golden circlet he was to wear when speaking, another item that Marik had made for his sons when the civil war ended, though Alexander hated his and had immediately concluded that he didn't like his version (although he hadn't said that to dad's face) and Cai was inclined to agree. At least it did make him look more kingly.

He glanced at his watching, feeling sick when he saw that there was only a minute left, and turned his eyes desperately to Hierarch Martha, who was busy completing the preliminary speech outlining the information concerning the war (not that anyone who was listening wouldn't know that already) silently hoping that some complication would arise that would prevent him from doing it, but that would only delay the inevitable.

_Maybe if I made myself sick,_ he thought, which he could do by casting Black spells upon himself, however everyone in the room would know and judge him for it. _Damn it Caiellis! Why did you ever think it was a good idea to agree to this? You are going to have a panic attack on the stage, and that will make you look even more stupid than if you had just let the Light-bearers do it. Damn idiot. Stupid fool. Aren't you supposed to be intelligent? This smacks of anything but._

"You'll be fine," Jenna attempted, and the boy shot her a nervous glance, his expressive green eyes full of worry and fear. "I mean, how badly can it go?"

"Very," he murmured, though too quiet for the Yentarian to hear him, and she tried to smile reassuringly at the prince – and despite being quite a bit more extroverted than the quiet boy, she certainly didn't envy him. She had sensed that he had a strange form of social anxiety when the battle between the loyal and traitor Lucaelians had ended – and it wasn't just due to his age, as while most just-teenagers would be afraid of speaking in front of a lot of people, Cai seemed worse. However, the kid seemed to be able to push it out of the way in the face of violence, but as soon as that ended he instantly became anxious and hesitant.

Cai felt slight, small, young and weak, unsuited for embracing his princely duties and that a gust of wind would blow him over. He felt light-headed, and almost thought he was going to have another migraine due to hearing the pounding of his heart, and the pain behind his head, but soon ascertained that it was just a headache caused by his anxiety mixed with worry and wasn't as bad as one of them. _Oh angels – imagine if I did have one in the middle of the speech! How awful would that be?_

"Good luck, Caiellis," Mysos said, and he remembered the boy ecstatically clapping him on the back and almost sending him flying just after the honour duel with Ciaran – actually, all of his bodyguard seemed pleased for him, and Weiss had been about to speak harsh words to the lieutenant before the youngest Lucerna informed the Guardian that he had forgiven Ciaran for his impertinence. That didn't stop the admonishing conversation Weiss and the Hierarch's grandson had had (though Martha had seemed incredibly amused when she had given him a tour of the academy a few hours ago), but hopefully had lessened the intensity of the reprimanding.

Cai recalled Aymer looking like he was stuck in an indecision about whether or not to give the prince the same treatment as Mysos had but didn't want to crush him, but Ruthia had had no compunctions over ruffling his hair, before Drax shot all of them a cold glare and spat, "_You are supposed to be praetorians, not a fan club. Act like it. Besides, I don't think Caiellis likes this either, but the prince is too kind-hearted to tell you to stop _(he had been correct about that part)."

He checked his watch for the final time, stifling a whimper when he saw that he only had ten seconds left. Martha looked over into the wings where the prince, Jenna and Mysos (the praetorians had been deployed in strategic locations to help combat any possibility of assassination (_Just what I need_)) were, and began to walk into it, holding the amplification device out in front of her for him to take.

_Screw you, negative thoughts. All I have to do is talk. I can't fail now. I **won't **fail now. This is my destiny._

He stumbled towards her, almost falling flat on his face when his legs at first refused to move out of shock, and despite trying to think motivational thoughts his mind was still subsumed in panic. Cai took a deep breath as Martha handed the microphone over to him and whispered, "Your mother would be proud of you," in his ear.

_Thanks. Randomly bring up her,_ he thought, sarcastically, but the words touched his heart as he emerged onto the outward gallery, several tens of metres above the soldiers he was speaking to, though his voice would be carried by infusing the device with his mana. Light illuminated him, the mana-powered spotlights almost blinding as it took his eyes a moment to adjust.

It was dark, as usual, but the courtyard and city below him shone with numerous street lights, candles in the all-consuming shadow that refused to be snuffed out by the forces of the abyss. He had always enjoyed looking out of the window of his room in the Capitalia Lux palace, glancing down at the many flickering lights of the capital city below him (as the palace was the tallest structure in the entire kingdom, though his room was far from the highest chamber containing the Lucerna Throne where the most dramatic edicts were delivered, and the Scia Atria was likewise the tallest building in Scientia Mos). In spite of the distance between him and his audience, and the darkness obscuring them despite the light, Cai could still pick out individual faces. Or so he thought, until those faces turned into derisive sneers and judgemental glares, and the boy knew that his mind was just playing tricks on him again.

He coughed, holding the amplifier away from him when he did so, and then brought it back.

"Legionaries of Scientia Mos," was what he was supposed to say, was what he thought he would have said, but all that came out was a small squeak luckily too quiet to be detected by the amplification device and projected across the whole audience of thousands. That would have been quite unfortunate. _Alright, Caiellis, calm down. Try again. Pretend that you are just practising speeches with Uncle Tybalt, or Alexander, not talking to thousands of soldiers that you are asking to attack another empire … yeah, it's probably not the best idea to think of that. Or perhaps it is. These people are counting on you – if you fail them now, they will be disheartened before the entire war starts. Nobody gives a shit that you hate public speaking, nobody cares that you are scared. Much more is at stake than the possibility of embarrassing yourself._

"Legionaries of Scientia Mos," he managed, his amplified voice emerging a split second after his own shaky and youthful, and he swept his gaze across the soldiers, not focussing on the blurred faces that his mind twisted into condescending glowers. He just hoped they didn't mind that he sounded like a small and frail boy instead of an unstoppable and divine Lucerna prince.

"Tomorrow we begin the march on Welkas, the New Empire of Passion that abducted me and my brother and has plagued us before, through and after the civil war, slaughtering innocent civilians, traders and soldiers in their raids on the routes from the City of the Sun. However, we are not just doing this because of that, though the lives taken will be avenged and justice served," he said, softly, glad that he didn't have to shout so that the full emotional resonance he was feeling was reflected in his words. Caiellis didn't exactly know where they were coming from, as every plan or script he had tried to create or memorise dissolved in his mind and seemed inherently flawed in his horror, but continued on, emboldened by the fact that he was speaking.

"We are doing this because if we do not, then the Welkalites will fall to the darkness," he stated, and heard a few gasps or mutters of concern fluttering up from the crowd. Now that he was in the flow of speaking, the lessons he had ingrained within himself were coming unbidden to the forefront on his mind, whereas in his panic he couldn't remember any of them.

Back in the room connected to the main stage, as Mysos watched enraptured by his friend's speech, Hierarch Martha turned to Jenna, saying, "You know how the large scale mana communicators work, correct?", motioning towards the inactive pieces of large equipment that overlooked the stage. Jenna took a moment to examine the machinery that's original design was from Yentarian origin but had been altered by the Lucaelians to fit their own needs, and nodded. "Yes, I do, Hierarch."

"Good," Martha said, her old and wise eyes flicking back to the young prince, and Jenna could sense the woman's mind conceiving some sort of plan, "Unbeknownst to Caiellis, the mana communicators were made operational a day ago, and have been tested though not used for any purposes yet. As every pair of Light-bearers in Lucael, apart from most likely the Civitas Sol ones as King Marik mentioned that he wanted to give the speech in the City of the Sun, will be giving their speeches now – as that was how we arranged it – I want you to activate them. Covertly, if you can."

Jenna nodded, inferring her plan from those words – she wanted to broadcast Caiellis's speech to every muster of soldiers in the kingdom. The twenty year old sniggered when she imagined Cai simply falling over and dying if he knew about what was going to happen.

Martha fished out the smaller mana communicator that was given to each Light-bearer from her robes, and activated it with a pulse of White mana, calling a very specific person.

"Hierarch Martha? Is there a problem?" King Marik's stony voice could be heard, the artificial rendition of it almost perfect but not quite capturing the inspiring quality of the ruling Lucerna's tones, "I was just about to begin my speech."

"No, there is not a problem, my lord. I just wanted to ask you to inform the Light-bearers in every city to activate their large scale communicators, and broadcast ours," the venerable woman stated calmly, picturing the king's momentary indecision before it clicked in his head that if Hierarch Martha wasn't giving the speech, it meant that Guardian Weiss wasn't either, so someone else was. She heard apprehensive parental pride in the man's voice when he agreed, "I will do so."

"When me and my older brother were abducted and brought to Usnaan, I sensed a deep darkness – a _canker –_ at the heart of the Welkalite capital," Cai continued, ensuring that his voice carried a hint of the very real sadness he felt at the mistreatment of the downtrodden population. His thoughts went back to the man who had been brutally captured simply because he didn't have enough money to enter the Augur's Quarter, his blood boiling with the memory, and hoped that his words would encapsulate that. "They have only just discovered the darkness. They are falling prey to its whispered words, the honeyed lies about making their innermost desires reality, not realising that by doing so they are dooming themselves and damning their empire. It is up to us to save them."

He transferred the amplifier to his left hand, and raised his shaky right to the black sky, hearing gasps of shock and horror and stifled cries of alarm as he released Black mana, questing tendrils of gloom wrapping around the right side of his body and only visible in the perpetual night because of the spotlights shining down on him. Cai didn't provide form to his magic, just let it billow around him in a cloud of malevolent tenebrosity, and spoke again, "We have a much greater experience with the darkness, having survived within its depths for millennia and carved out one of the greatest kingdoms the world has ever seen. It would be incredibly easy to lose ourselves, fall to its temptations – I myself have a part of the abyss within me," the boy raised his voice, letting the blackness bleed out of him and seep through his skin, threatening to overwhelm him without the balancing force of White that he always used with it.

"But we have learned that the darkness can be defeated," Cai let his words become infused with magical resonance, and then released White mana to slowly begin to match his Black, the golden contrails orbiting around the left side of his body and bringing the chaotic and ambitious mana back under control, light and darkness blooming around him, "Although it can never truly be slain, it can be suppressed, crushed under the heel of order, righteousness and unity."

He drew his relic armament, the Sword of Glass's crystalline blade charged with his magic and lighting up with equal amounts of radiance and shade, and pointed it upwards, as the battling opposite forces around him reached a balance, and declared, "We know this from years of fighting against it as it pressed against us from all sides, we know this from the sacrifices our ancestors made so that we could be here today, we know this because despite all the death and misery it has caused to try and topple us, trying to force us to submit by corrupting those that we thought were our allies, friends and loving family members," he let a little scorn into his voice at the alluded mention of Johnias, "And turning them against us. No matter how hard it has tried, it has always failed. But the Welkalites have encountered a different type of darkness. We are assaulted from every angle as it conceals the light of the angels, and the darkness that we have to fight against is obvious, despite its subtlety and deception, however the Welkalites are fighting a losing battle against the evil from within. We have declared war on Welkas not just to avenge our fallen and to protect out own people, but to save them from that darkness inside of their hearts, and show them the light," he finished, shakily, though he felt quite a bit more confident than before, and glanced back down at the silent crowd.

Then suddenly, as if there was some sort of silent unanimous agreement, it exploded into noise, the soldiers below crying, "Ave lux! Ave Lux! AVE LUX!" over and over again, and Cai felt a single tear of relief and pride falling down his right cheek, interacting with the Black Sun in a small flash of golden light entirely eclipsed by the mixture of luminosity and gloom pulsating around him. He took a moment to bask in their adoration, holding his sword up straighter, and smiled.

_Well that could have gone worse,_ his mind commented, and he was forced to agree with its assessment of the situation. He turned to the side, looking to see how his advisers and Hierarch Martha would respond, when his mouth gaped open. Cai dropped the microphone with an amplified thump that was drowned out by the exalted cries from soldiers all across the city, and his face went bright red, then deathly pale as he froze and stared at what he saw. The large scale mana communicators/broadcasters that he had previously thought were inactive were watching him through glinting lenses, recording his every word and movement. He saw himself reflected in the curved lenses of the broadcasters – he looked like a small rodent caught in the headlights of a monorail train that was about to be crushed into a pulp.

_And that meant … _he almost had a heart attack in the realisation that _every single_ (although there were some that wouldn't be able to due to some duty or another, but his shocked mind failed to process that) soldier in the Kingdom of Light would have been listening to his speech. Cai shot off the stage, running past his advisers, who called out: "Caiellis, wait!" and ignoring them, swiftly casting his concealment spells and sprinting down the stairs and out of the Sola Atria, trying to ignore the pounding in his head that echoed the cries of "Ave lux!" that reverberated across the whole city.

.*.*.*.

Throughout the whole of Lucael, soldiers were inspired by the thoughtful words of the youngest Lucerna, and responded in a similar manner to the Scientia Mos legionnaires. The plazas of the Sola Atria, Cassa Atria, the newly constructed Gola Atria Secondus, and the mustering field outside of the Lucerna Palace – and many more locations – shook with cries of "Ave Lux!", a united roar of righteous fury and adulation of the Lucerna family.

Even after the littlest prince shot off the stage the second he noticed the broadcasters filming him, seen by everyone as their own versions projected the holographic image, and now simply showed an empty stage, the cries still resounded.

The Light-bearers of the capital city shared a knowing and proud glance, and then turned their eyes upon the king, whose eyes were shining with parental pride and a small smile split the man's austere face – he didn't overtly know about Caiellis's glossophobia, but had been able to infer it from how nervous his son seemed around people he didn't know and the fact that he himself had suffered from it at a similar age, much preferring to let his much more confident twin brother to just do the talking.

However, Caiellis had outdone himself, despite his hasty and terrified exit – Marik had winced in empathy when he saw how scared and small his little boy had looked when he had realised that he was being televised across the whole nation, though he was well aware that his youngest would never have agreed to it. Once again he wondered whether it was him that made Caiellis under perform or disobedient – it seemed that whenever his second son left his side, he excelled himself (apart from the incident with Aksua). He pushed the maudlin thoughts from his mind, and hoped that Elizabex and Leodred, the new advisers of his eldest, had had the foresight to answer the call from the Scientia Mos large scale communicators and wake up Alexander, though his eldest still needed to rest. He was incredibly proud of both of his sons, and knew that had Alex been able to give a speech it would have matched or even outclassed his little brother's.

Back in the room where the seventeen year old on the monarch's mind was located, the Montlea twins sat beside Alex's bed and smiled as they listened to the motivating speech that the shy little brother of their best friend delivered, and grinned at each other when they saw the middle prince's proud expression, which quickly changed to one of concern when his kid brother turned to look at the camera.

"Aww. Poor guy," Alex said, when the boy shot off the stage and left the broadcaster simply projecting an image of the illuminated space he had been in. Though the smaller mana communicators couldn't record or transmit images, they could still project some on their own screen, and his heart ached for his timid little sibling, wishing he could be there with him to congratulate the boy himself and hug him, make sure he was alright after the shock of discovering that he was being relayed throughout the whole nation. He was honestly very surprised that Cai would have agreed to speak in front of just the Scientia Mos legionnaires in the first place. He intended to call his little buddy later, when he had recovered from the upset, as knowing the younger boy he wouldn't answer the communiques in his distressed state.

.*.*.*.

"Prince Caiellis?" Jenna called out, back in the strategium of the Scia Atria. The room was silent and dark, apart from a small conjured light emanating from somewhere and the occasional flicking of pages alternating with stifled sniffles. The boy was definitely in here, though he didn't react at all to the call of his name, nor the fact that there were six people entering the room, or the lights being turned on in a whirring of mana components.

"Caiellis? We all know you are in here, so just come out of wherever you've hidden yourself," she stated, used to dealing with similar stunts from her own little sister, and she heard the prince clearing his throat, "Just leave me alone," he started, sadly, but then added with a bit more steel, "That's an order."

"We need to be sure of your safety before we leave, as is our duty as the Lucerna Guard," Lancalo offered, pre-empting Drax's words and cutting in prior to the younger man, "And for the record, we had no idea about the sudden change of plans to broadcast your speech."

"I'm fine," the boy responded, his voice coming from the centre of the room despite not being visible, so Jenna activated her mana sensing capabilities and used that to locate him, smirking when she did so, "So leave. Please, I just want to be on my own for a bit. Is it really that difficult?"

Jenna walked over to the table still stacked with papers that Caiellis had spent several hours analysing after visiting the academy in lieu of having any proper lunch, though it was the late afternoon now (she was starting to see why the Lucaelians were stereotyped as being a depressing people, as the eternal night really was saddening), and pulled out one of the chairs, glancing underneath the desk. Cai was laid there, the large and ornate book open though he had stopped reading it when the lights had turned on, and he glared at the Yentarian.

"You look comfortable down there," she commented mildly, as the boy bookmarked his book and wriggled his slender body out of the gaps between two chairs, taking the closed tome with him. He rose up to his full height on the opposite side of the table, pulled out another chair and sat down on it with a sigh. "As you can see, I am unharmed. Are you satisfied now? Can you leave?"

"Yes, Lord Caiellis," Drax replied, saluting smartly and leaving the room with the other praetorians trailing behind him, wanting to talk to the youngest prince but also not wishing to appear disobedient. Mysos lingered in the doorway as he turned around and noticed that Jenna hadn't moved an inch, still stood up next to the table.

"That applies to you as well," the youngster snapped, aiming the comment at the Yentarian as he wasn't yet aware Mysos was still in the room. He turned back to her when she didn't move, his voice starting off as a furious growl but then trailing off, "Are you incapable of understanding what "leave" means?" he sighed, "I'm sorry … it's just … I just want to be on my own for a bit … after _that_ ..."

"That was a speech worthy of a Lucerna," Mysos put in, and the younger boy looked up at him, "Oh. I didn't realise that you were still in here as well. Come in then, Mysos, since Jenna refuses to leave so you may as well get comfortable."

"Thank you," the fifteen year old bowed his head and sat to the right of the slight prince, who was tempted to open his book again and simply block out the presence of the advisers. He knew he was being too emotional, so unconsciously reactivated his shell, the fortified gates clanging down over the emotions and by extension his wide and expressive green eyes. Jenna perceived the change instantly – it was just like when they were in the Capitalia Lux library, when King Marik had entered and Caiellis had shut his personality away.

"Did you not think to ask me whether or not I wanted to be broadcast across the entire kingdom or not?" he suddenly asked, and though his voice was mostly blank and dejected it carried a slight hint of accusation. Before Mysos could respond, Jenna cut in, saying: "Firstly, muscle-head there had no part in this, so don't blame him. We couldn't ask you because you were already wrapped up in your speech, and Hierarch Martha asked me then."

"So it was her plan," he mused, and then added, "However, did it not occur to you that I could have easily screwed up halfway into the address, or froze and not said anything else? What if I'd have looked over at the broadcasters just as they activated, and the only thing projected was an image of me looking pathetic? You and the Hierarch's little stunt could have shamed me in front of the _entire kingdom,_ Jenna. It was bad enough that I was possessed by enough naiveté and stupidity to offer to do the address in the first place, and I almost didn't say anything."

"Your father thought it was a good idea," she replied. _Well I expected as much. I already knew he had something to do with it, otherwise the broadcast would never have been authorised. Of course he would think it would be a good idea, because he doesn't know anything about me,_ the boy thought, acidity colouring the introspection, as Jenna expanded upon her former points,

"And I could see the benefits of it. Firstly, I could tell that you were already trying to stand up to your fears by volunteering to speak originally, so the realisation that you had spoken in front of the entirety of Lucael without panicking or freezing up would come as a pleasant surprise. And secondly, sharing that speech with almost every soldier going to war would have inspired them immensely, and will have huge benefits in the battles to come. Not just because of the words, but also due to who was speaking them: the youngest Lucerna, Caiellis, the small and young prince that has the hated something or other inside of you that gives you Black mana, someone that the kingdom overall was undecided upon at any rate. It would have both motivated them and improved how you appeared in their eyes. And anyway, I am sorry, but I personally think it was worth it."

"I suppose," he acceded sullenly, "But I'm still annoyed at you, Hierarch Martha and dad. Whatever."

A sudden beeping sound cut through the silence that had descended, and Cai let out a long and frustrated exhalation before retrieving the mana communicator in his pocket, really not in the mood to talk to any of his family. He answered the call with a pulse of mana, "Dad."

"Caiellis," the man responded, just as coldly, before letting some enthusiasm and delight inflect his voice, "You have made me so proud to be your father today. I don't think you truly understand the effect you've had on the soldiers. I can still hear them chanting now."

"That's nice," Cai robotically inserted into the small gap Marik left for him to respond, though the man seemed not to have heard, as he carried on just as joyfully, "You've definitely proved yourself today, my boy. To think, you are still only thirteen years of age – angels above, I would have never even considered doing something like that, despite your grandfather's insistence (Cai assumed rightly that he was talking about the late King Garius II, not Percival Noctis). Am I right in saying that you suffer from social anxiety?"

_How perceptive of you,_ Cai's mind voice spat, but he replied with a simple, "Yes."

"I was the same when I was your age," his father said, to which Caiellis thought, _Maybe something similar, but I doubt it was the same. Additionally, if you knew that, then why did you authorise the general broadcast? Would you not be able to tell that it was hard enough for me in the first place? _

The youngest prince found his mind subconsciously beginning to blame his father for the events – true, Hierarch Martha and by extension Jenna had orchestrated them, but they didn't know him as well as his father supposedly did, though the youngster found himself doubting that exponentially more every time he spoke to him. But the fact remained that if Marik had been in a similar situation in his youth, and could empathise and sympathise with his youngest son, all it would have required was the king thinking, _Right, surely Cai is already trying to face his fears, and could easily fail – this is hard enough already, so I probably should just leave him with that to prevent the possibility of him humiliating himself in front of everyone. _Evidently he had been hoping for too much if he ever thought dad would be that sympathetic.

"This is fantastic. You certainly confronted and defeated your fears today," Cai could picture the smile on his face, and he would be lying if he said it didn't make him feel slightly proud that he had earned his father's congratulations, as although the man had been putting a lot more effort into reminding his sons that he loved them because of almost losing them, Caiellis was certain that once he got over shock of Alexander almost dying then unless he consciously carried on Marik would stop. He then registered that the not quite companionable silence had been stretching out, while he had no idea as for how long it had, so inquired, "Is that all you wanted to say?"

"Why? Should I have said anything else?" dad returned in mild surprise, wondering if this was Cai's way of asking for further orders or clarification upon existing ones.

_Sorry for potentially shaming you in front of the subjects you may one day rule over? Sorry for almost crushing your already broken arm yesterday? Sorry for shouting at you over Alex's wounding when all_ _I__ had to do was stay calm and admonish you? Sorry for not listening to your worries before the negotiations in the Scholaria Magnus? Sorry for sending you away after talking to you properly a total of once? _

_Sorry for putting you under so much pressure that you felt like killing yourself because there was a possibility that that was the only way you could complete the trial was perfectly acceptable, and better than living on under the stress of constant failure? Sorry for degrading your already abysmal self-esteem enough that instead of feeling like you could talk to someone and share your worries, you felt that sudden and stinging pain was the only thing that could alleviate the crushing feeling? _

_There's an awful lot you could say, but I'm not deluded enough to expect it from you._

"Goodbye, dad. It's been nice talking to you," he mumbled, though both knew he really didn't mean the words, and the earlier statement suddenly made sense in the monarch's head, though too late, "Caiellis, wait. I'm-"

Cai ended the call, withdrawing the power he was supplying the device with that allowed it to answer his father's call. Another beeping sound resounded throughout the room, before he manually deactivated the device and passed it to a stunned looking Jenna, who said, "Wow. That was mean of you."

_Maybe,_ Caiellis pondered – his dad had tried to be nice, and he had just thrown that back in his face, but he wouldn't be telling the truth if he said that silencing Marik hadn't come with a burst of empowerment and satisfaction. Besides, he would be seeing him soon anyway, though his army would be attacking an outpost and another force before meeting up with the main one for the siege of Usnaan.

* * *

New Summonings in the chapter:

Guardian Weiss: Empyrial Archangel

Serena Caelum: Emeria Angel

Ciaran Benelis: Baneslayer Angel

Decia Amorae: Griffin Dreamfinder

Dolor Vincula: Windreaver


	25. Blood on the Sands

The boy scampered up the branches of one of the many trees in the Deep Forest, listening to the flow of life around him and the thousands of sounds it encompassed: the sound of buzzing insects, the rustle of the leaves in the warm and humid wind, the scurrying of tiny animals far below as they fled a sprinting predatory cat that panted in its exertions, the occasional and barely discernible plod of the gargantuan behemoths and the even rarer thunderous below that echoed throughout the forest.

A butterfly with scintillating violet wings lazily wafted by the child, who watched its progress with wide eyes as it drifted through the forest, a perfect target for predators – such as a camouflaged brown lizard that crawled up the bark of the tree the boy was on, momentarily hissing in warning at him, exposing its viscous and cautionary spines, before turning its attention back to its prey. Despite having seen the cycle of life thousands of times, the Erian watched intently, his youthful features etched in anticipation.

The lizard then attacked, opening its scaled mouth wide and extending its elastic tongue, the pink and moist fleshy head firing out towards the butterfly, which made no motions to avoid the incoming assault. The second the tongue touched the insect it released a burst of venomous pheromones that spread out in a cloud of pink gas, dissolving the flesh of the tongue that fell away. The lizard shrieked in anguish, but the decay spread along the pink muscle at a rapid rate, corroding the creature as it died in a frantic tumble of dissipating limbs.

He remembered when he was younger, still a child – as his physical age of thirteen meant that he was treated as an adult in Erian society – one of his friends, a happy and ecstatic girl that he couldn't remember the name of had been climbing up a tree just before him, and had pointed excitedly to the butterfly, which was a significantly different and more attractive colour than the usual variety, declaring to him that she would capture it for him, and the second she touched it the insect had effused its deadly cargo onto the poor girl, who had died screaming as she fell off the tree, her limbs burnt to mush as she hit the forest floor with a wet splat.

Evolution and adaptation in the Deep Forest was heightened to such a degree that changes could be observed within a short lifetime of the humans that inhabited it – it was said that those shamans who worshipped the Great Shaper Vorinclex, the Unbound Sancturia creature that supposedly governed the cycles of life and prevented ecological stagnation by devouring entire species, deliberately introduced new forms of life they developed through the application of magic, though whether or not they were aiding or hindering the plan of Vorinclex was unknown.

The Yentarians of the League of Thrazek had taken a great interest in the augmented evolution of the forest, often attempting to gain access, though if they had ever succeeded or not was a mystery to the boy – in fact, the only Erians that only knew about it were the soft ones living in "civilised" Geansse, as they were the only ones in the nation (as if the unfettered cycle of life itself could ever been confined into so human a term as "nation") that actually knew the world outside of the Deep Forest existed, not that the boy had ever cared about that.

At any rate, the poison butterfly had developed, and claimed one of its victims right before the boy's eyes, and the village had soon learnt to teach the children to stay far away from them.

_Was that in this life? Or another? _He thought. They all blended together, they all seemed the same. The other members of the Confederacy had professed to be able to separate the different lives their hosts had lived to obtain information from any of them, but to Epsilon it was more like an endless cycle, where he (Epsilon assumed it should refer to itself in that way, as its current form – and if all went to plan, its last – was male) inhabited a form for a short while before returning back to the immaterium and inevitably finding another body again.

He had lived in the lush lower jungles, the underground and dark undergrowth unpentrated by sunlight, and the inner forest itself – once Epsilon had even lived in Geansse, though had abandoned the city as it failed his already low expectations and once his duty had been completed. He had been raised within many different tribes, abandoned as a babe by parents who couldn't care for him and left to fend for himself in an uncaring and primal forest, or been brought up as one of the mysterious and secretive shamans.

Unlike the other Confederates, Epsilon was not just a mask, another personality made up of past experience that could be taken off at will and coexisted with the current bearer of the role – he existed within his chosen child ever since birth, and the other personality never developed. They all thought that nothing changed, that they were eternal, but Epsilon could see the difference every time the body of those that assumed the role died and a new human inherited it – they acted noticeably changed, but maybe it was a sign of them developing with every one who wore the mask. If he was inclined to think of human things like poetry, Epsilon would have found it ironic that he was the only one that never changed mentally (as they all altered physically), considering how he appeared.

He briefly recalled that when he first encountered the poison butterflies, he had been a slender girl with silken brown hair, but he couldn't discern whether that had been his previous form or a hundred forms ago, nor did it matter.

The beautiful poison butterfly drifted through the air, as it nothing had happened and it hadn't just caused the brutal death of another living organism, just as the one that had killed Epsilon's friend had languidly fluttered away before he (or she) had smashed it out of the air with his (or her) stick in vengeance.

The one that had just killed its predator elegantly extended its glistening black proboscis, flitting down to a nearby plant and landing on the outstretched ruby red petals, intending to feed upon the golden nectar that glinted in the shafts of sunlight that cut through the canopy.

The plant reacted instantly, clamping shut around the butterfly and shearing off its head before it could release its corrosive pheromones, the petals turning inwards and revealing sharp botanical fangs that it stabbed into the writhing creature, as though the butterfly's brain functions had been eliminated its body still reflexively thrashed. If the boy looked closely, he could see the vital fluids of the deadly poison butterfly being drained from it, and he walked along the think branch with the grace and confidence of someone who had lived in the Deep Forest for an eternity.

Despite that, Epsilon would be lying if he said that he had come even slightly close to exploring the entirety of the jungle – it was vast, and defied all mortal measurements, with many different self-sufficient biomes that one could easily get lost in. He recalled that one of his many brothers (_or had it been a sister? Or did I have two different ones that did the same thing?_) had wandered off from his group and become lost, and Epsilon remembered his parents at the time crying and hugging him close, despite the fact that the mortality rate among children was immensely high.

They had attributed the boy's lack of a response to their six year old's immense sadness and not truly understanding that his big brother would never come back, but in truth Epsilon had never cared. The older brother of that incarnation had simply been part of the great, endless cycle of life and death, and he would have fed some predatory creature or his corpse would have provided sustenance for a plant, that would in turn be eaten by a herbivore, which would be hunted by humans and used to keep them alive before another reckless child wandered into the woods and died.

He briefly wondered if the parents of that form would have survived their second son dying at the age of fourteen, as that was when Epsilon could no longer sustain himself and walked into the forest to die. It happened at around the same age in each of his many lives, although he still three to four months left in this one – more than enough time to complete the Confederacy's plan. It was because of the Confederacy's plan that he was here now, away from the village in which the current him – Talek Sajai, nicknamed Tal by his friends and two older siblings – had left the village and was walking a winding path through the forest, a seemingly random route that outwardly led to no known destination mapped by the village elders.

Talek/Epsilon stalked across the branch towards the plant that hung off it, greedily devouring its prize, and grabbed the plant with his slender hand, crushing it to a pulp and running revitalising Green mana through his arm and into his fingers to nullify the effects of the substance present in the carnivorous plant's sap that was inimical to mammal life. The plant automatically released hundreds of tiny seeds that spread through the air in a final effort to propagate its species further, though many of the plants would be in dire competition with each other for food and only the best adapted would survive.

Talek shot out his other arm and caught one of the seeds, pocketing it inside of the leather sash his present mother had lovingly made for him and was strung over his tanned skin.

Epsilon had noticed that despite living in hundreds of different bodies, he always looked similar, but assumed that was due to his lifestyle – willowy and thin, with some lean muscle developing at the end of his lives when he breached his teenage years, and tanned skin because of the hot sunlight, though once he had been a deathly pale girl living in the darkest regions of the Deep Forest that had apparently been similar to Lucael, according to his Confederates, who treated their child member with a mixture of patronising fondness and irritated scorn. He preferred his hair to be medium length – not long enough to get in the way, but enough that it attributed a sense of mystery, and adopted this hairstyle no matter what gender or hair type he was given in his different lives.

Despite inheriting various different eye colours, and sizes, they always had an intensity that made him looked focussed and intelligent, as stated on numerous occasions by thousands of peers, most of whom would be dead now anyway. Epsilon had been selected to become a shaman, the group of magic users that was venerated above all and directed the forest, forming its ruling body in the eyes of other nations despite simply following the whimsical or enigmatic commands of the elementals and behemoths that took an interest in the forest's human inhabitants. He always evaluated whether or not he needed to demonstrate his magic and be taken from his village and trained in the mystical ways (in spite of the fact he probably knew more than the ones "teaching" him), and if they didn't need manipulating further then he would not.

The boy had only left Eria on three occasions (not counting his visits to the Eternal Realm), and found that the nations he visited were even more short-sighted and narcissistic than the humans in the forest; life did not bloom as it did in the Deep Forest. The most recent had been roughly two lives ago, when he had visited the New Empire of Welkas just after revolution had occurred – not that he would know without the Confederacy informing him.

Why Alpha had been incapable of eliminating the woman and her two daughters was a mystery to him, though it had been explained to him. He paid little attention in the meeting to things of human concern – Epsilon was perfectly content to simply follow orders, and couldn't care less what happened to the rest of the world so long as the Deep Forest, and by extension Sancturia, survived. He vaguely recalled something about a "Jarred Redhand" and that this person's family had been his target, in order to "change Welkas in preparation for the future". Furthermore, the fact that he had been required to complete the killings just as the man arrived back at his villa from whatever he had been doing and laugh in a haunting manner was also beyond him, but evidently it had been of great import to his fellow Confederates.

That was the main problem with them. Beta's worries about the misery and death they would cause had emphasised that – Epsilon didn't care that humans would die – does anyone complain that there is constant death all around them? When his fellow Confederates wanted "the world" to live on, by "the world" they meant humanity and didn't care at all about the thousands of other organisms they shared "the world" with, from the lowliest flea that's only purpose was to suck blood and breed to the largest gargantuan that could shake the forest with its monstrous mating cries.

Epsilon would like to say that he didn't dislike humans, simply viewed them as equals to every other living creature, but that would be a lie. The fact that humanity thought that it was superior to the rest of life seriously grated on the everchild's nerves – did the fly think it necessary to raise itself on a plinth above all other species, simply because it was capable of thinking in a unique way? No, all the fly cared about was survival.

He wished that he could see the world through a hawk's eyes, prowl the forest like a deadly and dangerous predatory cat, swim the roaring rivers as a fish or bask in the glory of the sun and raise his branches ever higher as a soaring oak, but the fact was he was a human, the species with its only defining feature being a dissatisfaction at how life was for them as individuals, blind to the greater whole and beauty of life and ignorant to the eternal cycle constantly occurring around them. The eternal cycle that would soon end without the Confederacy's plan.

Talek's brief introspection had allowed those that he had been tracking with his magical sense to get closer to his location, and he intended to intercept their path soon, and felt no remorse for what was to come. He began to climb down the tree, his bare feet touching the bark with a strange sensation – some Erian villages had originally pondered wearing shoes, as it would provide greater protection from the undergrowth and the insects that could attack from there, but it had been decided against for numerous reasons.

Firstly, there were not enough raw resources to construct a pair for all, they restricted graceful movement and made noise, caused the feet to sweat even more in the sweltering heat – the fact that most Erians only wore what he was currently (although they often wore other things for rituals or ceremonies, or if they were of a high rank): a sash of leather and woven fabric shorts, and it still felt boiling was a testament to the heat. The final reason was because that were clumsy enough to stand on venomous spines or other such hazards probably wouldn't have been useful anyway, and the village could only provide for those that could bring things back into it.

Despite being the son of the chieftain, Ruruc Sajai, the rules still applied to Talek, and his family would only briefly mourn his loss if he got himself killed, as there were two older siblings that could inherit the role anyway. The tribe of the Oak's Blessing would live on without him.

He slid down the tree and landed gracefully on the ground, rising to his full and unimpressive height – Talek was a small thirteen year old, to the delight of his five years older brother Jalek, (in the imaginative tradition of their mother's family, his two year older sister was named Salek). The older boy had often bullied him, and Epsilon had considered killing the quite frankly irritating eighteen year old, but that was before Jalek had proved that he loved Talek by saving him from raiders of another tribe.

Despite the fact that death normally wouldn't matter and Epsilon would simply find another foetus to become, his demise now and the reality that he would have to grow again could have been detrimental to the Confederacy, forcing another one of his Confederates to prosecute their plans within the Deep Forest, and none of them knew it as well as he did.

Many of his missions – including this one – he undertook himself, without the knowledge of his allies, as he knew how to carefully control the Erian Conclave so that it would not intervene with the other nations. Throughout history, those who had bayed for war and to expand the Erian territory outside of the jungle had been swiftly silenced, to a degree of efficiency and accuracy that even the strongest warriors could not survive.

A few centuries ago, when the greatest general of one of the major tribes had been assassinated when advocating that they should attack the nations outside, shamans had invented a myth that spoke of one of the forest spirits being displeased by the talk of leaving the Deep Forest, and so if one didn't wanted to die then they should stop. Though he knew that the shamans had done that to further their own agendas, Epsilon hadn't cared – it was less work for him.

He could feel his target's presence, as they made no effort to conceal it, and could vaguely hear them talking tersely to each other, although Talek couldn't discern what.

Talek walked forward, using just enough stealth that his presence would be hard to perceive but not as much as he was capable of to completely mask his passing – he wanted his targets, soldiers from a rival tribe that were guarding a fugitive shaman that was disrupting the natural balance of things and ruining the delicate order that he had attempted to create over the centuries.

The shaman council's own assailants had failed to kill her, and so now Talek was taking it upon himself to eliminate her – she was spreading warnings of a coming shadow, scaring the tribes that she passed through and rousing some of the chieftains to action – such as the one of the warriors that guarded her. They were on the way to visit the home of the person Epsilon presently was, one of the four Great Tribes that had stood the test of the ages and were more permanent that the smaller ones, who were either destroyed by creatures of the forest or opportunistic raiders.

Talek stalked towards them, ready to meet them but making sure that he looked like he had only just become aware of their presence through sound alone. He used the amount of caution and stealth a furtive, scared and lost teenager would, watching impassively as the party walked round a sea of tall bushes and vines, each one of the warriors' expert eyes scanning the forest around for potential threats. He knew that the tribe they had come from – the Zhurac – wasn't an enemy of his father's, but nor was it an ally and their visit would be unprecedented as both tended to avoid each other.

The boy hid himself within a thicket of plants that cut at his skin, ignoring the pain as he was aware that this species wasn't poisonous, and needed to look like he had spontaneously hidden himself the second he heard the men. His blood dripped onto the ground, the slow sound of it eclipsed by the footsteps of the warriors, and he saw them emerge into the avenue of trees he had been in.

There were five of the tribesmen, tanned and muscled brutes that still possessed some of the leanness present in all Erians due to their harsh lifestyle, and carried metal sickles and axes they had at the ready. The quality of their weaponry, and the fact that the little armour they were was emblazoned proudly with an intricately designed sigil of their tribe, meant that they were elites. That wouldn't stop Epsilon, as one of the men wiped sweat from his brow and signalled that the area was clear.

A slender and perfectly formed woman walked into the clearing, obviously a shaman just from the way she walked – she made no effort to conceal herself, as the creatures of the forest would not touch her, and she was at one with the earth so made no sound. He could sense the magical potency inside of her, and assumed that she could conjure up a powerful Sancturia creature.

The shaman needed to die before one of the tribes chose to take action, and Epsilon knew that Talek's father was quite an impressionable man – which had made it easier to manipulate him in the past. It wasn't like she was spreading false rumours, far from it, in fact, but none in Eria should know of the coming darkness. If they tried to intervene, ruin the fragile and careful plots of the Confederacy, then the darkness could end up consuming them all. _Humans should just stay out of our way, _he thought, despite the irony of the statement as the Confederacy was a representation of all the facets of humanity.

"I think there is someone here," a woman's voice murmured just after the soldiers had been less perceptive than Epsilon had anticipated and failed to notice him, and Talek took that chance to meekly enter plain sight, holding up his hands in surrender when the soldiers raised their weapons and walked menacingly towards the thin youth, holding onto his hunting blade and dropping it on the ground.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" one of them asked, and Talek shakily pointed to the symbol of the oak leaf on his leather sash, pretending that he was too scared to speak.

"Be at ease, men," the largest warrior, clearly the leader because of his tattoos and piercings, walked towards the boy, sheathing his weapon and almost bending down to his height, "So you are from the Oak's Blessing, correct? You are quite far from home."

"I … I got lost," he stuttered, breathing heavily in feigned fear and intently watching the expressions on all of their faces out of the corner of his eye, and trembling, added, "I … I was j-just chasing a deer … a-and … then they weren't there anymore. I didn't … know where they went," he violently brushed a tear from his face, ensuring that he appeared determined not to cry because of the fact that he was supposed to be an adult, but the fact remained that those older than the still-children continued to treat them in that way until they actually looked like adults, despite the greater independence and the expectation to hunt or carry out other adult duties. "I-I want my big brother … or my big sister …"

"Lucky for you that we aren't part of an enemy tribe, otherwise we would have killed you," the man sighed, sharing a glance with the shaman, who nodded, " We were on our way to Oak's Blessing anyway, so you can tag along. What's your name then, lad?"

"Talek Sajai," he answered quietly, sniffling softly, and the man looked shocked, "What, the youngest son of Chieftain Sajai, Scourge of the Panther's Fang?"

That was one of the tribes that had opposed his own in the past, one that Epsilon had faint memories of being a part of at one point, and Talek nodded, making a visible effort to steel himself, "Even better for your father that were are not foes."

"Thank you," he said, softly, infusing a tremendous amount of gratitude back into the word, and then began his attack. Although Talek had been born with quite weak magic, not able to call upon a Sancturia creature (much to the disappointment of the chieftain), Epsilon could still tap into the well of mana locked inside of his mind. The benefit to having it this way meant that the shaman had no warning of the mana channelling, as she couldn't detect the thirteen year old before hand and had assumed rightly that Talek didn't have access to mana.

Rotted tendrils of vegetation burst out of the ground around them, one of them slamming into the face of the warriors' leader and exploding his head in a spray of splintered bone and brain matter, as the others cried out in dismay. Epsilon harnessed both Green and Black mana to infuse the dead plants with decaying energy, and as they swung into the warriors they made the undergrowth curl up around them – although only the weakest plants would die, Epsilon made sure of that, and those that did added to the swaying stalks of rotted matter.

One Zhuraci brute hacked apart a vine of dead plants with his axe and charged at the boy, who hadn't yet moved, as the rest of the warriors battled to protect their lives and the shaman began to cats her own spells.

Epsilon turned towards him, augmenting his originally weak strength with Green mana and dodging the first blow, wrapping his arm around the haft of the axe and bending the head off, using the wooden handle to leap at the man and bury the metal axehead in his chest. He gasped, and tried to bring Talek into a bear hug and crush the thin boy so that the other warriors could kill him and so he would acquit himself favourably in death, but Talek grabbed him, twisted him around and used the dying man to intercept a blow intended for him from another Zhuraci, who snarled as his sword hacked into the man, who shouted in pain as the life left him.

Talek ignored the man, who pulled out his sword and readied for another strike as more tendrils of animated plants wrapped around his limbs and pulled them off one by one in a sickening mixture of screams and a horrible tearing sound. He turned his attention to the shaman, who was just about to finish her ritual, the warriors all around her being torn apart by the vines of necrotic plant matter, holding her hands together as an orb of Green mana began to form.

"I will not let you harm the forest, agent of death," she stated, her voice suffused with a mana-born resonance, and if Epsilon had been so inclined he could have given her a speech about why she was inadvertently doing the darkness's work for it – besides, death in itself was nothing to be feared so long as it led to more life and in turn more death. Life could not exist without death – that why he used Black mana, as the colour in itself wasn't inherently evil, it just represented the cessation of life.

One might think it paradoxical that someone who loved life in all its forms as much as Epsilon did would use Black mana as well as Green, but that was when the person in question was possessed of the belief that the mana of the dark was automatically immoral just because those usually attracted to it were already just that. It was not death that Epsilon wanted to stop, but subjugation and enslavement to the darkness – the Confederacy wanted to prevent the abyss from feeding upon the world for an eternity of suffering.

He sprang at the woman, just as she was about to plunge the orb into the hand, changing his body to be more like a snake's and shooting across the ground with the magic that emulated animals, then flipping into the air and kicking her in the head with his improved strength. Startled, she was flung backwards, just as the last other warrior died a horrible death as the plants suffocated his thrashing body, and crashed into a tree. She shrieked in pain as Epsilon pointed his hand towards her, and a wave of purple death magic drifted towards her, instantly killing any of the plants she tried to conjure up to protect herself, but was dispelled when she bellowed and emitted a pulse of Green mana.

However, centuries of quickening the cycle of death had not taught Epsilon nothing, and he had fought and killed many shamans before so knew how to deal with them – kill them before they can cast their spells. To that end, he scooped up a nearby spear from the ground and launched it at the woman, who summoned a vine to bat it aside. Epsilon infused the spearhead with Black mana, and it corroded the vine and went straight through it, impaling the shaman in the chest. Before she could recover, the boy was already in front of her, his eyes shining with dark green energy, and put his hands on each side of her head, pulsing death magic through her and killing the woman as she thrashed. Once he had done so, he took out the spear, tossing it aside and letting the shaman's corpse fall to the ground. Then, he fished out the seed of the carnivorous plant he had killed earlier, and planted it in the whole in her chest. The woman's body would provide ample sustenance and nutrients for the growing plant.

And the cycle would begin again

.*.*.*.

_Day Eleven_

.*.*.*.

The battle was fought under the baleful crimson eye of the Welkalite sun that hung high in the morning sky, its intensity much less than that of the midday one Caiellis had already experienced. He wiped sweat from his brow, but otherwise paid no attention to it, staring with undivided focus on the battle playing out below him. Instead of placing himself at the foremost cohort of troops, Cai was stood on rocky outcrop allowing him to orchestrate the troops, his stained glass wings already pre emptively activated so that he could descend upon the part of the battle that needed the most help.

As he expected, the enemy force that they had assaulted wasn't very large and wasn't currently putting up a huge amount of resistance, although of course the Lucaelians were still taking casualties and every time Cai spied an armoured figure lying in the sands and dust of the waste and covered in blood he felt his stomach churn, though at least he had managed to stop himself from thinking that if he had employed a different strategy then they might still have survived – there would be enough time for that later.

Some of the dead he saw he knew by name, though knew nothing more than that, but worse were the nameless that he hadn't had the time to memorise because of the sheer size of his army, although Cai was sure that their faces would stay with him for a long while, maybe even the rest of his life as his photographic and exceptional memory wouldn't let them leave.

The almost city Jeksaan had a relatively large garrison, though it was massively outnumbered by nearly the full strength of his entire army numbering just over ten thousand, though Scientia Mos had the smallest number of soldiers barring Gol Secondus, which in its prime had possessed more. Instead of simply battering his army into the city, which had a selection of defences although it was not nearly as fortified as a Lucaelian metropolis, he had lured out the defending soldiers inside by only having part of his elite vanguard (led by Ciaran) harry the city.

Had he been the enemy general, he would have been content to stay in the city despite not having nearly enough resources for a protracted siege (the course of action Caiellis would have taken if he hadn't been following his father's fast paced strategy), and wait for the Lucaelians to come to him and create as much a delay as possible before fleeing and conserving his forces, but the Welkalite marshal was quite obviously a prominent member of the Order of Violence, a lackey of Arendus Draal that could have killed Cai, and quickly mobilised their army to try and catch Ciaran's cavalry division, using the speed and aggression the Red mana aligned Empire of Welkas was famed for.

This happened after several hours of raiding and hit and run assaults that Cai and his generals had designed to deliberately draw the Welkalites out of their city, and despite his father ordering him to complete the battle as quickly as possible beforehand so that they could meet up with the main forces of the four other metropolises under the command of the king (although Alexander would be arriving with more soldiers from Civitas Sol and Cassida Principia, in spite of Caiellis's protestations that he should stay in bed) as soon as was feasible, Cai much preferred this course of action, and the Welkalites had taken the bait and surged out of Jeksaan.

However, Cai's army had been ready to counter attack – one technique that was exclusive to the mages of Scientia Mos was the Wargate, an advanced and large scale teleportation spell that had allowed Caiellis to deploy the less manoeuvrable cohorts of his army in a flash. Nevertheless, Guardian Weiss and the more powerful mages – a group of aged Ǽthermages who had insisted they join the army that Cai could never have declined because of their usefulness - that wouldn't be of much use on the battlefield due to their age, were exhausted, as the Light-bearer had been forced to Summon in order to use his Empyrial Archangel as a focal point for the gathering of mana.

That had caught the Welkalites completely by surprise, as Caiellis then charged the rest of his army towards the second opposing one exiting the city to come to the aid of the first, splitting them off from each other and letting him fight two simultaneous battles at once, though he had confidence in General Rateis's ability to lead the second force to victory.

The prince was still surrounded by his bodyguard – at first he had objected, as they wouldn't be able to enter and leave the battle at will like him and so should be in the fray, but Drax had informed him that they possessed a spell that would allow them to lock onto his Lucerna birthmark and use that to teleport to aid him. He could tell that Ruthia and Drax itched for battle, while Aymer was more reserved about it and Lancalo was less enthusiastic for violence, despite prosecuting it admirably.

Jenna had taken his offer to stay behind with the logistical supply officers and quartermasters that took command of the army's supplies and were not suited for battle, as although she had performed well in her first (well, Cai assumed it was her first, but he actually didn't know that much about the Yentarian so couldn't be sure), telling him that she wasn't suited for combat (despite satirically reacting in a way that Mysos would if Cai told him that he wasn't fighting at first – though that would come soon enough).

Cai could see Decia of Division One duelling against a geomancer that split the ground with his fists and impaled a nearby Lucaelian standard bearer, one of the women next to the man hoisting the banner up herself as the captain attacked the mage. Her griffin shimmered with a large amount of golden and starry auras, screeching as it tore into a lumbering earth elemental that swung its stony fists through the air.

The archers deployed behind him launched another bombardment of shining golden arrows, the Lucaelian wisps aiding the aim of every soldier that was their Summoner and reaping a swathe of casualties from the lightly armoured Welkalite warriors, a group of whom tore into the flank of a platoon of legionaries, led by a electromancer wielding arcs of crackling lightning that he coruscated through the soldiers, charring them within their armour as the electricity bounced between the metal plates.

A fizzing elemental belonging to the lightning mage hissed as it killed, and Cai had to restrain himself to prevent the emotional part of his mind forcing him to leap to the defence of the soldiers – a group of hierophants trained in the academy and part of the Mage Corps were intervening, suppressing the chaotic Red mana of the Welkalite captain and Summoning several spirits shrouded in peaceful and healing White and Blue mana and saving the lives of some of the legionaries, although Cai was certain that if he had intervened then more would have lived.

_And if you had intervened then the fact there is a prince – with access to a First Sisterhood angel – leading the army would become plainly obvious, and the element of surprise that you have now would have been lost, potentially risking many more lives. Stay focussed! _He mentally chastised, although it was extremely tempting to just Summon Orzhova now and lead from the front. But Caiellis knew that he wouldn't be able to sustain her for the entirety of the battle, and preferred to keep his assets in reserve until he needed them instead of instantly expending them in some vain attempt to gain an early advantage.

At least his soldiers understood his plan, as he had highlighted it to the captains who would have passed it down the chain of command and into the sergeants of individual squads, and he had no censure to fear, as this was how his father had fought in the civil war (although Marik usually had his command squad at the front of the battle instead of ready to react to threats) and how every Lucerna carried out battles, leaving their extremely mana-intensive angels in the Mind Realm until they were needed.

Caiellis scanned the battle once again, figuring that if the Welkalites didn't reveal any significant dangers soon then he may as well go to where the fighting was thickest. Having analysed many battles in the past, he knew that his army was winning the struggle for victory because of the Wargate ambush and the sheer power of the legion in a pitched battle – the Welkalites were much more suited to insane aggression, overrunning their foes before they had a chance to react and winning battles with an absurd speed, and now that the tables had turned and they were being battered down from all sides things were drastically less favourable than them.

Despite the success he had seen so far (though this battle was a far cry from his flawless first, and on a much grander scale) Cai still wished that his army was simply an extension of his will, or that he led solely Sancturia creatures or even commanded a reanimated host of necromantic soldiers, as then he wouldn't have to worry about casualties and deaths and could orchestrate the battle in a symphony of harmonious strategy with him as the conductor, instead of having to direct living and breathing soldiers with their own lives, families, friends, and hopes and dreams that could lose morale and flee just as easily as exceed expectations.

Then he could use some as bait for ambushes (well, technically he still did but had to make sure it was safe enough for them to not be exterminated and couldn't pull off the more hazardous plans without consigning them to their deaths), or throw them into situations they had no hope of succeeding in to buy time for the rest of his army without having to think about the lives he would be tossing away. T_hat currently is unimportant, _he harshly reminded himself, although it was only a tiny part of his mind stuck in debate with itself and the rest was utterly concentrated on the unfolding engagement.

Heavily armoured elephant humanoids known as loxodon fought side by side with their Summoners against a tide of ferociously roaring berserker gladiators pumped full of hallucinogenics and spinning their ignited and fire weapons in a psychotic frenzy as insanity inducing wisps that shone with a scarlet light orbited in a wild dance around them. Nope, Division Three of Cohort Two would be able to handle itself without his help, and Cai idly wondered whether the Order of Violence berserkers would survive the amount of drugs coursing through their bloodstream.

Cai snapped his head to the side as he sensed a large rise in brutal Red mana near where Ciaran and his elite troops were fighting, as a brawny man wearing a few pieces of armour covered in brutal spikes and a chained gladiator's mask raised his hands, the dust of the wasteland around him billowing into the air as the ground began to thrum with a malignant and … _hungry? _… heat, and glowed a deep crimson. The prince shot into the air, already in the process of conjuring up his emotions concerning holy justice and the desire to protect as golden light swirled around his left side and made the wing on his right begin to shine with an incandescent light as the eye became suffused with White also.

The man who must have been the marshal of the Welkalite force erupted in a pillar of flames that incinerated both allied Welkas and enemy Lucaelian soldiers around him and puzzlingly sputtered out as soon as it did so, like a spontaneous and violent release of rage that died down the second it forced its owner to lash out, but Caiellis could sense a both ravenous and spiteful presence entering reality. Huge amounts of smoke and ash belched from the man's outstretched hands, flickering with the occasional fiery orange ember, though it didn't obstruct Cai's vision as he had activated the Lens of Guilt, darkness pooling in his left eye and around the other side of his body.

He wanted to try something slightly different in this Summoning ritual, something that he had discussed and verified with Orzhova but hadn't yet had chance to practise. From his aerial vantage point, the smallest Lucerna could see a mass of frenetically throbbing red pulsating in the vision granted to him by the Angel of the Black Sun, and heard a malicious and quite insane laugh that made him suddenly feel sorry for the regular Welkalite soldiers forced to fight under this madman that had led them all to their deaths.

Cai almost had to divert his course away from the enemy general when a pall of smoke surrounded him and the youngest prince was forced to cough violently, nearly causing him to fall to the ground when his body was wracked by savage hacking as the cloying smoke entered his lungs. It reminded him of the vampire's curse that his older brother had been afflicted with that had forced Alexander to vomit up his own black and corrupt blood, but nowhere near as serious as that. He felt as force from within him diverting a little of its mana around him, a golden respirator that purified the air and let him breathe again forming around his mouth, and the boy silently nodded his thanks to Orzhova as he continued on his descent.

The ash began to coalesce into a solid form, and Cai heard a sound in between a shriek and a bellowing roar as a creature shot out of the smoke and grabbed one of Ciaran's crusaders and her horse in one soot black hand and stuffed it into its gaping maw, the gleaming white teeth chomping into the woman and her mount in a spray of blood.

It was a huge, misshapen thing, with a gargantuan head that lolled forward from its slumped shoulders and greedy glinting eyes roving between ash-blackened soldiers in search of new prey. It's flopping upper body was connected to a distended belly that made Cai think of the Order of Gluttony, and its now dead Master Ershun, and stalked towards the soldiers on an irregular seven spindly legs that should never have been able to hold its weight. A large but whip-thin tail snaked out of its back, and it swished it around, impaling another soldier that had attempted to flank it and tossing the man into its gaping maw.

The most terrifying thing about it was its sheer size coupled with the fact that it was coloured a dark soot colour (although it periodically burped out flecks of orange flame), but Caiellis was in firm agreement with size not necessarily determining power, and was confident that with Orzhova at his side he could bring it down.

_It is like a monster of ash … an Ashen Monstrosity? It doesn't matter. It's going to die irrespective of what it is called. _Cai thought, knowing that the beast was one of the stranger denizens of Sancturia that he had seen before – a creature that had similar properties to both elementals, but were not manifestations of elements (though this creature could be an avatar of ash), and souls, although they were neither and were not derived from dead humans. He vaguely recalled some ancient mythology he had read naming them as kami, which was as good a title as any.

The Ashen Monstrosity split the air with a keening wail mixed with a screaming roar and launched a large fireball that trailed an obscene amount of smoke through the already dark air, and Cai dodged out of its path – the beast must have sensed the large mana pool of the descending prince, and correctly identified him as the greatest threat.

He placed his hand on his right cheek and felt the combined powers of light and darkness coursing through his veins, compelling him to slay the abomination in front of him and the familiar sphere of darklight was pulled out of his Lucerna birthmark that was the physical representation of Orzhova's sigil. This time, instead of tossing it into the air and then channelling massive quantities of his mana into it, he still did the latter but held onto the dark star, pouring huge amounts of both White and Black through both his palms whilst keeping it gripped with both small hands, feeling it expanding in his grip.

The beast swung one long clawed arm towards him, but then a golden-wreathed angel streaked past it, her elegant and simple but still hugely potent sword slicing into the limb as Iridis dragged her blade along it, severing the arm in a burst of light just as another exploded from the stump and made to swat the Seraph of the Sword out of the air.

A shield of holy flame surrounded the Daughter of Wrath as she was hit, the angel slamming into the ground in an explosion of dust and sand but remaining unharmed. Caiellis felt his praetorians using the spell they had mentioned earlier and teleporting next to him, though they landed amidst the brutal melee that had erupted around the marshal and his beast that had humans and residents of the other plane tearing into each other left and right. Iridis nodded her thanks to Ethé, as Ruthia waved to Mysos before hacking into a Welkalite Violence berserker with her flaming blade and immolating the man.

The boy locked eyes with his champion, who looked as if he was about to hurl himself at the monster kami still rampaging through the ranks of Ciaran's crusaders, who were leading the beast away from the rest of the army through noble amounts of self-sacrifice, Luncindia the Baneslayer angel performing diving attacks on a chasing fire-cat that was very similar to Kaled's Regata. Mysos nodded his head in a combination of submission and agreement, and turned to fight against a woman conjuring up waves of sparking flame with Iridis at his side.

Caiellis heard the haunting hymnals from the abandoned cathedral in his mind projected across the whole battlefield, instilling the Lucaelians with vigour both because of the inspiring qualities of a First Sisterhood angel's Summoning ritual and the fact that the sad notes reminded them of what could be lost if they faltered in this war, what could happen to the families left at home if they failed to defeat the Welkalite foes. He mentally concentrated on compressing the Black Sun's rapid expansion, focussing the titanic sum of mana he had channelled into a relatively small sphere around the size of his own head, feeling the unstable form of the dark star trembling with as yet unreleased magical power and itching to detonate.

He poured even more mana into it, hearing the eerie choir rise to a crescendo of sound that drowned out even the noise of the battle below, and rays of unlight began to pour out of the Black Sun, annihilating those Welkalites that they touched below and turning their bodies into what at first looked like dust but were actually minuscule particles of crystalline glass, but leaving the Lucaelians that they passed over unharmed and blessed with a healing pulse that repaired any damage they had sustained. Amethyst and white lightning crackled around the boy, mixing with the maelstrom of alternating White and Black mana that coated shadows in gold and luminosity in gloom and becoming a tempest of twilight forces.

A purple glow swept across the entire battlefield from the Black Sun, this light affecting every soldier and not just ones in close proximity like the pulse from earlier, and Cai smiled ascendantly as he saw the strength being sapped from the Welkalite forces and infusing his own warriors with power, before silently hoping that they wouldn't find the application of Black mana to aid them abhorrent, although at least it was predominantly White that was empowering them – and those few that had fought alongside him against Garod Morr's ambush would know how beneficial the blessings were, despite their origin. Additionally, one of Cai's objectives was to improve Orzhova's reputation in the eyes of the people, and the more battles he won with her then the more respect she would receive.

Cai forced the sun to stop expanding any more, the hymnals reaching a pinnacle of sound, and then dove at the Ashen Monstrosity, the soot beast screeching in panic and rage and growing black spines out of its back that ignited and were flung at the prince. However, the concentration of the mana that saturated the air around the youngest Lucerna forced the spikes to stop moving, disintegrating them the moment they came close to the prince. One of a much larger was suffused with a greater amount of Red mana than the rest, and nicked Cai's left cheek, sending a trickle of crimson towards the ground before the Black Sun absorbed life from those enemies below and utilised it to repair its master.

The youngster shot towards the ground with his palms pointing the dark sun to the earth, his descent almost instantaneous because of the potency of his mana enhancing the speed the wings gifted him with, and Cai smashed the shining orb into the ground and released his hold on the mana.

There was an explosion of White and Black mana that forced Caiellis to close his eyes despite viewing the world through his Lenses, shockwaves of alternating malevolent purple, shadowy darkness and blinding gold pulsing through the surrounding area, heralding the entrance of Orzhova, who opened her wings wide and slammed the haft of her scythe into the ground, adding her own twilight world-shaking magic to Caiellis's as she raised the medallion version of the sigil of light and darkness. Equal amounts of each poured out of the emblem, sending more cataclysmic reverberations through the air that swept over the Ashen Monstrosity.

"Well done, Cai! Now we can truly finish this!" his dark angel congratulated, smiling in a fusion of vindication and pride in her Summoner, who felt his power levels rising in the wake of the Angel of the Black Sun. The fact that Orzhova was commending him in the middle of the battle like he was training in the Mind Realm with her (as he had began to do despite her protestations, though they both knew it was helping him) brought a small smile to his lips that was quickly replaced by utter focus.

The creature shrieked and leapt at Caiellis, rings of fire and ash circulating over its arms as it reached towards the boy, but Orzhova shot at the beast first and infused her scythe with blinding golden energy, swiftly tearing into its chest and swooping away as more of the magic on the ground began to bleed into the golden wound. Amethyst lightning fulminated through the ground, draining the life from those foes it blasted through and turning their bodies into fragile sculptures of glass locked in their final moments of life.

Cai cried out in pain when a hammer crashed into his back, cracking his bones and sending him sprawling, tumbling across the ground and painfully scraping his face on it. Orzhova shot out a ray of extracting purple from her scythe and used it to sap the life from the kami, the dark energies running through the blade of her weapon and then converted into warm gold by the sun-shaped heel. If flowed through her and into her left hand, and she directed it at her stricken Summoner, repairing the damage that could have potentially paralysed him although the fact that he was in his ascendant state due to having Summoned was already regenerating the damaged tissue and bone.

Cai sprang to his feet, somersaulting back from an overhead strike that sent dust, sand and sparks flying in all directions, as the brute of a Welkalite general from the Order of Violence grinned maniacally, his gladiator's mask torn off and exposing a tanned and bloody face with insane eyes that was clearly revelling in the brutal engagement despite the fact that his force was being smashed apart by the force of Lucael.

Caiellis grinned back, his smile suffused with arrogance despite himself, before forcing his face to become impassive and serious, as if above favouring his foes with a display of emotion. His thoughts were filled with stratagems for defeating this current foes, referencing what he knew about Red mana with his admittedly lacking knowledge of the Order of Violence and their bloodsport arenas, and comparing it with what he had seen demonstrated today. He focussed on the fight between leaders, silencing the haughty and self-assured thoughts that rose unbidden in his mind due to the power he had currently.

The boy had grown used to being a detached fighter – apart from occasional displays of hatred and sadness in his battles against the forces of the abyss, both during and after the civil war – but whenever he Summoned Orzhova it seemed like unless he was feeling intense detestation of his foe, which was amplified by his Black mana, he suddenly became more conceited and superior, which was strangely escalated by his White mana. However, neither had occurred when he had called upon Orzhova in the presence of his big brother, which was peculiar.

Cai pushed the distraction of that and his uncharacteristically egotistic thoughts to the back of his mind, figuring that it was just another thing to ask Orzhova about (he had also forgotten to inquire about the way his ominous Lucerna birthmark reacted to tears).

In spite of the fact that the mental introspection had taken less than a split second, Cai still harshly admonished himself for it, though it was quite taxing to suppress the thoughts of divinity and hubris that appeared in his mind and he could see why others had fallen to them – the boy reminded himself that if he couldn't control the emotions and see from an utterly objective viewpoint, then he would meet the same fate that had befallen the narcissistic and contemptuous Xarius.

He charged White and Black mana through his hands, having not yet drawn the Sword of Glass, and an orb of shining luminosity – pure light, not coloured by imperious gold – began to form in front of his left palm, just as a counterpart sphere of absolute darkness coalesced below his right.

The boy launched the two orbs – since he metaphorically referred to the Black Sun as a star, he was inclined to think of these as moons, the names of the three smaller celestial bodies orbiting the world that had been observed by the Yentarian astronomers who had written the treaty he had read. But then again everyone in the world apart from those in Lucael had seen the lunar light of the moons, and so the name which was rather alien to Caiellis would be familiar to every non-Lucaelian. Cai longed to live in a place where the days were sunny – though not to the sweltering intensity it was in Welkas – and the nights were full of twinkling stars and the moons, instead of a perpetual, cloying and claustrophobic gloom full of evil intent. He wanted to live in a nation that had nothing to fear from the dark.

The spheres shot towards the man, criss-crossing their paths and forming a helix shape with the contrails of residual alternate energies left in their wake, as if attracted to each other but repulsed in the same moment, like they were orbiting a common centre of gravity. Cai drew his artefact armament, seeing the blade light up in the combined vision of the Lenses of Innocence and Guilt, and immediately began lancing a barrage of incandescent beams at the marshal.

He leapt to the side, continuing his assault from the air, shockwaves of light and darkness still resonating out from his angel although the rays of darklight had ended for now, as an ashen and clawed fist scraped apart the ground on which he had been stood. As if it couldn't see the angel, the kami was still focussing all its attacks on the Lucerna heir. Caiellis's bolts impacted on the marshal's hastily erected shield of flame, splitting through the fire with their intensity reduced and crashing into him, just as the moons of gloaming and radiance surrounded him, circling the man for a second before slamming into him.

The marshal roared and crashed his hammer into the ground, and Cai felt a rush of heat and Red mana as a wall of flame flared up around the Welkalite, expanding outwards at a deadly rate and threatening to immolated the boy if he wasn't careful, although Caiellis was confident he could weather the tempest of fire and survive unscathed due to his life-draining magic. Then, the ground underneath him (that he wasn't actually touching) grew hot and burst open, a pillar of lava erupting into the air and clipping Cai as he frantically tried to dodge, melting his wings to slag and causing him to fall on the ground hard.

_Perfect,_ the boy thought, as the gladiator general immediately charged towards him from one angel and the Ashen Monstrosity hurtled towards his prone form from another, as he was forced to roll out of the way of another eruption of magma and landed on his back. Orzhova didn't even turn her head around as a berserker screaming a fanatical war cry full of spittle and hatred leapt off a rocky outcropping towards the dark angel, an extremely foolhardy move that must have been heavily influenced by the narcotics surging through her veins. She held up her hand and a wave of vertical midnight sliced into the gladiator, the blade of void darkness from Sancturia instantly killing the woman, disintegrating her body a moment afterwards, and then flapped her wings and launched into the air.

_Orzhova_, Cai reached out with his mind voice, knowing that the dark seraph should hear him, _Shall we end this? Is the Culling Sun appropriate?_

**No. I have something else in mind, **her own mental voice, much more potent and loud than his own, responded, and Cai could hear the smile in her words. He could feel more energy pouring out of him, one part of his mind dispassionately informing him that he would almost definitely be exhausted after this battle, **but first we need to get rid of the kami, or Ashen Monstrosity as you so eloquently put it. Then we can defeat every other Welkalite at once.**

Cai mentally nodded his agreement, reasoning that the creature – and by addition, its Summoner – would be far too disruptive to any protracted ritual they might seek to enact. He sidestepped another burst of molten lava just as the Welkalite rushed him, swinging the hammer in a wide arc that burnt the air as it passed through it, blocking the blow on a shield of protective and ultimately delaying enchantments Cai conjured up, and though they shattered underneath the powerful hammer blow they had served their purpose.

He recreated his stained glass wings and jumped into the air, using the marshal to propel himself further upwards and then instantly turning in mid air, descending at a rapid rate with his sword pointed straight at the main. As expected, the Ashen Monstrosity charged towards him, ignoring Orzhova even more than usual with its Summoner in danger, so the angel flung her scythe at the beast as the twin orbs of light and dark were recalled to Caiellis and were absorbed by his blade, the combination of the large quantities of the opposite forces being fused together releasing a potent blast of energy that Cai channelled through his sword.

He dodged a hammer blow that was meant to stop the prince from targeting the marshal – but this strike wasn't intended for the Welkalite anyway, Caiellis having anticipated this course of action and had already made plans to render it useless. He twisted, and fired the bolt of golden-coated shadow into Orzhova's spinning scythe, which shone with the energy of Summoner and Summoning channelled through it, and hacked into the Ashen Monstrosity's misshapen chest, the blade embedding in the wounds that the dark seraph had already torn open and then pulsing with light and shadow.

Orzhova's gloved hands began to shine with alternate forces, as now that her right was free of holding her ornate weapon she could weave even more potent magic, mirroring Caiellis's actions (though the boy still held onto his crystal relic blade) and pushed her hands together, her young Summoner tightly grasping onto the hilt of the Sword of Glass and using that to amplify his magic. The beast and the gladiator marshal both roared, as a wave of mana pulsated from Orzhova and infused the scythe with power. The kami's soot-blackened skin was becoming lighter, but then turned a midnight black far darker than its original colour, and the turned more translucent. Cai could see his magic coursing through it, as the Monstrosity charged towards him, its flesh slowly vitrifying in a similar manner to the way that Garod Morr had done due to the prince's spells, though instead of cracking and shattering into shards of glass the kami was being turned into a huge sculpture as Orzhova snuffed out its spirit-life, killing it in a way that would prevent it from returning to Sancturia and forcing it to die permanently.

That suddenly frightened Cai, who thought it was perhaps wrong that the Ashen Monstrosity would have its existence erased, as it was just a weapon of the Welkalite general and maybe didn't deserve true death – which was what would happen if it was killed in Sancturia. He then remembered that Orzhova, in her life in the other plane, would probably have eliminated many other denizens of Sancturia, both in the war against demons with her sisters and in her own travels as a renegade, so this wouldn't be of any concern to the angel. He quickly assured himself that he and Orzhova were bringing the beast to justice, as it had ended many lives in the material realm, lives that would never come back, so wasn't worthy of just returning to the other realm like nothing had happened.

The Ashen Monstrosity screeched one last time, smoke and fire billowing out from its mouth and nostrils, raising its arm to crush the upstart human child, before the vitrification completed and it fell silent – it had become frozen in scintillating glass that refracted the light of the battle around it, and it was an extremely evocative sight. Cai felt a gloved hand bleeding mana yank him just as a furious fireball obliterated his former position, and felt himself being dragged into the air.

He looked up, seeing Orzhova's twinkling onyx eyes firmly fixed on something ahead of them, as the dark angel conjured up a circular pattern/sigil of golden luminosity and etched it onto the air, nullifying the bombardment of Red spells – both from the stricken marshal and other Welkalites that saw the opportunity to attack the seemingly most formidable member of the Lucaelian army, maybe recognising him as the prince if Tradax or Arendus had ever briefed the Jeksaan military on the storm of righteous steel that was to come.

The fire, lightning and rocks pattered off the golden shield, and Cai was quickly but still gently dragged round and deposited on a large plinth in the centre of the battlefield, which he recognised as the head of the crystallised Ashen Monstrosity. Cai briefly wondered what would happen if a geomancer or some other wielder of the facet of Red mana that related to the earth caused a tectonic shift and shattered the huge sculpture, but assumed that Orzhova already had contingency plans in place for such an action.

"You wanted to end the battle, and I can sense that you can't sustain me for much longer," Orzhova stated in a way of explanation, and Cai turned to look up at the angel, who was still gently beating her midnight wings and keeping herself aloft beside her Summoner. She smiled down at him, though her eyes were still deadly serious, and Caiellis found himself thinking that before meeting her he had never realised how much like humans angels actually were – he had always just assumed that they were infallible paragons of justice, especially those in the First Sisterhood, of which before passing his trial he had met two.

Despite the emotion and warmth Aurelia showed (which Caiellis was certain was a by product of her Red mana), she was still perfect in every way, which had made it at first hard to stomach that he had received the only disgraced angel in the heavenly Sisterhoods (though it was the fact that she had been the servant of Xarius that had almost driven him to kill himself, an act he would have undertaken without his big brother stopping him), but now he knew that Orzhova was in no way inferior to any of her sisters, and was actually just as powerful – only that power had been misused in Xarius's reign. No, that wasn't true. Cai had always known that she was formidable, but before now he could never have seriously entertained the concept of Orzhova acting on the side of the good (_the side of Lucael, at any rate. __I'm not sure that our nation is exactly good_), in spite of the fact that Xarius had used her to protect the citizenry before his ascension to the holy throne.

"Cai, all I need from you is to supply me with more mana," Orzhova uttered, her honeyed voice coloured with an excited undertone that was also mixed in with a tinge of melancholy and seriousness, echoing her Summoner who hated violence despite being a prince and having to lead the armies of Lucael to victory, "And I'll do the rest. Watch and learn, my young Summoner."

Cai smirked despite himself, as yet more projectiles aimed at the prince bounced off the golden enchantments, and focussed exclusively on the generation of mana to provide Orzhova with more – something that was strangely paradoxical, if one was to think of it, as the dark angel technically had notably more magical potency than him, a human – albeit a Lucerna with Matalis's blood running through his veins – but Cai concluded that because he had Summoned her, Orzhova's power directly correlated with his own. He wondered how mighty Orzhova would be without the limitations he placed on her, however then again that was one of the reasons the First Sisterhood only appeared to those of the Lucerna line – they were powerful enough to actually conjure the beings into existence in the material plane, which meant that in reality there were significantly less constraints on their power levels.

The ground shook with tectonic activity, but Cai forced himself to ignore it and trust in Orzhova completely, knowing that she wouldn't allow him to get hurt if she could prevent it and continuing to infuse her with more of his mana, contrails of light and shadow seeping out of his skin as a tempest of White and Black began to swirl around him, abyssal darkness and consecrated luminosity avoiding and mingling with one another in an eternal dance of opposite forces.

Orzhova raised her palms to the sky, and then traced a symmetrical arc with each arm, words of a language Caiellis couldn't understand etching themselves onto the air, imprinting themselves on the world through smoking gloaming or dazzling phosphorescence. She sliced her straight hands, one glowing with ruthless purple light whilst the other shone with imperious gold, through the exact centre of the circle of sigils she had created, connecting the four most prominent symbols – two of White and two of Black – together, forming a single character in the centre as the words of magic began to spin around it.

"I'm sorry, Caiellis, but I require more mana," the angel suddenly blurted out, which took Cai by surprise, as he was pouring all he had into her, "Your White is more than enough, as it is powered by your need to have justice, to protect Lucael, the citizens of Welkas, and your army, but your Black is insufficient. I hate to ask you to do this, but focus on what you want to achieve, and then combine it with the emotions you experienced the night your mother died."

Cai nodded swiftly, though the confident gesture was inflected with apprehension, as he knew that to increase his output of Black mana to facilitate the evidently immensely potent and magic-hungry spell his angel was casting, he would have to delve far into the horror of that fateful night, more than he had ever willingly done before. It adversely scared him even more that this wouldn't be a nightmare, that he would be perfectly conscious while doing so, though he couldn't explain why it frightened him more than the dream rendition.

_What _do_ I want? _Cai asked himself, feeling time slow down as he looked deep inside, already sensing the deep sadness inside beginning to break out of its barriers that were still in place despite having called upon it earlier, when he Summoned, _I want victory, but I want victory so that those under my command don't die or get hurt._

_-C__ai gazed up at his mother's face, as the comforting and loving expression quickly changed into one of concern, and she held up her hand-_

_I want to free Welkas from the tyrannical Orders of Passion, so that the citizenry no longer has to suffer under their despotic reign._

_\- "Mum, what's wrong?" Alex asked, instinctively grabbing hold of his little brother when he sensed the change in their mother-_

_I want to win this war so that Lucael is safe._

_\- "Haldren? Jack? Is there a problem?" the queen asked, standing up off of the nursery floor and moving in front of her children, as the two bodyguards that had been dutifully stood in the doorway were pacing slowly towards them with a menacing stride-_

_I want to prove to myself, and others, that I am capable of being a prince._

_\- "Yes, there is," the muscular giant of a man sneered, and added mockingly, "My queen."-_

"Excellent!" Orzhova cried exultantly, as the enchantments woven around her right hand spontaneously became as potent as the others, and Cai stopped falling into his memories, forcing himself not to go any further and supplying Orzhova with the Black mana generated from that – he decided that he would reserve the rest for the upcoming siege of Usnaan, which would be one of the final battles in this incredibly short war if the Welkalites didn't change their tactics (they seemed perfectly happy to decide everything then as well), and would undoubtedly be an extremely brutal affair that would leave both armies decimated irrespective of the victor. He could already feel tears cascading freely down his cheeks, the Black Sun releasing coruscating energy in response to his emotions that added even more energy to that he was giving the Angel of the Black Sun.

Orzhova clasped her hands together as if in prayer, the light instantly overwhelming the darkness and making them shine with brilliance, and she drew a line that perfectly bisected the circle of etchings. As her hands approached the centre, where the largest sigil spun, they slowly lost their luminosity, becoming suffused with tenebrosity that increased in intensity the further towards the bottom of the magic circle her hands got.

"With the final addition of Light and Darkness," Orzhova spoke, her words imbued with an otherworldly sonority, and sounding like a hymn or song rather than a proclamation. Cai realised with an abrupt jolt that what the Angel of the Black Sun was singing was not in the language of Magnus-Primae, nor in any other tongue known to mankind, the words lyrical and enigmatic, but the boy could still understand her, still knew what she was saying despite not knowing individual words. She continued in her alien language, shutting her eyes, her voice becoming more steely rather than haunting, "The Circle is complete. Prosperity. Justice. Ambition. Hatred. And now Light and Darkness. All will combine. All will become one, and become expressed in the needs of the Summoner."

Cai watched, open mouthed in awe, as the spinning characters began to be sucked into the middle one, that pulsated with an energy born of twin powers. The symbol was a mixture of jagged lines and magisterial elegance, something possessed of far more excellence of the sum of its parts, and Cai blinked in shock when he registered that he could read what the emblem said in the combined vision of the Lenses of Guilt and Innocence.

"Judgement," he gasped in synchronisation with Orzhova's fateful pronouncement, his whispered voice coupling with the dark seraph's commanding and powerful words, and the symbol made a loud humming noise, like a thousand deep voices murmuring simultaneously – Cai noted that it was to the same tune as the haunting song inside the abandoned cathedral in his Mind Realm, just at a slightly faster tempo and a much lower pitch. The sigil began to shine with darklight as the other words poured into it, and Orzhova wrapped her hands around it. She turned towards Caiellis, and gracefully released it like one would a captive butterfly or Goldenglow Moth. It shot towards the boy, who opened his eyes in shock as the ideogram shot towards him.

It hit him on his right cheek, imprinting itself on the Black Sun that seemed to expand in diameter to accommodate this new glyph, forming onto his cheek as a titanic amount of magic power poured through him. Cai found that he knew exactly what to do, in spite of the fact that he had never seen this ritual before, and wondered if Orzhova was subconsciously providing him with the instructions. Mana swirled around the sigil on his birthmark, and Caiellis looked down on his Lucaelian soldiers still embroiled in battle with their Welkalite nemeses, although many on both sides were gazing up at him.

In the merged visions of both Lenses, showing pure intent mixed with evil will, he could clearly identify who was of Welkas and who was of Lucael. Silver energy passed into his eyes from the sigil of Judgement, and it passed over the expanse of gold and black underneath him, wrapping around those that appeared in the Lens of Guilt like how he would imagine that a Yentarian targeting reticule would highlight the foes detected, and he placed his hand in front of his birthmark. He wanted freedom for the people of Welkas, and that would start with the liberation of Jeksaan.

In order for that to happen, those that kept them oppressed, the members of the Orders of Passion that were presently killing his own troops (including the marshal that he had left on the ground instead of finishing the duel with him – that just showed how little Caiellis cared about, in his opinion, pointless matters like deadly contests of strength and honour), needed to die.

They had been judged unworthy of another chance, and had fallen too far into depravity – Cai swiftly reminded himself that the only reason he was doing this so that less would die in the long run, not because of any perceived notions of justice, virtuosity or morality. He was ending this battle so that more Welkalites could be saved, not because he thought those that he was about to kill deserving of death. He had no right to kill this many people simply because he thought it was the correct course of action, he was only doing this because he needed to save others.

Just like what would happen at the beginning of the Summoning ritual, the spherical Black Sun began to form over the birthmark representation of it, but this time it was stamped with the hieroglyph that depicted Judgement, and he saw Orzhova raising her hands. The boy heard a mass shattering of glass, just as he tossed the darklight orb into the air and began to infuse it with mana. Orzhova's scythe, the golden blade shining with shadow and light, shot through the air towards its wielder, and she caught it, gripping the haft of solid tenebrosity tightly as Cai was assaulted by the sound of titanic amounts of smashing glass, just as millions of tiny shards spread across the battlefield, stabbing into those circled in Caiellis's eyes.

Orzhova pointed her scythe towards the dark star, a twofold beam of gold and gloom shooting out of it and impacting into the Black Sun, which greedily absorbed the energy as it shone with a malignant light and made an eerie choir spring up into the air around it – although this time it was accompanied by the impossibly deep humming tune of the sigil of Judgement.

"Caiellis. Shall we begin the Merciless Eviction?" Orzhova asked, and Cai nodded, despite the ominous name. Normally, the angels didn't name their own techniques, and left that to the awed humans they left in their wake, but besides the spells she had demonstrated under the Emperor of Light's reign much of the Angel of the Black Sun's powers were a mystery to the citizens of Lucael. Caiellis assumed that she had either named them herself or been taught them by someone else, but each of the names had a poetic pleasantry that appealed to Caiellis, rather than something that over-glorified the angel (though really, the First Sisterhood angels deserved all the glory they received in his opinion, just not the worship).

Cai looked down, registering that he was stood on a circular disk of stained glass that Orzhova must have been levitating, as the crystalline sculpture of the Ashen Monstrosity had been used to fuel the projectile onslaught of glass that was just the start of the ritual.

Cai raised his hands towards the malevolently twirling orb of unlight, feeling power singing through him, and sombrely looked down at the battlefield one last time before pouring all he had into the spell.

There was a loud noise, a sound that was a combination of arrogant yet still sinister laughter, a haunting, sad and lonely song, a determined war shout, and a small child crying, and Caiellis felt the world around him shaking as the Black Sun branded with the sigil of Judgement rose to an obscene size, shining its light upon those that had been stabbed by the shards of glass, the remnants of their leader's Summoning, as a spray of perfectly straight spears of blinding light shot out into the masses, coils of shadow wrapping around them.

The Black Sun rumbled, cracking with golden energy, and Caiellis saw the Welkalites beginning to be disintegrated into millions of tiny particles and being pulled through the air towards the Sun. Some tried to flee, augmenting their speed with hasty Red auras and trying to retreat, but those that Cai had identified as guilty could not escape the malevolent gravity of the star of darkness and light and screamed in pain as their forms dissolved into tiny molecules of glass and were greedily assimilated by the terrifying orb. One by one, the silver lines in Caiellis's vision slowly faded away as their targets were killed, and when the last died the Black Sun blinked out of existence in an explosion of amethyst and golden luminescence, the emblem of Judgement on his right cheek vanishing and the birthmark shrinking down to its normal size.

Cai rocked back as a sudden wave of tiredness hit him, but Orzhova's steadying grip prevented him from tumbling off the disc of stained glass he was stood on. He felt vindicated, self-confident but also solemn in the same instance, knowing that while he had won the battle he had exterminated a huge number of lives – admittedly those lives hadn't deserved to exist any longer, but it still didn't erase the regret and remorse he felt.

The Lenses of Guilt and Innocence dwindle in intensity, and then dissipated completely, restoring his original and material sight and returning his eyes to their original mysterious yet expressive green lustre. He narrowed his eyes when he saw that some of his soldiers were swarming around several seemingly random areas, but when Cai caught a glimpse of crimson armour his heart soared slightly. While he hadn't noticed it when he had been casting the spell, some of the Jeksaan warriors had been spared death – they must have been those that were forcefully conscripted into the military and made to fight against the Lucaelian force to delay.

Luckily, his legionaries had interpreted their survival as that the prince had intentionally left them unharmed, and so instead of executing the survivors the Lucaelians were busy simply detaining them – it seemed like there wasn't much resistance, as after seeing the death of the entire army the remaining Welkalites knew that by fighting back they would die. Cai felt a hand grasp onto his upper arm, and Orzhova grinned proudly and enthusiastically down at her exhausted Summoner, descending slowly towards the ground and placing the littlest Lucerna gently down, the circle of crystal they had been stood on peacefully dematerialising.

"As usual, you did really well," Orzhova commented, patting the boy on the head and then giggling at the bemused frown that etched onto his features, "Sorry, sorry. I'll never do that again. I just wanted to see your reaction."

"Ok," Cai responded distractedly, and the angel smiled and departed in a brief flash of purple, another pulse of weariness threatening to overcome him in the wake of the battle-deciding spell.

"That was … amazing," a woman's voice breathed, and Cai got to his feet from where he had been kneeling and turned around, presented by the awed and tired face of Ruthia, who must have already dismissed Ethé. The red head stood in front of him, over a head taller than her prince, which gave him an unparalleled view of her magnificent assets. He gulped nervously, hoping that she didn't notice the fact that his cheeks would be undoubtedly starting to tinge cherry. He hadn't quite seen it before, but Ruthia really was attractive and beautiful, but he quickly pushed the uncharacteristic and inappropriate thoughts that had sprung out of nowhere down. _It seems I am related to Alex after all. Weird. _

"Hey..." he greeted uncertainly, before cursing himself. In no way was that how a prince should respond; he should have been confident and serious, asking for casualty reports and giving his army commands, but he felt exhausted and his mind had frozen up for some reason.

"I'm impressed. At first I wanted to be seconded to Alex, because … um..." Ruthia started, blushing herself but much more obviously than the five years younger boy, "Anyway, that was really cool. Do those hurt?" she asked, motioning to the bruises on his face that he had entirely forgotten about, and then pointing to his back where he had taken a painful hammer blow.

Now that the battle had ended, and he had stopped generating ridiculous amounts of mana and feeling like some sort of divine being, his bruises were throbbing painfully, but he wasn't about to reveal that to the youngest praetorian and knew he would have been permanently paralysed if Orzhova hadn't been there – the Angel of the Black Sun had healed the most significant damage, but it still hurt, and Cai was certain he would have several purple bruises forming if they hadn't already.

"I know they look bad," he began, stammering nervously as he tried to remove these random thoughts of attraction and kissing that had entered his mind, wishing he had paid more attention when Alex had been trying to advise him on how to deal with girls – despite the fact that it would be completely unfitting for him to be dating an adult, and personally didn't feel attracted to Ruthia's personality, it was just that his subconscious insisted that she was beautiful. "But they don't hurt … and, you know … they aren't permanent. Which is good."

She laughed, the sound rich and melodic, "It's a bruise, Prince Caiellis. I should certainly hope not. I get them all the time when I'm sparring, though the only wounds I suffered in this battle were scratches on my armour," she smirked, and then muttered under her breath, "That Drax is going to kill me for if I don't get them repaired."

Cai was save from further embarrassment by the appearance of Mysos, the rest of his bodyguard and some of the lieutenants (including Ciaran and Decia) and generals, who were congratulating each other.

"Casualty report?" he asked, turning from Ruthia and making his tone turn more professional and clipped, and each of the commanders relayed their Division's losses.

It hit Cai hard, despite the fact that there should have been many more against an enemy force of that size, and that his army was still at pretty much optimum strength. The thirteen year old swallowed, the saliva feeling bitter and burning his throat as it went down. He forced himself to remain calm, but knew that later he would go into the mobile administrative headquarters that was catered to by non-combatants and was situated behind the army and etch the names of all of the fallen into his mind so that he could personally write a message to each of their families informing them of their deaths before the official announcements.

"Who are they?" Ciaran suddenly inquired, pointing to a group of figures wearing black coming out of the almost-city of Jeksaan. Cai nodded slowly, realising quickly the identity of the Welkalites, "Tell your men to stand down. These are those that would have commanded Jeksaan before the war started, or those that have been chosen to represent the citizenry."

He pulled up some mana from the last vestiges, knowing that he needed to rest and meditate and regenerate the stores in his mind, and conjured up his stained glass wings for one final time this day, leaping into the air and flying towards the sombre figures in the distance that were slowly pacing towards the Lucaelian army. Belatedly, he hoped that they weren't there to try and kill more of Lucael, as if he landed in their ranks and declared his identity as one of the potential heirs to the Lucerna throne they might try to kill him, and he didn't have access to enough mana to fight back. He sensed no threat from them, and noticed that the six were all aged men and women, venerable elders that were too old to fight without magic. And then again, his Lucerna Guard would be able to teleport to his side if he was in danger, so there was that.

He descended in front of them, dispelling his wings, trying to appear confident and imperial without seeming haughty, conceited or arrogant, although there was no chance of them thinking that he was the sort of commander that stayed at the back of the army and then claimed glory in victory. Cai wondered if they knew about the Lucerna monarchy, but concluded that they probably did, so knew that he would be a powerful warrior-prince.

"I am Caiellis Noctis Lucerna, prince of Lucael and commander of the legion of Scientia Mos," he announced, his voice solemn but also infused with a solidity of purpose that Cai was aware that he actually lacked – it hadn't stopped him from convincing others though. Although he wouldn't like to admit, especially in front of him, Caiellis was endeavouring to impersonate his father's kingly proclamation voice as much as possible, using cues and mental notes that he had taken from watching dad address his subjects and those from other nations. Despite the truth that he presently disliked his father, he wasn't that blinded by the enmity between them that he was ignorant of Marik's methods working, and knew that because his father said that he was like Caiellis that this would be the best way for him to do it, "I assume that you have come to discuss the terms of the surrender of Jeksaan?"

"So does this mean that Jeksaan will become part of the _glorious _Kingdom of Light, _my lord_?" one of the elders, an old woman with a sarcastic and bitter tone, spat, and the others glared at her, "Thrisa! Watch your words!"

"We have no interest in making your city part of our territory," Cai responded evenly, to which the woman who was evidently Thrisa snorted, "What, then, boy? You came here to just kill the army?"

"Please excuse Thrisa," an aged man quickly placated, his voice full of fear, "The past few years have been hard for us all, what with the takeover of Warlord Farcez, and now with the -" he gulped, and Caiellis was sure he was carefully considering his words - "_defeat _(what had first sprung to mind was "slaughter") of our army, Jeksaan is the weakest it has ever been. We are the original city council of Jeksaan, and we speak for the people. We will not resist you any further, just please spare the city. The civilians are innocent."

"I am aware," Cai replied, "I'm not sure if you know this or not, but me and my brother – Alexander Ensis Lucerna – were abducted by Master Tradax and taken to Usnaan, and we only escaped because of the help of the Ja'an Guard. I am well versed with the corruption that has grown at the heart of Welkas, and that the civilians are being tyrannised by the Orders of Passion. The Lucaelian armies are not fighting a war against Welkas. We are fighting to liberate you from your leaders, who consort with demons."

"Grandma!" there was a cry, and someone ran towards the prince and the elders, who turned around in shock. Caiellis's eyes locked with those of Guardian Weiss, who had evidently entered the battlefield, and smirked when he saw what he had done. The soldiers that had taken the remaining Welkalites as prisoners were in the process of releasing them, and they were running back towards the city and the part of elders.

"Redan! I thought … I thought you had been killed!" Thrisa yelled back, her voice filled with relief, and the man who had spoken turned in shock to the prince, "These are the conscripts forced into the army from the Jeksaan populace, and those that were in the military before the Orders arrived. That means the ones you killed were those from the Order of Violence under Warlord Farcez! How did you know?"

"I can sense guilt," Cai admitted, not telling the entire truth but not lying either, "And knew those to be innocent. In exchange for the return of your prisoners, I want there to be peace between us, and for my army to rest outside of Jeksaan until the march to Usnaan begins. I want you to tear down the structures of the Orders of Passion still left in your city, and create a free and equal governing system. Several other cities will soon be liberated, and so I suggest that you try to get in contact with them and establish the first step on a fresh start for your nation."

"We will, Lord Caiellis. We will," the man nodded soberly, though his eyes were excited, "Do your soldiers need food, or medical equipment?"

"We have our own supplies. But I'm sure it won't hurt," Cai smiled tiredly, wanting nothing more than to just lie down and sleep, but glad that these elders were no longer terrified of him after seeing the Merciless Eviction.

.*.*.*.

Cai sat cross-legged in his personal command tent on his fold-able bed, having retreated to their after the camp was established on the outskirts of Jeksaan, and the city had been opened up to his soldiers. Mysos and Ruthia had wanted to go for a celebratory meal in the markets that were being held in Jeksaan, but Cai had respectfully declined, knowing that if he spent any more time on his feet then he would probably faint.

His army had definitely needed a rest – at first he had been against it, knowing that Marik wanted the two armies to meet up as swiftly as possible, and that he had already delayed because of his prior tactics (that had made him suffer far less casualties than if he had charged his force at the city), but the men deserved and needed recuperation. He figured that his dad would rather have the legion of Scientia Mos at maximum fighting capacity but taking longer to get there, rather than being presented by an exhausted army that would definitely under-perform in the next battles. He had called his father on the mana communicator, but it was Uncle Tristram who had responded, and informed the Guardian on the situation. The man had said that he would tell Marik, and that he agreed with Caiellis's assessment.

He found it slightly ludicrous that his large and comfortable tent that was connected to the main strategium was a large as – no, quite a bit bigger than – one made for a squad of ten soldiers, but had grown to expect that sort of privilege now. After a rest, he was intending to go to the Ordo Medella pavilion to speak to those wounded but not dead, but for now he just wanted rest. He laid down on the comfortable sheets, amused that this tent was more pleasant than some of the places he and his brother had been forced to stay during the civil war despite being a temporary residence.

Caiellis didn't know exactly when he had shut his eyes and gone to sleep, but after a while he felt himself being pulled out of his dreams, a sensation that never got any less surreal despite having undergone it numerous times, but it ended when he opened his eyes and was greeted by the lonely sight of the interior of the abandoned cathedral that shone with purple light. He could hear the distant choir without a mouth, but as usual couldn't focus on it, and turned to Orzhova, who glanced down at him excitedly, as if eager to talk.

"This is strange. I thought you said that I should stop coming here when I'm trying to sleep," he commented, and the angel snorted, so he added, "What?"

"You've been asleep for two hours already," she snickered, "And anyway, I want to talk to you about something. But first, let me tell you a story."

O … k?" he replied, thoroughly taken aback by the odd statement.

"You know of Queen Tidisa, correct?" Orzhova asked, and Caiellis nodded. Few didn't know of the youngest daughter of the First King Matalis, the second monarch that had ascended to the Lucerna throne after her father's death in his duel with the dark mastermind Xero, Tzar of Grafnica, and Cai wondered what the dark seraph had to say about his ancestor. He could recite her history (well, the history that was present in the books at any rate, which could have easily been distorted by the passage of time or left out events that the ancient Lucaelians didn't want others knowing about) off by heart, and mentally brought up a list of her achievements or other significant things in her long reign.

"She was "blessed" by the presence of my puritanical and cold sister Akroma, your father's angel," Orzhova began, "And although she certainly achieved a lot, there was one thing in particular I wanted to talk about. You know about the Yalgauri, yes?"

"The nation of necromancers that used the dead as soldiers, workers and slaves?" Cai replied, shuddering internally at the thought, and Orzhova nodded thoughtfully, "And you think they deserved what happened to them?"

"It is hardly an exclusive fate," Cai countered, thinking of all the other civilisations in the abyss that used Black mana and had been gradually wiped out by the Kingdom of Light and its angelic benefactors. "And yes, I do. They broke one of the laws of reality, and made the dead awaken from the eternal slumber they deserve and fight for them."

"What if I told you that the re-animating magic of the Yalgauri had nothing to do with dragging souls back from beyond the veil, or from the heavens, or whatever you want to call it, and simply infused the corpses with a dominating will that didn't give them consciousness or awareness, and made them more like Uverian constructs than zombified dead," Orzhova challenged, and waited patiently for Cai's return, "Was the annihilation of their nation still justified?"

"They still made use of the dead..." Cai murmured, starting to see that what Orzhova was saying was actually correct, and the angel continued, "Yes, but they didn't consort with demons, and their society was fair and just. They never provoked or in any way threatened Lucael, and actually appealed for an alliance before Tidisa had the emissaries all killed because of the fact they appeared with dead soldiers as bodyguards."

"Why are you telling me this?" Cai questioned, and Orzhova's eyes were tinted with melancholy and wistfulness. She replied softly, "Just food for thought."

"There's nothing I can do about the Yalgauri. And if you want to know whether or not I would have acted in the same way as Tidisa, I can't tell you. Maybe they didn't deserve the destruction of their civilisation, but the usage of the dead is abhorrent in my honest opinion – not that that justifies genocide," Cai voiced, and the angel repeated, "Just food for thought. And that brings us onto the second topic that I wanted to talk about."

"Which is?" Caiellis asked expectantly, after a pregnant silence had descended and Orzhova began to look distracted, letting her angelic gaze wander the interior of the Mind Realm. She snapped back into focus, looking down at her Summoner, and sighed, "Cai. You need to be more confident with your Black mana."

"I do try," Cai protested glumly, already used to this conversation with Orzhova. His White mana usage was nothing less than exemplary, but constantly he failed when trying to harness the magic of darkness to its truest extent. Orzhova smiled, "I know you do. And I'm not trying to insult you about it, as I know full well how difficult it is to use the magic of light and shadows simultaneously, especially for someone as young as you. Additionally, it's not like you aren't powerful. You executed the Merciless Eviction perfectly, so don't think I'm saying this because I'm in any way disappointed in you. You are brilliant with White mana, and using White and Black at the same time is also something you are on the way to mastering, but using Black on its own is something you struggle with – not because you can't do it, but because you are reluctant to. Whether it is deliberate or not, you are inhibiting your own power."

"Wouldn't you be reluctant to use it in my position?" Cai asked sullenly, not liking the topic of this discussion but knowing it would eventually come it. He only felt confident using the magic of the abyss when he had the fortifying and inspiring magic of light reinforcing his will, otherwise he was scared he would lose himself to corruption. At only one point in his life he had utilised Black without White, and that had been the night his mother had died, "I mean, look at what it did to Johnias, what it has done to many civilisations and people. If I start using it without White, I could easily get lost in it."

"I know that you hate it because it was the thing that killed your mother," Orzhova stated calmly, wincing when she saw Cai stiffening and his expression becoming more stony, "But consider this: If Emili had been stabbed to death by a sword, would you hate swords, and refuse to ever use a sword?"

"That's not fair," Cai muttered, "It's not the same thing. Has a sword ever corrupted its wielder before, and turned them against family and friends in the pursuit of more power?"

"Yes. But that's not the point," Orzhova quickly added at Cai's look of confusion, "The Mad Blade of Detheroc is irrelevant. Black mana is just a tool, just like White, just like any other colour of mana. Just like a sword. Simply because it is the tool that those who want power automatically gravitate towards and become trapped within doesn't change the fact that it is a means to an end. I already know that you would never be corrupted by it – and if you did, I would stop supplying you with my aid and extra mana. You aren't evil, Cai, nor are you ambitious or want supreme power. You just want to protect others and yourself, and Black mana is simply another weapon you can use to that end."

"Why then, are the creatures in Sancturia made from mana so much more evil than those made from White?" Cai demanded, "No offence, I didn't mean you. I meant the clear difference between demons and angels."

"Demons are evil, I'll give you that," Orzhova conceded that point, "But they represent Black's arrogance, and lust for power, two things that you don't possess. Furthermore, only a select few humans have ever been born with a demonic Summoning, with the vast majority of cases of them appearing in reality happening after an Infernal Bargain. But although they are less frequent, there are Black beings that aren't evil, just as there exists White creatures that are," she coughed very loudly and deliberately, and Cai was sure he heard "Akroma" somewhere within the hacking.

"Examples?" Cai asked, more because of the fact that he was legitimately intrigued than any desire to disprove Orzhova's point, and the angel smirked.

"Well, there are creatures that are just that, like bats, rats, insects, that have a sentience but aren't evil or good."

"Amazing," Cai muttered, and the angel laughed. The boy added, "But you still haven't told me any Black creatures that fight for good, nor White creatures that are evil."

"I will admit that both are rare," Orzhova confessed, "But in the first category, there is me, obviously, Eidolons, Lampads, some kami and other spirits. And there are plenty of evil White creatures – some archons, spirits and kami. I wouldn't exactly describe some of my sisters as "good" (she coughed very loudly again, and Cai was certain this time he had heard the name of the Angel of Wrath) – sorry, I must have caught something from the battlefield – despite what you humans think of them. On a more serious note, my point still stands. If you want to become stronger, then you need to focus more on Black mana generation. Your arsenal of spells will be expanded, and your White mana will become more powerful in response, as well as any combined spells."

"Maybe," Cai acknowledged her points, but still couldn't quite shake the instinctual feeling that Black mana was evil, and that he should only use in it combination with White.

"Put it this way: It is definitely not wholly your fault for what happened to big brother Alexander, (Cai frowned at her odd choice of words – _is she just trying to make me feel more open to the idea of practising with death magic?_) but maybe if you had used the magic of the abyss more effectively, then Aksua would have been killed much earlier and Alex wouldn't have been hurt as much," Orzhova offered, knowing that she was treading on a dangerous topic and knew that if Cai blamed himself any more for Alexander's wounding then he wouldn't be able to live with himself, but the persuasion was working – appealing to Cai's desire to protect those he loved would help motivate him to use Black mana.

None of them talked for a while, but Orzhova realised that Cai had accepted her points when he changed the conversation to something else, "Orzhova?"

"Yes, Cai?" she answered encouragingly, eager to know what the youth was going to ask her.

"You mentioned different types of reanimation when we were talking about the Yalgauri earlier, when you said that their form of necromancy didn't involve using the corpse's soul – is there a type that solely revives the soul of the target?"

"Yes, there are. Black and White can be combined to do so," she replied.

"How long does a person have to be dead for before their soul is no longer accessible?" the boy inquired, and what he was really asking then clicked in Orzhova's mind.

"No, Cai. Only souls that haven't yet fully entered the Third Realm, or the afterlife, can be retrieved. Your mother will have left a long time ago," she said, sternly, and Cai's face fell. Any chance of speaking to his mother, particularly now that he was grown up and understood the world much better than when he was four, was a chance he was going to take. The Angel of the Black Sun then added, musing, "There no knowledge about what is on the other side, whether it is different for denizens of Sancturia or this world. I doubt even she knows."

"Who knows?" Cai asked, and Orzhova quietly cursed. She hadn't meant to say that, and obviously her extremely perceptive Summoner would pick up on her slip of the tongue, "No one, Caiellis. Forget I said anything."

"Who doesn't know? Were you talking about the First Angel, Serra? Your mother?" Cai fired the questions one by one, and Orzhova turned him around, "I wasn't talking about anyone. I've said too much. You'd better go now. Reality is calling."

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Warlord Farcez: Ashen Monstrosity

Electromancer: Lightning Elemental

Geomancer: Earth Servant

Hieromancers: Azorius Herald

Lucaelian Soldiers: Loxodon Partisan

Welkalite Warriors: Blistering Firecat


	26. Dustswept Interlude

"Freya? What are you doing here?" Annia's amused but also slightly irritated voice broke the peaceful silence in one of the many secluded glades scattered throughout the Scholaria Magnus island, making the Erian girl sigh in annoyance before removing that from her mind. She had just wanted to be alone for a little while, listening to the voices of the trees instead of those of her fellow students in Year One, although with a quarter of the pupils gone the academy seemed deserted and lonely.

The plant spirits had been speaking to her, telling her of a great darkness that was to come, but Freya hadn't been able to deduce any more than that, though not because information was being concealed – the forest sprites and sylphs simply didn't know enough to tell her more than that. Freya missed the Deep Forest, where the natural beauty was never ending and just as deadly as it was magnificent, but unlike many of the other of the Conclave Freya thought that all of nature was beautiful in its own unique way, despite nowhere in the rest of Magnus-Primae having the same primal grandeur of the Deep Forest.

The message of the plant spirits was ominous, and left Freya feeling scared and frightened for the world's safety, but as she had no knowledge to act upon there was nothing she could do. Freya had been a rarity in the families of her tribe – an only child – but then again her parents had been killed in raids by an opposing tribe seven years before she was selected by the mysterious shamans to join their ranks a year prior to her enrolment at the Scholaria, when she had been fourteen.

She thought back to the day she had been adopted by her uncle, the chieftain of the Oak's Blessing Ruruc Sajai, her tearful seven year old self dearly missing her parents. Her uncle and his wife had always been kind to her, but she had been set apart from her three foster siblings because of the fact that she wasn't in line to inherit leadership of the tribe.

Freya's older cousin/brother Jalek had been kind and nurturing but also ignored her when it suited him and her only just elder sister Salek had seemed to resent having a sister of the same age as her and so had often tried to bully Freya, seeing her as some sort of rival. Finally her little brother Talek had always been pleasant, but shy, and had never really talked to her one to one, as both appeared nervous around other people and tried to avoid them. He had been an enigmatic boy, and Freya had repeatedly got the impression that he knew far more than he had let on about the world – that had been why when the shamans had arrived at the Oak's Blessing, she had been convinced that Talek would be taken by them, and not her, but then again her magic was powerful and that was why they had chosen her.

Despite her cousins not being her actual brothers and sister, she still missed them as she hadn't seen them in over a year. She wondered whether the village was still there, or if it had been attacked by other rival tribes or destroyed by behemoths or other primal forces of nature. Talek had been the only person in her tribe that she had truly wanted to talk to and learn more about, since her youngest cousin was the only member of her family younger than her, but had never got the chance. Other than him, she disliked talking to others because she was extremely bad at social situations and often got embarrassed, her cheeks lighting up unbidden and her voice stammering.

That was why she liked being alone, with the plants and the animals. As she was a nature mage, she could communicate with many living creatures, both of Sancturia and the material plane, although within the Deep Forest the line blended. Her mentor had once mentioned an old tale of his tribe (that ironically had been wiped out by her own), where if one was to wander in the Deep Forest then they could walk between the worlds, and that the two planes crossed over each other very often within the jungle.

"I was just..." Freya started nervously, before stopping, not really wanting to have to explain herself to Annia. It was lunch-time, and the sunlight was beaming through the gaps in the canopy of trees that would seem huge to those who hadn't lived inside of the Deep Forest. She turned around, just as the Yentarian sat next to her, holding out a couple of sandwiches that she had evidently purchased from the academy café, and offering one to the Erian girl.

Freya would have respectfully declined, not feeling particularly hungry even after a morning of practising man generation, but that would have required words and Annia would have insisted anyway, the girl as stubborn and fickle as she was intelligent. It was quiet, as now that Kaled and Caiellis had gone there was no customary bickering between the Welkalite and Yentarian, and she bit into the sandwich. The flavours of tomato and some sort of meat – probably from the oxen that grazed outside of the school grounds – rolled down her tongue, and she sighed sadly.

"Is there something wrong?" Annia inquired, chomping loudly on her own sandwich and adjusting her hair – Freya was sure that she wore something different every day, and then reminded herself that because Annia's clothing was made out of a magically-attuned fabric it could be moulded into whatever shape she desired. Freya didn't really care how she looked, knowing that intricate and complicated clothing would just distract her from communicating with the earth, but Annia seemed to be … not obsessed, but _preoccupied _by her appearance.

Nonetheless, whatever outfit Annia chose always struck her as pertaining to the situation – when the news that Caiellis and his older brother had been abducted spread across the school despite the efforts of the teachers to curtail the wild rumours that had been circulating, in the assembly that explained events she had worn a simple dress of more muted colours than the usual bright and scintillating hues Annia regularly wore. When the Lucaelians were pulled out she had adopted a similar attire, but one slightly more colourful as to not be entirely mournful.

Now she was wearing a short sleeved shirt and a relatively short, black skirt that had a dotted pattern of the occasional turquoise speckle that Freya thought was a bit ridiculous but must have been fashionable in Yentar, or the city of Notoshi which Annia had come from, so eager to talk about so many things despite the fact that her roommate rarely knew about what she was discussing.

"Freya? Are you ok?" the girl asked again, after she had finished the mouthful she had been eating, and the Erian shaman in training turned to her. The Yentarian was one of those people that seemed to be uncomfortable with silence, often interjecting words to try and break the quiet – but then again, Freya couldn't empathise because she constantly had the background hum of nature and life in the back of her mind. She would be more than uneasy if that stopped, so couldn't really blame Annia from disliking the stillness.

"I'm fine," Freya replied, her voice quiet and soft, wishing she could be more confident with human beings. Although some of her fellow students had tried to talk to her, Annia was the only one that hadn't given up after she didn't respond adequately enough for the few that had tried's liking.

"It's lonely, isn't it?" Annia mused, but whether she expected a response or was just speaking the rhetorical question out loud was beyond Freya, who was just content to eat her meal in silence. Annia rolled her eyes amusedly at the nervous Erian, and continued since the girl was unlikely to speak, "Without the Lucaelians, I mean. And with the boys of Team 3 gone, you know? I miss them both, even that irritating knuckle-head Kaled. I never realised how much I enjoyed arguing with him. And Cai … well, we never did really get to know him very well, did we? I would have liked to learn more about him..." she cut off, blushing and turning away from the Erian, who fortunately didn't know anything about social nuances to realise that she was embarrassed.

"It's amazing how much you miss things when they are gone, but don't register it when they are there," she finished, more confidently, and Freya murmured, "That's because they are still there."

"Thanks," Annia muttered sarcastically, laughing when the Erian looked ashamedly at the floor, "I meant you don't realise the amount you will miss something. Take my arguments with Kaled, for example. At the time, I found them annoying and the fact that he just refused to accept my logic or ideas despite them being clearly superior to his quite vexing, but now that I can't do that anymore I kind of yearn for it."

"Well, at least as far as we know they are both alright," Annia mentioned when a pregnant pause had settled, "My big sister is actually an advisor for Caiellis, which is unprecedented in the Kingdom of Light, but they are fighting a war against the Welkalites. I spoke to her before finding you, and they had just liberated the city of Jeksaan. I feel sorry for Cai, having all those burdens on his shoulders despite being two years younger than us both. They did escape from Welkas though, but something apparently did happen to Prince Alexander, however Jenna wasn't sure what. He's supposedly fine now. And we both know that Kaled is going to help the Resistance against the Orders of Passion that have taken over Welkas. They had kept that hidden well, but with the abduction of our friends and the news that has spread from the Sartorius Gomor scandal a couple of days ago they couldn't do so any longer. Both Cai and Kaled are fighting to free the people of Welkas, in their different ways. I feel useless here, you know?"

"You wish that you could be helping them," Freya said, and Annia looked surprised, as if having forgotten that she was actually talking to another human because of the girl's quiet manner. The Yentarian then asked, "Yeah. Don't you? They are out there, making a difference, while we are stuck here attending lessons. Now I've never complained about learning before, and I know that by being here we are being taught how to make the future a better place, I just wish that the benefits were more instant, and measurable. The scientist in me wants some evidence, and I can't provide it with anything."

"Maybe just by supporting your sister you _are_ making a difference," Freya suggested, figuring that she should be trying to talk to Annia because of the amount of effort the other girl put into attempting to become her friend – and helping her out with maths, as Freya was admittedly awful at it having never had to do more than addition, subtraction, multiplication and division back in the Conclave. "If Jenna is advising Caiellis, and you encourage and reassure her, then you could be indirectly helping Cai and the entire war effort of the Lucaelians."

"I didn't think of it like that," Annia grinned, "Thanks, Freya."

The girl smiled shyly at the Yentarian, glad to have been of some help, and then something clicked inside of her head – maybe the corruption of Welkas had something to do with the darkness the plants had been warning her about. According to Annia, who had been told it by Jenna, as the older Yentarian had been present at the kidnapping, the Lucaelian king, Cai's father, had mentioned the Welkalite representatives utilising demon magic. Gaean had once told her that he despised demons because of how they tried to change the natural order and place themselves at the top, using the magic of death exclusively – something that was abhorred by Erians, as while some shamans used Green and Black mana none just utilised the latter.

She wondered if any in her tribe, or her old mentor, knew about this, and whether or not it was something to worry about or if its would just pass and nature would endure. Freya hoped that her adopted family was still alive, as she wanted to see them all again – especially Talek, who she realised was quite similar to Caiellis.

Maybe, if everything died down and the nations became more open with each other – as currently the only one that shared information was the Yentarian Republic, and the Erian still got the impression that several facets of that were hidden from the rest of the world, more so because Annia had informed her that the Republic was made up of many different factions spread across their territory that only appeared unified when interacting with the rest of the world – then she would get her youngest cousin and the prince to meet each other.

She soon dismissed the ridiculous thought – there was no way that a Lucaelian prince would be allowed inside the Deep Forest, by both the Kingdom of Light and the Erian Conclave, and even so it would require locating the Oak's Blessing. Besides, Talek might not even be alive anymore, so there was that to consider.

Freya now fully understood why the Erians had always sequestered themselves inside the forest, away from the negotiations with the rest of the world. It was because the other nations started wars, and were greedy for more power, disrupting the natural flow of things in their own insatiable lust for dominance.

.*.*.*.

Ilentia suppressed a hacking cough when she entered the centre Tower of Ecstasy, the Red and Black mana seeping out of the soaring golden cylindrical structure hinting at the debaucheries committed within. It was midday outside, but instead of the baleful red orb of the sun glaring down at Usnaan a dark, dry storm was gathering overhead, one of not entirely natural origin. She could feel Arrapackxia writhing within her, the demon's lust to feed accentuated by this unnatural tempest as well as what was on display in the room she had just walked into, and mentally silenced him.

Ilentia could hear the occasional thunderous boom in the distance, and while Tradax had revealed that this thunderstorm was part of his "grand plan" the Master of Gluttony hadn't been able to glean any more than that titbit of information about what the "Archlord" (as Tradax had ordered that he be referred to as that, to elevate himself above the Masters as he took command of the Empire in the war) of Rapture was planning. The man was not anywhere near a military strategist, and his plan consisted of simply defending Usnaan against attack instead of actively assaulting the trespassing Lucaelian legions, as she would have done, although the forces of King Marik seemed more than happy to oblige, annihilating the first opposing armies that Tradax had placed to delay them in their path to Usnaan. Both sides seemed happy for the entire war to be decided at the Welkalite capital.

At any rate, the storm outside was obscuring the sun and made it feel like night time instead of noon. Not that the time of day had ever stopped the wealthy Welkalites from indulging, however the vast majority of events – such as the Slaughter Games in the bloodsport arenas located in the Champion's Quarter and the Emperor's Banquet (a name supposedly mocking the old tyrants, who would throw the banquet for themselves at specific dates, as when they had been overthrown the exotic and rare food had been gorged upon by the masses after they went wild in the wake of the Revolution, before to the establishment of the Orders of Passion. Now the Emperor's Banquet took place whenever the Master of Gluttony felt like it (so far Ilentia hadn't yet organised one) or on the anniversary of the death of the Last Tyrant) in her own Glutton's Quarter, took place in the evening.

A blast of light, noise and intoxicating incense washed over Ilentia as she stepped further into the lower floor, adjusting the scarlet masquerade mask she wore so that it would block any more of the hallucinogenic gas from entering her system – although the effects of the burnt Desert Rose would only induce light-headedness and heighten the dazzling display put on by the Orders of Rapture and Entertainment, not reduce Ilentia to a state of vegetated enrapture like some of the more potent narcotics, unlike almost every attendant of the party she wanted her mind to be clear.

Blaring lights of many alternating colours illuminated the interior with spasmodically flashing beams that pierced the visible fog of the hallucinogenics, and a masked band played a loud and obtrusive tune in the background that would be augmented by the scent of the Desert Rose. Even over the music, Ilentia could still occasionally hear the orgiastic moaning from a couple to her right – one was a guest with his identity concealed by a mask of a similar design to the Master of Gluttony's, while his partner was quite clearly a Rapture whore who didn't look to be enjoying himself quite as much as his customer – in spite of the fact that Ilentia had only just entered the building and it would be the concealed sections in some of the tiered floors above that would be more fitting for acts such as this.

There were many attractions on offer to the masked crowd – one of the tenets of Rapture was that all were equal in the pursuit of pleasure, irrespective of rank and identity, and while that was extremely ironic not to mention incredibly hypocritical it was still adhered to, and every one of the invited attendees wore masks that did little to hide their identities. Ilentia recognised aristocrats, military officers and prominent members of the Orders of Passion, their eyes wide at the display Tradax had put on, despite the fact that the darkest desires would be catered to upstairs. It was said that the vast majority of other Orders had stopped their customary display of indulgences and entertainment to furnish this banquet party further, and that even the major Slaughterhouse Colosseum had been closed for the Address of the Archlord, as the event had been called, an incredibly vain title if Ilentia had ever heard one.

The interior of the huge building was hollow, in that apart from the ground and uppermost floors the tiers had huge spaces in the middle, where the Welkalites could look down at those below them and participate in the numerous diversions on each of the annulus floors. To her right, a crowd of hypnotised guests were dazed by a long limbed and undeniably beautiful lightning-dancer from the Order of Entertainment, the woman spinning at a ridiculous speed as pink electricity crackled around her, but all Ilentia could think of was how that could be applied in combat.

Directly across from her, an audience of the rich and influential that had been invited jeered as a man, one of those that Ilentia recognised as having captured when she had visited Iesaan and hunted down the cells of Resistance hidden there a day ago, was torn apart by a shrieking reptilian beast from the wastelands that had evidently originally been a foe for Violence gladiators, splattering blood and gore over the screaming throng. The creature snapped its jaws around the man's almost-naked body, and chomped down, ending his life.

Ilentia rolled her eyes. When she had petitioned (as Tradax always liked to know what she was doing, his paranoia making every move that she made seem to him like her newest servant was trying to usurp him) the Archlord of Rapture to go and kill the more active Resistance of Iesaan, as by carefully analysing their moves she was certain that she had located their stronghold, Tradax had insisted that she take prisoners instead of killing them all, and as the rebels didn't employ the teleportation that had allowed the Ja'an Guard to escape her wrath she had done so. It apparently should have brought on a sense of pride that those she had captured were serving as entertainment for others, but the sight of the creature savagely murdering the man didn't instill Ilentia with any emotion at all, positive or negative.

She thought that it was strange that she felt nothing, as here Ilentia was one of the most influential members of a society based entirely on the pleasure of sensation, and everyone else in the room was enraptured by the admittedly impressive Order performances, but the only thing Ilentia could think was that she would rather not be here.

A lean, tanned and slender man walked over to her side, clad only in in a strip of fabric that covered his genital region and an elaborately fluted but brutally spiked pauldron that dug into his left shoulder. The member of the Order of Rapture held a serrated chain that could easily be used to efficiently but still painfully dismember opponents, especially if it was enchanted with crackling lightning that would infuse the blades with cutting power and amplify the pain caused, sending shuddering bolts of electricity down the nervous system of the chosen victim. The man barred her further entrance to the Tower of Ecstasy, crossing his arms and letting the barbed chain curl maliciously to the left of him like a coiled serpent, eschewing words since only a shout would be able to be heard from the clamouring music.

Ilentia scowled from beneath her mask and pulled out the golden and ornate envelope that she had inelegantly torn open (though she knew that many of the more minor nobles and officials would treasure the genuine packaging from the famed Archlord of Rapture himself just as much as the content inside, carefully opening the wrapper as to not damage it), letting the exotically garbed Rapture Enforcer verify the validity of her invitation.

The man quickly bowed his head and held out the letter when he read the identity of the guest – news of her ascension to the leadership of the Order of Gluttony had spread like wildfire, according to her subordinates, although as stated by one of her lieutenants many of the public believed that she would be better off leading the Order of Violence due to her military success and disinclination to indulge in monumental amounts of food. Ilentia couldn't agree more with the people, but Tradax – the one who had orchestrated her dark revival on a whim – had instated her as the Master of Gluttony, and she wasn't about to question that.

She took the letter off the man, returning it back inside the pocket of her extremely outlandish and extravagant dress that Tradax had gifted her with – it may have fit her figure perfectly, but it certainly didn't fit her mindset, and Ilentia thought she looked far too ridiculous in the laced fabric. Though it was a ludicrous proposal, as she had already driven the Resistance from the sewers of the capital, Ilentia silently hoped that someone would take the opportunity to attack the Tower of Ecstasy with all of the noteworthy members of the New Empire that could make it held within the glittering spire. Then she would be able to tear off the ostentatious garment and lead the defence.

Ilentia quickly strode through the crowds, silently examining everything whilst simultaneously paying no attention whatsoever to it. A pair of hysterically laughing Blade Dancers eviscerated a selection of cowering and screaming prisoners, hacking apart their naked bodies in artistically pleasing displays of crimson vitae, and an anxious servant obstructed her path further, holding out a platter filled with a plethora of glasses containing multitudes of different liquids, some of which would be heavily alcoholic or infused with other perception-altering drugs, whilst others were simply sweet juices. Ilentia declined with a wave of her gloved hand, and the servant shuffled away before bumping into a pampered-looking young (judging by his voice) nobleman that turned around in fury, the pupils of his brown eyes heavily dilated.

He sneered at the quaking woman, who looked pale and was most likely of Lucaelian origin, presumably one of the civilians captured in the rare raids on the Kingdom of Light that had steadily increased in frequency over the course of the last few years until the Scholaria Magnus negotiations and the seizure of the young princes (who Ilentia thought should have been put to the sword (or killed in any of the more "entertaining" ways available to the City of Pleasure) the second they were apprehended, and couldn't understand Tradax's motives for not doing so) and the subsequent declaration of war from King Marik.

Ilentia personally believed that Tradax was grossly underestimating the Lucaelians – she herself having analysed several of the crushing defeats suffered in pitched battles at the hand of their legions, and now with the annihilation of the delaying forces Tradax had placed in their path to Usnaan, but only time would tell.

"You, wretch," the man snarled, his eyes alight with atavistic hunger, and the undoubtedly attractive young woman tried to slink away into the crowd before the man grabbed her. Ilentia remembered seeing some of the slaves, their eyes full of defiance and hatred, being escorted by the Gluttony Enforcers into her Gourmand's Mansion, and knew that their souls would be broken soon enough – here was a clear example of this, "Did I give you permission to touch me?"

"No, my lord," the woman grovelled, bowing down to the man and kissing his feet, and Ilentia growled. The two were blocking her path, and she needed to get out of the crowd and be stood at Tradax's side before he addressed the crowd. She roughly shoved the quivering servant out of the man's grasp so that she could pass through, and then felt a hot and fleshy hand grab onto the laced sleeves of her arm.

"Who do you think you are?" the man demanded, gurgling and quite obviously severely drunk in spite of the fact that the main celebrations would come after the Archlord's speech, and so probably wouldn't remember the events. Ilentia pulled down her mask ever so slightly, just to expose her fiery red eyes still locked in their dark defiance and primal need for survival, and the man rocked back as if slapped, knowing even in his drunken stupor that of he wanted to survive the night then he should back away. He let go of her, looking for the slave that he had had his grubby paws on, but by now the poor Lucaelian had slipped back into the masses of people.

Ilentia carried on, aiming for one of the flamboyant vermilion and yellow staircases that lead up to the floors above, as Tradax wanted to speak to his subordinates from there despite not yet being situated there, as there was no one yet lounging on the magisterial replica of the Emperor's throne that the Archlord of Rapture had created (the original being torn apart by Jarred Redhand after his duel with the Last Tyrant, breaking it in half in front of the gathered crowd) and was overlooking the gatherings of nobles in all the floors before. That suggested that Tradax would be stood somewhere upstairs, most likely partaking in pointless pleasantries with some of his more esteem guests – such as the Masters of Violence or Wealth.

She quickly ascended the staircase, the dress impeding her feline grace and making her movements much less elegant, so at a whim she went into one of the private sections reserved for those wanting to participate in passionate coupling with another without interruption, and resisted the urge to tear the garment to shreds, instead emerging with it still on as she knew that Tradax wanted her to wear it and that her continued life could rest on his shoulders.

She stepped onto the second floor, a much darker tier with many sat around gambling tables as Ilentia could smell the scent of roasting meat that she would have found mouth-watering in an earlier life drifting in from an open door to the right, where members of her own Order would be preparing the main meals. Her eyes scanned the crowd for Tradax, and instead they met with blue orbs that were filled with passion and lust that quickly turned to dismay as they locked with her own. The two whores leaning either side of the pudgy man as he sank dejectedly into his chair giggled quietly, one of them climbing up and sitting on his right shoulder whilst the other massaged his left.

The mask in the style of a tusked boar (_fitting,_ Ilentia thought) did little to conceal the identity of another morbidly obese Welkalite belonging to the Order of Gluttony, but this one had possessed a very special link with Ilentia in her former life – the man, Otio Wranion, was her little brother, though in his corpulent twenty-three year old body he wasn't very little any more compared to his lithe and slender older sister. She had spoken to him a total of once after her dark revival, when her memories of Guena Wranion's life started to flow back to her in fragments of remembrance, and casually informed her two years younger brother – apparently her only sibling – that the Guena he had known had died and that she was no longer related to him.

Ilentia could recall some things, but not others, and remembered looking after the boy when they were both starving youths, managing to find them a job in the famed Banquet Street as extremely low paid cleaners, eight and six at the time.

Their parents had died in the days following the Revolution, when the streets ran red with blood and the crazed civilians – not all of the civilians, though - finally free from the yoke of oppression, had gone wild and indulged in every hedonistic act they had ever thought about in their wildest dreams as society crumbled around them.

Ilentia and Otio (who had been a skinny youth and would have grown to be tall and spindly if he hadn't have followed his sister into the Order of Gluttony) had been adopted for a short while when Redhand restored order, but after the man's wife and daughters were assassinated (even now, after all this time, no one knew who the culprit was for that) and (admittedly more structured) chaos reigned again their foster parents were forced to abandon them on the streets in order to pay the taxes the Wealth Enforcers set.

She had plotted and schemed, even at the age of eight, rising through the ranks of cleaners and then becoming a waitress, gaining the favour of one of the patrons of the Order – Ershun Firefist – who would later become the Master seven years ago and propel her through the ranks, with her little brother always trailing behind. They had once sat together in the light of the evening sun, talking about their dreams of eating the delicious-looking food that they served to the customers of the prestigious restaurant that they were forbidden from touching, and she had promised her younger sibling that she would get them into the Order of Gluttony and that they would never have to eat the scraps they subsisted on again.

Her memories told her that they had been very close, even after she had ascended quickly through the ranks of the order and he had clung onto her success to propel himself as well, and that just before the night of her dark revival they had eaten together and Otio was very proud (if slightly envious) of her achieving mastery. If only he had known what was going to happen to Guena, then maybe he wouldn't have been so quick to congratulate and encourage.

She glowered from behind her mask, which was designed like a graceful but deadly predatory bird of prey, and her brother paled, but there was nothing on this floor for her.

As she began to walk towards the next set of stairs, a triumvirate of tanned and muscular men intoxicated by some sort of drug languidly beckoned in her direction, but Ilentia had lost her sexual taste when she had been resurrected by Tradax. In fact, it seemed like she had lost her taste for everything but killing, and even that wasn't as satisfying as Guena had found it.

It was unfitting for a Master of Passion not to be addicted to indulgence, but if Ilentia was honest it wouldn't be how she would spend her life if she didn't have her responsibilities to Tradax. She wasn't exactly sure what she would do, but knew that it wasn't this. The only thing presently on her agenda was continuing to live, and she briefly wondered if she was actually capable of any other thoughts due to Tradax freezing her mind in the instant of near-death. That meant serving Tradax, because she didn't know if he could simply snap his fingers and life would leave her body because she had technically been reanimated by him.

Walking onto the third floor, she swept her eyes across the debaucheries happening, but when she saw Tradax she walked straight towards him, ignoring the unspeakable acts committed next to her, not that she abhorred it, she just wasn't interested.

"Ahh, Ilentia! Do come over, my dear," Tradax exclaimed, his eyes full of merriment coupled with dark narcissism, turning from the guests he had been idly talking to and towards the mana presence of the Master of Gluttony. As befitting of his station as the host of the gathering, the Archlord of Rapture was bereft of a mask, his filed teeth glinting in the overhead lights and his face twisted in a smile. Ilentia obeyed silently, bowing her head in deference to Tradax whilst locating the positions of the Masters of Wealth and Violence, an easy enough task as in her mind's eye they showed up as blots of Black mana, much life herself and the Archlord.

The former was dazzling other guests with the amount of money he was wasting in the gambling tables (although there were less here than the floor below), and wore a mask made out of pure gold and platinum, like the headpieces of the sarcophagi that had held the corpses of the dead royal family, before they had been dug up and looted as the public pillaged the Palace of Desire. However, it was not the most absurdly wasteful and conspicuous outfit she had seen Eras Stormwind wear, but then again Tradax had probably forbidden it in fear of the Master of Wealth usurping his position as the "star of the show".

One would be forgiven for thinking that because of its name, the Order of Wealth was the Order that least represented Red mana qualities, such as acting on impulse and being filled with passion, but that was only if one thought of it as a simple bank where coins were counted and filed away. No, the Wealth part of the Order was just a means to an end, and the Augur's Quarter was just as hedonistic as the Hedonist's Quarter, it was just that the luxuries on offer required a tremendous expenditure of wealth.

Eras was only nineteen but quite clearly insane, and although he was a pampered youth that had inherited the role from his aunt it could never be said that he didn't run his Order with brutal efficiency and an utter lack of empathy for the poor that made the Empire very rich. He liked his pleasures unusual and strange, but when he could throw money at the providers until they gave him what he wanted then no one was in a position to question him.

Arendus Draal was masked by his habitual brass gladiator's mask, which amused Ilentia slightly, and the brute was stood to the side of the gathering with a group of baying and posturing important members of the Order of Violence, ignoring his squabbling subordinates as they picked fights with each other in their attempt to seem the strongest and glaring at the Master's back jealously and instead staring intently at the numerous pit fights far below. The muscled giant could be perceived as stoic, as he rarely said anything, but Ilentia knew that was false and in her former life had seen Arendus in one of his battle rages at a special Slaughterhouse event when fighting against a captured Erian beast.

Tradax draped a spindly arm that was swathed within his robes over Ilentia's slender shoulders, the woman repressing a flinch at the touch, and gently turned her towards those he was talking to. Ilentia recognised the lightning-blue eyes of Enforcer-General Fraetus Etin underneath a mask modelled in emulation of some sort of Unbound electrical beast smothering a glare directed in her direction, and the Master of Gluttony allowed herself a small smirk. Fraetus was an older woman of about forty, with two children (one of which had gone to the Scholaria Magnus and was still there now), but had lost favour with the public due to her failures in finding the Resistance with her Enforcers, which in turn had made Ilentia more popular when she succeeded in the task.

"I don't believe you two have been formally introduced yet. Fraetus, meet Ilentia, the new Master of Gluttony. Ilentia, this is Fraetus Etin, the Enforcer-General outside of the Orders" Tradax said, his voice sibilant and manipulative, and Fraetus held out her hand for Ilentia to shake, the general's grip hard and her hatred of Ilentia evident underneath her thin smile. An Enforcer from the Order of Rapture coughed to get the Archlord's attention, kneeling behind the man, and quietly said something in his ear when Tradax leaned down. Tradax's eyes widened in anticipation and mild surprise, and he politely excused himself and walked over to a space outside of the crowd, Ilentia ignoring the general and turning to watch the Archlord, who waved at someone who shouted his name in praise before turning to a figure that the Master of Gluttony couldn't identify under her mask.

She was relatively small, and wore a red kimono speckled with black spots and a bone-white mask in the shape of a fox, and didn't bow before the Archlord like many others had done, or in any way show respect. _Curious, _Ilentia thought, before a sharp pain erupted at the back of her mind, an explosive revelation of hidden memories that thrust themselves to the forefront of her brain, superimposing itself in front of her natural sight.

_She saw a room full of dismembered dead bodies, the blood leaking out of numerous precisely inflicted cuts, like a whirlwind of surgical steel had swept through the room. She looked down at her hands, small and fragile like a little girl's, and recalled that she had been ten years old at the time of the incident. The corpses, many influential members of the Order of Gluttony that had convened in the _Redhand's Repose _restaurant that Guena worked in and had been given access to its most magnificent upper gallery, stared accusingly up at her, and the girl dropped the tray of drinks she had been carrying, the ornate crystal glass shattering on the carpeted magenta floor and spilling their exotic contents across it, where the multi-coloured liquids mixed with the pooling blood. _

_Guena looked up, trying to hold in the bile that threatened to burst out of her stomach and gagging as she did so, and a figure sat on one of the crystalline chandeliers stared back at the girl, cleaning the blood from her elegant short-sword. Eyes like jewels regarded the ten year old with curiosity and sorrow and peeked out from a bone-white mask shape like a wolf's face, and the woman placed a slender finger to her lips before jumping out of the already smashed window of the upper gallery and disappearing into the night time Usnaan. _

_Guena had held it in until that point, and then screamed in panic just as a smaller boy ran up the spiral staircase leading into the room._

"_Guena! What's wrong?!" Otio shouted, panic and fear lacing his eight year old voice as his older sister shrieked in terror at the gruesome scene in front of her, but even in her hysterical state the urge to protect her innocent little brother was still strong and she pushed him away before he could get past and see the slaughter._

Ilentia frowned as the memory receded, noticing that she had inadvertently begun to clutch the side of her head, and tried to make her way over to Tradax and the fox-woman, but the crowd undulated against her. When she next saw the two, the mysterious woman that had murdered all of Ilentia's original employers many years ago had disappeared, and Tradax's brow was furrowed in consternation.

"Who was she, my lord?" she asked respectfully, coming to the man's side, and Tradax smiled, "Just one of my many agents and informants, my dear. Nothing you need concern yourself with. Now, I think its about time that I begin the address."

He strode past her, and Ilentia detected a tinge of fear in his eyes before the man crushed it. Seeing the Archlord begin to ascend to his throne to begin his speech, both Eras and Arendus began to walk towards her, the first giving her a tiny wave whilst the other ignored her. She followed Tradax up to the uppermost floor, watching as the various spotlights began to drift away from the carnival of rapture and the music began to die down as he placed himself in the ornate and baroque replica throne.

As his new right hand, Ilentia took her place to that side of him whilst Eras stood at his left and Draal towered behind him – amusingly the hulking Master of Violence looked as if he was resisting the temptation to strangle the increasingly arrogant Tradax. She briefly pondered why Arendus had ever agreed to the pacts that the Archlord of Rapture and the previous occupant of her role had invoked with the demons in order to topple the past Masters of Passion, but assumed it had just been for power – likewise, despite detesting the gladiator Tradax and Ershun would have needed the extra power he provided to truly overthrow the leaders of their respective Orders.

If Arendus executed such an action, Ilentia didn't honestly know whether she would intervene or not – though had someone asked her the question a few days ago the answer would be that she would definitely leap to the aid of Tradax.

"My people," Tradax began, and in spite of any misgivings his audience may have about him as a person there was no denying that he was an excellent public speaker, probably because he was immensely manipulative.

The spotlights converged on the throne, and the clamour below died down, those too inebriated to know what was going on still subconsciously realising that they needed to be quiet – Ilentia had no doubt that their lives would depend on it, as Tradax had killed for less than someone interrupting his speech. That Tradax would ever refer to the wealthy citizens of Welkas as _his people _was a testament to how conceited he had become, as well as how little influence the supposedly esteemed and venerated Protector had. However, Tradax was well liked by the rich, not because of any particular admiration for his deeds but because he simply let the Orders do what they want unless it got in the way of his plans, whereas Redhand and the other Masters before Tradax and his new generation had been less enthusiastic in removing all restraints on revelling.

"As you all know, our formidable and zealous foes, the legions of Lucael, advance on Usnaan. They have already proven how powerful their military is, and the minor cities of Jeksaan, Opraan and Khaelaan have been taken, the token forces we left swept aside by the righteous fury of their angels," Tradax stated, his voice inflected with a note false mourning, as if he couldn't care any more about the lives that had been lost without bursting into tears, "They will be here in a few days, and this short but brutal war will be decided then. The Lucaelian angels are certainly quite formidable, especially the ones that King Marik himself and his youngest son Caiellis, who visited our city five days ago – and I'm sure some of you will have seen his power first hand, just like poor Ershun - wield. However, I have countermeasures in place that will allow us to destroy our those who would _dare_ to interrupt our revels."

He motioned upwards, "I'm sure some of the more eagle eyed amongst you have spotted the storm gathering ahead," there was some general, forced laughter at the attempted humour, although one woman that had clearly ingested too many brain-altering substances burst out in laughter until someone she was with shut her up, glancing fearfully up at the Archlord, who ignored the woman instead of giving in to the temptation to strike her down with a bolt of sizzling red lightning. "Some of you may have also correctly guessed that this weather is no natural occurrence. I call it the Tempest of Craving, and it is a gift. While the Lucaelians may have angelic guardians aiding them, more powerful forces, approving of our passion and wild celebrations, have aligned themselves with us."

"You may already know that myself and the three Masters of Passion stood with me have traded away our weaker Summonings in an Infernal Contract, obtaining forbidding demons of awesome power that are hated by those in Lucael. You would be forgiven for believing that due to their ominous name, and the history and mythology concerning other members of their race, that our demons are evil, despicable beings, but that is untrue. There are seven Brotherhoods of demons, and the ones that are aiding us only seek to preserve out monuments to passion and ecstasy."

"The Tempest of Craving was created by them, in exchange for even more of our indulgence. The more we celebrate, the more we feast, the more we pursue unadulterated pleasure in all of its many forms, the more powerful our demonic patrons become, and the further the storm intensifies. So by all means, prepare for the siege of our beloved capital, but I encourage you to continue partaking in the luxury of indulgence. However, know this: the thing that our demonic patrons want most is the blood of the self-righteous Lucaelians, and so the more you kill the more you will be rewarded when we win this war," Tradax finished, a magnanimous smile plastered on his sinister features, and a rapturous war-cry erupted from the audience below. Tradax basked in the adulation as the crowd shouted his name, and the battle chant of "For the Empire of Passion!"

.*.*.*.

Caiellis thrust himself back into reality with a lurching jolt, a headache beginning to pound at the back of his mind that he tried to ignore. _Oh angels … Orzhova said that I've spent two hours asleep … I hope nothing has happened. Plus, I need to get the army moving if we are going to meet up with dad's force before nightfall._

Cai sat up in the bed, moving his brown bangs out of his eyes, and then felt like he wanted to vomit with a sudden realisation of the events of the day. He started shaking, and breathing faster, as it truly hit him that he had just massacred almost the entirety of the Welkalite army – it mattered not that he still spared some that his mind perceived as innocent (_who am I to judge that anyway? How do I __**know **__that the ones I killed were guilty just because the Lens said they were?_), he was still a mass-murderer. How could anything ever justify that amount of death?

Earlier, when he was suffused with the divine power of the Black Sun and felt like an exalted god, he had not spared it much of a thought, and then afterwards, basking in the victory and the elated discernment that he hadn't killed all of the Welkalite soldiers, he hadn't cared that despite those he had annihilated were judged as guilty, he had still killed them. He felt extremely guilty, but more than that: terrified, horrified of the power he had locked within him and the fact that it could be the cause of that many lives being extinguished.

_How many was it? One thousand? Two thousand? Three? I don't even know how many I've killed … how can one person be the catalyst for this amount of death? I'm only thirteen years old! How have I already killed over a thousand people? How am I supposed to live with that?_

Cai shook, barely repressing his sobs and whimpers at the sudden and excruciating understanding that his mind came to. _I'm not supposed to live with it. I'm a monster, much worse than those that I've killed … I don't deserve to live … I'm scared. I'm scared of myself. I'm frightened of what I've done. But most of all I'm afraid of the fact that at the time it didn't bother me, and I'm afraid of what I __**could **__do. That wasn't even the full extent of my power … I think I can empathise more with dad now. He's killed more than me, and it shows. _

The prince started crying, quietly, holding his head in his hands and wishing that a migraine more painful than he had ever experienced would sweep over him, though even then he knew that the punishment of that would not suffice, or erase what he had done. The worse bit of it was that no one else seemed to care, like it was perfectly normal that a child should be killing thousands of enemies just because of his distinguished heritage – even worse than that, they venerated him for it, worshipped him like some sort of sacred being just because he was capable of killing on a scale that no human should ever be able to. The Lucerna family must have taken more lives than a thousand other family trees of others, and they were _respected_ for it?

He wished that instead of tossing his ornate "self-defence" (an ironic name come to think of it, though he supposed that when the younger him had been given the knife in the civil war he had used it for that purpose, but when it had ended just more than a month ago the dagger's use had been converted into a significantly more malevolent and detrimental to his health) knife away in Tranquillity's Descent, the peaceful waterfall on the Scholaria Magnus island where he had passed Orzhova's trial of mortality, he had kept it with him so that he could use it now. The cuts had been superficial, just underneath the skin and not damaging any internal organs, but they still left scars that occasionally hurt, though much less then his left arm and leg which periodically throbbed with background pain.

_I just wanted to protect my soldiers … and help the people of Jeksaan … I never wanted to kill. _

Cai's Lucaelian mind automatically turned to blaming Black mana and by extension Orzhova for the (not quite "merciless", but close to it) slaughter, but swiftly crushed those unfair thoughts, knowing that many Lucerna rulers with First Sisterhood angels other than the Angel of the Black Sun had committed mass homicides as well, just theirs were elevated whereas her deeds in the past had been scorned and hated – but then again Xarius had murdered solely innocents, whereas the other angels used their apocalyptic spells for military gain and to kill enemies that would be threatening those of Lucael without their angelic intervention.

Huge fat tears were cascading down his cheeks now, and he savagely swiped at them, his eyes landing on the personal mana communicator he had left on the small portable chair next to the bed, his official Lucerna one given to Jenna so that his logistical adviser could receive important calls, and only family members and friends could contact Caiellis on this one.

He reached out a slender and tiny hand and clutched onto the device, holding it close to him like the proximity in it would dispel the thoughts of not deserving to exist in his head. Then, a sudden thought rose up in his stricken mind, and he activated the communicator, knowing even in his panicked and hyperventilating state that what he was doing would ease his worry.

" 'Sup, little bro," a perfect rendition of Alex's voice was projected across the royal tent emblazoned with the Lucerna sigil of a man (supposedly Matalis, the First King) framed by two protective silvery white angelic wings. If Cai hadn't been in such a state, he would have told his older brother to never say that again (not that that would dissuade Alexander, in fact it would probably just encourage him to say it more frequently just to irritate Cai), but at the present moment all he did was sniffle pathetically, and murmur, "Do you really want a "little bro" that is a mass murderer?"

"What's wrong, Caiellis?" Alexander instantly asked, picking up on the melancholy resonance in the youngster's voice, the self-recrimination and loathing directed at Cai himself in the youngest Lucerna's words unfortunately quite familiar to his older sibling, "This has got to do with the battle you just won, right? I've heard the official reports, how you single-handedly obliterated the Welkalite force after a brief skirmish with your army, and even spared those that had been forced into the military."

"I'm sorry, I'm such an idiot," Cai said, sadly, his words almost bringing on a fresh tsunami of tears before he managed to erect a floodgate that could only ever temporarily stave off the crying,

"I just said that without explaining myself and I don't know how I can live with the amount of lives I've ended and I don't know if you can still love me because of it and I panicked, and I didn't know what to do, so I just rang you because I didn't know who else to turn to and I knew that no one else understands me as well as my big brother so I just rang you without thinking of the consequences and I know I should just be dealing with it myself and I'm sorry for bothering you especially when you have to recover and worry about your own army but saying sorry won't absolve me of the killing and I thought that maybe you could help me because you've always been able to help me in the past, even when mum died and I though that I could never get any sadder and you've stopped me from killing myself many times and I thought I should talk to you so that I didn't do it this time but I know you can't empathise with me because you haven't killed nearly as many people as I have and I'm a monster," Cai finished, breathlessly, taking in a very deep, shuddering inhalation to replenish the oxygen in his starved lungs.

"Have you been drinking coffee?" Alex asked, slight amusement present in his voice despite the gravity of Caiellis's words, though the younger boy knew that his older brother often utilised humour to ease the tension and pave the way for some characteristic "big brother" advice and reassurance that sometimes made Cai wonder if the older boy was a telepath, but on more uncommon occasions Alex had missed the mark – even rarer was when he did so by a wide margin, and made his little brother feel even worse (though he did sometimes intend that when they were in the middle of a sibling spat), but Alex was only human and humans made mistakes so that they could improve. At any rate, Cai felt slightly better just sharing his worries with someone else, but only by an infinitesimally small amount.

Cai shook his head, but as Alex quietly coughed a prompt he belatedly recalled that gestures weren't transmitted over the communication, and replied, "No, Alex. I'm not touching that stuff after what happened the last time I did."

"That's good. Right, before he addresses your main problems, Doctor Alex would like to know when the last time you had a drink was," Alex joked, and Cai frowned in confusion and sadness. He pouted, "You're not funny."

"Meanie," Alex responded light-heartedly, but took Cai's words on board and the next time he spoke his voice was noticeably more serious and stern, but just as comforting, "But the question still stands. When was the last time you had a drink, little buddy?"

Cai considered if for a moment – true, the pounding in his head could be attributed to dehydration, and his parched lips and throat would certainly suggest that – and he realised how dry he sounded when he spoke again, "Before the battle, I think. That was-" he checked his watch, glad it was still functioning after the battle he had just dragged it through, "Four hours ago."

"For angels' sake! Cai, why haven't you had one?" Alex demanded in protective outrage, and Cai shrugged, and responded with, "I've been asleep for the past two hours, and I couldn't exactly have one in the middle of the battle, could I?"

"I knew it. And they say you're supposed to be smart," Alexander jabbed, "I could tell you weren't thinking clearly, especially in the way that you almost choked yourself by babbling earlier. You're sometimes such an idiot, Cai."

"Sorry," Cai muttered absently, reasoning that his brother was correct and that his negative thoughts could easily have been exacerbated, however what he had thought earlier was true no matter how hydrated his brain was. "Don't apologise to me, apologise to yourself. You need to drink, especially not that you are in Welkas and it's absolutely fricken' boiling there. Anyway, make sure that you do that when we've done, ok?"

"Yeah," Cai replied softly, and now that they were approaching the main topic he could already feel floods of tears battering against the barriers he had placed. _Alright, man up. Alex never cries – apart from when he's afflicted with a vampire's curse and is in monumental pain and about to die – so you shouldn't either, unless you are in the same circumstances. Then, and only then, are you excused. In the past couple of weeks I'm sure you've cried enough to create a damn ocean in the middle of the continent._

"You asked me whether I wanted a little brother that is a mass murderer or not. The answer is no, I don't want a mass-murdering brother," Alex stated simply, and Cai almost broke down in tears before the older boy elaborated, "But before you burst into tears, which despite what you might say is definitely what you were going to do, what I mean is that I don't think you are a mass-murderer."

"But … but I killed all those people..." Cai murmured despondently, despite the fact that his brother was already aware and was obviously trying to make a point to counter that reality. Alex sighed sadly, again wishing he was there with the boy so that he could provide physical comfort as well as verbal, but mentally thanked the scientists in the Yentarian Republic, and those in Lucael, that had developed the mana communicators so that the latter would be possible – without that, who knows what Cai, in his present dehydrated and despairing state, would have done? He didn't really have any friends or people that he felt comfortable opening up to at his end, which meant he had turned inwards.

"Ok, little man. Yes, you did kill a lot of _enemies. _But since you're a fan of logic, lets look at this logically," Alexander started, hearing his younger brother sniffle softly, but Caiellis didn't protest which meant he was willing to acquiesce to the older boy's wishes for now. Alex hated the fact that Cai constantly took out his worries on himself, but in that he reasoned the youngest member of his family had a lot in common with his two elders. He carried on, "So, what would have happened if you didn't cast your spell?"

"Not as many people would have died," Cai responded automatically, the part of his mind controlling speech still futilely clinging to the notion of blaming and hating himself, insisting that he was a screw up, a terrible brother for allowing Aksua to hurt Alex, a monstrous killer with no remorse, and now a useless prince because he couldn't deal with the fact that he had killed.

"And that's where you're wrong, Cai," Alex put in, though he knew that now he had prompted thought that the younger boy would already be thinking of that, "The same number of people – in fact, more people, would have died if you hadn't have eliminated those Welkalite Enforcers. For a start, your army would have definitely taken more casualties, and secondly those that you left alive wouldn't have survived either. So personally, I think you made the right choice, and you should be, if not proud of yourself, happy that you prevented more killing from occurring."

" 'suppose," Caiellis mumbled, figuring that, as usual, his big brother was correct and that his worries had been unfounded and paranoid, "It's just..." he drifted off sadly, not really sure of what to say: Alex had already proved that what he was thinking earlier was stupid, and he knew that it was the duty of Lucernas to kill the foes of the Kingdom of Light to spare more lives in the long run, and that he was being weak, pathetic and ultimately childish for thinking in such a way, but he still felt sad.

"I know, kiddo. It's a shock, having to embrace the fact that it was you that had ended all those lives. But put it this way: if you hadn't done it, then your army would have, whilst suffering more in the process," Alex assured, feeling massively sorry for his kid brother, who had to bear all this responsibility on his painfully thin shoulders at the age of thirteen, but such was the way of the Lucerna family – in fact, his own grandfather, King Garius II, had ascended to the throne a year younger than he was now, and Alexander didn't think he would be able to rule the country as well as simultaneously prosecute a war against the dastardly and deceitful Grafnica nation at sixteen, especially without any siblings.

He wished that he could swap places with his little brother, that he had used Aurelia's Fury on the Welkalite army instead of Cai having to harness Orzhova's power to achieve a relatively easy victory, but no matter how much he wanted to believe it, wanted it to happen, the reality was that his little brother couldn't always be protected from the harsh truth of the world – not that he ever really had been, but Alex had forever tried to preserve the boy's innocence as much as possible. Besides, if Caiellis ever did become king, he would most likely have to repeat this act several times in the future, and although Alex would make sure to help him every single step of the way his little brother would have even more authority and therefore culpability.

"Hey, on the bright side at least the way you are acting now proves you are nothing like Xarius," Alex smirked, and Cai rubbed at the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, brushing his hair out of them and staring transfixed at the mana communicator, "Why? Did you think that I was like him?" he asked dejectedly, and Alexander replied with a laugh.

"It was a joke, Boy Genius. And although you can be horrible, you are nothing like him, because if you were I'd have to beat you up until you stopped."

"I'm not sure repeated violence helps to change someone's personality and ideology," Cai muttered, his youthful voice still coloured with melancholy though the fact that he was willing to participate in brotherly banter indicated to the middle Lucerna that he had been successful in helping the younger boy. He was immensely glad that Caiellis had mustered up the courage and taken it upon himself to call Alexander in spite of the fact that the older boy was travelling into Welkas with the reinforcements from Cassida Principia, Civitas Sol and Capitalia Lux as well as still recovering from his own ordeal.

He knew how reluctant Cai was to share his worries with him, which had been something that had happened in the past as Caiellis had been worried about the older boy's censure or Alex thinking him pathetic, especially because of his wounding and the fact that the littlest Lucerna didn't want Alex to fret. Cai had often tried to conceal his concerns and sorrow, but it seemed to barely ever work, and only ten days ago when he had discovered the younger boy's self harming did Alexander wonder how many times the kid had successfully pulled the wool over his eyes before, concluding that it wasn't many. The younger boy tried to figure things out for himself before asking Alex, and although when he was younger Alex might have been annoyed at Cai wanting help he had always tried to make him feel welcomed and that his big brother would always help him if he needed it; he didn't want his little brother to be afraid of inquiring for advice or sharing his anxiety.

"Maybe not. But at least it would have given me an excuse to kick your ass more often," Alex jabbed back, and Cai smiled grimly and sorrowfully, glad that the older boy couldn't see that. There were some benefits to long-range communication after all, apart from the obvious advantage of being able to contact others from a vast distance away. He still felt awful, but no longer suicidal or inclined to cut himself, something which was undeniably pitiful and was just reflective of how lamentable he was. Cai knew that he worried too much, and now also realised that what his sibling had said was true and that he had taken the correct course of action. Cai then replied, "Don't you think that you beat me up enough? I mean, you haven't had much opportunity to do so in the past few days, but still."

"You call what I've done in the past beating you up?" Alex laughed in feigned incredulity, although he was truthfully amused at that, "That was just me play fighting, midget. If I was being serious then you wouldn't be arguing with me now, trust me."

"Is that a threat, big brother?" Cai inquired innocently, enjoying the playful squabbling more than he usually did when it was on even ground, as normally he preferred it more when he was (admittedly rarely, as Alex had won most of their bantering (as well as their less common full-blown arguments), but Cai attributed that to the four year age gap and the fact that the older boy was bigger and stronger) winning. He was certain that Alex would have punched him good-naturedly or wrapped him in some sort of wrestling hold without using full force by now had the older boy been sat next to him.

"Nope. Just a fact," Alex stated nonchalantly, "You don't actually think I've tried to hurt you before, do you?"

"Yes," Caiellis answered instantaneously, provoking a laugh from his elder sibling, "Don't try to deny it. I will admit that usually when we wrestle you hold back - though not enough to stop it from hurting – but sometimes you have put all your strength into our fights."

"Yeah well, you must have provoked me quite a bit," Alex muttered, and Cai arched an eyebrow, "Sure … Because trying to stop you from practising your wrestling moves on me quantifies as provocation."

"Don't pretend that I'm not an awesome big brother," Alex put in, making both of them smile. Cai then sighed, a long exhalation full of sadness that his talk with the older boy hadn't entirely dispelled.

"I'm sorry that you had to go through that, bro. But the fact that you are sad just proves that you are still human," _and still a kid, _Alex left that unspoken, knowing that it would serve to irritate the youngest prince further, but the point still stood. He wished that the younger boy could have just stayed back in the kingdom and actually had a childhood, leaving the fighting to their dad and him, however the unfortunate reality was that neither of the not yet adult Lucernas were strangers to misery and death, and the sooner in their lives that they were helping the kingdom the better, irrespective of their age.

Nevertheless, Caiellis must have been one of the youngest Lucaelians to ever lead an army, although Alex didn't know because he hadn't poured over the copious amount of information Geek Boy had, and didn't want to ask him as at the current moment Cai would realise where the older boy's thought processes were going with that.

"It's a burden every Lucerna has to take. I'm just weak to do it," Cai spoke in a hushed tone, as if scared that anyone other than his brother might be listening and judge him unworthy for it, "The worst part is that the battle we've just one was a minor one in the grand scheme of things."

"It was the first time you used an apocalypse level spell," Alex countered, and his brother sighed even sadder, so he added, "It will get easier the more you do it."

"That's the problem. I don't want to have to use any more spells like that, but I'm not naïve enough to pretend I won't have to. In that case I don't want it to get easier. I want it to be just as painful as this, if not more so. I want to feel every single death I inflict, emotionally if not physically. When I stop feeling it I'll know that I no longer deserve to live," Cai uttered, dramatically, and in spite of the fact that his words were incredibly thoughtful and intelligent Alexander had to suppress a snort at how grown up the thirteen year old sounded to him.

"Trust me as someone whose known you all your life and grown up alongside you, Caiellis, when I say that I don't think you'll _ever_ stop feeling sorrow over the loss of life. You may try to hide it away in front of other people, but I know you, and I know that you have a gentle heart. I know you hate killing – so do I, but not as much as you do because I like protecting people and killing is sometimes a regrettable by-product of that," Alex replied, and a companionable silence descended between the two as both ruminated on what the other had said.

_I can still remember him as a little kid, crying for mum when we knew she had gone. _Alex thought, _but at least he still does sometimes act his age, and doesn't pretend to be an adult all of the time. _

"Anyway," he broke the quiet, "You should probably go and get a drink of water now. You sound really dry," as if to punctuate his words, Caiellis coughed thirstily, and the inside of his throat felt like sandpaper.

"Yeah," he agreed, "And then I need to get the army moving."

"You've not met up with dad's force yet?" Alex questioned, his voice tinted with slight incredulity, but he should have expected something like this from his compassionate little brother, who wouldn't have wanted to force his army to march just after a battle and would have let them relax and rest for a while before moving again. Cai shook his head, and then smiled when he reminded himself that his brother couldn't see, "No, I haven't. I thought he'd rather have a delayed but fully operational force than a punctual but exhausted one. And plus, I did call dad to try and tell him, but Uncle Tristram answered instead, and he agreed with my choice and promised to tell dad."

"That's good," Alex returned, and then asked, "Why do you still call Tristram and Tybalt "Uncle" anyway?"

"You started it, remember. You told me when I was four that they were my uncles so that I would stop complaining at what they told me to do and I felt more at ease with them, though that didn't really stop me with Uncle Tristram," Cai explained fondly.

"I know that, Boy Genius, I was there," Alex chuckled, "I just wanted to know why you still continue to do it."

"Is there a problem with it?" Cai demanded, wondering if for some reason Alexander found it irritating or if one of the Capitalia Lux Light-bearers had told the older boy that they disliked it. The middle Lucerna snorted, "No, no problems. I find it cute, that's all."

"Urrgh. I've had enough of that from Jenna and Ruthia," Cai replied, abashedly remembering his conversation with the praetorian after the battle where he had behaved like an awkward teenager instead of a prince. Hopefully Ruthia hadn't noticed, as if she had done she hadn't shown any signs, but like a lot of girls around that age she seemed infatuated with his older brother, something that Cai wasn't sure what he thought of - whether to be proud or embarrassed. Alex laughed, the sound full of mirth, "You need to step up your game then, baby brother, though you are close. Being seen as cute by a girl is one step from them being attracted to you, but you're gonna have to work harder if you wanna be a lady-killer like me."

"I don't want to be killing any ladies!" Cai replied, innocently aghast, which made Alex laugh even more – he wasn't entirely sure whether the younger boy was genuinely ignorant of the term, or whether Cai was joking, although he suspected the former because the boy's lack of interaction with others meant that he probably hadn't heard the phrase before, "It means that they figuratively die of happiness when you seduce them, Geek Boy."

"Oh. Well in that case I'm not interested in that either," Cai responded simply.

"Your loss," Alex verbally nudged, "I remember that at your age I'd already had two girlfriends."

"That's because you enjoy talking to other people, and you're more confident than I am," Cai stated, "And additionally, I don't think you should be encouraging your thirteen year old brother to be aiming at girls five and seven years older than him."

"Why not? I think you and Jenna would make an adorable couple," Alex teased, "Although her little sister, who I only found out a few days ago was Annia, would probably be very jealous."

"And why is that?" Cai asked, not enjoying the subject of the current conversation. Alex already knew that his little brother was more focussed on his duties as a prince than girls at the moment, and wanted to wait until he was a little older (_well, an adult actually, when I'm old enough to make an informed decision on who I want to spend the rest of my life with_) to start dating them.

"You should have seen the way she was looking at you at meal times back at the Scholaria Magnus. I'm well used to that sort of look, so believe me when I tell you that she fancied you," Alex said in a "big brother advice" way, and Cai was incredibly tempted to turn off the mana communicator, but despite the talk coming to a close anyway he really didn't want to do that to his older brother, especially since the older boy would fret not knowing whether the youngest Lucerna had done it intentionally or something had disrupted the call. Alex continued, though his voice was more teasing now, "Besides, she was your kind of girl – as in an intelligent bookworm – so I personally think you should have gone for it. The chance has gone now though. Should have listened to my advice when we were there."

"She was too loud and hyper. And I barely knew her, which I know has never stopped _you _before but I think I'd prefer to get to know a girl better before sharing a bed with her," Cai jabbed back, pointedly, to which Alex then said: "Well I can't think of anyone else who would ever want to date a runt like you, so expect to live the rest of your life lonely," Alexander teased.

"I imagine that with the relationship me and dad have at the moment, he would probably have me executed if I got a girlfriend," Cai murmured, turning the chat remarkably more serious. "Yeah, maybe. If you put it that way, I don't think you should be going for one anyway. I was just teasing you, don't think that should be going and asking out every single girl around your own age that you meet because you feel that you have something to prove. Besides, I think you and dad should be fine and will stop arguing because you haven't seen each other for quite a while, so he's probably missing you."

_I know you're just trying to heal the rift between me and our father, and to be honest I can empathise with that; I wouldn't want to be in between the eldest and youngest of the Lucerna family either, but I don't think there's any possibility whatsoever of dad missing me even the slightest bit. Anyway, you probably don't know that we talked, and that I cut off on him, which I am a bit sorry for. This sounds awful, but I don't miss him at all. I guess after nine years without him and then a month with little to no positive impact on my life and significantly more negative effect, I'm just used to Marik being a non-factor. It's a shame really. I loved him when I was younger, and every day during the civil war I would look forward to seeing him again._

Normally Cai's older brother wouldn't apologise for his teasing, as verbally sparring was a normality between them, but Caiellis knew that because they weren't actually in vision of each other, and because once again he had undergone an emotional breakdown, that Alexander wanted to make sure that he was alright before the communication ended, not that he was taking the tormenting seriously in the first place.

"We aren't going to argue," Cai stated firmly, "Well I'm not, at any rate. We're in the middle of a war, so arguing would be more than just stupid, it could be detrimental to the entire war effort. I don't know about dad, but I doubt that he thinks differently, and any arguing we could do besides rational and emotionless debates on strategy is worse than pointless so I'm going to try and avoid it."

"Very mature of you," Alex prodded, and although he said it in a jovial and slightly mocking tone he meant the words. Many other boys Caiellis's age would persist in arguing against their parents, though perhaps not as disciplining children was something taken quite seriously in Lucael and their mother's method of using words instead of cold force that was derived from her own parents was quite rare, so maybe with the threat of violence Cai would never have started to argue with their dad in the first place.

_Well, technically violence did do the trick, as I'm pretty sure neither of them have shouted at each other (unless they did it when dad was taking Cai to the monorail station, but judging by dad's reaction it was more sadness than anger) since dad almost crushed Cai's arm. _Alex recalled a recent memory of his contrite father talking to the bed-ridden him just after Cai had called him (after ignoring seven of Alex's attempts to contact him), prior to him going to sleep that night, asking Alexander if he, or Cai, could ever forgive him for what he had allowed to happen to them both – or caused, in the case of his youngest.

Alexander had replied that with time his little brother would, and that he had already forgiven Marik (well, he had told him that there was nothing to be forgiven in his instance, which was true). He hoped that was true, and knew that with coaxing and a long process of trust building that Caiellis could be made to feel the same love for their dad (he still thought that deep down, Cai still loved the man, which made the arguments filled with even more vehemence as he tried to think of reasons for that love) as he did – he was aware of Marik's deep fondness for both of his sons, it was just that so far after the nine year interval in their parenting only he had really been shown it.

He still made sure to (respectfully, of course) ensure that his father knew that what he had done to Caiellis was deeply wrong – not that he didn't already, and Alexander had seen the guilt eating away at their dad on the inside – but apart from that he refused to take sides in their disputes. If Cai came crying to him, then he would of course comfort his little brother but also try to make the squirt empathise (or at least sympathise) with his father's position, whereas if Marik was grumbling about his youngest to his eldest then he would make pains to try and argue the kid's case. Unless one of them was massively in the wrong (as dad had been earlier), then Alex wouldn't support one of them.

It pained him to admitted it, but if worst came to worst and he had to pick a side then, as his father and king, he would have to choose dad over Caiellis simply because of the fact that he was an adult whilst his little brother was still a child. While the younger boy was intelligent and analytical, he struggled with his emotions – well, all the Lucernas did, when one looked underneath the veneer of confidence and certainty, but the youngest member more than the others – and in spite of the fact that Caiellis would repeatedly refute it, his hormones were having an effect on his thought processes. Alex would have to support the eldest Lucerna over the youngest member of their family because of that age gap, and the fact that Marik had more authority as the ruler and the father. Not that he would enjoy the look of betrayal and sorrow Cai would undoubtedly send him if he was forced to select a side.

_Anyway, _Alex thought, _Cai said he wasn't going to argue with dad, and I don't think dad will want to as he already has enough to contend with, what with being the supreme commander of all Lucael's legions, so I should take the little man's word for it and not think about picking between them._

"I'm looking forward to seeing you again, short stuff," Alex spoke, infusing his words with happiness at being with – and therefore able to protect – his little brother, as everything (_well, most things_) seemed so much better with a small version of his heritage at his side that he could teach about the world. The younger boy sighed, muttering, "I still don't think dad should have authorised your release. It has only been five days since you almost died to Aksua – I'm still sorry about that, by the way – so even with your Lucerna blood with the blessing of the angels heightening your fortitude, I think you should spend more time recovering."

"If it was up to you I wouldn't be allowed out of bed for the next year," was Alex's mildly satirical reply. Cai exhaled frustratedly, "You know that isn't true. I'm just trying to think about your safety, because apparently you're incapable of doing that for yourself. As much as both of us would like to believe it, you aren't invincible, and you shouldn't be going into this war."

"So that you can hog all the glory to yourself? No thanks, baby brother. You've already won two battles, and I've not even been part of one yet," Alex said.

"It's not about that-" Cai responded quickly, but his brother interrupted him, "Yes, yes it is somewhat about that. I have to start proving myself worthy of being a prince as well. It's honestly embarrassing that my four years younger brother has led two armies to victory at the age of thirteen whilst I haven't done anything yet. I know that mostly you dislike our rivalry, but as the older brother I should be doing better than you. No offence, kiddo, but even though you have been successful I personally think that I am stronger than you when we Summon because of my greater familiarity and experience with Aurelia, whereas you've only just met Orzhova," Alex stated firmly. "And now that I've recovered I can start earning glory as well."

"War isn't just a game!" Cai shouted suddenly, releasing emotions of anger that had built up unbeknownst to him during his brother's speech, "Do you really think that I did what I did to earn _glory_? Do you honestly believe that the only reason that I want to win battles is to win more in this brotherly rivalry of ours, or if that is a reason at all?"

"Cai, calm down," Alex's perfectly even voice cut through his sibling's emotional tones, suffused with the authority and power he commanded over his little brother that instantly shut the smaller boy up, "I was just saying that it's about time that I got involved in defending the kingdom as well. And yes, our virtually non-existent rivalry is even smaller in war. I wasn't saying that it was some sort of competition, and I know that you hate murderous violence. I guess that I just feel like I should have done something to help, just as you have. That's all. Not because I want to earn glory or anything, but because I want to protect the people as well, and because I'm older than you I should have started before, only that vampire bitch has stopped me."

"I … I'm sorry for shouting. I never wanted you to feel like that, or feel inadequate," Cai apologised deeply, and Alex instantly felt like he shouldn't have said those sorts of things to his little brother who had rung for the sole reason that he couldn't cope with the amount of lives he had taken. "Aww Cai, you don't make me feel inadequate. But now that I've recovered – and I have recovered, Mr Control Freak – I can fight side by side with you, like we are supposed to, as Lucerna brothers."

"If it's any consolation," Cai began sullenly, "I count our time as refugees in the civil war and the escape from Usnaan as two of your victories, making us even."

"How generous of you. Counting nine desperate years of our life as one victory," Alex joked, though the words still touched his heart. He should know by now that Caiellis would never be able to see himself better than the big brother he looked up to, respected deeply and emulated, because he had basically raised that kid along with Tristram and Tybalt, but those two had focussed on making both boys princes whereas Alex helped Cai develop as a person.

"Alright then, I take it back," Cai jabbed back, "I'm up two to zero. But in all seriousness, I still don't think you are strong enough to be going to war."

"I'm still stronger than you, little wimp," Alex teased.

"One day you might not be, jerk."

"Keep believing that, bitch," Alex replied, both brothers grinning though neither of them could see, "Anyway, see you soon little buddy. Make sure that you get a drink, and set off to meet up with the main force as soon as possible."

"And you call me the control freak," Caiellis exclaimed indignantly, mimicking Alex's words in the first call they had been a part of back in Scientia Mos.

"Just offering advice, bitch."

"Can't think of anything else to call me?" Cai inquired innocently.

"Of course not. I just think that's the name that fits you the best. My little bitch of a brother."

"In that case, see you soon jerk-face."

"How imaginative. I see you're putting your brain to good use there, Boy Genius. See ya!"

Cai had an inane smile that only rarely graced his young features, a far cry from the defeated and terrified expression that had plastered itself over his face when he had called his brother, and knew that he had definitely made the correct decision in calling Alexander, who had succeeded in cheering him up.

"You can come in now," he directed the comment at the entrance to his tent, to the person who had been stood there for an excess of thirty seconds – just long enough to have heard the brothers exchange insults and goodbyes, but not to have listened to both his worry about the amount of killing and Alex's apparent concerns about the fact that he had been stuck in recuperating limbo and unable to help the kingdom as his kid brother ostensibly had. That was good. Whoever had been waiting – whether of not they were actively trying to listen in to his conversation – didn't need to know about either of the princes' concerns.

He turned around as a fully-armoured Drax entered the room, although the man had obviously taken his armour off to polish it as it wasn't covered in the grime of the battlefield, just the damn dust that seemed to get into everything in Welkas. The man's expression betrayed nothing under Caiellis calculated scrutiny, but the boy arched an eyebrow at the steaming meal that seemed to have been purchased from a market in Jeksaan, as well as the flask of water.

"I've brought you a meal of Trevesh Al'quira," Drax mumbled and probably severely mispronounced the words evidently originating from some ancient Welkalite dialect, "Which is apparently a delicacy fit for the highest kings."

"Thank you," Caiellis extended his gratitude to the man, as he was hungry and eating food would replenish his stores of mana much faster – plus, a delicious smell was wafting in from the food, some sort of meat and assorted vegetables covered in a sunburst orange sauce. He had to repress a smirk at the mental image of the inflexible and dour Drax going into the vibrant city they were camped outside of and ordering food from one of the market stalls, although perhaps one of the other members of the Lucerna Guard or his advisory committee (his new name for Mysos, Jenna and some of the captains and generals) had purchased the meal and the head praetorian had just delivered it.

He was handed the meal, the boy's thin hands looking woefully small next to the bodyguard's metal gauntlets, but Caiellis instead took a massive gulp of water from the flask when it was placed on the portable bedside table, almost choking as he misjudged the amount of water that he had poured into his mouth. It must have been one of the nicest drinks he had had in a while.

"Please, sit down," Cai magisterially wafted his hand in the direction of the small stool present in his tent, though silently wondered whether it could hold the weight of the armoured praetorian, but despite the fact that for some unknown reason he had decided that he wanted to act in a more kingly manner the reality that he was still sat on his (undeniably messy – _I hope Drax doesn't think I'm incapable of making a bed. No, he won't, everyone in the kingdom knows I'm not a spoilt brat because of the civil war_) bed and that he was still wearing his bloodstained and ripped clothing from the battlefield (having not deigned to wear full plate armour as he found it too restrictive and the fact that he could heal himself made it redundant) nullified the effect.

Drax bowed and shook his head respectfully, preferring just to stand, and an awkward silence descended as the prince ate his meal, musing about if it would seem like he was being wasteful or picky if he didn't eat all of it, because although it was just after one o'clock and hadn't eaten much for breakfast he was already becoming full.

"I gave out the order to assemble the army before coming to see you," Drax mentioned, and after swallowing the extremely spicy mouthful he was eating – _I suppose the highest Welkalite kings would have breathed fire so would need ridiculously hot food to contend – _he said, "Thank you, Drax. As usual your organisational skills are commendable."

Cai felt like a complete idiot. He had definitely overslept, no matter that he had utilised a spell requiring a gigantic amount of mana expenditure, and just left the army to do as it pleased. It was a good job those in the Lucaelian legions were mature (arguable in Ciaran's case) adults and didn't run wild in the city, though Caiellis thought that if anything had happened it would most likely be kept from the attention of the exalted representative of the Lucerna line, deemed too petty for his notice.

"Thank you, my lord Caiellis," Drax responded automatically, and then diverted his eyes from Cai's unamused glower, changing the conversation, "You deserved your rest, anyway, after that spell. I came to check on you an hour ago, but you were still sleeping. Don't think that you were left undefended though."

"I never did," Cai muttered, pushing his food around the bowl it was in with his fork, feeling stuffed and not wanting to eat any more despite over half of it being there – he reckoned that he could manage it if he wanted to be sick, and besides the largest meal of the day was still to come anyway. His mind went back (as it always did, because that time was the only time he had lived in his short life and so most of his memories were from then) to the civil war, where food was often scarce and he was pretty sure that Tristram, and more rarely Tybalt as the younger man forced the Hierarch to eat just as he made his two charges, had gone without so that the princes could have more, in spite of more still being scraps.

Whenever they got to a city that they knew was safe (as at first no one could be trusted, and the four had to conceal their identities whenever entering a new city just in case it was secretly traitor or home to betrayers), Alexander had always stuffed himself, and Cai had eaten more than he did now – often to the point where he was almost sick because they were that hungry, but now that food was readily available he didn't feel the need to gorge, not that eating like a normal person was gorging, and no one in Lucael was anything like those in the Welkalite Order of Gluttony. Alex kept himself on a large diet of healthy and sometimes more unhealthy things – mostly protein however – but his big brother did that so that he could keep up his muscular physicality.

"Is there something wrong with the food, Caiellis?" Drax asked, noticing the boy playing with it and only occasionally placing small pieces of it in his mouth, "I didn't recommend that dish, but your advisor Jenna insisted it would match your tastes."

_Oh, of course she did. She'd probably find the thought of me eating an absurdly spicy dish hilarious. Joke's on her that I actually don't mind spicy meals, in spite of their rarity in Lucael,_ Cai thought. The youngster mulled over whether to tell the man that he was full, and risk looking ungrateful, or persist in painfully slowly eating it until Drax left and he could dispose of the meal. Truth won out, and Cai said: "It's delicious, actually. A very good choice by Jenna. But unlike my brother and father, I can't devour a huge meal without batting an eyelid, so I'm actually quite full. You can eat it if you want," Cai offered.

Caiellis held the dish out when Drax walked over and plucked it from his grasp, and the boy added, "When I've changed clothes I'll be ready to address the legion and get it moving again. We need to meet up with da- the king's army before nightfall," he said, smoothly smothering the verbal misstep as he knew he shouldn't be calling his father by that informal title in front of other people that might dislike their monarch being referred to in such a way.

Drax nodded, replied with a: "I will ensure that everything is ready for you," and began to walk out of the tent. Cai saw him tentatively sample a bit of the remainder of the Trevesh Al'quira, splutter loudly and turn bright red, probably hoping that his thirteen year old liege hadn't seen that. It was quite amusing, but Caiellis didn't want to make the man even more abashed so kept quiet and pretended he hadn't noticed. He ran soothing healing mana over his front and back after taking off his torn shirt, the bruising on his face and back throbbing painfully, but otherwise something that would cause no lasting damage and could be ignored.

He felt a slight bit of trepidation at having to talk to the army and order it to march, but since he had already done so before, and both these things paled in comparison to the speech that he had done in front of the entire kingdom – although at the time he hadn't known it, but just talking to the entirety of Scientia Mos almost made him have a panic attack in itself. Now public speaking was becoming one of those things that he hated but pushed aside his personal dislike of it to serve the kingdom better.

At any rate, judging by where his father's army should be meeting up with other forces, the march would only take a few hours, and they would arrive in around six hours if all went well.

* * *

Summonings/Creatures in this chapter:

Ripscale Predator


	27. Burn Me Alive

Caiellis could feel the presence of the war camp before actually seeing it, just before the orange sun set beneath the horizon and stopped illuminating his legion in its wan amber glow. Such a focus of White mana, as well as flecks of all colours other than Black, made him feel like he was in one of the vast metropolises of the homeland he had vacated a day ago, though the mana was much more condensed rather than spread out across the whole city.

If he was to concentrated hard, which wasn't currently a practical option as it would require him standing still and blocking out his other five senses to fully access his sixth sense, the first thing he would perceive would be the vast quantity of pure White mana centralised on his father the king, although not as blatantly obvious as it would be if he had Summoned Akroma. Then he would detect the other prominent Summoners in the army, including Uncle Tristram, Uncle Tybalt (who had, ignoring others' protestations, insisted that he help the war effort with his Second Sisterhood angel, arguing that it was precisely because of his age that he should be at the forefront of the battle), Guardians Oleic and Lelia, their Hierarchs left back at the cities to defend them from any potential assaults from the ever eager abyss, echoing the course of action that Martha had taken.

When his older brother arrived with the reinforcements for the final push into Usnaan, as there was only one relatively sizeable (though still dwarfed by the massive number of Lucaelian legionaries) Welkalite force remaining between them and the capital that was left to be destroyed by his and Marik's armies, the mana presence of the force would be bolstered by Guardian Xathan, the Slayer of the Wicked and Mysos's father, his two daughters, general Carlos Montlea (who had elected to remain with his twins and serve under the eldest prince) and Alex himself, who could contribute Aurelia to the mix.

He was tempted to conjure up his stained glass wings and soar above the army so that he could look down upon it, but knew that would be wasteful and would quickly use up the small amount of mana he had managed to generate after casting the Merciless Eviction. He knew that he had been selfish in focussing too much on the burden placed on him instead of ordering his troops around, but as long as it still hurt to kill that much he assured himself it would be fine, so long as he could deal with it and not succumb to despair.

Alexander had made him realise something pitifully simple that he should have been able to figure out for himself, what with his apparently extremely intelligent brain for his young age, which was that the Welkalite troops would have to have died anyway, unless they surrendered (which, judging by the fragile psychosis of their general, had been an extremely unlikely possibility), and that by killing them himself he had prevented more of his own soldiers from dying, as well as sparing the lives of the innocent Jeksaanians. Cai worried constantly about his emotional state, but now that he was able to bare the responsibility of what he had done, if not quite with pride then at least without overwhelming guilt.

What made it easier to deal with was how gratitude filled the Welkalite elders, or the new council of Jeksaan, had been when they had left, as well as the soldiers that had been judged unworthy of death by his spell, and the cheering population of the reasonably small city waving goodbye to the Lucaelian soldiers touched his heart.

If the prince looked into the eyes of some of his troops, they either respectfully averted their gaze or stared back, their eyes full of pride and reverence, and absolutely no fear, and smiled at their youthful prince.

He was glad that his dad had been possessed of enough thoughtfulness to send his youngest son to Scientia Mos, instead of any of the other cities (as Gol Secondus was still in the process of rebuilding and still haunted by the scars of the past and the slaughter of their people, and Cassida Principia was more obsessed with warfare and protocol so Cai wouldn't have been able to talk to anyone), as the City of Books was the most understanding of the metropolises, having suffered least under Xarius apart from some of the now defeated traitor cities.

The Kingdom of Light had been the biggest it had ever been in his grandfather's reign, and the first seven years of his father's, but Cai thought that despite the loss of three cities and many lives it was now stronger than it had ever been because of the bonds between those that survived and the utter determination not to lose, as well as the increased experience fighting against an attack from the darkness, the likes of which had not been seen for centuries.

He was located at the front of the foot troops, as only Ciaran's elite horseback knights were before them, the cavalry using their greater manoeuvrability to ensure that the army following them was safe. The grandson of the Hierarch had treated him significantly more like an adult after his defeat in the honour duel, and it brought a sense of satisfaction to Caiellis that this was the case, as at the time he had been incredibly annoyed at the random declaration.

The boy cast a glance to the leader of the knights, riding on a pale and elegant stallion armoured in masterfully welded steel plates that framed the graceful beast without impairing movements, and the twenty-five year old, as if sensing his scrutiny, turned to where the boy was marching next to his glittering and gold- and silver- clad praetorians (although the metals used to make the armour were enchanted alloys, derivatives of the pure elements as they on their own wouldn't protect against blows, as well as being immensely expensive, not that the Lucerna Guard under the direct command of the royal family lacked economic backing), although at the distance he couldn't quite see the young man's facial expression.

He could however perceive the thumbs up Ciaran gestured in his direction, meaning that the area ahead was safe. Not that he had ever doubted it wouldn't be, even the most suicidal Welkalites knew that to stray near the main Lucaelian army without a force of their own backing them up was certain death without achieving anything, most likely riddled with arrows or bombarded by magical light before even reaching the disciplined and well trained legionaries.

Normally a Lucerna would ride around on horseback, but Cai shared his father's and brother's dislike of the horses, much preferring to walk on his own two feet (or fly) instead of having to focus on controlling them. The fact that Caiellis wasn't strong enough to manually force the horse to obey his commands, nor had the correct type of magic required to communicate mentally with it, was just a further reinforcement of his distaste of them. Besides, although he had been trained to ride a horse when he was younger, it would have been simply impractical for them to take one with them in the civil war, as there was barely enough food to go around anyway when they were outside the cities, and horses were loud and would attract attention when they needed to be stealthy.

It was vaguely embarrassing that the vast majority of the people in the legion wouldn't be able to see their Lucerna leader because of his very modest height of just four feet and eleven inches (that his 6'3'' big brother adored), and so because he wasn't mounted his praetorians would block out view of him, but at least Aymer was carrying the generic standard of the Lucerna Guard, as Caiellis hadn't had the time to design his own personal heraldry like his father had (though neither had Alex).

"I'd say we are about ten minutes from seeing the main camp," Lancalo stated, his voice cutting through the silence between the prince, his advisers and his bodyguards, and Cai nodded in agreement, as they were just coming out of some sort of valley that had been scouted as safe by those with easily accessible aerial Summonings.

After utterly annihilating the army that guarded Khaelaan and almost leaving the city in ruins, his father's force had entrenched themselves on a slightly elevated plateau, as high ground was much easier to defend from any potential assaults. Then they would have met up with the silent Guardian Lelia's army (comprising of the primary force from the City of Swords that had been sent, and the City of Rebirth's own troops that they could spare) two or three hours ago, as proceeding the defeat of Opraan the Light-bearer hadn't disobeyed (_or "bended", as I prefer to think of it_) his father's orders to get there as quickly as possible, although if Uncle Tristram had been true to his word (and Cai had no reason to suspect anything else, as the thirty year old was much more like a father to him than his biological progenitor) then Marik would already know, and since he hadn't received any outraged calls he had to assume that the slight delay of the Scientia Mos army had been accommodated into the plan.

"It's going to be good to see the praetorians still attached to the king," Ruthia quipped, and although Caiellis didn't know any of those that currently served his dad he assumed that the eighteen year old had a connection to one of them judging by how excited she seemed. Jenna then asked the younger woman what the others were like, as the Yentarian researcher was stood next to his only female (he was sure that Alex would be more than thrilled to know that Marik had kept the other four youngish women as his personal guards instead of letting his eldest son have them, leaving the teenager with four men) bodyguard, which soon sparked a conversation as the two chatterboxes began talking and Ruthia seemingly let Jenna into some Lucerna Guard gossip when she leaned in and whispered.

The twenty year old laughed loudly and directed a glance at Drax, who pretended to be above such things and remained staring resolutely forwards, causing Cai to wonder what it was that had been said. It didn't really matter, so he turned to look at Mysos, who shrugged his shoulders in bemusement as if to say "_women_". Caiellis had caught the name "Mirria Chrysos" and so filed it away within his mind, pondering which of the four women would be that and thinking about the woman's last name; Chrysos had been one of the noble families of Crescia, the City of Commerce that had betrayed the kingdom, and it was quite rare to see someone from any of the three cities that had joined the darkness and turned their backs on the light. He briefly mused over what relation this Mirria might have with Uliea Chrysos, the Hierarch of the corrupted metropolis.

Within the ten minutes that Lancalo had predicted, the forefront on the army stepped out of the valley and could see the rest of the Lucaelian force, a huge array of tents emblazoned with many different symbols indicating the presence of a large number of important nobles and Light-bearers. There were several soldiers from Capitalia Lux standing guard, and Ciaran rode towards them with his division following behind, speaking to the defence commander so that she could be certain that those who would be entering the camp were who they said they were.

The pass code was apparently Orzhova, which was surprising but made sense in Cai's mind, as the names of the two other First Sisterhood angels with Summoners (the usual subjects of passwords) could be known by others, whereas Caiellis's Angel of the Black Sun's name was only revealed recently, as for some reason it had never been recorded during Xarius's reign. Therefore the codeword was something significant but also exclusive to present loyalist Lucaelians, as because he had completed the Summoning trial after the civil war had ended the traitors wouldn't know the name of his angel. He briefly mused about what Orzhova herself thought of that: no doubt she would find it quite amusing. The boy's thoughts then turned to who had picked the name, and if they were trying to appease him while doing it – the most likely option was dad, but it seemed uncharacteristic of him to take that course of action. Maybe he was just over-thinking, and that Orzhova had been selected just because of the reasons he had already come up with.

The woman nodded, and looked out at the large army that was approaching the camp, still a few minutes away, her eyes landing on the group of praetorians and the youngest heir to the throne, the commander's expression full of respect but strangely inscrutable, as if she didn't want to betray anything about something hidden from Caiellis. Perhaps that was just how she normally looked, and that her natural suspicion was what had made her an excellent guard leader during the civil war, or maybe it was something deeper. That remained to be seen.

He knew that there would be a space left for his army to make camp, and silently pondered if he was going to have to share dad's royal tent that was comprised of several different sections, both used for recreational purposes, recuperation, and kingly duties, although the format of the camp would be similar to his earlier one and so would have a strategium next to it. The tent would definitely be big enough for both of them and Alexander when he arrived, but personally Caiellis would rather stay in own private facility in the midst of his own forces, as he knew that in war his dad was immensely focussed and couldn't be distracted by children, and if Cai was going to get in the way then it was better for both of them if he stayed on his own.

Caiellis had figured this out because during the war against Johnias's forces, there were numerous occasions where Marik could have seen his two sons, but chose not to. At the time he had put it off to him being too busy, and that he wanted to save their reunion until after the war had ended so that it could be as fantastic as Cai had dreamed about it being, but now he thought that perhaps the man had known that seeing the two remaining members of his family would prevent him from concentrating on the war as he would have to actually put some effort into being a father again, and wasn't ready to embrace that duty – and still wasn't, for his youngest anyway.

He smiled when he saw someone very familiar to him emerging out from a group of guards and speaking to the commander as his army closed on the camp. Tristram was armoured in his usual plate, with the cloth that he had torn off to staunch the bleeding of Caiellis's wounded leg back when they were fighting Aksua replaced, and grinned when he met Cai's eyes. The man was definitely more like a dad than his actual one, despite hating him until he was around ten years old because of the fact that he forced the youngest prince to participate in gruelling physical training exercises and hand-to-hand combat that Caiellis knew he would never be able to win, as the only training partners were either his brother or the Capitalia Lux Guardian (as Tybalt was too old) and the outcome of fighting either would be the same.

Tristram shook Ciaran's hand and clapped the five year younger male on the back, probably commenting on how "grown up" he was now after seeing him for the first time in nine years (which made Cai belatedly remember that Tristram had only been a young twenty-one when he had started caring for the princes, and that he was only thirteen years older than Alex).

He noticed Drax hiding a deep scowl, and had to repress a smirk of his own as he reasoned that the duteous, obedient and protocol-driven praetorian would have a lot to dislike about the Guardian of the capital (arguably the highest rank of Guardian, but one with less duties concerning running their respective city if the monarch was capable of doing that and more to do with protecting the Lucerna family instead) because of his lack of respect for authority (ironically making him perfect for serving and helping those that were thought of as descendants of the divine). In fact, he did remember the two arguing at one point when he was three before Marik silenced them so that he could listen to what his quiet youngest was saying.

Cai stepped out of his armoured bodyguard, feeling very small compared to the rest of his army, which was an interesting sensation as he almost certainly had the highest power level of any one person there, and that they would willingly throw down their lives for him, but the fact that they were wearing armour and he wasn't (some would consider that reckless, but Cai knew it would just distract and hinder him) accentuated the difference further. It wasn't as if he was insecure about it, as he had pretty much gotten used to being the smallest in a specific group of people (with only very few exceptions), he just wished he could be of at least a normal height and build so that he wouldn't look dwarfed when standing next to his older brother.

"Good to see you again, Cai!" the Guardian exclaimed with a grin when the adolescent began to walk towards one of the many entrances to the camp, ensuring that he strode with purpose in front of his army, who began to follow him. Caiellis waved and smiled, and was utterly unprepared for the man to wrap one arm around him, lift him off his feet with that one and begin ruffling his hair with the free hand, much to the boy's dismay at being embarrassed in front of his troops.

"Tristram! Put me down!" he yelped in indignation, and the man smiled mischievously at him, stopping his ruffling but electing to keep the boy aerial, as Cai fixed his hair (though Tristram thought there was absolutely no difference, but if it satisfied the lad then who was he to object?). "Funny. It was "Uncle" Tristram when you were asking me to do something earlier today. And no "Happy to see you too Uncle Tristram!"?"

"You know that's not how I sound," Cai protested at the high pitched mockery of his voice, going redder and redder the longer the man held onto him with his army watching, so Tristram put him down and patted him on the head fondly. Angels he had missed the kid, though not as much as his older brother would still be. Though he knew that their relationship should technically be more of a mentor/student one, as well as the boys' association with Tybalt, and so he shouldn't really care about not seeing Caiellis for three days, he still felt responsibility for his safety, both as a young person and as a prince.

"Guardian Weiss," the Capitalia Lux Light-bearer nodded his head in respect to the venerable and wily warrior, who replicated the motions. Though the two only knew each other through their stations, Tristram had often spoken of his high regard for the man, who was arguably the best strategist out of the Guardians, compensating for the relative lack of size of his legion to outwit and outmanoeuvre foes. Cai had witnessed his expertise first hand, and the Guardian had spent time teaching the boy about the finer points of war, providing excellent advice during the time they spent planning the attack on Jeksaan. His Wargate technique could definitely change the outcome of an entire battle, or even a war.

"A pleasure to see you again," the man replied, and Tristram turned his head to the praetorians, impassively locking eyes with Drax's condescending orbs for a second before ignoring the other man. Unlike his public rivalry with Guardian Oleic of Civitas Sol, his distaste of Drax didn't extend beyond a mutual dislike of each other, and so most of the time they were content to just blank each other out.

"The other Light-bearers and generals are currently in the middle of a strategy session, having had extra time to plan due to Cai's decision to rest your army," Tristram explained, patting Cai on the back and gently leading him towards the tent next to his father's one, Guardian Weiss and general Rateis following behind him. Only the most influential leaders of the conjoined legions would be permitted entrance to the strategium, so that meant Caiellis's advisers and the captains of his army wouldn't be allowed access. He was confident that the quartermasters and organisers of the armies would be able to negotiate a suitable location for his men to rest, if they hadn't done so already which would be unsurprising, as the organisation of the (unwieldy and lumbering compared to some other forces, like an unstoppable and slow juggernaut) legions was a task taken very seriously.

"Uncle Tristram?" the boy asked, trotting behind the man and letting him lead the way despite already knowing where the pavilion containing the war council would be situated, as the layout of this camp was the exact same as the one he had slept in earlier, albeit much larger. The Guardian smiled down at him, amused by how he had been graced by his title now, "Yes?"

"Did you get the chance to tell my father of the change of plans?" Cai inquired, phrasing the question as to try and not offend the man, who would have undoubtedly been very busy, and Tristram smirked at the kid's choice of words.

But angels above, Caiellis hoped that the Guardian had informed the king of his decision to rest his troops, as whilst Marik had forestalled the attack on the force blocking them from Usnaan that had been located by aerial scouts – they inhabited an outpost that was quite heavily fortified, for the Welkalites anyway – and chosen to wait for his youngest's host, his dad would be furious if he didn't know the reasons behind it and assumed that his son hadn't bothered to contact him about the delay.

"Of course I did," Tristram snorted, sensing a slight bit of worry in his student's tone that betrayed the boy's apprehensiveness at having to potentially face the monarch's ire again, as well as a more concealed concern at the meeting with his dad in general. He felt sorry for the kid, as instead of sending him to Scientia Mos – something that would have definitely improved his individuality and independence, as well as teaching him how to get an army ready for battle and lead it – Marik should have tried to repair their relationship by instructing the lad himself, with his brother when Alex had recovered enough to learn about (well, reinforce his knowledge of, as Tybalt had been a sterling teacher despite the danger they were in, and Tristram had been able to contribute to the strategy lessons as well), as actually teaching Caiellis something and helping him along with it would have drastically strengthened their kinship, instead of thrusting the boy out on his own – not that Caiellis was incapable, as any doubts any may have had as to his ability were crushed.

Personally, if it was up to Tristram then Cai wouldn't be going to war. Yes, while the Angel of the Black Sun was a massively important military asset (in spite of the youngest prince's relative inexperience with her) and should be utilised, the boy was only just a teenager and had spent nine years of his young life already embroiled in violence and brutality no-one his age should have to suffer through, and now that the imminent danger to Lucael had ceased and the Lucerna heirs had been rescued from Usnaan, he could be left in peace until he was an adult. That applied to his older brother as well, who did only have to wait ten months until his eighteenth birthday, and Tristram didn't think he should be on his way with reinforcements anyway.

But he supposed that Alex wouldn't be able to rest knowing that his little brother was in brutal fighting and he wasn't able to help or protect the younger boy, as the protective instinct he had developed ever since first meeting Cai was tremendously enlarged during the peril they had been in for the past nine years, when handed the unconscious younger prince and told to run out of the city as Tybalt and Tristram covered their retreat out of the palace, which had been attacked on that fateful night (although Marik in his vengeance had killed every single last one of the enemies attacking the Lucerna palace, and then mustered the defence of Capitalia Lux after his children had gone).

One could advocate that because Alexander and Caiellis had already lost their childhoods to war, and that they were basically adults now who were no strangers to battles and violence, they should lead the Lucaelian legions from the front with their First Sisterhood angels, and that it would be a huge waste to just keep them in the city and let them live a little before eventualy thrusting them back into war, but whoever thought that would be one of the people that thought of the Lucerna lines as more than human and would most likely be aghast at the mention of that happening to their own children.

Tristram thought differently, as did Tybalt. They believed that the boys should be able to live in peace, free of the threat to their lives that had been a constant danger in the civil war, for at least a few years. They deserved that, at the very least, but Marik had decreed that he wanted them at his side and whilst Tristram would still argue and disagree with that, he wouldn't do it in a way that would distract the king now that they were on a crusade and Marik needed to be focussed if they were going to be victorious. At least Cai fighting alongside his father would help to improve their relationship and make them closer to each other, as through aiding each other and silently learning about each other they would be able to understand one another better.

Despite both boys having elements of both their parents in them, such as Caiellis's colder and more analytical personality coupled with Emili's fascination with knowledge, and Alex's open character combined with the king's notion of honour and combat aptitude, and the fact that they shared factors as well, the main problem with the relationship between father and youngest son was that neither really understood the other, and that any attempt either made to comfort or open up to the other was floundering and done in the completely wrong manner.

That was reminiscent of the different ways in which the princes' lives had been changed on that day, due the respective amounts of time each spent with their perfect family before it was torn apart.

Marik understood Alexander more because in essence the eldest's core personality hadn't changed much, whereas at the young age of four Caiellis didn't really have one or been aware of himself and the world around him enough to develop one, in spite of the fact that his brain was far superior to others' at that age and could follow conversations, just not interact in them all that well (though still better than all other four year olds).

Both had faced loss, but Alex was more hopeful and reassuring for Marik to return to the way that he had been like (a long process that could easily stop, but Tristram had to admit that his friend was getting better) because he could remember the perfect family in greater detail than his younger brother, and so tried to soften things for Cai as he didn't understand loss as well as the oldest of the two. He forgave Marik's mistakes because he could recall how the man had once been with much greater clarity whereas Cai could only remember fragments of that time, and because he wanted to be able to share that with his little brother.

Caiellis was much more familiar with deprivation than loss – as he had never really been old enough to remember back before the civil war in any detail, and had lived a significantly larger proportion of his life within it than his brother had. He was more critical of his father because he couldn't believe that the man had been that different in the past as he couldn't back it up with experience and thoughts. He understood the things that he had every right to but in the grand scheme of things had never had, which was why he was more inclined to pursue the things that he wanted – such as a loving father – rather than cling to the things he already had. It didn't help either way that Marik was better at showing love to his eldest due to his greater time spent with the boy and the fact that Alexander was more trusting and willing to let him in.

He remembered one night in the civil war, where the boys had talked in their shared bed (as they often had done, because kids did talk - _incessantly on occasion_) and thought that he couldn't hear them, that aptly represented his current thoughts.

_They were just kids, Alex only a month (and eight days, as the boy seemingly kept a tally of the days left until he was thirteen) off becoming a teenager and that meant that Caiellis would become nine the subsequent month. Tristram could hear their whispered conversation underneath the woollen blankets in the bed of the current safe-house next to the sofa he lay on, having given the other bed to Tybalt (who was snoring softly)._

"_Alex?" came Caiellis's hushed inquiry, waiting a moment before asking, "Are you still awake?"_

"_Is that supposed to be a trick question?" the older boy grumbled under his breath, "How could I have fallen asleep with all the damn moving around you are doing?"_

"_Sorry big brother," Cai murmured softly, "I can't get to sleep."_

"_And that is my problem because?" Alex replied, his whisper full of annoyance at not being able to go to sleep due to the younger boy, and then groaned, "It's bad enough that I have to share a bed with you, I've gotta listen to you speak all night too?"_

_Cai averted his gaze from the older boy, letting it meander across the dark room and picturing the shadows growing claws and stretching them out to stab him, just like how the demon that had killed his mother had impaled them through her stomach. He snuggled up closer to the lean, vaguely skinny and reassuring form of Alex, who sighed softly, "Just try to get to sleep, squirt. You're gonna feel it in the morning if you don't."_

_And it was silent once again. For maybe two seconds. Tristram heard the rustling of restless and fearful shifting, once, twice. And again. And one more time-_

"_Oh for angels' sake!" Alex hissed, still ensuring to keep his voice low that he wouldn't wake up the elders in the room, as neither were aware that Tristram was listening in._

"_Alex?" the younger boy asked again, his voice suffused with a sullen tone mixed with youthful innocence and fear, and the middle Lucerna let out a frustrated breath. "What do you want now? I'm trying to get to sleep."_

"_What if none of our lives is real?"_

"_Have you lost your min-" the twelve year old began, before Caiellis silenced him with a loud and very exaggerated, "SHHHHHHHH! Lower your voice, Alex, I think I can hear Tristram waking up."_

Does anything get past this kid?_ Tristram thought, taking a deep and sleepy inhalation and releasing it as a long and languid exhalation that was sure to assure the boys that they were the only ones awake (as Tybalt's snoring was persisting). A sudden, amusing thought occurred to the twenty-five year old – what if the ancient man was actually listening in as well, and pretending to be asleep with those over-emphasised snores?_

"_I mean, what if none of this exists at all? What if it is just some massive illusion?" the boy questioned, flicking his eyes from Alex's back to the ceiling, and then back down to his __older __brother __again when the boy turned around in the bed to look at him, prompting Tristram to wonder what the kid had been reading recently, as the youngest member of their party then asked: "__What if you aren't called Alexander?__ What if my name isn't Caiellis Noctis Lucerna at all?"_

"_It isn't. Your real name is dickhead," Alexander sniggered, and Tristram had to repress a smirk, as well as feel slightly ashamed because of the fact that his eldest charge had almost definitely picked up on some of his profanities from Tristram's own colourful range that he often used (though tried not to do it in front of the children, or Emili's ghost would come down from heaven and slap him) in tense situations, although the fact that Alex usually hung out and made friends with older kids in the cities they stayed in would have also expanded his vocabulary._

"_You aren't funny," Cai scolded his older brother, who joked back: "I'm a comedic genius actually," but was ignored by his sibling, "__And I'm being serious. What if this reality that we think we have lived in all our lives is just a figment of our imagination, or a dream?"_

The intelligence of this kid is ridiculous sometimes._ Tristram resolved to ask Tybalt to see if the man knew of any books concerning such things, as the man's mind was a veritable repository of knowledge and he also knew (and often recommended) Cai's current reading material, though whenever they visited a city with a library __the boy would systematically devour books until they had to leave and as such Tybalt might not know what he had been recently reading. At any rate, how many other eight year olds were this smart? Tristram wished for all their sakes that this civil war was a just a dream._

_He heard a rustle of movement, and then a thump of a fist hitting a thin arm, and then a half-stifled yelp of pain. "Ow-W! Alex! What was that for?"_

"_Don't be such a baby," the addressed admonished in a vaguely taunting manner, and then said, "Would that hurt if this was just a dream?"_

"_That's not the point," Cai replied, rubbing his arm, glaring and pouting at the older boy, and Tristram detected the sound of hair being ruffled far too roughly for the recipient's liking, "How would I be able to distinguish whether or not that pain is real if that sort of pain is the only type I've ever experienced?"_

Angels above. This kid might have been adopted from the Yentarian Republic after all,_ Tristram thought. He was considering intervening, to try and say something to reassure the boy, but knew through years of it happening that Alex would be able to say the right thing, the thing that his little brother needed to hear at any rate. Or tease him further. That remained to be seen, but Cai's voice was serious enough that the middle Lucerna would know to answer the question properly and Alex had already ribbed his little brother enough for now._

"_You know, Cai, you're pretty smart for your age, __you know that?__" Alex ruffled his brother's hair again, although it was much more affectionately than the first instance, __and neither Tristram nor Alexander needed light to know that there would be a goofy smile on Caiellis's young face._

"_Not as smart as you, big brother," the boy replied, and Alexander snorted again. "Ha, yeah right. I don't know half of the shit that you do, __little dude__." _

"_You're more world smart than me though. Reciting a list of mathematical rules isn't going to help me fend off demons, nor is listing the achievements of different Lucerna rulers," Cai insisted, and Alex smiled patently, knowing that no matter what he said that Caiellis would continue to believe that his big brother was his superior just because of the age and maturity difference. __Sometimes he was sure that the boy practically worshipped the ground on which he stood. "And books can only get you so far, especially in our world."_

_It hurt Tristram's heart to admit it, but he knew exactly what Cai meant by "our world" - a world of monsters, demons and traitorous uncles all wanting the boys' blood, a world in which peace was only measured in the space between attacks and stability only lasted a couple of weeks at best until the place in which they stayed was inevitably besieged, and a world in which their mother had been killed and their father wasn't able to be with them. __The two men had tried to be as nice as possible about it, knowing that their charges were still extremely young, but there was only so much about creatures from the darkness tearing people apart that you could sugar coat._

_T__he kingdom was supposed to have been the most powerful in its entire history, and the darkness was therefore apparently at its weakest, after the desolation of the Grafnica Dominion roughly fifty years ago that had plagued and terrorised the people of Lucael even before the reign of Matalis Ortus Lucerna the forces of the abyss were said to be much weaker, and a new dawn had to come to the Kingdom of Light after many years of brutal warfare with the Grafnica. _

"_I'll teach you if you teach me, fair enough?" Alex asked, and his brother nodded, then he stopped and his face creased in consternation as he remembered that Alex hadn't yet answered his question, just diverted his mind away from the topic. He was about to speak, before the older boy got in first, evidently not finished yet, and said, "__And sometimes you think too much. Look, squirt, I know you want reassurance, for your big brother to tell you to stop being stupid and that there is only one "real", but I can't, because I don't actually know. What I do know is that the reality that we live in is the only one that I know for certain we have. This might be all a dream, I don't know. But it's a dream that I can live in and change, and it's a dream where I have a kid brother who refuses to fall asleep to look after."_

_A silence fell as presumably Caiellis considered the implications of his big brother's words, just as Tristram was doing the same, marvelling as usual at their extremely strong bond. _

"_I've been thinking," Caiellis began softly, __to which his brother teased, "That's never a good sign."_

_The younger boy glowered silently before continuing, "About something. It relates to what I was talking about earlier, but..."_

"_May as well hear it then, since we're awake. But promise me you'll go to sleep afterwards," Alex replied, __wrapping his relatively thin arm __around__ Caiellis's __thinner__ shoulder__s__ to comfort his little brother, who had begun shaking, and the younger boy nodded sadly._

"_What if … What if mum and dad weren't real? What if mum and dad didn't ever exist?" __Cai cried quietly, making Tristram want to go over and hug the boy – not that he would appreciate it, as the youngest prince had a severe dislike of the boys' physical trainer. It was times like this that the next in line to the post of Guardian was brutally reminded that despite Caiellis's intelligence, he was only eight years old, though just looking at the thin child (as he had quickly lost the vague pudginess (as he had always naturally been thin, just like his poor mother) due to the abrupt removal of his previous comfy lifestyle) would force someone to acknowledge that. Both of the boys were thin because of the lifestyle that they led, but the younger brother significantly more so than his elder and at times looked starved. "I … I barely even remember them … what if they were just a dream?"_

"_Little brother," Alex started, his voice comforting but also firm, his grip on Cai's shoulder tightening, but not to the extent that it would hurt the smaller Lucerna. "I can tell you for a fact that mum and dad _are _real. You may not be able to remember them well, because you were really young and only four when mum died, but I can, as I was your age now at the time. And I'm telling you now that they are real, but you already know that, kay?"_

"_m'kay," Cai mumbled in response, pushing his head into Alex's chest and letting the tears fall out of his large and tired green eyes, though stifling his sniffles and whimpers so that neither of the adults in the room would awaken or worry. If Tristram didn't think that his eldest student didn't have control of the emotional situation, then he would have stepped in, but Alexander's little brother brought out the twelve year old's gentle side. __Alex hugged the younger boy close, feeling just how painfully thin he was (although he was aware that he wasn't quite the muscular and macho teenager he envisioned himself to be, but knew that would change if he kept at his current exercise regime and once the war was over he could eat more protein), and gently tilted Cai's head up, both so that he could wipe the streaming tears out of the kid's puffy eyes and so that he could meet his dejected gaze._

"_I bet dad is thinking of us right now," Alex uttered quietly, and the hope in Cai's voice made Tristram unable to suppress a smile, "Really? You think so?"_

"_Of course he is. He's looking forward to seeing us, just like we are looking forward to seeing him. That's why he's gonna win this war, and bring peace back to Lucael. I'd say that he thinks of us when he's fighting as well, so that he knows what he needs to keep safe, and why he has to beat the traitors. Well, keep you safe anyway, I can look after myself. So that's why we need to live in this reality, because if we die then dad will have no one to come back to after the war."_

_Tristram would like to say that he agreed with the boy's words which were full of utter conviction and almost literal worship for Marik, but he had to mentally refute them, as sad as it was. _

_The most probable thing that Marik thought of when in combat wasn't his refugee sons, but his dead wife – Tristram had seen the fire, the utter _hatred_, in the king's eyes when he had finally stood up from Emili's prone body and stopped howling at the ceiling in anguish. That hatred, the detestation of the traitors, would be what the monarch would be thinking of while prosecuting his war, not the innocent but emotionally hurt sons he would have to return to once it was done. Of course, he would never say that to Alex and Cai, as it would completely contradict the eldest's words and would probably thrust them both into depression. He just hoped that Marik would be able to push aside his hatred for his boys when the war ended – if they were all still alive._

"_Now get some sleep, short stuff. You know you're really grumpy when you're tired in the morning," Alex snickered._

"_Am not," Cai protested sleepily, rubbing his eyes and extricating himself from the hug, turning back over in the bed._

"_Just remember that you are safe with me, Tristram and Tybalt," Alex assured him, "And we will never let anything happen to you."_

""_Uncle" Tybalt," Cai corrected, and Alex sniggered, "Yeah, whatever. You can go to sleep now."_

_Tristram quickly shut his eyes when the older boy turned around in the bed, but opened them again when he knew that Alexander had seen him watching, and met the bright blue orbs of the middle Lucerna, who gave him a grin and then turned back around, throwing an arm around his little brother to emphasise his earlier words. __As he heard the boys both falling asleep, Caiellis succumbing to his tiredness in less than two minutes and Alex ensuring he stayed awake until that point and then following his little brother into sleep, he silently wondered whether Cai would ever like him enough to favour him with the esteemed title of "Uncle". He doubted it._

"Getting easily distracted in our old age, are we?" a youthful voice cut into his flashback, the words sounding like something Alexander would say in jest but instead belonging to his little brother. Tristram immediately snapped out of his reverie, realising that it had only been a few seconds that he had been distracted – but a few seconds could be enough to ambush and assassinate the prince. He shook his head at the uncharacteristic lapse in concentration, vowing that it would never happen again, and then scowled as his brain processed the content of Cai's words and he playfully clapped the boy on the back of the head.

"Watch it, kid," the man pretended to be massively offended as soldiers bowed respectfully as they passed, "I'm in the prime of my youth. And if you think that Alex beating you up is painful, then you will be in for a shock if you say anything more like that."

"It got your attention," Cai replied, as if taking the Guardian's threat completely seriously and trying to present adequate justification for his actions – highlighting that he wasn't as comfortable with joking as his brother, so Tristram cut to the point and asked, "Did you say anything earlier?"

"Yeah. I asked how dad took the news when you told him," Cai turned to look at the older male, having overtaken him when the Capitalia Lux Guardian had fallen into his reminiscing, which had barely ever happened to the usually intensely alert Tristram. His expressive green orbs twinkled orange in the last vestiges of light from the falling sun, making them look even more mysterious and intelligent. Evidently Cai wanted to hear his "Uncle's" answer before entering the strategy session, and he looked up at the man expectantly.

"He took it … reasonably well," Tristram replied hesitantly, though was quick to rectify his mistake when Cai's eyes narrowed, the youngest prince clearly suspecting that he was trying to cover something up, "No, really. I'm not trying to hide anything from you, Cai, and you know that I wouldn't do that. All your father said was "Ah". Nothing else."

"Thank you, Uncle Tristram," said Cai, breaking into a small and nervous smile and motivating the man to tap him on the back to encourage him. The two golden-clad praetorians outside of the entrance to the vast tent bowed their heads and uncrossed their halberds that were barring the access to the strategium, allowing the prince to pass into the room once they had validated his identity due to the Lucerna birthmark on his right cheek making his royal heritage unmistakable. The boy strode in first, as was his right, followed close behind by Tristram and then Weiss and Rateis, who entered after a very minute delay.

Cai looked across the interior of the large pavilion in which the strategium was located, his eyes landing on several of the important figures surrounding a rectangular table showing a more focussed version of the map of the known world that had been the centre of attention of the first war council he had ever attended (as an official member of the discussion, he had once toddled into one with his father before) in Civitas Sol; this map concentrated on Welkas and its border with Lucael, and seemed to have been made specifically for this war.

In the split second before anyone spoke but all turned their gazes towards the newcomers, Guardian Oleic falling silent and accidentally letting a glower directed at Caiellis out of his brown eyes before he crushed it underneath generic dutiful respect. Caiellis analysed each member of the strategizing in detail as he swept his green eyes over them – first, the Guardian of the City of the Sun bowed his head, probably in the vain hope that the littlest Lucerna hadn't noticed the disrespect, and his golden armour glinted in the white light tinted slightly yellow coming from the dancing wisps illuminating the inside of the tent, as now that the sun had set darkness was descending on the camp - despite it only being around half-past the eighteenth hour, though Cai supposed that it was still winter and Welkas would be affected by that just like the rest of the world (though he doubted that it would snow like it did in Lucael because of the heat of the days in spite of it being the coldest season).

He glanced over at Guardian Lelia of Gol Secondus, the twenty-two year old having taken a Vow of Silence after the slaughter of the people of the formerly introspective and peaceful City of Quiet nine years, only several days after Caiellis's mother had been killed and what had been assumed to be a simple rebellious ploy for power from Johnias (as civil wars, while extremely rare, had happened twice in the past before that as White mana users fought other wielders of the magic of light (although one was when Xarius was dethroned)) had been revealed to be much more malevolent and corrupt.

Lelia would have only been his current age when she had rallied the last remaining troops and lead the retreat from the massacre – if she hadn't acted, then the entire population (barring a small sliver that could get out) would have been murdered as an offering to the dark patrons of the traitors' armies – when her older brother that was five years her senior had been murdered, and the city fell into panic, she had been the one to fight against the demons to ensure her people's safety. She had performed incredible acts of bravery during the war, despite never speaking after it, and as Caiellis looked into her dark blue eyes he wondered if he could do the same, if Alexander had been killed and the city fell apart around him.

She was very pretty, apart from a long scar that must have been inflicted by some sort of serrated blade that ran down the left side of her face, missing her eye by inches, and tilted her head in a brief gesture of supplication to the young prince.

Cai pondered what the quiet (and only female, for some reason) Guardian thought of him – if she hated him because of his inherent Black mana that had led to the near-extermination of her people, or if she thought that he was a spoilt brat because of his position as a prince, though Lelia would indubitably know of the dangers he had been forced to face (as although the scale of them was reduced (however he had been in the First Siege of Cassida Principia (with the last being the final battle in the war)) the life-threatening intensity had not, though Cai still thought what he had suffered through paled in comparison to her life).

All he could see in the mysterious sapphire eyes was respect, but Lelia would be used to masking her own thoughts so it wouldn't be any trouble for her to make sure that this was all he observed. Cai figured that, in a way, he could empathise with the twenty-two year old, as her perfect life had also been ripped away, but Caiellis had had his big brother to help him through it whereas Lelia's had been brutally butchered by Teylaisian Illustri, traitorous Guardian of Vectura, and she had to do it alone. Then again, if Alexander died then Cai would have no trouble whatsoever with a Vow of Silence, as while Uncle Tybalt and Uncle Tristram were nice it would be easy not to speak without his brother there to encourage him to.

He briefly thought about talking to Lelia about their shared experiences, but that was entirely infeasible as first she had undertaken a Vow of Silence until the perpetrators of the civil war had been brought to justice (Cai supposed that he had helped with that by eliminating Garod Morr, the third of the six Dark-bearers to be killed) and secondly he didn't want to share his inner emotions with anyone apart from Alex, although he had hidden the fact that he was the one who had murdered the demons that had killed Emili, not his father, from him all his life.

He examined each of the important figures surrounding the table in detail, until he got to the final one in his extremely fast tour of the war council (as while Cai had thought about a large amount of things, it had still been less than three seconds since he entered the room), the one that he was at the same time equal amounts dreading but excited to see, though still didn't expect much because of the fact that they were in a war and his attention would be on that – _what remains to be seen is whether or not that will prevent him from being warm or pleasant, especially _because_ we are in a war and therefore his youngest child should get emotional support to help him through it._

Caiellis's green orbs met the stern blue eyes of his father, the irises like sheets of inscrutable ice simply reflecting his son instead of giving any hints as to what was going on inside, if it was disapproval or love – though at the moment he doubted the latter, but then again Marik had always found it harder to show love than their mother and Alex, who had inherited Emili's traits there. Cai knew that technically he should be kneeling in front of the king of the entire nation, as he had just entered his presence, but like Tristram he remained standing while Weiss and Rateis bowed reverently.

Caiellis inclined his head slightly, though his eyes didn't break off from staring at his dad's impenetrable two, trying to get even a little clue that would allow him to discern if he would be loved or spurned, congratulated on his first proper victory and praised on his independence and empathy in choosing to follow the needs of his army over the needs of _the plan_ or chastised because of the delay he caused and the fact that he had disobeyed – but if dad had had any problems with it, he could have easily contacted Cai, and if he had done so then Caiellis wouldn't have been petty and ignored them.

Then Marik's face creased into a scowl, his austere features tainted by cold disapproval and accusation, though at least not anger, and said, "Nice of you to finally join us, my youngest son, Guardian Weiss, General Rateis," he stood up from his seat, the most ornate in the room befitting his station as monarch and supreme commander and embellished with the Blade of Wrath that was imprinted on Marik's bare throat, though made no moves towards his son, preferring to stay where he was stood at the other end of the tent instead of embracing his youngest in a hug or grabbing him threateningly.

Cai's heart sank, but he made sure to stand as tall and straight as he could instead of falling to his knees despondently and wrapping his arms around them like he wanted to do. He hadn't realised it, but the boy had inadvertently built up expectation inside of him, excited by the mere possibility of Marik acting differently and following up on his apparent desire to start anew with the boy. Cai mentally cursed at his own stupidity, and hated the fact that even after all the king had done to him some naïve inner part of his psyche subconsciously was still willing to forgive dad if the man was nice and loving towards him and Alexander, not that he wasn't with the older boy.

If it had been anyone else who had almost crushed his arm, then Alex would have confronted them about it – _no, that's not fair. When Alexander discovered my self-harming he instantly went to fight dad over the fact that he didn't care, and only because of that did he spend "bonding" time with me in the first place. My brother was just wounded, that's all – and anyway, I don't know if Alex said anything to dad or not after I left._

At any rate, the words "_I love you, and look forward to seeing you again,_" sounded much more hollow and ridiculous now, but Cai let himself believe that there was still the infinitesimally small possibility that Marik was just putting on a show about disobedience to seem fair and just and so that Caiellis would learn not to do it again, and would be warmer out of the war council, but quickly quashed that absurd notion. If dad started off with disciplining and admonition, then past experience taught Caiellis that he would continue on in that way or get even worse.

He straightened his posture, determined the weather the bombardment of accusations and reprimanding words that was sure to come so that they could get on with the more pressing issue of planning for the coming battle. The host of the Angel of the Black Sun didn't want to argue back, as that could be seen as disrespectful and the father and son weren't alone – even so, if they were he still wouldn't give into the temptation to shout back, as he had promised Alexander that he would not argue with their dad, and a promise to his big brother was a promise he would try his damned hardest not to break, despite the fact that the eldest and youngest Lucernas seemed to have the ability to push each other's buttons and force them to explode. Cai would let his dad's hypocrisy and stupidity go unanswered, for now.

"Tell me, what made you think that spending an additional two hours at Jeksaan was acceptable? What part of the words "as soon as possible" can you not understand?" Marik demanded, his voice coloured with a hint of anger that only a few in the room, those who had witnessed it or been a recipient of it, would recognise, and the others would just assume that it was the usual disciplining tone he used on unruly subjects.

"Huh?" Cai replied uncertainly despite himself, his mind still not yet finished processing his thoughts and unprepared for the questions, and the man's austere features darkened, "You heard perfectly well. But since you seem to be unable to understand _simple _commands these days, I'll repeat it for your benefit. Why did you stay for a further two hours at Jeksaan after defeating Warlord Farcez?"

"..." Caiellis didn't say anything, sensing the fury at having the plans changed underneath his father's skin, which only served to incense the man further, "Well?"

The youngest Lucerna's green eyes flicked to the side, looking up at Uncle Tristram, who appeared just as startled as he was but controlling it better. The Guardian stared back down, expecting the kid's gaze to be full of blame, but mildly surprised to find that it was frightened, and with tears welling up at the corners until Cai brushed them away before turning back to his coldly furious father and king.

"If you had an issue with it you should have told me earlier," Cai started off mumbling quietly but then made sure that his voice was loud enough to be heard, though not defiant, which, if the conversation had come up only a few days ago, would have been what his youthful voice would be filled with, but right now he didn't want to start a fight. He just wanted to get this over and done with and carry on with the strategizing, and to that purpose he stayed perfectly still, his body language non-threatening but certainly not submissive, as his point still stood and he was beginning to get annoyed at dad blithely launching condemnation after condemnation without considering his own mistakes in the equation that had led to this – not just now, but all the time in Cai's young eyes. "I wouldn't have objected if you called and ordered me to move the army."

"Really? You're a thirteen year old boy, Caiellis, do you need me to constantly tell you what to do? Are you incapable of thinking about the consequences of your own actions?" Marik questioned, though Cai knew not to answer them as they were rhetorical – whilst delaying the plan for his army's comfort may have been selfish and ultimately detrimental to the war effort, he still supported his decision.

He personally thought the plan still smacked of impatience and not fully utilising their advantage of winning in the long term, despite the fact that it did actually incorporate some of the characteristics of his own strategy, otherwise they would be besieging Usnaan now (_and would __currently__ be in the act of being slaughtered __by hordes of berserkers and their demonic masters_). At any rate, his father still ignored his statement, which made Cai think that maybe he had forgotten about it.

No, despite what Caiellis may personally believe, his dad wasn't an idiot, and wouldn't forget about something important like that. It was just more trivial things, like his youngest's thirteenth birthday, that he neglected to remember, and Cai could have laughed sadly when his father hadn't even known his own age when they had first spoken after the civil war (just after he failed another one of Orzhova's trials). It was children who were supposed to forget how old their parents were, but Caiellis had remembered each of dad's birthdays and kept account of _his_ age.

"Well? Are you not even going to answer my questions? Or am I not deserving of it?" Marik snapped again, and Caiellis felt his blood begin to boil. The effort of preventing his body from trembling with anger and sadness was costing him dearly, despite knowing how to do it well after their first talk, and the time that his father had almost broken his arm, already. It still hurt in the background, but the hand shaped bruise that was still stark (though now it was purple instead of an angry red) on his pale skin was now throbbing in time to Marik's words, as if the voice of the man who had caused it was exacerbating the discomfort.

"I wasn't going to," Caiellis raised his eyes from where they had meandered dejectedly to the stone floor, as the camp was situated on a rocky outcropping, and met his dad's wrathful gaze, "Because I can tell that you are in the sort of mood where you will just shout me down no matter what I say."

"How _dare_ you..." Marik growled, taking a menacing step towards the kid, who took one back despite himself, and about to take another until a large and reassuring hand was placed on his thin shoulder. Tristram squeezed firmly to both comfort Cai, and to show Marik that he wouldn't be allowed to touch his son in a hurtful manner while he was here. The king glanced at the Guardian, cocking an eyebrow as if to say "Do you really think I'd hurt my own son?", but the man didn't release his grip as he sensed that the support was helping little Caiellis, though it was contradicting the fact that he should be on the king's side.

"My lord. May I speak-" Guardian Weiss began, and Marik turned to him, "No. You may not. I'm intending to have words with you and General Rateis about why you did nothing to dissuade my son about his foolish course of action. However, do not think that I am blaming you, as it is your duty to serve the Lucerna in command and so you would have just followed Caiellis's imprudent orders. I will ask you _one final time_, Caiellis. Why did you stay at Jeksaan?"

"I..." he started off shakily, but instantly rectified his mistake and made his tone more confident, though whether that would earn him brownie points in his father's book or not was unknown to the youngster, "I thought that giving my army more time to rest and recuperate would be beneficial in the long run, as instead of arriving with exhausted troops I've come with a fresh and fully operational force ready for the attack on Fort Egetau." Cai stated, reading the name of their next target on the map when he quickly flicked his eyes over it. Tristram had to let out a small smile at how Caiellis had seemed to already analysed the plan on the map despite being in the midst of a very serious conversation with Marik, but the little guy had always been a quick learner and grasped topics he shouldn't have been able to at his age.

Tristram knew that Alexander was a quicker thinker, able to make decisions more instinctively and knowing with a gut feeling that it was the correct course of action without analysing it for flaws like his little brother would do – normally it made no difference, and Cai's method was in fact better when they weren't in severe danger, but in combat Alex's speed was one of the main factors for his victories, as well as his strength. The boys' differing methodology when fighting fit their styles of using magic or physical attacks more than the other, but it put Cai at a clear disadvantage if he didn't have access to his magic.

"Which would already be in ruins if you had just followed my commands, but then you never were the highest achieving son," Marik uttered, and Cai's eyes widened. He had never expected the man to say anything like that, and the words stung him, but they hurt more because he knew they were true. Caiellis had always been chasing behind his big brother, never able to compete with him, but didn't want to think of that now, and the fact that Alex had never seen him as an inferior, just a younger sibling or a friend to teach about the world that would, with time, become as good as him, had made it bearable. He _couldn't _think of that now, or he would start screaming at his dad, something that he wasn't going to let happen, not at the current moment.

"And neither were you, Marik, so can we please stop this pointless squabbling and get on with what actually matters?" Hierarch Tybalt's harsh and strict voice cut through the anger that the king was feeling, anger that he didn't know the source of – yes, it had irritated him that Caiellis had taken it upon himself to decide upon what to do without paying attention to the wider plan, but had only been intending to discipline him in front of the war council so that the mistake wouldn't have been repeated, as if he had just called Caiellis and told him to march their the boy would have silently railed against it even as he obeyed, and would have been in a bad mood as soon as he got here.

But the way that his youngest son reacted to perfectly reasonable criticism and censure was just … so damn _angering. _Whether he stayed petulantly silent or shouted back, Caiellis constantly challenged instead of accepting his father's orders. He hadn't meant to get so annoyed or worked up, especially in front of the legion commanders, who were watching with wide eyes, or speak the harsh words he had just said.

Marik knew full well how demeaning it was to be compared to one's more successful brother, and it was even worse for Caiellis because instead of the gap in the brothers' ages being four minutes, it was four years – or perhaps not, as he wasn't measured against Alexander as much as he had been against his twin when they were teenagers. It was unfair to say that to his youngest son, who certainly looked hurt by it, as obviously a seventeen year old would be superior to his thirteen year old sibling in most areas, but he wasn't about to go and apologise and waste more time, as well as risk seeming foolish, inconsistent and unwilling to stay with his points of view – or even weak, or at the very least having weakness for his children - in front of his subjects.

"Yes. Yes we can," Marik noticed how he had began to shake with barely repressed anger, but luckily not enough for anyone else to notice (or at least he hoped so), and grabbed hold of his son's shoulder, breaking him off from Tristram who glared at him, the Guardian as usual not afraid to show his distaste of some of his king's actions – which was one of the many reasons Marik liked him, but sometimes it was downright irritating. Such as now. He forcefully, but not violently or with the intent to hurt the small and frail lad, seated Caiellis in the chair next to his own, the boy's eyes betraying the fact that he was scared by the touch. _Angels above! Why does it always have to be frightened sadness, __defiant anger or accusing silence? Why can I never just have respect and a son's love and adoration, __just like Alexander gives me__?_

"Right then, back to the planning," Marik glared at his son for a second, the boy returning it coldly, looking as if he simply didn't care that he was disrespecting his father and king by doing so. He broke away from Caiellis's green orbs, and looked back to the map, as the rest of those still stood up became seated also. He began to explain the main attack plan also, letting the other generals elaborate on the duties their forces would be completing, resisting the urge to grin proudly when Caiellis calmly informed one of them of a clearly superior plan of attack, despite the fact that they had been debating it for two hours already – Marik had been about to say something, but his normally reticent youngest had cut in before he could. However, smiling now would reduce the potency of his earlier words or completely nullify their intended effect.

"Does anyone have any questions or concerns with the plan?" Marik asked, methodically scanning the faces of his generals one by one and only finding dutiful loyalty, and genuine respect and admiration that the king wished he could see from his youngest son. Cai opened his mouth to speak and share his severe dislike of the plan, once again finding it far too reckless and fast rather than taking their time and ensuring victory – the Welkalites could have hidden anything in Fort Egetau – but before the first word even escape his mouth, his father, without turning around, interrupted him, snapping, "Shut your mouth, Caiellis. I am not changing the entire plan simply because of your foolish desire to make everything take twice as long as it is supposed to just to preserve men and to reduce all the risks. War is about risks, and it is about taking the initiative, so I'd appreciate it if you managed to get that idea in your head."

_Well that was unnecessarily rude,_ Cai thought, his dad's words more harsh and insulting than they needed to be – he hadn't actually said anything yet! He glared at the man for a second, and although Marik didn't turn to him a vaguely smug grin worked its way onto his otherwise cold features, so imperceptible and fast that Caiellis was left mulling over if it had happened, or if his brain had just imagined it so that he had more to dislike dad for. Looking again, the king simply seemed austere and stony, but slightly frustrated with his youngest son and himself for letting them both get out of control. _You are the adult, but I don't expect anything mature like an apology from you so don't worry. _Caiellis wondered how strongly he would have refuted his father acting like this if he went back in time and spoke to himself – his expectations of the man had gone from impossibly high to an all-time low where he anticipated disdain and severity.

"Are we all ready then?" Marik inquired, those who had been there when the Scientia Mos commanders arrived around ten minutes ago nodding solemnly whilst the others looked at each other in confusion.

"Wait, what?" Cai immediately questioned, and Marik resisted the urge to punch the table in frustration, instead settling on a long and disappointed sigh of resentment, an exhalation that he hoped encapsulated his irritation at the constant defiance and questioning, his fists clenching before he forced himself to relax his hands. _Sometimes I wish I could gag that boy,_ he thought, and then silently reprimanded himself – his youngest son was quiet enough already, it was just that whenever he did say something it seemed to always be at the wrong moment - in his father's presence, at any rate.

According to Tybalt and Tristram, and more recently Alexander (who knew more about his little brother than the Light-bearers), Caiellis had been quite the chatterbox when he was younger, though still not to the extent that Alex talked as he had still be nervous around talking to people he didn't know whilst his older son was amiable and confident. His apparently "geeky" little boy (his eldest's wording, not his own) used to ask philosophical questions and constantly want to learn more, or adversely shared and rattled off his own extensive knowledge about obscure things, and while Marik had experienced a small bit of that Caiellis was far more quiet (unless he was shouting defiantly, in which case it seemed he could yell the entire palace down should he choose to).

"My men haven't even been here for ten minutes yet, and most of them will still be in the process of setting up the tents," Caiellis continued, his voice only tinged with recalcitrance, but mostly it seemed like the kid was trying to plead with his father instead of refuse. Well that wasn't going to work; the boy had already metaphorically dragged his heels enough today and Marik was _not_ going to put off the assault on Fort Egetau any longer. If Caiellis was going to try and complain about his troops being too tired then Marik would have none of it, firstly because the soldiers of Lucael were specifically trained for this type of warfare and secondly due to the fact that he had already let them rest two hours longer than they should have.

Cai glanced over at Guardian Weiss and General Rateis, to see if he would get any help from that quarter, but when the two averted their gazes under the pretence of showing respect he knew that he would be on his own arguing this. The Scientia Mos commanders seemed to have been intimidated by their supreme king, probably ashamed of the fact that they perceived themselves to have failed him and already wondering what they could do to try and earn his favour again; however Cai had realised that what his dad had said to them was mostly false, and that the main focus of the man's tempestuous anger was directed at his younger son.

"No, they will not. The captains of the other divisions will have already informed them of the change of plans, and they will be awaiting the order to attack when you arrive to give them it," Marik stated coolly, hoping that that would diffuse Caiellis's defiance, as now that the fact that the army was aware of the stratagem there would be no changing it, but the boy, like both of his sons, had inherited his stubborn streak – it would serve to make him a fine general in the future, and give him a strong personality, but right now the belligerence was seriously grating on his nerves and making him want to give into the temptation to physically discipline his obstinate child.

However, if he did that, then as well as Emili smiting him down from her place in heaven then Alexander wouldn't forgive him – he had only absolved him of it the time he had crushed Caiellis's thin arm because the king had been full of guilt and remorse, and hadn't meant to hurt the lad, but inflicting pain with the desire to do so would not be excused by his protective eldest. He still remembered the time only ten days that felt like they had taken years off his life ago, when Alexander had fought him because of his admittedly wrong indifference to Caiellis's self-harming. He was _trying,_ angels damn it, but the war had to take precedence now over his son's personal opinions.

"Would it not be beneficial just to wait?" Cai protested, his words very quick as if instinctively coming to the conclusion that he needed to get his point out before Marik silenced and interrupted him. All the king wanted to do was loudly shout at Caiellis to be quiet, but instead of shutting him up with the seriousness and intent behind the act like what would happen to any normal and obedient child, it would just encourage the child to raise his voice in turn and yell back, making them devolve into an argument that he didn't want any of the generals of his kingdom to see. Instead, he kept his voice loud, but perfectly even, coldly overruling his son's protestations, thinking about how he could punish Caiellis for this impertinence during or after the war, "No. You have delayed enough for one day, Caiellis. Did you think that I would simply fail to notice your utter disregard of the strategy I told you to enact in the attack on Jeksaan, and instead employed on of your own? Your decision to rest instead of move and your ridiculous tactics have wasted enough of my time already. It is our duty to save as many good lives as possible, so spending any more precious time dawdling is just giving the Welkalite Orders of Passion more opportunities to reinforce their capital, as well as commit more acts in the name of the demons."

"My "ridiculous tactics" won the battle far more efficiently than the reckless assaults your and Guardian Lelia's forces did on your assigned cities," Caiellis replied, every syllable enunciated with bitterness a boy his age shouldn't be privy to and every word dripping with scorn, "Don't try to deny it, dad. I listened to the official casualty reports. Your force suffered the same percentage of death that I did, which in itself doesn't sound bad, apart from the fact that your army is _five times bigger. _Doesn't the fact that you took fives times as many casualties as me with the same level of opposition concern you, even the slightest bit?"

"Casualties are a part of war," Marik responded coolly, honestly surprising Caiellis, but then he should have realised by now that him and his father did not see eye to eye on some things (_and by that I mean literally everything_) and shouldn't be expecting any logical responses. His mother must have been the one that he got that from, as he saw little evidence for it in his quite frankly hopeless father.

"I thought it was our duty to save as many lives as possible?" the youngest Lucerna challenged, turning to meet his father's gaze and hoping that the adamant steel of his thoughts was reflected by his green eyes. He was no longer truly sad at the way that dad had failed on his promise to change his ways, as truthfully he wanted this constant arguing to stop, but right now he wasn't debating as Prince Caiellis, he was talking as a leader of an army that wanted their voice heard. He was not speaking from personal ideas (although they supported his claims), he was just advocating different courses of action so that maybe his dad would consider them.

Marik thought it was amazing how big and strong his physically frail youngest looked now that he was in the midst of an argument, his face contorted in furious defiance and his eyes full of a steely resolve that Marik dearly wished wasn't directed against him. Nevertheless, no matter how confident his youngest son was, he was still the parent in the relationship, and that meant he had the right to overrule his concerns and points. This argument would end. _Now._

"Do _not_ turn my own words against me," the monarch of the Kingdom of Light growled threateningly, cold fury seeping out of his words, and Cai paused, blinking in surprise and automatically pressing himself further back in the chair and away from his dad, though that wouldn't protect him if the man decided that he wanted to hurt his smallest son. The boy resolved then to just accept that, at this current moment, he had been defeated – _no, it's not about winning or losing in a clash with dad. It's about not letting lives get pointlessly thrown away in the pursuit of unnecessary speed and purposeless honour. I will continue to argue, but not right now. I think if I push dad any more then he is going to hit me, with full force, and ideally I would like to avoid that. For both our sakes, and so Alexander doesn't worry himself to death or become consumed with guilt by it._

"Are there any more complications I should hear of before we begin the march?" the king demanded, swivelling his furious gaze over the other generals – some of them had seen him more this angry before, but then it had been fuelled by hatred, and never prior to this directed at someone in the same location as him – who averted their eyes from the wrath in the monarch's piercing blue orbs that cut through them.

He rested his stare on each of them for a few seconds each, watching them visibly tense, appearing to Caiellis like he was just _baiting_ them to say something so that he could vent his anger upon them. As anticipated, none said anything, so finally Marik turned to fire a judgemental glare at his dissident son. Cai knew then that in that second if he had glowered back, eyes still full of fiery defiance, then he would find a pair of large and gauntleted hands wrapped around his throat and squeezing with crushing force, or a metal palm slamming into his cheek and knocking him off the chair and onto the floor.

He followed the example that the other members of the war council had set, turning his head away from his father's blue orbs, but instead of respectfully lowering his vision to the floor he examined the map in front of him one last time, ensuring that his expressive eyes were filled with analytical interest as he gazed at the visual representation of the plan they were about to enact, in spite of the fact that he understood each facet of it perfectly. The boy shrunk back into his seat as he somehow sensed the intensity of the gaze increasing, wishing that he could hide behind Uncle Tristram but knowing that would look pathetic and that the excruciating scrutiny was pinning him in place.

Caiellis stopped himself from breathing a sigh of relief when he physically _felt _dad looking away from him, relaxing muscles that he hadn't realised he had begun tensing and restoring the original rhythm of breaths that he didn't know had started increasing in frequency but decreasing in length. Despite the fact that no one in the pavilion was releasing mana, including his dad, he had still been able to feel how tense the interior of the strategium had become, the atmosphere reacting to the argument within it.

"Lets us go then, for the glory of Lucael and the salvation of the innocents of Welkas!" Marik bellowed inspiringly, his voice now infused with a slight bit of mana that Caiellis sensed was automatic and made the proclamation all the more exalted and motivational even to him, stirring even his saddened heart despite the identity of the one saying the words.

"Ave lux!" the generals, and the praetorians outside who heard the cry, cried exultantly, leaving Cai to wonder if his father was going to address the entire force at his disposal or relegate that duty to his subordinates. The youngest potential heir to the throne didn't think that he could make his speech quite as inspiring as his first, as his mood had soured dramatically. Also, he knew that he would be speaking to people that he would be sending to their deaths, deaths that could easily be prevented if they simply took a more patient course of action. He really hoped that he didn't have to.

Caught up in his musing, Caiellis realised that the gazes of several pairs of eyes were resting on him, some inscrutable, some judging, some pitying and some comforting and reassuring, just as a second cry resounded throughout the room. He assumed that some were looking at him because he hadn't joined in with the triumphant and righteous shouting yet, and as a Lucerna prince he should be one of the most inspired and fervent about the coming battle, but Cai didn't have the heart to loudly proclaim "For the light!" due to the hypocrisy of his father and the fact that he felt drained, not just from the physical and magical exhaustion from the battle earlier today but a kind of emotional drain from his and his father's argument.

"Ave lux," he muttered, under his breath, hoping that would suffice and the quietness of the declaration would be interpreted as a kind of solemn and sober resigning to more violence and death in the name of peace, instead of an utter and complete lack of enthusiasm and conviction.

Marik couldn't keep a scowl from crossing his face. Caiellis could at least try to look like he wasn't being dragged almost literally kicking and screaming into this course of action. He just hoped that his son's despondency didn't pass onto any of the generals, who would need to be suitably driven to fight and lead to the best of their ability – but Marik wasn't particularly concerned about the fact that his son clearly felt disheartened, because he could tell just from looking at him and analysing his fighting patterns that he would do battle to the best of his ability irrespective of his emotional state.

If Caiellis thought he was going to tolerate this any longer then he would be dearly mistaken. His son had professed that he had wanted to start again, and while hanging up on his father whilst Marik was trying to congratulate and show his love to him wasn't the best way of going about it, the king had been willing to overlook that slight misdemeanour in favour of giving the boy a chance to make it up to him or apologise when they met again.

However, he had expected Caiellis to change, to at least put some effort into improving their relationship instead of just magically wishing for it to change, or perhaps hoping that Marik would fix it all by himself with no help at all from his youngest. He had needed to be harsh on the boy, otherwise he would have just started to pick and choose orders that he wanted to obey and ignore those he didn't; Caiellis had needed to learn that that state of mind was wrong and would not be permitted. Nonetheless, after a stern telling off he was going to hug his son and tell him that he was proud of the boy despite his mistakes as Caiellis had acted upon what he believed was right, even going so far as to defy his king for it, which deserved praise just as much as the actions deserved censure.

Of course that plan had quickly been abandoned as Marik realised that Caiellis hadn't changed at all and was precisely as defiant as he had been before. It didn't help that the anger he seemingly only ever felt when that boy argued with him was threatening to dangerously erupt out of him, and Marik had been forced to divert brain power to controlling that as well as arguing and refusing to give into his determined and persistent son, qualities that he would have commended had they not been turned towards him.

"Now go and spread the word, acquit your soldiers with the plan. I will be giving a speech to the whole army in around five minutes, so I want them assembled on the plains outside of the camp for that," the king ordered, answered with a chorus of: "Yes, sir"s.

As he was about to exit the tent, only Guardian Weiss and his son still in the pavilion, the Light-bearers of Capitalia Lux just in the process of leaving, he heard an extremely nervous and anxious, "Dad?"

"Yes, Caiellis?" the man spun around and asked, staring down at his son, who seemed extremely exhausted by their argument. The boy looked just as fragile and small as he had always done, as if the defiance that had made him appear ten times bigger had now all been released, leaving him deflated and dejected, like it was the hardest thing in the entire world for him to just accept that his father's word, at this point in his young life, was law. He seemed incredibly frail, like a gust of wind would knock him over and send him flying, and for all the boy seemed to despise his Lucerna heritage it was the only reason he had survived his premature birth, as if Caiellis did not have the fortitude derived from the blood of the kings in his veins then his brittle body would have lost its tenuous hold on life as Emili painfully gave birth to him.

Marik swiftly crushed the anger that rose up the second the boy addressed him, knowing that just from looking into Caiellis's welling eyes that the kid no longer wanted to fight. Tybalt and Tristram shared a glance, and lingered in the doorway so that they could listen to the exchange.

"I … I just thought I'd tell you … That I don't have nearly enough mana to Summon … I used most of it in the Merciless Eviction earlier today, the spell that won the battle of Jeksaan," Cai admitted, wanting to once again hide from his father's piercing and judgemental gaze, which for a moment seemed to say: _Wow, you really are fucking pathetic. But what did I really expect from my failure of second son. _Then the moment ended, and Marik's eyes softened, though not to the extent that they could appear anything less than cold and dispassionate, and he said, "Tag along with me then, and fight by my side instead. I'm sure Guardian Weiss is capable of leading the Scientia Mos legions by himself if you don't feel up to it."

He mentally winced as he inadvertently made the words sound like an accusation, as he would also be exhausted had he emitted as much mana as Caiellis (he had felt it during his own battle) had, despite his significantly greater familiarity with Summoning and the fact that he would do a greater job of hiding it. Marik turned to look at Guardian Weiss, who nodded and replied with an: "Of course, my lord."

Tristram turned aside to Hierarch Tybalt as they stepped out of the tent, the subject of what had just happened on both of their minds, "That family reunion certainly could have gone better," the Guardian muttered, a hint of melancholy inflecting his voice. He was very worried of the fact that the king had a special type of anger reserved solely for his youngest son that he had never seen from Marik before, not even when Alexander had defied him in the past which Tristram thought was quite unfair on Caiellis.

Normally, while the king could be cold, stubborn and refusing to accept advice from the Capitalia Lux Light-bearers on how to deal with the delicate issue of his thirteen year old heir, insisting that because neither of them had children neither of them understood the position he was in despite caring for the Lucerna brothers for a greater length of time than the king had himself (significantly more for Cai), Marik was a good father, and nothing like his own.

It seemed like after their first dispute (that Alex had privately told Tybalt and Tristram about before they departed for the Scholaria Magnus), the man's eldest and he had got on fabulously, though their relationship started off a little awkward because of the nine year gap in seeing each other where Alexander had grown up from an excitable eight year old to a responsible (unless it came to girls) and intelligent young adult.

However, Marik already knew Alexander better because he had spent double the amount of time with the older boy (well, time in years with him around. Tybalt knew that the mathematics didn't exactly work like that, as the first four years of Alexander's life were spent without a sibling, whereas the four years Caiellis had been alive before the onset of Johnias's rebellion had been with an older brother that also needed to be looked after and attended to, which meant that in essence Marik had spent even less time with him than half of Alex's) and it seemed that Marik really didn't know what he was doing sometimes.

In a way, it was ironic, because Caiellis and Marik shared more personality traits than the man did with his eldest son (but of course the two did share quite a few, just not as many as the youngest prince and the king), but then again Marik and his own father had been more similar than Garius II and Johnias, so obviously the clashing between father and son was reminiscent of the arguing Garius and Marik underwent. Tristram had barely seen that, but Tybalt had, and knew it to be quite similar but with several noticeable differences, mostly because of the war but also because Marik as a man (as opposed to a king) was remarkably dissimilar to the boys' late grandfather, and Caiellis was distinct from the king at his age.

"Yes. Yes it could have," Tybalt answered distractedly, too engrossed in his own thoughts to pay proper attention to the conversation Tristram was trying to have with him, something that before they became unlikely friends had greatly irritated the Guardian when they had to care for the children, as instead of talking and discussing Tybalt liked to work things out in his own head and then answering with certainty, as opposed to saying something that could be incorrect.

Nonetheless, the two knew each other quite well due to the fact that they had only had each other for adult company a large portion of the time in the struggle against the darkness, and Tristram left silently, gently patting the aged Hierarch on the shoulder before departing to help organise the main force.

While the capital's Guardian, as the Champion of Capitalia, would be fighting alongside his ruler – which subsequently meant Caiellis would be safer – Tybalt was attached to another regiment to provide magical support with his White and Blue mana, and as such would be quite far away from the youngest prince. He stared up at the twinkling stars of the Welkalite night sky, before words interrupted his thoughts, reminding him of where he was, and the venerable Hierarch set off to join Guardian Tristram.

"We should go now. I don't expect you to join in with the speech," Marik stated, confidently marching out of the pavilion and ensuring that he would be filled with righteous conviction instead of frustrated anger when he was giving the speech, although he didn't intend to do anything dramatic like his boy had (that the army of Lucael was still energised and inspired by) because this was still not the greatest engagement in the war, although it was still a major one and to falter here could reduce their strength enough that they were not able to besiege the Welkalite capital.

He had talked about the defences of Usnaan with Alexander, the older boy incredibly eager to help because he felt useless stuck in his bed (though the monarch reminded himself that tomorrow he would be seeing the seventeen year old, which would hopefully provide a respite from Caiellis as just being with his older brother would calm the younger boy down – unless Marik did something to Alexander. However, he was more confident that he would not feel the urge to do violence to his eldest as he disturbingly did with Caiellis, and so the boy would have no cause to question him on his treatment of his near-perfect first-born), and they had established that although the city was surrounded by soaring stone walls befitting the capital city of the Old Empire, sections had been torn down in Redhand's Revolution and had never been rebuilt (though that might have changed in the few days since the princes had escaped their abduction), and the walls were in a state of disrepair anyway, the New Empire of Passion much more concerned with spontaneous bloodshed and aggression than their predecessor.

_Enough of that. The strategies for attacking Usnaan can wait until we are actually attacking Usnaan. Meanwhile, I need to think of the plan for the coming assault on Fort Egetau. _Scouts had identified that the outpost was quite heavily fortified, and occupied by an army of a medium force that was dramatically outmatched and dwarfed by his own gargantuan combination of legions. It should be easy enough to erase from the face of the continent, but Marik expected casualties in the forces that would be going in first – though they would be his elites, and so wouldn't sustain as much damage as the formations of less experienced or well armoured soldiers would.

Despite what Caiellis may think, he wasn't heartless, and wasn't going to throw the newer legionaries into the breach until the enemies were drowned under the waves of soldiers after slaughtering many. He personally intended to lead the attack with Akroma, and with Caiellis at his side (in spite of his relative low mana (Marik could have found it funny that his son's "low mana" was higher than the maximum mana pools of a lot of weaker mages, if he was so inclined)) the force of two Lucernas would be something to be reckoned with. Having never seen Caiellis fight, apart from a brief glimpse into the "team battles" at the Scholaria Magnus academy, he was looking forward to it, though didn't expect anything flashy from the boy.

Maybe fighting side by side would help heal the rift in their relationship. He doubted it, as while that sort of method would work with (and had, just in a slightly different form) Alexander, Tristram and Tybalt had both informed him on his youngest's distaste with combat, so fighting with him probably wouldn't change a thing.

"Yes sir," Caiellis replied dispassionately, having to break into a trot to keep up with his six-foot-seven father's much larger stride at a brisk pace, and the two walked for around a second or two longer before the man spun around. Marik's mind had just processed how Caiellis had referred to him, and his intense gaze scanned the boy's eyes, expression and posture for any hint of mockery but instead discovering compliance, obedience and respect, though he immediately realised that the respect was not directed at Marik the Father, but Marik the Supreme Monarch of the Kingdom of Light.

He knew that by addressing him in that way, Caiellis had resigned their relationship into nothing more than the relationship between king and prince, sovereign and subject, and not father and son. Marik would liked to have said that he was hurt by it and felt sadness at the words, that him and his son should be much, much closer than they were now, but if it was what it took to stop the boy from arguing with him then so be it. Anyway, it was showing respect, something that he barely ever received from the boy, so he wasn't going to tell him to stop. Marik knew that had she still been alive that Emili would have vehemently disagreed with that, as both of them had wanted to be extremely close to their children so that their sons could share anything with them and never feel uncomfortable (or even worse, frightened) near them.

Caiellis cocked an eyebrow, his mysterious green eyes belieing none of his inside thoughts and emotions, much like how he had looked at his father after their first fateful reunion, his emerald orbs blank and the fortifications crashing down in front of his mind, blocking out everyone else after spending too long letting them in (although Marik seriously doubted Caiellis pushing away his older brother like he had apparently done, just everybody apart from that besides maybe Tristram and Tybalt), and Marik had to stop himself from shaking his head, turning on his heels and continuing on with the walk.

He had greater problems than petulant children on this night.

.*.*.*.

Caiellis could feel the clashing Red and White mana around him, although there were flecks of each of the other colours scattered throughout the engagement. The darkness of the night sky was brightened by incandescent flashes of White mana and crackling lightning, but the thing that made Caiellis the most uncomfortable were the roiling waves of crimson flames that incinerated Welkalite and Lucaelian alike, those conjuring them killing friend and foe with their destructive and indiscriminate magic.

Stood next to his father (who hadn't yet Summoned, and had explained that he wanted to save Akroma until the fighting was thickest), with Uncle Tristram and Athela of the Aegis flying above them, the Daughter of Protection's holy shield guarding the two Lucernas, and surrounded by a total of eight elite praetorians on the courtyard inside of Fort Egetau, Cai would like to say that he felt safe, but that would be a lie. The fighting was brutal and close, exactly how he disliked it, with little room to manoeuvre and assess the tactical situation so that he could update the strategy. This type of combat was his antithesis, as it relied much more on sheer strength to determine the victor, and although his magic was powerful he didn't have enough mana to be casting extremely potent spells that would devastate the opposing army, which meant that he had to utilise more physical attacks than those that used magic, something which he despised.

It was hot, and the youngest Lucerna was sweating in the heat of the armoured bodies pressing together around him and the high temperature Red mana that saturated the night air, but he felt more sorry for those clad in full plate armour and would be sweltering inside of the metal. The Welkalites were far more suited to the hot climate than the Lucaelian soldiers, as they wore little to no armour, and when they did if was light and wouldn't offer much protection, relying upon overwhelming the enemies with speed and mass aggression instead of a protracted combat, whereas the legionaries of the Kingdom of Light much preferred to outlast their foes and emerge triumphant through faith and discipline.

However, one thing that Caiellis did notice was that his father hadn't even broke into a sweat, cold White mana flowing around the monarch's ornate silver armour and probably cooling its interior as he slammed his broadsword into the sternum of a Welkalite berserker that charged suicidally at him, not even pausing to examine his handiwork as his energised relic weapon, the ancient blade originally belonging to King Garius I before Marik inherited it when he became king (as Caiellis's grandfather had preferred to wield a heavy axe) shining with infused White mana and purging the Welkalite's soul just as the sword cleaved apart his body.

The man raised his free left palm as a bombardment of coruscating electricity fulminated towards him, a shield of pure celestial light nullifying the magical assault as it was absorbed by it, and suddenly shot forwards, his sword arcing round and leaving contrails of light in Caiellis's after-vision as his blinked and carving into the mage that had launched the lightning, the electromancer's face twisted in startled surprise as the large blade (though not as big as Akroma's huge sword) hacked through his midriff, splitting him in two as the halves were disintegrated by the purifying White mana of Wrath.

He then twisted round, raising his palm to the heavens and focussing mana around it, as a selection of magical and golden swords appeared around him, in the way that Caiellis had seen it before. Marik closed his fist as the power he was channelling reached a crescendo, pointing his greatsword at a group of Welkalite infantry as the blades angled towards them, and then shot at them, impaling the enemies in a storm of shining spears reinforced by an assortment of shards of glass wreathed in darklight that the young prince added to his father's salvo, the golden swords and glass desiccating the Welkalite targets, though Marik didn't even nod in his son's direction as he and three other praetorians made their way towards the inner fortress.

Cai utterly detested it, but he couldn't help admiring the way that Marik fought, combining elements of both his sons' fighting techniques (although the Summoner of the Angel of the Black Sun supposed that Marik had been using this way of fighting long before he and Alexander had been born, and so they had inherited and changed factors of it instead of it being a combination of theirs) in a blend of aggression and patience, sometimes baiting his opponent into making a mistake and exploiting it or brute-forcing his way into gaining an advantage. Despite seeing him use a more concentrated version of Akroma's Vengeance, Cai had never seen the man fight at _full _power, although he had done in the civil war and he had almost got there against Aksua.

Caiellis knew that if his dad was even a quarter as good at being a parent as he was adept at fighting, then there would be no animosity between father and son, but harshly told himself to stop thinking about that because it would simply distract him from the battle and Cai needed to be focussed, arguably more than ever because of his low mana that in hindsight he should have complained more about. Then again, if he had exempted himself from the battle just because of that he would be seen as weak, as every other member of the army had fought just as he had (though none had released just as much mana as him).

Caiellis and his dad were stood near the front of the force, with the rest of the elite troops that had charged through the breaches in the fort caused by the incandescent barrage of the siege engines as the groups of mages powering them poured mana into the engines, charging them with light and releasing that in the form of projectiles much more potent than any mundane ammunition, such as rocks or ballista bolts.

When the first section of the red wall had tumbled down, it had been the Lucerna Guard and the most elite division in Capitalia Lux, the Capital's Chosen, that had been the first to enter, as they hacked their way through hordes of swarming berserkers and insane members of the Orders of Passion clearly sent to delay them and were assaulted by a menagerie of different Red Summonings. Nevertheless, the mages of Capitalia Lux attached to the exemplary formation that utilised defensive magic, and those combat trained healers from the Ordo Medella, had prevented the casualties from amounting to too much, although Caiellis knew that many more Lucaelians would be slain when the rest of the army entered Fort Egetau.

The enemy general was obviously quite canny, reserving their more elite troops for when the legionaries had exhausted themselves after relentless attacks from screaming maniacs and their Sancturia creatures, and Caiellis could see several fortified emplacements and battlements that the army would be hard pressed to overcome. He just wished that the Lucaelian plan could have been more efficient and patient, as all of this brutal bloodshed would have been unnecessary if they had just waited for the Welkalite fortress to run out of resources and time, as it was quite clearly not equipped for dealing with an army the size of one that had been inhabiting it for more than a week at most.

_Enough of that. The time for debating the strategy is over, and there is no point worrying about it now or playing the "what if" scenarios game. Instead of thinking about that, I should devote my mind power to winning now, _Cai mentally informed himself, spotting a Welkalite hurtling towards him not intercepted by any of his companions and with a flaming imp shrieking and cackling maniacally as it twirled around its insane master, a skinny warrior wearing barely anything but leather covered in metal spikes that pointed outwards and inwards, some already dripping with his blood.

Cai infused his artefact armament with mana, seeing the blade grasped in his right hand lighting up with radiance and shadow, as the imp dived at him, its unassuming size suddenly augmented by an influx of Red and Black mana and becoming larger than him. He leapt away on the wings of stained glass that he conjured into being, the ground erupting in flames beneath him as the imp twisted, following him into the air to try and bring him down.

Caiellis ignored it, knowing already that he was too fast for it and would reach his target before it reached him, and powered towards the member of the Order of Rapture, arcing his twilight blade towards the man. Before he hit, the Welkalite ignited his gauntlets with fiery Red and pooling Black, swinging them at the descending prince. One of the flaming fists punched into his thin stomach, making him cough up a spray of blood, but Cai forced himself not to pay attention to the pain, slowing his descent to lessen the impact of the blow.

He swung the Sword of Glass into the other fist, the crystalline blade hacking though the man's hand and then carrying on into the rest of his body, Caiellis's relic weapon unimpeded by leather armour, flesh and bone. He increased the potency of his Black magic and used it to drain the Welkalite's life away from him, the Sword of Glass greedily drinking upon the essence of the man and converting it into healing White mana, which the prince utilised to heal the shallow wounds he had just sustained.

Caiellis flipped backwards just as a serrated blade cut apart the air he had inhabited just a moment ago, releasing tendrils of dark shadow coated in golden luminescence from his left palm that impaled the foe that had just attempted to attack him, sucking the existence from her and fully healing his abdomen.

He then blasted a shaft of pure light at a three headed elemental hound – a cerberus, he recalled from something that he had once read – that leapt at one of the praetorians that he didn't know by name, a slender and youngish woman around the age of thirty that wielded an elegant double-bladed glaive shining with White and Blue mana, flowing and molten-looking fire fountaining from one of the heads and appearing like a magical version of a normal canine's drooling.

The large elemental snarled in fury as the bolt of light impacted into it, leaving a searing and bright crater in its flaming hide and halting its charge as it turned angrily towards Caiellis, and the unknown praetorian recalled a Sancturia creature of her own towards her after she was alerted to the beast that had been about to ambush her. A shimmering spirit coated in the magics of light and wisdom and in the vague form of a woman appeared at the bodyguard's side, and Caiellis's eyes narrowed slightly as he didn't detect very much power coming from the spirit. However, there must have been some potent reason why the woman had been inducted into the Lucerna Guard, and Cai smiled as the praetorian blinked out of reality and then reappeared in a flash of Blue displacement magic behind the cerberus.

She swung her glaive into one of the heads, the first blade suffused with disrupting Blue mana that would undo any of the charms or enchantments cast upon the elemental by its master, a Welkalite mage that blasted a tongue of flame at one of the Capital's Chosen and immolated the man inside his armour, grinning insanely all the while as his hair lit up with flames in response to his mana, not caring one bit about the cerberus. The strike also disturbed the creature's connection to Sancturia, weakening it as it had to automatically divert some of its interior mana to keeping itself in the material plane instead of retreating back inside the Mind Realm.

The best turned around, its other two heads reacting to the attack on its third – one snapping round with tremendous speed and intending to devour the praetorian within its steaming and gaping maw, whilst the other blasted a gout of flame at the Lucaelian attacker. Quick as a flash, the woman exited reality again, materialising a few metres away but instantly consumed in an explosion of flames as the Welkalite mage had anticipated her re-entry location. The praetorian looked at hands in bemused surprise for a split second before processing that again the prince had saved her, as shield of scintillating glass beginning to shatter around her in the intense heat of the Red magic.

Caiellis launched a series of magical attacks on the mage, dearly wishing that he could channel more mana into the assault so that he wouldn't have to resort to dispatching the foe at close quarters, as the mage was holding a whip that was covered in flames and offered him much more range than the youngest Lucerna's Sword of Glass. The Welkalite man, who was quite a bit bigger than him but not as tall as most Lucaelians, rolled away from the spears of light and shadow, just as more of the enemy soldiers entered the combat to help counteract the Lucaelian advance as a greater quantity of allies was entering the fort through another breach.

The praetorian locked eyes with Caiellis, who's orbs were still at their normal green lustre as he didn't want to waste what precious little mana he had on the Lenses of Guilt and Innocence, and nodded her acquiescence when the boy flicked his gaze towards the recovering cerberus whilst pointing his crystal sword towards its Summoner. She hefted her glaive, directing her sky spirit towards the beast, which roared threateningly at the manifestation of Red's two most hated colours of mana.

Caiellis couldn't pay much attention to the combat, as now the pyromancer was raising his palms towards the elevated prince as a storm of flames burst forth from them, filling the air with fiery bolts that burned through the atmosphere towards the prince. Cai instinctively raised his sword and other free hand, intending to block the sea of low mana intensity projectiles on a powerful shield, before remembering that he didn't have nearly enough mana for that.

This provoked him creating a small defensive barrier of interlocking of purple stained glass and awkwardly jolting back from the scorching bolts. One hit his left shoulder and he hissed in pain as the fabric of his clothing was burnt through, exposing the pale flesh of his skin that was now coloured an angry red and throbbed with stinging agony, but was otherwise unscathed by the strafing of fire-bolts due to the mixture of his protective enchantments and juddering dodging.

He needed to regain the initiative, as without his mana he couldn't afford to fight as methodically as he was used to and much favoured over this, so deactivated his wings for now in favour of more offensive power and rushed the mage. The boy blocked with the Sword of Glass as the whip cracked towards him, aiming to wrap around the blade before he sliced through it.

Instead of falling to the floor, the part of the scourge that he hacked apart exploded into a rush of flames that scorched the air around him, but Caiellis managed to deflect it with a mass of golden coated shadow that formed up around him and extinguished the fire.

_I've had enough of this damn pyromancer,_ Cai thought bitterly, his shoulder throbbing extremely painfully, torment that was exacerbated every time he moved it, and grabbed his sword with both hands, activating the Lens of Guilt for a split second so that he could acquire the position of the enemy mage and prepare for another attack.

Just as he was about to do, the man's power levels dropped drastically, and he sensed that the praetorian that had been attached to his father had finished slaying the cerberus, judging by the large release of peaceful but controlling White and Blue mana smothering the impulsive and destructive Red coming from her direction.

If Cai had been bothered about concepts such as honour and testing oneself against foes, or things like battlefield grudges, he would have been annoyed at the challenge of the formidable pyromancer being ripped away from him, as now that his cerberus had gone the man had fallen to his knees, but Caiellis couldn't care less and only fought so that peace could be achieved, not to fight against enemies, although obviously that was a product of that. He almost contemptuously flicked out his hand, a beam of light illuminating the man in its deathly purple glow and dissolving his being away, the particles of his essence becoming pleasant, glittering golden speckles that floated lazily towards Cai, soothing his wounded shoulder with healing magic and repairing the damaged skin, returning it to its normal pale tone.

"Mirria Chrysos, at your service," the woman, who was clad in the traditional golden plate of the Lucerna Guard but with a light blue cloth simply emblazoned with the symbol of the Guard instead of that combined with any personal heraldry, fitting as the Chrysos family had become traitors and willingly aligned themselves with Johnias during the civil war, bowed quickly and then returned to a ready position. Caiellis looked at her for a second, and stared back before averting her gaze, and wondered if she felt like she had to prove herself because of the fact that her family had betrayed, although she would probably have been part of the Lucerna Guard before the civil war.

Cai took a short moment to examine the battlefield around him, as now almost the entirety of the huge Lucaelian force had entered through numerous breaches in the almost destroyed wall of Fort Egetau. In the roiling battle on the gigantic courtyard of the fortress, which had been built specifically to defend in the Welkalite style of open steppes to charge around their foes, pretty much all semblance of formation had dissolved and now the quite cramped space was full of warriors that had never met each other fighting side by side, although there was a bond between the Lucaelian soldiers that was formed from the shared sense of community and having a family to protect and a kingdom to serve that the Welkalite warriors lacked.

Now that the more elite enemy forces had been deployed, Caiellis could sense a much greater intensity in the Black mana representing selfishness and the pursuit of one's own desires through his sixth sense, as those that were entering the battle would be much more associated with the Orders of Passion than those the Lucaelians had fought up to this point – but when they got to Usnaan, the prince knew from past experience that they would have to fight against even greater debaucheries and acts of an extremely disturbing nature that fuelled corrupt magic.

He could see a troupe of scantily clad Welkalite dancers that had obviously come from nearby Usnaan to be part of the defence giggling manically as their outlandish and garish outfits that left little to the imagination (if Caiellis hadn't been in the middle of a battle then he would have blushed because up to this point in life had never seen female sexual organs (besides the interior of his mother's, which didn't really count) before) shone with Red mana. They somersaulted with incredible agility through the air, spinning a variety of savage (but undoubtedly entertaining for crowds of baying Welkalites) weaponry, including chains covered in spikes that could impale the dancers if they made a wrong move, and huge shurikens in a similar style to those used by the Yentarians of the League of Isak but significantly less subtle.

The leaders of the troupe, those wearing the most clothes and masks showing massively distorted faces in obtrusive and extravagant colours, emitted large amounts of Red mana as their weapons burst into light, pink electricity crackling along them and giving them a killing edge. With a shrieking cry, the first of the dancers leapt through the air and swung her weapon at a nearby Lucaelian soldier, the lighting-infused edge hacking straight through the woman and leaving her to choke on her own blood as an (admittedly artistically pleasing for those that were inclined to think that way) arterial spray of crimson liquid jetted out from the wound in her throat.

Caiellis found his thoughts turning to disgust, but before he could attack them five angels descended from the sky, four he knew already – Iridis, Seraph of the Sword, Ethé of the Firemane, Yuria, Daughter of the Heavens and Luncindia the Baneslayer – and one new one also, although he still recognised her from his reading material, and knew of her Summoner, Tresha Ustria of the praetorians.

This angel was a Daughter of Vengeance (and would have been a Daughter of Serenity had the angel still been alive), sworn to silence like her sister (that had been Summoned by Lelia in a different section of the fortress, as the Guardian led one of the other attacks) until Johnias died, and was called Hispacia, the Avenger.

She wore a more ragged outfit than other angels, which suggested that she had been crusading for a long time in the territory of the darkness in Sancturia, and held a battered and worn sabre that looked like it had been through many battles. Her wings were brown, and she had hair of a slightly darker colour tied up in a ponytail, and despite her looking less impressive than her impeccable cousins (if that was what Second Sisterhood angels called other angels that were daughters of a different First Sisterhood angel) Caiellis could still see several iridescent spheres surrounding her, suggesting several powerful enchantments were augmenting Hispacia.

The angels slammed into the dancers, scattering them with blasts of White mana and saving the platoon of soldiers that were being decimated by them, but Cai's eyes opened wide in horror when two dancers leapt up into the air, holding an extremely thin wire at each end, and jumped past Yuria. The wire burst into fizzing life the second it hit the angel, hacking her apart in shrieking frenzy before she was forced to return to the Mind Realm, though apart from a yelp of pain Yuria made no sound, knowing that if she screamed in agony it would demoralise the soldiers around her.

The ground of the courtyard was literally littered with corpses now, both Lucaelian and Welkalite and seemingly an equal number of each, as the dancers recommenced their attack on the remaining angels, this time joined by a group of hissing elementals clothed in something resembling armour and taking the form of humanoids, albeit humanoids made up of roaring flames.

Caiellis felt a huge rise in White mana from his left, and a feeling of awe that he had never quite been able to get over rising up in his chest as he looked to the side to his his father holding his hands around a sphere of pure and shining White as it expanded around him. He wished that he could Summon Orzhova as well, but for now Akroma alone would have to suffice (probably to the liking of the Angel of Wrath). The light began to shine to such an intensity that all across the battlefield friend and foe alike were forced to look away, and it began to be absorbed into a large angelic figure.

Akroma appeared in the material plane, holding her gargantuan sword, the Blade of Wrath, aloft, and the king's voice was suffused with an otherworldly resonance when he shouted, "To me, soldiers of Lucael! Drive the Welkalites back!"

Alongside every single Lucaelian soldier on the battlefield, Caiellis felt a sensation of astonishment and pride in the Lucerna family, despite being a part of it, but Caiellis had little chance to ruminate on those feelings as he and Mirria were surrounded by a group of Enforcers from the Order of Violence, elite soldiers wielding polearms that shone with a molten glow and were backed up by elementals that dragged themselves from underneath the earth, forming out of lava and pouring out of cracks in the ground.

A burst of White mana registered itself in Caiellis's mind before it erupted into reality, everything exploding into pure white light around the prince and praetorian, and Cai stifled a gasp as Akroma landed amongst the soldiers, followed by her smaller but no less impressive Summoner. The angel swung her huge blade in a wide arc, a shockwave of luminescence shooting forth from it and annihilating the Enforcers in a massive detonation of radiance, sending those not hit directly by the light tumbling as Marik collected his own magic into the rough shape of an orb.

Cai's dad tossed it into the air, and it split apart into separate beams of light that each found an individual mark, cutting through the Welkalites and leaving smoking holes in the places where their hearts should have been. Akroma then immediately left, launching herself into the air and crashing down where she was next needed most, brutally eviscerating Welkalites left and right in every stroke of her gigantic blade, her face remaining blank and neutral as it became covered in gore. Alternating projectiles of fire, lighting and magma crashed into the angel, but she remained unfazed because of the resistance she had built up to Black and Red mana after centuries of endlessly crusading against them which meant that she was all but immune to all but the most potent spells, those of an apocalypse level – even then she might still survive wounded.

Marik remained, however, and swiftly turned to his son after thrusting his ancient greatsword through the helmet of a Welkalite Enforcer and killing the man instantly, spraying blood, bone fragments and the remnants of the helmet everywhere around it. His blade was slick with blood as the king looked at Caiellis, the potency of his piercing blue eyes enhanced by the amount of magic he was releasing.

"Caiellis. I need you to go to the eastern part of the fortress and help with the fighting there," the man commanded, pointing with his sword to a part of Fort Egetau where the Lucaelians had gained very little ground at all, the soldiers almost being pushed back outside the fortress. The boy instantly assessed the tactical situation there, concluding that they would be better off pulling back and then re-entering through an already established route through the walls instead of vainly fighting against the tide of Welkalites and their Summonings.

He said as much to his father, constantly endeavouring to keep his voice emotionless and detatched instead of full of frustration and fear from their earlier altercation, and the man glared at him with undisguised resentment.

"No. We will not be seen fleeing on this day. Go now to the eastern wing and push back into the fortress. I will join Guardian Oleic and attack the inner citadel, and finish this battle," Marik stated as Mirria left, the praetorian going to find some more enemies to kill and allies to help.

"It's not fleeing, dad. It is a tactical withdrawal so that we can preserve lives and the divisions still have an impact in the battle instead of just fighting until all the enemies have died and sustaining too many casualties in the process!" Caiellis half-argued, half-pleaded, but already knew that the words would have no effect on his stubborn father, especially not with that quality accentuated by the Summoning ritual and making him completely adamant.

Marik snorted, turning away from his son, "Ridiculous. All I am asking of you is to lead the soldiers there to victory so that they can play a part in the current battle. Now go."

Cai grabbed on to his burly arm, his fingers holding onto the armour before his dad could just stride away, and although if he really wanted to the man could have easily broken free, "It is not ridiculous! It will save lives, and they will have just as much impact in this battle, and many others! Why won't you just listen to me?!" The boy didn't want to admit it, especially not to his judging father, but he didn't think he had enough mana to be at the forefront of the troops he was going to aid – but he had enough for the strategy he was putting forward. Even without that, he would be advocating that course of action, as it was clearly the most logical, but dad was having none of it.

"It was not a suggestion," Marik replied evenly, determined not to give into the increasingly enticing temptation to backhand his son and send him flying as he knew that a) he didn't want to hurt the boy and b) knew that such an action would prevent Caiellis from fighting to his maximum ability, instead effortlessly shaking off his son's desperate grasp. Cai realised then that that was the end of the conversation, and nothing that he said or did would change that. He almost felt like stamping his foot on the ground impotently, which he had not done for many years, but knew acting like a child and having a tantrum would make his father even less inclined to listen to him.

"Yes, sir," he responded respectfully, reactivating the Gift of Orzhova and keeping a figurative eye on the pitiful amount of mana that he had left, and flying off in the direction of force. _Would a "Good luck," or a "I believe in you, my son," or even an "Ave Lux," been that hard for him? _Cai thought resentfully, before purging the thoughts from his mind in preparation for the coming fight.

The soldiers had only just gained a foothold in the fortress, and were being driven back through the wall by a pair of hulking and excessively muscled Sancturia giants wrapped in chains and with their fists replaced by spiked metal gauntlets that looked like elongated mace heads. Their faces were covered in black gladiators' masks, and Caiellis visualised what the giants would look like without their modifications by their Summoners, a pair of twins from the Order of Violence that led another charge with a large horde of shrieking gladiators.

The Lucaelians were hard pressed to defend, commanded by a captain that Caiellis didn't know or recognise battling desperately at the side of a loxodon formed from White and Green mana and holding a large emerald hammer that smashed apart some of the Welkalites, trumpeting proudly through its trunk as it did so, though Cai deduced that it was doing that more for the benefit of its allies rather than any pride it felt in the desperate engagement. Apart from that, and a few twinkling Lucaelian Wisps and Goldenglow moths, they were the only Sancturia creatures in the division, and the littlest Lucerna instantly knew that there was little chance of them prevailing over the Welkalite force.

However, there was one way the situation could be saved, a way which put Caiellis in a dilemma as he descended close to them: an organised retreat from the Welkalites outside of the fortress could be beneficial, as then they would have to choose beneath chasing them out or defending the rest of Fort Egetau – actually, Cai was pretty sure that he could provide a beacon with his Lucerna influence and mana for the artillery officers to strike that area, collapsing the walls behind them. That meant disobeying his father, which was something Caiellis did not want to do as he didn't know how the man would react – though it would definitely by in a negative manner.

_Wait, what am I thinking? I'm actually seriously choosing between saving lives and the clearly correct course of action and not being an obedient little prince and following daddy's commands to the letter? I will happily displease him if it means that more can live, so sorry, dad, but my plan is the one that will be enacted._

Caiellis infused his sword with almost all of his mana that was left, glad that the relatively low amount of it (or the fact that they were utterly engrossed in the violence) meant that the Welkalites hadn't yet detected him, as tenebrosity mixed with incandescence was channelled through his sword. Cai descended at a rapid rate in front of one of the mages controlling one of the giants, slicing his sword straight through the man as it drained the life from him and then leaping into the air as the giant dissipated with a furious roar.

He landed next to the other man, who spun around in shock as Caiellis blasted Black mana at him, the magic of darkness fuelled by his individual goals and independence and slicing into the mage. It was a technique that he had seen Orzhova use and as such had replicated it himself, conjuring up voidal steel that cut through the physical substance of the Welkalite. Before the others could retaliate, Caiellis was already gone, landing amidst the troops as they cried out in joy at a Lucerna appearing, the boy trying to hide the fact that he was panting and his limbs were on fire from the mana that he was drawing, resorting to siphoning off some of his own life (that could be regained at a later date) just so that he could have enough mana to stay awake and fight.

"Retreat through the walls! Now!" Caiellis shouted at the confused faces of the men, hoping that his voice brooked no dissent as the Welkalites began to close in on them again after the disruption caused by the murder of the mages.

"What is your command, my lord?" one of them asked, infuriating the boy even further.

"There's no time to explain! Just do it! I'll hold them off!" he yelled frantically, and the captain began shouting at his men to begin moving, the soldiers' eyes filled with equal amounts respect and terror at their young prince as the shadows coalesced around him.

Cai bit his lip as agony coursed through his fragile body as he was forced to go through it to have enough mana to activate his Lucerna beacon, which meant that the artillery commanders would definitely begin to fire on this area and soon make the wall collapse (hopefully killing as many Welkalites as possible). Caiellis was getting desperate now, turning to the onrushing enemies as more substantial darkness played around his thin form, as while the pacts provided him with more mana it was exclusively Black, and the last vestiges of his White had run out.

Then, he looked up in bewilderment, and panic mixed with adrenaline shuddered throughout his body. The flying thing was descending on his area, and it took him a second to recognise what it was: an airship, of a similar design to the one that had taken him and Alexander to Usnaan, but what was even more frightening was the fact that it had already dropped several spheres containing huge quantities of Red mana around him. Caiellis raised his hands as a shield of shadows formed to protect him, and one part of his mind coldly informed him what he feared: that it would not be enough.

Then, Cai's world exploded into flames.

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Welkalites: Blistering Dieflyn, Wildfire Cerberus, Flaring Flamekin, Lavacore Elemental, Bloodfray Giant

Mirria Chrysos: Sky Spirit

Tresha Ustria: Serra Avenger

Captain: Loxodon Smiter


	28. A Father's Duty

An explosion of pain was the first thing he felt, the boy's limbs on fire as he shot upwards, but a strong grip held him level and prevented him from injuring himself. Caiellis's eyes blearily opened, his head beginning to loll backwards again and his vision blurred and distorted. He could see the darkness of night swirling around him, brightened by orange and red flames that illuminated the ground in their wan light.

"Wha- … What?" he asked, simply, his mind simply not processing what was currently happening, before he shook his head to clear his vision and painful clarity erupted in his mind with the resurgence of his memories.

_Shit. Where I am now, then, if I was just in the middle of a fiery explosion? _It was then that the youngest Lucerna registered that he wasn't lying on the ground, he was in the air, and that realisation came with a burst of nausea that almost had the youngster retching violently before he managed to control himself – not even just lifted off the ground and carried, but fully airborne.

Now that his sight had become clearer, Cai could tell that the battle below him was still in full swing, with Welkalites and Lucaelians clashing and blood spilling onto the ground of Fort Egetau, but also that the forces of the Kingdom of Light were winning – to a gigantic extent, as was to be expected, because now the number and power of the troops was clearly showing and with the Summoning of Akroma the Lucaelians were inspired to try and achieve even greater glory in front of their master and king and make their families proud.

He quickly realised that he wasn't holding the Sword of Glass, but the chain coming off it that was attached to his wrist (the fact that the artefact weapon was almost weightless contributing a large amount to the practicality of the action), after nearly losing the precious weapon after reawakening from Aksua's dream realm, had it dangling on the end, not even creating a slight shift in weight as the light handle was the heaviest part.

Caiellis scanned the battlefield below him, pushing aside the burning stimulus still flared across his whole body but mostly his lower torso and legs, although mostly he could tell that he wasn't that damaged by the detonation. Maybe the shield of solid darkness he had created had lessened the impact of the explosion, it just pitching him into brief unconsciousness instead of dealing any significant damage, but he still hurt like he was inside of a fiery hell and couldn't yet move from the thing that was holding him – not that he would want to, as the grip was reassuring and protective.

The boy tried to crane his neck back, but to see what he wanted to – which was the place near to the walls where he had told the Lucaelian group to flee, and was immensely concerned for the men and women he could have caused the deaths of, he would have to twist further, but couldn't turn enough to see it, so instead focussed on something else that would be overall more important to the success of the battle. He was looking for Akroma, a task made harder because of the fact that he couldn't call upon any mana or sense much past rough spikes of White and Red magic in his magical sense, but couldn't find the Angel of Wrath.

Cai saw Iridis, the Seraph of the Sword, in combat with a flaming elemental crowned by horns of ash and spraying fire in every direction that the Daughter of Wrath was hard pressed to repel, but she ignored the flames and swept her shining blade into the creature, cutting it apart in a single elegant stroke as it exploded in ash and fire. He could see several Lucaelian captains with their own potent Summonings teaming up and crushing their Welkalite counterparts, and the boy watched impassively as a huge spirit giant covered in ragged golden cloths and with skin the colour of ghostly blue swatting apart the airship that had been the cause of Caiellis's current predicament. Aymer looked up at the airborne youngest prince, the giant of the man saluting to the potential heir and the Lucerna exclusive seraphim.

Even with all the scenes of violence below him, the littlest prince still couldn't identify and find the location of Akroma, and was about to shut his eyes and try and locate her through his returning mana sense (as the situation of the First Sisterhood angel would show him where the fighting was thickest as well as telling him where his father, who he had disobeyed, was likely to be), but then a sudden thought occurred to him, and instead of wasting the very little mana that was coming to him he looked up.

Cai was greeted by the perfect and unblemished face of the Angel of Wrath, as he had expected, the First Sisterhood's resolute and cold eyes fixed upon a location past Caiellis, which meant that she hadn't yet noticed the awakening of her young cargo – or hadn't deigned to notice him. The angel's milky white hands were gripping his legs underneath his knees and his chest, and although the contact should have hurt his burnt flesh instead Caiellis felt a slightly soothing but still stinging sensation, glittering particles of light repairing his wounds but not reducing the amount of pain he felt from them. That suited Akroma, who wouldn't care about his personal comfort but only about his continued existence, and Caiellis occasionally saw flashes of light as projectiles impacted upon a shield around the angel.

"Where..." he began, but his voice drifted off despite the fact that he wanted to speak further, and was still trying to. The youngster's throat felt extremely raw, and he coughed to try and clear it, which only ended up causing him more pain as he hacked violently.

"Do not worry, Caiellis. You will survive," a voice, infused with an angelic and divine resonance but utterly bereft of any emotion that would make the words seem more comforting, spoke, and Cai looked back up at the face of the angel, who continued to stare at what he assumed would be their destination, but couldn't turn enough to see it. He expected Akroma's voice to be tinted with annoyance at having to abandon her attacks on the corrupt and demon-consorting Welkalites and go to save an errant child just because he was the son of the king, or even to have a hint of hatred because of his role as the host of Akroma's hated sister, but there was nothing to her voice apart from the seraphic timbre that still managed to stir Cai's heart very slightly.

Truth be told, her was more than a little unnerved by being in such close proximity to the Angel of Wrath, as her utter coldness and detachment scared him despite it being something that he wanted at times to be able to emulate – his own angel, Orzhova, was nowhere near as frigid despite being portrayed as such by the people (but then again the Angel of the Black Sun had locked away her emotions whilst serving under Xarius), and Aurelia, his big brother's Summoning, could be quite emotional at times, thought not as much as mere mortals. The only time he had seen Akroma show feeling was when she had killed the thing that Aksua had become, and even then it was just hatred – not anger, not dislike nor sadness, just pure, unadulterated hatred.

"Where are we going?" the boy managed to ask, just as a flurry of glowing red boulders shattered apart on Akroma's shield and rained debris down below on the battlefield. He hurt, but worse than that was the feeling of failure that was starting to press up on him from all sides now that he had become fully aware of his surroundings and body – not only had he completely disobeyed his dad's direct commands, he had also failed in the course of action that he chose meaning that he had no evidence whatsoever to back it up with, unless the men had survived, but even so he had still gotten himself wounded and Marik would insist it was because he had chosen to follow his own plan.

Caiellis really hoped that the short amount of time between enacting his strategy and being blown up meant that Marik would have been too concerned about the part of the battle he was in to notice his son's disobedience, and instead only saw the explosion. However, his dad was a masterful strategist (not that he had been exhibiting any of that when planning this battle), and would have almost certainly noticed the soldiers beginning a retreat (_tactical withdrawal, _Caiellis corrected himself, as retreat made it sound like an act of cowardice instead of logic) just before the detonation, especially if the artillery commanders had bombarded the walls.

"We are heading towards King Marik," Akroma uttered dispassionately, "So that he can asses your condition and see if you are able to continue fighting or not, or if you will have to be placed out of the battlefield."

_Fantastic,_ Cai thought bitterly, as they headed towards the one person he wanted to avoid, as his father's fury would be momentous if he had discovered his youngest son's insubordination, but would probably wait to punish him after the battle which, judging by the state of the Welkalite forces who were being cut down on all areas of the battlefield and bombarded with holy light, wouldn't last much longer. It was embarrassing that instead of the only First Sisterhood angel helping with the combat and providing inspiration and marshal power to the Lucaelian army, she had to come and play nurse maid for the youngest prince, but then again the vast majority of the Lucaelian soldiers would probably selflessly agree with this deed, and would be happy that one of the Lucerna heirs would be saved.

"What happened?" he asked, and Akroma replied with, "You were caught by the explosion from one of the mana-bombs dropped by an airship."

_Thank you, Akroma,_ he thought in impotent irritation, but his sheer awe for the angel prevented him from replying sarcastically, not that the Angel of Wrath would care, so instead inquired, "How long ago was that?"

"Approximately five minutes and forty-eight seconds ago," the seraph answered precisely, vaguely shocking the boy in her arms, who decided to continue with his interrogation, making his voice more respectful because of the fact that he was in the presence of an exalted First Sisterhood angel (though then again he had never really felt the need to show overbearing deference to Orzhova, just polite respect, and though he treated Aurelia in a similar way to how he was now behaving towards Akroma, he reminded himself that Aurelia the Warleader had often told him not to treat her with such veneration (in Alex's words, the first time he had Summoned: "She doesn't bite.")), and so should be reverent, "Could you tell me what happened after that?"

"No," Akroma replied simply, coldly stating the words, which made Caiellis falter slightly, although at least the angel elaborated instead of just leaving an awkward silence to descend, "Marik wants to tell you himself when the battle is over."

_That can't be good,_ Caiellis thought, sitting up as a hollow feeling settled in the pit of his stomach, as well as frustration at his father's antics – he _deserved _to know what was happening, and keeping information from him was just going to annoy the boy further the longer it was hidden. His eyes met Akroma's pale grey irises as the angel looked impassively down at his movements, but then switched her gaze to be concentrated once again on their landing point.

He stifled a gasp of pain, though the only person that would have heard was Akroma and the Angel of Wrath had probably picked up on it anyway, as he tried to shift to a more upright position, but luckily the angel seemed aware of his plans and so shifted her grip to accommodate the boy, wrapping her thin (for her size) but incredibly strong arm around his waist instead and making Caiellis seem like he was four years old again, the fluted edges of her gauntlets digging uncomfortably into his bruised abdomen. He ignored the pain because this position allowed him to see better, as the angel's wings flapped slowly, buffeting the his messy brown hair around his head and making it go into his eyes until he brushed it away so that he could see again, wondering briefly if it needed cutting (though he liked it around that length so wouldn't make it short like his brother's hair).

A feeling of trepidation and fear warred with guilt in his mind as he saw the king decapitating a hulking brute of a gladiator with a flourish of his large greatsword, instantly turning around to stonily lock eyes with his angel (ignoring his son's glance, as Cai noted) and making his way back into the Lucaelian lines, the warriors surging forwards parting for the soft landing of the angel and giving their ruler and Akroma a wide and reverent birth.

He saw Mysos also breaking off from where he was finishing off a Welkalite foe, but when his champion glanced at Caiellis he instantly averted his gaze, the boy's exultant brown orbs immediately coloured in shame at not being at Cai's side when he was hurt. The boy wanted to tell the fifteen year old that this wasn't his fault in any way, but that would require shouting and it was something Cai wanted to avoid at this current moment.

"How is Caiellis?" Marik called to his angel, who replied with a curt: "Physically fine, as he has only sustained burn wounds that will heal within a few hours if exposed to White mana long enough because of the fact he managed to shield himself before the blast hit. There are no wounds that will be permanent."

Cai thought he might have detected a flash of relief in the man's otherwise cold gaze, but it was imperceptible enough that Caiellis could have just been imagining it. He knew that Marik didn't want him to be hurt because of the fact he was a Lucerna, but if the wounds weren't life-threatening then he wouldn't put it past his father not to care. The king then turned to look at his son, and the only emotion Cai could perceive in those inscrutable blue eyes was severe disappointment that made his breath catch in his throat and his heart sink.

The man slowly walked towards him, without addressing his son personally in any way, and examined Caiellis's wounds for himself, his strong and gauntleted hands clinically pulling up some of his clothing and prodding the burnt flesh. Cai knew that he did it without the intention to cause his youngest son pain, but it still did and he squirmed in Akroma's steely grip before consciously stopping himself as he thought it would look pathetic and emphasise how weak he was.

"Put him down, Akroma. I want to see if he can stand to assess whether or not he is suitable for further battle," Marik stated, and Cai instantly thought, _Why is he talking about me as if I'm not even here, like I'm some sort of test subject? Is it because I disobeyed him, and I'm not worthy of his attention? Or is it because he needs to be utterly focussed on the battle and not his worthless mess of a son? _

It never occurred to Caiellis that perhaps the reason for his father's actions was because of a diversion from the last possibility he had come up with: Marik did need to be utterly focussed on the battle, but maybe concentrating on his child wouldn't make him angry, but extremely worried and unable to properly focus with his youngest son having a close brush with death despite the lack of severity in his wounds. In fact, it was a combination of all three factors, but Cai didn't have long to ruminate on the thoughts in his mind before Akroma abruptly let go of him, not even easing him slowly onto the ground.

Cai stumbled, trying to regain his balance so that he could be a part of this final engagement in Fort Egetau and maybe redeem himself slightly in his father's eyes, but his legs refused to acknowledge his commands so instead he tumbled forwards, thrusting out his arms to stop his face planting into the hard stone, the thin limbs blossoming with a stinging pain and his hands scraping on the ground.

He noticed that while dad could have easily helped him and prevented his painful and jarring fall that hurt his arms, the man instead just stared, silently determining if Caiellis was able to fight or not, or if he was just putting on some sort of show. But really, what kind of father did nothing to help their children when they were in pain?

_One that wants them to learn how to walk the hard way,_ Cai thought caustically, as his father barked, "Stand up, Caiellis." It was the first time that Marik had directly spoken to him since he had been brought by Akroma, but it didn't make his son feel better in any way.

_Do you not think that I would have done already if I could?_ The boy was incredibly tempted to shout back, his tone full of anger, defiance and resentment, but instead shame and embarrassment overcame him when he noticed quite a few others – including Mysos, Drax and Lancalo – were watching, and he could see Uncle Tristram making his way over to where he was basically laid on the ground and Marik was glowering down at him. He tried to push off the ground, tried to move his legs round from underneath him so that he could stand up and help in the last part of the battle that was soon to unfold, but all he felt was pain – not just across his body, but in his mind as well, a pounding headache that pulsed in time to his other agony. The wounds may not be permanent, and he may recover in less than half a day's time, but they damned _hurt._

Cai looked back up at his father, grunting in pain and exasperation at trying to get himself to stand – he could tell that the members of his bodyguard and his champion were itching to come to his aid and let their wounded prince rest his insubstantial weight upon them, but none were willing to intervene without the express permission of their king, who was continuing to spear into his son with that calculating and judging gaze of his that made Cai able to fully empathise with his older brother in wanting to be alone when wounded.

However, he was sure that when Marik was with Alexander then the assessing orbs would be tinged with compassion and pride in his eldest son battling on against his wounds, whereas now the ice blue eyes were stony, full of disappointment and disdain. It was strange, Caiellis pondered, how his brother and father both had the exact same eye colours but seemed so different when he looked into them – nonetheless, he could remember his dad's eyes just as warm (well, maybe a bit less because of the fact he was a king) as his big brother's before the war.

He had seen this look before, and despite weathering anger, violence and distaste, it was this one that he hated the most – the gaze full of utter dissatisfaction in his youngest son – not anger, not annoyance or irritation, just pure disaffection in the exact same manner that he had been first greeted by the man in nine years.

"Try harder, and stand up, Caiellis," the man repeated again, making anger and frustration mixed with shame rush through Cai's mind, who wished that he could translate that into obeying his father's orders. It might of helped if Marik had inflected his voice with encouragement, urging his son to stand up for his sake and not for his dad's, but all Cai could see and hear was admonition. He felt pathetic, like this was exactly not how a Lucerna prince that could one day reign over the entire kingdom should act, so he tried again but with the same result as earlier.

Cai's expressive green orbs flicked up to his father, hoping that they didn't look too weak and that they weren't brimming with the tears of pain he could sense welling up in them, and then looked past him for a moment, seeing the saddened and pitying gazes of those stood a respectful distance away from his dad. The boy managed to get onto his knees, which he noted were scraped and bruised from his fall and probably the effects of the explosion earlier, but couldn't sit up as removing his arms from where they were locked with the ground would just end in him falling over again. He met with his father's eyes, though he ideally just wanted to hide himself from the condemning gaze, and silently pleaded with him.

It wasn't that he didn't want to help – in fact, Caiellis still thought that he could help by providing evidence that he had survived and aiding with the prosecution of the strategy – or even, at the very least helping with the consolidation and re-organisation of the soldiers after the battle – but he knew that he couldn't participate in any more fighting in the battle for Fort Egetau, though would have definitely recovered enough by tomorrow to fight in the upcoming siege of Usnaan.

Marik glowered for a short moment, before breaking off his stare and looking back up at his angel, then smartly turning around to Mysos, who bowed before dutifully running forwards at a gesture from the king.

"Mysos, son of Xathan. I apologise, but I require the use of Iridis to take Caiellis away from the battlefield," the man explained, his tone clipped but reasonable, making Cai frown – _why does he never speak to me in this way? If he did then we'd probably get a long quite a bit better. _His son instantly protested: "No, I think I should stay. I can still help."

Marik shot him a bemused and annoyed glance as if to say: "What could you possibly do, my pathetic and useless second son?", and then turned back to the fifteen year old, utterly ignoring Caiellis's protestations, who replied with, "Of course, my lord. Iridis, to my side."

The angel dutifully appeared, her black armour covered in rivulets of crimson blood, though none of it was her own, and instead of staying just aloft like Akroma she landed on the ground and knelt before the Angel of Wrath, crossing her sword over her breast as her expression filled with respect and admiration.

"My lady," she intoned, and the other angel nodded imperceptibly, responding with a simple, "Iridis. Follow King Marik's orders, my daughter."

Caiellis was very intrigued, but would have been more interested in a different situation – the relationship between the progeny of the sisterhoods and their progenitors was an incredibly fascinating one, as each of the First Sisterhood seemed to treat their daughters differently, although he didn't have many points of reference to base this on having obviously never been to the Sanctum Angelica in Sancturia which was originally confused with the afterlife before the First Angel dispelled that myth, because apparently both the material plane and Sancturia were separated from that unknown realm, but whether or not the First Sisterhood angels knew more than humans on the matter was currently not known.

At any rate, he had only observed two First Sisterhood angels meeting their daughters, the first being Alexander's Aurelia talking to Basandra, the Battle Seraph that blessed Hierarch Francis of Gol. The Warleader had been addressed with that title, and the Daughter of War seemed to have a respect for her "mother" (as none seemed to call the First Sisterhood angels that, although in his limited experience Orzhova had made a few references to Serra being their mother) derived from her battle and the two seemed quite close, whereas now Akroma appeared aloof and judging of her daughter and Iridis seemed immensely eager to please and full of adoration for the Angel of Wrath.

"Dad, please," Cai implored, hoping that his gaze conveyed his intention to stay on the battlefield, "I know that I'm incapable of further fighting in my present state – I can't even stand, but I can still help. I can still act as a point of inspiration for the soldiers, and I want to see this battle through to the end. Taking me away from the fortress will just demoralise the troops, and a Lucerna shouldn't have to be evacuated out. I know that I'm pathetic, and that you don't want me in your way, just please let me stay."

If Marik had been considering his proposal, it didn't show in his unreadable blue eyes, nor in his perfectly straight body posture, and Cai tried to squirm away as the Seraph of the Sword grasped onto his arms, but the angel's grip was like iron and he failed to do anything other than cause himself more inconvenience and pain.

"Take him back to the camp with the non-combatants and wounded," Marik ordered, "And then he can wait until I give the order for them to move and help to organise that."

_Would it hurt for him to actually talk directly to me? Is that an impossible task, or is he trying to show that he has no time for failures? Or is it because he is so angry at me that he can't countenance speaking to me because he will just explode in rage and doesn't want to do that in front of the troops? _Cai mused, and then remembered what Akroma had said earlier.

"What happened to the troops I was helping?" he asked, but Marik's expression didn't change and he began to walk towards his son. He briefly and sarcastically wondered if it would change if he spontaneously combusted right in front of the man, and concluded that either it wouldn't or he would break out in a huge grin and high-five Mysos. Iridis picked him up off the ground, though the novelty of being carried by an angel that wasn't his own was reduced because of the fact that Akroma had taken him from the scene of the explosion earlier.

Cai was honestly quite shocked that his dad would waste time sending the only First Sisterhood angel of the battlefield to save him, but then again just letting a Lucerna die before even the final battle of the war would be massively detrimental to the outcome of the war – he reminded himself that the only reason he was rescued was because of his Lucerna birthright, not due to any personal love from the king.

He almost let an extremely vexed and demanding "Well?" out, but repressed the exasperated response because of the fact it would probably just irk dad further and he might be coming close to tell him personally. For a fleeting moment, as the man came closer and leaned in, Caiellis allowed himself to believe the possibility that his dad was going to plant a kiss on his head or ruffle his hair affectionately, but soon dismissed that absurd notion as Marik's face came up beside his ear.

"I will speak with _you _later," he uttered, the low volume of the words doing nothing to diffuse their seriousness, and Cai swallowed nervously at the threat and disappointment present in the cold tone. He nodded, trying to look like he was graciously accepting any punishment that would come his way, but for some reason all he could feel was fear – his anger and defiance was currently gone, but there was no doubt in Caiellis's mind that he it would have a fiery resurgence later, when this talk took place. He felt frozen up, paralysed by the ice of his father's glare, and was sure that if the man hadn't been a Lucerna then his Summoning would have been a wintry Blue creature of ice or frost.

He didn't initially react as Iridis took off, flying away from the battlefield with many of the soldiers' eyes on her and her payload, deflating like a punctured balloon and sagging for a moment in her arms, before he ensured that he composed himself and looked impressive enough to inherit the throne one day – and he _would not_ give in to the temptation to cry, bawl his eyes out into her because of the fact that not only had be failed horribly, he had defied his father's – the king of the entire nation's – direct orders to do so.

The journey was silent, the atmosphere a tense mix of mournfulness and resentment, although Iridis seemed completely unfazed and quite frankly uninterested. She didn't look back when the boy gazed into her golden/hazel eyes, emulating Akroma in simply staring at her destination, and though her orbs were not as cold or unfeeling as the Angel of Wrath's the Seraph of the Sword was still quite impersonal.

"If I ordered you to go back, would you obey?" the prince asked after about thirty seconds of silence in which they had almost left the perimeter of the fortress, making it laughably easy just to turn around and once again ignore Marik's commands, but the angel shook her head, the action neither extremely quick nor indecisively slow, just an indomitable refusal that showed that she would not capitulate to any other demands other than her king's and the leader of the Daughters of Wrath. The boy let his gaze hover over the slowly receding fortress, as Iridis was going as fast as possible without damaging her wounded charge, who sighed sadly.

To think that in a single day, he had been focussed and serious when planning the attack on the army guarding Jeksaan, then exultant and happy about his victory against said army guarding Jeksaan, his emotions developing from that to sadness at what he had been forced to do and then relief when he had contacted Alexander and had his big brother reassure him. Then to contentment when meeting Tristram, which soon soured and devolved into a mixture of fear, defiance, sadness and anger which he felt now also. Caiellis thought that with the amount of emotional strain he had gone through the last eleven days (and before that, in fact, as that was when he had been cutting himself), he was going to explode (_not that I haven't done already_) and just hoped that his big brother wouldn't be the target of that. He was confident that he could restrain himself around Alex, not that the older boy would really care if he did shout and would try to comfort him anyway.

"Iridis. As a Lucerna, I demand that you take me back to the battlefield," Cai tried, though the words lacked any real conviction - that wasn't to say that he didn't have a drive to go and help instead of just leaving in failure and shame, but knew that the attempt had no chance of success. He decided to try a different tact, though whether or not it would work was a mystery to the boy, pleading, "Please, Iridis. I know that you probably hate me because of Orzhova, but just take me back. I need to be a part of this, and I need to discover the fate of the soldiers that I was commanding instead of just waiting for my dad to stop playing his stupid games and tell me."

Despite the deep emotion that was inflecting the words, the angel's face remained stoically fixed on the camp, and Cai wondered if he could take a gamble and start crying – it could help persuade the angel, who didn't seem quite as cold hearted as her progenitor, but would more likely just end up making him look more pitiful, childish and unsuited for any responsibilities. At least Akroma had indulged him with responses, but Iridis was probably scared that if she started to listen and reply then she might start getting persuaded. Then again, Cai couldn't recall the Seraph of the Sword ever speaking to him, so perhaps she was filled with such utter revulsion at Akroma's hated sister's host, and that Orzhova had dared to set foot in the material realm again.

Then a sudden, strange thought occurred to Caiellis – he could actually empathise with Iridis, as if angelic "families" worked in a similar manner to human ones then Orzhova was her "aunt", and Iridis clearly hated her but also feared her, and had never made any attempt to understand her motives whereas Orzhova's sisters would have originally understood more and maybe loved her, which was why her actions in Xarius's reign were more saddening than abhorrent to her equals.

In a way, Iridis's situation mirrored his own with Johnias, as although at one point he had looked up to his uncle (even going so far as to slightly prefer him to his colder father, but he had learned that Marik loved him far more than he did and just because Johnias showered him with gifts and praise didn't change that – not to say that he hadn't ever countenanced Johnias not loving him (which he now knew was completely true), it was just that his dad loved him with a deep and parental affection that he wished still existed now) he now utterly despised him, and had always put off his motivation as simply wanting to be on the throne instead of anything else.

Even just trying to think of what could have provoked him besides greed and ambition brought hatred surging to the forefront of his mind and a bitter taste to his mouth.

"Fine, if you aren't going to listen to me then I'll be quiet. But put it this way, if you don't take me back to the battle then you will spend longer away from it – I mean, what if Mysos dies whilst you are gone-"

"Mysos has the holy protection of my lady, Akroma," Iridis's steely and unsympathetic voice cut in, coloured slightly with irritation and anger, making Cai have to suppress a victorious smile at having provoked an emotional response from the angel, "No harm will come to him whilst She is there."

"Akroma can't protect everyone," Caiellis replied, "And she has to kill the Welkalites as well as that. Anyway, I'm sure she's more concerned about those with more importance in the army than the prince's champion."

"Aren't you supposed to be Mysos's friend?" the angel snapped furiously, and then shut her eyes and composed herself – only an angelic Summoner had the power to rile up an angel so much, and those of the Lucerna line seemed uniquely capable of that.

"Yes. And that is exactly why I want to help him, Iridis," Caiellis stated, his tone becoming stony and his eyes infused with an adamant determination, and feigned confidence that he didn't truly feel – but the Seraph of the Sword didn't need to know that, "That's why I am advising you to turn back. I don't want Mysos to get hurt, as whilst he may be one of the most protocol-obsessed teenagers I know I consider him a friend."

Iridis turned to him for a second, and looked as if she was actually considering his words, and then scowled for a split second before her beautiful features went back to the uncompromising resolve she had exhibited earlier. "I have my orders, Prince Caiellis, and they came from the lady herself. I am not about to go and disobey them because of the wants of a child, even if that child is a Lucerna."

_It was worth a try,_ Caiellis's dejected mind voice murmured, the mental words steeped in melancholy, and then he noticed that his mouth was open, and the words, "Just take me back!" had been shouted out of them, but with no response from the Second Sisterhood angel. They landed outside of the Ordo Medella tent, with the angel waiting until someone came out to take the prince before gently placing him on the ground, where he sank to his knees, and flew off.

"No! Let me go with you! I need to be a part of this!" Cai yelled at the uncaring angel, looking immensely deep inside of himself and conjuring up the Gift of Orzhova. A slender hand grabbed onto his thin shoulder, but he shook it off, ignoring the shout of "Prince Caiellis!"

His eyes misted up with defiant tears that also reflected the pain he was feeling, and the youngest Lucerna took off. Caiellis was absolutely determined that he would be there to oversee the destruction of the last guards of Fort Egetau, and _nothing _would stop him.

He flew about a metre off of the ground.

Then the stained glass wings shattered, and the boy yelped in surprise and pain as he was deposited roughly on the ground, his forward momentum making his wounded form tumble as he bit his lip, crimson blood trickling down his face as he landed about a metre or two away from where he took off, pain erupting across his whole body. The air was knocked out of him and he gasped in agony, his eyes misting up again. His clothes tore on the dust of the ground, which seeped into some of his more open wounds, but he gritted his teeth against the pain and tried to get up, with exactly the same success rate as before.

Cai wiped his eyes with his slender palm as he couldn't see past the tears, and then violently brushed his bangs out of his face when they whipped into it in the wind that suddenly sprung up. He wanted to try again, but he was still laid down and couldn't move, due to both exhaustion and pain, so instead resorted to defeatedly burying his face in the ground and crying the tears of frustration and misery that he had held in since meeting his dad again.

A soothing voice, rich and melodic, then broke into his sorrow, and said, "I think we'd better get you inside, Prince Caiellis, and onto a bed. You're wounds look pretty awful, and that fall must have hurt a lot, but I'm sure I can see to them."

A pair of slender hands grasped gently onto him, and for a moment Cai's exhausted and pained mind thought it was his mother resurrected, before the pragmatic and ration part of it contemptuously silenced its naïve and childish partner, telling it that Emili was dead and nothing would ever change that. He tried to pull away, but couldn't move at all, and a face appeared in his vision, one that he recognised but one that took a while for his tired mind to identify.

"Choirmaster Esmelde," he murmured quietly, though the Ordo Medella operative seemed not to have heard. She shifted him up into her arms, though the way she did it made it seem like she had been expecting something significantly heavier, confirmed by, "Aww, Prince Cai – do you mind if I call you Prince Cai? – you're so light! You really should eat more."

Cai mumbled something indecipherable in response, so much so that even he had no idea as to what he had just said, but the woman just laughed, "I bet that Prince Alex tells you that every day, doesn't he? Anyway, I'm going to take you inside, fix your wounds, and then you can go to your personal tent, ok?"

_I'm guessing that question was rhetorical,_ Cai though when he detected himself being carried towards the tent without his consent, although if he had been any condition to speak then he would have vehemently argued that he go back and help instead of just remaining a failure, but now more than ever because of his hard landing he needed to rest and recover – especially if he wanted to fight in the siege of Usnaan. No, that wasn't the correct terminology – Cai never _wanted _to fight, but he was expected to as a Lucerna, and he _wanted _to appear like a good one, for the people if not for himself.

Normally the woman's patronising tone would have vaguely irritated him, but right now he didn't really care and his eyes closed. He reopened them quickly, determined to at least stay awake so that he could be healed faster – besides he hated people doing things to him whilst he was asleep – but within less than a second his eyelids had already began to droop sleepily.

"Shh, just go to sleep Prince Cai. You'll be as good as new in the morning to meet your brother and fight in Usnaan," Esmelde assured him, and whilst he wanted to stay awake the possibility of sleep became increasingly more and more enticing the longer he stayed conscious, although he knew that he wouldn't get much rest – well, he would get physical respite unless he woke up, but knew that if he didn't go and meet Orzhova (and the angel would want him to sleep despite being fully aware of what happened when he did so) then he would be assaulted by his dark dreams.

"Shhh. It's ok now. You should just go to sleep, Caiellis," the Choirmaster soothed, and Cai assumed he must have been making some sort of noise as he felt warm golden light – but it wasn't an obtrusive glow – wash over him, meaning that they must have entered the tent. Cai's eyes closed again, and his head drooped, so he gave in and let the nightmares take him.

.*.*.*.

With his son being taken away from him in Iridis's arms, Marik found his frustration and anger slowly dissolving away from him – _no, not dissolving. More like receding until I see him again, which will probably be after this battle. Actually, if he's asleep (which is more than likely considering his exhaustion and the wounds he has sustained) I should probably leave him that way, as he needs to recover if he's going to fight tomorrow, so that means I will be speaking to him about the fate of the division I told him to help then. I hope I wasn't too harsh on him, but then again I always accidentally go overboard with him, __and I probably should have at least asked him how he felt instead of just being cold__._

_No, that's not true, _another, harsher part of his mind interjected, _Caiellis just takes everything personally, which means I can never criticise him whereas he's free to just do it whenever he wants. I needed to be harsh on him, as despite my earlier talk he seems to __still be in the mindset that orders coming from me can be interpreted in any way he wants, which is not acceptable in any way. Why can't he just be more like Alexander? _He_ never questions, and if he does it is always a legitimate inquiry instead of a thinly veiled accusation. _

_Well, at least he seemed to understand that he had made a mistake, and the way that he wanted to rejoin the battle despite his wounds was admirable, but then again if I'd have ordered him to go back into the fight he would probably have refused and argued against that instead. Or perhaps not. I don't know, but I know for a fact that he definitely needed to recover and be healed. The wounds may not be permanent, but they looked like they hurt. My poor baby boy, I've dragged him into more pain again. Maybe he should actually listen to me next time then._

Marik's mental voice seemed to be having an argument with itself, periodically switching between disappointed and harsh king with the more loving father that he needed to lock away in these moments where he had to play as the former – besides, when he had tried to be a father after Alexander's wounding and chastise his youngest son before allowing him to return to his eldest's side, it just made him more angry.

_At any rate, the problem is presently with him, not me, but my methods evidently need working on. I've clearly been too lenient in not dolling out punishment for insubordination and failure, as while I try to act harsh I've definitely been noticeably lax on giving him penalties for rudeness and disrespect. My father would have beaten me black and blue for the way Caiellis is currently treating me, and while I certainly don't approve of that maybe I do need to be harsher. _

_I thought that by sending him away to Scientia Mos, he'd become more mature, instead of regressing more into a petulant child. No, that's not fair. He has matured and become more independent, but instead of that making him value me more it seems to have made Caiellis even less inclined to listen to what I have to say. Why won't he just listen to me? Is it really that hard? Anyway, I've been too soft. There is going to have to be disciplining for showing disrespect and derision to his father. Even from his birth, Emili had always been better with our youngest. What do you think I should do?_

_Enough of that. She's dead, Marik. She can't answer your questions. Meanwhile, the living still need your leadership, and you can continue to cherish the memory of her as much as you want. I've clearly not been able to have enough influence on my boy because of his limited experience with me, so it starts now. When you stop being unnecessarily angry with him, anyway. No, stop thinking like that. If you start believing that you need to change, it means that the boy has already won._

_I think that one of the main problems is the amount of power I've given him – at his age, the largest force I had commanded was a squad of elite praetorians (although Johnias was allowed to take command of one of the medium sized armies, showing just how much my father favoured him over me) which didn't relate to leading whatsoever, as they would follow my commands to the letter whereas normal soldiers make mistakes. The fact that I've allowed him to lead an entire legion of over ten thousand soldiers without instructing him myself has made him think that my opinion is worthless, but the reality still is that the two battles he has won – and only one with the legion – were relatively easy ones. _

_There is no doubt in my mind that Caiellis is an exceptional general (albeit a needlessly patient and methodical one), but he has yet to be truly tested and still needs to listen to his elders – including myself. And from what I have seen from the theoretical practice I've done with him, I think that Alexander could be a general that fits more to my style of warfare, not to slight Caiellis's methods in any way, they just currently aren't suitable. Though I only wish he'd understand that._

Marik silenced the multifarious replicas of his voice debating in his head, purging them from his thoughts until the only one that was left was the one utterly focussed on the prosecution of warfare. He turned to look down at the fifteen year old Mysos in front of him, who definitely looked like a thinner and younger version of his own father, Xathan, and Marik's stalwart comrade in conflict. However, the boy had certainly inherited the brown eyes of his mother, and averted his gaze when he saw the holy king gazing silently at him. He wondered if Mysos and Caiellis were getting on well, as whilst normally he would have objected to making a fifteen year old a champion he knew from experience that his sons would be better off with advisers around their age, and he had fought against the only son of the Cassida Principia Guardian before instating him in the role so knew him to be suitable.

"Come then, Mysos. Let us rejoin the battle," Marik ordered, wondering how proud the bellicose and boisterous Light-bearer was of his teenage son, although he could ask the man himself when he arrived with one of his two daughters tomorrow, and with his own eldest son who he dearly hoped had recovered well and looked forward to seeing. The boy nodded dutifully and waited for the king to pass before running at his side a reasonable distance away, though Marik assumed he was just trying to show respect and knew that Mysos was in awe of him, just like when they had first spoken and he had tried to impress the seriousness of his new role upon the lad.

"How has your time as Caiellis's champion been going?" he asked, ensuring that his voice was a mixture between nonchalance and a simple curiosity to know how the boy felt, an inquiry about his youngest son's well-being and a kingly command that Mysos would have to answer – anyway, he didn't want to frighten the teenager, and just wanted to talk about how his son was taking to the idea of the advisers that he implemented with his own child at an age far younger than what Garius had done for him and Johnias, although Alexander was the same age now as they were then.

"I think it is going quite well, my lord," Mysos answered, his voice caught between stiff obedience and a kind of causality that was forced, as if he was actively trying to put himself at ease in the presence of his king and not seem awed – that was probably something that Caiellis had caused, as Marik's youngest seemed to dislike his royal titles and prefer that his subordinates addressed him by his name (or the shortened, nickname version of it that a four year old Alexander had invented when he first told the boy of his new younger sibling's name), one of the things that Marik had once done himself when he had been younger and more stupid.

He realised now that there always had to be some sort of barrier between the Lucernas and the population of Lucael, otherwise the system that had been in place over a millennium would falter and break down. But at the present moment, he allowed Caiellis that indulgence, knowing that the boy was intelligent and would soon become aware that there was no point in his present actions (well, those ones anyway) and if he tried to advise the thirteen year old then he would rail against it or ignore him, as those options seemed to be the current favourites in the past five days.

However, Mysos seemed indecisive, and hesitant, though Marik couldn't tell whether that was because he wasn't telling the entire truth, wasn't certain that he knew that entire truth himself, or was just apprehensive of screwing up or freezing in front of the holy monarch of the entire nation, so the man then said, "Be at ease, lad. I'm not judging you, so just tell me the truth. I'm not still testing you, or assessing your suitability for the role, as I'm already certain of the fact that you are, I only want to know your opinion on it so that I can see if I am making the right decisions for my son, and the son of one of my greatest friends. You are an exceptional youth, Mysos, and your family will be immensely proud of you because of this – you should be proud of yourself also, as in the history of Lucael only one other around your age has become the champion of a Lucerna, and that is Leodred Montlea, champion of Alexander, my other son."

The words evidently had their intended effect, as though Mysos still seemed relatively wary of making mistakes in front of the man that he had been taught (though not by his father) was akin to a divine being watching over the Kingdom of Light and leading it to victory, his posture visibly stiffened, and he held himself higher with pride instead of being bowed and submissive, although the boy was still respectful. He liked Mysos, feeling like he was an exemplar of a loyal adviser and servant that may make a name for himself in the future, although apparently he did not have the same strategic penchant as his two older sisters. "So, I'll ask you again: how has your time as champion been going? What does my son think of you?"

Mysos's eyes clouded over in consternation, and he mumbled something that would have been an acceptable level of speech had the two been a quiet room, but was otherwise muffled by the din of the battle, "Speak up, lad, I can't hear you from over here. Angels, if only your father was this quiet sometimes."

The boy grinned, more at ease, before his expression went back to the hesitant and uncertain one of before, "Apologies, my king. Personally, I think it is going well, but... It's just … I'm not entirely sure what Lord Caiellis thinks of me. I mean no offence to your son, but he is definitely more … reserved than other people, no slights intended my lord."

"It's alright, Mysos, I know that you are not trying to insult Caiellis. And I agree with you, my son has a tendency to conceal his opinions and thoughts (_unless he is shouting them in my face_) instead of sharing them with others. He has almost certainly inherited that from myself, however, so it is nothing to worry about," Marik assured him, although Mysos's admittance had confirmed one of his fears about assigning Caiellis a champion and logistical aide, that his antisocial son would barely give them any duties and do most things himself and not actually use them for advice on anything. He had done similar when childishly railing against his father allocating subordinates (though he had been four years older than his youngest son was now, so had less of an excuse for it), until Emili had insisted that he stopped ignoring her and Carlis and refused to stop pestering him unless he gave them something to do, which ended in him finding the most menial and banal tasks he could come up with and dumping a huge pile of them on his future wife's desk. If only they had known then how much they would come to love each other...

Marik shook his head, though made sure the gesture was hidden enough so that the son of Xathan would not notice, just as Iridis clanged down beside her Summoner, her eyes instantly going towards Akroma who had been driving off some of the fleeing Welkalite soldiers.

"I trust Caiellis was received well?" Marik asked, and for a moment the angel looked at him strangely, before her gaze became neutral again and she gave a simple, "Yes, Lucerna king."

"Excellent," he replied, noticing how Mysos winced with sympathy and shame at the mention of his lord, probably thinking that he should have been there to aid Caiellis instead of allowing the boy to get hurt, but then again Caiellis did need to learn to take care of himself (as opposed to just relying on his older brother to protect him). Marik pushed the thoughts of his youngest son from his mind, knowing from past experience that thinking of his children in warfare distracted him immensely – when in the civil war, it got to the point where Johnias had almost won the war within a few battles because of the fact he couldn't concentrate with his mind constantly on his refugee sons, and his dead wife but that was another matter entirely, what he had lost instead of what he had to save.

He could (and was planning to) speak to Caiellis the next time he was awake and teach him the error of his ways, but right now he still had a battle to win.

.*.*.*.

_Day Twelve_

.*.*.*.

Caiellis awoke, a moment of confusion and terror eclipsing all other thoughts as he was dragged out of the repeated (but no less terrifying and frightening) nightmares of his mother's death and other scary occurrences in his life blended together in a haunting, horrific and violent carnival of dreams. Then he remembered where he was, and repressed the scream that had almost burst out of his lips, knowing that it would be embarrassing for a Lucerna to be seen acting in such a manner.

He shifted in his medical bed, wanting to go back to sleep, and then noticed that what he was laying in wasn't a medical bed at all, as he had assumed, but in fact his royal mattress, just placed with a different orientation to before. That meant that the army had got up and moved to near Usnaan (but obviously not close enough to be attacked before the rest of the army met up with them) and Cai rubbed his eyes blearily, figuring that he should check his watch and then decide if sleep was the preferable action to take (despite it being the one he wanted to). Nine o'clock. Sigh. He should probably be getting up.

Caiellis's eyes flicked from his watch, which he was just strapping over his thin forearm (he found it slightly humiliating that he had to make it go to the tightest setting, something designed for a child much younger than his age of thirteen), to a bowl of appetising looking fruit, bread and cheese that must have come from the supplies made in the photo-refectories.

Whoever had given him the food clearly knew him well, and also knew that he liked light dishes to start the day off with (instead of a hearty breakfast that would just make him feel full or sick and completely put him off the notion of lunch, or even dinner, like what his brother, father, Uncle Tristram and probably most soldiers in the kingdom preferred), and at the moment he was thinking of his Uncles as the ones who had done so, so he slowly ate that and tried to think about what he would say to his dad when they inevitably spoke.

He didn't know if he should apologise, as maybe then he would appear weak and fickle, but instantly defying the man from the start would set him off, which in turn would incense himself as well – so ideally that was something to be avoided. He still supported his strategy (both for the whole battle and the one he had tried to enact with the unknown soldiers), as the Welkalite airship would have probably blown them up anyway (though perhaps with the combined force of the mages running through him he could have acted as a conduit for a more powerful shield) and just because he got wounded and didn't currently have any evidence for the fact that his plan was superior didn't mean that it wasn't – had the airship not appeared, then the soldiers would have survived (_perhaps they still did_) and would have been able to help, instead of being slaughtered with him to the last man.

Caiellis resolved to show some of the remorse he felt, and admit that he made a mistake, but still maintain that had no anomalies appeared then his strategy was better (though he wouldn't try to force that onto his stubborn parent). He was, however, annoyed at the games Marik was playing with him, what with ignoring him and then refusing to tell him about the fate of the soldiers he had been going to help. He understood that his father was trying to get him to think about what he could have done better, but angels damn it he was doing it in an infuriating manner – but his reticence to tell his youngest son didn't bode way for the poor legionaries.

He might mention that to his dad, but then the man would get annoyed at him for doing so, refusing to accept parenting advice from those he was supposed to be parenting (_fantastic job of that he's done so far_), so should probably just keep silent.

When he had finished his small meal, the smallest Lucerna shucked off the Medella patient garments that he had been wearing and were far too big for him (as they were designed for soldiers, as in fully grown, tall and muscular adults), blushing profusely when he realised that the undergarments he had been wearing at the time of the explosion had been taken off and replaced with cleaner ones, though the one he thought had done it – Choirmaster Esmelde – certainly wouldn't be interested in pubescent boys, and had probably seen much worse in her time. He traced his fingers over his rapidly healing wounds, realising that over the course of the night and day his entire mana pool had almost been regenerated, which had almost surely aided in his recovery, and the fact that the wounds had been painful but superficial – the scars that he had inflicted himself were taking much longer to heal and stop reminding him of what he had felt forced to do because of the pressure, though at least he had vented his frustration upon himself instead of someone else (_cough cough_). He examined the wounds in the small mirror next to his bed, glad that they didn't look too bad.

That was the deal with Lucernas, and other beings with a naturally high level of repairing mana (mostly White or Green, and sometimes Black in its own twisted way), the fact that they healed extremely quickly unless they had sustained awful damage meant that when they did so everyone was shocked – like what had happened to Alexander, as his brother's mana levels were consistently low as his body couldn't provide enough energy to generate more without leaving him to die, although the production of mana would in turn heal him. That was also why when the Lucerna got over their mortal wounds, they healed at an incredible rate afterwards, and so could be active when others would still be bed-ridden (or dead).

Cai never really felt comfortable without clothing on, for some reason – it wasn't as if he was _that _embarrassed – so quickly made his way almost painlessly over to the suitcase in the corner of his tent and selected a suitable outfit for the day, of a similar design to the one before but with darker colours, whereas his brother seemed to like short-sleeved shirts and vests, as if there was ever any reason to wear things like that in the frigid cold of Lucael. He sensed a presence coming towards his tent, and as he hadn't finished getting ready yet he yelled a "Not yet!"

Much to his chagrin (though then again the one who was entering had seen him naked before and he had at least managed to get his socks and pants on), the person ignored him and marched into his tent, and Cai rolled his eyes and repressed a scowl at his father's characteristically blunt entrance, silencing the sarcastic mutter that almost slipped from his lips and would have ruined the meeting before it even started. However, the man just stood in the doorway silently, evidently waiting for Caiellis to finish, and the boy's cheeks began to become slightly tinged with scarlet when he wrestled the not normally awkward shirt past his head and onto the body, progressing into an incinerating blush when it took about a minute and his father was stood there watching him struggle.

He finally got the shirt on, and then could put on his jacket whilst talking to dad, who was gazing at him intently, though his eyes were still inscrutable and belied none of his inner thoughts. Cai thought that the most logical explanation was that Marik had probably been assessing the state of his wounds and maybe looking at the musculature of his youngest son, judging how thin he was, and immediately had to stop himself from snapping because of how awkward the atmosphere inside of the tent had become, knowing that that was just his irritation at looking stupid in front of an already disappointed parent and king.

"Good morning, sir," he offered, trying to sound respectful and not in the mood for an argument (which in itself was only half true), and the king gestured towards the bed, motioning his son to sit down on it. Cai obeyed, already knowing that they were in for a long and emotionally straining conversation.

Marik found the way his son sat interesting, and wondered if Caiellis was doing it purposefully or if it was just an accident – had it been someone else, then he would have assumed it was the latter, but he knew how intelligent his youngest son was (something he would have been hugely proud of if his intellect directly correlated with his maturity, and it didn't mean that he would incessantly question and disobey every five seconds). The boy had shifted up the bed to leave room for someone else to sit down, but both knew that the limited amount of space was insufficient for the bulky king (though Marik wasn't yet in his armour, feeling that it was unnecessary at this point). There was no doubt in his mind that Caiellis would move up if he chose to sit down, but it was if he was trying to say that he wasn't going to simply invite Marik in and that the man had to make an effort himself – not that he wasn't. Or he was over-analysing it, and was getting annoyed at something purely coincidental.

"Good morning, my son," Marik replied, not deigning to sit down and electing to instead stay towering over the boy despite being aware of how long his conversation was likely to last, "I assume you know what I have come to talk about?"

Caiellis nodded glumly, willing to let his dad have the first words in the talk and then responding to the points raised instead of interrupting him, and instead of letting his skinny legs dangle over the side of the bed he pulled them up and wrapped his arms around them, though not to the extent he would look depressed or weak. His father's words were still stony, but they now sounded like an accusation – _as anticipated _\- "Of course you do. Your clear disregard for the plan I explicitly told you to follow has not gone unnoticed, Caiellis, nor has your repeated defiance up to this point. Quite clearly my methods of punishing haven't been working-"

"What, like trying to crush my already damaged arm?" Cai cut in despite himself, his voice soft and melancholic, but it was the fact that he interjected without his father's express permission and that Marik stopped talking, his mouth still hanging open like it was the most shocking thing in the world that his youngest son would dare to interrupt him, that made it more dramatic, and Caiellis had to suppress a smirk at that – as his dad had grown silent, a guilty tint making its way into his piercing blue eyes.

He slowly, savouring his time at the head of the conversation, pulled down the sleeve of his left arm, gently massaging the hand shaped bruise that was still there – apparently the enhanced healing process undergone by the descendants of Matalis didn't apply to bruising, and the mark still hurt when he touched it, "Because I can assure you that trying to break my army didn't make me any more inclined to obey your orders, just more frightened of you instead. So personally I think you'd be better off getting on with the conversation and telling me about the fate of the soldiers you sent to help me. We can discuss punishments later."

Marik didn't moved for a small moment, his mouth gaping open, utterly stumped at the sudden reversal of dominance, but soon brought himself under control, determined that Caiellis would not get the better of him again – besides, the boy's only trump card, the fact that Marik had inadvertently lashed out and ended up hurting him, had been played, which meant he had complete control of the father/son talk now – as it should be.

_Why does he never simply accept my authority so that we can get on with it? He makes it significantly harder for the both of us._ "Watch your tone, young man. But I agree; informing you about what happened to those troops was one of the main reasons why I came in here."

Caiellis nodded, appearing eager and obedient now that he had shut up his father, and it amazed the man how quickly the boy could switch from challenging and questioning to dutiful and keen, seamlessly blending between the two, although hopefully what Marik was doing would firmly push him onto the side of the latter, "None of the soldiers were claimed in the explosion that hurt you because of the shield you created."

Though the words were said severely, Cai's heart soared for a second, and his relief was evident in his expression and posture, and Marik almost snorted at how young his son looked there, exactly like when he had watched his sons and his wife going to "check for sunlight" in the mornings of the happiest days of his life. "Don't rush to conclusions, Caiellis. I haven't told you what happened afterwards yet."

_Feel free to any time today, I'll be ready,_ Cai thought as his relief was instantly crushed into the dirt, and although he tried not to he was sure that his shoulders had visibly slumped and slight dejection would have trickled past the cracks in the barriers of coldness in his expressive green eyes that made him look too young and were a constant reminder to others of his emotions. He didn't bother to interrupt or urge his father to be faster this time, knowing that he would deliver the news in the fashion that he deemed the most suitable to try and impress a specific message onto his youngest son.

"After you were knocked unconscious by the explosion and the few mages in the division I had sent you to help had driven off the airship, the Welkalites, seeing a Lucerna prince – as that was what you obviously were, as there was no way a thirteen year old boy would be on the battlefield otherwise – tried to take the chance to kill you and swarmed to the attack," Marik explained, his voice as unyielding and unsympathetic as a wall of cold rock crushing Caiellis from all sides, who knew what would be coming next and was trying to brace himself for the worst news, "The soldiers, being loyal, and dutiful Lucaelians, formed a defensive cordon around your downed form, with the wall closed off behind them due to the tactical strike you ordered and therefore blocked in, and suffered casualties that left them reduced to less than ten percent of their original number before Akroma arrived to send the Welkalites back."

Cai rocked back as if slapped, and although one part of his mind, the logical, analytical and utterly cold voice, said, _there would be less of them left if the airship hadn't appeared and I had just obeyed my father's original plan, _it was soon drowned out by the wave of guilt and sadness that threatened to take physical form and pour out of his eyes, though at least he controlled himself in that respect.

_It's my fault … If I'd have just been stronger … been more confident in taking Black pacts despite the damage that it does … then more would have survived. I outlasted an explosion that should have killed me, so if I had just taken more mana in exchange for some of my life – which could have been repaired later – then I could have stayed conscious as well, and protected the soldiers. Angels above … what have I done? I'm so pathetic. Orzhova warned me about this … but I didn't listen. And now, instead of myself, others had to pay the price. Just like what always happens …_

Caiellis was so locked up in his own misery of self-loathing, blame and sorrow that he didn't notice the fact that his dad had got on the bed with him, though didn't move his youngest son and just perched on the space that was almost enough to accommodate him. The boy was instinctively rubbing his eyes and tightening his grip on his knees, huddling into a foetal ball as his mind processed the fateful information.

"I know that you had low mana – but that is no excuse for disobedience, nor failure. What in the forbidden name of the abyss were you thinking?" Marik demanded, though he didn't shout and kept his voice just slightly raised, as the content of his earlier words had affected Caiellis more than he thought, and he briefly wondered how many times in the years after Emili's deaths his more fragile son had assumed a similar position. He did want to frighten Caiellis and teach him the consequences of failure, not because he enjoyed watching his baby boy wallowing in self-recrimination and contrition, but because the lad needed to learn that all of his decisions would have ramifications, and that insubordination was not tolerated within Lucael for good reason, that his current personal dislike with Marik gave him no lease to put others at risk, or ignore commands.

"I specifically told you that the plan you had put forward was not to be followed, and when I said that I meant that it was _not to be followed! _Why do you think that my commands simply do not apply to you? Is it because you are a Lucerna? Is it because you are my son, and a father's advice is never correct – especially when the recipient is around your age?" Marik questioned, but his son clearly wasn't listening to him, and had his head buried in his thin knees and arms. The boy was sniffling softly, and the king could easily tell that tears would be streaming down his gaunt and pale cheeks, "Listen to me, dammit! You can cry later, but right now I want you to realise the cost of failure and disobedience!"

The man was getting more and more annoyed, and the fact that he had started yelling roused Caiellis from his sorrowful reverie, the boy's face emerging from his knees, the wide green orbs so damn reminiscent of Emili's eyes puffy and red with tears, and Marik immediately felt sorry and apologetic for snapping and losing control so quickly. To help rectify that, he shifted up the bed, gently moving his weightless son further down so that he could sit fully on the mattress, bringing his other arm round and wrapping it around Caiellis's painfully thin shoulders.

Instead of comforting the boy, which had been Marik's intention (although not to the point where it was no longer clear that he was severely disappointed and furious with the lad), Caiellis's distracted and sullen features instantaneously contorted in rage, like the emotions of guilt and loathing for himself were volatile and unstable concoctions, with the contact from his father the spark that ignited them in a rush of flames and anger.

He exploded in frustrated rage, his voice almost a scream of anger, "Don't you _dare _blame this on me! Don't you _dare_!" the youngest Lucerna shot upright in the bed, fiery tears of defiance flicking from his eyes at the sudden movement, and Marik flinched back off the bed, standing up and backing away, at first thinking that he had hurt the still-healing kid, and was lost for words as his brain took a long moment to process the boy's words, and the sudden confrontational eruption that he thought he had quelled with his earlier speech.

"If you had listened to me for once, none of those soldiers would have died in the first place! If we had just been patient, then the number casualties that were suffered would be significantly reduced! You asked me earlier why you found it hard to accept your commands, so now I'm asking you why you are incapable of seeing a needlessly reckless and dangerous plan when it its right in front of your damn eyes!" the boy yelled, capitalising on the shock his former arguments created in that way that he always did to unleash another barrage of accusations – Marik briefly wondered why he did that, but supposed that because everyone the boy interacted with was older than himself and because he hadn't spent long being royalty meant that whenever he argued, he had to fit as many of his points into the short space of time he was allowed before his elders (most likely his older brother) silenced him with their louder words.

It was oddly redolent of their argument after Alexander's near death at the hands of the last vampire, but this time Marik refused to just slump and give into the boy's bombardment of charges that he should not have to deal with as the superior in the relationship, as when he had done it last time he had taken the pounding of his youngest son's harsh and angry words until he himself exploded with a rage much more frightening than the thirteen year old's.

"Now watch your tone with me, young man, and do not speak to me in that manner again unless you want to be hit," the man replied coldly, hoping that the fact that he forced every syllable to be dripping with the willingness to enact that threat and rebuffed his son's anger instead of stoking the fire further by responding to it with his own would silence Caiellis's anger, but no matter what he did it seemed that Caiellis would not stop shouting at him – had Marik been less angry himself, then he would have taken the time to wonder why Caiellis always seemed so angry around his father when he never was otherwise, but right now was only thinking about the present. He tried to keep his body posture unyielding and resolute, actively preventing himself from shaking with rage at his son's disrespectful and downright insulting tone.

"Hit me if you want then, I'm not scared by you, and the threat of violence isn't going to silence me! You've already hurt me more than enough, but this isn't about me, it's about you refusing to use your brain and realise that the strategies you are putting forward are risking far too many lives when there is a clear, and better alternative!" the boy snarled, his green eyes blazing with defiance, and Marik felt his own anger beginning to break through his barriers. He diverted some mind power to stop it, but a voice in his mind muttered, _give in to the rage. Caiellis deserves it, he's been provoking you ever since his force came to meet with yours yesterday. And maybe if you are angry enough he will stop questioning you and know that what you have to say is right. Not giving into his game is clearly not working, but maybe __winning – no, completely crushing him – at it will shut him up._

"And what, do you think I should be following your leisurely strategy?! War isn't a game, Caiellis, and the longer we wait the more people's lives are at stake – both in Lucael from the threat of the abyss, and in Welkas from the threat of demons! Or can you not see that clear reasoning behind my actions!" Marik bellowed, striding closer to the bed and towering over his son, who shouted back: "Just because you have a reason for your ideas doesn't make them any less stupid! I know that war isn't a game, and by extension soldiers aren't only game pieces that you can simply throw into brutal combats because of your desire for speed! They are people, with lives, families, hopes and dreams that you are destroying with your impatient and thoughtless approach to warfare!"

"The soldiers of Lucael knew about the risks of warfare when they signed up! Do not think that I don't care about the lives I cannot save, but as the king of Lucael I have to think of the bigger picture, unlike you it seems! You are a thirteen year old boy, Caiellis, and you _should not _be questioning my decisions!" the king shouted, leaning towards his son's face as the boy's rose to meet him, their blazing eyes locked in an unblinking battle for supremacy, and Cai's face screwed up in aversion as he responded, "What has my age got to do with the fact that you can't accept that this time, I am right?!"

"Because you are just a child!" Marik roared, his voice getting progressively louder, but if he thought that Caiellis wasn't going to rise to meet that then he would be severely mistaken, and the youngster took a deep breath before shouting himself, aware that his smaller lungs meant that he wouldn't be able to make as loud a noise, "And?! My youth has absolutely no relevance to the merits of my strategy! Why can't you see that?! Why can't you see past my age and the fact that I am your unwanted second son and seriously consider my plan for a second, instead of just assuming it is awful because of the fact that I'm still a teenager!"

"And only just a teenager, at that! Why do you think, then, that the soldiers never question my orders?! Why do the generals, the Light-bearers, whose sole purpose is to ensure that I am doing my job as the monarch of Lucael, never raise issue with my strategy if it is so clearly inferior?!" the man shouted back, ignoring the fact that as the adult he should be attempting to diffuse the argument instead of escalating the tension in the room further, though could have laughed derisively at the fact that his little boy was standing on the bed in an endeavour to match his father's tall height, "I'll spell it out for you, since you seem to be much less intelligent than your reputation would suggest: it is because, dissimilar to you, they _understand_ war! They know about the risks, and are fully willing to put themselves in danger for the safety of others!"

"No. It's because they are taught from birth to listen to the Lucerna family, and also taught that we love and protect them from the horrors of the world, but in turn require their complete obedience. Our ancestors have certainly built up a formidable stranglehold on the Kingdom of Light," Caiellis murmured softly, although Marik still heard because of the fact the two were automatically leaving gaps for each other to reply in, as although other people may shout over each other in arguments, drown out their opponent's viewpoints with the volume of their words, something that Marik had always done that his youngest son had inadvertently replicated was to allow the enemy in the argument time to respond.

Merely shutting up the other person just proved that one was incapable of taking on the points raised and had to shout over them to muffle their loss, whereas allowing them to put forward their opinions and then subsequently dismantling it proved that one was the victor. That was why, in spite of the quietness of his words, Marik still heard, as Caiellis and his father both had the same pattern in arguments – whereas Alexander and Emili had both preferred the former, by relentlessly attacking with perspectives and opinions until the opposition was overwhelmed by them (meaning that Cai had always had to use time efficiently in squabbles with his elder sibling).

"Now you're just being ridiculous!" Marik snorted contemptuously, though his voice was still raised – though not to the intensity it was before, and continued, his voice belieing that he hadn't even thought about the boy's words, instantly dismissing them as they were alien to his mind, "I'm aware that you dislike your role as a Lucerna, but like everyone else you have to learn to accept your part in the continuation of the kingdom! Angels above, I knew teenagers were inherently selfish, but you seem to be ahead of the curve on that one!"

"Again, resorting to insulting me instead of addressing my points!" Cai cried obstinately, the earlier thoughtful and introspective tinge that had coloured his quiet words gone, replaced again by that challenging tone that eroded on Marik's willpower to not lash out, "Apart from telling me that it is the blind obedience of the soldiers that prevents them from questioning your authority, you haven't yet given me a reason why you won't consider my opinions!"

"Because I don't have to! Because I am your father, and I have the permission to listen or to ignore you when it is pertinent! Such as now!" Marik bellowed stubbornly, Cai's eyes flashing with irritation at the words, and Marik suddenly realised that instead of disciplining his youngest, he had just given the boy more reason to argue. He needed to bring this back under control before it spiralled out of his reach.

"I've had enough of this …" he broke off for a second, trying to think of a suitable punishment that would dissuade his son from doing this again, but not knowing him well enough to inflict something that would teach him the error of his ways, besides stopping him from seeing Alexander, which was something he couldn't countenance as that would be a punishment to his perfect eldest as well – completely unfair on the recovering seventeen year old, and he wasn't blind enough to not realise that Alexander depended upon Caiellis almost as much as the younger boy did on him, though more for emotional support and a reminder of what he had to protect rather than any actual help his second-born provided.

Then a thought pushed itself to the forefront of his mind, and although he would normally actively encourage Caiellis to do this, it was either he banned something or his son wouldn't ever stop, and obedience came before everything at this point in the boy's short life, "Don't blame me for this, but consider yourself forbidden from reading any books until this war ends and I think you have improved enough to have the privilege returned. To summarise: no more books until I see fit to allow you to read."

Caiellis's eyes widened comically in response, and Marik had to repress a triumphant smirk. The boy stammered, "Wha... What?", before realising he didn't quite know how to reply as his mind was being uncharacteristically slow in coming up with one due to the utter randomness and illogicality of the punishment, opening his mouth to argue but abruptly snapping it shut when no words came out. Marik's youngest's thin shoulders dropped and his head hung low on his neck, his messy brown obscuring his hair and eyes.

Suppressing his smile at having finally, and decisively, won a round, having expected a world-shaking tantrum from his boy and immensely glad that the risk had paid off, though he took no pleasure in restricting the boy from one of his own personal favourite pastimes apart from fighting against those he knew well, and turned to leave the room, shooting a "I'll come and fetch you when the war council of the day begins in an hour's time," behind him.

"So you are just restraining my education because of the fact I question your blind pride?" a sullen voice, tinted with anger, pierced into Marik's back, and it was all he could do not to punch the interior of the tent in frustration. Evidently, his thoughts of victory had been premature, exactly like the birth of his youngest son.

"No, Caiellis. I am punishing your for your constant, and _extremely grating_, defiance of me. But, as I've already said, I'm tired of this. Goodbye," he sighed exasperatedly as Caiellis spoke again, his words coloured with a vindictive mischievousness he would have never expected from his youngest, "So the fact that you are leaving proves that you can't counter my arguments, and instead of doing so you are punishing me? Very adult of you."

"YOU CAN BE FUCKING ANNOYING SOMETIMES, YOU KNOW THAT?!" Marik thundered, turning back into the room and yelling at his son, anger that he thought he had smothered when coming up with a punishment rising to the fore once again but bolstered by potentially violent rage at the boy's incessant prodding and goading. If he had expected Caiellis to be taken back by the volume of the outburst (if he had been capable of thinking clearly the man would have been worried about anyone else hearing their monarch lose control at his son), then he would be sorely disappointed, and the boy smirked at him in a way that instantly made him want to savagely wipe it off.

"Dad, is this really what you want to do? For you to stop me from reading just because we argue – and I can tell you now that studying had absolutely no correlation with my disinclination to listen to you, whereas your shouting and violence is quite a large factor," the boy stated coolly, admittedly to his credit utterly unfazed by the loud outburst, "I'VE MADE MY DAMN DECISION, CAIELLIS, AND I EXPECT YOU TO OBEY IT OR SUFFER EVEN GREATER CONSEQUENCES."

The man angrily turned away again, both of their bodies trembling with rage directed at the other. Cai sighed, knowing there was only one way that he was going to get his fuming father to listen to him, and forged ahead with that course of action before he could stop himself, "Is this what mum would have wanted?"

Marik fell still, his shoulders slumping despondently and his eyes losing the fire in them, a frown making its way over onto his face, and Caiellis belatedly thought:

_Oh shit. I've just said the "m" word. _He instinctively backed away from the man as he swivelled back towards the bed, his piercing blue orbs full of a mixture of sadness and anger that was increasing in intensity every second. Cai shrunk back to the side of the bed furthest away from the man, as the king's eyes transfixed him in place and prevented him from reacting in any other way, the force of the glare utterly unlike what he had ever experienced before from his father, although it was an enhancement of his earlier anger. He could feel it radiating off the man in waves, and noticed that he himself had begun to breathe faster, though the breaths were shorter and didn't provide his body with much oxygen.

Caiellis backed up further when the towering man took a swaying step towards him, as if he was drunk, before pulling himself upright and walking at a straight angle, though each step was weighted by menacing intent that made Cai want to use his magic.

He wondered that if he hid under the covers his dad wouldn't notice, and then silenced the four year old in his mind that had suggested that ludicrous plan of action, as Marik paced inexorably towards him. Cai realised then that perhaps arguing with someone more than a foot and a half taller than him and tremendously stronger wasn't the best idea, despite having been hurt by Marik in the past and knowing that the man was capable of significant harm.

_Damn that boy. Damn him for bringing up my greatest weakness. This isn't what Emili would want, but Emili is dead, and I am Caiellis's only remaining parent, so he **has **to follow my orders unless he wants to end up in the same position as his poor mother. Ever since I tolerated him arguing against in me the talk we had about Alexander's wounds, because I subconsciously wanted to release as well instead of curbing the argument on the spot and immediately punishing him with something drastic, he's continued to defy my authority. _

_It is as if the floodgates of respect and fear of censure that locked away the defiance in his mind have swung open, and it will take monumental force to close them. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I'm sorry, Emili, that it has come to this, but I need Caiellis to obey me without question so that not only he lives longer, so that the lives of my soldiers are saved as I no longer have to focus on him._

"Sir, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that, ok? I said it without thinking … I'll accept my punishment now …" Cai stammered, pleading with the man and sensing the threat of violence exuding from him, but it seemed that his words had little effect on his indomitable father who seemed more giant than ever, even larger and more towering than Caiellis had perceived him when he was only a small child.

One part of Marik's mind wailed at him frantically, telling him not to do this, before he crushed it under inevitability and the will to discipline his youngest son, telling himself that it would be better for both of them in the long run, that he wasn't just doing this for some selfish desire to shut the boy up before he broke his father with his words, and firmly set himself upon this course of action.

He didn't hear his son's words past the mental battle in his head, and began to think of which way he could inflict the sanction which wouldn't cause long term damage to his fragile baby boy, and not too much pain. He needed it not to seem like he was lashing out angrily, or doing it with the intent to hurt – in fact, he hated seeing any of his family in pain (apart from the one who deserved it), and hated the situation even more knowing that he would have to inflict it to the youngest member of it, but it had to be done.

"Dad please, we can work this out! I'm sorry, ok! Just don't do this … please … dad, I know you … you don't want to do this..."

Marik was so utterly focussed on his thoughts that he hadn't been paying attention to the world around him, hadn't noticed that the frantic begging of his youngest son was becoming more and more despairing and frightened, but then a final plead cracked the shell his thought had formed around his senses, "Dad please! You don't want to do this! I don't want to have to use magic to fight back; I don't want to fight you! Dad! … please! … dad! … please stop! Daddy..."

_That was odd. Caiellis never calls me that, and the last time he did was before the civil war. Is he just trying to manipulate me so that I will see him as an innocent child and not go through with the beating? But then again, he sounds strained. Maybe another migraine is coming on, and if so his disciplining will have to wait. _

Marik shook his head in bemusement, and then the cage around his thoughts shattered, and he finally noticed what had made his son so frantic, as it wasn't just the threat of violence that was causing the boy distress. The redness that he hadn't noticed had clouded his vision receded, like a crimson fog that was penetrated by beams of sunlight, and it was if a blindfold had been taken off the king.

His son was in front of him, close enough to touch, and then Marik realised that he _was _touching him. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he took in the sudden scene presented to him – the boy was laid on the bed, his eyes full of terror and fear that a child should never have to feel towards his father, and Marik wondered just what it was he had done, or was currently doing, and severely hoped that he hadn't been "out of it" for very long. The boy's expressive and wide green orbs clearly highlighted how Caiellis hadn't said "daddy" due to any automatic response of being in danger, but to specifically attempt to get his attention and plead with him.

The kid's face was just as pale as usual, although there was a slight reddish tinge to his white cheeks that was slowly turning purple and blue, and Marik sensed his youngest son's mana channelled to such a point that all Caiellis had to do was release it and an immensely powerful spell would knock his father away, but the boy seemed to be giving his father a few more seconds before casting the spell.

Marik felt several weak tugging motions on his forearms and hands, but more disturbing than that the king could feel a fast beating underneath his hands, but more predominantly his thumbs, like someone was playing a mad and panicked drumbeat underneath them.

The father tilted his head down ever so slightly, so that he could still see his son's bloodshot eyes and face but confirm his worst fears. It all made terrible, terrible sense to him now. The reason why Caiellis sounded progressively more scared and strained, the reason why his face was becoming bluer and bluer and was screwed up in fear and pain, and the reason why he felt a beat – a _pulse –_ underneath his fingertips.

Marik's luckily bare hands were locked around his son's slender throat, and although he wasn't squeezing with any crushing force the sheer strength of his rigid grip around his boy's windpipe was severely restricting his breathing, Caiellis's small and weak hands futilely trying to pull his own off his neck, batting in an almost pathetic gesture of resistance. He was pressing the boy into the bed, preventing him from moving or scampering away.

Marik turned to the side, horror filling his thoughts and freezing him up when he saw his frail little baby, who couldn't take punishment as well as his stronger and more resilient older brother, in such pain and fear for his life, though he watched with a kind of sick morbid fascination at the fact that he was presently utterly powerless to move his strangling hands. He glanced fearfully at himself in the small mirror located on the other side of the tent, noticing that none of the emotions of horror and immense guilt were conveyed in his flinty gaze, but soon looked back at Caiellis, who coughed, desperately trying to draw breath into his lungs.

Then, Marik saw the White mana that was flowing out of his hands, explaining why the boy seemed to be on the cusp of his mana generation but wasn't doing anything with it – he was silencing any spells (and speech, but that was another matter entirely) that could have been cast, nullifying them and forcefully dispelling them. He didn't know whether Caiellis would have shown restraint otherwise, or if he would have been launched across the room by a searing spear of light.

For some reason he didn't put it past Caiellis to attack him in self defence, but then again the kid had never acted violently towards him, even when he had been threateningly lifting him off his feet or crushing his arm, just seemed to accept the pain from his father instead of reacting in kind, like it confirmed his suspicions about the man being a terrible parent, much less a _dad, _which the boy still occasionally favoured him with. Marik knew that that was simply automatic and didn't in any way show that the man was any more than a parent to his son.

He tried to shake his head to clear it, clear the pounding in his skull in time to the throbbing of his son's frightened heartbeat, the blood pulsing through the jugular vein that one of Marik's thumbs were gripping, and the man could only watch in horror as he pushed the tiny boy further down, his thumbs tightening and the boy gagging, though he wasn't yet actively choking Caiellis fully.

Luckily, for him and his son, the entrance to the tent was pushed open, and a figure that was just taller than the king walked in, emitting a gasp of pure shock and horror that broke Marik from his paradoxically paralytic state – unable to react with his youngest son in danger, but with he himself as the danger. He released Caiellis with an exhalation of air, only just noticing that he had been holding his own breath in, a red hand mark on the pale flesh of the boy's neck, but more than anything Marik was hugely glad that the scene hadn't been able to go on for much longer and that he hadn't started bringing his prodigious strength to bear on his poor son.

He was about to apologise, but no words left his mouth, and Cai stared accusingly at him, knowing that while his father had definitely been holding back, and that he could have been choked in unconsciousness within a few short seconds of unfolding blackness if the man had desired it, but it still didn't excuse him strangling his own son. He wanted to shout, to _scream,_ at the man, at his pathetic excuse of a father, but found that he couldn't move, so instead tried to get his hyperventilation under control and hoping that his eyes communicated the extent of his fear, sadness and anger.

Marik knew then, right at that moment, that if he wanted his son to survive, he needed to pretend that he had done that all on purpose, that he hadn't just lost control (_again_) and almost choked his son to death, something that might have happened had the shocked gasp not cut into his thoughts, so instead of appearing insanely apologetic and grovelling at his son's feet for forgiveness, he forced his eyes to become steely and shot Caiellis a cold look, as one part of his mind muttered that at least the boy would probably never disobey him again. He needed his son to believe that Marik's actions had been perfectly calculated to show him the error of his ways, as while the boy wouldn't feel _safe _he could at least be made to believe that he had only hurt him for a reason, and that he didn't have to be scared of future violence. Marik detested himself for what he had just done, but the point still stood that Caiellis had caused them through constant disobedience and challenging – had he been more like his brother, then this would never have happened.

Before he could put any words together, and hand gripped onto his shoulder and forcefully pulled him around, as Marik was presented by the furious visage of Guardian Tristram. At first, when he hadn't entered, the man had simply frozen up in the doorway, unable to process the scene in front of him, but then he had noticed the stricken look in Cai's terrified green orbs and the fact that the monarch's large hands were wrapped around his throat, and the instinct to protect the royal family surged to the fore, now replaced by an anger that made his blood boil.

"Marik! Outside, now!" he yelled into the other man's face, a moment of surprise and deep, deep guilt creasing over the father's features before Tristram sensed that he forcefully flattened them, the expression on his face returning to the habitual one of cold austerity that he often wore in his role as supreme Lucerna monarch, through such a force of will that the thirty year old would have (and often had) admired if the situation had not been so dire. The man didn't resist as he was dragged out, and after a short pause at the doorway Tristram spoke, his voice still tinted by volcanic anger but noticeably more comforting, "Cai, you just stay here. Everything is alright now. I'll come and get you in a bit."

Tristram had no idea whether or not the boy heard the words, as the poor lad seemed to be trapped within a world of his own and hadn't yet moved from the position the Guardian had found him in, and it took all of Tristram's willpower not to punch Marik in the face and march back inside and force him to apologise to his son, but knew that forcing it wouldn't make it genuine. He yanked Marik outside, his own eyes blazing at the way the king's blue orbs meandered over the outside of the prince's tent, before becoming colder and resolute again.

"What the hell was that about?!" he shouted, grabbing the man's collar and pulling him upwards, almost yanking him off his feet though Tristram wasn't quite strong enough to pull that off, and the sheer coldness in his eyes scared him, like the king had absolutely no regret for his actions despite seeing it clearly in the man earlier. Marik grabbed Tristram's wrists and pulled the hands away from his collar, stating, "Caiellis needing discipling," as if that justified what had just occurred.

"And strangling him is the right way of going about it?!" he yelled, not caring in the slightest when a soldier walked past the corner of the tent, took one look at the situation and turned on his heels (as opposed to coming to the aid of the king), though Tristram knew he wouldn't be going for reinforcements. He was furious with the man; these boys were as good as his own and anyone hurting them was someone to be hated, including their own father if it came to that. Marik shrugged, making the Guardian want to slam his face across his knee and see if he was so dismissive of the torment he had just caused Caiellis then, and replied evenly, "He was being ridiculous, disrespectful and downright insulting, so I took the course of action that I deemed correct. He isn't going to question me now."

"Don't you dare tell me that that is the reason for it! Don't you dare!" Tristram cried, scrunching his hands up into fists and leaning threatening over the slightly shorter (which still made him towering and very tall) king, who stared at him sternly, as if he was completely overreacting and stepping out of line which in turn made him more furious, "Angels damn it, Marik! I saw the look in your eyes! I know that you would _never _hurt your sons, so just admit it! You lost control! You never wanted to choke Caiellis!"

"Your talking as if I killed the boy, or strangled him unconscious," Marik scoffed, thinking: _why can't he see that I can't admit it without ruining Caiellis's chance at ever feeling safe around his own father! If I admit that I lost control, then I am basically saying that it could happen at any time and that my little boy is always in danger around me, which means that Caiellis will never be able to concentrate, never be able to not be scared. However, if he thinks I did it to punish him, he will be frightened, but not as much, and it will have the added benefit of making him more obedient._

Tristram swung a punch before restraining himself millimetres from his cheek, growling, "Marik, I know for a fact that you are not a bad father. We all have moments in our lives we lose control, and it is a damn shame that Cai was hurt because of it, but this can still be fixed, if you would open your damn eyes! Just fucking concede that you did it without thinking, that a red haze descended or fucking something, for Caiellis's sake and your own! Damn it Marik, I don't know if I can ever respect you any more if you tell me you wanted to strangle your own son..." he drifted off, his voice losing its anger and becoming something more akin to sadness, an emotion the Guardian never showed.

"I don't need your respect. I need your obedience," Marik stated strictly, and continued just as the fire was beginning to spark up again in Tristram, fuelled by a desperate need to _know _if Marik had intentionally hurt his son, Tristram's youngest student and charge, and if so if he had changed more in the war that the Guardian had initially believed, "And I never _wanted _to strangle Caiellis, but he forced me into it. Had I had punched him, for example, his frail body would have been bruised and bones would have been broken, whereas this didn't exactly hurt him (_physically, anyway_), instead it had more emotional resonance over the former punishment," Marik uttered, trying to quantify it to himself as much as he was to Tristram (if not more) and lying through his teeth, but he was perfectly willing to be the object of Tristram's detestation if Caiellis was allowed to think that his own actions had caused this, rather than a man that couldn't control himself or his strength.

"How can you say that?" Tristram hissed, his words full of threat and anger, and Marik hoped that the Guardian would just give in to the urge to hit him – he deserved punishment and pain for what he had done, but knew that as the king, no one would be willing to dole it out. _Angels … I just really hurt my own kid, Tristram. Please, lash out. I need the pain. I deserve it far more than my youngest son did. _He waved his hand, as if it would erase what had just happened, though he wanted it to be seen as dismissive of the Guardian's words – and, to be fair to him, Caiellis had pushed it far more than he ever had before, ignoring the fact that Marik had threatened him with penalties such as not being able to read, and that violence would have been necessary to curb it, just not … just not _this_.

"I've made a mistake from the very beginning, Tristram. I should have never tolerated him arguing with me and put it down through the systematic obliteration of all his privileges until he got in line. Now he questions, challenges and constantly defies my authority." Marik stated, and these words were truthful, and he dearly regretted not being able to think clearly when chastising Caiellis about screwing up and being trapped inside of Aksua's dream realm, leaving his eldest son to face her alone, so Tristram responded with, "Marik, do you not think you are being a little harsh? He has his reasons for his actions, and you know as well as I do that he is a strategic genius and just wants to share his ideas-"  
"He doesn't know how to communicate those ideas in the right manner," the parent told him, stating it flatly like it was an undisputed fact, "He demands when he should ask, he shouts when he should offer, and he fights when he should explain. I won't accept it any longer – the only reason I've given him longer than most people is because he is my son, and in that I have unfairly favoured him."

"So to fix that you decided to choke the poor lad?" Tristram asked, aghast at the impassivity of his friend's face, who replied, "Yes. I did."

"You're a fucking liar!" the other man accused, ready to launch another barrage of accusations, but was cut off, "Watch your language when speaking to your king, Guardian Tristram, and if I want your parenting advice I'll be sure to ask for it. In the mean time, I have a war council to prepare for."

Marik made to leave, but Tristram grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him back around, "If you ever touch a hair on his head – on _either _of your son's heads – in anger, ever again – then I won't give a shit that you are the king of the nation in protecting them. Those boys are the best things that have happened to you, you stubborn bastard, and I'm sure they would appreciate it if you started treating them like it, and not trying to kill one of them."

Marik simply stared back impassively at him, as if in shock that he would dare to grab his king again, so the Guardian let go before he decided to punish him, as that was the sort of mood the man was in right now, but in those piercing blue eyes, he saw that his words had had an effect and the sadness barely visible in them made Tristram want to hug the man, before it disappeared like a banal trick of the light.

_I know, Tristram. Trust me, I know, and I'm truly sorry for what I've done today, but if I go and beg for Caiellis's forgiveness he will think I am even more pathetic and that I cannot control myself (which is apparently the truth around him). But what you said wasn't entirely right. These sons are my flesh and blood, _my_ little boys, so it is impossible not to love them, whereas Emili was not related to me in any way but completely perfect. She was the best thing that has ever happened to me, _Marik thought, though one part of his mind railed against the mind words, insisting that his long dead wife was on an equal level to his young progeny.

Tristram shook his head in disgust at the older male's back as he strode off like what he had just done was perfectly reasonable, and the man felt the spears of distaste piercing into his back.

_This was all my fault. _Marik thought, thinking about what circumstances had led to him with his hands wrapped around his youngest son's fragile throat and about to squeeze with a killing strength. _I never knew how to discipline him properly – heck, before the civil war, I never had to. At the ages of nought to four, Caiellis was far more quiet and well behaved than his unruly (but cute) brother, and I still remember Emili's pride in never having to tell our second son off, as opposed to Alexander's tendency to tantrum before (and after, though at much less frequency due to his age and no longer being the centre-of-attetion youngest, whilst also having a little brother) Caiellis's birth. _

_I clearly haven't had enough impact on his life. Instead of ignoring him and Alexander after only just coming back from the civil war as I thought I was incapable of becoming a father instead of a ruthless warrior king, and only talking to them a total of once each, I should have brought them into my embrace immediately and had them by my sides and learning instead of treating the fact that I had sons like some sort of burden that I would eventually have to take up. I started to make progress after my battle with Alexander, and should have known not to send him away to the Scholaria Magnus at all – not just because of their awful abduction, but because I stunted the resurrection of our father/son(s) relationship. _

_And now Caiellis has absolutely no respect for me, something that will have been cemented by my earlier actions, but at least now he won't challenge out of fear and I can begin to build up trust again instead of having him oppose me at every occasion. I have let this attitude slide too long because of my worry for both of them. Even when he was still young, before Emili's death, and had let her raise him more, whereas with Alexander I took a more active role because of the fact I wasn't quite as busy with my new role as king. _

_Then in the civil war, I wasn't able to impress my (lacking) importance in his life upon him, and because he was half his brother's age he wouldn't have remembered me as well as Alexander did. I had good and bad times with my eldest, whilst with Caiellis as I've said (or rather, thought) I never once had to reprimand him. _

_Evidently Tristram, Tybalt and his brother have had far more influence in his young life than I have, as there was no question of disobeying commands because he would simply die otherwise. He would have learnt to understood their discipling methods, just as they would have developed them to better suit an unruly Caiellis, contrasting with my fumbling attempts to berate him. Now that he is no longer in life-threatening danger (unless I'm choking him in a blind rage, but thinking about that can come later), he thinks he can select commands to follow, especially because the one giving them is the person that is supposed to be of utmost importance in his life but has had little to no impact at all. Now that I've let other people carry the parenting duties, I now have a surly just-teenager that questions my authority._

_I can still fix this, however. With a little tough love, I can turn him around, starting from today (though I'm not sure if banning books after what I've just done is in any way justifiable). I'm certain of it. I can turn him into a first rate prince._

Tristram stared at Marik's back as he disappeared, shook his head in sorrow for his youngest student, and made his way back into the tent, half-expecting Caiellis to have either crawled underneath the quilt and begun to cry or wiggled his way out of the tent through the small gaps (that no one else would be able to fit through without causing significant damage) between the tent and the ground, as he was used to those sorts of antics from a younger Cai when he had been sad. He was mildly surprised to find the boy in the precise position that he had left him, his eyes having not even moved from the spot in the air the gravity of their gaze was crushing, although now instead of being filled with fear they were cold and emotionless, indicating that Cai had raised the walls that blocked other people out.

Periodically, a slender hand would tentatively reach upwards and brush over (_what is it with people going for the kid's throat?_) the blemish of angry red on Cai's neck, thin fingertips touching the bruise that was forming for a second before slowly falling back down, until the action was repeated again. It was as if he was still in shock over the actions and his mind was having trouble coming to the terms that he had been choked. The second Tristram took a step towards him, the boy's eyes flicked in his direction, full of primal fear, assessing his potential as a threat before he was allowed to enter.

The Guardian stood stock still, allowing the hapless boy to complete his analysis as moving now would just scare him further, but he knew he had been evaluated welcome when a heart-wrenchingly sad smile worked its way onto the boy's gaunt features and he shifted in the bed, his mouth opening and closing like he had suddenly decided not to speak and clearly signalling to Tristram that Cai unconsciously wanted him to take control of the situation, wanted Uncle Tristram (the next best thing (besides from Tybalt) to his big brother) to assure him that everything was ok, and briefly wondered if Caiellis was intending to tell Alex about what had happened. Tristram wasn't sure that if Cai wanted to keep it from his big brother, then Tristram would acquiesce to that, but would first assess the situation, his eldest student's state and the state of the war before that.

"Cai. You're fine now," Tristram soothed, sitting down on the bed next to the painfully thin boy and affectionately wrapping a large arm around him, gently pulling the unresisting kiddo's head to when it was resting on his chest. He found it strange and "nice" that in situations like these, Tristram tried to think of what Alexander would do to comfort his little brother, whilst the middle Lucerna took inspiration from the Guardian. Caiellis still seemed to be holding in his emotions, and hadn't yet said anything, but when the Guardian pulled him close he pushed away, a half-hearted gesture of resistance that just made Tristram feel even worse.

He would have preferred it the youngest Lucerna had just cried, let the tears cascade down his face and bury his head in the Guardian's chest, because after years of caring for two growing up children in the middle of a civil war and after their mother's demise Tristram had become accustomed to dealing with sadness, and could help Cai in that case. But this silence, the way he clearly didn't want Tristram hugging him but was too deflated and dejected to make any effort to inform the Guardian that, simply giving up and letting himself be dragged around like a rag-doll, was way out of the thirty year old's league, and he had no idea what to do.

The worst thing was that to an outside observer, there seemed to be no reason for Tristram acting as he was now doing, like there was nothing whatsoever to comfort Caiellis about and that the day had simply been progressing normally, instead of the smallest prince, a frail and young boy that had only just breached his teenage years, being pinned down and strangled by his own father.

No matter that he hadn't gone "full force", Marik had still completed the actions and there was doubt in Tristram's mind that the man would have stopped choking his son had he not intervened, much as he wanted to believe that his friend would never hurt the children they both dearly loved, but Marik moreso – Tristram had _seen _the love for his boys in the man's normally cold eyes, before the civil war and after it when they found Alexander and Caiellis fighting (_well, losing_) against Aksua. There seemed to be nothing he could do to help, so he settled on gently jostling the boy's shoulder, "Cai, I know this is a stupid question, but are you alright?"

There was no response, and the fact that Caiellis was a weightless boy meant that if Tristram couldn't feel the beating of the kid's heart he wouldn't have been sure there was anyone else in the room. After a few seconds of silence and tenderly stroking the side of the boy's mop of brown hair, Tristram tried again, "Marik should not have done that, and I'm sorry for letting him hurt you, both physically and emotionally. I should have been there to protect you in the battle of Fort Egetau, not letting you go off on your own even though I knew you had no mana. We all failed you, actually, but it's my job to protect the Lucerna sons the most. I'm sorry."

"Don't blame yourself, Uncle Tristram," the boy whispered, distantly, and the Guardian pulled him up and looked into his eyes, satisfied that the choked purple and red of his cheeks had receded, though there was still a modicum of colour left, and checked to see if Caiellis's pupils were dilated in shock. The boy stared blankly back as Tristram inspected him, but apart from the bruise (though not as bad as the one Arendus Draal had caused and would fade much, much sooner) there were no obvious signs of distress, though the fact that Caiellis's normally expressive eyes were blank (_exactly like the month long period only a couple of weeks __ago when he was relentlessly attempting the trial and cutting himself – that reminds me, I haven't yet seen the Angel of the Black Sun_) and emotionless clearly indicated that there was something massively wrong – _could that be that his father has just strangled him? You're a fucking genius, Tristram._

"Does it hurt to speak?" Tristram asked as the thought occurred to him. Wounds he could deal with. Wounds he could quantify. It was when Cai locked himself away behind his mental fortifications that Tristram found it impossible to offer help, and anything he had ever tried when the kiddo had gone into this state had been met by disaster. The boy shook his head, and then nodded, as if he was changing his mind or answering two different questions in succession, "Yes, kind of. Not as much as it did when me and Alex were kidnapped, but it still hurts. Nothing I can't deal with though."

_Taken a page straight out of Alexander's book,_ Tristram thought, knowing that although his earlier truthfulness set him apart from his big brother (who would have vigorously denied that it was hurting him), the fact that he explicitly stated that it wasn't bothering him meant that he wanted the Guardian to leave him alone. Tristram offered, repeating, "Your father should not have done that to you, under any circumstances. I don't care if you were annoying him, or questioning, but putting your hands around your own son's neck … it is unforgivable. He is supposed to be the adult. Trust me when I say that I am going to have some _words _with that stubborn bastard-"

"Don't," Cai voiced, simply, his voice soft and quiet but tinged with an emotion of deep sadness that he was clearly trying to hide, "It would have been worse if he hit me..."

_Don't tell me you've started to believe that ox-crap as well,_ Tristram thought, however then again the boy was right – restricting Cai's breathing for a time and leaving a mark was preferable to having one of the boy's bones broken if Marik had lashed out in rage, but there was a special emotional significance in going for the throat that suggested killing and ending the target's life more than a punch or slap did, and Tristram would be damned if he let this issue slide easily.

He was more than sure that Alex would be on his side when he arrived (if he was informed, as Tristram didn't want to make the situation even worse in the day or two before the attack on the capital), and although ideally he wanted it to be Caiellis's choice to tell his older brother Tristram thought he deserved to know if the younger boy chose to hide it. Normally the littlest Lucerna had no qualms about telling his big brother about his problems, but there was a clear tangent of not informing him when those problems involved their father, who had built up quite a strong relationship with Alexander due to the fact that the idler boy was far more willing to try than his smaller sibling.

He wanted to say that it was different because, from what it looked like to Tristram who had seen the look in Marik's eyes before it faded, it appeared as if Marik wanted to kill him, but he didn't want to ever voice the words. Caiellis had been there; he had been the object of his father's rage. He would know already.

"I'm sorry, Caiellis, but that doesn't excuse him in any way. Attacking you is completely out of order, and I won't tolerate it from him. I don't give a shit if he is stressed or not, or has a lot of pressure on him, because he _should not _take it out on his own sons." Tristram hoped that the conviction his words were suffused with would make him sound like he was brooking no dissent in the matter.

He was proven wrong when Cai sighed, "Better me than my brother," and although Tristram thought, _I'm not really sure, as though I would never, ever wish pain upon Alex, he can take it better than you and he is stronger so more able to fight back. Plus, he isn't as fragile or small. Besides, he would prefer it that way as well, _but before he could translate those thoughts into words the boy was already speaking, "And he has already hurt me once."

"_He's done what?!_" Tristram demanded, volcanic anger erupting out of him that he quickly cooled when he saw Caiellis's frightened flinch away from the Guardian, evidently still instinctively scared about being hurt despite what he might say to deny it, "Cai, it's alright. You know I'm not angry with you, but you could have told me about it earlier. When did it happen?"

"The day I was leaving for the train," Cai replied, pulling up the sleeve of his left arm in explanation, the pale white skin discoloured by the ugly purple bruising that made Tristram even more angry, though it still paled in comparison to what he had seen today, and it had clearly faded with time, "But I think he did it accidentally," he lied, not wanting the situation to escalate to the point where Tristram would do something regrettable and immensely stupid and dearly regretting not being stronger and hiding it from him, "Because he underestimated how strong he was in conjunction to how fragile I am," the words felt like ash on his tongue, and he hated admitting that in tandem with lying for his father's sake, "And I tried to twist away."

"Aww, Cai … I'm sorry," Tristram said, not able to think of any other words that would have the boy's probably irrevocably damaged psyche due to what Marik had done to him, and how he had built up an image of a perfect and invincible father that was always thinking of them throughout the war (just like his sons were always thinking of their dad), just to have it smashed apart with the cold truth of what Marik now was, and every time it seemed to be repairing something happened to widen the rift between them.

The boy sat perfectly still for a few seconds, and then decided on a whim to voice his thoughts, "It's strange … I know I should be angry … but I don't feel it. I don't really blame him for what he's just done, despite the fact that my words and provocations were in no way justifications for that. It's weird, how I can simply not hate him for that – though I still do, just not for that, and in no way do I love him – but whenever we argue I'm more annoyed. It's like our arguments are me challenging him to act like the adult and prove that what I am saying is wrong, but the fact that he strangled me simply confirms my accusations. I'm not disappointed, not do I expect anything less."

Listening intently to his heartfelt words and thinking about what he could have done differently to try and prevent this – as he had never had the heart to try and dispel the boys' illusion of the perfect father, though the relationship between Marik and Cai was worse than what he had imagined in his worst scenarios (tainting the fact that Alexander and the man seemed to be getting on perfectly, with Marik very proud of his eldest son and clearly showing favouritism towards him), he hadn't noticed that Caiellis had stood up and already moved to the other side of the tent in the intent to leave.

Nonetheless, now that he had and Caiellis was moving fast but not running, Tristram was easily able to outpace the small four foot eleven boy and catch up with him before he left, cursing his laxity in the line of duty, "Where are you going, Cai?"

"I … I just want to be alone, Uncle Tristram, please," Cai begged, turning around, and the utter sadness in his eyes hit Tristram like a hammer blow to the face, and before the boy left he grabbed onto his arm, "It's alright, Cai. I'll go, and you can stay here, ok?"

The boy shook his head, which was the expected reaction, as Tristram wanted him to stay here so that he knew where he was, and in spite of the fact that he could probably have spoken Caiellis's answer for him he still asked, "Why not, kid?"

"Because …" the boy replied sullenly, casting his gaze to the floor as if feeling guilt for the statement, and Tristram definitely thought he looked all of his thirteen years instead of ten more than that, "Because if stay here, your dad knows that you are here, correct?"

The youngster nodded slowly, glad that Tristram understood, though he had done similar when his father had come to see him in the Sola Atria in Civitas Sol and they had argued afterwards, going into the city where he was certain his dad would not be able to find him, "I'm sorry, but I can't allow that. There is a strategy session soon, and your father will want you to be there for that. Besides, I need to know where you are so that I can ensure that you are safe (_not that I've done a good job of that so far_), and though his actions may suggest otherwise Marik wants you to be safe as well," the Guardian hated the fact that he felt like he was lying to the boy, who arched an eyebrow in disbelieving incredulity.

Caiellis's youthful and gaunt face fell, and he dejectedly began to step past Tristram and go back onto his bed, sending his doleful puppy eyes in Tristram's direction that were full of sorrow, so the man gently grabbed onto his shoulder and said, "Alright, I'll make you a compromise: I'll let you go be one your own, wherever you choose, so long as you tell me now and _do not _lie about it, ok?"

The way the lad's eyes lit up and his posture straightened happily made Tristram want to laugh, which he did as he thought that adding humour to the situation might help the boy get over the events of this fateful morning, and fondly ruffled the poor boy's hair, "Just remember that you can always chat to Uncle Tristram, ok?"

"Yeah, I know. I'll only go to that outcropping over to the west," he replied, and when Tristram moved out of the exit to the outside of the camp the boy shot out, the man's smile instantly leaving his face the second Caiellis did so. There needed to be serious changes to the way that Marik treated his youngest son – sure, Cai may argue or challenge, but so would most thirteen year old boys, and Tristram's friend was the adult and should know better. The thing he had seen in Marik's eyes scared him like not much else did, and before today he would have easily been able to say that he would never hurt either of his sons purposefully – physically, at any rate – but seeing Marik's hands wrapped around Caiellis's throat terrified him. The king was not an abusive father, he was a loving one that was just having difficulty embracing his fatherly duties after so long and with his youngest son.

They would be having serious words after this war.

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Aymer Solfortis - Pale Wayfarer

Welkalites: Bloodpyre Elemental

* * *

_As usual, I massively underestimated the amount of words I anticipated writing about this chapter, as it was supposed to be the last one before the siege of Usnaan, but as it stands there is one more before that, full of angst as usual. Then I assure you that the battle will truly begin._

_I'd like to take the chance to (something I don't do anywhere near enough) thank everyone that has read, reviewed or messaged me about this story so far, and stuck with me despite my tendency to use several billion words where one would have been sufficient. I would especially like to show my appreciation to Lullaby121 and Foxtrot Agent 21, as this story would not have lasted this long without them. Thanks, guys!_


	29. The Calm Before

Alexander sighed softly as he entered the camp with his army (that he hadn't yet led into battle, like his brother had with the legions of Scientia Mos), glad that he would soon be seeing his dad and Caiellis, and a hand clapped him on the shoulder.

"I'll take it from here, lad," Guardian Xathan nodded towards him, and Alex smiled back at the boisterous man who was the father of the young champion of his younger brother; Alex briefly pondered what Cai would think of Mysos, concluding that he probably wouldn't like the fifteen year old that much because of his inflexible nature and the fact that he was around his brother's own age, which usually meant that Cai would dislike the person in question.

His four bodyguards stood behind him, a couple of them making even him feel slightly small (which made Alex feel deeply sorry for little Caiellis, who was dwarfed by everyone around him), and it hadn't escaped his notice that his dad had kept the female members of the Lucerna Guard to himself and his uninterested little brother, who was in that asexual phase of his life where they were all the same to him and he really couldn't care less (which Alexander himself had very quickly progressed out of). He liked all of them, though hadn't yet had a chance to watch them properly fight apart from the training sessions he had rigorously thrown himself into in an attempt to heal his body and get back in to the swing of things faster (even defeating one of them with Aurelia to prove to Marik that he was suitable to be joining in in this war).

Alex didn't really like the fact that he felt slightly babied by the amount of those protecting him, but knew that he shouldn't be complaining because it was better to be well protected than left undefended and vulnerable (though the middle Lucerna was sure he could take care of himself), and his father would want him well guarded due to the debacle with Aksua, whilst the rest of the Lucaelian force would be more inspired seeing one of their beloved Lucerna princes surrounded by glittering praetorians.

He was pumped for this war and the final battle, despite feeling like he had arrived fashionably late to the party and that the other members of his family had done most of the work – though he quickly told himself that the siege of Usnaan would be one of the most brutal affairs in the aftermath of the civil war, and that he shouldn't be looking forward to the monumental loss of life it would almost certainly entail. Alex knew he was going to try and protect as many Lucaelian troops as possible, because of his duty as a Lucerna, and his own protective instinct that normally applied mostly to fragile Caiellis.

"Thanks, Xathan," he grinned to the older man when he playfully punched the middle Lucerna on the shoulder and went to talk to the quartermasters of the conjoined legions of Lucael to better accommodate the force of Cassida Principia fortified with some cohorts from Civitas Sol and Capitalia Lux. The camp around him was a bustling hive of activity, with orderlies carrying late breakfast meals for the soldiers, some divisions of soldiers marching towards the training zones to keep themselves in better shape before the final battle (which would most likely take place tomorrow), though one group from Civitas Sol with their banner and breastplate cloths emblazoned with a sun and swords crossed over it (that Geek Boy would almost definitely know the name of), stopped and bowed reverently before the eldest prince.

Alex waved magnanimously and smiled, bowing respectfully back which took the soldiers by surprise. He enjoyed the look of amazement that creased their features despite the fact that he had only returned their courtesy, but didn't want to waste any more of the captain's time by giving a speech of any sort. Whilst he didn't necessarily enjoy his role as a prince, there were some parts of it that he liked, such as giving inspiring speeches and feeling relied upon – which meant that he always put all of his effort into completing the tasks, as if he failed in his duty then he would have let down all those who needed him.

Alexander had an elegant but still large greatsword strapped to his waist, though he didn't necessarily always utilise a sword to fight – he much preferred to switch between magical weapons in the middle of the battle – but the weapon had been a gift from dad; the man had told him that it was the blade he had used before the ancient relic broadsword he now wielded, and despite the fact that it wasn't an immensely powerful artefact armament like Cai's Sword of Glass the blade was good and it fit Alex perfectly. He hadn't yet been able to test its edge against someone of a similar power level to him, but the seventeen year old was aware that it would soon be bathed in the blood of the Welkalites.

Alex didn't find pleasure in _killing_, per se, however he liked to eliminate those that oppressed and abused others for their own sadistic senses of enjoyments – it made his blood boil to see people being exploited because they were weaker than those enslaving or ill-treating them, and he liked to help others overcome their oppressors and free people from the dominating will of tyrants. That was why he liked being a Lucerna – he was fond of making other people safe (though sometimes at the expense of himself), and was in essence an extremely selfless person (though Alex himself didn't really think that way, the boy just thought that because he was strong he should put that strength to good use).

However, there was something deeply wrong about the camp, and not just the tensing of the atmosphere in the calm before the storm, something that was itching at the back of his mind, a vaguely crimson glow that he couldn't quite identify and as such made him immensely more determined to do just that, though none of the soldiers seemed bothered.

That suggested that whatever this thing was, it was either something internally wrong with him (and while Aksua persisted in his occasional nightmares that had lowered in frequency, she never resurfaced whilst he was conscious), which Alex found unlikely but it was still a possibility, or it was linked with mana, and as he was a Lucerna with a titanic mana pool (though not as receptive as his brother) he was able to detect it whereas those without a First Sisterhood angel, or bereft of powerful sensory mental detection, wouldn't. He was going to ask the squirt about this, as if Alex had perceived it then Cai surely had also.

"Alex!" a voice shouted, and he turned from where he had been aimlessly wandering a second (his praetorians not overtly trailing him, but still doing it – Alexander had noticed it ever since Xathan left, as he had been accustomed to recognising the signs of someone – or _something –_ following him, as if the same person did in one of the cities during the civil war they were more than likely shape-changing assassins sent to kill him and his kid brother) as a familiar person strode towards him. He noted that when the man arrived, his bodyguards scattered to complete their own errands, which made him feel slightly relieved because he hated the sensation of being silently watched and judged (though obviously it was different with either his teachers, those he wanted to impress or those who looked up to him (Caiellis mostly), as they were observing him to see if he had learnt or to emulate him).

"Tristram, good to see you!" he replied, grinning at the taller Guardian but then narrowing his eyes at the look of resentment and barely repressed anger in the thirty year old's own eyes, sensing immediately that something was deeply wrong and so the atmosphere between them instantly changed, "What's wrong?" he asked, the frown creasing his teacher's face making him feel quite concerned.

"Sorry, Alex, it's good to see you too," Tristram pulled him into a quick hug (not a girly one like those he indulged his nerdy little brother with who liked the reassurance of Alex being there), clapping him on the back before quickly releasing him, "But thank the angels you are here. Your brother and Marik have been at each other's throats all yesterday and this morning." _If only Alexander had a clue as to how literal that statement was, I'm not sure he would have been able to stop himself from marching up to Marik and attacking him._

"Oh," Alex replied, before shaking his head sadly. This is what he had feared was going to happen, that despite Cai's words about not arguing with their father the two personalities would clash again in spite of the war – or perhaps even more because of it, as the blonde was aware of how dad's aggressive tactics and Caiellis's tendency for patient and safe strategies were at odds with each other, and both would stubbornly argue until blue in the face in advocation of their own plan. Personally, he was more inclined to Marik's stratagems, as both he and his dad were initiative-taking warriors that weren't afraid of hurting themselves in winning faster (though Alex had realised that he was even more dynamic than his father due to his First Sisterhood angel and the emotional Red mana present inside of him), but he had always seen the merit in Cai's plans – he just didn't like that sort of methodical approach to combat.

"Did you know that your brother was hurt in the battle of Fort Egetau?" Tristram inquired, and Alex froze, his mind filled with brotherly concern and the feeling that he should have been there to protect his fragile sibling from danger, "No. I didn't know that."

"Don't worry, he's fine now. He was knocked unconscious by an explosion, and suffered some painful burn wounds, but was healed overnight by the Choirmaster Esmelde of Civitas Sol that saved your life and his wounds have pretty much disappeared, though they probably still hurt," Tristram explained, and then leaned in closer to elaborate, as if wary of anyone else listening in,

"Marik and your brother argued about the tactics in the attack on the fortress, and apparently Cai disobeyed one of his orders to go and help the soldiers in a certain division – instead of fighting with them against the Welkalites, he wanted to hold off the enemies alone until a tactical retreat could be facilitated, closing the wall behind them. However, he only did that because of the fact that he had little to no mana left after the liberation of Jeksaan, and knowing him he probably would have wanted to conserve lives while knowing that he couldn't lead them to victory in the state he was in. Then an airship bombed him whilst he was fighting, and when he was knocked unconscious, the soldiers, instead of retreating like they were supposed to, went to his aid and as such were slaughtered until Akroma arrived. That was the subject of their latest argument, as although Marik simply wanted to discipline your brother it escalated."

"Oh. Poor guy," Alex replied absently, already feeling like he had failed but at least knowing more of the rationale behind the most recent dispute – though he couldn't fault his little brother for doing what he thought was right, disobedience was quite rightly not tolerated in the middle of a battle, and Alex knew that if it have been him or one of the boy's "Uncles" that had given the orders then Cai would have explained his doubts, but if push came to shove then he would have obeyed. It just went to show how little the squirt thought of their father, though Alexander knew that the man was really trying hard to embrace his paternal instincts after nine years of locking them away.

Rebuilding their relationship would require effort from both sides, and Cai's expectation of an instantly perfect dad (that Alex had in part caused and was to blame for, but when he had realised after several years in the civil war that Marik would not be flawless after many years not having to do it - or, more precisely, not being able to do it - he hadn't had the heart to dispel his younger brother's dreams, as surviving to see their dad had been one of the few things (including Alex himself) that had kept the boy going) had been entirely unrealistic, however Marik treating his brother unfairly due to the difficulty of his Summoning trial (Alex was still shocked that it had required Caiellis to kill himself to pass, though supposed Orzhova did_ not _want a repeat of the Xarius incident) was also uncalled for.

The thought of his little brother in pain had always brought a sick feeling worming in the pit of his stomach, both because of how young he was but also because how fragile his body was – when he had been four, Alex had not really understood why he wasn't allowed to touch his baby brother, but when their mother had explained it when he was a few years older he realised that if anyone had touched him after his premature birth then Caiellis's tenuous hold on life would have been broken.

"I apologise," Tristram offered, after a brief pause where Alex contemplated the words, "I shouldn't have thrown you in the middle of your family's argument the second you arrived, and I'm not expecting you to act as a go between or anything."

"No, it's fine. Thank you for telling me," Alex responded, worry for his little brother and father evident in his statement – as their bickering brought out the worst in both of them, his little brother starting to point out every single one of his father's faults whereas Marik seemed to do the same to Caiellis whilst also becoming more and more angry the longer they argued – and they both got louder and louder until one of them exploded and something awful happened. Judging by how thunderously angry Tristram was under his veneer of concern, something awful had happened indeed.

None of them needed this – they were in the middle of a war, and both the eldest and youngest living of the Lucerna line needed to be focussed if the forces of Lucael were going to achieve victory – but hopefully Alex would be able to stand in between his wrathful father and defiant sibling and put a stop to the constant squabbling now that he was up and active.

However, the thing that concerned him the most was the fact that the arguing had started against despite Caiellis's promise to stop it, as his little brother had never broken a promise to him before (following in his older brother's footsteps, who hadn't yet broken a promise to his younger sibling either), which meant that somehow dad had inadvertently started it by fuelling Cai's especially obstinate fire when directed at Marik, which might mean that his brother held the moral high ground.

_At least now that I'm no longer bed ridden, I can play an active part in making them apologise to each other now that we are at war, _Alex thought, though he knew he had an almost impossible task ahead of him in bringing his brother and father back together again. Neither of them knew each other well, but Alexander was certain that because he knew his little brother more than anyone else in the world he could get the squirt to stop (or bring him back in line, if necessary), and make his dad empathise more with his little brother's position due to knowing the man quite well as well – relatively speaking. It just hurt him to see his father that he idolised and the little brother he needed to protect fighting, when their anger would be better off combined and directed against the Welkalites.

Evidently he had simply been stood still, consumed by his thoughts in a way that didn't often happen but helped him to empathise with Caiellis, who it happened to more, as Tristram lightly shook his shoulder to get him to respond. "Huh? Were you saying something, Tristram?"

The man grinned despite himself at Alex's sudden absent mindedness, although he had a rough idea of what had suffused his eldest's student's thoughts, "I was asking you how _you _felt, kid. It has still only been less than a week since you almost died to that damn vampire whore, so I wanted to know whether you were up to war or not – or for that matter, going between an arguing father and little brother." Tristram hated pretending that Marik and Caiellis were on equal grounds with what they had done to the other, though for the sake of all three Lucernas he would be damned if he let slip what had occurred between father and youngest son.

"I'm fine," Alex answered automatically, before his mind had chance to fully process all of what the Guardian had just said – the point still stood though, and he was becoming sick and tired of people asking him if he felt like he was "up to something" - would he really be here if he didn't feel up to it? _Actually, I probably would be anyway, but that is besides the point. Then again, I would never tell anyone if I was truly not fine unless it was completely obvious, but I don't need people babying me. I prefer to just get through things on my own, or with limited support that reminds me why I have to get through it._

"Are you sure? I mean, I know you are a strong lad, but you've always been one for hiding your own pain, Alexander. And if you aren't alright and we throw you into the siege of Usnaan, you might end up dying," Tristram added, concern for the older prince evident in his features. Instead of becoming annoyed, Alex made sure to smile back, as the fact that the Capitalia Lux Guardian was pestering him that much was a testament to how much he cared about his two young charges, and that showed how much of a nice person Tristram was. "Trust me, old man, I'm fine. I don't have old age to contend with."

"Watch it, boy!" the man yelped in feigned indignation, "Just because you've got a little more meat on those sticks of yours doesn't mean that you can start insulting me! I swear you must be a negative influence on your little brother, what with the thing he came out with yesterday. You kids have no respect for your elders..."

"What, did Cai say something like that?" Alex asked, amused despite himself at the thought of his normally innocent and clueless (with socialising, at any rate) little brother making jokes with people other than himself, and Tristram smirked, "Yeah. He was so innocent before you got to him..."

"He learnt from the best," Alex replied, vaguely distractedly – he enjoyed the bantering, but sensed that he had thrown himself into it so that he could delay from having to deal with a squabbling father and little brother. His piercing but warm blue eyes meandered over the camp as they walked through it, and he figured that he may as well get down to business, "Where is the little man then? I know there is a strategy council in roughly forty minutes, so he should be there then, but I want to speak to him beforehand. I've missed the kid."

Tristram's expression became sour, and Alex sensed that the older male was going to be making pains to hide something significant from him in his next statement – most likely what had taken place in the most recent argument between king and prince, and judging by his expression it was certainly something that would change Alex's perception on the matter if he heard it. Not many gave the eldest prince credit for his abilities in reading people, preferring to focus much more on his physical and martial prowess, but Alexander had perfected (_well, almost perfected – if it was flawless then I would have discovered Cai's self-harming earlier than a month into him doing it_) the skill against his little brother so that he could better help reinforce the kid's emotional state.

Tristram turned around, staring off into the distance for a moment, before his arm and hand followed the direction of his face and pointed towards a barely-visible rocky outcropping in the distance, only a couple of hundred metres from the camp and most likely already guarded by archers and scouts in case of attack, "He wanted to be alone where no one could find him, and only I know where he is right now, but obviously you have the right to be informed of where your little brother is located. I think he will be pleased to see you after the six days of not, I know how close you two are."

Alex nodded, as what Caiellis had done was a typical stunt that the little dude would pull; his geeky little brother liked to be alone after arguing with people so that he didn't have to deal with anyone else, though often when he did so he became even more sad and depressed because he had no one to talk to, and Cai's thoughts were wont to turn to self-loathing and guilt if he didn't have anyone to assuage him. "Thanks, Tristram. I owe you one."

"Don't sweat it. That's what I'm here for," the Guardian ruffled his short blonde hair fondly for a second before Alex pulled him off, although (something that he didn't really like to admit, but then again he still hadn't finished growing and wasn't yet an adult) the man was stronger than him and could have forced him to have his hair ruffled (which would have been extremely embarrassing, as being treated the same way he treated Caiellis was downright patronising because of his status as ten months away from adulthood, whereas his little brother was still only thirteen and so could be treated in that manner – plus, his job description as a big brother included annoying the crap out of his younger siblings whenever he chose to). "Anyway, how did you know that Cai had gone there? Did you watch him?"

"No, Alex. I made him tell me where he was going to go after," Tristram drifted off for a second, as if trying to find the words for something that he didn't want to talk about with the middle Lucerna, "Another argument between Marik and him." the man settled on.

"I'm glad you did that," Alex responded, his eyes fixed upon the position he assumed his little brother to be at (though he was using the concealment spells that prevented Alex from sensing the kid unless he was in close proximity (because of their relation as brothers and the fact that he had become very accustomed to Caiellis's mana pattern), and the seventeen year old wouldn't put it past Cai to have told Tristram he was going somewhere and then instead gone in the complete opposite direction), and the Guardian patted him on the shoulder. "You're a good kid, Alex. I'm glad you're back with us."

_I don't know what any of us would have done without you,_ was the unspoken continuation of the king's champion's words, and so to diffuse the tension building up around them Alex joked, "Thanks for that uber-girly moment, Tristram. See you around!"

Tristram watching him go sadly, figuring that he should go to the strategium in preparation for the war council in forty minutes' time, and glad that the eldest prince had arrived, because if anyone could prevent Marik and Caiellis from screaming at each other, it would be him.

It was one of the greatest shames in the world that Caiellis never got to see the nice side of his father, as Tristram knew that whenever Marik wanted to discipline his son he went in with the intention of doing that and then being nice afterwards, but that mission quickly dissolved when the two inevitably started shouting and accusing until one of them did something they would regret. Cai only saw his daddy when the man was disappointed or angry with him, never loving or caring (apart from the brief moment during Alexander's surgery where Marik had hugged his youngest son that had made Tristram sadly smile despite the severity of the situation). That only seemed to happen when the thirteen year old was asleep, and his dad could control his anger – although Tristram knew from personal experience that little Cai was monumentally easier to get along with when he wasn't alert and picking fights with the adults he disliked, and peacefully (that part was debatable) slumbering instead.

He had never known that Marik had affectionately tucked him into his bed and ruffled his hair after the boy's most recent (and worst) migraine, abandoning one of his kingly duties to do so (though this was after him and Tristram had argued about sending Cai to Scientia Mos). He hadn't realised that Marik had gone instantly to his son's placement in the Ordo Medella temporary hospital to check on him after the battle for Fort Egetau, leaving the rest of the commanders to organise the movement to where they were now located, and held his slender hand through one of his frequent nightmares that seemed to be exacerbated by the pain he had been in during the healing.

Cai would never know that when they had moved and set up the new camp, Marik had carried the boy to his personal tent, when Caiellis's head had lolled perfectly into the crook of the man's arm where he had snuggled comfortably, unaware of his actions, and wasn't aware of the fact that Marik had sat all night at the foot of his bed, telling his sleeping son how damn proud he was of him and his achievements, and how grown up he had become at the age of just thirteen.

If only Marik could do the same when his son was awake, maybe then Caiellis would appreciate how hard he found it become a parent again. But first Marik needed to be more confident in doing so, and make the effort to comfort his son despite the boy's insubordination.

Despite his jovial manner, Alex was deeply concerned for both other members of his small but infinitely precious (to both him and the kingdom) family, as any division between them was something that affected him massively. All he wanted was for them to get along, but wasn't naïve enough to not realise that such an outcome would require tremendous amounts of effort from both sides, and that a single mistake could destabilise the whole thing.

He walked at a reasonably quick pace through the camp, knowing that if an argument was bad enough to make his little brother go into the mindset where he wanted to be alone then Caiellis would most likely start to hate himself and begin to become even more depressed and sad. Hopefully the surprise visit of his big brother would help to cheer him up, though Alex thought that maybe he should see his father first. No, the man would be informed of his arrival anyway (if he hadn't yet noticed), and the king was much better at controlling his emotions (in Alex's opinion, at any rate) than his younger brother.

Many soldiers bowed respectfully towards the eldest and most favoured prince, some murmuring, "Thank the angels for your recovery, Prince Alexander," as although the exact details of his wounding were not disclosed, the fact that he had been severely hurt was revealed so that the legionaries (and non-combatants that helped them by supplying food, armour, medical help and equipment) would be driven into a more fervent and zealous rage against the Welkalites who would dare to hurt the beloved Lucerna family (despite the fact that the one who had done wasn't part of the New Empire of Passion at all).

The older boy found it slightly odd that he was more admired than Cai in spite of his total of zero military victories (whereas his sibling had led two and been a part of the third, though had been wounded in the attack on Fort Egetau according to Tristram), though that was probably due to their angelic Summonings and the fact that he was more confident, and despite his bad state had still been able to give out an inspiring speech (although in Alexander's opinion it wasn't nearly as good as Caiellis's, but he could have done one to match or even outshine it had he been in perfect condition). Furthermore, his little brother was more of an atypical Lucaelian than him, because although Cai was young he would probably always be thin and slender unless he gorged himself on food, whilst Alex was muscular and tall (though knew he hadn't finished growing yet).

The middle Lucerna walked to the edge of the camp, the guards stationed there saluting him and smiling – they had probably seen his little brother walk out there and know that Alex was going to see him. The ever-present dust outside of the Welkalite cities swirled around the seventeen year old as he began the short climb up the incline in front of him, smiling because this would definitely be the most expected place for Caiellis to go – somewhere lonely, isolated and tranquil, though normally the kid preferred secluded locations to somewhere open like this. However, it would offer a commanding view of the steppes of Welkas, and one might be able to barely see Usnaan through the swirling sand as the City of Pleasure was only a short few miles away.

It was hot, though more of a dry heat despite the sun being obscured by gathering grey clouds, but Alex didn't break into a sweat as he ascended the rocky outcropping, which meant that he was recovering quite well. He felt like it might rain, one of the common weather patterns in Lucael unless it was winter and snowing, though assumed the rain in Welkas would be more violent and spontaneous downpours of water but stopping almost as soon as it started rather than the torrential and constant rain in Lucael that made everything in the eternal midnight even more depressing and lasted for hours.

He wondered if Cai had ever studied the weather patterns of the other parts of the world, as although there probably wasn't much Lucaelian literature on the subject the alliance that was formed with the Yentarian Republic in the brothers' grandfather's reign and reinforced during their dad's meant that the Yentarian documents were available to the Kingdom of Light and transferred into paper form for the libraries, overall massively increasing Lucael's knowledge on the rest of the world. Alex personally had never found it interesting, and would rather actually visit the places detailed instead of just reading about them, but of course Boy Genius had relentlessly devoured any reading material he could get his little hands on to expand his own understanding, which meant that when he was younger and more talkative (though only in the presence of people he knew, and even then he was quiet relative to the amount other people spoke) he would come out with all sorts of random facts and figures, and almost incessantly ask questions.

Now he was even more reticent to speak, and sometimes Alex didn't know what was going on behind those mysterious green eyes, which meant that everyone else would have not a clue – though at least his little brother was young enough that he could still tell what he was thinking most of the time. When it came for Cai to grow up even more, Alex would of course support him every bit of the way, and liked to think the kid would preserve his love of his big brother, but the middle Lucerna sometimes wasn't so sure. Nonetheless, the objective of his current journey was to help soothe his younger brother as well as help repair the fissure between their father and him, and Caiellis going through his teenage years could be relegated until Cai actually started going through them. Right now he had a thirteen year old brother to help, so it would be a thirteen year old brother that would receive his help.

Alex reached the top of the rocky spire without any trouble (though it wasn't exactly a difficult climb in any way), which meant that his body had healed well after the wounds Aksua had heaped upon it in her mad lust for Lucerna blood, and boded well for his capabilities in the upcoming fight. The place that Caiellis had chosen to be alone on had a relatively large plateau on top, at least as wide as the palace courtyard, and had an overlooking view of the nearby wasteland that was darkened by the lack of early morning sunlight. He soon spotted the small boy huddled over at the other side of the plateau, dangerously close to the edge, staring over in the direction of the Welkalite capital; Cai evidently had not yet noticed Alexander getting to the top of the rocky spire.

He could faintly see the blaring lights of the City of Pleasure from their vantage point, though would be able to perceive it clearer at Cai's position. Normally the boy would notice people sneaking up on him, but for as long as he could remember Alex had always been able to surprise the younger boy by suddenly appearing next to him, which was what he was now intending to do. He quickly but silently made his way to the other side of the mesa, his strides long but his footsteps silent and taking every advantage that his height and agility gifted to him, until he was right behind his little brother with no visible signs that the younger boy had yet realised Alex's entrance.

Before he interrupted the kid's very clear introspection of staring intently at Usnaan, the older Lucerna took a moment to gaze at what his little brother was looking at; the City of Pleasure had many gathering storm clouds above it, dark and angry Cumulonimbus forming above the city and crackling with an ominous red lightning that was of no way natural origin. Alex sensed that this was the cause of the earlier itch at the back of his mind, and if he had felt it then obviously his more sensitive little brother who was more in tune with his magical senses would have done so with much greater intensity, though there was not a massive difference in their sensory skills and Alex was far more perceptive of his physical surroundings.

The younger boy was wearing a scarf, which was odd and entirely unbefitting of the hot climate of Welkas, and indicated to Alex that he had something around the throat region that he intended to hide from others, or perhaps he didn't want the dust to get into his mouth when the wind blew. Despite his proximity to Caiellis, and the fact that if Alex listened intently then he could hear the smaller male's breathing, the little guy had not yet registered the closeness of his sibling, a fact that Alex was going to quickly change.

He brought both hands so that they were hovering above Cai's shoulders, and leaned in close so that his mouth was next to the kid's ear, and at the same time he tapped his younger brother on his painfully thin shoulders and (not too loudly) half-shouted, "Boo!" The youngest Lucerna spun around in alarm, his youthful face creasing with surprise and shock and almost falling back over the edge of the outcropping, yelping and extremely startled at being suddenly broken from his thoughts. Alex shot out his arms and wrapped them against the slender form of his brother, halting the beginning of a tumbling descent and turning around, carrying the insubstantial weight of his small little brother back onto the plateau. Alexander deposited his little brother back on the ground, finding the whole situation hilarious which would only served to incense Cai further, who detested being snuck up on and spooked, especially by his older brother who _always_ managedto pull it off.

"Alex!" the boy exclaimed in annoyance, glaring at the older boy who grinned even wider and roughly ruffled the mop of brown hair sat atop his brother's head. Cai held the glare for maybe a second longer before he broke out in a smile of his own, joy at seeing the older boy again eclipsing his brooding and melancholy thoughts and thrusting itself to the forefront of his mind, as when Alexander was around he felt safer despite the direness of events in the past (and present). Alex snorted and laughed at the younger boy's goofy grin, asking in spite of the fact that he already knew the answer: "How you doing, little bud?"

The older boy was thoroughly unprepared for his smaller sibling to practically launch himself at the larger boy and wrap his thin arms around his waist, though Alex noted that Cai didn't jump at him like he would have done in the past (as the younger boy knew his brother could handle his light weight from all the messing around/play-fighting/wrestling they had done), which meant that Caiellis was still concerned about his condition – as Alex would have been in the reverse situation, and was for his little brother now. He easily lifted the younger boy off the ground again, smiling patently as his little brother peacefully rested his head against Alex's solid chest for a moment, murmuring, "I've missed you, big brother."

"I've missed you too, short stuff," Alex replied, before as if their minds were linked both left the hug at the same time, though he sensed that the inane grin Caiellis currently wore was not representative of his inner emotions, although the thirteen year old was clearly happy to see the only family member he trusted return to his side, in spite of the reality that Cai had to know that Alex would be trying to prevent the arguments instead of coming to his aid in them. The smaller prince had also sidestepped the earlier question, which suggested that he would rather bask for a little while in the happiness of his brother's recovery before talking about his own internal emotions.

However, the time apart had been good for both of them, as Cai had become more independent and confident in his own abilities (despite Alex always encouraging him that he could do things if he just tried), and Alexander had been able to concentrate on his recovery instead of worrying about the older and younger members of his small family arguing. Plus, it made the novelty of being in each other's company much more genuine, and because the last time they had seen each other was after Alex's post-traumatic emotional breakdown which Caiellis had helped him through (in spite of the fact that he never wanted his brother to see him weak, Alex wasn't stupid enough not to realise that Cai's words and comfort had aided him far more than being on his own and with misery as his only company would have) Alexander wanted to reaffirm that he was the older of the two in the relationship. Now, as was correct in Alex's mind because of their age differences, it was once again his turn to help his younger brother out.

As if anticipating that Alex was just about to speak, Cai turned around to look at the brewing storm of darkness once again, sitting down and crossing his legs to look at it without having to stand up. He shot a glance back at his older brother, both to ensure that Alex wouldn't play any more tricks on him and to indicate that he wanted the older teenager to sit down next to him, though didn't pat the ground in that entirely demeaning and patronising manner Alexander did it when he wanted his brother to settle down near to him.

Alex complied silently, willing to focus on the much greater (though inexplicably linked to the family problems, as said family problems concerned the ruler of the nation, the supreme commander of the army, and his son, the prince and possible heir to the exalted Lucerna throne) issue of the coming siege of the debased Welkalite capital, slinging a muscular arm around his brother's thin shoulders and gently resting it there.

"That is no natural storm," Cai commented idly, his eyes flicking to every individual flash of crimson lightning and tracing its blood red pattern to the city floor, though he couldn't make out any buildings at this distance (although he did know the rough approximation of important locations in the sprawling city (that was larger than all of the Lucaelian metropolises but not as tall, and Capitalia Lux had the same population as it), such as the Palace of Desire) and so couldn't see if it had any effects or if it was simply a display of light, and despite the large expanse in between him and Usnaan the coruscation left brief after-images on his retina that he blinked a few times to clear.

"Nothing gets past you, does it?" Alex joked back, lightly pushing his brother forward to add emphasis to the words, though he wasn't smiling as he also stared at the tempest that would very clearly be a great threat to the Lucaelian force when they assaulted the city, although none yet knew what manner that threat would present itself in. The younger boy scowled and snorted, "Don't be mean, Alex. You know what I meant. The Welkalites are definitely using very powerful demon magic to do this."

"And you're sure about that?" Alex asked, not that he doubted his little brother in any way, he just wanted to be certain that the foes they would be going up against were using demon magic and not some offshoot brand of magic the Welkalites themselves had developed that had nothing to do with Sancturia demons. Cai nodded, "Uh huh. I can sense their taint staining the landscape from here. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the demons have caused this, and most likely that bastard Tradax is behind these storms."

"Language, little dude," Alex chided, repressing a smirk at his little brother raising an amused and incredulous eyebrow as if to say, _Are _you _seriously telling me to watch my usage of profanities? Really, Alex? You're certainly one to talk. _Alex stretched out his legs so that they were dangling over the side of the sharp descent that his little brother had almost fallen off of, squeezing the smaller male's shoulder reassuringly in silent conformation that he didn't care that demons were against them, he would continue to make sure that Caiellis was safe and sound. _Well, there's no point putting this off any longer. I'd best get down to business if I want to start helping. _Alex broke the companionable tranquillity that had descended with a brief cough that instantly got his sibling's attention, and nonchalantly interjected into the void of silence, "I hear that you and dad have been arguing recently."

Cai's body posture immediately slumped and the defeated expression that passed over his gaunt and youthful face made Alex's big brother alarm that was inside of his head start to ring. Cai looked into his eyes for a brief second before breaking off and glancing dejectedly back at distant Usnaan, his slender index finger tracing a meandering whirl in the dust of the mesa before it was blown away and erased. He responded with, "I'm sorry, big brother."

Those four words made Alex's heart ache for his younger brother and father, the utter sadness and despondency present in them emphasising how none of them wanted these arguments or the anguish that they caused afterwards. But now was not the time for comforting, now was the time for action and hopefully relatively harsh words from the brother that he looked up to would jolt Cai's mind. Alex made sure to keep his voice stern as he uttered, "Well I'm sorry as well, but we both know that just apologising doesn't solve everything. I know that you promised that you would stop arguing, but you clearly haven't otherwise you wouldn't be up here, all on your own. Saying sorry to me isn't going to fix your relationship with dad, and whilst this may seem harsh the fact that you are still squabbling with him means that I count your promise to me as broken."

Cai swallowed sadly and nodded, knowing that by releasing his anger at his father it had caused his brother to worry instead, and that by indulging the man in arguing and defying him at every chance he got he was just making his brother get worse. He should have realised that earlier, but it was far too late now, and he knew that should Marik want to argue with him now then he would still be more than happy to oblige, in spite of his big brother's thoughtful and helpful words.

_I mean, what is he going to do now? What could dad possibly ever do that would eclipse what he has just done? Kill me? That's not a possibility, as I am a Lucerna prince and my death would demoralise the nation? Beat me to within an inch of my life? That wouldn't do anything. He's already thrown everything he has at me, and if he thinks that wrapping his hands around my neck is going to make a difference then he is sorely mistaken. However, I agree with Alex. The arguing needs to stop, for his sake if not for my own – and definitely not for dad's. Alex doesn't deserve this. Alex deserves the perfect family, and the amount of effort he has put into me shouldn't go to waste. __And if that perfect family consists of me never speaking to dad then so be it._

"However, you can still repair the promise, and I'll consider it unbroken. Make an effort not to argue with dad, and don't just blindly question whatever he says. Realise that people make mistakes. I know that you thought he was going to be flawless after this war, and it's my fault for that – I shouldn't have cultivated that image because there was no way dad could have lived up to it, what with mum's death and his brother's betrayal and nine years of brutal war - of course he was going to find it hard," Alex continued, and Cai nodded again. "And don't think that I'm going to speak to only you just because you are my little brother and I can boss you around. I'm going to talk with dad as well, as him being our father and king doesn't exactly excuse his actions either."

"That's good," Cai replied distractedly, prompting his brother to smile and gently shove the smaller boy, "Are you even listening to me, short stack? Nothing I said just now warranted "That's good" as the primary answer choice."

"Uh … yes it did. You said that you were going to talk to dad as well as me. That is a good thing," the Summoner of Orzhova responded in confusion, his eyes widening in bewilderment, making Alex grin even more, "I was just testing you."

"Jerk," Cai pouted, "You made me think I hadn't been listening then. You may spout some ridiculous things that aren't worth hearing sometimes, but trust me when I say that I analyse everything you say for its worth before deciding whether to discard it or not."

"That's awful nice of you, bitch," Alex teased, silently wondering how fit for purpose Caiellis had deemed his most recent words, but the younger boy took most of his advice to heart anyway so there was only a slight chance of him not paying and heed to it. Then again, this was something significantly more personal and emotional than girls (for Cai at his age and mindset anyway) or technique in certain things, this was their father they were talking about. Alex had already screwed up in making his brother's anticipation ludicrously high, and he wouldn't fail the younger boy again. All he wanted was for the kingdom (and to a somewhat lesser extent those in other nations) to be safe so that his little brother could be safe as well, and wanted his family to be happy after all the strife and sadness it had gone through – the state of the Lucerna family also directly correlated to his first objective. "I hope you find my advice worthy of your esteemed judgement."

_Trust me, big brother, I did. But there's something you don't yet understand about how our relationship has deteriorated, and something that I can't hide from you any longer. It would be unfair to do so, but I'm glad Tristram has left it up to me to tell you. It's strange; a part of me wants Alex to be furious so that he goes and confronts dad about it and puts him in his place, but another wants none of that and would prefer it if Alex didn't let it affect him or persuade him to do something stupid and reckless, especially in the child-abusive state Marik seems to be in at the moment. I hate him for it, obviously, and I'm being foolish insisting that I don't want dad's love, because of course I do, but I don't want Alex to be negatively affected because of it._

"I do … It's just..." Cai drifted off, though his brother patted him encouragingly on his shoulder, "You know you can share your worries with me, little guy. I won't judge."

Cai looked him straight in the eyes, staring deep into them and taking Alex aback with the intensity of his emerald gaze, and the older boy registered that what Cai was doing was seeing whether or not he was deserving of what he was about to impart to him. _No, not "deserving". Cai knows that I'm worthy of hearing all of his worries, and though he doesn't always show it because we are teenagers and bickering brothers he does respect me, same as I respect him. I think it's more "ready". _

_He wants to know if I'm ready for what he's about to say – if I've recovered enough from what Aksua did to me. He probably still blames himself for that anyway – while I'd like to believe that in his position I'd have been strong enough to break out of the vampire's dream realm and come to the aid of my brother, I know how much he wanted to help me __and how strong he is (mentally, at any rate, as he is weaker than me in a lot of ways because of his age and fragility), and anything that could have ensnared him for so long might have trapped me as well._

_But I have recovered, __I can't be coddled forever__, and I'm ready to help him. I just hope that he sees that, _Alex thought, gazing back at his brother and letting adamant determination seep into his blue eyes. Cai broke off first, lowering his gaze timidly, coming to the awareness that now he had done that he had to follow through with this course of action, as Alex looked about ready to shake the information out of him – though of course not with the intention to hurt, Alex never did anything with the intention to truly hurt his little brother (as in almost kill him, as they had wrestled and the older boy had beaten him up quite a bit when they had seriously argued in the past), unlike another member of their three-person family.

He slowly moved his hands towards the scarf around his neck that he had put on to prevent the soldiers from seeing the angry red mark marring the pale flesh of his throat, as although Marik had gone nowhere near full strength (otherwise Caiellis would have been rendered unconscious within seconds) the mere force of his implacable grip would have left a mark anywhere on his body. The junior adolescent wasn't yet sure if his father had simply lost control and been ready to squeeze the life from his petulant son there and then, or if he had truly done it in a completely excessive yet ultimately vain attempt to punish him for his insolence. His current interpretation of Marik made him more inclined to think the latter, but one part of his mind was mortified that any father would want to willingly do that to their own child.

Alex watched expectantly as Cai slowly undid the scarf, dreading what would be underneath but realising that he had to know and see the whole picture before saying anything else about the topic. Plus, Caiellis was evidently placing a lot of trust in him by permitting him to see this, as the first time their dad (_ok, don't jump to conclusions. I know that is the most likely outcome of this, but give the man some love, will you?_) had hurt Caiellis (admittedly accidentally, not realising how much he was hurting his youngest with the force of the grip) the younger boy had been incredibly reluctant to reveal it and only had done because of Alex's outburst and the pain he had inadvertently caused the kiddo.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Cai immediately stated when his brother stared at his neck for a long, drawn out second, the boy's mouth twisting into a furious frown. He tried again, adding a placating and pleading note that made his already not-yet-deep voice even more young sounding, "Please don't do anything stupid because of it, Alex. I deserved it, which doesn't mean a father should do something like that, but I we were both shouting and because he'd almost won the argument I brought up mum. It's … I … I was scared though."

Cai's voice became shaky and Alex pushed past how paralysed he had become at the wounds to tenderly pull his brother towards him, letting his head lean on Alex's chest in a parallel of the actions Tristram had undergone only a few minutes earlier just after the incident, the older boy slowly patting him reassuringly and soothing, "It's alright. You had every right to be scared, kid, if what I think happened did happen."

"I ... I couldn't move … he was holding me down and emitting some sort of mana that prevented me from casting spells," Cai started off stammering but resolved to get through it, and _by the angels _he would not cry in front of his older brother now, "I don't know if he did it to discipline me, or because he lost control because I said "Is that what mum would have wanted?". But I know that he didn't do it with the intent to kill, not at first I don't think because he started squeezing harder for a second before Tristram came in."

"I'm sorry," Alex murmured, luckily too quiet for his sibling to hear over the sound of the wind on their elevated vantage point, so made his voice louder for the second lot of words, "While I agree that you shouldn't have said that, in no way was that sort of reaction justifiable, especially not with you because you aren't as strong as me, so any force damages you more than it would me. But as I said, I'm going to speak with him. Don't worry, I'm not going to attack him over it, and though I'm holding it in for your sake I am _fucking _angry. Well, on the bright side at least it can only get better from here, right?"

_I wish,_ Cai thought bitterly, turning away from his brother and refastening his scarf around his neck, the mere fact that his father had done that to him filling him with sadness and fear that was only just starting to fuel the fires of further anger, something that could have been accentuated by the storm in the distance. _Ok, be real, that storm is in no way affecting my mental state. I'm just trying to make excuses now, and by that standard dad wasn't affected either. I can only barely sense the amount of Red and Black mana it is emitting, and I would know if it was doing something to me or him, and it isn't. _

After a gigantically depressing silence had descended where Cai looked as if he was about to burst into tears at any moment, Alex realised that he should try and cheer up his little brother so poked him playfully on the nose, sniggering at the look of utter bemusement the younger boy shot in his direction, asking, "What was that all about?"

Alex just grinned back and pulled the smaller boy closer when he was about to retreat away, though he obviously didn't do it as forcefully as he could have as he never went full strength against his little brother when they were play-fighting, and he pretty much never had to when they were wrestling or sparring. Kicking Caiellis's ass was a brotherly gesture, and it wasn't supposed to carry any long term side repercussions; Alex always felt awful whenever he landed the fragile little Lucerna with a good move that he failed to anticipate or dodge and left him with an ugly mark. Even bruises were outside of Alex's comfort zone more often than not when inflicted on his little brother, though the kid had often suffered them at his hand because he had to train as well. Such things went against his most basic desire: to keep Cai safe. However, tormenting the younger boy luckily came above that.

"Alex, stop it," Caiellis whined as his older brother yanked him closer, not in the mood for any form of teasing though not really in a position to argue with his much stronger brother. Anyway, if he really wanted Alexander off him then he would have to try a lot harder than that, and knew that if he inflected his voice with just the right amount of sadness and despair then the older boy would let go of him. "Aww, but Cai, you're really depressed. I hate seeing you sad, so I'm gonna cheer you up, ok?"

"No thank you," the younger boy answered, immediately knowing what his older brother was going to do but not wanting to be a part of it – sure, it did make him happier at the time, and he could pretend that he wasn't a prince and didn't have the fate of the kingdom resting on his thin shoulders, but he knew it was only a temporary respite and wanted to stay focussed for the upcoming strategy session. He didn't see the benefit of playing when they were in a war, so shot a puppy-eyed glance up at his big brother, wanting his "adorable" gaze to dissuade Alex from continuing, but the older boy just laughed, "Loosen up, Cai. When have you ever complained about a little rough-housing before?"

"Only every single time you do it. Leave me alone if you are going to annoy me," Cai snapped, turning around a glowering up at his brother, who sniffled and wiped an imaginary tear from his eye, "I'm hurt. And here I was thinking that you had been looking forward to seeing me all this time."

Cai sighed exasperatedly, "You know I was. But neither of us have got any time for silly games, and you know full well that I'm not in the mood. I am glad to see you again, but if you are just going to deliberately piss me off then I want you to leave me alone."

Alex snorted at how grown up the younger boy was trying to sound, though he always pulled the trick of trying to be the "mature one" when he didn't want to be bothered. However, he could tell that Cai would profit from lightening up, if only for a brief moment where he could forget about his troubles and simply enjoy himself with his brother. Additionally, he did sometimes enjoy making his sibling irritated and he because they were brothers he was allowed to, just as the younger boy occasionally tried to do the same for him. If Cai started crying or getting really angry then of course he would stop, but right now it wasn't doing any harm to annoy him. Besides, the strategy council was still in roughly forty minutes' time, and this wouldn't take long at all. "Watch your words, little dude. I don't appreciate your constant swearing. Don't make me beat you up for it. And trust me, I have more than enough time to do so."

Cai cocked an eyebrow at him again, though he was right to do so as he barely ever swore whereas his brother did it far more often, although he supposed Alexander's blatant hypocrisy was just meant to irritate him further or spark indignant annoyance. "Please, Alex, don't be a jerk. I'm really not up for it right now, and you know it."

Alex ignored him and wrapped him in a vaguely rough (though not painful) and utterly restraining headlock with one arm and began to tickle him with the other. Though his eyes still highlighted his annoyance, Cai couldn't prevent himself from starting to giggle, though he noticed that his brother wasn't as rough as he usually would have been – either because he knew about the fact that he was still recovering from bruises or burn wounds, or that the older boy hadn't yet healed fully in his own case.

However, Alex was still as big and muscular as he usually had been after thinning out when he couldn't eat much and his starved body had to focus on repairing itself, so Cai assumed he had resumed his monstrous diet (though not literally, and it was mostly healthy stuff like protein (though Caiellis was sure that his brother would eat anything) that would make his brother fitter and develop more muscle to the point where he got to their father's stature, although Cai was aware that Alex didn't want to be colossal or grotesquely muscled like Arendus Draal and other members of the Order of Violence). The older boy was still significantly stronger than him, but Cai couldn't tell whether his full strength had recovered or not because there was no need for him to be using it on his small brother.

Pulling at the arm around his neck was futile, and he tried to tell Alex to stop before his words were overwhelmed in a tsunami of hysterical laughter that barely ever came out of him unless he was being tickled, though still made him feel happier. Nevertheless, happy was precisely what he didn't want to feel, not in their current situation – he wanted to be focussed, sombre and sober, not gleeful or cheerful in the few hours of the last day before the final deciding battle of this war.

He was grateful that Alex wasn't putting any pressure at all on his neck with the arm around it, just holding him in place with a headlock, as he didn't need any more pain on the bruise on his throat and really didn't want to repeat the experience of being strangled, not after what had just occurred and their fateful abduction that had led to this violent war in the first place, his weakness that had been punished by the Master of Violence's brutal capture of him that had in essence caused all this death and destruction. He hadn't thought of it like that before, and it simply served to make him feel even worse, though he didn't have enough time to ruminate on these melancholic thoughts before his brother began a full-scale assault on the sweet spot in his ribs that made him titter uncontrollably, utterly out of place with what he was thinking. Besides, Alex never really put any pressure on his headlocks when they were just playing.

"Enjoying yourself there, kiddo?" the blonde asked, ceasing his relentless tickling for a short moment so that his brother could regain his breath and stop laughing, though his body still shook with barely repressed giggles. He smiled fondly down at the squirt, who had let a small grin play onto his youthful face despite the severity of the events of earlier today, liking the moment in spite the fact that he was at his brother's mercy and hated being tormented. Cai took a deep breath and answered, "No, not in the slightest. Tickling typically engenders that sort of laughing response from a person in spite of what they might be feeling inside, so I'd appreciate it if you let go and put me down instead of treating me like a child."

"I would do, Boy Genius, if you weren't still a child. But, unfortunately for you, you are still a kid and only thirteen years of age, so that makes your point invalid," Alex replied, smirking at the expression of pure annoyance on his brother's face and beginning the tickling again. _Right, I warned him. Well, no I didn't, but whatever, he should anticipate this type of response from the little brother he is tormenting. I don't actually expect that this futile gesture of resistance will achieve anything, but oh well. We are in good spirits, and if I'm going to be more serious about wanting freedom, I'll have to start now. _In between another burst of hysterical laughter that made Alex laugh as well at how joyful it sounded, Cai suddenly jabbed his elbow into Alex's ribs, at almost full force because he knew that he had no chance of hurting the older boy.

Or apparently not, as it seemed. Alex had to suppress a yelp of pain but still hissed through his teeth, instantly letting go of his brother, and Cai dropped to the ground and spun around in alarm, shock and concern for the older boy etching itself onto his face, "Oh shit Alex! I'm so sorry! I never meant to hurt you!"

"You didn't hurt me, Cai," the middle Lucerna instantaneously assured the smaller boy, whose eyes were widening in surprise and guilt and looked as if he was about to start the self-loathing process all over again, going back to his emotions of failing his brother in the "Aksua incident" that Alex knew he would take a long time to get out of. The younger boy looked guiltily back up at him, muttering, "Don't lie to me, Alex. Something like me elbowing you has never made you hiss in pain before, or let go of me when you are in the middle of tormenting me."

"Maybe you are just getting stronger," Alex replied, though knew the words weren't true – well, they were ever so slightly correct, but Cai's physical strength wasn't improving in any noticeable way and the progress that teenagers usually made was much slower and smaller with his younger brother. Cai then asked, "Are you sure you are alright? It hasn't been very long since Aksua almost killed you, and I should have thought about that before elbowing you. I'm so sorry for being so stupid and selfish and forgetting that you would have only got out of bed less than four days ago. Well, four days ago if you count the breakdown you had."

"I don't need reminding," Alex stated, a warning note entering his voice. Well, maybe he had recovered less than he thought, and it was a problem if he couldn't take a little resistance from Mr Weakling over there, but Cai had jabbed his still-healing ribs. And anyway, his brother needed to worry about repairing the father/son bond that had been broken, not still fretting over his older brother who was still too pathetic to have fully recovered. It had just been an unlucky coincidence that Cai had chosen to attack the only area of his body not fully restored as of yet. "And you don't need to apologise. You just touched a healing rib, that's all, something that will recover soon and the last thing to do so. You've got to remember that I don't blame you for anything, short stuff."

"Perhaps you aren't ready for war yet," Cai mumbled sadly, dejectedly turning his gaze back towards the ground and not willing to meet his brother's piercing and stony stare, unready to deal with the intensity of it and feeling even worse knowing that he had hurt Alex now as well, just to top off his day. He resolved to suck it up and take responsibility as a brother to tell Alex exactly what he didn't want to here, "In fact, I don't think you should be here at all. I think it was stupid for dad to authorise your release, and I think you should still be resting. I know that you want glory, but there will be plenty of that when Johnias raises his head again with the remaining traitors."

"If anyone shouldn't be here, then it is _you_, little brother," Alex growled back, annoyed that his weakness had led to his brother doubting his fitness for combat once again, "You are four years younger than me, and not emotionally ready for this amount of violence."

"I _am_ ready. I was forced to be ready at four years of age, and you know that I'm ready," Cai replied resolutely, though couldn't help but thinking about how he was reduced to such a pitiable state after the Merciless Eviction of the Welkalite army he had faced at Jeksaan, and the fact that he wasn't strong enough to prevent the soldiers in Fort Egetau from dying by trying to protect him, "Y_ou,_ on the other hand, almost died less than a week ago. Don't think that I'm saying you are weak or anything; you are the strongest person that I know and I believe in you, but that's precisely why I know that you aren't ready yet. There is no point in throwing yourself into a war when you know that you haven't recovered-"

"I have recovered, Caiellis, and I wish you would get that in your damn head," cut in Alex, raising his voice ever so slightly and hoping that he could infuse it was some of the commanding influence he knew he had over the smaller male, but as usual that never worked during the arguments they sometimes had. "I know that if the positions were switched I would be saying the same, but the fact remains that you are substantially frailer than I am, and because I am a Lucerna with a strong body I recover fast. I need you to focus on this war and on your relationship with dad; you – and him – will never be able to concentrate if you constantly think that I need coddling or protecting."

"You manage it perfectly well with me," Cai muttered bitterly, before making his voice loud enough to be heard properly by his brother, who had folded his arms as if that would make all of the youngest son of Marik's points invalid. "And I need you to stop thinking you are indestructible because you are a big brother. I need you to stay alive and at my side _when you have fully recovered,_ not lying dead on the battlefield because you blatantly ignored the fact that you weren't ready for combat yet!" Cai's voice became a shout infused with emotion directed at the most precious person in his short life.

Alex stayed silent for a few seconds, his eyes exhibiting the inscrutable qualities that their father had perfected and stopping Cai from seeing what he was thinking, though the younger boy had never been as good as inferring Alexander's interior emotions from only that as the eldest prince was in the opposite situation. They both stared each other down, but this time Cai refused to just let the issue slide because if Alex got hurt then he would never be able to forgive himself for not pressing harder. He said, quietly, tears beginning to brim at the corners of his expressive eyes, "I can't … I can't deal with you dead, Alex … I wouldn't be able to cope..."

The older boy had wrapped him into a comforting hug that lifted him off his feet before he knew what was going on, resting his recently shaven chin on Cai's head before putting him down and putting a large hand on his shoulder, "It's clear that neither of us are willing to back down in this argument, and while I think you are being unnecessarily stubborn I think the it's good that you have the confidence to be that way (_though I guess most times we have _really _argued in the past neither of us would consider giving up __until after_) and stand up to your brother."

"You make it seem like you are a horrible person and would normally hurt me if I did," Cai smiled sadly, though his emerald eyes still blazed with the defiant determination that made Alex feel sorry for their dad, who would be subjected to a gaze of much greater intensity – though all of the Lucerna line had reputedly had transfixing and powerful glares, so the most recent generation were no different. Alex snorted, "Sometimes I do get the temptation to slam your face into the floor, but you aren't the only one I occasionally feel that way with." _Though it is more frequent with you because you are my little brother. _He then added quickly, noticing Cai's look of shock, "I'm joking, of course. I'd never think of ever doing that to my cute little buddy."

Cai made a face at him, and Alexander continued on with his earlier statement, "There is only one way we are going to solve this."

Caiellis's mind instantly lit up with the many possibilities that his brother could be talking about, and then casually dismissed most of them, knowing that Alex would only be describing one thing. "Which is?" he asked expectantly when the silence began to draw out and Alex's eyes lost a bit of their focus.

"We have to fight each other with our First Sisterhood angels," Alex replied dramatically, letting go of Cai's shoulder and pacing backwards, tensing, stretching and relaxing his muscles as if that course of action was already decided upon. Cai did see how it could be beneficial for him to fight against Aurelia with Orzhova, though wasn't exactly sure how the two angels would take it. Besides, it would be wasteful of their mana should the Welkalites unexpectedly attack the camp, though Akroma would be available and Alex could Summon Aurelia twice in a day – Cai was pretty sure he could do the same with Orzhova unless he used spells with a monumental mana cost. "I'm not so sure that will work..."

"Of course it will. I can prove to you by beating you that I'm capable of fighting in this war, as you are and if I defeat you then by extension I also have to be," Alex added, to which Cai replied, "Most of my spells require draining life, and I don't want to have to subject you to that. I mentally wouldn't be able to go all out on you."

"And I don't expect you to, and of course I won't use full power on you either. Anyway, you can give the life that you steal back after the battle. We don't want to kill each other," Alex agreed, instinctively brushing the Swords of Flame stamped on his right bicep with the fingers of his left hand, "Come on, Cai, it will be good for both of us. I've only fought once against a First Sisterhood angel, and that was with dad so obviously his power level was massively higher than mine, so this gives me an opportunity to battle against something more equal – and you haven't ever fought one. Trust me, it changes your perception on things when you do," he coaxed.

Caiellis still looked unconvinced and hesitant; he hadn't yet moved from the spot he had been in for the past few moments, so Alex added, "Tell you what, little dude, I'll make you a deal. If you win then I won't fight in the siege of Usnaan. I will stay back with the non-combatants and wait until you and dad have finished with it. I promise. However, if I win then I want you to stop doubting my condition. And to stop blaming yourself for the wounds I suffered."

He was taking a large gamble by doing this, as he didn't intend to ever renege on his promises to his little brother, but then again if he did lose to his four year younger sibling then Cai would have been correct to doubt his state. He knew the godlike power the smaller boy generated when he Summoned, which had probably increased since the last time he had witnessed it – the amount of mana the kid had was shocking sometimes, but also something Alex was wickedly proud of and felt he deserved – that physical frame of his wasn't doing him any favours, that was for sure.

He had never fought against White and Black combined either, and also knew that Caiellis would already be thinking of strategies despite his reluctance to fight, but he had fought the younger boy more than anyone else so knew how he acted, knew how he was far more careful than he let on and planned out every movement before enacting it.

Moreover, he had Summoned Aurelia over a thousand times in the seven years of having access to her (though for very short periods at first as his younger self had not been able to sustain the Warleader for long), whilst his sibling's successful Summonings could be counted on two hands, and the squirt had only passed her almost impossible trial a week and a day ago. Finally, he had asked Aurelia about Orzhova in the past, concerned for his little brother after the boy had wanted to kill himself after finally discovering who the Angel of the Black Sun truly was, and the Warleader had told him all he now knew about her sister and how although she hadn't been the closest out of the First Sisterhood to her (that had apparently been Serenity) she had always wished that she would come back and repent (not that the other angels would have ever forgiven her), even while she was decapitating her with her fiery twin blades.

"And you're serious when you say that you aren't going to fight if I win?" Cai inquired dubiously, taking a step back to increase the space between him and his brother. Another flaw to this plan was that the fact that the brothers had Summoned would be detected by everyone in the camp, revealing their position (though he had long since deactivated the concealment enchantments, having done so when his brother arrived) and so some might come to watch – there was one person in particular he wanted to avoid, and if Alex hadn't gone to see them before rushing to his younger brother (unlikely) then they would almost certainly arrive.

"Uh huh. I always keep my promises," Alex replied, nodding his head, and though there was no _unlike you _implied at the end of the sentence Cai heard it anyway, although from himself and not from his brother. Alex's blue eyes showed no hint of a lie, but the older boy had often been able to pull of things like this in the past. "Come on, Cai. It will be a learning experience for both of us."

Alexander was clearly excited to be testing his skill against someone else, so Caiellis sighed sadly and murmured, "It certainly will be. Let's get this over and done with then."

The older boy nodded again, and Cai immediately began to pull up the substantial amount of information he knew about the middle Lucerna's fighting style due to watching him so often when he had been too young to do the same, and when trying to emulate him. Because of Alex's aggressive and quick nature, he would almost surely be on the back foot in the early stages of the fight as his brother attacked in order to press his advantages. Both physical and magical defences were the key, but although it wasn't uncommon for Alex to launch a fireball of Red mana or a helix of lightning that healed the caster as well the former was far more important against his in-your-face brother.

All three Lucernas' techniques were exemplified by how they used their angels: Alex used his to start fights off with a huge advantage and try to finish them quickly; their father used his to press an already existing lead whereas lastly Cai used his to finish the fight after accruing a very large edge, his _coup de gr__â__ce _so to speak. Well, that was the theory anyway, as all three would Summon when in danger or up against a particular foe.

"Yep. Good luck, kiddo, and may the best warrior win," Alex grinned confidently at him, about to start his Summoning, before Cai frowned and asked, "Wait, what is the criteria for victory?"

"First one to win where there would be no chance of comeback. Or first blood, but I don't want to make you bleed and I hope you think the same about me," Alex replied coolly, "Is that ok? Or would you prefer a fight to the death?"

The older boy's joking just emphasised how much more he preferred fighting to his brother, who rolled his eyes at the last words and stated, "Yes, that is fine. First one to be about to deliver a decisive blow."

Caiellis could feel the air around him crackling with the energy of two Lucerna princes about to Summon, though he would conjure Orzhova in the generic way as to not waste mana - not that he could use Black mana as the primary medium, as he didn't feel any hatred towards his big brother. Golden light spilled around his left side as his right eye opened, suffused in the same glow, and circles of alternating Red and White energy began to pulse out from the older boy, increasing in intensity every second as he focussed his mana.

He could see the amount Alex was generating in the golden-white Lens of Innocence, but ignored the older boy and instead focussed on collecting his Black mana, thinking of the thoughts of his mother's death that never got any less painful despite the amount that he delved into them (though the willingness to do so was what conjured his Black mana as well as the emotions themselves, as when he was dragged unwillingly into them in his nightmares it wasn't quite the same), darkness beginning to pulse out of his Black Sun birthmark and mix with his light, becoming a maelstrom of tenebrosity and luminescence that matched the radiance and holy fire Alexander's circles were now shining with.

Predictably, he couldn't see his older brother nor what he was casting when he shut his golden right eye and opened his left, the once-emerald orb filling with onyx black and turning his vision into the Lens of Guilt, the storm behind Alex flashing with a pulsing red energy in this sight that revealed malicious intent, making the unnatural tempest appear even more ominous. Cai dismissed the thoughts from his mind, knowing that he would have to be completely focussed on the battle at hand if he was to stand any chance of winning against his faster, stronger and formidable brother.

He relaxed his breathing as golden tears spilled out of his closed right eye, blending with the crackling purple and black lightning coruscating around the Black Sun on his pale cheek, and as he moved his hand round to it as a sphere of compressed darkness and light formed in tandem with the slow opening of the golden orb above it and the combining of the two Lenses. Now that he could see Alex again, he could observe the effects of the mana his brother was emitting instead of just feeling it at the back of his mind, the circles expanding across the ground at an extremely fast rate as their scarlet and white light began to be directed upwards. Alexander had almost finished with his Summoning ritual, which was a bit embarrassing but also highlighted his relative inexperience with dealing with his own Sancturia angel.

Anyway, it wasn't as if Alex would attack him whilst he was still in the middle of the spell, and he tossed the orb upwards just as two sets of hymnals sprung into life – one a haunting and melancholy song of devotion and pledging everything to the cause of sanctity, whereas the other was a heart-stirring and zealous war anthem that would inspire the troops to victory underneath the Warleader, currently louder and drowning out Orzhova's emotive melody as Aurelia was closer to entering reality.

"Aurelia!" Alex cried, and Cai forced the fluttering in his stomach at having to fight the fiery seraph to stop and concentrated instead on his own Summoning, drawing Orzhova's scythe with his shadowy mana whilst infusing the sun of darklight with magic from his left palm. The circles on the ground flashed upwards, and Caiellis saw an extremely powerful but familiar presence in the united sight of his Lenses, though this time the Warleader would not be helping him – she would be against him. He could hear the beating of angelic wings, and coated the Angel of the Black Sun's weapon as the Black Sun itself expanded to a huge size, pulsating with malignant shadow energy mixed with beams of judging radiance.

A pale hand wearing fingerless gloves of black leather reached out of the blinding sun as the hymnals reached a crescendo of overpowering noise now that Aurelia's glorious chorus had ceased with the entrance of the Warleader, and Caiellis felt his power levels rising at a massive rate as his own angel began to be formed in the collapse of the star of malevolent and abyssal unlight. He hoped Alexander was impressed and awed, just like he was with Aurelia as his opponent, though there was no doubt in his mind that the angelic sisters would go for each other just as the Lucerna brothers did the same.

He drew the Sword of Glass, the crystalline weapon charged with the alternate energies of light and darkness, noting that Alex had his own personal blade as well that was of an elegant design – though nothing he recognised from the Lucerna vaults or having belonged to any Lucerna monarch or prominent figure in the past. That didn't mean that it didn't, as Caiellis knew he wasn't aware of the entirety of the vast array of hidden weapons in the Lucerna sanctum back at the palace (only the ruler at the time was), but he doubted for some reason that Marik would give Alex a semi-forbidden weapon. At any rate, the sword was of master craftsmanship and interacted with the seventeen year old's Red and White mana, which meant that Cai's relic blade wouldn't simply slice through it.

"Aurelia. I am honoured to be your opponent," a sarcastic but still awe inspiring voice mocked the second Caiellis was about to open his mouth and say those exact words, Orzhova smiling derisively at her sister, before adding, "Oh, sorry about that. I suppose it's Cai's job to say that, not mine. I guess I couldn't hold in my _utter excitement_ at having to fight _you _again."

The fiery angel simply glared back and shook her head sadly, as Cai cut in and said, "Though she was being sarcastic, I have to agree with Orzhova's words. It will be an honour to battle against you, Aurelia," the boy intoned, bowing his head respectfully as his angel snickered contemptuously, lazily spinning her golden scythe in a wide arc as orbiting contrails of shadow and luminosity were imprinted onto the air.

"Thank you, young Caiellis," the Warleader replied, utterly ignoring Orzhova's mocking words as the dark seraph pouted at her and Cai thought, knowing that she could hear him, _I need you to be focussed in this battle, please. Don't let your dislike of your sister spoil your, and my concentration, and stop embarrassing me in front of my brother. He has much more familiarity with Aurelia than I do with you, and she counters our long term fighting strategy with their relentless aggression and speed. _Alex then said, "And it is a privilege to fight you as well, Orzhova."

The angel smiled and winked back at him; she liked Alexander and thought he was perfect for Caiellis (though the older Lucerna did annoy her Summoner sometimes, and inadvertently make him feel inferior, although the other member of his small family was much more disliked by Orzhova) and was willing to ignore the fact that he Summoned the fanatical and passionate (bordering on explosive) Aurelia, who wasn't her most disliked sister but was still up there on her list of scorn. Imitating Aurelia's voice with a ridiculing resonance that seemed utterly out of place on the terrifying and awesome dark angel, "Thank you, young Alexander."

_Orzhova... _Cai thought, a warning note creeping into his mind voice as the Warleader bristled at the mockery and insulting, _I'm not sure it is a good idea to make her even angrier with you and thus more inclined to defeat you, especially since we'll be hard pressed enough as it is dealing with another First Sisterhood angel and my brother. _

The angel shot a serious glance at him out of the corner of her midnight eyes, and her honeyed and silken voice spoke (though not obtrusively like Cai had always imagined mental communication being – although telepathic words from others could well be like that) into his mind in a reply: **Calm down, Caiellis. I'm just taunting her – plus, if I can make her angrier that means she has a greater chance of over-extension or making a mistake in her haste to defeat me. I already am well aware that she represents the antithesis of our combat pattern, ****but I'm confident we **_**can **_**win this if we outlast the storm of fire and steel. That doesn't mean to say we should ever get complacent, as this will be one of the hardest enemies we – ****well, you**** – ****have ever faced, ****though I assume neither of us will be utilising our most powerful spells.**

_In that case it's alright then. But I think you misunderstand me: I don't _want _to win, because that would mean that I was right and that Alex hasn't yet recovered, not that I had rightfully beaten him, but I'm willing to test him to make sure he is safe. _Orzhova then turned to him, her eyes twinkling with a mixture of amusement, mischief and serious at seeing her sister again, **Are you completely sure about that****, ****Caiellis? Are you sure that you don't want to win, to prove that you can overcome the older brother you have always idolised and looked up to that has always been better than you – in your eyes anyway? Are you sure that this battle isn't as much as testing Alex's suitability for dangerous combat, but to see if you can surpass the big brother who you have forever looked admired?**

"When you're ready," Alex vaguely impatiently cut into his wordless conversation with Orzhova, gazing into his brother, his blue eyes retaining their colour but looking remarkably different with Aurelia's ardent fire in them, especially with that fire directed towards Cai, prompting the younger boy to briefly ponder if his big brother had also been having a private talk with his own First Sisterhood angel. Cai took a deep breath to try and relax the adrenaline that was already coursing through his veins – he would need as much energy as possible when the fight started. All four combatants' anticipation levels were reaching breaking point, and Caiellis looked his brother straight in the eyes as time seemed to slow to a crawl.

He only gave a tiny nod of acquiescence, but it was all that he needed for the plateau to explode into violence, his brother crossing the short space between them with his already exceptional speed augmented to inhuman levels by the gleaming White and Red enchantments Aurelia cast upon him. The sword lashed out, shining with a blinding intensity, and Cai was hard pressed to block it on his own, the force and speed behind the blow tremendous. Another attack, this time from Alex's booted foot covered in orange fire, almost slammed into him before it was slowed by a shield of glass that Orzhova created, her scythe arcing down into where Alex was before a bolt of fire knocked its trajectory off.

Cai leapt back from his brother, wishing that the top of the rocky outcropping was less like an arena so that he could get more space to manoeuvre as Alexander instantly followed him, his bolt of unlight intercepted by a helix of silver lightning the older boy shot at him. He needed to delay so that he could bring his magical potency to bare, but couldn't start channelling his mana in nearly enough quantity with Alex's proximity and persistent assaults.

Orzhova snarled at her sister and launched herself at her, knowing that she needed to distract Aurelia so that Cai could deal with his brother. Her scythe blow was blocked on the straight sword in the angel's left hand whilst the more decorated and curved blade was deflected by the abyssal haft of her weapon as she pulled it up. She slammed it into the ground, conjuring up tendrils of shadow and light that she flung at the Warleader, directing some of them to aid her young Summoner who was at the moment outmatched by his bigger and stronger brother.

Aurelia crossed her swords, a defensive sphere of White mana surrounding her and burning the questing spears of darkness coloured with golden light, but Alex seemed to be unprepared for the attack and had to spin around to cut them apart. Cai saw an opportunity and took it, diving backwards instead of at his distracted brother and seeing Alex's feint for what it was, a fiery explosion obliterating the ground behind his brother that would have caught him out if he hadn't been more used to the seventeen year old's tricks. The older boy grinned at him, his eyes shining with his very clear enjoyment in this fight, and Caiellis narrowed his own.

Sure, he enjoyed a challenge (though preferred mental ones to physical), but couldn't ever see the point in fighting with other people. Then again, this was no time to think about that, as Alex was already upon him. He had to jolt sideways as a spear of flame jetted out of his brother's free hand, incinerating the edge of his scarf that he still wore and inducing him to quickly take it off before it ignited and burnt his throat.

Aurelia began to swing sword strike after sword strike at her darker counterpart, the blades ignited with a passionate and fiery energy in bringing justice and judgement on the darkness and possibly again trying to teach her sister the error of her ways. Orzhova spun her scythe in a circle, deflecting a couple of the strikes and blasting a selection of blinding White bolts at the other angel. Both her and Caiellis needed time to start some sort of powerful spell, and the fact that they were being put on the back foot by their Red and White opponents was detrimental to their chance of success.

Cai enhanced himself with the Gift of Orzhova, beating his stained glass wings and flying into the air, higher than the two angels who were still close to the ground, barely dodging a storm of incandescent fiery missiles that scorched the air with their holy energy. He was better at long distance combat than his brother, who much preferred to be up close and personal whilst using weapons (or his fists), though apparently Alex had other ideas as Cai heard and felt his wings shattering into particles of glass at the disruptive Red mana his brother launched at the aura, smashing apart the magical substance and sending his sibling falling back to the earth.

Instead of returning to his brother, Cai swiftly completed a short talk with Orzhova and landed on a cushion of a soft but glass-like White and Black material and fulminating a streak of purple energy at the Warleader, the draining energies of the discharge healing Cai ever so slightly though he didn't inflict much damage, the First Sisterhood angel much more resistant to spells than other beings (although at least not immune like some Sancturia creatures).

The dark seraph bombarded Alexander with shards of stained glass that sliced through the air, shining with a malevolent purple glow and breaking themselves apart on his flaming shield, though the sheer amount of them was starting to tell, as well as the numbing and debilitating mana they released when shattering upon impact. She hoped her Summoner could stand up to powerful Aurelia long enough for her to achieve victory against his older brother here, as now that she had enough distance between her and her enemies she could bring her full power to bear. Orzhova raised the golden medallion in her left hand, striking it with her scythe as a pulsation of gold swept across the battlefield.

When it touched Caiellis, it infused the boy with strengthening mana, but when it passed through him and hit Aurelia – doing the same in the other direction when it reached Alexander – it blackened and became shining with darkness instead, sapping the life and strength of her temporary opponents on the mesa, at first with quite a low intensity but increasing in strength every second the fight continued – until it would reach such a rate that, unless Alex or Aurelia did something, they would be overwhelmed and Caiellis and his angel would have enough life energy to become effectively immune to any sort of assault.

Aurelia quickly launched herself at Cai, shooting through the air at a speed that should not be possible for a being her size, though one that he was entirely prepared for, bring her swords round to strike and taking full advantage of the fact that she was a much stronger creature than the small and physically weak youngest prince. He dodged one blow that smashed apart the ground beneath him, and blocked the second just as it was about to hit, diverting the energy behind the blade away from him instead of outright taking it straight on his sword as he would have been sent flying.

Another strike from the ignited Swords of Flame forced him to jump back, though then several bolts of lightning cracked towards him, and he was too slow to dodge but not too slow to raise a shield of scintillating White and murky Black. He cried out in pain as the electricity ran through his nervous system, and though the wounding that it caused was quickly healed by his shield and the spells that Orzhova had cast upon the ground, it still hurt and left him wide open for the descending angel, her blades raised high to strike him down – while Cai assumed that the flaming swords would be extinguished and stop an inch above slicing into him, he still didn't want to lose, not right now.

The battle had only been going on for less than a minute of absolute exertion, and he was confident that he could stabilise the situation and gain the upper hand the longer they fought because of the grinding nature of White and Black combined, whereas White with the most aggressive colour of mana was more about spontaneous and relentless offence. Whilst he had said that he didn't want to win because it would prove that the wounds Aksua had inflicted were still healing and the fact he had failed his big brother meant that Alex was still unable to fight and felt inadequate because of that, he would be lying if he said that achieving victory wouldn't come with a burst of satisfaction, despite knowing that it would be due to his older brother's condition not being perfect and not because he was stronger than Alexander.

The middle Lucerna ran at Orzhova, swinging his dad's former sword at the Angel of the Black Sun and also conjuring up a roughly circular shield of incandescent golden-white that attached itself to his left arm. The angel blocked his sword strike effortlessly, twisting round and ramming the haft of the scythe towards him. Alex managed to bring his new aegis in front of him, though it fractured underneath the force of the blow, and when it did Orzhova blasted out a shaft of pure light at him that sent him tumbling despite the fact that he sensed Aurelia adding power to his defensive enchantments.

The older male quickly got to his feet, and in spite of the brief flare of pain in his chest that he knew was only fleeting – the fact that he was a Lucerna making him more resistant to the spells of enemies – he grinned at the angel that he was fighting against. Orzhova smiled back at him indulgently, thinking about how whilst she and Alex were thoroughly enjoying this short combat, her Summoner and Aurelia were utterly serious and completely focussed – though she supposed that the Warleader wasn't exhibiting as much of her natural fervour because she was fighting against an innocent and small child that she knew wasn't deserving of her fury.

Caiellis rammed the Sword of Glass into the ground, etching smoking and celestial sigils into the air around him the Aurelia couldn't see due to the fact that the twofold shield that had protected him from the lightning helix was now merging together its individual components of light and darkness to become an opaque barrier of imperious gold that only had enough space for him inside. Had he been claustrophobic (like his brother mildly was, though always pushed away his fears and faced them instead of hiding from them), the sensation would have been entirely unpleasant, but right now he couldn't care less and it made him feel slightly safer for the moment – Cai could still see the world around him through the fusion of the vision gifted to him by the Lenses of Guilt and Innocence.

The littlest Lucerna (although he wouldn't ever admit to Marik) tried to replicate the technique dad had shown in the attack on Fort Egetau, but instead creating his own unique take on the move since he had never been taught the spell, collecting his magics of light and darkness into the rough semblances of orbs, holding one infused with more White mana and pulsing with golden flecks in his left whilst his right carried a black sphere reminiscent of the Black Sun but more unstable.

His shield cracked and splintered into many different pieces, but instead of waiting for it to fully break apart he shot out of it, releasing the two rough spheres of unstable energy and slamming them together through the force of his mind. When they collided, they annihilated in front of the apparently surprised Warleader, emitting huge quantities of blinding energy that healed Caiellis and forced the angel to raised her wings to shield her eyes from the glow, though the bombardment of alternate energies turned some of the white feathers to ash. Cai pushed aside the feeling that he had just desecrated something of the highest holiness by daring to touch a First Sisterhood angel's wing with his Black magic, running at the angel to press his advantage though he knew Aurelia would be ready to attack him when she glared at him through her fiery red eyes.

Orzhova laughed at her Summoner's reversal of the situation, letting go of her scythe (where it stayed hovering in the air due to the magic surrounding it) and clasping her own hands together, a bolt of unlight flying out towards Alexander. Instead of dodging, the older boy raised his palms (one still holding his father's sword), a shimmering field of Red and White mana appearing around them. Too late, Orzhova realised it for what it was, and called out a frantic warning to her Summoner as the bolt was deflected off its path towards Alex and refracted straight towards Caiellis, who broke off his attack and glanced round in confusion.

The bolt hit him in the chest, sending him flying, but halfway through its collision Orzhova desperately managed to convert the magic of darkness into that of a healing lance of radiance. Aurelia launched herself at her distracted Summoner, and Orzhova, feeling that it was her fault for her boy Summoner's current pain, grabbed her scythe, the golden edge suffused with void darkness. She cut through the barriers between the worlds themselves, walking into the Sancturia abyss and leaving material existence for a short moment, before another blade of darkness hacked apart reality and she pulled herself through to intercept the blow.

Aurelia immediately turned towards attacking her, and Cai pondered if Alexander and the Warleader had also initiated a mental shift when Alex charged at him. His muscles were on fire, but his mana pool still had a substantial amount yet unused (though not quite enough to cast a spell of cataclysmic magnitude). He needed to delay further, and the longer it took for him to be defeated the greater chance of winning he had. Alex had seemed to realise this as well, his blade splitting the air and glowing with a golden light as it was blocked on the Sword of Glass, White on both sides pressing against each other, each bolstered by a different one of its enemy colours.

Alex grinned enthusiastically at him, swiping out a foot to see if he could trip up his little brother as the two angels fired spell after spell at each other, but Cai had been expecting such a move and had already jumped up, dragging his lighter blade away in a spray of sparks and slicing an overhead blow towards his sibling. The elder Lucerna blocked it on his own sword, which was exactly what Caiellis had wanted, and his mind lit up with the possibility of finally beating his brother as he executed a perfect disarm, the older boy's blade dragged out of his grip and clattering to the ground a few feet away.

Alexander's eyes widened in shock as Cai pressed another strike, ready to pull back his blade at the last second as to not hurt his brother, before the exultation of his mind quickly turned to horror when he came to the awareness that Alex had wanted to be disarmed. The older boy's hand quickly and fully encircled his thin wrist, crushing it with squeezing force and forcing him to drop his own sword as his hand went dead, and he was yanked round before he could bring any mana to bear and greeted by Alex's closed and free fist millimetres from crashing into his face.

Shock was the first thing that flooded into his paralysed mind, and he was powerless to move himself as the moment of his defeat seemed to stretch out into an eternity of failure, before Alex's comforting voice broke into it, "Sorry, but you aren't winning this time, squirt." He cheerfully smiled at his kid brother, who's bright green eyes were still widened in an adorable surprise, as he heard and felt the two angels stopping their own personal battle. He loosened his crushing grip on his brother's skinny wrist, knowing that the force of the grasp would leave a bruise but hoping that Caiellis would forgive him for it.

"I … I lost..." was all Cai could say, breathing out at an extremely fast rate to the point where he had begun to hyperventilate, his vision returning to normal and blurring, though not because of any extreme exertion – yes, he was tired, but not exhausted, and still had most of his mana left. Enough for another Summoning at any rate. It had been ended too quickly; the entire battle had lasted less than two minutes, which meant that Cai obviously wasn't as strong as he thought he was before this. He was glad that his brother was back to normal again, but the speed of the defeat came with a sting of personal disappointment at being bested by Alexander again. He knew it was selfish of him, and that he should be lauding his big brother on his victory, but couldn't get any thoughts out. At least it hadn't been effortless for his sibling to swat him aside, but as a Lucerna prince he should have done better than that.

"Yeah, you did. But don't beat yourself up about it," Alex told him, fully releasing his brother and going to fetch their swords, though it took a few seconds for Cai to register that his relic armament was being handed to him. They were both sweating in the heat of the morning despite the fact that it would get hotter as the day went on, and there was no scorching sun to glare down at them, but being used to the freezing Lucaelian cold made a person like this. The older boy knew that had he not overcome his little brother quickly, then he would have almost certainly had a significantly harder time winning as Cai's power got higher and higher whilst his own waned – in that instance, he would have been force to playing the delaying game until Caiellis could no longer sustain Orzhova. "But … It barely took you anything at all..."

_Wow, he really doesn't like this very much does he? Then again, he always thinks that he is inferior to me, and because of the kingdom's (and our father's) blatant favouritism towards me he may have developed a bit of an inferiority complex. Being a Lucerna can do that to people, as you are constantly told that you have to be extremely powerful so that you can save the people from the darkness, even from an early age. _Alex thought, nodding his thanks to Aurelia and swiftly Unsummoning her, and patting Cai on the shoulder. "It was either I defeated you quickly or I lost, as you definitely have the long game in your hands because of your magic. Hey, don't look so down, I've Summoned Aurelia way more than you have Orzhova, and I'm four years older than you so of course I should have won."

Cai still seemed shocked, however Alex had been the same when he had abruptly lost to their dad when he forcefully Unsummoned the Warleader so couldn't blame the kid. His little brother then smiled at him, though it was quite obviously forced.

_Sorry, Orzhova. I let you down. _He thought, glancing over at the brooding angel, who returned his look but smiled at him, her midnight eyes losing the sadness and disappointment that they had been filled with when meeting the despondent gaze of her Summoner. **You did well, Caiellis. There is nothing to be sorry about. If you keep training at the rate you are now, both in and out of combat, and wait until you are a bit older, I'm sure we can best Alexander and Aurelia one of these days. You are still only thirteen, Cai. When you are both adults your power levels will be equal, but until that time you should expect a power discrepancy. **She returned to the Mind Realm in a spiralling flash of purple energy, and Caiellis felt a wave of exhaustion as she left, though not as pronounced as it would have been if he had been able to actually use some of the mana remaining in his stores.

"Sorry, Alex. I'm sorry for being so petty. You fought really well, and deserved to win," Cai said, smiling up at his older brother who returned the grin and ruffled his hair, eliciting an unamused growl at the seventeen year old dispelling the image of a gracious and mature loser he had created, "Thanks, kiddo. You did the same. I don't think you are being petty, it's normal for you to be shocked and disappointed at a sudden loss, particularly when you think you are close to winning against someone who is stronger than you. And I expect that you will stop questioning my recovery now."

"Yes," Cai nodded. He fully believed that the fact that he had elbowed a healing rib was the only reason for his brother's pained reaction, and that the older boy had definitely healed because of his fortitude and Lucerna heritage. He was immensely glad that Alex was getting back to normal, especially since it was his failures that had led to his older brother almost losing his life in the first place. _What would I ever have done without Alex? Me and dad would never have spoken (which could be preferable to almost being at the point before we are actively trying to kill each other (well, when he's actively trying to kill me at any rate)), and I would have locked myself away even more than I do now. I would have certainly wanted vengeance against the Welkalites who caused the death of my brother, if I could have ever got over the loathing of myself for letting him die. _"You've proved that you can fight. I'm glad I didn't win, because it means that you are getting better."

"Sure you are," Alex replied, grinning at the younger boy and wrapping him into a headlock, noogying a little too roughly, but before Caiellis could yelp in outrage or question his brother on what he meant (though already had a vague idea that Alex was referencing the fact that he had wanted to win), he felt another presence on the plateau – one that had been there a long time, but with the intensity of the sparring duel he hadn't been able to notice it. His mood instantly soured, and Alexander let go of him as he heard an, "Excellent moves, Alexander. I'm happy you have recovered well from your near-death experience, and it is so nice to see you again, my son."

_How long of you been here? And I'm glad that it's nice to see him again, though not your youngest son. Although to be fair as a father I would prefer Alex to me. That of course doesn't excuse anything. _

Cai pulled himself away from his brother, not even looking over at his father and preparing to descend back to the camp, before he let out the emotions brewing within him that his sibling had managed to momentarily distract but were returning with even greater potency this time – now that he was no longer shocked at his father choking him, the sadness and disbelief was turning into fury and resentment, though for some strange reason he couldn't quite manage hatred. If he hadn't been so intimately familiar with hatred as he was even at his young age, Cai could easily have passed off his current emotions as that, but right now he knew it wasn't.

"Nice to see you too, dad," Alex replied politely, nodding his head in a brief gesture of respect to the king that he still thought he should do despite the fact that the monarch was his father, and smiled at the pride in his father's eyes, something that he enjoyed receiving but just wished that Cai could be favoured with the same. He liked making Marik, the person he had looked up to in spite of not seeing him for over nine years (though then the person that he had admired had become better and better in his mind due to not seeing him for so long, forcing Alex to improve if he wanted to continue to emulate his mental representation of dad). However, his words were coloured with an inflection of seriousness and anger, which he couldn't tell if his dad had picked up on due to his piercing blue eyes still being filled with love and parental pride.

He quickly noticed that Caiellis had immediately begun to leave, so before he went Alex spun him around, lifted him off his feet and embraced him in a bone-crushing hug that had him coughing for breath by the end.

"Sorry, kid," Alex quickly apologised, forgetting for a moment how much weaker his brother was than him. He put the boy down, but didn't quite want him to leave (which he didn't blame the younger boy for) so knelt down to his height and resumed the hug at a much diminished intensity (though still strong enough to make it uncomfortable for the younger boy – it would be far too wimpy for him to ever give his brother a hug without making it firm).

"It's good to see you again, little bro," he said, resting his chin on Cai's bony shoulder for a second and squeezing the other one with his hand. Cai pushed his brother's shoulder away from digging into his neck, and before he replied looked upwards to where the king was watching them. It made his blood boil how Marik's eyes were meandering guiltily and aimlessly across the patterns the blowing dust was making on the stone mesa, but when he noticed his youngest son looking at him he hardened them and returned the gaze.

Cai felt his body begin to begin trembling with equal amounts rage and fear as he locked his orbs with those of his father, the seconds-long moment stretching out across the aeons of time. He felt tears beginning to gather at the corners of those angels-damned wide and childlike eyes of his that made him look years younger than he was, so violently shook them away as moving his arms would alert Alex that something was wrong, though it was unlikely that the older boy hadn't noticed his furious and frightened shaking. Marik simply stared back, the words he had been planning to say to congratulate his youngest on his impressive fighting despite his quick loss falling from his mind, although he managed to keep his eyes cold and his features austere as he mentally quaked under the accusing glare, though it wasn't the anger that hurt the most – it was the fear.

He had always been scared of his own father, but also awed as well at the aloof and cold man, and whilst Johnias may not have been as terrified of his wrath as he hadn't been beaten as much as Marik, the current king's twin had a special type of fear reserved solely for the unstoppable and scary Garius who would not hesitate at all to beat his children into submission. But he had never wanted it to be like that with his own sons; he and Emili were supposed to give their children the perfect life, all the support in the world so that they could embrace their destiny whilst feeling loved.

This fear wasn't right, it never should have happened, but the truth of the matter was that Emili was dead because of his own stubbornness and ignorance in believing that Johnias would be above such tactics like targeting his family and bargaining with demons. The civil war had taught him what a monster his twin brother had become, eaten up by jealousy in his belief that he should have been king instead of Marik, and if Marik was honest he wished that he had never been chosen by their father's death vision in the first place. Then his sons wouldn't have the weight of the world on their young shoulders (unless Johnias didn't have children of his own), wouldn't have been targets in a war that never happened, and Emili, his perfect wife, would still be alive. However, he couldn't be certain that Johnias had fallen when he was handed the crown instead of his four minute older identical twin, or if he had always been tainted by the promise of the darkness.

Much like his youngest, actually. He needed to be taking more of a role in making sure that Caiellis wouldn't fall prey to the shadows that were an integral part of him, though because Caiellis had never chosen to have some of the abyss in his gentle but defiant heart from birth whereas those that had turned to it for power were driven by ambition and greed meant that his youngest son would be less inclined to abuse that power because he knew exactly what it could do. It was a terrible burden, but Caiellis seemed to be taking it fine so far, though (in part) it could be attributed to his perpetual fault-finding and blind questioning. Nonetheless, he needed the boy in line, not just because he was a Lucerna with a destiny to help the kingdom but because of his Black mana that could easily turn him into another Xarius.

Alex could _feel _his father and brother staring at each other in spite of the fact that neither were emitting any mana, so to spare Caiellis the torment of staying with the man who had choked him and who was supposed to be someone who loved and supported him – though he had no doubts in his mind that Marik _did _love Cai, and that the younger boy could also improve in the way he handled the father/son relationship – he let him go. Cai murmured, "It is good to see you as well, Alex. I'll see you back at the camp."

"Stay safe," the older boy cautioned, and his brother finally broke off from staring at Marik – although Cai ensured that the way he did so was not in any way acceding to his father's apparent dominance – and raised his eyebrows at Alexander, scolding, "I'm not five, Alex. I can take care of myself."

"That's all well and good," the middle Lucerna smiled, "But I'd hate to find out myself that you'd fallen on the way down and broken your skull on a rock."

"How pleasant, jerk. If anyone falls on a rock here," Cai resisted the urge to direct the barb at his father instead of his brother, which would have made the words far more than a harmless jest. Excluding dad from the conversation was perfectly reasonable in his opinion, "It will be you. And I will be the one who had pushed you."

"Like you could ever do that with those pathetic sticks of yours," Alex scoffed, "lightly" punching his brother on the arm, who yelped in pain but quickly repressed it, hoping that his father hadn't heard and wouldn't get any ideas, "Get going, bitch, before I give into the urge to push you myself."

Cai gave him a little wave, actively stopping himself from directing another glare at his father; he failed to do so so instead made it as intense as he could muster – _If I'm going to have to glower at him, I may as well make it worth the while –_ and left, feeling the man's gaze boring into his back.

Alex slowly stood back up, watching his little brother hurry off before eventually figuring that he had to approach the metaphorical elephant in the room despite wanting to put it off forever – he quickly reminded himself that he needed to do this, for his kid brother's sake as well as his father's, though he didn't want to let his anger at his sibling's mistreatment out at the man in the same way he had done the first time. He was angry, _furious _in fact, that his dad would ever let himself put his hands round Cai's fragile throat, but could put aside his personal anger in the cause of improving his little brother's and father's kinship.

"Dad. We need to talk. Now," he stated, eschewing any pleasantries that could wait until after this pressing discussion, and accidentally utilising the precise words he had spoken when confronting the man over Caiellis's self-harming – however Alex did not want a repeat of that occasion, despite its success.

Marik exhaled loudly, though he had been expecting this – if Caiellis was going to tell anyone about the occurrence, it would be his older brother and his confidante. He had been anticipating such a progression of events, but it still hurt – while Caiellis may blindly demand at every opportunity, even though he should know better, know to respect his father and king, Alexander supported him and backed him up – he could count on his eldest to get the brothers out of sticky situations. When Alexander questioned him, he knew it had to be really bad, and the only two times (counting this one) he had done it then it was.

And he understood Alexander's point, knew why he was glaring at his father with the blue eyes he had inherited from him. Because Caiellis had been hurt by their dad, physically this time as well as emotionally. Caiellis's pain drove the older boy into a protective anger, made him as reckless and obstinate and disobedient and difficult and ultimately dangerous as Caiellis himself. Alexander would give up his own well-being in a heartbeat; he wouldn't give up his little brother's for anything. It was his eldest son's greatest asset, one of the things he loved the most about him, but it was also his greatest weakness.

"You probably know this is coming," Alex said, "But we need to talk about the fact that you strangled Caiellis. I don't care what he was saying, I don't care what he was doing, but if you ever, _ever _do that again to him, they you have me to answer to. That may not scare you in any way, and I'm not threatening you, but if you want any chance of becoming a father again you will not hurt my little brother any more." His voice got louder and more angrier the longer he was talking, but he ensured to keep it suitably respectful.

Two paths were open to Marik now: one was the one he had taken with Tristram and Caiellis (and all others who might find out, though he doubted his son would want the information spread because although Caiellis may defy him he had never done anything intentionally to his father's direct detriment), the one of cold authority, smoothing the incident over with the need to discipline and austere lies. Or he could tell the truth, tell his loving eldest who clearly wanted to repair the rift between Marik and Caiellis that he had lost control, hadn't been able to stop himself from shoving his son down on his bed and wrapping his hands round his neck – in fact he hadn't even been aware of it. Both had their own merits and downfalls, but as Marik gaze intently into his eldest's honest blue eyes the truth won out.

He sighed again, wearily sitting down in the same position his youngest son had been in when Alex found him here, motioning next to him for his eldest to sit down whilst gazing watchfully at the storm over Usnaan that made his head hurt – though he soon blocked out the pain. A headache was the least of Marik's current concerns. The seventeen year old dubiously glanced at him yet still dutifully sat down next to his father, who turned to him, his eyes still strong but no longer cold, filled with something that scared Alex despite it being preferable to the alternative of cold anger – fear.

Well, not quite fear, but hesitancy and uncertainty that aptly emphasised how inexperienced Marik was with being a father again. Alex's mind instantly leapt to thinking about how he could help his dad at the moment, though he came to the conclusion that he should just listen, and offer questions, criticisms (just not insulting ones), advice and support where pertinent and necessary.

"Alexander. I want to begin by saying how proud I am of you and your brother for how heroic you were in the civil war, and the escape from Welkas," Marik began, and Alex searched his eyes to see if he was throwing out praise to try and get his son on his side, but he couldn't find anything in his impenetrable blue orbs – it also prompted Alex to remind himself that he was on neither side, as when he was with Caiellis then he would be on his father's side but when he was talking to dad – like now – then he would argue the squirt's position. When they were together he would take neither, unless one of them was doing something far worse than the other. Such as enacting physical violence.

"Thanks," he responded simply after a moment of silence, his dad smiling warmly at him (though it didn't diffuse the tension after his outburst earlier, having expected the forty year old to carry on speaking). The man draped a large arm over his son's shoulders, but Alex didn't relax his body because of it, though the gesture of intimacy was appreciated despite its lack of reciprocation. "And that's why I am going to tell you the truth, my boy."

Alex nodded, though he didn't yet know which of the two possibilities in his mind – that Marik had done the actions as some sort of extreme punishment, or let go of himself and lashed out, hurting his youngest in the process – was the truth and which was false. At any rate, the defeat present in his father's posture made him heavily suspect the latter, and made him want to profess that Caiellis had been out of order and instinctively defend his idolised and perfect father that he adored in spite of becoming more and familiar with his numerous flaws exhibited against Cai. "Truthfully, I wasn't entirely aware of what happened. The last thing I heard before I came to my senses with my hands gripping your brother's throat was Caiellis trying to turn my weakness for your mother against me by bringing up what poor Emili would have wanted..."

Marik drifted off, beginning to think of what the flawless and indescribably beautiful woman would have wanted, before knocking himself out of it. He had a rightly angry eldest son to reassure, and a petulant youngest to deal with afterwards, as well as an army to lead. Thoughts of his wife could wait. "I made it out to Guardian Tristram that I planned out the actions, that I was doing it in some sort of absurd punishment for Caiellis's rudeness – though mark my words, Alexander, your brother did deserve one. I know you have a fondness for him, but if you had been there you would agree with me."

"Cai does sometimes step out of line, and needs bringing back with a reprimand," Alex agreed, though there was no doubt in his mind that whilst his little brother would act upon his or his Uncles' criticism instantaneously, becoming sullen and contrite, he would argue and fight against his father's words with every breath he had. Marik nodded and smiled at how thoughtful his older son was, and continued, "Anyway, that went about as well as expected, and I don't think Tristram will ever stop hating me for it. I lied about it not because I have a problem with admitting that I lost control – though it is incredibly inappropriate for a king – but because Caiellis would never be able to feel like he could stay in a room with me. Whether it was him bringing up your poor mother, or his constant defiance that set me off, I don't know, but I can't have him knowing that I did it unintentionally. It would break him even more than I already have done. Do you understand me, Alex? I need you to never reveal the truth to your brother."

"Yes," the middle Lucerna nodded. He understood and agreed with his father's reasoning completely, despite how tragic it was. "I don't care if your brother hates me forever, so long as he is obedient and can think he is safe. If he thinks that I can't control myself around him, then he will be even more scared than he already is. I don't want to happen to him, and I know you don't either. Alexander, I know that you want our relationship to be perfect – and maybe after this war I will be able to devote more time and effort to it – but I would rather that Caiellis hated but obeyed and felt secure around me rather than being terrified and unable to think."

Alexander could feel his father's sadness emanating out from him, and he knew the man was basically giving up on the chance to ever have his youngest's love that he once had, long ago, again, so that Cai could live his life without being in constant fear from the man who was supposed to love and protect him. However, that didn't make him above censure, and Alex accidentally let a bit of anger into his voice when he asked, "And why _did_ you lose control? I've never heard of you having anger issues before, but this is twice in one week, dad, and I can't just ignore it this time, or put it off to being a rare occurrence. If you hurting him is going to become a common trend, then I'm going to start having to protect you from him, and we both know that I don't want that."

Marik flinched as if Alex had just hit him, then hung his head in his hands for a second. The man then told himself that he shouldn't be acting so pathetic in front of his eldest, and that the boy wanted a legitimate reason for allowing him to continue to see his youngest, as he knew that Alexander fancied himself as the boy's protector. Marik just found it incredibly easy to open up to his warm and welcoming eldest son, who had that part of his late mother in him in making Marik want to talk to them, and the fact that he was so thoughtful was also a bonus – however he shouldn't be doing this to Alexander, not as a king nor as a father.

"I'm sorry, Alexander. But I promise to you that I will try to control myself in the future. I can't make any guarantees, judging by what happened earlier, but if I start to get angry I will simply leave, and issue a punishment from afar," Marik stated, embarrassed by the lapse in his kingly visage and the fact that he had inadvertently dropped his mask in front of his eldest son, who should not have to worry about his father and should instead be concentrating on serving, learning, recovering and surviving. "I seem to forget that I am the adult in the equation, and that my word in Caiellis's life is law. Though I won't punish him for the past argument, as I think my loss of control was more than enough, I simply will not tolerate any more dissent from him. Thank you for reminding me of that, Alexander."

Alex couldn't help but feel that he had landed Cai in even more trouble, but instead of communicating that to his father he just nodded, hoping that in spite of their traumatic experiences and arguments that his little brother and dad could solve their differences soon. He didn't fail to notice that his father had deliberately ignored his question, but was willing to let that slide for now because Marik was using his authoritarian and kingly voice, meaning that he would brook no more dissidence in the matter.

"We should go to the war council now. There is no harm in starting before the others arrive at the official time," Marik broke the silence, gripping his son's shoulder for a second before standing back up, though he didn't move his eyes from the distant storm which continued to crackle with crimson lightning. They would have to fight into that tempest of emotion soon, and with all the Welkalites could bring to bear arrayed against them. Marik knew that successful planning was paramount to the success of this crusade, and wanted both his sons to be there at his side when he led the siege of the City of Pleasure. He was already aware that the plan he had in mind would not appeal to Caiellis, but whether the boy would defy him and argue or simply accept that that was the strategy they were enacting was beyond him.

In any case, Caiellis's fear often provided sustenance for his aversion, which meant that Marik probably hadn't done any good at all with his uncontrollable actions, though personally he would be more than reluctant to argue with someone who had pinned him on his bed and choked him. However, now that Alexander had arrived, recovered and well, he wouldn't put it past his youngest to either ignore him completely and hide behind his brother or adversely continue the arguments and use Alexander as a shield from his father's wrath. In any case, Marik could see clearly that his eldest was not taking any sides in the matter, and that all he wanted was for them to stop bickering and be happy with each other, but it wasn't as simple as that. Marik had to balance ruling the entire kingdom and developing a relationship with his sons, and though a few (read: nine) years ago he would have abhorred the thought, Lucael came before petulant teenagers, no matter that Caiellis was _his _petulant teenager.

Fighting with Caiellis wore him out and frustrated him. It had become the bane of his existence, the thing that scared him the most – not just because of his clear tendency to become violent in his presence, but because his youngest thought he was so prepared, thought that he knew better than everyone else (_well, not really. Just me_). It made him so _vulnerable, _and Caiellis was so _young,_ and the world was so _dangerous_ though his little boy knew that – he just could never see that or empathise with his father's point of view. He had often contemplated smacking some sense into the boy, but that would be too far considering he had almost throttled him this morning already.

.*.*.*.

The strategy session was in full swing again, this time with even more members around the large table due to the fact that Alexander's army had arrived – even Leodred had turned up at his own father's insistence, and Elizabex looked as happy to be planning as ever – and Caiellis wondered if this one would be different to the first two because of the presence of his brother. His throat still hurt, and after leaving the elder Lucernas back on the outcropping he had avoided sight and gone into his room, changing out of his vaguely battered garments and into something more royal, though not over the top or unnecessarily ostentatious.

The golden collar of one of the many outfits he had never touched before itched, but the boy just assumed that was due to the fact that he wasn't used to and the bruise on his neck hurt. Alex had directed him an amused eyebrow at the change of clothing, having not bothered to edit his own, though hadn't jabbed at him for it because Cai knew it suited him, in spite of his dislike of the imperial clothes.

Nonetheless, he had gone the full way with looking impressive, as there was no point in doing anything half-heartedly, so was currently wearing the pure gold prince circlet that framed his green eyes. When he had looked in the mirror, his reflection had reminded him strongly of the portrait of Xarius in the Sola Atria, despite the fact that his eyes were nowhere near as arrogant, nor did an amused and conceited smile adorn his youthful face.

So long as he could change the clothes afterwards, as he had never been comfortable in embracing his prestigious heritage (maybe because he felt too inadequate to be doing so, or because he had never really done it in the past so it was something new), he was fine with appearing like the son of a king for the duration of the war council, though he knew that some might interpret his sudden effort to seem magisterial as an attempt to not be outshone by his brother, who had been greeted proudly by most of the generals.

"This will be the final war council before the siege of Usnaan," his father began; Marik hadn't taken much of an interest in his son's spontaneous decision to be the first to wear the new prince garments he had had made for both of them, nor had he objected to the fact that his youngest made sure that Guardian Tristram was in between him and the boy. The man stood up from his ornate chair at the front of the table, beginning to pace round it as he began his speech, "I cannot impress it upon you enough how important that you understand your and your forces' roles in the coming battle. We will be discussing the plan, so now will be the final time for any of you," he resisted to glower at Caiellis, making sure that he didn't spend any additional time stood behind his son's chair as he completed his circuit of the table, the map on this one focussed on what they knew of Usnaan from old records and what his sons had managed to find out, "To voice your objections, although bear in mind that a complete overhaul of the strategy is not feasible."

_I wonder who that was directed at,_ Cai thought, sarcastically, honestly relatively abashed (though he hadn't been at the time and the emotional strain afterwards) that he had acted spoilt or petty in front of all the generals when arguing with his father, although what he thought he had said wasn't too embarrassing. Predictably, the plan consisted at an ordered rush into the city after a swift bombardment from the artillery divisions that would herald the attack, targeting wall sections weakened through years of disrepair to provide breaches for the force. He would have preferred constant strikes if not for the fact that the innocent civilians would still be inside the city (as Tradax definitely wouldn't be thinking about them), but even without that plan available there were plenty of improvements to this one that could be implemented.

Marik almost regretted asking it, but it was age old tradition that the voices of those with grievances with a war plan should be heard (it was said that Matalis had always asked every single one of his admittedly few generals what their thoughts were, and while that wasn't entirely feasible Marik still wanted the strategium to be a place where any could speak their mind – whereas some rulers had objected to others being allowed to talk), and heard a weary resignation in his voice that would be imperceptible to others when he inquired, "Does anyone have anything to say about this plan?"

_Glad you asked,_ Cai thought, but this time he was intending to wait to see if anyone else would share any doubts before he did his own. Marik could see straight from his son's face that he wasn't happy with the plan, but the way he was going about communicating it by waiting was certainly an improvement from before – and he knew that he would be hearing of Caiellis's doubts soon, as no one else seemed to be wanting to say anything.

"May I speak, sir?" the boy asked, and Marik smiled at him, allowing himself to think that perhaps his awful actions (or his words, but they seemed to have little effect on his youngest) had caused an improvement, but then again after almost crushing his arm the same thing had happened – he had been respectful at first, perhaps out of sheer fear for his safety, but that that soon dissolved. "Of course, Caiellis. I'm assuming you dislike the speed of the plan?"

_Oops. I shouldn't have put it like that,_ Marik thought when his son glowered at him for a moment, probably brewing and subsequently dismissing a sarcastic retaliation in his mind. It had still only been about half an hour since they had stared at each other on the plateau of Caiellis's "hiding place", and Marik knew he was going to be lucky if he avoided the full extent of that gaze debating the strategy now, though he believed Caiellis would be disinclined to do that in front of all the generals.

"Yes, sir," he replied simply, leaning intently over the table and feeling everyone's eyes on him – but more strongly his brother's, who was watching him to see if he would be able to resist the temptation to shout (or even scream, as the only reason he was remaining in his father's presence was under the assumption that he would be able to restrain himself in the company of all these people), whereas his father was judging him to see if his strangling had any effect on him. Other than making him scared and frightened, now that he had got over the initial and sheer shock over it he was even more angry, but with Alex here he didn't want to make the older boy feel like he had to get in between his dad and little brother.

"I believe that we should take more time to study the storm over the city before attacking into it."

_I thought you might._ There was a general murmur of confusion around the table, and Marik briefly registered that the others probably wouldn't have been able to detect it, nor would they have seen it, as the scouts sent to observe the city hadn't yet returned having only been sent out an hour ago. Before Marik or Caiellis could answer the concerns of the others in the room and manipulate the news (whether they were doing it intentionally or not) to their own ends, Alexander cut in, "What my little brother is talking about is an unnatural tempest over the city of Usnaan, most likely fuelled by demon magic. No one knows what it is doing to the city, but one thing is certain: that it has to be stopped. Soon."

Marik smiled proudly at his eldest's calm and collected words, as well as the way he remained neutral yet still inspired the other generals around the table, who nodded their assent, so the man added, "And that is why we must attack as soon as possible, Caiellis."

The boy repressed a frustrated and exasperated breath, knowing that while his brother was attempting to provide an unbiased point of view, he was inadvertently favouring their father much more and slighting his little sibling's reasoning. "And that is also exactly why we need to take the time to research this threat as much as possible before blindly attacking it. Throwing our soldiers at this storm without knowing what it does is a sure fire way to end this war in disaster and death, sir."

Marik glowered back at him for a second, before registering that at least Caiellis had made the effort to be respectful, despite the fact that what he was saying was still smacking of his incessant need to delay and take a ridiculously long time to achieve victory, so replied with a stern but otherwise not angry, "So what would you suggest, my son? We can't be delaying more than attacking tomorrow, and I'm not entirely sure that is enough time to be researching the nature of this storm. For all we know, the tempest has never been used before, and that there are no records of it. I'm not willing to let Tradax and the Orders of Passion have any more time than necessary to inflict any more corruption upon the city and its inhabitants."

His youngest son looked at him as if he had jumped up on the table and begun dancing wildly and screaming, making Marik wonder how bad it had gone if Caiellis thought that him being reasonable was a massive shock. _That was completely unexpected,_ the boy thought, though his father hadn't exactly approved of his suggestions the man had actually been willing to take them for once – no doubt he wouldn't listen to them, and Cai would have to argue until he was blue in the face to make his dad do so.

"Firstly, I would contact the Resistance inside Usnaan to see if they could give us a clue of what is going on within the capital," Cai began coolly, watching his father's face intently to see if his words were having any effect – although as usual, unless the man was showing an excess of one emotion he couldn't discern anything of his inner thought processes, and though his throat hurt while speaking he continued to do so, cursing his father inside for hurting him, "Then I would ask any of the angels – especially ours of the First Sisterhood – to see if they have any information. If we haven't found anything then, we should get the logistical advisers and non-combatants to go to the cities we … _liberated _(as Jeksaan was the only one that survived in any reasonable state, the others cracked apart by the hammer that was the Lucaelian legions) in order to look at their libraries and mythology. Finally, if that doesn't work then we should ask those still in the cities of Lucael to pore over materials in their libraries, as there definitely should be something on this demon magic considering the amount of years that we have fought them."

Marik snorted, eliciting an irritated glower from his youngest son, though his green eyes were still filled with a fear that only the few in the room that knew the boy well (including him, though he really didn't) would be able to perceive it, and replied, "What you are saying, apart from the first two options, would take far too long if we are going to attack tomorrow. I'm sorry, but-"

"Then postpone the attack!" Cai had raised his voice and yelled back before he even realised it, his father freezing mid-sentence and directing a furious glower at him, but right now he couldn't care less what his dad thought of him – if he thought that it was acceptable to choke his youngest son, then his opinion in the man's eyes would never improve, and neither would Marik's in his. However, they had company, so he didn't give into the temptation to shout again when he said, "Sorry, sir. But apart from the fact that the longer we wait, the more time the Welkalites have to do … whatever they are doing to Usnaan, and that Johnias may attack whilst we are gone, I can't see any negatives to what I am suggesting, though I'm sure you will soon enlighten me with them. If we don't take the time to know our foes, then they will certainly overcome us, and if that happens then we will never be able to save the civilians of Welkas, leaving the Orders and their demonic patrons to forever prey on them as well as giving the Arch-Heretic free reign to take the throne. One of the main factors for the defeat of the Lucaelian forces in the early parts of the civil war was that we didn't know what we going against, or how far the traitors had fallen in plain sight. If we had-"

"Excuse me?!" Marik exploded, slamming his fist on the table in rage, "How dare you blame the defeats of the civil war on me not knowing my enemies! How dare you! The Lucaelian people suffered because we never suspected a betrayal from within, not because we did not know the extent of the forces arrayed against us! Simply not being aware of our enemy's-"

"That's exactly why so many died! Because we didn't know their capabilities, their numbers, or most importantly their willingness to kill in the name of their dark patrons! We never knew how long they had been plotting, which Demonic Brotherhoods they had on their side, or how many had defected to their side in secret!" Cai shouted back, annoyed at his father's apparent inability to suppress his rage when the topic of Johnias's betrayal came up, further proving that he was incapable of admitting what he did wrong or when he made mistakes.

Unbeknownst to Caiellis, his father reacted so vehemently because he blamed himself for each and every one of the millions of deaths during that fateful war, and while Alex didn't know this either he still buried his head in his hands, shaking it despairingly before removing them so that he could see the expressions on the room's occupants' faces. Marik was shuddering with anger, and it took every ounce of his self-control to not smash Caiellis off his chair, though he knew he had already strangled the boy today and that had already been massively out of order – he reminded himself how surprised he had been that Caiellis showed up to the strategy session, expecting his frightened little boy to have put as much distance in between himself and his now apparently violent dad, or at least not contribute at all to the war council.

"When me, Alex and the current Light-bearers of Capitalia Lux moved between the cities, we had to be wary of every single one before we could ascertain whether or not it was loyal," he made sure not to yell this time, though he could see out of the corner of his vision fixed on Marik that some of the Light-bearers were shaking their heads in disgust at the notion that they would have betrayed the Lucerna throne, with his Uncles nodding in agreement, remembering the fear of entering each city (that had thankfully turned out to be loyal), "Even then, there were assassins out for our blood hidden in every shadow, generals and bodyguards posing as demons – even the former Hierarch of Civitas Sol, Hierarch Aretis's father, was killed and supplanted by a shape-changing demon much like the ones that murdered our mother. The thing almost murdered me and Alex before Tristram killed it, but it just goes to show that knowing your foes is essential for success in war."

"Show some damn respect, Caiellis!" the king bellowed at his youngest son, who growled in annoyance at his refusal to take the perfectly reasonable points that were being raised. He knew that he had once again taken a gamble at bringing up his dead mum, but he had hoped that the knowledge of his failures and how they could have been prevented would have penetrated Marik's shell of stubbornness, and appeal to his side of never wanting tragedies like that to happen again – evidently it had not worked in any sense of the word, and the fuming man turned up the intensity of his glare, "You know as well as I do that I do not wish the events of the civil war to be repeated, which is precisely why we must end this war as soon as possible. I will not debate with you further on the subject – if you have an issue with the way I do things, then you can take it up with me after the official council session. But I will not allow you to devolve this one into your constant arguing again, and I will hear no more of your objections."

"Then don't listen. It's not like you were in the first place," Caiellis spat, caustically.

_When did it become like this? _Alex thought, observing the argument between his father and little brother without intervening, as these sarcastic retorts from Cai seemed to faze his father not one bit, whereas if it had been the first time there would have been severe reprimanding and surprise from their dad. Marik warning him about his disrespectful tone seemed to Alexander like the man had done it a million times already and was bored of it, whereas the fact that Caiellis was confident enough to say such things spoke volumes as to his current dislike of the man – though Alex couldn't really blame him. He didn't like being forced to watch the escalating tension between his father, the immovable object, and the growing force of nature that was Caiellis Noctis Lucerna.

They were like two puppies nipping at each other, waiting for the perfect moment when the council session ended to full throw themselves into the vicious biting, though for the moment their words weren't exactly shallow barks and cuts – he knew both of them were more than willing (despite what they may have said) to rip the other's head off. Marik was just catching himself from exploding in front of the other generals, as if he suddenly recalled that he was the adult in the conversation and the first supposed to be calm, whilst Cai was hesitating, looking like a young fledging bird caught mid-air that now remembered it was still learning how to fly.

The worst part was that he could still tell that Caiellis was still an earnest kid that wanted to help, even underneath the sometimes nasty sullenness and angst he had acquired after the first meeting with the monarch after nine years, increasingly more willing to give into his anger and kick back at his father instead of simply taking the criticism, whilst Marik by comparison was still a loving parent underneath his veneer of an angry king, though there was no way Cai could ever see that with that rage aimed squarely at him.

"Can you not see that the fact the Welkalites have made absolutely no effort to stop our advance means that this storm is their secret weapon, their ultimate trump card that they will hope overwhelms us in its thunder – and your plan of marching ignorantly into it is playing exactly into Tradax's hands!" Cai yelled, simply not understanding why his father couldn't see his point of view, "They are inviting us in, and if we follow the current strategy we are taking their bait! They have put all of their eggs in one basket, which means that any intelligent commander would simply ignore Usnaan and take over the rest of Welkas! Answer me this – what would they do without the supplies front the rest of the Empire? I'll answer it for you – nothing. They wouldn't be able to do anything. We wouldn't have to risk the survival of our kingdom on one battle where we don't even know what the enemies can do, nor what this storm heralds! Are you blinded by your dislike of me, or just an idiot?!"

"Be quiet! I've already said that we can discuss this in private! I will not have you dissenting and distracting my generals further!" Marik shouted, and while Alex wished he could currently muzzle his little brother the boy did have a point, though he went about (probably deliberately) conveying it in the most insulting way to their father as possible. Instead of replying and embarrassing both of them further in front of the generals, who needed to be at the optimum mental state for the war in spite of what plan they were following, Cai shot a glance at the other "members" of the discussion, as none were willing to interrupt the argument between Lucernas. "And can none of you see this? That Usnaan is clearly a trap?" no one responded, and all of them (even Tristram, Tybalt and Leodred) apart from his brother averted their gazes when he glared in their direction, "Ok then. It seems that my father's inability to see the plainly obvious is contagious. Whatever. You can carry on now, _sir_."

"Thank you, Caiellis," Marik hissed, hoping that his youngest son was preparing himself for several extremely harsh punishments after this disgrace, "Now go, my generals. Inform your captains of the plan. Ave Lux, and may the angels guide us to victory against the dastardly Welkalites!"

"Ave Lux!" cried the others, though with much less fervour than the first time, and Cai felt many pairs of eyes stabbing into him at his outburst, though they stopped whenever he replied with his own stormy green gaze. The generals filing out seemed to take an eternity to Alex, who wished for it to take even longer so that the inexorably approaching argument that was making the tension in the pavilion thick enough to taste would take longer to arrive, and he mused that if he had been in between his brother and father's stare-off he would have been incinerated by the force of the glares. When the last person left, a concerned-looking Tristram that shot him a glance asking whether or not he should stay and Alex had replied with a shake of his head – though he ideally wanted to avoid this fight, the longer it would be left to fester the worse it would be – and Alexander wanted to get the first word in, but was soon drowned out by his father.

"What the hell was that, Caiellis?! Where did you get that disrespect from?! Why did you feel that it was necessary to shame yourself and me in front of the others?!" Marik demanded, the volume and anger of his voice rising progressively with every word, "Well?! Answer me, you brat!"

"Maybe you should work on accepting your mistakes and listening to me!" Cai screamed back, his voice piercing into Alex's heart and dripping with sadness converted into anger, "I know that you want to shut me up, judging by your actions earlier, but I won't! Not when there are lives at stake! This is more then our stupid argument, dad, that you ended when you strangled me! If you wanted to avoid this, then you should have gone the whole way when you did!"

"I was trying to discipline you!" Marik roared back, his voice like a thousand angry volcanoes erupting in synchronisation, and Alex winced when he heard the lie, Cai shouting back in outrage: "Oh yeah?! Did you really think that mindless violence would work?! I bet that you were going to choke me to death, but Uncle Tristram arrived before you could!" Tears were streaming down the boy's face now, highlighting how sad he was and how badly his emotions had been hurt, but both of them had stood up, and Alex could clearly see the desire to do violence breaking out of his father's eyes, so before that could happen he placed himself in between the two.

"Get out of the way, Alexander! Your brother needs to be taught some respect, and I will not let you take the punishment for him!" Marik shouted, though he didn't make any moves as of yet to throw his eldest out of the way and continue on his fuming charge to Caiellis, who had been about to scamper as far back as possible but with Alex obstructing his father's wrath stood behind the older boy, retorting, "When will you realise that hurting me isn't going to achieve anything?! You've already tried throttling me, so what next?! Cutting off my arm?! Killing me?!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Caiellis, I would never want to kill you," Marik snorted contemptuously back at his defiant youngest, wishing that Alex wasn't in the path to Caiellis so that he could beat this defiance out of him, and it was his youngest's turn to snort, "Really?! Because I remember you telling me quite well that you and mum had never wanted me, and killing me off now would be the easiest way to make sure that I never ascend to the throne!"

Alex saw his father take in a deep breath, the fact that he was doing that not boding well for the volume of the next point the man would shout, so before he could Alex cut in, knowing that he needed to step in now before this got any worse than it already was, "SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU! CAN'T YOU SEE THAT YOU ARE JUST BEING PATHETIC! YOU ARE BOTH BETTER THAN THIS! AND DAD, WHAT YOU DID WAS WRONG, NO MATTER IF YOU DID IT TO DISCIPLINE OR NOT, AND YOU WILL NOT LAY A HAND ON CAIELLIS NOW!"

Marik deflated instantly, releasing the breath he had been mustering in a surprised and despondent exhalation, realising that he had let another argument get control and that he, as the adult, should have stopped it before it started. He couldn't really have expected anything less from his hormonal son, who was only now going through the tumultuous time known as puberty that had heralded his own rebellion. Cai smirked at how swiftly his father had been silenced, looking past his brother who stood protectively in front of him at the defeated man, victoriously muttering, "Well, it seems that you are all bark-"

"BE QUIET, CAI!" his brother shouted, making him flinch back away from the furious older boy, who spun around, his eyes full of anger at his family for falling to bickering, and lifted him off the feet by his collar, though not as far as he could have done. Even so, Alex's clenched fists still dug into his neck, and he squirmed fearfully in his brother's iron grip, though he knew that there was no way he could get away from the older boy who was at least three times stronger than him, Alex shouting, "WHAT I SAID APPLIES TO YOU AS WELL! YOU WERE BEING RIDICULOUS! YOU KNOW THAT DAD WOULD NEVER WANT YOU DEAD, AND THAT MUM AND HIM WANTED YOU! STOP BEING SO SELF-PITYING AND SEE THE DAMN TRUTH!"

All of Cai's sarcastic responses that he would have systematically launched had the identity of the one shouting at him been his father dissolved in his mind, but as it stood he couldn't even meet his brother gaze, or reply as the hands were restricting his breathing – the second time that had happened today, though he could forgive Alex because he clearly didn't mean to and his big brother had been right – he had been ridiculous, and they both knew how much Emili had loved them.

He started to whimper, quietly, frightened by his brother's wrath and by the fact that the bruising on his neck was flaring into life again, and while he had appeared fine with the events of a couple of hours ago, for all that he had professed that his dad should have gone the whole way and asphyxiated his youngest son, he was still terrified of being put in a similar position again – especially after gaining a fear of it in the civil war when Alex had choked him unconscious with his bare hands, and had that fear reaffirmed in their abduction when the same had almost happened when he had been helpless in the constricting arms of Arendus Draal. That his father would do that to him just reinforced his hatred of the man, but right now he didn't care about that. He just wanted Alex to put him down.

Alexander's eyes softened when he realised the pain, both emotional and physical that he was putting his brother in, so quickly let go of the terrified kid, horrified that he had made Cai that scared but still glad he had put down the argument, his voice becoming quieter and begging, "Please, guys … I can't live with this any more than you two can. It hurts me to see you arguing, and while I wish that we could go back to before the civil war as well we can't. Mum is dead, and the hole in our family has to be filled with effort from us all, so please, dad, Cai, stop this. Stop this arguing, please. None of us need it, and it is good for nothing."

Alex hated that he had made his father defeated and despairing and his little brother scared of him, but if that was what was necessary to stop this he would definitely do it again, and would continue to do so until these perpetual arguments stopped. Of course, he didn't mind occasional disputes, and had argued with both his brother and father, but these constant fights ever since he had been wounded were killing all of them. It just made him more ashamed that it had been his weakness that had been the catalyst for this. No one said anything for a few seconds, before he gently took Cai's slender forearm, noting and hating how the boy at first flinched away, his eyes full of utter terror – obviously having just undergone a flashback of the terrible events earlier today – and walked with him out of the pavilion, urging, "Come on, Cai. We'll see you soon, dad."

When they reached the outside of the camp, Alex pulled his little brother into his chest, hugging him close and saying, "I'm sorry for that, kiddo, but sometimes you are like a raging fire and something needs to douse you before you burn everything down. You don't hate me, do you? I could tell you were scared, and I'm sorry for hurting your throat, but I'm not sorry for shouting."

"It's ok, Alex," Cai murmured quietly, all of his defiance gone, wiping his tearful eyes with his hands, "But you can be really scary when you are angry. You and dad both, though I know that you'll never hurt me like he did. I could never hate you, Alex, you are my big brother. In fact, I'm sorry for letting that get out of control again." Cai pushed away and turned around, and the middle Lucerna, fearing that he was going back in to the pavilion in order to carry on with the argument, placed a restraining hand on his bony shoulder, "Where are you off to?"

"I'm going to apologise to dad for starting another argument," the boy shot back, his voice full of remorse, and Alex smiled proudly at how grown up his brother had become, "Ok, squirt. Good idea. You want me to come in, or are you fine doing this on your own?"

"The latter," Cai replied maturely, smiling up at the older boy with his adorable dimples that made Alex want to baby him forever, though he let go of Caiellis and let him re-enter the strategium. The youngest Lucerna paused and swallowed nervously before quietly walking back through the door and into the pavilion, though his father's combat-attuned senses meant that the man must surely have noticed him. Marik was sat with his head in his hands and his burly elbows rested on the table, the weakest his youngest son had ever seen him, though that strangely made him warm to Marik, and jumped in surprise when Caiellis said, "Dad?"

"What do you want?" he snapped back in sudden irritation, annoyed that his youngest son had snuck up on him in his moment of weakness, although he didn't move his hands, fully anticipating that now his older son had gone that Caiellis would restart the squabbling - though it would be uncharacteristic of Alexander to let his little brother back in if that had been Caiellis's intention. However, he didn't know how long he had been here, nursing his pounding headache that he wouldn't reveal to anyone (as the king's weakness was one he almost always kept to himself), and it was fully possible that Caiellis had waited until his eldest son was busy before coming to see him. What the boy said next surprised him, as Cai replied with, "I just wanted to talk, dad."

"What about?" he demanded, the pain in his head strangely exacerbated by his son's presence, though it seemed to whisper thoughts of doing violence into his mind, and he rubbed his pounding temples, although the fact that his youngest was being quiet and respectful (though he had apparently stopped saying "sir", which Marik had never liked in the first place and had always thought was a mockery of his authority) made him inclined to listen. Cai smiled sadly, murmuring, "About us. While I still support what I said, I don't want to argue any more, for Alex's sake as well as our own. Dad, I'm sorry for shouting, and I'm sorry for disrespecting you all the time, and, well, I'm sorry for being a spoiled and petulant brat. I know you don't deserve it."

Marik raised his eyebrows, though that brought on more pain so he quickly stopped the action. _Who is this thoughtful and considerate boy that has walked into the room?_ At first, he had never imagined Caiellis to be quite as angry as he had been the night of Alexander's near death, expecting the lad to take the punishments as quietly and sadly as he had prior to that outburst, but his youngest son still had surprises in store for him, it seemed. At any rate, he knew this apologising Caiellis had appeared because of Alexander's shouting, and he even though he wanted to he couldn't enjoy the novelty of his remorseful son because of the agony in his head, nor could he reply past growling a few words through his lips, "No, I don't."

"And while I still hate you for choking me," Cai continued, staying at the back of the tent because of that, not confident to approach his dad in case the man lashed out, and as such not noticing the torment he was in, "If we both put effort into improving our relationship, then I'm sure that with time I can forgive you, ok?"

"Just leave, Caiellis" Marik snarled through clenched teeth. He felt awful, knowing that his little boy was extending a peace offering to him, building a bridge by which they could repair their shattered kinship, and that he was killing the diplomats and burning the bridge, but he couldn't concentrate with the vindictive reverberations in his skull. He wanted Caiellis gone for two reasons – firstly, he didn't want either of his sons to see him in this state, especially not his impressionable and less experienced youngest, and secondly he could feel that the headache was a harbinger for another violent rage, and he _did not _want Caiellis to be hurt again.

Cai narrowed his eyes, though he had been naïve to expect that his father would embrace him with open arms, so pressed on, "Dad, I know it was wrong of me to expect you to be perfect, and I should never argue with you because you have the weight of the entire kingdom on your shoulders. That is obviously more important than being a father."

"Leave, Caiellis!" the man growled again, the voices in his head whispering malicious thoughts about the murder of his youngest to him, telling him that he should have finished the whining brat off when he had pinned him down on the bed, presenting him with an image of Caiellis's neck in his hands, his youngest desperately trying to pull his hands off as he squeezed even harder. With a brutal crack, there no more resistance in between his thumbs, and he realised with horror that he had snapped the boy's neck when his baby's head lolled, the cheeks deathly pale, strangled purple and choked blue. He shook his head to clear the images, as Cai shook his own head in disappointment at his attempt to apologise being met with failure.

"Dad … I still love you," he offered, speaking from the place deep within his heart, underneath all of the fear, pain, defiance, hatred and anguish, the precious and small place where that statement still rang true, throwing out a life-line to his father, willing him to take it so that they could build up their love for each other again. There was no response from his father, and he snarled in disgust, his remorseful mood souring. He thought that Marik had pretended not to notice, too annoyed at his son and too stubborn to take his chance to say sorry as well and repair their relationship, but in actual fact he couldn't hear the boy's words over the screaming in his own skull as the unreal him howled in anguish over his youngest's corpse.

"Sorry to have bothered you," he muttered sarcastically, each syllable infused with scorn and hatred, turning around and stalking out of the room – and if there was one thing a parent did not do it was to not reply when their child said that they loved them and opened up to them.

.*.*.*.

Alexander sat, brooding, in Hierarch Tybalt's medium-sized tent, as the old man had made him promise that he would get himself checked out to make sure that his body was recovering properly from the vampire's curse, as well as ensuring that his body was repairing itself from the physical abuse inflicted upon it, as he felt more comfortable and more inclined to be truthful with a person that had known him all his life doing it instead of some random but well-intentioned doctor.

However, his thoughts were not on himself, but on the war between his father and brother – the look of pure and cold anger in Cai's eyes when he had left the tent was still with him, and when he had asked his little brother how it had gone the little man had simply replied with a shake of his head, a simple gesture but one that conveyed how disappointed he was. He could see from Caiellis's eyes that any attempt to try and figure out what had occurred when his dad was presented with an apology would have ended in failure, and the kid had left, telling him that he was going to research this storm in the brief time that they had left, saying that the safety of the people was more important than his relationship with his father when Alex had pressed him for information.

Tybalt finished running healing mana down his bare chest, the fact that he had had to take it off embarrassing him because of the wounds that still looked quite bad underneath, not really because of the fact that nothing was covering it because the venerable Light-bearer had seen him naked before when he had been born. Even so, it was still a bit awkward, and he stayed silent until the older man told him that he could put it back on.

"Do you think that they will ever make it up to each other?" he asked, and although he didn't use names Tybalt knew exactly who he was talking about. He was glad that Alexander felt at ease enough in his presence that he could ask questions like this, though he knew that the seventeen year old only really felt at ease opening up to the people that he had spent nine years of short life with in the civil war (although he never wanted to worry Caiellis so used to hide some of the more pressing emotional issues from him, and preferred to have the Light-bearers focussed more upon the younger boy so sometimes concealed his pain, whether it was physical or mental). Tybalt sighed softly, running his wrinkled hand over his equally creased brow, replying with, though he wasn't entirely sure himself, "I think they should, Alexander. I can tell that neither of them want it, and after this war when there is nothing distracting either of them they will probably reach a peace when there is nothing to argue about."

"It's … just..." Alex murmured, his voice soft and drifting off, "I'm not so sure about that, as much as I'd like to believe it. It feels like they are drifting away from each other, like the gap in between them is widening with every insult, every harsh word or negative action, and I won't be able to pull them back together again. When they get so far away that I will have to choose a side or stay with neither, I hate to say it but I would have to choose dad. But if I do that, then Cai will definitely drift away. No offence, but if the kid doesn't have me to talk to, he will feel like he can't talk to anyone, and even you and Tristram won't be able to get to him. If I have to choose the side of dad – which I have to do, as he is my king and father – then Caiellis will be lost … And I don't want that to happen, but if feels like it is going to happen soon if nothing changes."

Tybalt nodded slowly, proud of the fact that the boy was opening up to him because he knew how hard Alex found it to speak his inner emotions to people, putting on a brave face so that his little brother, who constantly observed him for clues on how to act like the brother he so looked up to, wouldn't become scared or worried as well, but that often meant that Alexander felt like he had no one to talk to about things like that. The four of them had shared a tremendous amount of pain, both physical and mental, during the nine years of their life spent in danger, and Alex had grown up with the two Light-bearers as the main adults and influences in his life, and while Tybalt knew that the middle Lucerna preferred the strong and determined Tristram to him, the boy still looked up to him, in spite of the fact that he found things like maths and reading immensely boring.

"It reminds me of when your father and King Garius II argued when Marik was a similar, but older age to your brother," Tybalt mused, and Alex's eyebrows raised in surprise. He, nor his little brother, had ever been told before that their dad had argued with his own, and that made him instantly think worse of his own father – if he had fought in a similar way, then technically he should have been better prepared to deal with his own son having been in a similar position to the kiddo in the past. However, before he could voice his concerns, Tybalt elaborated, "Although this time the fights are far more emotionally fuelled rather than just a teenage rebellion and disagreements. I don't think you know, but your traitorous uncle, Johnias, was the favourite of the kingdom and your grandfather, who constantly put Marik down as he couldn't achieve as much as his slightly older twin brother. That was the cause of their arguments, though Garius was not above beating your father to silence him, whereas now Caiellis believes that your father has no authority over him because of the little impact he has had in the boy's life, whilst Marik is more angry because he still loves you both and he finds that he cannot show that love."

"It probably doesn't help that dad seems to prefer me to the little dude, as well as the fact that the kingdom definitely does because of Orzhova's return," Alex added, and Tybalt nodded for a brief moment before countering, "Though you have to remember that Marik loves you both equally, and that is why the arguments are more heart-felt."

"But if dad loves Cai, and was in the same situation in the past, then surely he should be better equipped to make it up to him and repair their relationship, like I assume he did with our grandfather?" Alex inquired, and Tybalt's face fell for a brief moment before he returned to his normal expression, but Alexander, who was an expert in picking out micro-expressions so that he could better help his little brother when the runt was unwilling to talk, saw it clearly for what it was. "Oh … dad and his father never did make it up to each other, did they?"

Tybalt shook his head, replying sadly, "Even on your grandfather's deathbed, the two still disliked each other, and I heard the disappointment clearly in his voice when his Death Vision appointed Marik as the king, though obviously your father is a much better ruler than your vain uncle ever would be."

Alex mulled over the words in his head, feeling sorry for his father now if he had never been able to make Garius love him, and tried to imagine himself in the same situation, how heart-broken he would have been without his father's pride in him inheriting the throne, and thus relating it to Cai's position in the present, "So doesn't that mean that dad would want to repair his and Cai's relationship even more, so that his youngest son will never have to go through that, or to prevent Cai dying hating him or him dying with his son angry at him?"

"That would be a logical explanation, yes," the Hierarch agreed, "But I fear that your father will need reminding of what happened between him and your grandfather, so that he can get his priorities in order."

In fact, Tybalt didn't really know what to say to Marik's eldest, and he was quite perturbed that Marik hadn't yet seen the correlation between his actions now and his father's in the past, or if he had hadn't acted upon it. However, Tybalt's oldest living student (he didn't count Johnias any more) seemed to act completely differently in the presence of his youngest son, forgetting all of his intelligence when interacting with the boy, and was inadvertently making similar mistakes to his own male parent in the past. He felt awful for Alex, who was trying to be the glue holding his family together, and just hoped that if the two kept pulling it wouldn't be Alexander that was torn apart.

.*.*.*.

The sun still hadn't come out despite it being much later in the day, and while Caiellis didn't really mind because the Welkalite sun was a baleful red orb that made everything ten times hotter, it spoke volumes of the power of this storm that it was blocking out the sun despite them not being under it – though the clouds that were currently covering the camp were rushing towards the tempest over Usnaan. He flicked through the pages of the book he was skimming through, as his bodyguards had brought some with them under his orders so that he could continue reading in between battles and keep up his education – as well as reaffirming his knowledge of the successful tactics in the past, maybe proving to be inspiration in the middle of a battle.

This was the third he had been flicking through, and despite it being one specifically about known demons (though the passages were biased against them and the words coloured with the instinctive Lucaelian hatred of them – Cai would have preferred a neutral account that simply listed each of the demon's abilities and actions in the past), _Helico's Account of Vile Demons, _he hadn't yet found anything about this storm. He still had a pile of books as yet unread that Jenna had loaned to him from his personal Scientia Mos strategium that was set up next to his private residence, but was beginning to get a bit frustrated. He had expected at least one mention of the storm, even in passing, but there was absolutely nothing on it. Nonetheless, he wasn't giving up yet, and for the moment stood up off his bed to stretch, brushing his slender fingers over the bruise on his throat, checking his watch on the cabinet.

He had hidden himself away in the room for three hours, apparently, though it didn't feel like that, and he hadn't had any lunch despite thinking that he should have to keep up his energy – though then again he had always fought perfectly well without sustenance, and could eat tea instead later. He told himself that there was still a lot of research to be done, and that if he gave up now then he would never be able to forgive himself if one of the books had information on the storm (although he had ordered it so that he looked through the most likely candidates first).

Plus, delving into the books and the arcane knowledge they held was distracting him from thinking about his pathetic excuse for a father, and while he would have contacted Orzhova he knew from experience that speaking to her in the Mind Realm took up a lot of time in the real world – and he could do it when he went to sleep tonight. He knew he had been extremely lucky that no one had bothered him while he was trying to do this, but when he heard footsteps coming towards the tent, and could sense the presence of a specific visitor with his sixth sense, he knew it was a lost cause and that his time was up.

"Cai? You're in there, right?" Alex asked, though the question in itself was redundant because both them knew that he could detect Caiellis's mana resonance, and the older boy entered the tent to see his brother with his head in a book and frantically flicking the pages, his eyes analysing everything within and not looking up to his brother's entrance, but Alex knew that Cai would know that he was in there despite how distracted his sibling could get when reading. "Hi, Alex. I was just researching to see if I could find anything about this storm." _Since dad stupidly doesn't want to let us do it properly._

"Uh huh," the older boy replied, still stood in the doorway, his voice light and airy which did not bode well for Cai's current situation of reading. He had often heard a similar tone from his brother in the past, though it had been a month or so since he had, and rolled his eyes as Alex said, "Dad wants us to continue our training that we did with Tristram in the war. He said that he wants us to spar so that you can improve your physical hand-to-hand combat."

_Fantastic. Just fantastic. I bet he thinks this is a good idea because of what led to our kidnapping, and while I will admit that I was caught off guard and outmatched nothing I could have done at my current size would have helped against that brute Arendus Draal. What would have helped, however, would be him listening to me for a change, and trusting my instincts when it comes to the forces of darkness. _

Of all the physical (and non-magical) training that they had done in the civil war when not fleeing from the demons on their heels, sparring was the lowest on Cai's list – he could get into endurance training, though running laps in the cold and the rain under the watchful eye of Tristram as he was lapped again by his much taller and therefore faster brother wasn't exactly pleasant, but he liked setting his own targets and beating them, and while Tristram did add a bit of pressure, as well as his brother being massively better than him at it, it was just him against the clock. Then weapon training wasn't that bad, though he still hated it, as at least he had something that would help to counteract his physical weakness. Though it had ceased to interest the younger him when he realised just what those weapons could do to a person, although even then he knew it was an unfortunate necessity to learn how to properly wield a sword.

But sparring – sparring was just a cruel exercise in futility. He was significantly smaller and weaker than his brother, and while he was agile and good at getting out of tight situations his blows lacked any real power behind them without anything to bridge the gap between them (like magic). Because in sparring there were winners and losers – and Caiellis inevitably was always the loser, which was one thing his fledging ego had never needed. Even worse that this time they would be doing it in front of their father, which was one more reason for the man to be disappointed in him, one more reason for him to be compared unfavourably to Alex.

Apparently his disappointment and annoyance was visible.

"Aww come on, Cai," Alexander chided, moving further into the room, "It's not _that _bad."

"For you, maybe," the younger boy muttered, letting the book in his hands fall, and turned around to see Alex grinning at him, far too cocky, though his confidence was not misplaced, "Maybe if you would get your head out of book more often-"

"I'm pretty sure that's not the problem," Cai shot back, swinging himself round and getting off the bed with a sigh of irritation, "Researching this storm is far more important than losing against you."

"Hey, maybe you will win this time," Alex encouraged, and his brother arched an eyebrow at him in dubiety, rolling his eyes again at his sibling's like of pointless physical combat – while he didn't like fighting with Alexander, it wasn't all bad since at least the older boy wasn't trying to hurt him, but with his father watching it definitely would be. Complaining, he moaned, "Surely it is more important to be discovering more about enemy than having a fight with you."

"Dad wants you to be able to hold your own if you don't have access to magic," Alex told him sternly, "And I'm inclined to agree. While your magic is powerful, you rely on it too much."

"There isn't much else to rely upon," Cai grumbled, following his brother as the older boy walked out of the tent, hoping that his father would at least have the intellect to choose somewhere private for the sparring so that he wasn't shamed by his lack of strength in front of any soldiers, "It's not fair. You know that you are going to win already; I've never won in a sparring match with you before, not even when we were younger, and I'm not going to start now."

"Perhaps if you devoted more time to physical training," Alex suggested mildly, "You could one day be as strong as I am."

Cai snorted, but otherwise didn't say anything as he trotted beside his brother was they walked through the camp, several soldiers bowing respectfully as they passed, and Cai knew already that they would be going to the extremely oversized tent that served as their father's accommodation – which at least meant that they would be private, and that no one else could see him get his ass kicked by his brother. This just seemed incredibly spontaneous, as he doubted that there would be any situations in the upcoming conflict when he would lose his sword and have no mana, having to fight without weaponry, and if it did happen then he would probably die anyway, no matter that he spent time losing against his brother today.

They walked past the two pretty female bodyguards that Marik seemed to have guarding most of his things, the two twins with the crossing halberds that served as an imposing warning to any that might try to infiltrate the king's sanctum, and he noticed that Alex looked at them intently out of the corner of his eyes, an expression he had seen from his brother many times in the past, when he was "checking out" the females without wanting them to notice him – though this was a lot rarer than Alexander's usually confident and almost cocky approach to flirting. Cai prodded the older boy on the cheek to get his attention, and Alex turned to him with an amused scowl on his apparently-handsome-to-girls features.

Their father was waiting on the interior of the tent, and Cai could see a room further down the tent (that was bigger than some people's houses – the Lucaelians did like to spoil their royalty) that was clear apart from a few training dummies that had been moved out of the way, and Caiellis assumed that that was his father's personal training room – and what would serve as the location where he would exhibit his sons' (_well, Alex's at any rates_) talents against each other, which automatically made him hate the place. At least there was a mat so that when he inevitably got knocked over, he wouldn't scrape himself on the ground – though he was glad that he had had the foresight to get changed out of his Lucerna outfit when he got back to his own tent.

"My sons," Marik said, by way of greeting, his eyes giving as little away as usual, and Alex replied with, "Hi dad."

There was a pregnant pause in which both of the older Lucernas looked at the youngest member of their prestigious family, who simply stared coldly back at his father, until the man turned around with a frown on his features when no greeting was given by Caiellis. He hadn't heard most of what his youngest son had said to him whilst he had been in the throes of the headache, but now that Caiellis's green eyes were filled with something akin to betrayal and anger he assumed that he had missed his son opening up to him, telling the boy to go away and ignoring him when he was trying to heal the rift between them. He dearly wished that the pain in his head (that Caiellis had caused with his arguing in the first place) hadn't sprung up so that he could acknowledge Caiellis's effort, but he was also surprised and irked that the usually attentive and perceptive boy hadn't noticed that he had evidently been in pain. At any rate, Caiellis was being petty now, though for what reason he couldn't work out, and Marik ignored his younger boy and led them into the training section he had prepared for them.

"You will spar here so that I can asses both of your capabilities for physical combat. Begin when you are both ready" he ordered, and Alexander instantly moved onto the other side, beginning to go trough the motions of stretching (though if he was being honest he probably didn't need to considering his opponent, but normally when they were sparring he tried to set a good example of what one should do so that his ever-watchful brother would follow it), whereas Caiellis glared at him with undisguised resentment before slowly and painfully in Marik's eyes obeying the order, as if it was the hardest thing in the world to do – though he remembered doing the same to his father, following commands in the most awkward way possible to vex the man without showing the outright disobedience which would have earned him a beating.

"You'd better stretch well, little man," Alex advised from the other side of the spacious compartment, "I'm feeling good today."

_Simply fantastic,_ Cai thought bitterly – this was just what he needed. Not only was his brother stronger, faster, taller, more resilient and more experienced, he was feeling _good._ Alex had probably jumped at the idea of starting their wrestling again so that he could impress their father, and though his brother knew he didn't like it he also knew that Alex wanted him to improve his strength (though the older boy would never admit it, maintaining that he enjoyed his little brother being a weakling).

Alex wasn't exaggerating either. His older brother was practically bouncing with energy, rolling his head on his neck and shrugging his shoulders as he bounded up and down in anticipation, like he expected some form of challenge. Like Cai needed any more reasons to want to disappear into the mat. He was aware that Alexander thought them sparring was a way in which their brotherly bond was reinforced, but in no way did Cai agree with that. Not like their bond needed reinforcing anyway.

He shot a glance/glare at their dad, who returned it stonily, and Caiellis thought that this was probably his father's perverse way of trying to bond with his sons, having possession of a similar mindset to his eldest son in that respect. _If only he was like my brother in actually showing love,_ a voice in Caiellis's mind whispered, and he meagrely stretched, resigning himself to the inevitable, muttering, "Let's get this over and done with them."

"Aww come on, Cai," Alex cajoled, cocking his head to one side as he finished his stretches, "You don't sound very excited."

"Excited? To spar? Give me one reason," Cai questioned incredulously, every so often looking over at his dad to see what he was doing, his mind still subconsciously processing the information he had read and going over it again to see if there were any subtextual or subtly concealed references to the unholy tempest buried in the archaic texts (having already memorised exactly what he had read), pacing back away from his brother before they began circling around each other, his eyes firmly fixed on his sibling but periodically flicking to his intently observing father. Alex offered, "A chance to prove yourself?"

He rushed the younger boy, lashing out experimentally with a kick that Cai easily dodged, knowing that his brother was just testing his defences, and replied, "More like a chance to get told about all the things I do wrong."

His father visibly straightened for a second with that, Marik mentally cursing himself at his foolish desire to want to two to spar so that the three of them could bond, and his youngest's physical ability would be improved. Of course Caiellis would hate sparring, and it wasn't as if he would never have done it in the past, and while he had clearly stated that he was doing this because he didn't want a repeat of the Scholaria Magnus incident Caiellis evidently thought it was to humiliate his little boy further. He brushed off his mind's concerns – his father had often made him and Johnias spar (which the older boy won more often than not, though it was still almost equal), and Caiellis was lacking heavily in this department – if the boy thought he was going to tolerate that then he was very wrong.

Reaching out with a kick of his own, Cai's foot only met air and he scowled as Alex spun away, grinning, "You're no fun sometimes."

"I've got better things to do than this," Cai snapped, dodging a punch that would have landed him on the mat (though Alex usually pulled it at the last second to minimise damage, after he had hit his brother) had it made contact and responding with his own. Alex suddenly grabbed onto his arm and flung him down where he landed spread-eagle, the older boy perched lightly on top of him, suggesting heavily, "Maybe you should concentrate instead of complaining. This isn't a game."

"Neither is warfare, which is why I should be researching now instead of wasting my time doing this," Cai pouted, huffing out a slightly strained breath and still pinned flat on his back, but that was the last time he was going to complain, following Alexander's advice to the letter. Marik rolled his eyes, _so that was what he had been doing in the hours he was gone? When is he going to get it out of his head that he needs to be researching, and into it that he needs to improve physically? _He interjected, his gruff voice full of parental pride,"Nice move, Alexander."

"Thanks, dad. And Cai, just shut up and spar," the larger teenager admonished, releasing his brother, who sighed dramatically but still made his way to the other side and took his stance again, nodding when his brother asked him if he was ready again. He took the offensive this time, charging his brother with a steady rhythm of measured attacks, not over-committing on any of them, but his brother danced with all of them. Though he tried, he could find no openings, Alexander's tough arms blocking his blows and his footwork anticipating his little brother's without fail. Perturbed, Cai flung his arm out – it was supposed to be a feint, but the older boy read him the entire way, catching his thin wrist and yanking him the whole way before he had any time to rectify the situation.

"You aren't concentrating, Caiellis," his father reprimanded, and, his anger at the man backed up by his anger at losing to his brother again, the boy snapped, "Really? You are a damn genius, dad! I'm not concentrating! That must be it! I can't concentrate on this because I am going to go into the most brutal battle I have ever been in tomorrow, with no knowledge of what is facing us!"

"Cai, chill out," his brother told him as their dad's stony visage creased into a scowl, although he stayed silent instead of responding, letting go of the younger boy again as they prepared to go in for a third run, as they would spar until either their father told them they were finished or if Alex though they had done enough for the day – because if he let Caiellis decide, then they would be done now. Cai scowled back at his dad, and then turned to his brother, sweat collecting on his brow due to the heat of the day despite the lack of sun and his physical exertion. Alexander was still grinning, his eyes sparkling with enjoyment, and Cai noticed with another surge of frustration that his brother hadn't even worked up a sweat, though it would be child's play for Alexander to subdue him and probably kill him if the older boy wanted to, a thought that wasn't entirely reassuring but he knew that Alex would never even think of such a thing.

He remembered his brother making each one of Tristram's exercises and regimes into a game to try and make the younger him more enthusiastic about them, and while that had worked for some of them Alex had never been able to convince him about sparring, even when he had been four (though he vaguely recalled his mother once saying that his brother fell for something that he couldn't remember at his age that he had instantly refuted). He knew that Alexander found kicking his ass a brotherly gesture, and he hadn't yet been hurt apart from a few small bruises where his sibling had grabbed him that would quickly fade. Cai had never understood that, and probably never would.

They attacked each other again, and while Caiellis had skill he didn't have the strength to back it up with, whilst his brother had far more of both. It was clear to everyone that Alexander was holding back his full power so that his brother could actually practise his technique without being grabbed and flung across the room within seconds, though Alex wasn't going easy on him – just not hard enough to really hurt.

His brother lanced out a fist when he was busy thinking of some obscure passages in the _Codex of Foul Demonic Practices (Only for the use of the blessed Lucerna family and their loyal Light-bearers), _so instead of dodging the attack that was meant to be a distraction for the main blow it hit him on the shoulder, spinning him around and making him fall over. Alex's hand shot out to grab him, but before he did so his father's authoritarian voice cut in, the words making him instantly obey, "Let him fall, Alexander. He needs to be focussed, and deal with the consequences if he isn't. You need to stop coddling him, making it seem like his inadequacy is tolerated. If he was fighting a proper opponent then they wouldn't help him up."

Cai quickly sprung back to his feet, determined not to be seen as weak or pathetic in front of his elder family members, annoyed that his father was talking about him as if he wasn't there, and while Alex looked at him in concern it quickly faded when he saw that Caiellis was alright. They tangled for the fourth time, with Cai being knocked back by a kick and then grabbed and dragged into a painful arm-lock, although to his credit Caiellis quickly wriggled out before his brother could restrain him properly – used to the move – to be sent flying for his effort by his stronger sibling.

"Focus, Caiellis. You should have seen that coming," their father admonished harshly as his son tumbled to the ground, Alex darting forward to catch his brother but pulling back at the last second, his father's words still burnt into his mind – sparring with his brother was of course nothing new, but letting him painfully smack into the mat was a definite shift in the modus operandi of Alex's mind – though what his dad said had been true.

Cai stood up again, swaying slightly as his body recovered from the rush of adrenaline that had just coursed through it, and if he was honest with himself he was so used to fighting with the self-healing power of Orzhova at his side that having nothing immediately beginning to soothe the pain was unusual to him. He was glad that he was having to deal with his failures himself, but just wished Alex wasn't looking at him like he was a fragile doll that had to be handled with care if the owner didn't want to shatter it (in spite of his actions), the enjoyment in fighting that the seventeen year old had felt dwindling. His older brother's hair was still unruffled; Alex still looked untouched despite Caiellis landing several decent blows, whereas now his body was beginning to pick up bruises that would have been much worse if they weren't fighting on a mat.

His dad's constant reminders that he was too weak were grating on his urge not to scream at the man, but he didn't want to start another argument for fear of how Alexander would react. He looked, half-pleadingly, at his father, who tilted his head in the direction of Alex, as he wanted conformation that they could start again.

They did so, Cai attacking with a mixture of leaping kicks and punches that he hoped could catch his brother off guard, but on one the older boy grabbed him and spun him around. He was frustrated now, and broke out of the hold, lunging forwards reckless and strong. At the very least, he'd have the element of surprise, as his brother knew he preferred and as such expected the careful, reserved and calculated tactics he customarily employed, usually because they ended up with his butt on the mat with a far smaller frequency than blind offensives. He connected with a reasonable kick to his brother's midsection, but missed the follow up to his face, the forward momentum pushing him off balance and making him fly toward the tent wall. The fabric cushioned the impact, but he still hit with a thump that shook the entire compartment.

Blushing vigorously, Cai pushed away and turned back to his brother, his father's scowl burning into him, though for now he stayed silent. Alexander dodged another blow and Cai feinted, the older boy misreading him for once and tried a kick for the smaller Lucerna's stomach. With Alex's balance precarious, he pulled away to dodge a defensive lancing fist, and his brother used that to right himself.

"Come on!" Marik snapped, his voice full of frustration in his youngest not taking the rare opportunity to achieve one victory, too scared of his brother's retaliation, "You have to follow things like that up. Your brother is bigger and better than you. If you don't have the willingness to follow through with your few attacks that deal any damage, then you will never win!"

The terseness and tenacity in his king's voice shredded the last vestiges of Caiellis's concentration, and the younger boy launched himself at his brother, his limbs whirling in a flailing attack of sloppy movements and angry attacks. The older adolescent simply sidestepped, and Cai hurtled past him until he felt Alex's arm snaking around his chest, and then going upwards.

Alexander's right arm wrapped around his neck whilst the other placed itself behind his head, his brother's hand pushing down as he executed a half-hearted counter, knowing that there was no way he could escape despite the best way of doing so was when the person had just initiated the choke-hold. His big brother applied pressure instantly, and Caiellis coughed as his breathing stopped and his neck began to hurt, panicking and forgetting what he had been taught about getting out of such a hold – not that it would work on his brother anyway – and tapping frantically on the older boy's constricting arm as his vision began to blur and grey out.

He staggered when his brother let go, and despite having had the move performed on him several times (though he had never successfully broken out of it, nor had he out of any of his brother's more playful and less deadly headlocks) the feeling never got any less surprising as there was a rush of oxygen to his brain. Truth be told, he had been scared that Alex wasn't going to let go, in spite of his brother only holding on for a couple of seconds, though he supposed that it was the fact that his father had choked him today to apparently discipline him. His head pounded as the blood rushed to it, and he fell to his knees to regain his breaths. It took all of Alexander's willpower not to go and help his little brother then – he hated using that move on him, but it had been the perfect moment to subdue him in that manner so he had taken it.

"That was the most appalling execution of a counter move I've seen from you so far, and that is saying something," Marik barked – every blow to his youngest that he should have seen coming felt like a blow to himself – though his son (who was panting and red in the face from the blood choke) didn't seem to be listening, "Get up and fight some more, Caiellis. Don't let your brother beat you again."

Caiellis didn't move, and Alex gave into his urge to move round to him, staring into his brother's bloodshot and pleading orbs and realising that he had put far too much force into the choke, more than necessary. Alexander's fists clenched and unclenched at his side as his father added, "Get up and fight. Stop being pathetic, your brother barely held onto the choke-hold before you tapped out."

"Dad," Alex replied for his brother, who had stood up himself before Alexander got the chance to help him, his expression blank as if he had locked himself away in a place that was free of pain and failure, "I think that is enough for one day."

He could sense that his father had been about to angrily retort before he checked himself, realising the identity of the one who had spoken, and sighed sadly, "Yes, I suppose your brother has endured enough. Come on then, Caiellis, you need to be speaking to your commanders anyway."

The younger boy slunk away quickly, his face a mask of dejected sadness, and Alexander followed him out of the tent after a brief glance at his father to ensure that he was permitted. A hand on his shoulder made him jump back in surprise, but when he saw his father's face he relaxed. "Alex, you go back to your forces and prepare them. I will go and see if your brother is alright. I should."

"I don't think that is the best idea," Alex replied, though not overtly defying his father's wishes, "Are you forgetting that it was only today that you strangled him, and that you have been arguing non-stop every single time you have seen each other? I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't – well, I am, and I think I should go to him. He's my little brother, and I hurt him, and at the moment he's more comfortable in my presence than yours. You know what is going to happen when you go see him."

Marik stared at him for a second, dumb-founded that he was actually suggesting that he go and see his son to comfort him considering his atrocious success rate with such an action, and Alex smiled at him, injecting humour into the situation. "The kid has never liked sparring. I think getting his ass kicked by his big brother puts him in a bad mood."

"In that case," Marik said, "I don't think that you should go and see him either. We all need to be focussing on our individual divisions, and there isn't enough time to be spent comforting him. He'll get over it; he may not look it but your brother is definitely a strong lad."

"But..." Alex protested, before he found that despite it going against every instinct he had for protecting his little brother, he knew his father was right. Being seen by the person that had basically just beaten him up may not be the best thing for the kid, in spite of doing it many times in the past. He could see Caiellis a bit later, and he also needed to speak to his generals and inspire them, "Ok, dad. I'll go and talk to the generals under my command."

.*.*.*.

It was dark by the time Alexander reached Caiellis's tent, though he had seen his brother earlier in the day after the sparring – just not with the younger boy as his only company. Him and dad had argued, _again,_ no better than when they did it in the strategium, and this was over his little brother wanting to dismiss his champion Mysos, not wanting the fifteen year old to fight in the battle for Usnaan. The boy had apparently accepted it graciously, but sadly, but when he had told his father the man instantly went to the king, who had subsequently gone to discuss it with his youngest son.

That had ended about as well as expected, with Caiellis storming off in a sullen rage, ignoring his brother who had tried to go and talk to him – as Alex didn't want to force himself into Cai's personal space, he had dropped it then, and now that the long list of his own duties had finished at around half ten he could finally go and see his brother.

He hoped the smaller boy was still awake, and knew that this day had been immensely draining for him, so instead of calling outside his tent and waiting for a response (as that would definitely wake up his brother) he silently slipped into the tent, looking down at the bed on the other side of the spacious room to try and ascertain his brother's level of consciousness.

He could see a bit of purple light reflected from the pillow that his brother's face must have been pressed into, indicating that the younger boy had been crying as the Black Sun only lit up with that shade of melancholic purple when he did so, a suspicion that was confirmed when he heard the younger boy gather his breath in the dark, though he didn't break into sobbing. Instead he murmured, the words lacking any conviction, "Go away, Alex."

"That's not gonna happen. I want to make sure that everything is square between us before the battle tomorrow. Do you remember what I used to say to you after we had arguments in the past?" he asked, hoping that his reference to that awful time would make Caiellis more willing to indulge his big brother's presence. The younger boy turned around in the bed, illuminating the interior of the tent in the purple glow that was far too weak to be used as a light, and replied, "Yeah. You told me that we should always make it up to each other before the end of each day, because tomorrow might be our last. It wasn't the most reassuring thing to say to a four year old that just had his mother and perfect life ripped away from them."

Alex smirked, knowing from his brother's tone that he wasn't accusing him, and responded, "Maybe not. But it worked, didn't it?" he made to move over to the mana-fuelled lamp on the bedside cabinet in order to light up the room, but stopped when his brother murmured, "Alex, please keep the lights off," he changed trajectory and knelt next to his brother's head instead, frowning when the younger boy turned away from him.

"Come on, Cai, talk to me," he urged, and the younger boy said quietly, "If you think that I'm angry with you over our sparring session then you are wrong. You were just doing what it took to win."

"Then are you angry at dad?" the older boy inquired, though he already knew the answer. Caiellis snorted derisively, "Of course. Anyway, I need to go to sleep, so go away, big brother."

"Dad has reasons for the things he does, you know," Alex coaxed, and his brother turned towards him this time, the purple light of his ominous birthmark reflected in his puffy green eyes, and he replied, "So do I! And what possible reason could there be for strangling your son and constantly making him feel like a failure?"

"_Stop_ getting mad at me by substitute," Alex growled back at his brother's raised tone. But he had to agree that their father was bad with this new novelty of having his authority challenged. Alexander knew that something had definitely broken whilst he had been too wounded to watch, when he had been too sick to intervene.

"I can't!" the younger boy snapped back, "You've always taken over what he is supposed to do anyway, and you're facing what he is supposed to confront, so what is one more thing, right? I'm pissed off at him, and since you insist on covering for his failures, I can be pissed off at you as well."

"Caiellis, geez, calm down. What's happened to you, little buddy?" he soothed, and his brother retorted in annoyance, "I grew up, and stopped believing in fantasy notions of a perfect father that will protect us from everything. I can't honestly believe that either of us are descended from him. Maybe I was adopted like you keep on saying. I don't fit in this family."

"I was only ever teasing you, I never meant that. Of course you fit in this family, Caiellis," Alex reassured him, wondering where he came to that conclusion from, and the younger boy laughed sadly, "No I don't. I've only ever done that because during the civil war there was no family, and because you always made a space for me. But I'm nothing like you two. I'm weak while you are strong, I'm emotional while you two are good at controlling your feelings – well, dad is when he isn't shouting at me anyway. It's fitting, really. The pariah of the Sisterhoods for the reject of the Lucernas."

"You aren't weak," Alex chastised the younger boy, moving round to the other side and sitting on it, "You may be physically fragile because of your premature birth, but you are _not weak, _little bro. You are one of the strongest people I know, and I'm not just saying that to comfort you. I don't know where you have got this idea that you don't belong in our family from, but you do. I bet I couldn't even count the number of times you've helped me in the past-"

"That's because I haven't," the youngest Lucerna cut in, "I have never helped you. Face it, Alex, you have always covered for me, and dragged me behind you instead of letting me fall. I rely on you too much."

"No, you don't," Alex told him, squeezing his brother's shoulder firmly, "You did perfectly fine without me and lead the armies of Scientia Mos to glorious victory on your own. And it's natural for someone to rely on their older brother for things, especially in the life we have had where you were only four but expected to fight for your life against the forces of darkness."

"That's exactly it," Cai sat up in the bed, "The only reason I've survived this long is because I have other people looking after me. I know you only think it is natural to want to protect your little brother, Alex, and I appreciate it, but you have to admit that I am pathetic without you."

"Stop being stupid!" Alex shouted, right into his face, sick of this self-depreciation coming from his brother and knowing from the past that it took a little tough love and firmness to snap the boy out of it, and shook his younger brother, "You're fine without me. If you were listening, I just said that. I find it really irritating sometimes when you go into this mode of self-hatred, because of the fact that I am not you and I can see that what you are saying doesn't make sense." Cai recoiled from his sudden fury, but Alexander's iron grip kept him in place.

A silence descended, punctured only by the occasional sniffle from the younger boy who had completely avoided his brother's fiery gaze, and eventually he said, "I just wish that you could have had a childhood. It's because you are expected to be an adult when you aren't that you think you are inadequate (_dad's constant reprimands aren't helping either_)."

"I wanted a childhood as well. For both of us, not just myself. But we can't. We are Lucernas. Protecting the people comes above all else," Caiellis sounded like he really didn't mean the words, like he was reciting them out of a _"Beginner's Guide to Being a Lucerna" _(if only there was one), and Alex nodded sadly, "It's strange – had I not been a Lucerna, I would have definitely wanted fame and recognition. I would have used the intelligence people keep bragging about to change the world in a good way. But instead I had my fame handed to me on a golden platter, and I've never had to work for it. However, that's only as a Lucerna. I wish that I could have made a difference as Caiellis Noctis, not as a prince, not as someone who is expected to. I wish that I could be recognised as a person instead of a title, have hopes and dreams and ambitions that amount to more than being terrified by failing, to be able to plan my life instead of being forced into one path from birth. I wish that I was protected because I am a person, not because I might one day inherit the throne. I don't know if I'm up for this life, Alex, and I'm scared of failing."

"I protect you," Alexander said tightly, and Caiellis murmured, "But what about everything else? What about the hopes, the dreams, the future? You're not … you're not going to be enough, Alex. I want you to be, but you're not, and if I ever do inherit the throne, then I'll be alone."

Alex didn't reply, and after a while Cai snorted again, "I'm sorry, big brother. That was a little emotional. I shouldn't be moaning, I have a life that many would give up everything for, and a duty to the people to keep them safe no matter what I think. I don't want to be a Lucerna, but that's how life is, and I should stop complaining about it."

Caiellis was thoroughly unprepared for his brother to pull up the cover and get into the bed beside him, throwing his arm around his sibling protectively, and Cai asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to sleep beside you," Alex replied, and Cai rolled his eyes, "I can see that. But why? I always thought you hated it. Not that I didn't, either, I mean it was very awkward," he added quickly, but couldn't help but remember how he had enjoyed the extra sense of security from being next to the older boy where Alex could protect him from his nightmares.

"Because tomorrow is a very important day," Alexander responded, "And I want to spend as much time as possible with my baby brother before the attack."

"I'm not a baby," Cai protested, and at that his brother smirked, "Quit acting like it then."

Cai's face fell. If his brother thought that what he had just said was worthy of an infant, then it had been truly pathetic. Apparently the older boy could tell that his words had hurt him, because Alex slugged him hard on the arm and uttered, "Hey, that was only a joke. We all have doubts, sometimes, and I know that this life is not perfect, but if it's any consolation I'll help you get through it as much as I can."

It hurt Caiellis to admit it, but he thought that Alex really didn't understand what he had been saying earlier. Even so, his brother's words touched him, and he snuggled up to the reassuring form of his sibling. In fact, Alexander had understood it perfectly well, having had similar thoughts in the past, but because he had someone that needed protecting – his tender and innocent little brother – he had pushed aside his own concerns. At any rate, he had stopped the younger boy from crying, and as he entered the realm of sleep Alex couldn't help but think that something drastic would happen tomorrow – more drastic than just the attack on a capital city.


	30. The Storm

_Day Thirteen_

_.*.*.*._

Ilentia strode through the brightly lit avenues of the Augur's Quarter, the playground of the rich and privileged in Usnaan, her shoes clacking on the precious stones embedded into the path towards the Glittering Mansion, formerly one of the favourite personal retreats of the Last Tyrant but now the residence of Eras Stormwind, the spoilt brat that was the Master of Wealth. The ostentatious clothing of the people around the Master of Gluttony repulsed her, and she recognised many attendees of the Address of the Archlord in the celebrating crowds (despite not seeing their faces in the Tower of Ecstasy).

Eras had evidently taken Tradax's words of continuing to indulge to heart, as the bands residing in golden-plates gazebos either side of Ilentia blasted out intrusive and annoying tunes that fought with each other in a cacophonous battle for dominance instead of complementing one another like any normal orchestra, the crowd around her swaying as they partook in increasingly dangerous but adversely stimulating narcotics and indulging on all of the expensive pleasures on offer. Although the quickest route to the Glittering Mansion in the Augur's Quarter would technically been through the Hedonist's Quarter, Ilentia had chosen to avoid that particular pathway because of the debaucheries that would be being committed by the Archlord's personal Order of Rapture and their sisters in the Order of Entertainment.

The city of Usnaan was alight with revelry, which smacked as extremely arrogant to Ilentia's sudden need to make everything have military precision, though she could tell that this would be the final night of celebration before the coming battle. She would have organised the military and had it patrolling the city, establishing defensive emplacements all around that would help repulse the Lucaelian invaders, but Tradax had been having none of it, insisting that the rapturous festivities would be far more useful than any conventional defences. Destructive and hazardous fireworks arced towards the roiling sky from all across the city, lighting up the darkness with their crackling displays of explosive light, and the Tempest of Craving above the revellers seemed to crackle and rumble in approval, red lightning coruscating through its tumultuous and suffocating (to Ilentia) clouds that looked more like billowing palls of ash than normal strata.

Her own Glutton's Quarter was holding the Emperor's Banquet under the Archlord's orders, which she had supervised for a time before she had delegated the duty to her underlings when her presence had been requested by the Master of Wealth. She had considered refusing the invitation to the Glittering Mansion, but anything that could get her away from the bloated fools that comprised the upper echelons of her Order was something to be taken.

Every Master of the Orders of Passion were putting on their most extravagant shows, with the Slaughter Games between gladiators and the most dangerous captive creatures (that Ilentia personally thought should have been kept and released against the Lucaelians instead) making the coliseums of the Champion's Quarter run red with the blood of the slain. Ilentia thought that was extremely wasteful, as they would need every soldier they could get against the might of the legions of Lucael and their angelic benefactors, but when asking Tradax about it the man had smiled sibilantly and replied with something enigmatic and mysterious about the Tempest of Craving's creators liking such actions, and that those who died deserved to be culled before the battle tomorrow (or today, since it was past midnight).

She knew that the self-titled Archlord must have something up his sleeve, as the lack of military preparations would suggest that (though to her credit Enforcer-general Fraetus Etin had prepared her Enforcers for war and some were guarding the military objectives whilst the population celebrated debauchery) he had evidently planned for the power of this storm to be enough to repel the invaders. However, Ilentia had still sensed a military way in which the celebrations were set out, and that once the Welkalites had finished gorging on turpitude they would be relatively well prepared to fight the Lucaelians with the insane aggression they were famed form.

Some perverse part of Ilentia that had been growing slowly within her secretly wished for the Welkalites to be defeated, but she didn't know if Tradax's continued survival was essential to her life so couldn't give into this urge of hers. Furthermore, the Master of Rapture (_Archlord of Rapture – that name just exudes arrogance, exactly like the man himself_) also might know what she was thinking (though he wasn't a Blue mage, he was still her master and reanimator), so she tried to suppress the thoughts when in his presence. Anyway, a gigantic loss would serve the Welkalites (Ilentia had noticed that she had started to refer to them as a distinct group, instead of her nationality, though she had started it automatically and didn't really know what it meant) right for not preparing properly for a full scale attack from arguably the most militaristic and formidable nation in the modern world. Nevertheless, she would still fight and kill every Lucaelian that got in her way, and feed the storm with their blood.

Caught up in thought, Ilentia had failed to notice that she had simply stopped moving and was looking up at the sky, the whirlpool of crackling crimson rage transfixing her and making the demon residing in her heart laugh loudly in exultation. Luckily, she had decided to wear the scarlet masquerade mask that concealed her identity before going out, so she wouldn't be heckled by inebriated civilians aware of her prestigious role, and as such no one had questioned it, assuming that she must have taken a hefty dose of drugs and had simply lost the ability to move.

Looking up at the roiling tempest of rage that made even Ilentia want to commit acts of unspeakable vice (which was a testament to its effects on the maddened populace of Usnaan), Ilentia was once again reminded of one of the memories of her former self. The young woman she had been had loved the stars, loved tracing patterns in her mind joining the twinkling lights and imagining that her and Otio's parents were there. Though Ilentia had changed dramatically, the fact that the stars she had once loved were hidden by this malevolent typhoon made her feel uneasy, despite the fact that the blaring lights of the City of Pleasure more often than not blocked them out due to the photo-pollution.

She soon dismissed the uncharacteristic thoughts from her mind, and walked swiftly through the extravagantly garbed revellers with the money to enter the exclusive Augur's Quarter, pushing some out of her way when they danced in front of her and scowling all the while at the blatant displays of wealth around every stall selling ridiculously expensive and rare hallucinogenics pillaged from the Yentarian Republic and containing mind-altering Blue mana that could irrevocably damage the user's psyche or lock them inside it forever, not that such consequences seemed to deter the rich from flocking to purchase this new craze.

The Glittering Mansion was hard to miss, as it was the second most impressive structure (well, the Towers of Ecstasy were technically more than one, but everyone seemed to agree that they counted as a single building) in the Augur's Quarter, the building covered in gold and rare crystals that had volatile Red mana captured inside of them, forever held in the instant of detonation and reminding Ilentia quite strongly of her own baleful red eyes that shone with the last defiance the one who had lived her life before her had felt.

However, Ilentia was aware that the exterior of the palace was apparently nowhere near as impressive as the underground section, vast vaults of shimmering wealth from all of the Empire's conquests and the taxes of the people that truly gave the Glittering Mansion its name.

Rumour had it that Eras Stormwind enjoyed killing those that displeased him by drowning them in molten coins, and that he himself spent entire days in the catacombs filled to the brim and bursting with coins of every variety – according to some of the more wild stories that had seemingly originated from the Custodians that guarded him, one could hear his insane laughter if they stood outside of the vaults, maddened giggling that echoed throughout the underground section as he bathed in the excess of wealth. Ilentia would not put it past the Master of Wealth, as while he was only nineteen he had lived a life of luxury due to the iron hand his aunt, Gretia Stormwind, had ruled the Order with, having all the benefits of the money she extorted from the already abused populace.

Several Custodians that wore ornate golden armour that was manufactured in such a way that it wouldn't actually provide much protection but in turn not hinder the movement of the wearer stood outside of the ornate gateway, and Ilentia simply took off her mask and gave them the full force of her terrifying gaze before they uncrossed their spears and allowed her to walk through. The second she did so, the Master of Gluttony was immediately hassled by a tiny and spindly man that wore robes far too big for him.

"Ahh, the famed Mistress of Gluttony! My master was expecting you!" he declared loudly, and Ilentia frowned slightly before returning to her original expression. She wasn't aware that she was known as the "Mistress", and much preferred the genderless title that she had become accustomed to. At any rate, despite only hearing it for a few seconds, this man's voice had already begun to seriously grate on her nerves, and wondered for a second how Eras could ever stand to keep him around before remembering how insane the teenager was himself.

"Where is Eras?" she demanded, cutting straight to the point instead of wasting time with meaningless pleasantries – not that she had anything else to be doing instead of acceding to Eras's wishes of speaking with her, but none of them needed to know that. The arrogant smirk that had adorned the man's features that seemed specifically tailored to be adept at assuming an expression of mediocrity (and Ilentia wouldn't be surprised if he belonged to one of the slave families of the Stormwind, as they had been a powerful and influential noble family in the reign of the old emperors) instantaneously faded, and for a second Ilentia thought he was going to grovel at her feet for mercy.

"Right this way, Mistress," he replied, bending his back low and leading her further into the mansion, the way he was behaving a clear indicator of how Eras treated his servants, and Ilentia would have threatened him with death if he continued to call her that if she didn't know that she wouldn't ever be visiting this place in the future, and that it would be a complete waste of time. Then again, Gretia had always been referred to in that manner, so maybe it was just customary of them to say that.

Ilentia briefly looked at the colourful and most probably extremely exaggerated tapestries lining the walls of the ornate staircase they had ascended that depicted the heritage of the Stormwind, the only surviving noble family after the dissolution of the Old Empire, as they had adapted very quickly to the new rule of every person for themselves and instantly taken advantage of the civilians' new-found craze for indulging in the pleasures the emperors and their descendants (the other noble families) kept to themselves. Gretia Stormwind had seized control of the family through a series of brutal coups in executed in quick succession, and she had defended the traditional reliquaries of her family from the hordes of mobs gone wild with their new freedom until such a vast amount had died trying to get in that the ground was caked with ash.

Ilentia really couldn't care less what had happened in the past; she was far more concerned with the present – that was one trait that had carried over from her dark resurrection, that utter focus on the present that was exhibited by other Welkalites but never to the degree that Ilentia took it, which is why she found the fact that her mind often decided to present her with random memories that she wasn't supposed to know disturbing.

"Wait right here, and I will go see if the Master is ready," the man grovelled, and Ilentia glared at him again as they stopped before a large door that would have lead into a large, and private, room. Ilentia was intrigued to find out why Eras had wanted to see her, as if he had contacted the other Masters then the whole thing would be significantly more formal, but that didn't mean that she had to give into his little games and fantasies of narcissism – unlike Tradax, who had authority over her, Ilentia had no patience of these silly illusions of grandeur. To that end she growled, "I am a very busy woman, maggot. I would appreciate not having to leave my Order at the time of the Emperor's Banquet alone much longer."

The man swallowed nervously, clearly sensing the threat that Ilentia had poured into her words, and to emphasise her point she slid one of her elegant swords slightly out of its elaborate sheath, the fine metal glinting in the mana-fuelled lights that shone down from above. Still, if he let the Master of Gluttony in before Eras was ready, then he would face a much more painful death than the one Ilentia was threatening him with, so he protested, "Please, Mistress-"

That was it. The Master of Gluttony contemptuously flicked out her sword, the fractal edge of the master-crafted blade gliding towards the man with the grace of a master warrior's strike, despite the fact that Ilentia had never had any form of weaponry training in the past and that the former her had relied much more on her fiery Red mana to incinerate her foes.

Ershun Firefist had named the blades ridiculously over the top titles from ancient Welkalite mythology, but when the ownership of the twin swords had transferred over to Ilentia she had renamed them – not that she was originally going to, it went against all of her sensibilities to name a tool, as naming something gave it power and the swords were hers to command. However, the blades had been enchanted with powerful magic, and seemed to have slivers of personality, so Ilentia indulged in a moment of sentimentality in dubbing the swords. The blade still locked within her right sheath reacted more to her angry Red mana, and seemed to enjoy gigantic outbursts of emotion and passion, so Ilentia had named it Fire, whereas the sinister weapon that was impaled through the Stormwind butler's throat was simply called Malice, and while it could be a very precise weapon it preferred to inflict as much pain as possible with its surgical strikes. Malice drunk greedily from the crimson vitae fountaining from the once irritating but now dead man's severed arteries, and Ilentia sheathed it with an elegant flourish before it gorged too much on the blood. Malice was a blade that enhanced her Black mana, with a personality that reminded her of Arrapackxia to boot, and took pleasure in the agony it caused, whereas its less subtle twin revelled in utter and indiscriminate destruction.

Ilentia pushed the door open with a slam of wood on stone, and a pale figure that had several servants adjusting its hair spun around with a jolt of surprise, his yellow eyes highlighting his rage at being interrupted before it softened when they noticed just who had intruded, converting into something more akin to feigned pleasure at meeting her, and a glimmer of avarice. Eras was an adolescent of a medium height, and though he had lived a pampered life he was still slender, although more due to his body type instead of any limited exercise he did or any lack of sustenance, and he was pale in spite of a life lived underneath the burning Welkalite sun – though judging by the rumours that he was obsessed with his wealth, the boy barely spent any time outside. The skin that Ilentia could see however was perfect and unblemished by the spots that usually frequented those of Eras's age, but he had probably subjected himself to many expensive treatments in order to remove them.

His eyes were yellow orbs that were framed by his thin blonde hair made him look slightly older than his young age of nineteen, and shone with the greed Ilentia had noticed earlier, which made her wonder why she had been invited in. He quickly dismissed the servants, one of which had been carrying a selection of masks for him to wear (Eras was barely seen without a garish costume and mask that emphasised how much wealth the bloated New Empire had managed to accumulate from the abused populace). In spite of his pettiness and spoilt nature, Eras was intelligent and ruled his Order of Wealth cunningly, though extremely selfishly. He opened his mouth to speak, but Ilentia resolved to take control of the situation and snapped, "I'm in no mood for your pleasantries and pointless platitudes, Eras, so get to the damn point of why you have invited me, unless you want to end up the same as the insufferable servant that greeted me at the door."

The Master of Wealth gulped anxiously for a moment at her wrath, and to highlight her point she moved from the doorway so that the gory demise of the chamberlain (that was being cleaned up by the servants who had just now vacated the private chambers), but soon composed himself and broke into an arrogant smirk, "More brusque than I expected from one of Tradax's puppets-"  
Both of Ilentia's blades were crossed over his throat before he had any chance to react, but instead of scaring the teenager he just grinned wider, showing how insane he was, as he was not fazed one bit by the proximity of instant death – as Ilentia was perfectly willing to kill him, though Tradax would probably be furious with her for the simple reason that he would have to instate a new Master of Wealth and that one of the few demons would have been sent back to Sancturia. "Do not make me repeat myself, Eras. Why did you request to see me?"

"I wanted to discuss something with you," he murmured, his voice suddenly and unexpectedly tinted with fear, and Ilentia frowned as his eyes immediately began to fill with terror at his current predicament, his breathing becoming faster and more hitched, "Please let me live, Ilentia, please..."

The woman lowered her swords and quickly sheathed the blades, both of them disappointed that there would be no damage wreaked upon the young man, although Eras seemed quite shaken, trembling as he beckoned over to two padded chairs further into the room. Or apparently not, as he stiffened and walked over to the seat with a conceited swagger that had Ilentia tiring of his constant mood swings – it just went to show how crazy a person could become if they had been given everything they ever wanted since birth (as Gretia had no children of her own and so heavily spoilt her only nephew), and never questioned or told how to act properly. "Fine. For now, I will let you survive. But if you annoy me further then I will kill you," the Master of Gluttony stated, not deigning to sit down on the overdecorated seat Eras offered to her.

"I'm glad you came," the boy replied, at ease again, though this time he seemed earnest, like whatever he had to say was the most important thing in the entire world, and Ilentia frowned as if to say: "get on with it." but otherwise made no moves to interrupt the Master of Wealth further. "I had a feeling that you wouldn't arrive, or even respond to the letter, but here you are, Ilentia, Master of Gluttony, favouring me with your presence. What an honour it is to have you walk within my Glittering Mansion, looking upon its-"

"I didn't come here to listen to you monologue," Ilentia snapped as the young man looked as if he was about to break into some distracted rambling about the heritage of his vaunted family, and Eras appeared shocked that the woman would even suggest that was what he was about to do, as well as angry that she had cut in again – though he made pains to hide that, Ilentia still smirked in amusement. Evidently the boy was not used to being halted when he was speaking by anyone apart from Tradax or Arendus. "Oh of course not. And that brings me nicely onto the main topic: the behaviour of our esteemed Master – or should I say Archlord – of Rapture, Tradax Yulica."

_No, it really doesn't – in fact me interrupting you has no relevance to that topic whatsoever – but whatever. I'm intrigued now. Could it be that Eras Stormwind invited me here because he wishes to enact a coup on Tradax? I doubt it, but at any rate it is surprising that he is saying this to me, a person that was in essence created by Tradax himself, and has no reasons to be anything less than loyal to the Archlord (which of course begs the question why I feel that I have no allegiance to him at all), and should by all means kill him right now. _Just as Ilentia was coming to that conclusion, Eras broke out in a triumphant grin, a smile that would better fit gracing the features of a young child when they won in some sort of pointless contest rather than a nineteen year old, exclaiming, "I knew it! I knew you weren't one of his slaves! Sorry, but the fact that you haven't killed me yet means that you don't have the undying loyalty to him one would infer from your situation."

"Are you suggesting that I would ever betray Tradax?" Ilentia asked, a modicum of threat in her tone, but she was more curious at what Eras had to say now so wasn't bothered about establishing her place at the top of the conversation, and the boy quickly shook his head, "Oh no. I was merely pointing something out. At any rate, I can't be the only one who has noticed his strange actions." Ilentia immediately began to think of the Archlord's conversation with the masked assassin that had killed her employers when she had just been a little girl and what Tradax would want with her, as Eras continued, "I mean, I know that you weren't … "you", when the Lucaelian princes were abducted – did you know that the oldest was seventeen? He could have been a fun playmate for me, but I digress. Anyway, I'm sure you could agree with me when I say that it would have been much more logical to simply kill the princes instead of detaining them."

Ilentia nodded. She had thought the same herself, and Eras, seemingly emboldened by her positive gestures, added confidently, "Whether he had a specific purpose for them, or was serving under someone that wanted them alive, I don't know. However, more recently is this storm – it cannot be just me that the Tempest of Craving frightens. It is unnatural, and highly disturbing, and while the civilians are enjoying it, it is clearly having a negative effect on Usnaan. Of course Severkarkyis refused to say anything about it when I asked him."

Ilentia assumed he was talking about the greater demon living inside his own Mind Realm, though she sensed Arrapackxia bristling at the name, suggesting an animosity between the two – although her demon didn't seem to get on with any of his brothers. A short silence descended, and Ilentia supposed that Eras wanted her conformation before he went on (a quick look into his golden eyes confirmed that), so she said, "Yes. It is definitely the work of our demonic patrons."

"Exactly," Eras nodded, "And whether or not it was them that wanted him to keep the princes alive, Tradax seems to be acting under the manipulation of someone greater than him. His rise to power, for example, was through overthrowing the former Masters of the Orders of Violence, Rapture, Entertainment and your Gluttony, and by killing dear Aunty Gretia, with the help of new demons that had never been seen in Welkas before. Even the Old Tyrants strayed far away from them, and while I have never respected them they knew what they were doing. At any rate, abducting the princes without the intention to kill them – despite the fact that _I _never got to meet them – was a massive mistake – need I remind you that it was that that has led to this war, and the Empire being in more danger – New or Old – than it has ever been in before?"

"Furthermore, he is spending increasing amounts of time visiting the Protector's residence, and only the fire knows what he is doing to Redhand. I feel as if Tradax is gambling away all of the New Empire so that he can gain more power, and I won't have it."

"What are you suggesting?" Ilentia questioned, her blazing red eyes narrowing, and Eras looked to the side nervously, as if expecting one of Tradax's assassins to emerge from their hiding place and kill him (though Ilentia would have already known if there were any concealed in the Glittering Mansion), before turning back to her with a faint smirk on his patrician and soft features (that showed that he had never had to fend for his life before), "Nothing at the moment. It would be far too late to plan anything large, as there is a battle tomorrow and there isn't enough time to be plotting another revolution. However, I have something for you."

The young man clapped his hands, and sat for a moment before his face creased into a frown, forgetting that he had dismissed the servants, and got up from his chair to an ornate wooden cabinet on the other side of the room. He opened the second drawer from the bottom, and pulled out two devices that had clearly been made recently, handing one of them to Ilentia, who took it, analysing it briefly before she asked, "What is it?"

"It is a teleportation device," Eras explained, his eyes alight with a mixture of childish enthusiasm and victorious triumph, like they had just won the war against Lucael, "And the co-ordinates set into it would take the user to one of my residences in the eastern city of Kalaan. A simple click of the button would transport you there almost instantly in a flash of Blue mana."

"And why have you given me this?" Ilentia demanded suspiciously, wondering what possible motive the Master of Wealth could have for providing her with a means to escape Usnaan. The boy smiled magnanimously and replied, "A gift, from a Master of one Order of Passion to another. Besides, you can thank yourself for their production, as after you caused the Ja'an Guard stationed in the sewers to be forced to employ their displacement technology, I had some Yentarian scientists that had been captured in previous raids and that I had purchased develop them."

"And you've tested them?" Ilentia inquired, as she wouldn't put it past any of Eras's prisoners to take any chance they could get to kill the almost intolerable brat of a Master, and he cocked a blonde eyebrow as if she was asking the most ridiculous question in the world, "Of course. They worked perfectly – did you know that scientists really don't like pain? I didn't before this, but it seems that the threat of that can make them work much more precisely and faster. Interesting."

Ilentia nodded in reply. She knew that the Master of Wealth was doing this to try and get her on his side, and he continued saying, "Of course we won't be using it now, as if Tradax wins the battle tomorrow – well, today actually, as it is past midnight – I've always thought midnight was a weird name, as it isn't really the middle of the night – he will be furious if we have just left, but if any of us are in severe danger we can simply teleport out to safety." though she wasn't really listening anymore – besides, she was sure her definition of "severe danger" differed from Eras's quite drastically, and that it was characteristic of the selfish boy to be more concerned about preserving his own skin instead of helping anyone else.

Which made it strange that he had given her the device – though she had seen the hunger for power that reminded her of Tradax's own in Eras's yellow eyes, and both of them knew that if Eras wanted to rule then he wouldn't be able to do it alone, with three Masters arrayed against him. However, if he could tip the scales slightly – say, by making Ilentia back him up – then they might have a fighting chance at victory against the Archlord and Arendus Draal. At any rate, another way of looking at it would be that if Usnaan was annihilated by the holy vengeance of the Lucaelians, Tradax and Arendus would most likely die, whereas Eras and Ilentia would survive and could claim sovereignty of what was left of the Empire, though the Lucaelians would probably object to any trace of the Orders of Passion surviving after their victory, including them. Ilentia didn't particularly feel any inclination to help Eras because of this, and didn't know what to feel about the fact that she had been gifted with an escape mechanism.

.*.*.*.

"You shouldn't really come here in the middle of the night," Orzhova admonished the second Cai entered the abandoned and haunting cathedral in his mind, the dark seraph shaking her head and adding, "Especially since you have to be well rested for tomorrow, and at your optimum strength."

"I know," the boy replied as the angel turned around, her eyes betraying the fact that despite her words she was grateful for the company, and he briefly wondered if Orzhova saw his nightmares if he was having them. If so, night time would be a very bleak situation for both of them, and he continued, "Besides, my body seems to sleep much better if my mind stays here, instead of flitting fitfully between consciousness and nightmares."

"So, what did you want to speak about?" Orzhova asked, examining her perfectly formed nails for a second and leaning on her ornate scythe. Cai opened his mouth to protest before, without turning to look at him, she cut in with, "And don't say "does there have to be a reason to come and see you?", Cai. I mean no offence by that, of course, as you aren't in any way ignorant of me nor do you never come to visit, but you are a goody two shoes and there has to be something pressing if you would disobey my orders to not come in when your mind should be resting."

Caiellis pouted for a moment, but the angel was right and he had pressing concerns to talk to her about, "Sorry-"

"Don't apologise," she responded nonchalantly, and Cai rolled his eyes at her, "Can I please speak now without being interrupted?" The angel waved her hand magnanimously in his direction, smiling at her young Summoner's look of annoyance that the boy shot at her before he intented to continue from when she had cut it, then he remembered something, "Actually, that reminds me: Why do you always ask me what I am going to ask you about? Aren't you supposed to be able to read my mind? This isn't what I was going to ask originally, that can come after you answer this, but I just figured this was pertinent."

"It's only surface thoughts, emotions and some of the things that are happening in reality," Orzhova answered, stopping her systematic analysing of herself and looking down at her Summoner, who nodded, "I can't read your mind, but I feel what you feel, and right now I can feel that you are curious about something, apprehensive and scared about the probable conclusion of this short but brutal war tomorrow, angry at your father – and I don't blame you for that, and would have Summoned myself to your aid if he wasn't emitting silencing mana – and comfortable in Alex's presence – by the way the fact that you are sharing a bed together before this battle is _immensely _cute, if you don't mind me saying."

Cai nodded again, electing to ignore her final words about him and his big brother sleeping in his bed and vaguely embarrassed about it, and spoke, his voice soft but entirely serious and so bereft of humour that Orzhova knew that she shouldn't make any more jokes, "I wanted to ask you what you know about this storm over Usnaan. I should really have done it earlier, as in hindsight this entire day was mostly quite pointless, but at the time I didn't want to be rendered unconscious for several hours and still only having a short conversation."

"The storm is called the Tempest of Craving," Orzhova replied after a moment, her face serious and calm but her onyx eyes full of hatred, "And accentuates Red and Black mana in the area around it – not just for the Welkalites, mind you, as our Black mana will be heightened whereas your brother's and my sister's magic of fire and lightning will be also – to a very large extent, whilst significantly weakening Blue mana. Furthermore, the longer it is channelled the more its effects are felt on the location it is hovering over, including strikes of crimson lightning, swarms of imps and a rain of gore. The Tempest seems to get more powerful the more death occurs underneath it, although I can't tell you that for certain as it hasn't yet been verified. As you suspected, it is magic that demons have created, although one human mage leading groups of cultists has to channel the storm alone should it be placed in the material realm. The longer it is left the more destructive it becomes, and seems to progress through multiple stages."  
"And how can I end the storm?" Cai asked, absorbing Orzhova's words quickly and already thinking about the detrimental effects of the Tempest of Craving and how the Lucaelian troops would be walking right into the Welkalites' trap, though there was no chance that the plan would change now or that anyone would listen to him – at least the force was aware of the storm and the fact that it would make the battle significantly more dangerous already, and he added, "Does killing the main mage and their followers end it?"

"Yes, though this should be done as quickly as possible, or the harder it will be to reach and slay them," his dark seraph nodded, prompting Caiellis to inquire, "What happens when the storm reaches its final stage, or that the correct number of people have died underneath it?"

Orzhova's eyes became sad for a brief second, though Cai detected that it was more from not being able to help her Summoner than any experience with the ending form of the Tempest of Craving, replying softly, "It has never happened. Any time the Tempest of Craving has been conjured, the channeller has been slain before it could reach its climax, although I have no doubt as to how deadly the last phase's cessation will be. You Lucaelians will certainly have to progress through the city quickly to reach and kill them."

Cai nodded again, and a silence descended after a moment as he contemplated this new information and how he would go about informing his father just before the battle about it. He then opened his mouth and asked, "That brings us onto another thing that I wanted to ask you about. I'd like you to teach me a technique that I saw you utilise during our battle with Alex and Aurelia-"  
"No," the angel stated gravely, taking her Summoner aback, who rocked back for a second like the angel's sudden refusal had physically shoved him away from her, as she continued, "I can't stop you from forcing me to, of course, but I think that what you are asking of me is foolish."

Perturbed, the youngest Lucerna pouted, "I've not even asked you yet." to which his Summoning of White and Black responded, "You were going to ask me how to use Black mana to go into the abyss of Sancturia and displace yourself in the material realm, a technique known as the Voidwalk, correct?"

The boy nodded, vaguely annoyed that she had already outright refused to help him unless he made her, which he didn't want to have to do but was perfectly willing to if she kept acting like this, as it was essential to the survival of the Lucaelian force if what Orzhova had said earlier about a single human magic user being the focal point of the Tempest of Craving had been true (and he had no reason to doubt the Angel of the Black Sun's informative words). If so, it was necessary for him to know how to do this, and Orzhova then said, "I don't think that this is wise, Caiellis, and you know that I don't disagree with you often. I believe that you should tell your father that you need to kill the mage that is casting the spell – most likely that whoreson Tradax – and that the army should make a spearhead towards him – as you will definitely be able to detect him – to kill him as fast as possible and end the storm."

Cai stared at her for a second, before attempting to refute her claims by saying, "That will take far too long, and do you not think Tradax will have arranged his forces to delay us as long as possible in our charge towards him? Too many would die and the storm would progress far too quickly, as well as that plan being exactly the one the Welkalites would want us to enact, and the one that I've been trying to talk my dad out of for a long time. A blind charge into the heart of Usnaan would only serve to kill us all with the Tempest of Craving greedily drinking on our souls, but taking having to fight our way into the city with every step earned in gallons of blood out of the equation would surprise the Master of Rapture and stop the storm from gaining too much power."

"If it is a teleported strike that you are after, then why not have the mages of Scientia Mos enact the Wargate on you, the other Lucernas and your praetorians?" Orzhova insisted, though she felt like she was grasping at straws in trying to dissuade the boy out of this course of action, and silently cursed the circumstances of his life that had lead him to believe that this was acceptable, that he though that he had to do this, and Cai shook his head, shooting her a disapproving glance, "You just said that Blue mana is drastically weakened, whereas Black is heightened by the Tempest, so the Wargate or any other teleportation method would not work. Besides, the other powerful members of the army are needed there, and giving up too many Summoners to fight Tradax – or whoever the conjurer of the storm is – would only serve to weaken the army and get the soldiers repulsed from the city, even if the Wargate was able to be enacted. I have to do this, Orzhova, and I'd appreciate it if you would support me in this course of action."

Despite his youth, Caiellis could be extremely stubborn if he wanted to, and though Orzhova had never been on the receiving end of that before she had experienced it in the fleeting and fragmented glances into Cai's young life that she had been able to take before he passed her trial, and more recently after it when the angel was allowed to constantly watch what was going on in the material world outside of the Mind Realm, though through Caiellis's young eyes. She shook her head despairingly, her voice becoming more desperate and filled with a deep sadness, "No, you don't. You don't have to take everything on your shoulders, Caiellis. You are only a thirteen year old boy, and in spite of the reality that you are a Lucerna, you shouldn't expect yourself to do everything. Rely on someone else for once-"

"That is exactly the problem," Caiellis's serious and adamant tone cut in, brooking no argument, which was ironic considering what the situation would look like to an outside observer, a young boy talking down to a magisterial and awe-inspiring angel of darkness and light, and it was the first time he had interrupted his angel mid-sentence before in the week and a day he had been able to talk to her, "I rely on other people too much – an obvious example is my big brother, and while he actively encourages it it makes me much weaker and puts additional strain on him. Which makes it end awfully badly if he can't cope with protecting both of us, highlighted when Aksua ambushed us and I was too weak to help him, and ended up putting him in more danger as Alex probably would have given up if she threatened me with damage, which is most likely what happened to my arm. I don't care how old I am, but I'm not a little kid any more, and I have to take responsibility for myself and the people. I can't be coddled and protected any longer. I have to do this, Orzhova, not just so that I can prove that I am ready to take up the mantle of sovereignty should I be chosen as the next ruler of the Kingdom of Light, and to protect those weaker than me."

"And is foolishly throwing away your life going to solve anything?!" Orzhova suddenly shrieked, her face contorted in anger, and Cai took a step back despite himself, his confidence fading for a moment before a surge of determination brought it back to the fore, but unlike in his arguments with other humans he felt no inclination to shout back, simply, calmly and patiently replying, "I am not throwing away my life, Orzhova, but sometimes risks must be taken in order to secure the safety of the kingdom."

_He's more like Marik sometimes than he would ever like to envision, _Orzhova thought, cursing herself for her sudden outburst instead of lauding Caiellis for his willingness to help the cause of Lucael and commending his bravery like any of her sisters would have done, but Orzhova was not like any of her heavenly siblings and cared more about Caiellis than she did for the kingdom. Her voice was soft and haunting when she next spoke, melancholy infusing itself into her quiet whisper of, "I can't lose you, Caiellis. You are the first good Summoner I have ever had, and I don't want you to die without even two weeks of being able to speak to you. I don't want to have to return to the Sanctum Angelica in shame, but more than that I don't want you to get hurt or die."

Cai blinked in surprise at her emotional admittance, lost for words at the angel's powerful words and her sheer like of him, before his lapse was crushed by the walls of determined steel that slammed down around his mind and his own doubts and very real fear about this course of action as well as the battle, replying sternly, "Don't be selfish, Orzhova. If I die then it will be in service to protecting the people, which is as worthy death as any-"

"And since when have you ever cared about how you died?" Orzhova spat back, her words dripping with caustic venom, and for a moment Caiellis thought that the Angel of the Black Sun was considering incapacitating him so that he couldn't participate in the battle for Usnaan, which emphasised what selfish Black mana could do to a being of pure White, not that Cai thought less of the angel for her inherent darkness.

But the way that she was protesting against him risking himself for the safety of the kingdom smacked of how she had served Xarius's mad and brutal orders without question, clinging to the vain hope that her first Summoner would change as she killed more and more by following his commands. Judging by how the angel's posture stiffened, she had detected those thoughts, and while Caiellis normally wanted to upset the being living in his mind right now he didn't care, and she needed to be told, "Never, Orzhova, but that's not the point. I'm a Lucerna, and while I hate that with a passion, there is no point in running from that duty, so I may as well embrace it and help people. I've been gifted with this power so that I can make a difference, and I am _not _going to spurn that opportunity."

"You Lucaelian and your notions of "duty". It's ridiculous. Live your life however you want, that's why I say," Orzhova scoffed, and Cai sighed, "So that's why you ran away from your own duty and taking punishment for your crimes but still returned despite putting yourself at immense risk by doing so? If you really didn't care about your duty as a member of the First Sisterhood, then you wouldn't have ever chosen me as a Summoner. Unless you are manipulating me to your own ends, which I sorely doubt, though it would explain why you seem so attached to me. Actually, that could be quite plausible, as you can only enter the material realm for an extended basis of time if you have a Summoner, and those with the magic of White and Black combined are extremely rare, much more so in the Lucerna family which you have been confined to by the apparent "foolishness" of your mother as you so respectfully put it."

Orzhova shook her head in disbelief, "Do you really think that I would ever manipulate you? I'm very offended that you would think that lowly of me," she muttered, and her Summoner was quick to console her with, "No, I didn't. It was just a possibility. However, you ran from your duty until the point that you couldn't any more."

"I didn't run from my duty, just my punishment which was originally much more severe than exile," Orzhova countered, and Cai was sure that she would have smirked if the situation hadn't been so serious, and added, her voice becoming vaguely nostalgic but also infused with hope,

"I had always dreamed of going into the material world and proving myself alongside my sisters, but until Xarius was born I never got the chance, and you know how well my bonding with him turned out. After I was cast out – well, fled – from the Sanctum Angelica, I spent over a hundred years wandering the wastes of Sancturia, killing demons and avoiding the patrols of some of my more fanatical and zealous sisters' daughters that would leap at the chance to bring the Angel of the Black Sun back to meet her judgement. Every single day I wished for a Lucerna child to be born with Black and White mana so that I could prove that I am not evil, and that I made a mistake, so when you were I chose you for my Summoner and promoted the growth of your Black mana, instead of another one of my sisters – like Avacyn, who had been officially chosen by Serra to become your Summoning and was _so_ looking forward to working with you – aiding you and suppressing a part of you. And that is why I do not want you to throw your life away because you think that you have something to prove to the Kingdom of Light."

Cai stayed silent and brooding for a short moment, before he uttered, "I'm sorry, Orzhova, I never meant to offend you. But nothing you say will dissuade me from this course of action, and if anyone else had the power to do this – to cut off the head of the beast – then they would take that chance without a second thought. Just because I am precious to you doesn't mean that I shouldn't try to save as many lives as possible. Teach me the Voidwalk or I will have to force you to, and trust me I don't want to have to do that."

.*.*.*.

Marik knew he was dreaming the second he saw her, but it didn't make it feel any less real, didn't salve the agonising throbbing of the hole that had been torn in his heart with her departure from this world of pain. She was as beautiful as she had ever been, as beautiful as the day she had been taken from him, and she reached out to him, her slender and perfect fingers extending out to be entwined with his, though he was powerless to move and meet them. Her flawless green eyes, the same colour and shape of Caiellis's emerald orbs but possessed of Alexander's love and warmth, were opened wide in fear, and she called softly, "Come to me, Marik. Please, I need you. Come to me, please..."

"Emili?" the word was choked out from the uncharacteristic sobs that had sprung up on him, broken and painful. A shiver ghosted down his spine and he felt goosebumps race up and down his imposing body, his mind becoming drowned in sadness mixed with a foolish anticipation at being given the chance to save his wife, like the events were not set in stone and that he had the power to change them within this dream, the rational part of his mind's protestations of t_his isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real, _quickly overwhelmed by the power of his undying love for his wife, and the overpowering grief at knowing what would come next, knowing what had happened on that fateful night nine years ago, and knowing that he was completely powerless to stop it in spite of the fact that he was supposed to be one of the most powerful men in the world, so utterly helpless and pathetic that he didn't deserve to live.

"I love you, Marik … Please, help me..." Emili pleaded, her head turning to the side as Marik's did also, a movement of the shadows in his mind as he tried desperately to run towards his wife, but whenever he seemed to get close in the shifting darkness of his grief-stricken psyche she was whisked away and seemed increasingly further away, still calling his name and thinking that he could help her. Marik growled in primal anger when a humanoid figure stepped into the shadows, grinning wildly at him and grasping at his wife with its clawed left hand, though the nails on that were not nearly as long or brutal as those placed on his right hand. "You were too late, Marik. She died because of you."

Because of the fact that Marik had never heard the shape-changing demon that had murdered his perfect wife, the demon spoke with the voice of his traitorous twin brother Johnias, albeit a heavily distorted version of the arrogant and jealous tone his brother's voice had become when he rebelled (or perhaps that was what his voice had always been like as he was forced to revel in Marik's success while having little of his own (in his own opinion) to boast of, and that he had finally stopped pretending to be happy for his four minute younger brother), but it had always been like this in the dream and did nothing to reduce the emotional resonance of it. In fact, it increased it, as not only was Marik forced to watch his inability to protect his wife in gruesome detail (unless he woke up), but also forced to remember that it had been his failure to recognise Johnias's growing dissent or countenance his sudden rebellion before Emili had died and the inhabitants of Gol had been slaughtered.

It's eyes were malicious pearls of midnight obsidian, and its skin was as grey as the deathly pallor of corpses. It had large, bony and thick horns that curled back from its forehead and above its head, and was a brutal creature that stood at the height of at least seven and a half feet tall, but the most disturbing feature about it that had etched itself into Marik's mind (and highly terrified his young and innocent sons) was its inane grin of joy at the murder of Emili and the fact that it knew it was ripping her family apart just as it ripped apart her internal organs. The demon had had a smaller but no less malevolent twin that had been holding Alexander and lulling him into a magic-induced unconsciousness, but since that one hadn't been the cause of his wife's death it didn't deign to appear in Marik's nightmare.

Emili let out a blood-curdling scream of agony as the demon's bone white claws punched through her stomach, the paleness of the talons soon turned crimson by the blood fountaining from the holes in Emili that they were emerging from, and Marik's love coughed up more scarlet liquid in a choked shriek of pain as the demon maliciously twisted its claws that were embedded in her stomach, the deadly venom coating them and rushing through her bloodstream. Marik shouted, "Emili! NO!" but he was too far away to do anything as his wife died right before his eyes. He rolled in one direction on his bed, and then the other, desperately trying to escape his dream, though the reality that he would be returning to wasn't much more pleasant. The demon/Johnias's cackling filled his ears, almost loud enough to mask the soft whimpers mixed with weak gasps of pain coming from his dying wife. Almost, but not quite, and his combat-attuned instincts honed in on the noise, dragging him back within his fitful slumber before he could awaken and escape.

One last time he glanced at his beautiful and heavenly wife, the perfection that she had attained within his memories and dreams far more alluring than she had ever been in life (as it was her personality that had been Emili's most attractive feature) in spite of the fact that Marik had always found her incredibly appealing, and looked into her wide and expressive green eyes. They were filled with pain, but not from the huge claws as thick as her forearms impaling her through the stomach and half lifting her off the floor. It was as if she could (and had been able to, as Marik had seen the look in her eyes when he had finally ran into the nursery) sense how much her death was going to affect her perfect family. It was an emotional pain at never being able to see her children that she loved more than anything in the world get older, and pain knowing that she would never be able to grow old with Marik while watching and helping Alexander and Caiellis every step of the way.

Suddenly her eyes changed from woeful to the pale black, the same colour as the demon's glinting orbs, and she grinned evilly at him, before screaming, "COME TO ME, MARIK!"

He heard another scream of pure and unadulterated hatred that a four year old should never feel, and in spite of the fact that young Caiellis's outburst of Black mana had not harmed Marik nor damaged his mother's dying form an explosion of purple flames fuelled by absolute loathing consumed everything in Marik's stricken mind.

The supreme king of Lucael jolted upwards, sweating profusely and trying to gain a grip on reality before he was dragged back down and forced to see the dire consciousness of his stubborn refusal to let Emili take his children to Scientia Mos again, telling himself that it wasn't real, before another part of his mind told him that despite the dream distorting the events (as he had only arrived to see his youngest son slaying the demons, though had still seen Emili's saddened and welling eyes) they had still happened and his perfect wife was still dead, and by extension his perfect family was also, although it was more fractured and fragmented instead of dead.

"Damn it, Marik, get a hold of yourself! That was nine years ago!" he berated himself quietly, not loud enough to attract the attention of any of the guards that would be outside, as he knew from past experience that his nightmares were always quiet and he kept his fear to himself during them.

However, his mind was still panicked, still filled with an adrenaline that he ideally wanted to keep bottled in until the battle, and while he knew that he should be going back to sleep so that he was well rested for the siege of the Welkalite capital the forty year old knew that there was no chance that he would be doing that within the foreseeable future as he would just have another nightmare and wake up. He resolved to settle back down in his bed and simply rest, or maybe visit Akroma (not that the Angel of Wrath ever had anything to say to him, and he would be doing it more to escape from his own dreams than any incentive to have a talk with her), before his mind began to think of his family again, and then wondered if his children were sleeping well, prior to deciding that his sons were in mortal danger.

Marik doubted that they were, as it was the same feeling that he had felt on the night of Emili's death and his thoughts were still focussed mostly on the dull ache in his chest at not having her by his side, but his mind latched onto his father's fear of his children being in peril and refused to let it go. Sighing as his mind became more and more desperate, Marik shucked on one of his casual leather jackets and sheathed his royal greatsword (as he slept with it out of its scabbard and easy to access because of Johnias's tendency to send assassins to try and kill him and end the war the easy way instead of having to face the king in one on one combat), strapping the scabbard-belt round his muscular waist, marching out into the biting cold of the night outside.

He nodded in acknowledgement of the guard outside, and Mirria bowed her head in respect and murmured, "Ave Lux, my king,", knowing not to question Marik's motives for emerging in the middle of the night, though as usual the king was impressed by the fact that if she was tired by the guard duty then she was very good at hiding it and had noticed him before he had come out. Marik glanced in the direction of Usnaan, disturbed that the storm had grown in size since he had last looked at it (as now it was visible from the camp, whereas before it had only been from Caiellis's rocky and elevated retreat) and was crackling visibly with crimson electricity (though luckily not rumbling with imposing thunder that would demoralise his troops slightly, though Lucaelians were tougher than to be put off by a little thunder), the only illumination barring the lit torches in the night as the angry clouds were blocking out the light of the moons.

Due to the sole reason of his personal tent being closer, Marik walked in the direction of Caiellis's temporary residence, though he was sure that his youngest would be less than thrilled should he have had a fitful sleep like his dad's. Marik had always wanted to be a _dad,_ never just a _father,_ but the civil war had erased his dreams of that, just like it had erased most of his dreams. At least his sons still called him "dad", but that was mostly due to their minds automatically doing that due to the time that they had spent with him before Johnias's violent betrayal, more than any affection they had towards him – although Alexander seemed to do it because of the latter reason as well, and he did try with both of his sons.

He paused in the entrance for a second, reliable and commendable (though sometimes incredibly sarcastic) Lancalo bowed his head sleepily, although Marik was sure that he would snap to readiness the instant danger approached. _Well, Lancalo hasn't sensed anything, so Caiellis is fine, right? _His mind thought, not wanting to go into the tent and potentially wake up his youngest son, though not because of any fear of arguing with him at this time in the night – but because if Caiellis woke up with his father, the man who had on this morning pinned him down on that same bed by the throat, staring over him, he could become filled with terror. Marik pushed the concerns out of his mind, knowing instinctively that he wasn't just satisfied with the fact that all seemed to be well outside of the tent, and that if Caiellis did awaken then he would simply greet his son and leave, and entered the tent.

His eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness inside of the tent, taking a short while to be able to pick out what was within, but when he became able to do so Marik smiled affectionately, his heart filled with a warm and fond sensation he barely felt any more at the sight of not one, but both of his teenage sons resting together, Alexander having evidently decided that his brother needed his company to be able to feel safe through the night.

As opposed to when they were awake, and Caiellis's youthful features and wide, expressive eyes made his little boy seem young in spite of the adult expressions often adorning it, in the peace of sleep both of his boys' young faces were suffused with an innocent purity, which only highlighted how young they both were – including Alexander, who wasn't yet an adult despite how mature he acted, and when he didn't have to pretend to be one his eldest looked immensely youthful, though still not as child-like as his little brother.

The older boy's more muscular arm was draped protectively around his little brother's shoulders, whose head had rolled over into the side of his ribs, and Marik smiled down at them, lingering in the doorway instead of progressing further into the room and glad that his mind's paranoid fears had been unfounded, until a sudden thought hit him. The reason why Alexander had probably decided to sleep in the same bed as his youngest and provide comfort was because the younger boy was scared of what would happen tomorrow, and that while he might not have shown it as much Alexander would be also and would draw resolve from the presence of his little brother and the reminder of the things that he needed to (well, in his opinion at any rate) protect. Marik had faced anger, defiance, sadness and coldness from his youngest son, as well as acceptance and friendliness from his eldest, but for some reason the thought of his children, his little boys, being scared of the battle tomorrow had never occurred to him.

They were only children, and that meant that in spite of their vaunted bloodline they had every right to be frightened of an extremely massive and brutal battle on the horizon, but because of the strength both of his sons showed – though the youngest wielded that strength of personality against him instead of using it to help him – he had completely forgotten about their young age and the fact that they would most likely be terrified of what could happen to them or their loved ones in the siege of Usnaan. Once again he was immensely glad that other people were attuned to his children's needs, as he was quite useless in that respect even though it hurt his pride to admit it, and that they had built up an immensely strong bond (even though it could put them in unnecessary danger, and put them under increased emotional strain should they argue with each other, particularly for his smaller son who wasn't as emotionally developed as his older brother and so would take the words more seriously), so Alexander had known to come and soothe Caiellis's fears when he had been found lacking in that department.

Marik wanted more than anything in the world to be able to put them both in indestructible bubbles away from the danger of the world, or at the very least order their departure to Lucael in the morning so that they didn't have to fight in Usnaan and have the possibility of being wounded or worse, but Marik knew that his sons and their First Sisterhood angels _had _to be at the forefront of the Lucaelian force, otherwise the legions would take even more casualties and even more death would be wrought upon the ranks of Lucael.

However, Marik had won in the civil war against a much greater foe (perhaps, or maybe the Welkalites were even more dangerous than his treacherous older identical twin brother) without his sons' aid, and he might be able to do it again, so he was incredibly tempted to send them back into the relative safety of the Kingdom of Light, but knew that he would be seen as weak instead of parental for doing so and that it was selfish of him, despite the fact that he could argue that he was removing the Lucerna heirs from danger.

At any rate, he felt that he could be comforting his children, embracing his fatherly duties fully after his abysmal failure to do so in spite of his trying with his youngest son, but to do so properly would require waking them up and there was no question in the monarch's mind that Caiellis would react negatively to such an action. He wanted to talk to them, talk about their lives as a whole family in a way that they had never done as before the civil war the two had been too young to be discussing serious things like that, which he thought was stupid of him because now he had thought that there was no time and they sorely needed their sleep. He wanted to converse their likes and dislikes, find out about their favourite activities and books (although Alexander might not have one), but the fact that he hadn't really been that personal with either of them meant that the talk would be extremely awkward, and downright forced between him and Caiellis, who probably wouldn't want to spend any amount of time with him.

Marik wanted to start healing the rift between all three of them – well, his sons and him – and while that was happening with his eldest he was losing his youngest, but he quietly scoffed. _Well done, Marik! Congratulations on being a complete idiot!_ You_ could have chosen any time in the past month to do so, but instead picked the __only time you couldn't, the only time it was too late to do so!_

Marik shook off of his concerns. While he wouldn't win the "father of the year" award, and certainly wasn't going to unless he changed the way he went about it, while he couldn't change his sons' (_let's be real, _son's_ opinion towards me_) opinions towards him at the moment, he could make them safe, which was far more important than any personal like or dislike of him. He knew all the reasons why he wasn't as close to them as he should have been, and it wasn't all because of the civil war, though that had been the catalyst and main reason for it, and the reasons why Caiellis didn't like him at the current moment.

He stayed up nights after arguing with his youngest son telling himself about it, repeating them time and time again. How the boy had to obey because otherwise he would be putting himself and others in danger, how Caiellis had to accept his orders and punishments because he knew best and was the adult, how he had to be able to fight in every circumstance (such as without his magic or exhausted, which was the cause of this war in the first place – although Marik was certain that if the Welkalites had chosen not to attack his second son then they would have had other plans for declaring war and gaining power over Lucael, such as the ample target of the other Lucaelian prodigies at the Scholaria Magnus) and prepare for every eventuality. Both of them had to be trained, they had to be ready and able, because if they weren't then they might never be safe. And Marik couldn't risk anyone else in his family. He wouldn't. Their safety came first, as his sons and as his heirs to the holy throne of the Lucerna line. Above happiness, above everything.

But sometimes the things he did to keep them safe hurt him as much as it did them. While Caiellis needed to improve in his hand to hand fighting technique, it was clear that the boy wasn't concentrating on the sparring with his physically superior older brother – not that he could really blame the boy, as he was thinking more about the probable conclusion of the war tomorrow – and instead of forcing them to fight he should have made a compromise, but in his blind stubbornness in insisting that a child – his _own_ child – should have no power over him and his rage at his sons being abducted directed at his youngest's inability to fight without his magic (in spite of the fact that it wasn't his fault that Caiellis's body was like it was, and still had a lot of time to grow), he took it out on Caiellis. He should have been encouraging him instead of reprimanding him, which was all he seemed to do with his youngest son these days, but there was no time to apologise now.

Marik made a silent promise to himself that he would make sure his sons would survive safe and sound through this battle, even if it cost him his own life, and that promise etched itself into his mind and filled him with a pure determination that he would nurture until he could release it against the Welkalites who threatened his young family and kingdom.

.*.*.*.

In spite of the Tempest of Craving nullifying some of the weaponry, the artillery bombardment upon the badly maintained and already decaying walls of Usnaan was still a sight to behold, although instead of stirring a feeling of pride in the power of the people of Lucael that he may one day rule, Cai only felt dread at the slaughter that would happen if he wasn't strong or fast enough, which he soon converted into a type of bleak determination that fuelled his will to complete the burden placed upon him, the thing that only he could do.

As the incandescent bolts of light rained down on the sprawling Welkalite capital city – although strangely the storm seemed to distort the trajectory of the luminescent projectiles, making them hit and annihilate the walls with full force instead of damaging the city within, as if inviting the Lucaelians inside to fight in brutal and passionate close combat and frowning on their attempts to deal damage from range – Caiellis mulled over telling his brother and father about his new plans one last time, although came to the conclusion that he had arrived at every single time he had done so. He couldn't tell them, otherwise they would stop him – Alex would prevent him from doing it in order to stop his little brother from getting into danger that he couldn't protect the younger boy from, whereas their dad wouldn't want any of his precious Lucerna heirs to be damaged or killed in the upcoming battle. He had to do this alone; if he didn't, if he stayed by his family's side and fought his way through the city (that he had never truly realised the massive size of when he had been escaping from it in the immensely swift Yentarian automobile), then they would all die, so in essence it didn't matter that he was exposing himself to greater risk, as he would be in danger anyway as well as the rest of the army being in more peril if he didn't do this.

He bit his lip, his heart pounding in his ears as adrenaline prematurely coursed through his veins in his heightened blood flow, his breaths becoming shorter and faster, as the bombardment reached a crescendo of light and the walls finally started to crumble after around ten minutes of continuous assault, as those around him completed their pre battle prayers. His father strode up to the front of the army, already conjuring up a modicum of mana that would amplify and infuse his voice with an inspiring resonance as well as project it into Usnaan and fill the Welkalites with dread at the coming justice, and Cai forced himself to stop thinking if war was ever justifiable as it wasn't really the place and he needed to be extremely focussed.

Just before he did so, he felt a hand grip tightly onto his trembling shoulder, and he looked up from where he had been staring at the city of Usnaan to the serious but still comforting face of his big brother, who smiled reassuringly down at him, all brotherly teasing gone in the face of the battle that was about to start, and uttered, "Don't worry, Cai. I won't let anything happen to you. Stay close to me, ok, squirt?"

Cai didn't reply, and a part of him felt like he was betraying Alexander by not fighting at his side, before he pushed those thoughts aside, knowing that by killing the conjurer of the Tempest of Craving as soon as possible that he would be helping Alex, and jolted back into reality when the older boy prompted, "Kiddo?" jostling his shoulder. Cai nodded back quickly, his eyes focussing on his older brother's face, who smiled sadly but still encouragingly back and dragged him into a hug for a moment. Caiellis hugged his sibling tight, shaking the tears out of his eyes when the thought that it was very likely that this would be the last time he would ever see his older brother pushed itself to the forefront of his mind, and Alex kissed him on the head before putting him down, both of them turning towards their father as he quietly cleared his throat.

"Orders of Passion," Marik's kingly voice boomed, motivating even Caiellis to want to impress him and earn glory in the eyes of the angels that were ever watching, as well as defend the people and one another, "I am the Supreme King Marik Ensis Lucerna of the Holy Kingdom of Light, Lucael, and a direct descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna. You stand accused of attacking and pillaging Lucael, abducting my sons, consorting with the foulest of demons, and most of all subjecting the innocent citizens of Welkalites to a host of torture and abuse, all in the name of unholy _pleasure._" he growled the last word, suffusing his voice at the anger he had felt at the revelation of what the Orders of Passion were truly doing to Welkas combined with the fury of discovering what had happened to his own civilians during the civil war and the horrors Johnias had turned Epulaeous, Crescia and most of all Vectura in to.

"You are undoubtedly guilty of all these crimes, and so we have arrived to deliver judgement. You are not worthy to exist on this world, and as such your punishment for your crimes will be utter eradication!" Marik bellowed, his voice becoming louder and louder as he shouted, "Ave Lux!"

"AVE LUX! AVE KINDGOMIA AUS LUCAEL! AVE FAMILIAS LUCERNA! AVE ANGELICA! AVE SANCTUS LUX! AVE LUX! AVE LUX!" the massed ranks of Lucaelian soldiers, totalling just more than two million, cried, raising their swords, spears, axes, hammers, pikes, halberds and many more weapons in unison and crashing them down on the ground in unison, creating a reverberating shockwave of sound that still couldn't drown out the adamant and righteous cries.

The battle chant of the Lucaelian warriors, only sung in the direst of battles, was met by a reply from the city of Usnaan itself, the Welkalites within howling their fury at the Lucaelian invaders and roaring in anticipation of the bloody battle to come, screaming their hatred of those who wished to take their quest for the realisation of their ultimate desires away from them, shouting their defiance of order and constraints, and a host of other individual cries that mixed together in a cacophonous wall of disparate sounds which clashed with the united Lucaelian cry. The Tempest of Craving above rumbled in fury, expectation and approval, as the two battle cries reached a zenith of absolute noise that visibly shook the ground on which Cai stood as he elected to remain silent and not give into the temptation to add his own soft voice to the cry, mentally preparing himself for what was to come, as everyone around him joined the determined chorus – although luckily even Alexander didn't seem to notice his brother's silence.

The deafening culmination of the voicing of each of the opposing armies' desires aptly highlighted how different the two cultures were – the conviction-filled chant of the legions of the Kingdom of Light was an exemplification of unification, of each finding and taking pleasure in their place in the great community, the great family, of the kingdom, and of opposing darkness – _no, not darkness, __**evil – **_wherever it reared its ugly head, whereas the Welkalite howl was a din of individuals finding their own path to their own type of pleasure, of throwing off the constraints of society and order and revelling in the individualistic nature of their way of life, and a celebration of the spontaneity and passion of fire.

Caiellis raised the Sword of Glass, ensuring that the crystalline blade was lit up with predominantly White mana instead of Black despite the effects of the storm, and pointed it at the storm above the city of Usnaan, joined by his brother's incandescent sword afterwards and his father's as well, until a host of weapons were directed at the Welkalite capital all across the Lucaelian force. Then the charge began, the multitude of footsteps crunching into the ground outside of the city and shaking the area – although it wasn't a reckless charge, it was an unstoppable progression of the implacable hammer of Lucael. Horses had been eschewed as they wouldn't function well in the sprawling city, so the advance of the Lucaelians was done on foot as they attacked the western side of the city, running towards the tumbling walls that the Welkalites hadn't bothered to station any defenders upon, knowing that the glittering legions would strike it and that the Tempest of Craving would divert the artillery bolts to there.

At the distance of around two hundred paces, Cai finally got a good look at the Welkalite troops that would be opposing them first, Enforcers from the consumption obsessed Order of Gluttony clothed in the garish armour of their Order and wielding an array of different weapons – this was because the army was attacking through the now destroyed Gate Gluttony, although there were Welkalite forces present in the suburbs (as well as innocent civilians, but Caiellis couldn't think about that now, not when there was so much at stake) as well. It was ironic that his re-entry to the City of Pleasure would be through the exact same place he and Alexander escaped from, although it made sense since that was the closest side of Usnaan to Lucael.

Many of the Summoners of the army chose this time to conjure their more sustainable Sancturia beings into existence, a radiant gathering of wisps, spirits and moths gathering above the army, each belonging to a distinct Summoner but all working together in perfect synchronisation to protect the force from a sudden rain of fire that would have heavily damaged some of the Capitalia Lux divisions present behind Caiellis, as because of the fact he was a Lucerna he was present in the spearhead of the Capital's Chosen, Lucerna Guard and other elite forces that would make the breach into the city. One could argue that because of the sheer size of the force, it would be more effective to spread out those belonging to the royal family and having access to the First Sisterhood angels throughout the army, and while that would have made more sense in a pitched battle the fact that they were in a siege meant that the Lucernas would be where the fighting was thickest and against the most powerful enemies anyway.

Several crimson wisps danced maddeningly above the berserk Welkalites that charged out of the run down slums surrounding Usnaan, inciting their Summoners into a crazed frenzy powerful enough to make them want to not just stand in the way of the Lucaelian advance, but actively charge themselves to meet it. Several flaming hounds that drooled fire ran in front of their Summoners, but were soon utterly obliterated by a strike of incandescent pillars of light his father blasted at them, although they were horizontal as evidently Marik had realised that vertical magic wouldn't work as well with the storm above them and disrupting their connection to the heavens that were apparently above, though Cai knew that while Sancturia and the material plane directly overlapped at several points, it was extremely unlikely that the Sanctum Angelica was situated directly above the abyss – which in itself was an example of Sancturia and this world crossing.

Time slowed to a crawl as the two armies closed on each other, although Caiellis was aware that this was only a fraction of the Welkalite force and simply designed to cause as many casualties as possible before being destroyed, though it still numbered in the thousands. The youngest Lucerna blasted a bolt of darklight into the chests of one of the Order of Violence berserkers before the armies crashed together, Caiellis's bodyguards and those more resilient than him, because of their not fragile physicality and their platemail armour, placing themselves in front of the frail prince before the two forces of nature collided. The two lines met in a bone-crushing impact, many of the unarmoured Welkalites simply shattering with the force of the crash and bouncing off of the indomitable Lucaelians, knocked over and trampled on or impaled with shining weaponry as mages, priests and clerics all across the legions enchanted the soldiers with the multifarious blessings of the light. Cai was thankful that the full Lucerna Guard had formed up around him, his brother and his father, as otherwise he might have broken several bones in the sickening impact where the two forces collided. Across to his left, about two dozen insane berserkers that giggled wildly as their comrades were smashed apart all around them cast Red mana upon themselves, igniting the fuses of explosives that they carried in oversized jackets and detonating themselves in a shrieking frenzy of pain and exultation. Before the blast could get too far, but unfortunately after it had immolated several screaming Lucaelian soldiers, Caiellis conjured up a defensive shield that surrounded the nearby troops in a shield of scintillating glass that was instantaneously reinforced by pure milky light coming from his father and barriers of holy golden flames cast by Alexander.

All around him, crazed individuals were crashing into the Lucaelian force, and while the vast majority of them were smashed aside with heavy shields or hacked apart by shining weapons, their maddened charge was reaping casualties on the Lucaelian force, as fiery explosions erupted out of those able to cast spells and some cracked the ground with tectonic fury, emulating the destructive power of the mountains to shake the ground underneath the Lucaelians and slam spears of rock through some poor legionaries.

Caiellis sighted a Welkalite mage surrounded by figures of crackling crimson and blue electricity that rushed the soldiers around him, turning into arcs of pure lightning before returning to their original form and killing soldiers all around them. He conjured his wings of stained glass into existence and leapt at the man, who was wearing a gladiator's mask that covered his features, intending to strike him down with his artefact armament before the Welkalite spun around and flung a bolt of hissing lightning at him. Caiellis blocked the Red mana on a shield of golden-coated and substantial shadows that absorbed the force of the blow, as he had deduced that using a solid shield of crystalline glass wouldn't have been ideal because the physical impact of the whip of electricity would have shattered it. He was then attacked by the elementals that the mage and his two howling subordinates had Summoned, before a wave of holy fire washed over him and disintegrated the foes into particles of purified ashes, their Summonings fading away as their masters died.

Alex ran to his side, but didn't say anything to Caiellis as he eviscerated a charging berserker with his new sword, his eyes locked in seriousness and righteous anger at the foes from the New Empire of Passion and their suicidal tactics, and Cai followed his big brother's example and gracefully sliced apart a woman that swung a flaming brand at him, dodging the blow of one slavering brute behind her and then somersaulting forwards, leaping into the air on his wings and decapitating the berserker, the man's head leaving his body at the clean cut from the relic armament that cut straight through all forms of resistance. The man toppled slowly over, after rushing forwards a few metres as if he couldn't process the fact that he was dead and that the rage refused to leave him, but not before Cai killed several more with a storm of glass shards that ripped the lightly armoured gladiators to shreds, extracting their life force when it killed them. Cai converted the Black mana into healing White and flung it about him, regenerating the less serious wounds of the soldiers that he didn't know that had formed up around him.

Now that the charge of the berserkers was losing momentum, the few that survived were getting stranded within the mass ranks of trained and discipline legionaries after cutting suicidal paths through them, but there was no let up as now the more ponderous but no less insane Order of Gluttony Enforcers were advancing, running as fast as their obese bodies could take them to join in with the combat, though again Caiellis sensed no particularly impressive generals leading the second wave of attackers, meaning that they would be found further within the city. He activated the Lens of Guilt to confirm this suspicion, but before he could ascertain anything the sheer amount of malice in the Tempest of Craving overloaded his sight and covered his magical vision in a pounding display of crimson that sent waves of agony through his head.

The boy quickly returned to his usual vision, ignoring the pain and launching several beams of blinding light into the ranks of the Gluttony Enforcers, each bolt cutting through their more prominent armour and dissolving them with the force of the holy light, just as one of the last remaining berserkers rushed him from the side. Cai was fully prepared to dodged the strike and ram his sword through the man's abdomen, but before he could do so a griffon armoured in iridescent plates crashed down on the man, pinning him beneath its substantial bulk and pecking into his skull with its large beak, caving out a hole in the berserker's skull and ripping out the brain matter within, though Cai noticed that instead of devouring the meat the griffon spat it out, evidently not wanting to be seen eating humans on the battlefield.

He didn't know who had Summoned the beast, so he nodded his thanks to the griffon instead, which cawed exultantly and bowed its head in deference to the Lucerna before taking off and ploughing into the Welkalite ranks. Several Summonings of the light of Sancturia were aiding the Lucaelian ranks, but only ones that could be sustained for a large amount of time because, despite the horrifying brutality of this initial bloodshed, the real fighting would begin only when they penetrated within Usnaan and got to grips with the massed ranks of the true Welkalite force.

The Enforcers from the Order of Gluttony had a selection of ogres and cyclopses with them that picked up soldiers, crushed them or flung them like projectiles back into the ranks, where their armoured bulk crashed into other soldiers and flattened them out on the ground, easy pickings for any Welkalite warriors that wanted some easy kills. Some however picked up their Lucaelian prey and devoured them, biting off limbs in sprays of blood that Caiellis should probably have found extremely disturbing and frightening at his age, but suffice to say it wasn't the worst he had ever seen. However, the force seemed specifically tailored to delaying the Lucaelians as well as causing death on each side instead of preventing entrance to the city, a clear sign if any was needed that the Masters of Passion wanted to lure them in, which in spite of all his protestations was exactly what the combined armies of the Kingdom of Light were doing.

After a few more minutes of relentless killing where there was no room to move, no room to do anything other than keep murdering those in front of you, the brutality of the close combat kept increasing as more and more troops on both sides died, the battle losing all cohesion around him, but as of yet the Lucaelian force hadn't sustained heavy casualties – which was good, as there was still an entire city to conquer after this if they wanted to achieve victory.

Caiellis brought his hands together, forming several unstable spheres from a mixture of light and darkness, and then noted that his brother also infused him with Red mana, the crimson force entering the orbs and filling them with the power of emotion and passion, though his sibling was still in the front rank and slaying Welkalites all around him – Alex was sustaining many minor wounds in leading the charge, but luckily with the amount of healing at the legions of Lucael's disposal they were rejuvenating as fast as they were caused. Even so, the sight of the older boy getting hurt (even though he wasn't in any way showing it) enhanced the Red mana that had been temporarily gifted to him, so Caiellis used that to fling the orbs into the opposing ranks of Welkalites. They detonated in a tricolour burst of lightning, fire, light and darkness, consuming the cyclopses and ogres in a blast of pure zealous destruction that made Caiellis wonder if there was anyone alive with permanent access to that magic.

Cai leapt above the ranks of the army on his wings, though couldn't help but feel that the closer he got to the Tempest of Craving the worse off he was, and by increasing his altitude he was becoming a better and better lightning rod, ready to find a new bunch of enemies to kill, but apparently for now every last one of the Welkalites in the preliminary force had been killed. The Lucaelian soldiers cried in victorious unison, and although Cai thought that was significantly premature he left them to their short celebrations, knowing that it would help inspire them to face the horrors that were soon to come when they entered the city and that there was still an undertone of adamant determination to destroy the Welkalites and bring the Orders of Passion to justice, which was good as the battle was nowhere near close to concluding – if anything, the Lucaelians were worse off, as now the Tempest of Craving had been able to feast upon the souls slain and might start moving into the next phase.

"Soldiers of Lucael! Begin the attack on the main city!" Marik cried, his sword and shining armour drenched in glistening blood, while Caiellis by comparison was barely splattered with any due to the cauterising properties of the Sword of Glass and his preferred fighting style to be dispatching foes at long range, and he landed beside his father as his brother ran to their side for the second push into Usnaan, Caiellis's heart pounding in his chest as they began to march into the capital itself through the ruins of Gate Gluttony as he mentally prepared himself for abandoning the relative safety of all those that wanted to protect him – as his Lucerna beacon would not work with the disruptive influence of the Tempest of Craving.

He smothered his worries; Cai had been protected all his life and now it was his turn to make sure the guarding that others did of him – even to the point of some of them suffering horrible and messy deaths (such as the first one to have died protecting the youngest prince, the queen) – had been worth it. It was time for him to fully accept his duties as a Lucerna, by killing Tradax Yulica and ending the storm. While that wouldn't end the battle, as there would still be significant numbers of Welkalite forces remaining, it would be much easier to overcome them and subdue the enemies. Caiellis didn't think of himself of a reckless person, despite the fact that some could perceive the actions he would soon undertake as that instead of a necessary risk, and if he died doing this then it was because he was too weak to embrace his destiny and as such didn't deserve to live anyway, otherwise he could ascend to the throne and spread his failure to the highest rank.

Marik then unexpectedly said, "I'm glad you two are fine, though there will be plenty of fighting once we enter the main city and are confronted by the main bulk of the Orders, as well as being directly underneath the storm's influence. At any rate, I want you two to stay close to me. Together we will find and kill the Master of Rapture and end this infernal Tempest of Craving."

There was an inclination of parental pride as well as fatherly fear in the tone, small enough for Alex to pick up on it but not his younger sibling, who could only hear the king in his voice. Unlike when Alexander had said similar, Cai didn't feel like he was betraying his father at all by not listening to him and obeying his commands, and although for a moment he thought that it was quite touching that despite what they had gone through the man still wanted him by his side and safe, until the more pragmatic part of his mind interjected and informed him that it was such only because he was part of the royal family and if he died then the army would lose hope – well, until they became possessed of the need to wreak holy vengeance in account of the injustice done to their beloved royal family and that the innocent youngest prince had been slain, although afterwards the vast majority of Lucaelians would be privately happy that the host of the dreaded Angel of the Black Sun had died.

Cai relaxed his breathing, filling his thoughts with determination instead of fear for himself and those he would be leaving, and shut his right eye that was above the ominous birthmark imprinted on his cheek that was pale in all other respects, and opened the Lens of Guilt. He ignored the excruciating agony that erupted inside of his skull as the storm rumbled in his vision, focussing on the focal point of the concentrated Red and Black mana as Lucaelian troops ran past him, though they gave their young liege a wide and reverent berth. Around three seconds after he had stopped, he heard a concerned inquiry of "Cai? Are you alright?"

_Yes, Alex, please leave me alone, leave me alone, please, let me do this,_ his mind thought frantically as his older brother turned around and began to run towards him, followed swiftly by their perturbed father. He drew the Sword of Glass, the blade suffused in dripping tenebrosity and only a slight tinge of radiant light as he mustered his thoughts of hatred to empower the Black mana, made easier and exacerbated by the Tempest of Craving despite the pain it was causing him, and a confused of "What are you doing, boy?" erupted from their seemingly outraged dad.

"I have to do this, Alexander, dad," he murmured, not able to see his father or brother past the glaring obstruction of the roiling thunderstorm of unnatural clouds – not that he would be able to perceive the two (well, at least Alexander, but Marik's intent wasn't overtly malicious or evil, just not very pleasant) in the malevolence highlighted in the Lens of Guilt. Both of them shouted: "Stop!" when he hacked the blade down in a perfectly vertical cut through reality itself, ripping apart the fabric of the material plane and revealing a terrifying and gloomy abyss within, the darkness of Sancturia that he would be going into for the first time, and blinked back the tears at his sudden certainty that he would never see Alexander again and that the older boy would blame himself if his little brother died or became wounded in service to the light. "I'm sorry. I'll see you soon."

He stepped through into the unrelenting void just as the light of the world around him became replaced by impenetrable darkness, a pair of arms grasping around where he had once been and fading away in his sight, and Caiellis had to resist the temptation to turn around and stare back at his older brother, as if he walked into the abyss without utter conviction in his cause then he would immediately become lost in its murky depths, according to Orzhova who must have travelled in this risky manner often, although it was much less so for angels and Sancturia beings than humans. Cai brushed aside the sensation of nausea that threatened to wash over him when he realised that he was simply standing on nothingness, as well as the fear of being lost in the darkness that bloomed when he couldn't see a path in front of him.

_Calm down, Cai. Remember what Orzhova told you. Your thoughts are your own path within the lacuna, or did you forget her essential advice so easily? Don't panic, just start walking. _Cai had to constantly focus on pushing down the terror that perpetually rose up within him, forcing his legs into motion and making them trudge through the darkness, which suddenly became solid and slowed his movements dramatically. He refused to give into the panic, the primal fear of the unknown, that swelled up within him, and even with the Lens of Guilt active he couldn't see anything.

_Focus, focus. What is it you want to do? That's it. Find and kill Tradax Yulica. End the Tempest of Craving. Save the Lucaelian force. Become a hero. Okay that last part wasn't entirely essential, but it can be a side bonus. Not that I've ever cared about glory. Anyway, concentrate on what you want instead of getting distracted. Find and kill Tradax Yulica._ Caiellis repeated the mantra over and over in his head, repressing the terror that kept battering at the indomitable fortifications of his determination. _End the Tempest of Craving._

Holding his artefact sword in front of him like a beacon, or some sort of protection – like it would do anything against this perpetual darkness should it try to kill him – and increased his pace, the Sword of Glass lighting up with White mana that he found protective and comforting despite it not illuminating anything around it nor dispelling the eternal night that cloyed around him, although it was becoming less and less obtrusive the more he started walking and the more his thoughts were filled with an adamant will to succeed. _Save the Lucaelia-_

**Poor little lost lamb, wandering into my domain,** a voice, like the laughter of a thousand dead gods as they feasted on the souls of the innocent combined with the malevolence of the personification of hatred and malice itself, spoke into Caiellis's mind, disrupting the maintaining of his fragile mental state of courage and bravery, and Cai swept his sword around, looking for the source of the threat and finding himself almost unable to think clearly in the cloying murk, otherwise he would have recalled Orzhova's pressing and immensely important council to never listen to the voices. **And a descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna as well! This is an _honour_.** The tone became mocking and sarcastic, though overwhelmingly so, amplifying the negativity of the sarcasm more than any human could ever do.

Caiellis almost gave into the sudden and foreign impulse to cry: "Show yourself, monster!" that agonisingly pressed itself into the forefront his mind, the act of defying the spontaneous mental imperative painful in itself, and with that he realised that the denizen of Sancturia that was trying to lure him from the correct path didn't actually know where he was, and wanted him to reveal himself so that it could attack. If he just stayed silent, then the being wouldn't be able to locate him, and forged ahead on his journey, his earlier trepidation gone, mixed with a kind of anxious fear that he wanted to be gone from this place, and the voice laughed again, although this one was inflected with a sadistic but also genuine amusement. **A logical thought, but unfortunately for you that isn't true, little lost lamb. I know full well where you are, as you have entered my realm, the realm of demons. It has been many, many years since I have been graced with the presence of a Lucerna, little lost lamb, although your accursed line barely ever develops Black mana. It was foolish of you to come here, little lost lamb, and I will enjoy consuming your flesh as I roast your soul on the pyre of oblivion!**

Caiellis pushed the voice out of his mind and kept going, vaguely recognising the tone from somewhere and then remembering where it was from – the laughter inside his mind during his most recent migraine. No, that wasn't quite it – the voices were similar, but noticeably different, and this one was suffused more with arrogance than sheer evil. The voice snorted loudly, and Caiellis forced himself to keep moving, not to succumb to the terror or the fear that would freeze his thin limbs if he let it, and the voice snarled. **What do you think you can do, princeling? How could you possibly escape from my ****domain, little lost lamb? I long for the taste of a Lucerna again, and I will devour you. **Cai couldn't help but let out a small smirk, as to him the insults of whatever this being was were getting more and more frantic to make him respond, becoming empty threats.

**I will tear you apart, just as my sons tore apart your mother! **The voice barked into his ear, freezing him in place as the darkness swirled around him, and the voice laughed again. Caiellis couldn't move as the darkness became claustrophobic and suffocating, blocking up his mouth and nose as he clawed at his throat, the darkness clogging up his lungs and preventing him from breathing, like an iron hard grip was clamped around his neck, the being's – the _demon's_, as there was no question of it now – words like icy daggers into his back.

**Yes, little lost lamb, my children were the ones that ripped your mother apart in front of your eyes while you were too weak, too _pathetic_, to protect her, just like you are too pathetic to protect yourself and your army, little lost lamb. Emili Noctis's soul was a delectable treat, a feast of purity and innocence, and has been hugely enjoyable to watch your damned family tear itself apart exactly like my sons split apart your mother, and exactly like how I will rip you apart, feast on your divine flesh and claim dominion over the mortal realm. You cannot stop the advance of the abyss, mortal, just as you cannot stop yourself from asphyxiating. Are you having trouble breathing, little lost lamb? **

Caiellis's vision blurred, though the only way he could tell was because he couldn't see the faintly glowing Sword of Glass as well, though he couldn't stop himself from dropping the weapon, though instead of falling away into the endless void beneath him it snagged on the magical and enchanted chain that he had attached to his right wrist. **Aww, little lost lamb, is daddy choking you too hard? Would you like him to let go? All you have to do is _give in_. Give in to the night. Let it consume you, little lost lamb, and take you away from the pain. Let it-**

"Silence," a voice, perfectly calm but filled to the brim with utter hatred, cut through the demon's taunts, and it screamed in utter fury, tightening the shadow's grip on Caiellis's mind, but when a hand gripped his shoulder tightly the block on the boy's breathing and thoughts was removed. Instead of gasping for breath in a frantic attempt to fill his starved lungs of oxygen, Cai found that there was no problem with the amount in his lungs, so his breathing returned to normal. "This "little lost lamb" of yours is under my protection, and I will _not _let you harm him whilst he is."

Caiellis felt a magical resonance placed on the word "not", the single syllable infused with hatred and malice, and he looked up to see Orzhova staring up at the darkness, where he could faintly make out a change in the shadows, a glinting blade, a malevolent blue eye, before it was gone, and resigned but no less malevolent words cut into the littlest Lucerna's mind. **Hmph. Perhaps, for now, Angel of the Black Sun, but you cannot protect him forever. I think that you should give him to me, for others have fates planned for him that are much less kind than the one I would give him.**

"Wha- What does he mean?" Caiellis asked shakily, standing up and still trembling in fear at his brush with being trapped for an eternity within the darkness of the abyss, and Orzhova stared down at him, her onyx eyes narrowing as if to say: "I told you so,", like what he was doing now was a completely unnecessary risk instead of something crucial to the prevention of a brutal slaughter – which this demon may have something to do with. _No_, Caiellis thought, somehow instinctually knowing that this demon wasn't associated with Red mana, and the ones that would be aligned with the Tempest of Craving would be. That begged the question of why this being had decided to confront him, because surely it would make more sense for it to be those of the storm assaulting him?

**Wouldn't you like to know, little lost lamb? You know what, I'll tell you-**

"Be silent!" Orzhova barked, her voice resolute and brooking absolutely no argument, and she twirled her scythe round before slamming it into the ground, grabbing Caiellis by his thin forearm and yanking him forward, setting off at a sprinting pace as the laughter of the demon followed them, the shadows shifting spitefully around them but warded off by Orzhova's magic as words of incandescent gold formed a shield around the angel and her small Summoner. Cai had a thousand questions to ask, but kept his mouth shut when the angel stared back round at him, silenced by what he saw as her irritation, but was actually Orzhova's fear at how close the boy had come to being claimed by one of the seven Archdemons.

Several other pairs of eyes opened up around them, shining with the malignant blue intent of the first and glaring at the intruders into their void. Tentacles of pure darkness battered at their shield, each flaring impact increasing Caiellis's primal fear before he suppressed the emotions, remembering with a jolt that he still had to fight in a battle and that when this ended he would be deposited right into enemy territory. The intensity of the attacks was increasing, shining cracks were appearing in their sphere of safety, and after a single minute of running Orzhova stated, "We are going to have to leave here. But before you go, remember that demons are never to be trusted."

Cai nodded, locking away the demon's portentous words within his mind and focussing on his current goal. _Find and kill Tradax Yulica. End the Tempest of Craving. Save the Lucaelian force. _The angel smiled briefly down at him, thought it was more like a grim gesture than a reassuring one, and her eyes still carried the melancholy that had been in them when he had first met the dark seraph after completing her trial of mortality. The Angel of the Black Sun raised her scythe, the ornate golden heel shaped like the Black Sun symbol pulsating with golden-white mana and infusing the curved blade extending out of it with an incandescent glow. Then, Orzhova suddenly swept the scythe downwards, breaking apart the void and filling it with colour, and hurled Caiellis out just as a tendril of darkness swept through the air where he had been.

The boy almost tumbled out of the Voidwalk, but instead managed to gain a modicum of balance so instead half-staggered, half-ran out of the portal back into reality, indescribably glad to be back within the material world despite the fact that the material world was currently in the midst of a brutal battle that would decide the fate of each of the two nations clashing for supremacy. He quickly adjusted to being back in a place that obeyed the general laws of physics written about by many Yentarian scientists more concerned with the physical world than that of the mental, and deactivated the Lens of Guilt as once again the storm filled his vision. He didn't recognise this part of the city, but it was surprisingly pleasant, as well as quiet, the only sound the rumbling of the Tempest of Craving above.

Cai looked around, noting with surprise the spires of the Palace of Desire in the distance, as he had expected the ritual that was powering the storm to be channelled from there, but instead it was quite far away. The Lucaelian force hadn't yet penetrated past the Glutton's Quarter, embroiled in battle there, which meant that the Voidwalk hadn't taken long at all, despite it feeling like it had taken up many minutes. Where he was now was on a small plaza situated about halfway up a hill with stone steps carved into the side and spiralling up, although it wasn't the tallest point in the city by far. Cai vaguely remembered this place from the meticulous visual analysing of Usnaan that he had done when he had been here last, though had consigned it to the back of his memory since at the time it hadn't seemed very important. Apparently it was, as while the Voidwalk could have gone wrong, influenced into inaccuracy by the storm crackling above, a quick glance through the Lens of Guilt (not long enough to cause any pain) confirmed that the ritual was being cast from here, so Caiellis stayed low and quickly began to ascend the steps.

.*.*.*.

"Damn that foolish boy!" Marik yelled, looking as if he wanted to punch something in impotent fury, and instead of meeting his father's furious gaze Alex simply stared at the place his little brother had been in, brushing his hand through it as if he hadn't yet processed the youngster's sudden disappearance. "What in the name of the forsaken abyss does he think he is doing?! How dare he think that he could just flee from a battle when he chose to!"

Alexander's shock and self-directed anger at not being able to stop his kid brother's departure quickly turned to rage at his dad, and he met the man's raged filled stare with one of his own, growling, "Do you really think that little of him, dad? Caiellis hasn't fled from the battle. He wouldn't do that; he's not a coward."

"Then what? What has he done?" Marik asked angrily, and Alex wanted to snap back that the man was Caiellis's relative as well, and that he had no clue, but instead he calmed himself down by releasing deep, shuddering exhalations and holding in the anger – ready to be released against deserving enemies – at not being able to protect his little brother, nor being trusted enough by the kid that Cai had told him what he was going to do. Then it dawned on him, "Cai's gone to where Tradax is. When we were talking once, he told me that he unlocked two abilities when he passed Orzhova's trial, and one was that he can use it to locate evil intent. That explained why his eye was black. He's gone to kill Tradax, and end the storm. Alone."

Alexander's voice was filled with equal amounts of admiration in his little brother's courage, anger at himself for not seeing the signs sooner, fury at the fact that Caiellis thought that he had to do this all by himself (that was kind of directed at their father, but also at everyone who put pressure on the thirteen year old) but most of all fear at the potential to lose his kid brother because of the fact that he had gone to fight arguably the most powerful Welkalite all alone. He felt a hand on his shoulder, firm but reassuring, and assumed that his despondency was visible when his father said, "You're brother has been extremely reckless. But we are still going to follow the plan, and rest assured we will meet up with Caiellis soon."  
Alex pulled away from the grip and staggered in the direction of further into the city, where Lucaelian forces led by Light-bearers and the generals were already embroiled in combat with the forces from the Order of Gluttony, spreading out throughout the city exactly as the strategy they had come up with dictated – as there was no way the entirety of the Lucaelian army could move as one within the twisting streets and avenues. He was intending to go and find his brother, carve his way through the enemy lines in a charge that would lead him to the location of the younger boy, as while the storm and the battle was disrupting what he was in his sixth sense he could still faintly perceive the White and Black combined that was his little brother further into the city, left of the Slaughterhouse in the Champion's Quarter but right of the centralised Palace of Desire, before his father barked, "Alexander, following in your brother's example and rushing blindly into the city to find him will only end up getting you killed as well, and Caiellis wouldn't want that (_though damn him for doing this and making his brother even more stressed, worried and angry than he needed to be_), although I'm not entirely sure what he hopes to show by doing this-"

"He wants you to respect him!" Alexander yelled back, his voice fuelled by the desperate need to make sure his little brother was safe and sound and his anger directed towards his father. He calmed himself down; if he wasted time arguing now then his brother would be in even more danger than he was already, "But I'm not going to argue with you now. We need to save him, and by all means we can follow the original plan to go and kill Tradax ourselves but I am not wasting any more time with him in danger."

And with that, Alexander shot off, enchanting himself with Red and White auras birthed into life from his protective instinct and rushing to the aid of the Lucaelian advance, followed swiftly by his father. The Enforcers from the Order of Gluttony were set up masterfully, with formations covering one another and leading the Lucaelian forces into defensive emplacements and traps that they had little chance to escape from. There were many different paths into the city, all of them filled with soldiers on both sides murdering each other while the Tempest of Craving grumbled above, and Alex chose the one that would be the quickest to his brother's location, although it would require him to pass through the Champion's Quarter as well, which was probably stuffed full of insane gladiators from the Order of Violence.

He cried out, "Soldiers of Lucael, do not lose heart! Drive the Welkalites back!" when he charged to the aid of a division from Cassida Principia full of soldiers that he didn't know and a captain that he vaguely recognised, which meant that they had been part of his father's original force as he remembered all of the captains from his own. Accompanied by a glittering array of Lucaelian Wisps, a spiritual crusader that looked like one of the few ancestor spirits that still had business in the mortal realm and had chosen a Summoner – that was probably descended from or related to it – shined with a ghostly light and empowered the soldiers around it, swinging its huge broadsword that would definitely had belonged to it in life and cleaving apart two Enforcers in a single blow. The captain, a young woman with dark brown hair and wielding an ornate bow, a unique choice from those of the City of Swords, fired incandescent arrows into the Welkalite formation, bolts of light that did not require the consumption of normal ammunition, surrounded by her troops and directing them as she killed enemies.

The Welkalite leader, an obese brute of a man that was guarded by a group of savages more monster than human that reminded Alex of the dumb brutes that had carried the former Master of Gluttony's colourful palanquin, and a beast around twice the size of a human and full of hairy muscle with the head of a bull – a minotaur, Alex remembered from something his little brother had once said – charged at the Lucaelian lines, goring one soldier to death on its horns and tearing another apart with its bare hands. Another soldier struck a good blow with their sword, carving a line of blood down one of its pectorals, but the Welkalite Summoner pulsed regenerating Black mana at the minotaur and the tissue began to sickeningly knit itself back together, just as the soldier was cut down by a halberd carrying Enforcer covered in brown and brightly coloured armour emblazoned the monstrous mouth that was the sigil of the Order of Gluttony. There were about thirty Lucaelians, and their corpses covered the ground, with double that number from the New Empire of Passion pressing in on them and forcing them back down the street.

Alex, and the soldiers that had decided on a whim to follow the eldest prince, hit the Welkalite formation from the side, and the seventeen year old blasted a ball of fire into their ranks that exploded with fiery Red mana, immolating a few of the enemy soldiers whilst also infusing the Lucaelians it hit with a holy glow that reinforced the empowering magic of the celestial spirit warrior that pressed on into the Welkalite lines, the Lucaelian wisps adding power to the strikes of the soldiers and fluttering around the Welkalites, distracting them as well as saturating the air around them which sapped at their desire to do violence, and while the wisps were quite weak and the effects of their magic were not noticeable Alexander knew that it was helping.

Evidently Marik had decided not to follow his son and had instead gone to bolster another part of the army in need with his prodigious magical strength, as Alexander detected a blast of pure White mana in an area about one hundred metres to the left of his current position and on another one of the colourful avenues that had interestingly had their numerous market stalls of food shops pushed onto the street to obstruct the Lucaelian advance, their delicious looking cargo strewn across the stone pathways, which meant that the new Master of Gluttony clearly had more disregard for the stalls than their predecessor, who could have done the same to slow down the prince's escape. It showed a tremendous force of will for Alex's dad to not go following his son around after recently almost losing him, but the older potential heir was glad for it as it meant that more in the army would survive and that the push into the city wasn't concentrated into one point.

A woman holding two sickle blades that looked more like oversized eating implements than weapons spun around towards the new threat and swung two arcing blows at the oldest prince before he slammed into her, hacking his blade through her midriff and then fulminating a bolt of silver lighting through his new sword that had once served his father well (although not as well as the man's artefact relic greatsword that the monarch currently utilised), the Red and White magic representing the active enforcement of justice, eliminating potential foes before they could commit their nefarious deeds, and the crackling and divine electricity that was a far cry from the unholy and defiling crimson bolts from the storm above coruscated through the woman's body before crossing over itself in a helix pattern that killed several other soldiers and restored life as well as inspiring the Lucaelian soldiers.

Alex pulled away, dodging a stab from a spear and his already potent and honed combat instincts augmented by his offensive Red and defensive White mana that coursed through his veins, heightened by his adrenaline and his rage at the circumstances that drove Caiellis to believe that he had to fight alone, and charged at the man who had attempted to attack him, hacking through his skull and spattering blood, bone fragments and brain matter across the man's companion, who licked his lips at the vital fluids sprayed over his face and let out a sigh of pleasure before Alexander's extremely fast blade hacked him apart as well. While the youngest prince appeared very quick when he was fighting, he unleashed mostly magical attacks that took a comparatively long time when contrasted against his faster older brother, who could execute multiple physical attacks within a few seconds.

A sword drove into his arm, so Alex twisted and lessened the force of the blow, spinning around and hacking the person in half with his almost instantaneous riposte, his formidable speed enhanced by his reactive White and pre-emptive Red mana, and he punched another man in the face, his free left fist surrounded by fiery scarlet magic that incinerated the Enforcer's helmet and made Alexander's strength even greater, punching the man into his comrade who Alexander then impaled with his shining blade, although the eldest prince hadn't even worked up much of a sweat yet and still had monumental amounts of mana as yet unused.

He launched an overhead kick at the next of his opponents, one of the brutish hulks that were supposed to be guarding the Welkalite captain, but Alexander's momentum in his unstoppable charge had forged a path to the Welkalite leader, and sent the brute staggering as it yelped in rage at this new attacker. The giant of a man, his small and stupid eyes glinting with hunger, swung a fist at him, and Alex rolled underneath the blow, hacking at the "man's" hamstrings with his sword and sending him toppling just as another giant limb stamped down next to him, missing his head by millimetres as he leapt up off the ground, firing a bolt of of light with flames circling around it into the second savage and incinerating the man – Alexander ideally didn't want to use much mana against these weaker enemies, as he wanted to conserve it until he either reached his brother or a powerful foe obstructed his path to Cai, but still used a technique that Aurelia had taught him to help the soldiers around him, the legionaries gifted with glittering golden mana that blinded the enemies around them and infused their weaponry with a much greater strength.

The spiritual crusader roared a battle cry that was echoed by his Summoner and taken up by all of the soldiers as they began to overwhelm the Welkalites with their untity and strength, their blades flashing with a much faster speed than their opponents' due to the speed-improving Red mana Alexander was gifting them with, cutting down Gluttony Enforcers left and right and sustaining significantly less casualties in return. Alex finished off the crippled giant that he had attacked first with a decapitating blow, turning furiously to the Welkalite captain before his threat instinct flared and he was knocked to the side by a heavy impact that smashed him onto the ground, expelling the air from his lungs in a whoosh, like when Caiellis got lucky during their sparring and connected with his bread basket.

He instinctively rolled to the side very slightly, as something was pinning him on the ground and preventing him from bringing his sword to bare, and avoided a haired fist that smashed apart the stone of the street his head had been on a moment before. He looked up to see the minotaur glaring hungrily down at him, its gaping maw already covered with blood and Alex could pick out intestines hanging down from its back teeth. It roared at him, the bellowing noise blocking out all other sound, its breath smelling of foetid death that would have made Alexander wretch if he wasn't already used to the smell from this battle, and swung its head down, intending to impale him with its monstrous curling horns.

A second before Alexander was about to annihilate the beast with an explosive blast of Red and White mana, a holy arrow embedded itself in the back of the minotaur's head, sticking out through the front and poking through its left eye, and just as Black mana was about to repair the damaged tissue another arrow hit it in the head.

Still it refused to die, roaring again and taking a swipe at the stricken prince, who blocked the blow on his bracers and winced at the strength behind the strike, before moving up his own head and butting the minotaur's own, though his was surrounded by a protective golden shield of White mana – otherwise Alex would have done more damage to himself than the beast, and the magical arrows lodged in its head didn't hurt Alex like conventional arrows would have done should he have performed the same manoeuvre on them. He pushed the beast off of him, and to make sure that it was truly dead he hacked off its bull head with his sword, leaping back to his feet and turning to the Summoner of the minotaur.

The man was quickly trying to flee down the street, although he definitely wouldn't find any respite in the Champion's Quarter with the coward-hating Order of Violence within, and Alex nodded his acquiescence when the Principia captain sent a look asking for conformation his way – as the Lucerna may have found it insulting that the strongest enemy was not left for them, as the way of the tradition of the City of Swords was to give the commanders the glory of defeating the greatest foes, a custom that had often led to the more honour-obsessed generals throwing their lives away as they tried to fight an enemy leader that was far more potent than them alone, but could have been brought down by teamwork and unity.

"Thank you for coming to our aid, Lord Alexander," the brunette saluted him and then bowed as Alex nodded towards the pretty captain, although now was not the time for such things. He made the reverent sign of the Deserved Rest to the spiritual crusader when he was recalled to her side, who bowed to the Lucerna prince in front of him, the respect for the ruling family of Lucael carried over into his deathly service, and although the ancestor spirits that needed to complete some task before entering the Third Realm were paragons of nobility, justice and atonement for one's mistakes (such as failing to protect their leader in battle or leading their army to its death), they had always unnerved Alexander, though he didn't let it show as the woman introduced herself. "I am captain Telaia Gladium of Division Five of the legions of Cassida Principia."

"And thank you for aiding me in combat against the minotaur," he replied, and then turned to the rest of the force.

"Soldiers of Lucael. We press on to the caster of the Tempest of Craving!" Alex cried, and although he hid it he was getting more and more agitated by the second, as each moment could be one where his little brother died, and he had lost the younger boy's magical presence in his mind as the storm swelled with the absorbed souls of those slaughtered in the city below. He ran down the avenue, bringing his hands together pre-emptively, placing one on the hilt of his sword and the other on the blade, and blasted a wave of incandescent fire onto new Welkalite troops that ran to attack them now that they had progressed into the next section.

The one who had organised the Enforcers of Gluttony was obviously a very canny and cunning general, as he (or she) had made entrance into the further city as difficult as possible with roving hordes of warriors intercepting the Lucaelian soldiery and delaying them, harrying and performing hit and run attacks on the forces before driving them into the waiting jaws of more lumbering and less manoeuvrable but much stronger troops and their Summonings, which is evidently what had happened to the division from Cassida Principia that he was currently leading. His frustration was mounting as he saw another group of Welkalites coming to attack them, and released another gout of flame that was heightened by his anger at them trying to stop him from protecting those weaker than him, turning the non-magical soldiers to ash before they had chance to respond.

Then, as he kept running, the scenery around him suddenly changed, like he had just crossed some sort of physics-defying threshold and teleported into another city, although there were noticeable similarities everywhere in Usnaan – the stalls and restaurants became replaced by more drab buildings, although some were covered in crimson red, with posters everywhere highlighting numerous violent events that would not be held in the near future in the legions of the Kingdom of Light had anything to do about it. The space around Alex was clearly less well maintained than the Glutton's Quarter, the ground covered in dust, dirt and some blood splatters that would have been meticulously swept away by the servants that aspired to make the part of the city dedicated to catering with food and drink presentable.

Looking to his right, Alex could clearly see the Slaughterhouse looming up closer now, the sandstone coliseum the residence of Arendus Draal, the Master of Violence that he still hadn't paid back yet for the kidnapping and near-murder of his fragile little brother, but after a few seconds of marching through his domain Alexander heard a baying cry; the exultant and excited roar echoed by many others on both sides of the small Lucaelian force he commanded as the middle Lucerna suddenly detected the presence of many Red mana signatures in his sixth sense and looked to the side just as several dozen brutally but still lightly armoured gladiators swarmed over the roofs of the houses on the street they were in, carrying an array of wickedly spiked and savage weaponry that would be used to inflict as much painful damage as possible to an opponent when facing them in the arena that was in essence a training ground for warriors, although there was a small difference between the Order of Violence Enforcers (lead by Enforcer-General Fraetus Etin) and the gladiators (who Arendus Draal preferred, although the ones commanded by the general were still technically under his orders), as the former were slightly more disciplined than the latter.

Alex locked eyes with the bloodshot orbs of a muscular woman with her hair held in a topknot that was already matted with blood even before the battle, and then noticed that all of the berserkers had their wrists cut, which meant that they would bleed out soon – unless they found a way to heal themselves, which meant that they would probably have access to regenerating Black mana. The woman, who was clearly the leader judging by the way she bossed the other gladiators around and had the most piercings and scars, including a jagged one that went right over her bare abdomen, placed her free hand underneath the wrist that was bleeding, and then flung the blood into the air, shrieking in a foul tongue that was unusual for the magic-eschewing Order of Violence but was filled to the brim with the addiction to hedonistic battle and inciting her descending soldiers into a crazed frenzy as well as opening up a flaming portal that filled the world with insane giggling.

A skeletal giant (although it wasn't quite as big as the things actually classified as giants) with bones blackened by flames and eyes full of rage-induced crimson clattered into the world, one of its arms replaced by a spiked metal ball like the head of a morning-star whilst the other was a malicious blade that already had long-dead corpses hanging off of it, and it belched Black and Red fire at the middle prince, who deflected it on a shield of White mana just as the Violence gladiators landed amongst them. Although he could take the skeletal gladiator without doing this, he would probably be wounded enough so that he wouldn't be able to enact his current course of action, which would be extremely detrimental to the battle for Usnaan. He clasped his hands over the hilt of his sword, focussing his rage and tempering it with the need to protect those weaker than him and enact justice on those who oppressed those they should be guarding, as circles of alternating white and red pulsed out across the ground.

The soldiers around him, sensing his massive increase in mana output, gave him a wide berth as well as forming up around him as yet more Welkalite gladiators rushed round the corner of the next street, evidently having sensed the intruders into the Champion's Quarter and eager to get a piece of the action themselves, although there would be no shortage of that when more Lucaelians penetrated the defences in the Glutton's Quarter and were following the part of the plan that had them subduing the Champion's Quarter – as the place that most likely Tradax was conjuring the storm from was near the centre of Usnaan, so one could get to it from any of the four Quarters of Passion and to truly conquer the city each Order of Passion needed defeating.

Several screeching devils charged past this new group of gladiators, Summoned by some brutish mages in the front line of the enemies, but Alexander was more focussed now on the Summoning ritual, the circles around him flaring upwards into life as the Tempest of Craving seemingly roared in rage at the entrance of a First Sisterhood angel, the Lucaelian soldiers bolstered with one of the most venerated denizens of Sancturia in their midst and driven to even greater acts of heroism, the ancestor spirit of captain Telaia raising its ghostly sword to the sky and shouting in zealous rage.

"Aurelia!" Alexander cried, a glorious chorus of battle hymns drowning out the insane screaming of the berserkers and even the rumbling storm above, the world lighting up in a blinding golden gleam that forced some of the less suicidal gladiators to step back and cover their eyes. Others however ran at Alex, before they were turned to purified ashes by the proximity to his powerful mana, and the circles flashed even brighter before dimming down slightly as their light was absorbed into an angelic figure. Aurelia appeared in the material realm, opening her wings wide and slicing a crossing arc with each sword that left red imprints on the air, until two arcs of fire blasted out from it and burnt several Welkalites to death with the fires of justice.

"Prepare to face justice!" the angel shouted, her voice suffused with a holy resonance that inspired all of the soldiers around her as yet another group of Order of Violence swarmed round the corner, the streets thronged with those desperate for a piece of the brutal battle, and launched herself into their ranks, her ignited blades hacking apart those around her as any that tried to attack the Warleader were repelled by blinding bursts of retaliatory light and then swiftly cut apart by the fiery seraph, who fired multiple lightning helices at her foes, annihilating them with the strength of her mana and making Alexander feel even more powerful, like he was now fully ready to protect the innocent and deliver judgement upon those who would seek to harm them. The boy leapt at the first Welkalite leader from the most savage Order he had sighted, the Summoner of the skeleton giant that had ripped apart several Lucaelians, all the while screaming with maddening laughter that had at first caused soldiers to have to cover their ears, but now that the Warleader was amongst them they were immune to the debilitating and insanity-inducing magic.

The angle flew at the skeletal giant, her speed frightening to behold, shooting past the creature of Red and Black and hacking it apart with her blades, quickly dismembering it limb from limb in a storm of flaming steel, though Alex cried a warning as the carnage gladiator began to reassemble itself from its constituent parts which were strewn across the street, until with a war cry Aurelia pointed her blades at the sky, a pillar of light crackling with radiant lightning slamming into the skeleton and disintegrating it so that it could not rebuild. Alexander's thoughts were roused and he was encouraged by the extremely swift take down of the skeleton, and he jumped up himself to meet the Welkalite, who looked nonplussed by the destruction of her Sancturia creature and charged at the prince, holding a serrated blade in her left hand and a single-bladed axe in her right, swinging down with the heavier weapon first.

Alex blocked it on his sword but slid it underneath the blow, deflecting the force instead of taking it straight on his blade and potentially jarring the bones in his sword arm, and jumped back from the next blow, the woman using her heavy axe buried in the ground to fling a kick at him, which he could have blocked on his Lucerna bracers that he wore apart from the fact that her heels were covered in minuscule but incredibly sharp blades that were covered in corrosive and virulent Black mana that would have melted through the metal of his bracers and poisoned the skin underneath.

She flung out her blade at him, the wrist spilling blood all around her in the strike that Alex avoided when he noted that it burnt the ground when it splattered onto it – this gladiator-whore seemed equipped to kill her foes in every single way possible, weaponising her shoes and even her blood – and blasted a bolt of pink lightning at him that seemed augmented by the storm overhead. Alexander coruscated his own flash of radiance to counteract it, the two discharges of Red mana augmented by the magic of light and darkness cancelling each other out in an explosive flash. Alex capitalised on the distraction, charging at the woman and hacking his sword into her, unaffected by the detonation due to the shields surrounding him whereas she had no such luxury.

The Welkalite instinctively leapt backwards, but Alexander's blade caught the hand holding the sword and sliced it off. She shrieked in a mixture of excited revelling in the violence and the pain and anger, and pointed the stump towards him, malevolent black flames that still had pulsating heat within them rushing at the seventeen year old, who automatically raised his arms in defence before a radiant (although both Alexander's and Caiellis's First Sisterhood angels used gold as a colour, Orzhova's was much more imperious and prosperous whereas Aurelia's was blinding and shining) and golden shield of mana appeared around him, the angel slicing into the woman and cutting her in half with her straight edge blade held in her left hand while stabbing another with the curved one in her right.

Then it happened. As if satisfied with the amount of death within it, or desperately hungry for more, the Tempest of Craving roared from above, the sound combined with the tempestuous laughter of what sounded like an atavistic god, and flicked four massive bolts of crimson lightning into the city below it – one of which was aimed squarely at Alexander's position. Aurelia managed to raise a shield just before the almost instantaneous discharge crashed into the ground, signalling the Tempest of Craving moving on to the next stage, although Alexander's mind was still filled with primal fear at the thunderous applause of the unnatural storm.

The lightning filled the street with its crimson flash, shattering apart the stone of the path and annihilating the buildings all around it. Each and every person not guarded by the shield – which was all of the Welkalites and the vast majority of those of Division Five – died, the electricity of dark passion fulminating through their conductive bodies and making them die in screaming agony as their flesh was agonisingly stripped from their bones, leaving blackened and charred skeletons behind.

Alex only just resisted the temptation to scream in instinctual panic and terror at the sheer force behind the blast, but the few Lucaelians behind the shield without the blessing of a First Sisterhood angel inside their mind and bereft of courageous Lucerna blood circulating through their veins couldn't hold back the cries of fear and anguish at the fate of their comrades. After the crimson energy dissipated away, Aurelia lowered the shield, and Alex fell to his knees for a few seconds at the sight of the smoking corpses covering the street, still holding onto their weapons, and briefly wondered who would be possessed of such stupidity to ever serve a master that would just callously discard their servants. The boy couldn't help but feel extremely sad for the innocent inhabitants of Welkas, who had to endure torture after torture in the name of the Orders of Passion's relentless pursuit of forbidden pleasure.

He slowly stood up, and gripped the shoulder of Telaia, who he felt a shared sense of comradeship with after fighting alongside her and surviving _that _unscathed despite not knowing the young woman before this battle, and said, infusing his voice with the righteous anger he felt at the mistreatment of the civilians, before and after this storm, as well at the rage at innocent Lucaelian lives being snuffed out, instead of the despondency and loss of conviction at such a casual display of power that had wiped out the vast majority of Telaia's beloved Division Five, as the captain had showed a tremendous amount of pride in her formation and Alexander had got the impression that she knew – or had known – every single soldier intimately, "We need to get moving, and end this Tempest of Craving as soon as possible."

"What can we do?" she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks in her despair, and Alex suddenly became crushed by the guilt of not being able to save any more of the soldiers despite supposedly being one of the most powerful people alive, and she glared at him – even though Alexander knew that the woman was just directing her sorrow at having her division almost exterminated, and wasn't blaming him for it, her gaze still stung and he rocked back as if slapped, "What can we possibly do against that? If a First Sisterhood angel can't even stop it, then what are people like me supposed to do?"

"Telaia, my granddaughter. Show respect to your rulers," a voice, vaguely admonishing but also comforting, spoke, and the captain blew her nose and deferentially lowered her head, as if suddenly remembering that she was in the middle of a brutal battle (although Alexander couldn't detect any enemies, though that didn't mean there were none so he kept his guard up) and that the one she was talking to was a Lucerna, but in truth the seventeen year old blamed himself for the deaths as well. The boy looked up to see the spirit warrior looking down on them, and that the other five soldiers that had survived were glancing up at the Lucerna and his angel for guidance after having their moral crushed by the strike of passion-fuelled lightning, and he locked his eyes with the ghostly brown orbs of the ancestor spirit, the exact same colour as Telaia's. Alex took a deep breath, projecting his voice inspiringly but also inflecting it with the melancholy he felt at the deaths, and uttered, "We have to carry on and end the storm before the fate of the heroic Division Five of Cassida Principia is befallen by more. We have to keep going, push further into Usnaan, to make the deaths of your comrades worth something. And I promise you, Telaia, that I will _not _their sacrifices be in vain."

"Make their deaths worth something," the woman repeated, whispering quietly and completely enraptured by the prince's short but no less heartfelt speech, looking up at him with her wide brown orbs that were still brimming with tears before she wiped them. Then, a form crashed down behind her, cracking the already abused ground with the force of the impact, and an executioner's axe was slammed into her throat, taking off her head in a brutal spray of blood and spine fragments.

"Telaia!" Alexander cried, launching himself forward at the looming figure behind the swaying and headless body of the youthful captain, just as the spiritual crusader screamed in rage, pain, and loss, charging at this new opponent as well, but with his Summoner/granddaughter dead his contract that had allowed him to remain beyond the veil ended and he was dragged bellowing into the afterlife. His reckless thrust was casually sidestepped and the axe was swung into his chest from underneath, the Welkalite reversing his hold on the gargantuan double-bladed weapon to do so, but Aurelia managed to create a shield of mana there so her Summoner wasn't disembowelled. Instead, he was flung across the street, landing with a painful impact a few metres away, his thoughts still alight with rage and his words feeling hollow in his chest.

Aurelia flung herself at the man, cutting through the air at an insane speed towards him, but the brute of a man turned around with a speed that made Alex's eyes widen as the twin blows of the angel were parried on the haft of the axe. The angel yelled in fury and increased the intensity of her magic, the blades shining with a blinding light, and the Welkalite managed to beat her back, matching and then overpowering the formidable strength of the First Sisterhood angel and sending her staggering back. Then, he ran past her, to the soldiers that charged him, the last remaining members of Division Five that were determined to avenge their leader and the rest of their formation, and Alex's mind was filled with horror, shouting out a warning "No!" but knowing it was too late.

The axe whirred around with a speed that no weapon that size should ever be able to reach unless it was being wielded by a giant, not a mortal man (albeit a bulging, muscled brute of one), hacking apart the five soldiers in as many blows and spinning away from the ones launched in retaliation – or ignoring them as they clattered impotently against his interlocking brass metal plates that left much of his tanned and scarred skin bare. Aurelia returned to Alexander's side, her eyes suffused with zealous fury, and the middle Lucerna felt his own power rising to more powerful than he had ever felt it before when confronted by the one who had just slain those of Division Five, abused the population of Welkas, supported the casting of the Tempest of Craving, and whose actions in abducting and almost killing Alexander's precious little brother had led to this war, this violence and death.

The bronze gladiator's helm masking his face served as conformation of his identity, although Alexander had already known who he was when he had first saw him: Arendus Draal, Master of Violence.

_Telaia Gladium and Division Five. Your sacrifice in bringing me here will not be in vain. I will kill this bastard, save my little brother, end the life of the one casting the storm, and win this war,_ Alex promised to himself, though Aurelia could hear his thoughts as well, _I swear on my honour as a Lucerna._

.*.*.*.

"My lord!" one of the soldiers cried in gladness when Marik ran, surrounded by his praetorians who he was quite annoyed at as he had ordered some to follow Alexander, but as well as his youngest son his eldest's Lucerna beacon had been cut off by the distorting influence of the Tempest of Craving, although he had sent the ones that had originally served Caiellis to go and protect him. The force comprising of an entire cohort, under the command of a battle-hardened and ruthless general named Bronn Preolm (that Marik did not like as a person due to something that happened back when Garius II was on the throne, but had learnt to respect as a masterful but slightly callous strategist that got the job done but did so with many casualties) hailing from Capitalia Lux that had been present at his youngest son's first strategy session (which undoubtedly set the precedent for each consecutive one), was battling with a large number of Welkalite Enforcers on a huge plaza that was one of the most open areas in the city and on the threshold between the Glutton's Quarter and the Hedonist's Quarter, according to the maps that Marik had studied before entering the city.

The man, wearing his full plate steel armour with the visor down, saluted to his king, slamming his fist over his breastplate efficiently and then turning his attention to the troops, as this open location was much more suitable for enacting a small-scale battle stratagem with moving divisions of soldiers than the cramped streets, where the large scale plan that involved the manipulation of formations and reinforcements in conjunction with each other was paramount for success. Marik had planned for one of the largest engagements within the city to be here, just as he had prepared for the enemy force to be a mixture of the slower but no less aggressive Gluttony warriors and the stranger and more disturbing troops from the Order of Rapture, and as such had equipped Bronn's force with a squadron of powerful lawmages from the Scientia Mos academy, who were busy suppressing the rage of the Welkalites and binding whole formations of them in restricting and numbing Blue and White mana.

He knew that he had chosen rightly in selecting the dependable Bronn to lead the onslaught around this area, as while other generals might be excited at the prospect of combat and attaining glory the dour and serious warrior had perfected the strategy of grinding the enemies into dust through a war of attrition, implacably marching his Lucaelian legionaries into the plaza and brute forcing his way through the defences set up by the Welkalites, deflecting retaliatory charges with the sheer force and number of soldiers he had at his disposal, which meant that of course a large number of Lucaelian lives were being extinguished as the Welkalites killed and killed and killed, but the advance could not be stopped unless they mounted a much stronger defence that hordes of roving warriors that were much more potent on the offensive.

Marik made a mental not to attach Bronn to Caiellis once this war was over and if there were any others (although he hoped that he never had to do it), as while the two would agree on the slow an inexorable abrasion of the enemies, they would argue over the method in which the soldiers should be used in such a way. While Marik couldn't blame the boy, as he was naturally gentle and was still only thirteen, Caiellis was too kind to his troops and tried to shoulder every burden himself instead of subjecting them to it, which was reflective of his personality and very selfless but ultimately foolish. Such a way of thinking had led to his youngest son, his fragile second child, going on his errant mission to forcibly cease the Tempest of Craving himself, which had been incredibly reckless and had meant that instead of having the security of knowing that his sons were relatively safe by his side, where he could see and protect them, both of them were missing, swept away by the chaos of the urban conflict, his eldest throwing himself into danger in an attempt to rescue and aid his younger sibling.

This was the culmination of Caiellis's defiance, a blatant refusal to obey his orders to stick by his father's side, and while he could praise the boy's heroism in wanting to end the storm before it could take any more lives the fact was that he wasn't strong enough to do it alone, no matter that he had the combined forces of light and darkness within him, no matter that he was a Lucerna prince with an artefact armament from the vaults underneath the Lucerna Palace and had access to a First Sisterhood angel, he was still only thirteen years of age and whoever had cast this storm must have had a massive amount of power in order to be able to do so. He had tried every method he could think of to curb his youngest's delinquency, and now that he had failed in every conceivable way at being both his father and king his son's life was in perilous danger once again and it was up to the monarch to not only lead the army to victory over the chaotic and corrupt Welkalites, but save one of the potential heirs to the throne from death, which meant that the fatherly need to protect both of his children was at the forefront of his mind and strengthening his pure White mana, which also reacted to the presence of its two enemy magics of disorder and darkness by bolstering his need to achieve peace and light.

Marik charged into the battle, shouting a righteous battle cry infused with the magic of order and sanctimonious luminescence, and drew his greatsword, the blade thrumming with charged power itching to be released against the forces of Black and Red and echoing Akroma's hatred of havoc and corruption, and chose his first target, a roaring kami creature with skin like raw flesh, obsidian claws that pierced out of reptilian skin, a gaping maw filled to the brim with teeth and questing tendrils of flesh that wrapped around loyal Lucaelians and pulled them closer, and most prominently a back completely covered in pulsating flames that created a heat haze around it and roasted Welkalite and Lucaelian alike as its Summoner cackled in delight.

The supreme king of Lucael scowled at the beast, leaping forwards and ramming his sword straight into its gullet, twisting and eviscerating the creature, the superheated contents of its stomach washing over him but spattering off of a shield he automatically raised to defend himself. Marik was wearing his official crown today, a simple circlet of blessed silver that augmented any defensive magic he would cast by a significant margin, making him almost immune to any form of attack that wasn't powered by huge amounts of mana. He then opened his free palm wide, using one of his favoured spells and conjuring up a veritable armoury of spectral swords of luminescence and flinging them into the Welkalite ranks, tearing apart the lightly armoured troops in a storm of magical steel. The man raised his sword to the sky, channelling power into it, and releasing that power, the blades of light that he had birthed from his imagination and will to defeat his foes exploding in spheres of light that heralded the second stage of his spell, one that he rarely used unless facing large numbers of enemies.

The light dissolved the Welkalites that it touched, leaving the survivors screaming in pain when parts of their bodies were disintegrated, and the king efficiently swept his blade around and charged back into the enemy ranks, the eight Lucerna praetorians surrounding him (and although Guardian Tristram would usually have been part of them, Marik had sent him to lead his own troops through the heart of the Glutton's Quarter to put down the resistance within and slay the enemy general – the Master of Gluttony that had inherited role from the one that his beloved sons had killed – of this area, while the other troops could press on to kill the other Masters and end the storm) and hacking apart enemies left and right, forming a spearhead that would pierce the heart of the Welkalite ranks and shatter them apart, as now that he had arrived the slow onslaught that would seemingly go on until there was only one warrior left on each side that Bronn had been prosecuting had turned into a glorious charge with him at its head, the Lucernas inspired by their king and surging forward in virtuous harmony, their weapons shining with the blessed light of the angels that refused to be smothered by the unholy Tempest of Craving like some candle and their strikes infused with their undying faith in the exalted Lucerna, who _would not _fail them on this day, or any other.

He then sensed a massive increase in White and Red mana from an area roughly a mile or so to the right of where he was fighting now, and the Summoning of Aurelia into the material realm filled him with pride in his eldest child mixed with apprehension at the direness of his situation that meant that Alexander had been forced to ask for the aid of his resident First Sisterhood Angel, although he knew that the boy would be relatively safe with the dependable Angel of War at his side, whereas Caiellis could only call upon the blessings of Orzhova, an enigma to the oldest Lucerna.

By his side, Eleanour Palladia, one of his praetorians that had stayed at his side while eight other of her rank were sent off to guard his children, released White mana in a large area, Summoning the second giant of the Lucerna Guard (with the first being the Pale Wayfarer of Aymer Solfortis), a very large woman that towered above the Lucaelian soldiers and held a large vertical shield strapped to each arm, the epitome of defence that had saved Marik's life on numerous occasions, but at the moment was being used for offence as she slammed the shields into Welkalite warriors that swarmed around her, splitting apart the ground with the force of the blow and crushing the fighters of the New Empire of Violence to a bloody pulp.

Bronn was leading the advance from the other side, his Second Sisterhood angel, a sombre Daughter of Wrath that had wings of grey and wintry white hair with orbs of the same colour, her slender and perfect body scantily clad with golden armour that left her pale skin bare to the elements, and held two slim and elegant blades, one in each hand, that could be combined together to form a single large sword in imitation of Akroma's gargantuan Blade of Wrath. However, the most noticeable characteristic of the angel – Nixilia the Valkyrie – was the type of spells that she cast, spinning her swords and singing a haunting song that resurrected Lucaelian soldiers that had died around her and still had corpses that hadn't been too brutalised by their respective demises, healing them back to full strength and infusing them with repairing White mana as well as the desire to have another chance in the battle, perfectly exemplifying Bronn's style of a war of attrition and throwing his soldiers at the enemies until they capitulated.

Marik hacked his relic blade round in wide arcs, killing Welkalites with every blow as their pitiful resistance pattered off of the transparent sphere of light surrounding him, the crown sat upon his head and proving his identity of the king shining with light as it absorbed and nullified the power of the many blows directed towards him. He stamped the ground, a wave of milky light undulating up from it and knocking the Welkalites off of their feet as well as burning them in the holy glow, and the giant next to him crushed the downed Welkalites before they could get back to their feet.

"Onward, soldiers of Lucael! Into the city! Crush the Welkalites under the heel of our righteous determination, and cut them apart with our faithful steel!" he shouted, remembering that when he had been an impressionable and nervous youth he had found the thought of him ever doing something like this or saying something inspiring completely unnatural, but now he was used to bellowing the battle cries that roused the Lucaelians to even greater acts of heroism while in the presence of their semi-divine ruler, a descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna and worthy to wield the power of one of the exalted First Sisterhood Angels, the direct daughters of the being that had pulled their race out of the darkness and established a kingdom to ward off the predation of the abyss.

The plaza led on to an avenue after it that the Lucaelian soldiers were about to rush into, after Marik effortlessly cut apart a hulking minotaur and turned to another, this one holding a large spiked club that it swung at the king, dodging its first strike and then parrying the second on his greatsword, letting a smile creep onto his face at the minotaur's almost comical dismay at its thunderous blow being blocked by the puny human facing it – the beast seemed incredibly surprised that the man would rely on his own strength just like it did, and flipped his grip on the sword, letting the club slide past it and ramming it into the minotaur's throat, an explosion of blood fountaining out as it gurgled, its stupid eyes widening in shock as he sliced its bull head off, and as its huge and muscled body pitched onto the ground he stood on its skull, cracking it apart under his armoured boots before it returned to Sancturia.

The Welkalite forces were turning around to run now, their defence swiftly turning into a disordered rout as they fled for their lives, running from the Lucaelians charging behind them, many cut down by the bolts of light launched by mages, their magic guided into the cowardly and evil Enforcers that would rather preserve their own detestable hides instead of the lives of their people, and Marik bellowed another war cry and ran after them, aiming to keep up the momentum of the legionaries' charge so that they could break further into the city before the Welkalite formations could respond to the sudden surge of motion, the men following their king's example and charging down the wide avenue. Marik sighted a large amount of more ornately armoured (although they still didn't wear much of it) Enforcers clustered at the opposite end, many of them wearing strange devices on their back that appeared to be simple metal rods though they wore them like banners, and instead of rising to meet the Lucaelian assault they showed a tremendous amount of discipline for Welkalites and remained in their positions, although Marik was confident that he could have them routed from their emplacements within a few minutes.

That was until the Tempest of Craving started shrieking with fury, blasting forth four colossal crimson bolts of lightning that struck at different points within the city, and although none directly impacted that near to his area (one crashing down where he had sensed his eldest son Summoning the Warleader, whereas another smashed into the place where the storm was being cast, which filled him with cold rage at the injustice directed towards his youthful and precious sons) the king still grimaced at the amount of casualties that would have been caused by the thunderous discharge, the storm above started crackling with even more fury and releasing the normal sized, but still powerful, coruscations of electricity from within its tumultuous depths, and Marik was sure he had perceived the sound of malignant and rage-filled laughter.

He made sure to not let the actions of the Tempest of Craving faze him, although he was concerned as the dire words of Caiellis about the storm gaining power the more blood was spilt underneath it, continuing to rush the Enforcers who seemed to be strangely from the Order of Violence judging by the symbols emblazoned across their crimson armour, matching the aesthetic colour scheme of the other warriors from that, and then excruciating clarity erupted in his mind, matching the pounding of the headache that had ceased to go away (though it had receded in intensity to the point where he could actually move, just becoming more background painful, although Marik had resolved to ignore it and not be distracted by the pain inside of his mind), the explanation for the use of the metallic banner rods rushing to the forefront of his brain a second before they were deployed to that purpose.

The pink and crimson lightning that crackled in the storm above was drawn to the presence of so many conductive and elevated materials below it, fulminating out of the Tempest of Craving and behaving like normal electricity in that respect, crackling downwards to the earth and channelling itself into the back-pieces the Enforcers wore, their halberds and bows lighting up with the chaotic but extremely powerful energy, though some of the pieces of equipment could not hold the malevolent blessing of the lightning and fried their wielders, the Enforcers dying in screaming agony and ignored by their comrades, many of whom revealed themselves from concealment and absorbed the fury of the Tempest also, fulminating the lightning into their weaponry through their armour and conducting it into the metal.

"Look out!" a voice cried in warning, just as the distance between the Lucaelian rush and the Welkalite archers became filled with crackling arrows that pierced through the hasty shields that were erected and became embedded in the mages that attempted to conjure the defences, the malignant energy of the storm penetrating effortlessly through or even ignoring the protective White mana that tried to stem the tide of arrows. Marik felt himself being lifted out of the air and dragged behind a wall of cover, Eleanour's giant desperately dropping her shields in a horizontal manner to create as much physical protection that the arrows would not be able to slice through for the few soldiers that could cower behind it as the giant was riddled with arrows that electrocuted her with the malicious energy of Red and Black demons, killing her extremely quickly without her own defences, although her sacrifice was not in vain.

Normally Marik would object to having to hunker down behind walls, as as the Lucerna monarch he should be leading the charge instead of cowering behind barriers that weaker warriors than he should be using to protect themselves, but knew that even the powerful and ancient enchantments cast onto his crown would not suffice as a defence against this magic. The soldiers that couldn't hide behind the barrier kept advanced, spurred on by Bronn and his unsympathetic angel, but they were being cut down on all sides by the storm of crackling arrows and lightning magic flung by electromancers, their own natural power augmented by that of the Tempest of Craving's dark energy, the electricity bouncing between the armour of multiple Lucaelian soldiers in malicious arcs of crimson power that agonisingly charred their bodies as they screamed in pain and thrashed spasmodically, trying desperately to remove their armour before they were killed, but the energy coursed through their nervous systems and made the movement impossible.

"Forward!" Bronn hollered, before a well-placed arrow hit him in the section of the armour around his throat that was made in that manner to stimulate mobility and allow the movement of the head and neck. The general choked, blood exploding out from the mouthpiece of his helmet, and his Valkyrie screamed in impotent rage at the inability to resurrect her Summoner as he suffocated on his own blood as sadistic lightning crackled through his veins.

Those precious few with enough fortitude to reach the enemy lines were swiftly and precisely dismembered by the electrolysed halberds of the more melee orientated Enforcers of this elite formation, and when the Lucaelians were pinned in place by the storm of arrows the leader of the force, a middle-aged (well, around Marik's own age actually) and hard-faced woman that went helmless and let her pink but greying hair blow free in the gale force wind and wore a triumphant smirk gave a signal to advance, her lightning-blue (normal lightning that occasionally crackled when it was raining in Lucael, not the corrupted version of it that was being employed to great effect by the Enforcers) eyes highlighting her anticipation as yet more Lucaelians were cut down by the hissing bolts of torment-inducing magical energy.

And with hundreds – or even thousands – of his soldiers dying around him and Enforcers augmented by the demonic power of the Tempest of Craving advancing on his desperate position, Marik knew it was time for the tide to turn.

He honed in on his zealous hatred of the darkness, the demons in it that had killed his beloved wife and turned his twin brother to the side of evil, caused a civil war within Lucael and most of all forced the good and innocent inhabitants of the Kingdom of Light to live in fear of the area outside of the safety of their metropolises, and was now trying to corrupt another nation to its foul cause, and the angel within him added her otherworldly detestation of such forces to him. A milky sphere of blinding light eclipsed his form, but instead of Summoning her in the usual manner Marik focussed the light into an orb of pulsing luminescence that shone with wrathful hatred, standing up to his full height as the arrows that were shot at him disintegrated in the godlike force of the light, the divine power of a First Sisterhood angel enhancing that of his holy crown and granting him a temporary immunity to the arrows that were targeting at the greatest threat from the Lucaelians.

He grabbed hold of the orb with both hands, unbeknownst to him going though slightly similar motions to his youngest son when he enacted the end of his Summoning ritual, although with vastly different sources of power, and tossed it into the air, where it instantly shone with a blinding light and blasted spears of radiance into the Welkalites, killing many of them as they were immolated by the divine power of Akroma, and then began to be absorbed by an angelic figure. The second the Angel of Wrath entered the material realm in a holy surge of White mana, she shot like a sacred meteorite towards the Welkalite lines, slamming into them and sending those close to the impact flying into the air, and although her visage was still neutral her lip was twisted slightly into a frown of hatred.

She pumped power through her gargantuan marble blade, swinging it in a wide arc that didn't so much cut apart the Welkalites as smash them into pieces that were dissolved by the light, the arrows shot at her deflected by her near invulnerability to Red and Black mana that could only be overridden by the most powerful spells, and with the Summoning of the First Sisterhood angel the fervour of the Lucaelians that had sputtered and almost died out when the ambuscade was sprung exploded into life once again, an ardent fury at the murder of many of their comrades that Marik felt guilty over, but couldn't spend time locked in depression when there was a battle that would decide the fate of the world to be won.

He ran forwards himself, gifting Akroma with some of his mana so that they could both conjure up lances of light that they blasted at the same location, the beams mixing with each other and amplifying their counterpart's power to create a detonation of light that obliterated the ground underneath them and annihilated the forms of many Enforcers, the rest of whom fell back under the renewed Lucaelian offensive as they were hacked apart by the blades of righteous zeal, bows abandoned and swords drawn at the proximity of the threat.

Then, Marik heard an excited squeal, like a young girl's scream of happiness when presented with _exactly _the present that she wanted but distorted by the pursuit of the ultimate pleasure, accompanied by hysterical giggling that Marik recognised from the assault on Fort Egetau, and a voice shrieked in ecstasy, "Hello, boys and girls, are you ready for the main event?!"

He saw the enemy general scowl and roll her eyes, put paid no attention to the reinforcements as he blocked a scything blow from an electrolysed halberd and grimaced when the lightning coursed through his veins, though it was soon expelled by the powerful White mana pumping through them as well. He rammed his sword straight through the armour of the Enforcer, his large greatsword smashing through the plates as it they were sheets of paper, just as a shrieking chorus of "Yes!"s resounded throughout the avenue, and Marik felt a large spike in chaotic Red mana rise up all around him. He looked back at the general, who was holding a long and curling scourge fizzling with electricity of both the generic blinding blue and the demonic crimson and pink, and recalled Akroma to his side from where she had been mercilessly butchering retreating Enforcers, as a troupe of scantily and extravagantly clad dancers that reminded him of those from Fort Egetau and must have been part of the Order of Rapture danced through the streets, accompanied by screeching demonic imps covered in carnival costumes and masks that blew gouts of flames at the Lucaelians and Welkalites clashing in combat, the power of the flames surprising for their size as they flew maniacally around the avenue.

They were joined by squealing devils that either kept their crimson skin bare or clothed themselves in garish festival outfits as well, wielding chains that they spun crazily around them as their dancing Summoners pirouetted past, somersaulting into the Lucaelian ranks and displaying incredible agility in dodging the blows from the soldiers of light and stabbing their blades into the weak points in their armour. One leapt at Marik, wearing a pink mask that shone with unholy magic and two slender blades that crackled with lightning, so the king pushed out his left hand and a lance of pure light shot through it, impaling her through the stomach as she cried out in simultaneous pleasure and agony.

"Let us end the lives of all of these savages," Akroma stated, and although Marik could sense her otherworldly ire rising she had not yet passed the point where that would correlate to her outwardly showing her hatred, the Angel of Wrath opening her wings wide and blasting waves of light outwards, directing them with the Blade of Wrath into the incoming Welkalites and sending them crashing back, just as another powerful Sancturia being was Summoned into reality – the Enforcer general was covered in lightning armour now and had created a hissing demonic creature made up of the crackling energy that towered above the street, though its form was as insubstantial as the electricity that it comprised of. Buildings either side of the street were set alight by the entrance of the baleful elemental, the fire becoming a whirling inferno underneath it as it reached out one of its arms, pushing it through the ranks of troops and sending lightning sizzling through them, malevolently smiling in happiness at the pain it was causing as its three sadistic eyes that Marik thought would normally have been bright blue but were now a bloody scarlet took in the battle below it.

Akroma flung herself at the elemental spirit, its size seemingly increasing by the second as it absorbed more of the ground below it into the fiery tempests rising up into its intangible form, and when it sighted Marik and then the Angel of Wrath it grinned widely, matching the triumphant smirk on the face of the general that had Summoned it into the world, and seemed to increase in size even more, as if reacting to the power of its new opponent. That didn't seem to faze the seraph, who carved her titanic sword into one of its clawed arms and pulled back for a second strike as some form of ectoplasmic substance gushed out of the wound that was magical as much as physical, letting out a shrill screech of pain and swiping at the angel with its other arm.

Akroma raised her shield around her, intending for her resistance to Red mana to protect her from the blow so that she could strike back, but the lightning form of the elemental crashed straight through the protection (echoing and amplifying the penetrating properties shown by the arrows augmented by the power of the Tempest of Craving). The angel growled in pain as she was smashed backwards, electricity coursing through her holy veins, crackling and blackening her flawless milky skin, and Marik scowled himself at the agony caused to his angel – as she only ever reacted to the most torment-inducing pain stimuli. Marik charged at the Enforcer-general, his advance preceded by a selection of glowing and golden magical swords that launched themselves at the Welkalite, who swept them aside with her snapping whip and taunted, "Enjoying the power of my Malignus, angel? Your shields will do nothing to stop her from killing you and feasting on your life force!"

Marik shoulder-barged into her, his side covered in interlocking White plates that lessened the impact of her retaliation strike as she tried to use her electrolysed whip to bat him away, the general crying out in surprise at the sudden burst of speed he put on, and he rammed the smaller woman over with the sheer force of his physical strength combined with his magic, intending to then slam his relic sword into her and finish the job, before a stinging pain erupted in his back and he felt potent neurotoxins and hallucinogenics rushing into his veins before the Angel of Wrath cast a powerful dispelling blessing upon him.

However, it didn't lessen the agony, nor the fact that the small but immensely sharp scalpel-esque barbs were embedded into his nervous system, placed precisely in order to cause the most pain possible, and a figure clad in a very revealing black, red and pink outfit that seemed to shift under his gaze and hurt the eyes with their obtrusive bright and garish colours landed at the side of the Enforcer-general, who had rolled away from the king and scrambled to her feet, gazing haughtily back at the monarch, her lightning-blue eyes narrowing as if to say "You got the best of me this time, but rest assured it will not happen again," her lips twisting in a combination of a condescending sneer and a frown of irritation, snapping her whip.

"Sorry about that, Mr Kingy-wingy, but the Fraety-watey is an essential part of the show and you _know _what they say: "The show must always go on!" the woman, a slender and tanned dancer with crazy and atavistic vivid rosy eyes that were dilated in the ecstasy of power mixed with the effects of powerful narcotics circulating through her veins, judging by the way they were extremely bloodshot, to the point where there was more red in her unnaturally wide eyes than normal white, squealed, her voice becoming exaggeratedly stony and she pouted when saying the last part of her sentence, the general next to her growling in frustration as Akroma landed next to Marik again.

She pirouetted excitedly and restlessly on the spot, as she couldn't stand to stay still even for a few seconds, her horned helmet that was a mixture between a jester's cap and a demonic helm habitually worn by those that wanted their foes to be intimidated jingling with the sound of unholy bells that hurt Marik's ears, and despite her jovial manner Marik sensed a massive amount of hedonistic Red and Black mana roiling in her, suggesting that she had a powerful Summoning, but when the king's eyes roved around looking for it she exclaimed, her voice far too high-pitched to be natural for someone of her age of around twenty five, "Don't be silly, Mr Kingy-wingy, I'm a one woman act! The _best_ one woman act." she boasted proudly, as if what debaucheries the Welkalites committed in the name of finding the ultimate individual pleasure meant anything to Marik, casually spinning the large serrated blade she held in one hand that she could only hold because of the strength-giving Black mana pouring out of her that would significantly shorten her lifespan with protracted use, and in her other she held more of the barbs coated in venomous poison that would have killed a lesser soldier by making them believe they were in their type of paradise while it shut down their brain and flooded it with pain stimuli.

**Can we please kill her as soon as possible?** Akroma's harsh and abrupt mind-voice spoke into his head, and Marik couldn't help but let out a small smirk at the fact that his angel, who rarely spoke to him in this method, had made an exception due to the utter insufferablity of this dancing whore, just as the other Welkalite facing him shouted, "I am Enforcer-general Fraetus Etin of the New Empire of Passion, and _my companion,_ (she spat the words, as if detesting the fact that her life had been saved by the Blade Dancer) is the Mistress of Entertainment, the Order that had been assimilated into our Archlord's Order of Rapture, Caria Exa."

"The Crimson Whirlwind!" the woman shrieked ecstatically, twirling her vicious looking weaponry as if to emphasise the words, and Marik felt his choler rising. This was the exemplification of the corruption the Welkalites had gone through that had lead to the harbouring of Aksua, the abduction of his precious (both to the Kingdom of Light and him as a father) sons, the near-death of his beloved eldest and this war that had claimed thousands of lives on both sides, and was now in the process of claiming more. These two warriors were in his way, blocking the path to his fragile youngest son and the road to ending this violent engagement, and he would not suffer them to live any longer. His determination, righteous anger and wrath rose up inside of him, his power reaching immense levels due to the fact that he had Summoned and mana bleeding out of his skin, an aura of blinding White surrounding him when he snarled, "I don't care. You are allied with the perpetrators of this demonic corruption that has festered within your nation, and as such prepare to face your judgement. Akroma, we end this now, so that I can kill your so called "Archlord" and destroy your beloved Tempest of Craving."

In the brief moment before the combat started in earnest again, Marik felt a massive surge in the mana of White and Black, which meant that both his sons had now Summoned and that Caiellis had gotten to grips with most probably Tradax Yulica, and with his mind filling with parental pride and fear he readied his artefact sword.

The Malignus dived forwards, ordered to attack by its Summoner in response to the words, and Marik was forced to leap back from crackling strikes as stray bolts of lightning killed Lucaelian warriors behind him. The Crimson Whirlwind, eschewing any semblance of safety, jumped at the king, squealing and giggling hysterically and she performed a series of cartwheels before flipping over and stabbing her fiendish blade at the king in a set of intricate strikes that looked more like dangerous performance moves than combat attacks but were no less effective, making the monarch have to block from an awkward angle as she pressed the attack until a massive sword that was bigger than her cleaved the air. Instead of completely dodging the blow, Maria leapt up onto the Blade of Wrath, revelling in the pain as it burnt through her corrupted flesh where she touched it and launching an overhead strike at the king just as the Enforcer-general charged at him, her speed enhanced by her lightning magic as she shot like a thunderbolt towards the combat, her whip flashing through the air at they could eliminate the Angel of Wrath without taking out her Summoner.

Marik blocked the arcing scourge with his greatsword just as a blast of numbing wind washed over the Mistress of Entertainment and Mirria Chrysos, one of his most favoured bodyguards, teleported next to him, her natural Blue ability to do so significantly weakened by the Tempest of Craving to the point where she could only do it for very short distances, her calming spiritual Summoning flowing to her side and interposing itself between the king and the dancer. Marik paid his praetorian no more attention, knowing that she would do an admirable job of holding off Caria while he dealt with Fraetus and her Malignus – the king vaguely recognised her last name from one of the students from Welkas going to the Scholaria Magnus, and briefly wondered if his either of his boys had had any interactions with them (as he was in his youngest's year, though two years older than Caiellis).

The whip then twisted with a malicious life of its own and wrapped around his sword, yanking it away from him with a tremendous strength and pulling it out of his grip, but if Fraetus thought that disarming him would prevent him from killing her then he was sadly mistaken. As the Malignus opened its mouth and blasted a gout of electrified flame in his direction, Akroma learnt from her mistakes and instead of trying to form a magical shield to block the bombardment she simply made Marik mentally aware and left him to dodge it, instead capitalising on the distraction of the elemental spirit and flying straight at it, her sword piercing into its insubstantial chest and carving great swathes of light across its electrolysed flesh before she was forced to retreat back out of range of the angry reactionary swipes.

Fraetus extended her whip to the side and sent Marik's blade clattering across the avenue away from the duel, and then cracked it intimidatingly and left it to coil around her, slowly moving towards the monarch as he circled past her, remaining out of range of the scourge and knowing that if she fired mana-borne attacks at him then he could defend himself with shielding magic, as the Enforcer-general did not possess the aura-defying attribute of her Summoning. His mana levels were still rising, his hatred of this woman who would willingly fight for the Orders of Passion and lead the armies that abused to innocent population and obstruct him from doling out justice increasing ever second he spent in combat with her, as the Angel of Wrath and Malignus fought in a violent onslaught of strikes and counter-attacks and Mirria and Caria danced in an elegant performance of the former blinking in and out of reality whilst the latter leapt and twirled to execute her attacks.

He placed his hands at opposite points to each other and focussed his White mana to the extremities of his body, the aura around him becoming more and more pronounced as it increased in intensity until it became blinding and his limbs began to be encased in plates of ethereal metal that superimposed themselves over the normal armour he wore, his gauntlets shining with luminescence that empowered his strength to post-human levels, a bolt of lightning that he sensed was a magical strike to test his new defences pinging off of his enchantments.

Marik ran forwards at the Enforcer, blasting twin shockwaves of pale purity at the woman that crashed through the air with the force of their passage, thrumming with power as the woman was forced to sway out of the way of them. Instead of continuing on their way, the massive missiles of collected White mana arced back on themselves, directed by the ruler of Lucael's magic and targeted back on Fraetus just as he blasted two more flares of light at the Enforcer-general.

Fraetus desperately ran to the side as the pulsating orbs of radiance followed her, running behind her Malignus and mentally dragging its lightning-infused form in the way of the bombardment, where the light exploded upon it and exacerbated the damage Akroma's measured strikes had already done in a detonation of blinding incandescence.

The beast screeched in pain, half of its body melted away by the explosion of holy mana, and Akroma took that moment to charge her blade with mana to the point where it was pulsing out of the marble sword and tossed it at the Malignus, the sword ramming through its middle eye, although as there was nothing of import within the ectoplasmic skull the damage was the same as if she had struck anywhere, and another eye simply opened elsewhere on its crackling form, but Akroma knew that and the significance of the strike was in what it meant, as any legionnaires that were watching the combat would be revitalised by such a telling blow as the elemental was sent staggering backwards, crashing into and setting alight a pleasure house of the Order of Rapture on the other side of the avenue.

Marik sprang forward to attack Fraetus just as his angel did the same, before the Enforcer-general smirked victoriously as the Malignus phased out of existence for a second, the woman Unsummoning it and them spontaneously conjuring it into existence right on top of the king and his seraph, flinging it like a projectile into them.

It impacted into the two with a thunderous detonation, smashing apart Marik's new armour as his angel used her body to protect his mortal one, the physical defence able to block the majority of the energy, although Marik still cried out in shock at the agony inflicted onto his First Sisterhood angel, his hatred of the woman rising at the injustice done to holy Akroma, as when the angel opened her wings from where they had been wrapped around the king they were blackened by the electricity and trails of smoke coming from her once-perfect armour.

She looked at him, her expression remaining completely neutral as if this was just a normal day to the Angel of Wrath (although with the vast amount of bloody and desperate combats she had participated in it slightly was), but in her cold blue eyes Marik could see obvious signs of hatred and anger. He provided her with a large amount of White mana when she let go of her Blade of Wrath – though instead of dropping to the ground it remained hovering in the air – and she opened her arms wide, zealous hymnals filling the air as a lucent pillar of White mana split through the Tempest of Craving, which roared in a thunderous rage at the attack (although when it ended the storm quickly repaired itself and filled the sky with its black mass again) as the gigantic beam crashed down into the Malignus, the beam of pure whiteness shattering the creature's essence and the street beneath it.

It saturated the air with released mana as the angel shouted, "I (pronounced more like EE in the ancient language) Voco Aus Catalysmia!", her voice suffused with an awe-inspiring resonance as the light reached a pinnacle of intensity before dying down, the Malignus utterly obliterated and Marik's heart stirring at the sight of the perfectly circular crater where the elemental had once resided, the Enforcer-general's eyes opened wide in shock at the sheer power of the spell, as Akroma left the woman to the king and rejoined the combat against another batch of Welkalite reinforcements that coincided with the arrival of Guardian Oleic and his Suntouched, the elite paladins of Civitas Sol that had had their name tarnished in the reign of the self-styled Emperor of Light Xarius Drakis Lucerna, as a squadron of Black drakes wearing armour covered in a strange skull-esque (although more like what the skull of a demon would like than a human's) sigil that shone malignantly and pulsed with heat, the battle-damaged Akroma crashing into them and stopping them from attacking the king.

Fraetus had sprung to her feet, her sheer awe that had prevented her from moving for a short moment overwhelmed by her screaming combat instincts, cracking her electrified scourge at the king, who instead of dodging the blow grabbed the edge of the barbed whip, the spikes digging into his skin and piercing his gauntlets, letting the electricity fulminate through his veins and gritting his teeth and enduring against the pain, dragging the weapon towards him. The Enforcer-general elected to let the whip go, so the king tossed it aside before it began assaulting him seemingly with a malicious sentience of its own, and drew two short-swords that were sheathed at her weapon belt, though the range of her attacks was now significantly reduced – as Fraetus, similar to a lot of Welkalites – much preferred to fight in close combat than use magic attacks, which was quite close to the Lucaelian opinion on such things however the latter fought in that way because of the glory present in such a way of fighting, whereas the Welkalites delighted in the brutality and adrenaline of it.

She charged at the king, spinning both her blades in wide arcs as they, like her whip, became infused with the crimson energy of the Tempest, and he blocked one blow on a shield of White mana before sidestepping the second, though the blade still carved a line down his armour in screech of metal on metal. Fraetus pulled back, swaying back from his kick and then avoiding a blast of light he shot out at her, spinning her swords and hacking them back towards the king, though this time he could block both on a shield of White.

However, it seemed that was what General Etin had wanted him to do, as adrenaline pumped through his veins when the blades lit up with additional power and smashed through the protection, ramming through as he leapt back, the tips of the blades slicing through his armour and cutting into his lower abdomen, though they didn't go as far as any organs and simply cut the muscled skin. In an attempt to maximise the damage she caused and minimise the risk to herself, she dragged the blades sideways across him, trying to disembowel the king and make his insides spill across the ground, but Marik rammed himself further onto the blades (ensuring that instead of cutting into any organs the vital tissue was surrounded by protective White mana) and then grasped onto the wrists of the Enforcer, squeezing hard with his prodigious strength and forcing her to scamper backwards and abandon the swords, her eyes wide at the fact that he had willingly impaled himself on her weapons to disarm her of them.

Marik ignored the stinging pain in his lower abdomen and dragged the blades out of it, the metal of them covered in his bright crimson blood, Fraetus diving forwards with her fingers extended with short metal talons crafted into the metal. Marik swayed back from the blows, one directed at his neck and the other at his face, though she still clawed his cheek, slicing apart the pale flesh to leave blood trickling down his face, mild sparks of electricity playing into the wound as the talons were crackling with small amount of lightning, but Marik knew that with the two consecutive Summonings of her Malignus that the Enforcer-general had exhausted her supply of mana. That was soon proven to be incorrect when Fraetus conjured up a pike of lightning and stabbed it into Marik's already open wounds, her battle-hardened features twisting into a victorious smile that soon dissolved into a look of pure shock and horror when Marik blocked out the agony, healing White mana already collecting around the medium sized holes in his abdomen, the king implacably smashing his fist into her head and sending her sprawling before her pulled her back and dragged her to her feet.

"How?" the Enforcer simply asked, her face at first contorting in impotent rage for a short moment before it became suddenly calm and accepting when the king grabbed her by the head, the Enforcer-general's magic finally running out and the lightning-spear dissipating into the air. Before he killed her, Marik replied calmly, "You have children as well, Enforcer-general Fraetus Etin. I'm sure that you would do everything in your power to protect them as well," before snapping her neck to the side and tossing the body away, walking over to retrieve his sword from where it lay and annihilating an opportunistic dancer that skipped over to attack him with a bolt of light that pierced through his bare chest, his mana levels still relatively high despite the battle and Akroma's spell, although it would take longer than the rest of this engagement for control of Usnaan to heal the wounds he had suffered in combat with the now dead Enforcer-general.

His mind was becoming filled with a father's fear, and he looked up at the storm roiling even more destructively above him before Akroma flew next to him, for a moment convinced that he saw two demonic and hellish gates opening before the image faded, and in the next rumble of thunder he could definitely perceive laughing. Confident that Guardian Oleic was capable of leading this group to victory over the forces of the Order of Rapture and take the Hedonist's Quarter, Marik ran in the direction of the focal point of the storm' the location where it was being channelled from that was also the location of his youngest son (as he could sense that Aurelia hadn't yet moved from where Alexander was still in the Champion's Quarter).

Marik felt an agitation similar to what his eldest son had experienced over the errant path of Caiellis, although it was exacerbated by the pounding in his skull that somehow seemed more painful than his physical wounds and tainted by his anger at the boy's defiance that had ended in him foolishly risking his own life.

_I am coming, Caiellis Noctis Lucerna, and I order you as your father to not get hurt until I get there!_

.*.*.*.

Guardian Tristram's axe cleaved apart the Enforcer from the Order of Gluttony, his heavy weapon's fine edge slicing through the leather armour of his opponent and hacking the man in two as his Second Sisterhood angel carved apart another woman that leapt at them, her halberd hacking the left arm and leg off the warrior in a flashing blow that left contrails of light on the Guardian's retina. He was fighting with a squadron of paladins from Capitalia Lux that were under the command of general Carlis Montlea who fought with his fraternal twins, the childhood friends of Alexander (and Tristram supposed Caiellis, but they were the older boy's friends and Cai only really spoke to them when they were with his brother) who had also Summoned.

The three members of the Montlea family in Usnaan (as their mother had remained in Civitas Sol in case Johnias reared his traitorous head at the absence of the vast majority of the legions) each possessed an elemental incarnation of the virtues of White mana: the father, who was four years older than the king he had been the champion of before Garius II died and Tristram had inherited the role, had an angel-like elemental made up of White light tinted scarlet because of the storm above, with four shining wings of the pure substance of intangible virtuousness and wielding a thin golden pole with a ribbon of magical red silk attached to the top of it that focussed Carlis's spells through it. The numinous and genderless being was named Glory, and it had apparently battled alongside Athela of the Aegis before due to the respect which the angel attributed to Glory's ability to change its defences to match the colour of mana against it, which explained the crimson colour of the ribbon.

Leodred had Summoned another incarnation, this one a spirit-like knight named Valour that was clad in ethereal armour and brandished an elegant spear that it flourished with preternatural agility and speed, killing the Welkalite foes famed for their speed before they could react and augmenting his lanky Summoner with greater combat ability as well, as the boy fought off flaming hell-hounds with his longsword as his avatar representing the bravery and sanctity of close combat systematically killed their Summoners, mages from the Order of Gluttony that stood little chance against Carlis's knights (who had dismounted in order to enter the city and fight within it, but were still exemplary warriors).

Finally Elizabex, the slightly older twin by a margin of about an hour, had the most mana intensive creature out of the three, a large elemental in the shape of a deer with magnificent black antlers wreathed in holy and other devotional offerings from the faithful. The deer had large feathered wings heavily reminiscent of those that gifted the holy angels with flight, and instead of four back-legs it had a trail of ethereal spirit energy that drifted behind it. According to Athela, who often mentally spoke to Tristram about the capabilities of both enemies and allies in the protection of the Lucerna family – or the effects they would have on the victory he wanted to achieve, something for which the Guardian was immensely grateful for as although he was good at analysing threats most of the time he didn't know what Sancturia creatures could do, whereas the Aegis Angel, Daughter of Protection and scion of Iona, had been trained in the crucible of many years of unrelenting combat to protect to defend her First Sisterhood angel leaders, which also meant guarding the precious Lucerna family that Athela spoke of with high accord.

The elemental incarnation was called Purity, and as it flew around the battlefield, its heavenly voice like a hymn of the natural world's devotion to the light of Sancturia, any offensive magic the Welkalite mages tried to fire at the knights of Carlis was absorbed into the shield of scintillating light turquoise and converted into healing mana that drifted calmingly over the Lucaelians. Elizabex wielded an ornate staff that had once belonged to her and Leo's mother that allowed her to channel healing and enhancing mana through it, casting a variety of useful auras on the other soldiers and occasionally blasting apart a foe with beams of light.

Tristram and Carlis had unanimously and silently agreed that Athela's Aegis should be deployed to affect the youngest members of their group, and as such Leodred and Elizabex were surrounded by a luminous glow that repelled attacks with a defensive ability almost unmatched by anything not of the First Sisterhood or of a similar power level. It was strange to think of the two twins as adults now, as they had become eighteen two days ago, but Tristram would probably always still refer to them as kids. The Guardian knew how jealous his eldest charge was of their older age than his, as Alex desperately wanted to be eighteen soon so that he was no longer a child and could officially have a girlfriend (though Tristram was sure that he would still be as inconsistent in choosing one and staying with them for an extended period of time). It wasn't all about that though, and Alexander's eighteenth birthday in more than ten months would signify his ascension into adulthood, which meant that he wouldn't be treated like a child any more. It was an independence thing, and Tristram had thought the same twelve years ago when he had been seventeen and almost and adult, but pushed the thoughts from his mind.

He wished that he could be by the side of Alexander and Caiellis (although the younger one of the two was already at the caster of the Tempest of Craving's position, which probably meant that he had rushed there through some new magic of his and was fighting on his own, something that scared Tristram although there was nothing at the moment he could do about it), his protective instinct for the boys still immensely strong as well as his duteous compulsion to defend the Lucerna family, but King Marik had decreed that he accompany general Carlis in the assault on the main section of the Glutton's Quarter, and he knew for certain that the older man was definitely not in the mood for dissidence, especially after Tristram had almost punched him the day before.

Their orders were to rout the foes sequestered deep within the area of the City of Pleasure, and to find and kill the newly instated Master of Gluttony – or whoever was leading these Welkalites – while the rest of the army pressed on into Usnaan, and the Lucerna family took the battle to the heretics conjuring the unholy storm that had only minutes ago blasted four gigantic bolts of crimson lightning into the New Empire's capital in a thunderous display that would have incurred significant casualties to both the Lucaelian crusaders and the Welkalite defenders. The normally relatively calm Athela had snarled in pure hatred when the blast had hit, whilst Elizabex's incarnation of Purity had yelped in empathetic pain.

Tristram's threat sense rose in his mind as he sensed an increase in ravenous Black mana as the paladins dispatched the Enforcers they had been fighting against while sustaining few casualties in return, and as they ran through a corner he then saw why. Across from him was a gigantic avenue that stretched out through the Glutton's Quarter – the Banquet Street where Ershun Firefist had been killed by Alexander and Caiellis – filled to the brim with a large number of garish and ostentatious market stalls that would have been filled with food, but had been knocked over and made into large barricades. However, Tristram knew for certain that this area wasn't filled with Gluttony Enforcers, but instead with something much more sinister, as he could sense a high level of greedy Red and Black mana saturating the area.

"Fresh meat!" a gurgling cry erupted from behind the barriers, which were flattened as soon as the knights rounded the corner, lumbering figures surrounded by swarms of emancipated humans loping forwards like debased animals with their mouths covered in blood. Their eyes were full of a crazed desire to endlessly feast, to gorge upon mountains of food until their stomach exploded from the strain, and Tristram couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor creatures who, judging by their whipped, scarred and starved bodies had been prevented from eating until very recently, and had been subjected to corrupting Black and Red mana that had accentuated that primal need until it overrode all their other brain functions.

Within the masses of barely-human ingrates, Tristram spotted several that were not of Welkalite origin, and his blood began to boil even more than it was already at the sighting of several blonde-haired and pale Lucaelians that had evidently been captured in the raids on the monorail supply trains between the flourishing Civitas Sol and the fledgling Gol Secondus that was still in the process of construction, which made the Guardian hate the Welkalites even more for the depredations heaped upon innocent citizens of the Kingdom of Light. There were tanned Yentarians as well, and even Erians, their naturally wiry bodies starved of all muscle until they became little more than skeletons with a thin layer of unhealthy skin above it. What disturbed Tristram the most was the insane look in their unnaturally pink eyes that looked twice as big on their skeletal heads with the unhealthy skin pulled tight, an atavistic craving for sustenance of any kind.

Some of the starved prisoners had expired whilst waiting for a Lucaelian force to ambush, their rangy bodies slumped on the ground within the throng, and while some had evidently died as their bodies couldn't sustain them any longer many more had clearly been gored to death by other prisoners, that, desperate for any kind of meat, had committed one of the ultimate sins and eaten their fellow humans, tearing apart their malnourished flesh to feed their own, which explained why a few had blood trickling down their chins, and Tristram's rage and abhorrence intensified at the fact that they had been reduced to this by their sadistic Welkalite capturers, some of whom stood within the throng and wielded long whips to drive the tide of starved at the Lucaelians.

Tristram's mind reached a breaking point when he attempted to find out more about the mama-signatures of the lurching giants, and then swiftly realised that they weren't Sancturia creatures at all, but debased humans so far removed from normal bodily proportions as to be absurd, plodding masses of flesh with small eyes full of the craving to gorge exacerbated by the storm above that rolled in their sockets, resting on each and every member of the party and licking their distended lips with fatty, slavering tongues.

Behind it all, sat casually on a simple throne of carved mahogany, the focus of the Black and Red (although there was much more of the former, which was unique for the Red mana based Welkalites) mana in Tristram's mind reclined and studied the battle intensely. She was an albino, slender and pale with a perfectly formed body clad in leather armour that heavily reminded the Guardian of the vampire Aksua that had been killed by Marik and the Angel of Wrath, which made him wonder if she was one, but instead of lust her eyes were simply filled with a fiery red defiance that pierced straight into Tristram's heart when she stared back at him, noticing his scrutiny and flicking her white hair to the side when she turned to look at him, and then his angel.

She seemed impassive (though not unconcerned nor distracted by something else) about this battle, dispassionate about the fact that her forces were about to clash with those of the invaders', and there was no doubt in the Guardian's mind that this was the new Master of Gluttony – the amount of mana she had locked within her, as well as the potent magical stench of a greater demon that she made no effort to conceal residing within her. However, the worst bit about it was the fact that she didn't seem that corrupt at all, in comparison to the debased forces surging between her and the degenerate vipers that she shared the city with, and Tristram had expected the leader of this disgusting Order of Gluttony to be the embodiment of the debaucheries committed by them, not looking as if she ate a perfectly balanced died. Tristram wanted a foe to vent his rage at the abuse of the Welkalite populace, the capture of innocent Lucaelians and the abduction of the princes that he had failed to stop, upon, but couldn't help but think that this bitch wasn't nearly as evil as the rest of her nation.

_No, stop this. She has a demon inside of her, which means that she has partaken in an Infernal Bargain and ended the life of her former Summoning. Plus, while she may not look like it, she is the leader of the Order of Gluttony, which means that she is massively corrupt, and I can already sense her Black mana. She most likely wants to appear innocent and beautiful to unnerve her foes, and her eyes are unnatural, so I shouldn't be so concerned about killing her and releasing my anger upon her, _the Guardian sternly told himself, infusing his thoughts with the adamant determination to help end this war in any way that he could, so that those that he cared about – such as the young princes who would be at the forefront of the battle and in immense danger – could be protected. His role was as a Guardian and a Champion, anyway, which meant that he had to fight to protect those that couldn't do it as well.

The Gluttony Enforcers who were urging the cannibals into battle began whipping with an even greater frenzy, their malicious barbed scourges inflicting deep scratches in the unhealthy grey flesh of their captives and spurring them on even more, just as the giants began to stagger forwards at an increased rate as well, their footfalls leaving indents in the ground as they wobbled towards the Lucaelian lines, who had locked shields and readied their longsword – as Carlis's knights, the Spears of Justice, ironically wielded large but one-handed swords when they weren't mounted, as lances would be incredibly impractical weapons when fighting on foot.

"Benedias Cerelitas," Elizabex murmured, though her mana infused words still carried over the squadron of knights, and Tristram felts his limbs loosening and becoming lighter, guessing that this spell would improve their speed as he shot forward to meet the onrushing cannibals that would be thrown at the Lucaelians to pin them in place for the giants to attack. Despite wearing his plate armour, Tristram felt unencumbered by it when in a normal situation due to his familiarity with the dented and worn but trusty suit of armour that had carried him through many battles in the civil war (although at first Hierarch Tybalt had incessantly complained about dragging a heavy suit of armour with them when speed was of the essence, but quickly shut up when it repelled the strike of a large and clawed horror and allowed him to hit back and kill the beast), so now he was practically bouncy with speed and hacked apart a poor soul before they even noticed that he was within their ranks, his huge axe seemingly weightless in his hands (though he was used to its weight so when the enchantments expired when Elizabex ran out of mana he wouldn't be suddenly encumbered by the additional weight).

Athela moved her shield in front of her, spinning it as the circular and silver guard became infused with White mana that turned scintillating and lilac (although a magisterial, holy purple, not the garish and obtrusively bright pink of the Welkalites). With a whispered word, the angel swept out her glaive, the double-bladed weapon shining with the light of her magic, and balls of purple luminescence that heavily reminded Tristram of Caiellis's mana in certain situations that extended their glow in six directions. The charging prisoners paid no heed to the magic of the Aegis Angel, and when the first of them ran through it at Tristram they were eviscerated by the invisible lines of magic connecting each of the orbs of light.

Even so, that didn't seem to deter them, and then pushed at an even greater intensity against those in front of them who were apprehensive at running headlong at the Lucaelians after what they had just observed, but those who's survival instincts hadn't yet been overwhelmed by the desperate need to obtain food of any sort were soon knocked down and trampled by the swarming mass of emancipated bodies or swept along by the throng to meet a grisly fate at the hands of the Lightmine Field, the prisoners of Gluttony pressing themselves at the barrier and tearing themselves apart, the street below becoming filled with a sea of dismembered bodies that could have easily caused a less experienced warrior to vomit (and almost made Leo and Elizabex until their father and Glory steeled them with their mana) as the magic reacted to the amount of attackers by becoming even more destructive. However, with the weight of bodies pressing the attack, Athela had to maintain supreme concentration to keep up the spell, which the angel admirably did so until an arcing bolt of disruptive lightning fired by the Master of Gluttony caught her in the chest.

The magical missile wasn't meant to harm that much, anyway, so the Aegis Angel quickly recovered and healed herself, but her focus was dispelled by the chaotic nature of the attack and the tide of cannibals seethed towards the Lucaelians. Athela stood by Tristram's side, fighting side by side with him on foot in a manner not replicated by many other angels, and both swung their weapons into the horde of bare humans with armour consisting of simple rags (although over half were not even afforded that luxury), hacking apart undernourished men and women with every strike as the scrabbled to find purchase with their long nails on their armour.

_These poor souls,_ Athela's mind voice spoke to the Guardian just as a screaming figure charged at him head on, barrelling into his waist and attempting to tackle him over. Nonetheless, there was no force behind the charge, no weight to press against Tristram (and in a less desperate situation he would have recalled Alexander once trying the tactic when he was only nine against the twenty-two year old Guardian, the thin boy not able to move him in any way – although that would be what would happen if Cai tried a similar tactic now), so the Guardian shoved the man over and stamped on his head, his armoured boot crushing the fragile skull beneath them as he swung his already blood-slick axe into another howling individual that tried to bite him in the shoulder, hacking the woman apart and then shoulder barging another foe to the floor, where Valour's spear quickly dispatched them. _We are doing them a great service by freeing their souls from suffering. Hopefully they will find peace within the heavens._

Tristram spotted one of the large giants growling in greediness and picking up speed, flattening a knight that carved his sword along its bare leg with its fist and then picking up another one. The man stabbed the inhuman glutton in the face when the giant was about to thrust him into its slobbering maw, and the creature that vaguely resembled a human shrieked in pain, flinging the man across Banquet Street where he crashed into the ground amidst the back lines of starved captives who attacked him, slowly ripping open his armour as he was powerless to move under the weight of bodies, the paladin's Lucaelian wisp frantically assaulting the cannibals as they began to feast on him while he was still alive.

The giant pawed at the large cut underneath its eye, and Athela threw her shield, the edge energised by her holy White mana and reacting to the debased nature of the man and hacking into its fatty throat, cutting all of the vital arteries before returning to the seraph as she beat her wings and launched upwards, the Gargantuan's oleaginous blood spilling out from the wounds like a fatty sludge instead of a spray of high-pressure vitae.

The angel landed next to another Gargantuan, hacking her glaive across its lower abdomen, the energised edge of the blade ripping out its guts and intestines as it wailed in agony and swung a blow at her, which was blocked on her Aegis. Athela cracked the ground beneath her feet, but her circular shield absorbed the force to the strike and she returned it with a lashing slice that had all of the giant's strength returned in it. Instead of slicing the Gargantuan open again, the force of the blow sent it crashing backwards, staggering over and slamming into the ground where the Master of Gluttony had been sat, though the woman with the fiery eyes had simply stood up and moved further backwards, the giant's head splintering her throne, though she made no move to enter the battle.

Meanwhile, the tide of bodies around Tristram was becoming thicker still, as the seemingly endless amount of prisoners the Order of Gluttony had obtained pressed against the Spears of Justice, dragging soldiers down beneath the sheer weight of numbers and ripping open their plate armour to get at the juicy prizes within. Purity flew above the masses, the deer-headed elemental's mouth opening and letting out a mournful song at the killing in the form of a lance of light channelled by Elizabex's staff into an augmenting wave of light that increased the strength of her father's knight's blows, which, combined with the inspiring presence of Glory that killed foes all around it and the combat enhancing power of Valour made them kill cannibals with every blow while Athela attacked the Gargantuans.

Tristram hacked apart another unfortunate individual, this one a blonde Lucaelian girl that had barely passed out of her teenage years but her blue eyes suffused with the need to glut herself, and then sensed a huge surge in Black mana from the position of the Master of Gluttony. He barged another emancipated cannibal out of his way and glanced at the woman, who had shadows trailing around her and dragging themselves out of her open palm, billowing around her and becoming more solid by the second just as exultant and irrepressibly greedy laughter boomed through Banquet Street. The killing intensified, the swarming humans possessed of an even greater imperative to feed, as if suddenly and primevally sensing that they would only have a few more moments to eat before the ravenous demon that would soon be entering the world claimed their prizes, just as the incarnation of Glory cast a final spell upon the knights.

The remaining Spears of Justice surged forwards as well, bolstered by the auras and spells of the three incarnations of the Montlea family, carving apart the prisoners who were woefully outmatched by the new onslaught of the crusaders and filling the street with their corpses as claret liquid spilled out into the air. The two final Gargantuans rushed into the knights, trampling them as they charged towards Tristram, sensing that he was the Summoner of the angel that had methodically hunted down and killed their vile brethren, just as Athela crashed into the back of one, splitting apart its soft skull with her glaive just as Purity shot into the other, knocking it over with her antlers and goring into its eyes. Just as the Gargantuan's pudgy and clammy hands reached towards the noble beast, she opened her mouth wide and a stream of light spilled out, obliterating the brain of the huge man and extinguishing his unholy life force.

The tide of bodies pushing against Tristram suddenly stopped, and the tall man staggered out of the mass of hacked apart limbs and brutalised corpses, the sudden easing up of the pressure making him move forwards, the ten knights that remained forming up around him and the Montleas as the darkness intensified, blocking out the vision of the Master of Gluttony and stopping even Tristram from seeing her.

"Keep your guard up," Carlis warned, and though the words were unnecessary for the Spears of Justice, who were exemplary warriors despite not having access to Summonings greater than Niveous wisps, which flickered about them and did little to dispel the voracious gloom that had descended around the small part, Tristram sensed he directed them at his young twins. There was a malevolent cackle, and the knights automatically tensed and looked in its direction just as Tristram sensed the darkness being dragged away.

Then she was amongst them. The landed in the centre of them, her flawless body tensing with the perfect landing and her limbs moving sinuously, like that of a cat. With blinding speed, one of her swords, a wicked black blade that was steeped in malevolent intent and held in her right hand, rammed into one of the knights, splitting through a small chink in her armour that had been caused by one of the malnourished attackers but had not been noticed by the warrior, who was now impaled on the Master of Gluttony's malicious blade. The other sword, a twin to the one that was being withdrawn from the first knight to be killed, flicked out, decapitating another soldier of Lucael with a fiery slash that cauterised the wound as soon as it was caused, and before the man's helmeted head hit the ground she had already leapt off the ground and driven both her blades into another man's skull, dodging the strike of the Aegis Angel that hacked through the space she had previously occupied.

All this had occurred in less than a single second, and as the three bodies hit the ground almost simultaneously she had already killed another, smashing apart the woman's block with her more destructive and brutish blade and delivering a stab with its precise identical twin, hacking through the gorget in the warrior's armour and leaving her choking to death in her own blood. Just as Valour rushed forwards to meet her, another pale figure shot through the darkness that was quickly and greedily being soaked up into it, this one much bigger than its Summoner and full of bunched muscle. Tendrils of pure midnight shot into the incarnation, which snarled in zealous hatred but was nevertheless pushed back, just as the horned demon slammed its claws into the head of one of the six remaining Spears of Justice that were getting over the shock of the sudden attack, dragging the screaming man forwards as the claws dug into his eyes, and taking a massive bite out of his head, silencing the poor warrior.

Tristram rushed to the attack as the darkness faded, but was replaced by an even greater intensity of all-consuming and ravenous hunger that took over one of the soldiers and had her screaming in pain before two bolts of fire ended her yelling, the first blocked by a shield conjured by Elizabex (who looked notably more shaken by the violence, and Tristram reminded himself that this time his two charges were not Lucernas – and while he usually professed that it made no difference to their mental state, the fact was that with two normal children in the civil war they wouldn't have survived, and the descendants of Matalis could stomach much more torment than their subjects) before the second crashed through it and immolated the woman.

There was another laugh from the demon, who was beginning to rise up to his full height, black, batlike wings punching out of his pale back and extending towards the storm obscuring the Welkalite sun with its crackling spitefulness, his horns seemingly expanding and becoming even larger and more terrifyingly curved, as the demon exultantly bellowed his allegiance to the Tempest of Craving and the realisation of desire incarnate, malicious tenebrosity trailing around his sculpted limbs and pooling in its pale eyes.

"Foolish Lucaelians," it spat, contemptuously, derisively and haughtily staring down at the humans below it, the greater demon's eyes locking with the determined blue orbs of the Daughter of Protection and glinting with primal hunger, and nine tendrils of substantial darkness curled around its outstretched talons before blasting themselves at those of the kingdom of Light. Valour, Glory, Purity and Athela protected their Summoners by cutting down the bolts of maleficent shadow, but those without powerful Sancturia creatures – the last remnants of the all-but exterminated Spears of Justice – were cut down and impaled by the spikes of gloom, dragged over to the hovering demon where they were placed on the ground next to it, probably serving as its next meal, and it continued, arrogantly declaring, "I am the Archdemon of Greed, Arrapackxia, and I am your doom made manifest! Come, Ilentia, let us kill them all!"

Tristram's short hair was buffeted by the mana released in conjunction of the statement, and the Guardian forced himself to stay calm, drawing upon his inner reserves of courage and bravery to fight against the demon, telling himself that he had to stay alive and kill this Arrapackxia to protect the Montlea twins and by extension his original young charges – if he wanted to hear Caiellis adorably call him by his pet title of "Uncle" again, then he needed to survive, and needed to banish this Archdemon of Greed from the material plane and send him back to Sancturia. Even so, with the sheer size of the towering demon against him, there was an apprehensive flutter in his stomach. He forced himself to remember that he had killed the impersonator of Hierarch Inanis, the father of the current Light-bearer of Civitas Sol Aretis, and personally banished the demon-mage's Rethrix, Herald of Torment, and he could kill another demon.

"You may fancy yourself as an Archdemon, Arrapackxia," Athela spoke, her voice full of distaste belieing her utter abhorrence of the demon that was now facing her, which had turned to glare at her with an even greater intensity, a frown curling its lip as the angel continued, "But we both know that you are nowhere near as powerful as one of the Cursed Seven."

"Be silent, self-righteous whore," the demon barked back as his Summoner shot to its side, the woman glaring at Arrapackxia with undisguised hatred before shooting a glance back into the four Lucaelians and their sanctimonious Sancturia denizens. "You only won our last battle because I hadn't eaten yet," a conceited smile worked its way onto Arrapackxia's terrifying features, and he spread his magnificently horrifying and leathery wings wide in a mocking and taunting gesture beckoning Athela to attack him, "And I can guarantee you, little seraphim, that the outcome will be different now that I have."

Tristram was unsurprised when the angel and demon began to charge at each other, his own seraph reinforced by Elizabex's enchantments whereas Arrapackxia had simply his own power to use, but what had concerned him was the utter detestation the Master of Gluttony – or Ilentia, as the greater demon (apparently not an Archdemon, not that Tristram knew exactly what one was – though Johnias had supposedly obtained one, and individually it was whispered by heretics that they were more powerful than any sole member of the First Sisterhood, so the Guardian supposed he should be immensely grateful that Arrapackxia had just been boasting) had called her – had shown towards her demonic Summoning.

However, he did not have long to ruminate long on this peculiar instance, as Ilentia leapt towards him, her twin swords flashing in alternating arcs of fire and death. He blocked one on the haft of his axe and twisted away from the other, the admittedly beautiful woman's red eyes flicking round to where Carlis had launched an attack with his longsword. She somersaulted past that blow, and then kicked Leodred in the chest when he primed his own blade for a swing, knocking him to the ground with the force of the blow and expelling the air from his lungs in a whoosh, but before she could capitalise on the advantage Elizabex blasted a beam of light at her that was blocked on a wall of solid darkness, although had Ilentia tried to kill the girl's slightly younger brother then she would have found Athela's Aegis protecting him.

Glory then dived Ilentia, who shot a bolt of flame at the androgynous incarnation before leaping back as it emerged from the flames unscathed. She was so fast, ironically so when one remembered her apparent station as the Master of Gluttony, although Tristram sensed that she was possessed of an unnatural speed and was not completely human in the sense that there was something wrong with the core of her being, highlighted by her eyes and her pale skin despite the light of the Welkalite sun.

_Interesting,_ the woman thought, shooting a lance of darkness at the elemental, and as it then deflected that she noted that the colour of the ribbon attached to the Sancturia being's stave had changed from scarlet to onyx black. _So that one can switch the colour of mana that it is immune to, whilst the deer elemental of the girl blocks and converts my attacks of fire into healing should I try to use magic against any of the others. That means that physical attacks are the key, but should I try to use them firstly the Summoning of the boy improves the Lucaelians in that area and secondly the angel belonging to the tallest man with the axe will protect the boy and girl with the invisible shield that they assume I haven't seen yet, but which my kick to the boy revealed. So I need to kill him first, which Arrapackxia will be no doubt thrilled about, having his prey dragged prematurely back to Sancturia, but I honestly don't care. _

Tristram launched another attack at Ilentia, which was exactly what the Master of Gluttony wanted him to do. She ducked down beneath the swing, blocking his axe on her crossed blades and smirking when he blinked, stunned by the fact that she had simply absorbed the force of his tremendous and heavy blow on her two thin swords, though the master-crafted blades formerly belonging to Ershun Firefist were anything but flimsy. Ilentia then twisted, holding the axe on Fire while whipping round Malice to the man's elbow, cleanly hacking the forearm of his right arm off.

The pain was instantaneous and blinding, the malicious energy coating the blade amplifying the agony Tristram already felt, and it splintered with a sheer whiteness that threatened to overtake his consciousness. He could barely breath through the pain, and the force dropped him as a tormenting nothingness encompassed his entire being, the pain overriding every other stimulus and pouring through his nervous system. He was indescribably weightless yet paradoxically heavy in the same instance, and he was sure that he had cried out as blood began fountaining from the stump of his right arm, his forearm sliced off at the elbow.

Tristram could faintly hear shouting, feel himself being knocked aside as a beautiful woman with flaming rubies for eyes moved as if in slow-motion towards him before she was knocked aside. Distantly, the wounded Guardian perceived a scream of irritation, of plans thwarted, but that was before the buzzing and light headedness overcame him. A sense of desperate urgency that was pushing to the forefront of his mind, something that Tristram thought he should be paying attention to but couldn't quite grasp it, and he was briefly presented by a simultaneous overlapping of numerous painful flashbacks where similar situations involving him being plunged into hopefully brief unconsciousness had occurred – ranging from a three year old him jumping off of a second floor balcony to being smashed across a safe-house by an evil horror only around seven months ago.

Tristram knew that he should be getting up, continuing to help in this fight, but his mind insisted that he needed to rest now, at least for a short moment, and if it took him away from the pain – no matter for how long – then who was he to question it?

.*.*.*.

Caiellis stepped over the neatly dissected corpses of the Welkalite Enforcers from the Order of Rapture that hadn't been expecting an ambush from behind, and automatically shielded his eyes when he sensed the Tempest of Craving darkening the City of Pleasure increasing in power straight above him. A massive bolt of crimson lightning crashed down from the tumultuous heavens, crackling with furious intensity, but instead of impacting upon and damaging the shield he had instinctively formed around himself, the lightning was channelled into a single point on top of this hill that he was climbing, its destructive energy focussed into the one casting the storm instead of annihilating this hill.

However, three other strikes fulminated into the rest of Usnaan, and probably caused quite a bit of damage to the Lucaelian forces. Cai quickened his pace, running past the plaza that he was on and jumping over a stone wall, rushing up some stairs carved from the basalt rock of the hill in order to get to the top faster. He could still sense the roiling mana of the battlefield beneath him, many venerated Sancturia creatures including Akroma and Aurelia entering the material plane to do battle with their Welkalite counterparts, clashing in flashing displays of mana that shook the ground and caused hundreds, if not thousands of casualties. The siege of Usnaan was immensely brutal, the violence occurring at a pace that Cai had not anticipated even in his most dire assumptions, and not for the first time the littlest Lucerna cursed his weakness during the Voidwalk that had lead him to be delayed.

Caiellis needed to be fast, he needed to kill Tradax and stop his spells from destroying the legions of Lucael before too many deaths were wreaked to achieve victory, and when he shot past a corner he collected the magic of protective light matched with hatred-fuelled darkness into a ball around his right hand, blasting it as a bolt of pure unlight that shone with tenebrous radiance into a group of Enforcers that guarded the other end of a small and private alleyway, the lance of darklight slicing cleanly through them and draining their essence as it chopped them in two, leaving their two halves to slide off of each other and pitch onto the surprisingly pleasant paving slabs of the pathway. The Tempest above roared again, a reverberating howl of unadulterated thirstiness for more blood to be spilled and death to be caused, and Cai couldn't help but gulp nervously as he rounded another corner and emerged out onto a medium sized courtyard decorated with a simple but welcoming mosaic of a type of blooming desert flower, the most suitable adornment the youngest prince had seen to date within Welkas.

This place, which seemed like a personal residence that was relatively big but not greedy nor flaunting of the owner's wealth that they must have had to have obtained an entire hill within the overcrowded and sprawling Usnaan for their house, was shockingly quite agreeable and friendly, which surprised Caiellis, who assumed that the spell that summoned the Tempest of Craving into existence would have needed to be cast in an area that exemplified the emotions of primal lust for death, bloodshed and unrestrained pleasure, such as the towering, gaudy and flamboyant Palace of Desire to the right of this secluded private dwelling. He ran past a small building that looked like it would have been a stable for some sort of horse but had long since been abandoned, covered by the ubiquitous that was painstakingly cleaned from the more prestigious districts of the city below.

Caiellis slowed down, knowing that a headlong rush into the waiting clutches of Tradax and his evil compatriots could end his mission before it even began, but still kept running past the homely garden of evidently imported Erian plants that had evidently overgrown and subsequently withered and died due to abandonment and a lack of caring for the plants as they fought for the sunlight and food that remained and would have require near-perfect conditions to thrive in the dry climate of Welkas. There were only three more staircases carved into the hill that he had to ascend until he reached the pinnacle of the hill, where the main dwelling place of whoever had lived here some time ago was situated, and he could see the wrath of the Tempest of Craving conducted into another courtyard, this one larger than the others.

Caiellis felt a splash of warm liquid patter onto his left cheek, the droplet meandering down the pale flesh until it became joined by many more as the heavens opened. Cai knew that despite its unnatural nature, the malign storm above was still a formation of weather and so it could technically possess the ability to rain, and that as Welkas was a very hot nation their rainfall would be of a higher temperature and intensity than the (seemingly endless when they began) freezing Lucaelian downpours, but as more beads of the hot liquid landed from above and splashed onto him and the ground in front of him, he knew that this was no natural precipitation. He touched his free left hand to his cheek, feeling the heated liquid that was no simple water collecting on his thin fingertips, and as he pulled his hand away the fingers were wet and sticky. With horror, Cai saw that his fingertips were now covered in crimson blood as the intensity of the claret vitae raining down from the Tempest of Craving in a torrent of gore that splattered over everything, matting Caiellis's wavy brown hair with the sticky blood and almost instantaneously coating Usnaan in a layer of vivid red mingling with the lifeblood already spilt in the carnage of the two clashing armies.

_I need to be faster,_ Cai thought, just as within seconds of the rain of blood commencing a shield of purifying White mana surrounded him without warning, the droplets of vibrant scarlet ichor sizzling as they hit the protection around him, and though he had been touched by the blood and half-covered in it he was protected from the effects of the bloody rainstorm.

Cai involuntarily gasped in pain as the blood already on him became white hot and burnt into his skin, hissing as the shield painfully cleansed the pulsing red liquid from his body, just as Orzhova's voice spoke into his head: **Keep yourself protected and untouched from the effects of the Rain of Gore. This is the Tempest of Craving's second stage, a strike against wielders of Red and Black's hated enemy of White mana, and converts all attempts at healing into damage of equal amount inflicted upon the caster instead. I'm sorry about that, but I had to keep you clean of it, otherwise if even the smallest droplet was touching you if you attempted to repair any of yours wounds your healing magic would have backfired.**

Cai gulped and nodded in agreement, having not though that the Rain of Gore would have had any effects apart from signalling the storm above developing further and showing that enough had died to progress to the next stage and assumed that it was simply psychological. He was immensely grateful for Orzhova's foresight, as he could have easily killed himself with the amount of healing he did due to the fragility of his body preventing him from sustaining many wounds before causing him to die, meaning that he had to keep himself healthy with magic. He just felt extremely sorry for the Lucaelians who didn't have a Sancturia creature so well versed in the dark magic the enemies of the Kingdom of Light utilised, and wondered how many selfless mages and clerics would kill themselves while trying to repair the wounds of their allies. Once again he resolved to speed up, but kept himself stealthy as he swiftly ascended the final flight of stone stairs that were covered in blood that evaporated when his enchanted footfalls touched the gore.

Cai ran through a medium sized gateway that had been flung open, the iron bars of the gates rusted with the same lack of attention to them attributed to everything else in the residence, and Caiellis racked his brain for anything that could suggest why this was the location for the storm's ritual instead of any of the massively more suitable places scattered across the City of Pleasure, just as he ran past a skeleton propped up against one of the walls of the modest mansion that were becoming covered in blood. The bones were quite old, judging by the fact that there were no scraps of flesh covering them, and the fact that the body's neck was twisted at an awful angle suggested that whatever had killed the person had snapped it.

This was not a recent death, unless some magic had been used which aged the bones and flayed the skin from them without leaving any remains, and when he shot past another room he saw another few skeletons that looked like they had been picked up and thrown aside contemptuously by a murderer with more important targets to kill, but all had had their necks snapped which suggested that they had been killed silently as to no alert said more important targets. Caiellis banished the mystery of the deaths from his mind, knowing that it had little correlation with his current objective, and took a deep breath and kept low as he snuck into the courtyard.

There was Tradax, as expected, stood in the middle of the clearing, with his hands painting malicious smoking sigils that hurt Caiellis's eyes and pulsated and throbbed, changing colours from nefarious black to bloodthirsty crimson to diabolical and fluorescent pink, and back to black again, and the red electricity from the Tempest of Craving flowed into his spindly yet still pampered outstretched hands. The Master of Rapture weaved them around, etching more symbols of dark passion into the air as the torrential downpour of blood cascaded around him, although his garish robes remained clear of the gore, retaining their obtrusive vibrancy. Tradax looked as if he was a conductor of the most debased orchestra known to mankind, and occasionally he cackled maniacally and whispered sibilant words to a muscled figure knelt in front of him that clutched his head as red lightning poured into him, periodically emitting growls of pain and sobs of anguish.

Cai pondered the burly man's identity for a second, Tradax's victim around the same age as his own father but perhaps a few (but no more than five) years older, before sweeping his gaze across the clearing and endeavouring to keep his mana presence as low as he could without deactivating the shield and exposing himself to the sadistic effects of the Rain of Gore, scanning for any more potential enemies before he launched himself at the Master of Rapture. There were several corpses surrounding the two – seven of the ten had been recently killed, their throats slit and their bodies subjected to electrifying crimson energy as their blood had pooled into a ritual circle with seven points carved into the ground that was now covered in blood from the Rain of Gore, whereas the other three had been killed a long while ago, probably at the same time as the different bodies he had discovered further back.

One of them was another adult, but two of the skeletons were clearly those of young children, one of them a bit bigger than the other, but instead of having their necks silently snapped by powerful physical force these victims had been exposed to tremendous amounts of damage, judging by cracked rib-cages, snapped arms and the fact that the adult skeleton's bones were scattered further away from each other indicated that they had been painfully pulled apart when they had been killed. Clarity erupted in Caiellis's mind, and it suddenly all made painful sense. The fact that the few other corpses – the ones that would have tended to the animals and plants and cleaned the grounds – had been dispatched silently, whereas the two children and the adult had been agonisingly and brutally murdered, most likely in front of Tradax's present victim, though to what end the Master of Rapture was using the man in this dark ritual was currently unknown to the boy.

Judging by the age of the corpses, and some documents of Welkalite history that he had read (although the inhabitants of the New Empire of Passion much preferred to revel in the moment instead of focussing on the past, which meant that the books had been written by a travelling Yentarian monk from the enlightenment-seeking League of Isak), the time when the family had been killed was twenty years ago. The adult – the mother – and her two daughters had been butchered by an unknown assassin, and the girls' father and woman's husband, Tradax's victim, Jarred Redhand, had been forced to watch as they were murdered in cold blood, the catalyst for the Protector's breakdown and the Orders of Passion suddenly finding themselves free of restraint, going crazy with the power as the New Empire became the New Empire of Passion – all that Redhand had strived to do, which was to bring peace and equality to the Empire, had gone to waste with the murder of his wife and two young daughters.

With that revelation, Cai now understood why the Protector's Mansion had been chosen for the focal point of the conjuration ceremony: all of the debaucheries committed by the Welkalites now in the name of finding the ultimate individual pleasure had been made possible by the assassination of Redhand's family, his only weakness, as killing him would have required an immensely powerful warrior. It was still a mystery who had killed the man's wife and two children, although many suspected the scheming Masters of the Orders of Passion at the time, but what wasn't a mystery was the fact that the Protector had locked himself away with only his grief for company and abandoned the New Empire, allowing the corrupt Orders to run rampant and build up their stranglehold on the nation, which had in turn led to Tradax's dominance and the abduction of Caiellis and Alex, causing this brutal war. If Redhand's family had never been killed, then Caiellis wouldn't be here now, watching him being subjected to immense amount of torments by the maliciously whispering Master of Rapture.

"Ahh, little Cai, so you've finally arrived to come and play!" the spindly man swathed by his ostentatious robes that looked even more ridiculous and pretentious than the ones he had last seen him in, though at least this time there was already enough pain in his head due to the storm so the clothes didn't cause any, cried in mock happiness, and the boy scowled, ceasing the pretence of remaining stealthy and lancing a huge beam of light towards the Master of Rapture, who batted it away with a wall of solid shadows that erupted out of the fabric of reality and crackled with a volatile electricity. The man tutted in exaggerated despair, pouting, "It's been so long since I've seen you last, Lord Caiellis, and this is how you treat me? The youth of today..."  
"Tradax, the Master of Rapture," Caiellis replied, stepping out from behind his cover and hefting his Sword of Glass shone with a mixture of alternate energies powered by his hatred of the detestable man in front of him and the corrupt Orders of Passion that he was at the head of, as well as his need to protect the Lucaelians from the debased power of the storm roiling above Usnaan, and the Master of Rapture tutted again, correcting, "I'm known as the Archlord of Rapture now, my exalted prince."

_You've gone up in the world, _Cai thought caustically, but reserved his sarcasm for himself and rushed towards the man, blasting beams of darklight at him from his artefact weapon and conjuring up his wings of stained glass to add momentum to his attack, before and explosion of rage and flames forced him to leap backwards to avoid being immolated by the sheer force of the fiery detonation.

"YOU!" a voice, cracking with anguish and pain, screamed at him, and the abused form of Jarred Redhand attempted to stand up but was dragged back to his kneeling position by chains of darkness that thrust out of the ground and hissed with lightning that coursed through his veins, though it didn't stop his maddened shouting, "YOU! YOU! I WILL KILL YOU! YOU DID THIS! YOU WILL DIE! I WILL KILL YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!"

Caiellis's eyebrows raised in bemusement and the screaming as the man thrashed against his restraints, his red eyes full of hatred, distorted recognition and the base desire to kill the youth in any way possible. He shot a glance at Tradax, who looked just as stunned and confused as he did, before the Archlord of Rapture swiftly turned the outburst to his advantage, sibilantly whispering into Redhand's ear, hissing, "Yes, that's it! Channel the rage! Feel it course through your veins! Your vengeance will come soon!"

Yet more chains of fiery shadow wrapped around the Protector, restraining him as he desperately flailed against his restraints, his hands curling into fists as he imagined squeezing them around Caiellis's fragile body, and the nails that hadn't been cut for years digging into his calloused palms and drawing blood, the crimson liquid mingling with the gore spattering upon him from the unholy deluge of the Tempest of Craving as the corrupt vitae ran into his wounds and coursed through his bloodstream, amplifying the effects of Tradax's magic. Cai wasn't sure at all why his sudden appearance had set off the Protector, but supposed that despite him not yet being alive when the man's family had been slaughtered the addled and tortured mind of Jarred Redhand had obviously decided that he was the assassin that had killed the Redhand family.

"What are you doing to him?" Caiellis demanded, firing another wave of blinding White mana at Tradax, who jumped out of the way with an agility that shouldn't have been possible in his expensive and suffocating robes, and responded with an arcing bolt of crimson lightning that shattered apart a shield of glass-like mana Cai conjured in front of it. The man smiled, exposing his filed teeth that glinting in the frightening light of the thundering storm, flashing with every bolt of crimson lightning that was ejected out of its angry black depths, and replied, "I am simply preparing our esteemed Protector for his duty to protect the city of Usnaan against its attackers, your father's warriors, dear Caiellis. Soon, when the Tempest of Craving reaches its peak, the vessel will be ready, and the whole world will become our revel site. Even your precious cities will not be able to withstand the irresistible lure of passion, and when the Tempest of Craving reaches its peak, when the Protector is ready to accept the storm within him, accept his rapturous role as the vessel, you Lucaelians will die horrible deaths in the name of the Defiler!"

"You're insane," Cai spat, shooting forwards and launching a series of blistering strikes with his crystalline blade infused with opposite forces, carving blinding wounds of light into the man's shadowy defence before blasting shadows of his own at Tradax, who simply smiled thinly as he jumped backwards, one of the tendrils ramming through his lower calf as he shuddered in pleasure at the sudden pain, delighting in the feeling of agony as the prince's life-sapping magic cascaded through his essence, grinning in ecstasy and arcing bolts of crackling pink lightning that would cause Caiellis more pain then he had ever experienced before at the boy. As they were deflected on protective spells of light, the Archlord responded, running his tongue over his lips and enjoying the tingling feeling when his taste buds touched the blood raining from the Tempest of Craving that had splattered over his face, "It comes with the job, young Caiellis. And is it truly insanity to simply pursue one's wants? Anyway, enough with words. Let's begin this fight in earnest, since that is why you came here-"

"I didn't come here to "fight" you," Caiellis responded evenly, though every syllable of his calm words was dripping with pure hatred as his Black Sun birthmark crackled with purple lightning that was far more powerful than the crimson fury of the Tempest, and the Archlord of Rapture cocked one of his pencilled eyebrows, inquiring, "Oh? So what did you come here to do?"

"I came here to kill you," the boy finished dramatically, his eyes filling with alternate light and darkness as he ignored the pain using the Lenses of Guilt and Innocence caused, channelling his pure hatred of Tradax through him and using it to conjure up Black mana first in his Summoning ritual of Orzhova for the second time, a void of pure darkness opening up in front of his birthmark and dragging the spherical Black Sun out of it just as a malevolent and haunting hymn sprung into life, tendrils of hatred blossoming out of the unlight star and wrapping around him in a maelstrom of midnight gloom that he forced to obey his commands. Then, he moulded his desire for vengeance upon Tradax into one that was more concerned with holy retribution and the deliverance of judgement, coils of incandescent and imperious gold pulsing in time with the power of his Black mana and wrapping around it, moulding it into a vortex of light and darkness combined, suffusing his limbs with radiance and tenebrosity.

He harnessed the magic and tossed the Black Sun into the air, where it radiating darklight beams and expanded at a terrifying rate, its rumbling temporarily eclipsing that of the Tempest of Craving's as he poured hatred and the desire of justice and the protection of both the Lucaelian force, his brother (and to a lesser extent his father) and the Welkalite innocents like Kaled Denith who had been forced to live under the despotic Orders of Passion into the star of dark luminescence. Then the hymns drowned out that noise, his magic levels rising even more as he began to felt like a god, which was good as he would need divine power to take on the Archlord of Rapture, who was Summoning as well.

Caiellis rammed his relic armament into the earth, weaving sigils that he remembered from Orzhova's ritual into the air around him with a mixture of golden light and smoky dark, opening his arms wide and channelling them into the pulsing Black Sun that was expanding in size by the second, almost overwhelming the sense in his mind that Tradax was also in the process of Summoning, and he then slid the Sword of Glass that Marik had been uncharacteristically intelligent in gifting to his youngest son out of the ground, focussing on the vision gifted to him by the Lens of Guilt in spite of the agony that he overrode with his pure determination to end the life of Tradax and the Tempest of Craving and drawing Orzhova's scythe of gloom into the air. He then switched to his right eye, the Lens of Innocence distorted by the effects of the storm and the sheer lack of anything resembling innocence around the Archlord of Rapture, coating the shadowy weapon in gold as a hand, shining with a blinding intensity whilst simultaneously pulsing with a deep and hatred-filled darkness reached out of the aerial Black Sun.

This was the most powerful Summoning Caiellis had ever done, power rushing out of him as he faced the cause of the Lucaelian/Welkalite war and the death of many thousands of innocents, souls that he intended to avenge on this day, but instead of his thoughts converting into those of arrogance the greater intensity of his Black mana concentrated them into even more hatred of Tradax, who smirked indulgently back at him, like he was a foolish child that shouldn't be playing in the game of adults. Tradax's eyes lit up with the dark light of desire, the Archlord focussing on the darkness within him and drawing exultant power from the pulsating heart of corruption that was his wretched soul that he had willingly sold to a demon for even more power – and now that demon was going to fight for him. Instead of a monumental spell like that of the Tempest of Craving costing him huge amounts of power, it was gifting Tradax with mana instead, though that mana was unstable and unpredictable and could easily kill him just as much as aid him, although he knew the lord of the storm needed him alive for now, and the Archlord had made sure that his survival was essential to the plans of the dark patron.

He ripped a wall in reality just as Caiellis's Black Sun was being absorbed into a dark and terrifying yet still angelic figure that radiated hatred and evoked awe, and a large, scaly red beast tore through the rift Tradax formed and plodded into the material plane, its immense body shattering the courtyard stone beneath it as it laughed when he saw who would be facing the demon, tossing aside an unfortunate soul that was screaming in insanity and had amused the demon for a time until his Summoner called upon him.

"Meet Carramoshk, the Sire of Insanity!" the Archlord of Rapture cackled, feeling the power gifted to him by the Tempest of Craving rushing through his veins and filling him with additional mana, but also a pounding lust for pleasure that would only be satiated when the ritual was completed. Redhand's thrashing stopped as more agonising Red and Black mana ripped through him and annihilated his nervous system, leaving him twitching and drooling, and Carramoshk regarded the Protector with a mixture of triumphant exultance and thinly veiled and petty hatred combined with jealously and envy, before turning its maddening green eyes that twinkled with dark insanity towards Orzhova and Caiellis, gurgling and laughing mockingly, "Oh my, this is a treat! To have the disgrace of the First Sisterhood as my opponent today! I'm half-expecting her to stab her baby Summoner in the back and join us in our rapturous celebration!"

Orzhova didn't even bother to dissuade Caiellis from agreeing, already knowing that there was no way her hatred-filled young Summoner (echoing her own loathing of Carramoshk and his master) would believe the demon's taunts, and lanced a ray of unlight towards the lumbering red creature, who derisively batted it aside with its massive crimson hands before loping towards Caiellis, slamming his tail into the ground and shaking the plaza with every loud footstep that seeped corrupting mana into the ground. Cai was about to leap away before a crackling eruption of lightning shattered his Gift of Orzhova, so instead he shot towards the Sire of Insanity and jumped over its clawing blow, having assumed the prince would try to flee and as such misjudging the strike, as it snarled, "I am going to enjoy feasting upon you, little Lucerna (for a moment the boy was extremely relieved that it hadn't said "little lost lamb")!"

Orzhova hacked into the demon's back, her scythe pulsating with venomous dark magic that augmented the killing power of the executioner's weapon, a technique that Caiellis hadn't seen her use yet but was one that the Angel of the Black Sun had often utilising in the reign of Xarius. Carramoshk shrieked in pain and slammed her away with his spiked tail, the boy wincing in empathetic pain as some of the spines tore hunks of flesh out of his angel before the essence draining magic of Orzhova's poison healed the dark seraph, as she had already come prepared for the Rain of Gore with a shield that nullified the effects of the heal-preventing downpour.

Tradax blasted another bolt of lightning at Caiellis that split through his shield and juddered through him, sending his mind reeling as painful images erupted through it, escalating the physical pain that was caused as it rushed through his nervous system, attempting to incinerate the nerves before Orzhova erased it with a pulse of healing mana. The boy shot a storm of scintillating fragments of glass at the demon as it rounded on him, stampeding towards him with its green eyes full of hunger for the soul of a Lucerna, a familiar sight to Cai who had often faced similar from other demons (including the grinning one that had plunged its claws through his mother's stomach) as he rolled out of the way, the shards of glass tearing jagged cuts through the demon's red and sinewy flesh and sending sprays of vivid black blood that corroded the ground in all directions, hissing loudly in tandem with the demon's growl of irritation as it batted aside another bombardment of crystalline glass, shattering the fragments into even tinier pieces even as they cut into his arm.

Carramoshk snarled at the prince as Tradax narrowly avoided beams of light that cut through the air towards him, leaving smoking craters in the ground and even incinerating several holes in his ostentatious robes, Orzhova arcing her scythe towards him and deflecting the coruscations of malignant voltage that he fired in her direction in an attempt to dissuade the dark angel from pressing the attack. The huge red demon trampled towards Caiellis, who leaped backwards on a new pair of wings that Tradax was too distracted by Orzhova to dispel, dodging a swipe that left painful red after images on his retinas, but then was dragged forward when a chain of burning shadow was wrapped around his slender waist and pulled him out of the sky towards the slavering jaws of the Sire of Insanity. The boy hacked apart the unholy fetters just as the demon put on a huge burst of speed, lightning wrapping around its tree trunk legs and allowing it to shoot forwards.

The youngest Lucerna yelped in pain as an immensely strong and huge hand enveloped his entire ribcage and began to squeeze with an immense crushing force as he was dragged forward, the giant claws of the demon scraping across his back and tearing the skin (but luckily only slicing apart the surface instead of penetrating to his spine and paralysing the kid), smashing apart his wings of elegant stained glass, Red and Black mana collecting on the talons and filling the youngster with unnatural fear, the dread of the defeated that froze up his movements as a series of disturbing and terrifying images flashed through his mind.

He saw charnel houses of death with bloody corpses piled up all around him and claustrophobically crushing him, then he was assaulted by the sights, sounds and scents of a full-blown orgy of bloodshed and frenetic pleasure in the Hedonist's Quarter, innocent civilians and prisoners subjected to horrific abuse that sent Caiellis's mind reeling as he was dragged unmoving towards the hungry maw of the Sire of Insanity as the demon gnashed its teeth.

Then, an explosion of blinding light sent the denizen of Sancturia darkness reeling as luminescence rushed out of the stricken prince, Orzhova raising the pulsating golden medallion in her left hand high as shadows circulated and gravitated towards it, turning into shining luminescence as they passed through the symbolic representation of the Black Sun and then infusing Caiellis with even more mana. Carramoshk shrieked in agony as its claws and hands began to be dissolved into their corrupted constituent particles, and with a vindictive final crush flung Cai across the courtyard, where he crashed into a stone wall and when the contact with the demon was broken, the boy was freed from the visions bombarding his mind and leading it down the path to insanity.

Fortifying White mana rushed through his mind as he constructed mental defences to protect himself from the maddening touch of the demon that grinned at him, growling in a mixture of anticipation, his malicious voice halfway between a sarcastic whine and a threatening snarl as it snaked back to Tradax's side, preparing itself for another onslaught of violence to erupt. Its green eyes exuded malice, and the spines bursting through its back seemed to be extending every second, as it more power was pulsing through it and pushing the black spikes further out of its skin in a sickening extension of bone. However, the most terrifying aspect of Carramoshk that Caiellis had first hand experience in being subjected to was its malicious aura that oozed through its scaly red skin that promised an eternity of madness in the demon's vile clutches.

**Do not let the demon touch you**, Orzhova's vaguely admonishing but mostly concerned voice cut into the boy's mind, as the youngest prince pulled himself to his feet as glittering sparkles of White mana poured into his wounds, the infinitesimal shield of thin, gossamer-esque glass surrounding his magical essence and protecting him from the negative effects of the Rain of Gore luckily not yet cracked by his mauling at the hands of Tradax's greater demon, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to repair these wounds and stand up. The demon smiled back at him when he glared in its direction, exposing strands of desiccated soul flesh (that looked exactly the same as human flesh) stuck between its rows of razor-sharp and bone-white fangs, Carramoshk's thick and snake-like tongue lapping over the gushing viscera raining down upon the city and nullifying the healing magic of those it touched.

In spite of the fact that the battle between the youngest Lucerna prince and the Archlord of Rapture seemed incredibly chaotic and disorderly, Caiellis had noticed that there was a clear and distinct pattern to the way Tradax subtly manipulated the fight so that there was always either him, or more commonly Carramoshk, in between Caiellis and the inanely screaming Jarred Redhand, which meant that obviously "the vessel" had some large importance to the continuation of the Tempest of Craving, and so the boy filed that information away in his mind as a secondary method of achieving victory – should he be somehow unable to kill the Archlord of Rapture, then he could start targeting the forlorn Protector instead, but with the way that Tradax was acting it would be much easier to eliminate him and therefore end the unnatural thunderstorm in that manner instead.

The beast drew itself up to his full and monstrous height, flexing its gargantuan red biceps as if challenging Orzhova to come and face its sadistic might, just as Tradax squealed, his voice full of ecstatic joy, "You cannot stop the ritual, little Caiellis, even with your dark angel! The Revel can't end now! The Tempest shrieks, and the City of Pleasure is ready for the grand entrance of the Lord of Riots, and when He enters Usnaan the streets will run wild with the bloody favour of our dark patron! Soon, my master will appear, and He will smite you upstart Lucaelians into the dirt for us to trample upon you!"

Tradax's voice was becoming progressively more crazed and exultant every word he spoke, and his slitted cat-like eyes filling with crackling energy from the storm above that coursed through his veins, and with every death in the streets below – Welkalite or Lucaelian, it mattered not to the overlord of the Tempest of Craving – his unstable power rose, Red and Black mana exuding out of his skin as he raised his arms, his lumbering slug of a demon mirroring his movements as four rough orbs of magic collected at the ends of of their outstretched palms. Both Caiellis and Orzhova increased the amount of mana they were emitting, snaking tendrils of shadowy light bursting out of the ground as beams of luminescent darkness streaked down from the heavens.

The cacophonous sound of the apotheosis of extreme pleasure mixed with screams of lunacy blasted out of the wielder of chaotic Red and Black mana and his Summoning, just as Orzhova let go of her scythe to allow it to orbit around her and brought her slender and gloved hands together, the star of dark radiance that had birthed her into existence and fuelled by the conjoined force of her and Cai's hatred of their foes, the haunting hymn of the abandoned cathedral in his mind springing into life and clashing in a battle for auditory dominance with the primal screams of pleasure resounding from the other side of the courtyard. Carramoshk and Tradax brought their hands together, mixing the volatile energies they were channelling in an explosion of fire that blasted towards Caiellis, the flames taking the shape of screaming individuals with their fiery eyes full of rapturous pleasure and pain as they reached towards the boy and his angel, their hands becoming clawed and black as they extended in the direction of the holy Lucerna.

Caiellis sensed that Orzhova knew exactly what to do, so maintained his current stance of pouring additional mana into the Angel of the Black Sun, who held the spherical and shining physical representation of her namesake in her pale palms, her onyx eyes closing as crackling tears of purple lightning coursed down her cheeks. At a sudden thought as the torrent of soulfire crashed through the air towards him, Cai forcefully pulled his mind back to the night of his mother's murder, focussing in on those emotions of absolute terror, sadness and pure hatred that he had felt at the death of Emili, incandescent tears running down his own cheeks and interacting with the birthmark symbol of the orb Orzhova was holding, the display of emitted purple light reflected in the manifestation of it in Orzhova's hands as yet more White and Black mana coalesced around the angel, the coils of gold twisting around tendrils of solid gloom as waves of light were darkened into malevolent pulsations of purple unlight.

The screaming and twisting rush of flames hurtled towards the prince, whose dark seraph levitated the Black Sun above her as the light and darkness around her began to become gravitated into it, Caiellis's hair whipping up as a magical wind sprung into life that had the angel's black robes buffeted around Orzhova, the angel of the First Sisterhood slowly and dramatically pulling her hands away from each other as each was infused with a different type of mana – the left was shining with the holy light of the Sanctum Angelica, whereas the right was suffused with the dripping darkness of the abyss. Suddenly, she slammed them together, and the rumbling orb of darklight hovering in front of her and her Summoner exploded in a supernova of alternate energies that forced Caiellis to close his eyes and instinctively cover his ears as the choir without a mouth began to sing even louder, their mournful and loathing-filled voices drowning out the din Tradax's pandemoniacal magic as the rush of flames that had made Cai start to sweat within his light armour by increasing the already hot temperature died down.

He opened his eyes, and in spite of the fact that Orzhova had just released a tremendous amount of mana, still felt ready for fighting and that he could cast even more huge spells, although he always felt this way when he had Summoned and the exhaustion always came afterwards, although he had never pushed himself to the absolute limit where he physically couldn't sustain Orzhova any longer. The storm of flames that had been launched at him had been vitrified by the angel's magic, turning into an immobile sculpture of crystallised glass that contained the turbulent mana of the spell within it. The boy had to fight to keep a smile etching itself onto his features, keeping them stony and cold instead and suppressing his thoughts of narcissism under the power of his hatred for demons, and he shot forward, his Sword of Glass's crystalline edge suffused with glimmering darkness that glittered with the light of twinkling light infused into its essence, the flecks of justice mixed in with the hatred, and flew out of the way of the demon's strike of coruscating and vivid pink lightning, anticipating the Archlord of Rapture annihilating his Gift of Orzhova and turning his fall into a roll that made him land next to the Welkalite of medium height, just as the Angel of the Black Sun flew to engage the Sire of Insanity that charged at him, hacking into the beast with her spinning scythe and turning the essence that she drained from it into more healing for Caiellis, completely restoring the damage done to him by Carramoshk.

Cai found it ironic that evidently Tradax didn't know as much as the Tempest of Craving he had invited over Usnaan as Orzhova did, as otherwise the manipulative Archlord that was (in Caiellis's experience, although he had made several mistakes, such as misjudging the preparations of the Resistance underneath Usnaan that Cai had assumed had fled or been captured and killed since as far as he could see they weren't helping the Lucaelians) good at capitalising on his opponents' weaknesses would have been targeting the invisible shield that prevented the Rain of Gore from touching him and smashing that apart with his magic (as it was immune to physical attacks), as now Cai could simply keep repairing his wounds with the enormous amount of mana Orzhova gave him, so unless Tradax killed him or came close to it in a single blow then he couldn't be stopped.

Orzhova hacked into Carramoshk's chest, just as the demon gripped onto the handle of her scythe, ignoring the fact that it was burning his flesh and that he was ramming its blade further within him in an attempt to wrestle the blade free from. The angel snarled, opening her wings wide and pulsing concentric circles of darkness-hating and blinding White mana from behind her in shockwaves of luminosity, but the demon roared at her, its mouth gaping wide and a gout of oily and tar-thickened flame belching out from its gullet, spraying over the Angel of the Black Sun just as it left go of the scythe with one clawed hand and reached towards her. Orzhova shrieked in pain as the flaming black fire washed over her, burning through her pale flesh and melting some of it off of her bones, and was forced to let go of her ornate weapon and leap back from the demon before it touched her – while she was more resistant to the insanity-inducing contact as a member of the First Sisterhood, it would still slow her movements and force her to divert mana to smother it.

The second the scythe left her grip, the golden coating of parts of it bled off of it, turning into a stream of light and coalescing around a new shadowy scythe Orzhova etched into existence, the first weapon of the angel becoming a scythe of pure darkness that crackled with fire and lightning. Orzhova had no particular attachment to specific weapons, as while she always fought with the same scythe the power was within her instead of a material artefact, but handing her weapon over to the Sire of Insanity to have it corrupted and converted to his demonic will was something she had wanted to avoid.

Cai heard his angel's scream of agony and his mind pulsed with even more abhorrence of Tradax and what he was doing to the city – and wanted to do to the world – and he shot a glance back to Orzhova, whose flesh had been melted off but was in the process of being repaired by flecks of golden light. He lanced a thrust at Tradax, who danced back, a curved sabre of his own drawn that was crackling with lightning. Cai sent bolts of blinding light flying at the Archlord of Rapture, who blocked them on his shield of shadows that made the man immensely grateful for the occasionally defensive properties of the vile Black mana within him, as otherwise Red magic conferred no protection and he would have been forced to take large amounts of damage from the prince's magical assaults.

The boy launched another strike at him, and he parried it on his sabre before the metal blade was hacked in half, Tradax's eyes opening wide in surprise as his blade was cleaved through by the superior weapon of the prince, though he quickly turned it to rapturous arrogance when he felt another influx of power from the storm, suggesting that even more in the battle for Usnaan had been killed and it had greedily taken their souls. He jumped back, and fulminated a bolt of crimson agony towards the thirteen year old boy he was currently facing, grinning widely as it penetrated through the shield that he quickly conjured and sent jolts of spasming torment through the young prince.

"Can you feel the pain, Caiellis Noctis Lucerna? Can you feel the agony coursing through your veins, the blessed ecstasy of torture rushing through your nerves?" he cried, his voice suffused with frenzied jubilance, and he increased the intensity of the lightning. Cai gritted his teeth against the agonising pain, staggering backwards as the Archlord of Rapture walked closer towards him, the power of the electricity heightened by the culmination of the Tempest of Craving above him, the storm of maleficent will gifting the man with huge amounts of power as it neared completion – and when it did, it would be magnificent. Tradax taunted, moving towards the boy and sidestepping a bolt of darklight that was flung in his direction, jeering, "Soon enough will have died to allow the unholy Defiler to enter this world and fill it with the bliss of chaos! You cannot stop it, little prince, nor can you stop the slaughter of your Lucaelian subjects! Your brother and father will both die horrible deaths in the name of carnal pleasure, and their bodies will be roasted on the flames of hedonism!"

Caiellis let out a planned scream of pain as the Archlord of Rapture stepped further towards him, although it wasn't in any way forced as the Red and Black mana rushing through him was one of the most painful things he had ever experienced before – but this physical hurt was nothing in comparison to the emotional agony he had spent his life living within that had only been staved off by the presence of his big brother, whose life he would preserve by killing Tradax now. Evidently the Archlord of Rapture was too distracted by the power of the storm flowing through him and his own arrogance at his perceived victory, as while Orzhova and Carramoshk crashed in a violent battle of scythe combat and flashing mana the Angel of the Black Sun was ready for the next stage, letting the Sire of Insanity believe that by delaying her he was allowing Tradax to finish off her youthful Summoner.

Cai fortified his thoughts of hatred with the noble goals he wanted to achieve by killing Tradax, running White and Black mana through him although not to the extent that the Archlord of the Welkalites would notice, as he still needed the man closer so he crawled back away from him, whimpering pitifully at the all too real pain that would have paralysed him in a paraplegia of torture had he not have Summoned and had powerful mana flowing through his entire body. Hatred mixed with the desire to do justice and end the Tempest of Craving reinforced his mana, and he waited for a short moment for Tradax to take another step towards him, utterly and sadistically focussed on the pain he was causing Caiellis and as such unable to discern the true threat before it was too late.

Tradax grinned widely, the power of the storm pressing into his mind as the number of deaths that were needed for the final, and most impressive part of the ritual to begin – the Infernal Contract of the Lord of Riots – decreased with every murder in the battle fought between the Kingdom of Light and the New Empire of Passion, until it could be counted on two hands, and then on one hand. He blasted more lightning at the stricken form of the boy in front of him, delighting in the pain he was causing to one of the two princes that had shamed him to a great extent in front of his former dark ally and made him look like a fool, and was now trying to usurp his dominance over the New Empire of Welkas, trying to kill him and end his rapture. _Not long to go now, and then the Lucaelians will be shown the error of their ways. Three – no two! - more deaths until the Defiler can greet us with his orgy of bloodletting and mayhem!_

Cai opened the floodgates of the mana that he had kept pressing against a gateway in his mind, surging to his feet as invulnerability-granting White mana rushed through him, and he clapped his small hands together. Orzhova stopped her relentless barrage of scythe strikes and instead wrapped Carramoshk in chains of gold contrasting with restraints of shadow that pierced into his unholy flesh, just as a massive release of White and Black mana burst out of her young Summoner. The huge sculpture of the roiling soulfire that the Sire of Insanity and the Archlord of Rapture had launched at them at the start of the second stage to the fight shattered into millions of shards of scintillating glass that surrounded Tradax, who cried out in fury and released flames of dark frustration around him in a circle just as tempestuous laughter boomed over Usnaan, a screaming cry of destructive evil and a hysterical giggle of twisted entertainment rousing the Welkalites below to even greater acts of carnal debauchery, as the number of deaths require to activate the Infernal Contract was reduced to a single.

Tradax laughed and let the shards of glass surround him and block off his vision of the rest of the courtyard, though the few that launched themselves at him were incinerated into ash by his flames, a conceited snigger that aptly highlighted how close he was to achieving his goals – all that was needed was one more person to die in Usnaan, and the boy's pathetic spells would be swept aside and trampled by the lord of hedonism's appearance in the material realm. The mana behind his eyes and in the crackling and thundering Tempest of Craving reached a breaking point, their power only restrained by the single person left to die, and then it would burst out of him and complete the ritual.

Caiellis waisted no time with the spell he was casting, infusing each individual fragment of crystalline material with malevolent light as Tradax began cackling with even greater insanity mixed with a note of desperation when he realised that if the person didn't die, then he would lose his life instead, and the ritual would be ended. Tradax looked about him, and all he could see were the reflective shards of glass that showed his reflection within them. He smiled, and then it turned into a grimace when the first one of them detonated, a part of Tradax's soul itself shattering into pieces within the Archlord of Rapture, who frantically flung bolts of lightning out into the walls of reflective glass enclosing him in, his reflection glaring at him from all sides and staring down at him judgementally.

_Why isn't the ritual finishing yet? _Tradax desperately thought as he cried out in pain, the glass that he destroyed ripping pieces of his debased soul apart when he obliterated them, _Surely one fucking person must have died by now?! What is happening? DIE! HURRY UP AND DIE! DIE!_

It was then with a sickening lurch of fear that Tradax realised that he had been played for a fool, a delicious twist of irony that he would have found incredibly amusing had he not been the recipient of it, as his soul essence was wrung out of him from the inside and burst painfully out of his cracking flesh. The last death, the final soul, needed to complete the Tempest of Craving's second to last stage...

Would be his own.

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Carlis Montlea: Glory

Bronn Preolm: Adakar Valkyrie

Telaia Gladium: Celestial Crusader

Eleanour Palladia: Pallisade Giant

Lucaelians: Armoured Griffin

Fraetus Etin: Malignus

Welkalites: Kami of Fire's Roar, Kragma Butcher, Deathbellow Raider, Cyclops of One Eyed Pass, Carnage Gladiator, Squealing Devil, Rakdos Drake, Havoc Festival (art).


	31. Lord of Riots

Caiellis channelled condemning Black and White mana into the rough sphere of scintillating glass fragments surrounding the screaming Tradax, his detestation of the man powering his desire to make him pay for his sins, what he did to the Welkalite public and wanted to do to the world. The glass shards would be reflecting his inner personality, the dark heart of the Archlord of Rapture exposed by his revealing magic, and Orzhova added to the incantation with words of her own as the Sire of Insanity screeched in indignant fury as he sensed his master's life being ripped away from him. Grim vindication flowed through him, as while the thirteen year old didn't enjoy killing nor violence, he felt like removing the stain of Tradax from the world and ending the Tempest of Craving was something good.

Power rushed through his slender fingertips, his right hand emitting globules of shifting shadow that mixed with the imperious luminescence discharged by his left, the two combined becoming a beam of shining darkness wrapped in coils of golden White mana and crackling with purple electricity that fulminated from his Black Sun birthmark down his right cheek and coruscating down the corresponding limb, meeting the hands that were clasped together in the middle and sparkling over the enclosing prison of reflective glass that Tradax desperately flung bolts of his own vivid pink and crimson lightning into, shattering apart the pieces trapping parts of his own soul and as such sealing his own doom.

Caiellis could feel the Red and Black mana seething above him and into Jarred Redhand reaching a crescendo of mindless destruction, so with a thought prompt to Orzhova massively increased the amount of power he was outputting, dragging his hands away from where they were touching and simultaneously attracted and repulsed from each other because of the combined alternate energies swirling in a singularity of light and darkness in between them. It was incredibly difficult to tear his palms away from each other, but once he reached a certain point it suddenly became extremely easy and adversely hard to push them back together. He ruminated upon saying something, but knew it wouldn't be heard over Tradax's increasingly despairing and frustrated screaming, and really there was nothing to say. Caiellis didn't feel that much, just a sense of hollowness and vague pride at having completed his duty, as well as a tiny feeling of hope that he quickly strove to crush that his father might now be proud of him.

He pointed his palms towards the sky, the Sword of Glass thrumming in the ground in front of him as energies released from the crystalline blade flowing towards his hands and coiling up his arms, and then, moving quickly as he knew that if he delayed too long casting this spell and finishing off Tradax then he could be giving the despicable man enough to finish off the second to last stage of the Tempest of Craving, infused the glass imprisoning the Archlord of Rapture with large amounts of mana, drawing the six sigils he remembered from the Circle (_of what?_) Orzhova had etched into the air in the battle for Jeksaan, and although he knew his versions wouldn't be as powerful as the ones that the Angel of the Black Sun, the most likely candidate for inventing the technique, had created, they still augmented his magic power to an even greater extent.

The youngest Lucerna focussed on the utter hatred he felt towards the Orders of Passion, remembering the man who had been brutally beaten and captured because he couldn't afford to enter the Augur's Quarter, and thinking of all of the Lucaelian and innocent Welkalite lives that had been lost – almost including his big brother – that he would avenge in this final act. He then concentrated on more personal issues: the current resentment between him and his father was also due to these debauched bastards, and though it wasn't more important in the grand scheme of things than the amount of death caused – which would he heightened if he didn't kill the Archlord of Rapture now – the intimate resonance of it combined with Alexander's near death at the hands of the last vampire that the Welkalites had harboured and given refuge to powered his magic even more, until it reached a pinnacle of mana and saturated throughout the air.

"No! NO! PLEASE! DIE, SOMEONE! PLEASE! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" Tradax shrieked loudly as the wall of glass fragments began shining with a blinding intensity of castigating darklight, dark and terrifying hymns singing to the same tune as the ones inside of the lonely and abandoned cathedral inside of Caiellis's Mind Realm but with a much lower pitch blasting through his ears and even overwhelming the tempestuous laughter of the storm above, the rapturous screaming inside of Tradax's mind drowned out by this judging and chastising melody that pressed in at him from all sides and made him feel the pain of every single death he had caused, every single soul he had abused in his made lust for ever greater power that had led him to declare war upon another nation and invite death upon the innocents of his nation that cowered frightfully in their homes at the fighting outside.

First out of his sadistic and slitted cat-like eyes that were remarkably less arrogant knowing that his demonic patron had consigned him to this fate were the tears of self-pity and fear knowing that now he would have to atone for his crimes and that the demon would claim his spirit to add to its horde and torment it for an eternity of madness and pain. He could feel the Tempest of Craving calling for him as more parts of his body agonisingly shattered, vitrifying and then fracturing, splintering across the ground and spilling the particles of glass all over the courtyard as he cried, the tears turning into rivers of glass as well before they shattered on his face.

Then blood began to seep out of every orifice in his body as the hymnals reached a zenith of judgement, Black mana pouring into him and making him bleed through the cracks in his body as yet more of it fractured, his left arm smashing apart as shards of iridescent glass cascaded to the stone ground, mirroring the shattering of the prison of crystals blocking off his escape as they absorbed parts of his soul and splintered it into thousands of pieces, although Tradax knew from the depths of his being that that would not stop his master from claiming it and using it to further his own goals. He scrabbled at the ground, futilely trying to reclaim the particles of glass that had scattered throughout the courtyard, but every time he touched one of the fragile pieces they broke apart even more, millions of shards covering the earth until they dissolved into nothingness as tears of blood poured out of his eyes, mixing with the natural clear tears and then glassing over as well.

Caiellis didn't exactly know what his spell was doing to Tradax, but judging by the man's screaming it was immensely painful, and while he was certain that the undoubtedly evil Archlord of Rapture deserved the agony as he had inflicted much more upon others, it still slightly disturbed him as he wanted to kill him swiftly. Cai was stuck between his desire to make the man suffer for his crimes, as one, more evil part of his mind (the one that had wanted him to give Aksua an extremely painful death for what she had done to his big brother) suggesting that vengeful course of action, whereas another simply wanted the man dead so that the army and the Welkalites could be safe. The latter won out, though Cai made sure to reinforce his mental state and stop caring about the amount of torment he was putting the utterly and unequivocally earning Tradax Yulica through, so he brought his hands together one final time as Orzhova slammed the handle of her scythe into the ground, adding her power to his but otherwise not guiding him in the spell.

Tradax shrieked once more, an undulating scream of agony, as all of the shards of glass from the blast of soulfire he and Carramoshk had launched at Caiellis and the boy's dark seraphim erupted simultaneously, spilling the light held within them over the Archlord of Rapture and bathing him in a purple, black and golden glow that alternated rapidly between the aforementioned colours as more of his body vitrified and cracked apart. The man could feel himself dying as his essence was converted into healing mana that repaired the few wounds Caiellis had sustained, though it took longer because of the corrupt and vile Black mana wriggling inside of his loathsome heart, the result of his Infernal Bargain that Aksua orchestrated roughly seven years ago, attempting to pull his disintegrating body back together again. He then began to convulse as he physically felt his soul, his personality and the core of his being, starting to be violently ripped out of his glassing body, a feeling like he was being wrung inside out encapsulating him.

Over the condemning hymns of Prince Caiellis, Tradax could now hear insane and psychotic laughter reverberating within his skull, and knew that the pain he was suffering here was nothing compared to what he would be subjected to when the Lord of Riots got his claws upon the self-styled Archlord of Rapture's petty soul, as the man thrashed spasmodically in tandem to the demonic laughing inside of his head and coming from the Tempest of Craving that roiled and rumbled above, as Carramoshk roared in frustration at having his plans thwarted when they were so close to fruition and the Protector clutched his head in pain. A black liquid was oozing out of Tradax's eyes, at first starting like tears until it rushed through the eye sockets like a tide of foul liquid that throbbed to the sound of the malignant and hysterical cackling and howls of the Defiler, pushing the eyes out of their sockets in a sickening loss of sight, though it still didn't release him from the tormenting crimson glow mixed in with the judgement giving purple from Caiellis's magic of light and darkness mixed.

Then, Tradax was freed from the physical agony when a golden scythe swept into his spasming and crystallising form, smashing him apart for good and cleaving his head off of his shoulders – although disturbingly to Cai, the last expression etched upon the Archlord of Rapture's face wasn't representative of the pain he had been going through. It wasn't a howl of pain, but a rictus grin that rolled up at him as the head bounced across the courtyard of the personal Redhand mansion from the force of Orzhova's decapitating blow, a smile of pure and unadulterated insanity and ecstasy, like the agony of his brutal murder was the apotheosis of bliss and in his final moments Tradax had revelled in it, but the thoughts quickly passed from Caiellis's mind as the head dissolved into millions of minuscule flecks of glass that were swept away by the wind of the storm above, though the boy could sense the chaotic Black and Red mana emanating from it and directed at the City of Pleasure slowly fading with the death of the one who was casting it.

Cai sighed softly, feeling exhausted by the fight, as killing someone who had that much pure mana fountaining through him was and incredibly difficult task and required significant amounts of energy from the ones trying to do it if they wanted to kill their foe in a magic-utilising manner. He was breathing relatively heavily, and though the sensation of hollowness was still quite prominent it was becoming accompanied by an influx of an emotion that he didn't often feel when it was directed towards himself, but one that he felt was currently understandable and completely justified – pride. Despite hating killing, and knowing that at the heart of his being that it was deeply wrong, Cai couldn't help but feel proud of the fact that he had gone alone and killed the channeller of the Tempest of Craving by himself, though he soon smothered the slightly premature feeling when he reminded himself that there was still a bloody battle to be won, but hopefully without the storm's frenzied influence the Welkalites would be overrun by the indomitable Lucaelian legions. He just wished that as many casualties as possible had been prevented.

The boy slid his weightless and beautiful relic armament out of the ground, musing that he had never really expressed his gratitude for his father for that and figuring that he could do so when this battle finished, but there was still a concerning presence at the back of his mind and to his right. The littlest potential heir to the throne looked around, keeping his Sword of Glass unsheathed should he need to use it again, and was presented with the restrained but no less terrifying visage of the Sire of Insanity, who railed against the bonds of shadows and incandescence imposed upon it by the exiled member of the First Sisterhoods, its bulging and red flesh straining against the chains of golden light coated by midnight shadow that constricted the greater demon's movements as well as restricted its disorderly and madness-inducing Red and Black mana.

Carramoshk glared at him out of his vivid green eyes with undisguised hatred, as Jarred Redhand finally stopped his screaming and the Tempest of Craving blocking out the Welkalite sun from above ceased with its thunderous displays of crackling crimson electricity that it periodically discharged upon Usnaan. The Rain of Gore stopped pounding the city beneath it with its torrential downpour of blood, and in spite of the onslaught in the Welkalite capital below Caiellis's vantage point on top of the hill which the Protector's private residence was located upon, a kind of silence descended, punctuated only by his heavy breathing from the amount of mana he had generated (though he still felt divine because of the fact that he hadn't yet dismissed Orzhova and White and Black mana was still coursing through his young veins) and the sniffling of Jarred.

It vaguely surprised the boy that the demon had not yet returned to Sancturia with the death of its Summoner, although he supposed that demons, alongside a few other Sancturia creatures, had the ability to move between the worlds at will, just could not sustain themselves outside of Sancturia without the mana in the other realm powering them for very long, as opposed to Unbound who could remain in the material plane almost indefinitely. The Sire of Insanity glowered at him, its emerald gaze dripping with frustration, anger and a little bit of fear, though Caiellis knew that wasn't directed at him and was most likely aimed towards Orzhova, who was noticeably more brutal when it came to demons and could consign them to much more painful deaths because of the fact that she possessed the Black mana that the demons manipulated themselves.

Then, its scaly scarlet features twisted from the snarl it had been wearing to an exultant grin, filling Caiellis with a mixture of bewilderment at its sudden change of expression, and fear at what it could herald (although it could be a product of the greater demon's obvious psychopathy that was much more profound than when found in humans), and Carramoshk started laughing, cackling hysterically and grinning triumphantly at the thirteen year old prince, who directed a glance at Orzhova when the angel snarled, "What is so funny, damned one?"

"Oh, little dark seraphim, you have no idea!" it howled, and Cai was sure that it would have rolled over in convulsive laughter had it not been pulled down by the restraints of light and dark wrapped around its slug-like body, and the boy began to have his confusion replaced with deep, primal terror. The Angel of the Black Sun looked furious, but within her twinkling onyx eyes Caiellis perceived something that terrified him much more than the Sire of Insanity's demented chortling – fear. He had barely ever seen a First Sisterhood angel scared before, even when fighting the darkest and most vile of foes, so whatever had driven Orzhova to have alarm clearly written upon her pale and flawless (in spite of the wounds she had suffered that had already fully repaired) was certainly something a mere mortal like him to be afraid of – no matter if he was a Lucerna or not. Carramoshk then giggled, "The Vessel is ready! Despite your best efforts, the ritual is complete! The Tally has been met! HAHAHA! You caused this, little Lucerna boy, you did this! My master planned this all along! Tra-"

"Be silent, foul creature!" Orzhova yelled, tightening the chains around the beast, but the words had been spoken and Caiellis could feel gigantic amounts of Red and Black mana – more than he had ever felt before in his entire life – pouring out of the Tempest of Craving, as it began to rain with a torrential downpour of blood once again, though this time the droplets of vitae were searingly hot and Cai was immensely grateful for his shield that Orzhova had created for him as the rain burnt through the ground at his feet it was that hot, easily corroding and incinerating Jarred Redhand's flesh as his skin was burnt off and terrifying blackened muscle was exposed as the Protector dragged himself to his knees. The storm above rumbled with an even greater fury, opening itself up and arcing huge amounts of electricity towards the ground below, where it impacted and exploded amongst the battle for Usnaan.

Cai froze up. Paralysis ran through his veins at the sheer, unrelenting terror he felt at their current predicament, the laughter of a dark god that was easily as scary, if not more so than the laughing of his migraine as another pulsed behind his eyes. He couldn't move, and he began to hyperventilate him panic as another series of atavistic howls that would only be satiated when every single mortal on this pathetic planet bowed down towards the one that was coming and submitted to his psychopathic whims, crashed through the air in a cacophonous disregard for the laws of physics, mixed with cries of hedonism at the culmination of the realisation of all wanton desire and lust. His mind was filled with frightening images, echoing what had occurred when he had touched the Sire of Insanity but at a much greater magnitude as it prevented his movements and showed him scenes of utter depravity and madness that massively eclipsed what Carramoshk had caused him to see, vistas of gore and violence and hedonism and death and a multitude of other, horrible things that would haunt his young mind forever as he felt like he was drowning in a wave of blood and body parts that washed over his mind and burnt off his skin with their searing heat.

He heard Orzhova scream in panic and distantly felt his dark seraph yank him off of his feet as the ground exploded into lava beneath them as meteorites spewing hellish flames of black darkness and destructive crimson were spat out of the Tempest of Craving and impacted violently into the ground, pieces of obsidian rock clattering against a shield that the Angel of the Black Sun conjured up in front of her young Summoner as yet more rocky missiles rained down from the sky amidst the bloody torrent and eruptions of fiery lava fountained out of cracks in the abused ground like the world had been sliced open and it was pouring its steaming lifeblood out of its wounds to be joined by the gory precipitation of viscera streaking down from the bellowing and laughing heavens. However, Cai couldn't pay attention to any of the destructive transformation of the land around him, as he was still stuck inside of his own mind and trapped within the petrifying images that pressed in on his fragile psyche at all sides and threatened to overwhelm his young and ostensibly innocent mind with the amount of horrifying bloodshed as the stench of death, stinking lifeblood and debased pleasure clogged up the boy's nostrils and had him violently retching and his stomach churning at the revolting scent.

Orzhova dragged her boy Summoner away from the colourfully exploding and erupting ground of the courtyard as spikes of obsidian rock thrust out of the ground and arced over the plaza, crashing through the buildings that made up Jarred Redhand's former residence and smashing the houses and rooms apart, the rock already glowing with an ominous molten light as the temperature began to rise to unbearable levels and the Rain of Gore coated the stone spires in blood that instantly began to stream down them as yet more thrust themselves out of the ground, reminding the Angel of the Black Sun of one of the many places she had visited in her long (but not for a functionally immortal creature) exiled out of the Sanctum Angelica. A blaring sound like a mixture of hedonistic howls from all kinds of inhuman creatures and obtrusively loud music, a discordant cacophony of the sounds present at vile carnivals of debauchery and sin but amplified to levels that made even Orzhova's angelic ears, so only Serra knew how much it was damaging the significantly more fragile Caiellis.

The spikes of curled more inwards, framing the courtyard from either side as several pillars of lava vented out of the earth on equal numbers at each side, and the screaming grew to an even greater intensity. Caiellis's mind images were exacerbated by the screeching in reality – he heard the sound of hundreds of brutal murders enacted simultaneously upon yelping innocents, the noise of ecstatic and lust-fuelled passionate coupling that he was sure was not entirely consensual, the psychotic howling of inebriated humans intoxicated by the most dangerous and euphoria-inducing narcotics and hallucinogenics. At that last sound, another thought occurred to Orzhova when she noticed the smoky fumes rising out of the craters that were vomiting magma up from the scars in the ground, as while they weren't affecting her as she was directly descended from "holy" Serra herself and part of the first generation of angels, they could be part of the reason why the boy was convulsing spasmodically in her iron grip.

Dodging another explosion of hellfire that wasn't outwardly targeted at her, she and Cai just happened to be in the vicinity of it, she created a shimmering shield of glass above her that warded off the attacks of other projectiles that shattered apart on the crystalline protection and placed her Summoner on his knees in front of her, forming a golden respirator around his mouth that would extract the harmful chemicals and unnatural substances from the air he was ingesting and purify his breathing, and despite the fact that what was going on around them was incredibly dangerous Orzhova was utterly unprepared for what she saw when she spun the youngster around and looked into his eyes.

The Lenses of Guilt and Innocence had faded, probably because the boy couldn't cope with the strain and the amount of power that would be excruciatingly directed into the former from the terrifying entrance of the Defiler – as that was what Orzhova assumed was going on – and Cai's emerald green eyes were opened wide and bloodshot, reflecting his inner thoughts of pure fear and absolute terror at whatever the young boy was being shown in his mind, and the veins on his face were pulsing and as a result his normally pale cheeks were red and hot, though whether that was mostly due to the former reason or predominantly because of the high temperature was unknown to the dark seraph. At any rate, what was known to the angel was that her Summoner was in immense distress, which was completely understandable because it was said (and proven) that the presence of the one that was ripping his way into the material plane and into the embattled city of Usnaan could fracture and tear apart even the most rigorously trained and fortified minds should they try to face it on their own, plunging them into a fiery abyss of madness from which not even death could provide an escape from, as any that died in that manner were claimed by the demon.

Furthermore, the boy's pupils were heavily dilated, which meant that he wouldn't be seeing clearly at all, nor was he able to concentrate on the world outside of his mind, so she shook him again in an attempt to reach him and infused him with White mana that would reinforce her young Summoner's mental state, but her magic was blocked by the disruptive influences of the Red and Black pouring into the teenager that prevented her from accessing his mind and made the angel growl in frustration.

Caiellis couldn't hear Orzhova's shouted words over the echoing in his skull, the maddening pounding of his heart that reverberated throughout his head and sent stabs of pain through his entire body, and the boy assumed he had let out a pathetic and pitiful whimper because that was what he thought he would have done, but as it was he had no idea what was happening because his mental functions were frozen in place by the sheer horror and cruelty of the dark and debased degeneracies committed by hostile figures inside of his mind.

The Angel of the Black Sun tried again, flicking an alarmed glance towards the howling Jarred Redhand as a pit of lava was opening up from where he was tied to the ground by ropes that somehow hadn't been incinerated but shone with a malicious crimson glow, and where Carramoshk was guffawing uncontrollably (as she had been forced to drop her spells that were silencing the Sire of Insanity in order to resist the explosions of hellfire erupting all around her) and shrieked, "MAKE WAY FOR THE LORD OF RIOTS! MAKE WAY FOR THE DEFLIER, PATHETIC MORTALS!" and sending a shiver of despair down the angel that she rarely felt because of sheer danger – though she had often experienced sorrow because of emotional agony.

She tried for a final time to reach the boy from where he was locked within his own mind, although she knew the state of his predicament because she could sense his surface thoughts and lived inside of the quiet and lonely Mind Realm of Caiellis, which the youngest Lucerna had been blocked off from by the seething and roiling mental attack. Cai whimpered and cried inside of his mind, wanting to escape from the images but every single placed he turned to there were more acts of deprivation being thrust into his mental eyes. And then he felt pain, but it wasn't mental pain – it was real, physical pain, and it hurt, but White and Black mana rushed through his mind and fortified it from within, capitalising on the distraction caused by the sudden rush of pain to shove the images out of his mind, and with the resurfacing of his consciousness to reality came the hopeless thoughts of: _how can I ever hope to defeat this new foe if I can't even control myself __before they have entered reality? What possible thing could I do to win? I … __I don't know …_

Caiellis jolted back into reality, his eyes refocussing and the blurry image of someone staring down at him replaced the one of ultimate vice that had danced in his mind, and the first thing he noticed was that he was screaming incredibly loudly. He stopped, his heart still pounding and his breaths coming in short gasps, and placed his hand to his cheek, the source of the stinging pain that had awoken him from the images. That was twice Orzhova had saved him from a demon's insanity causing magic, and as he looked up at the vaguely guilty angel who still hand one of her hands raised above him the boy put two and two together and assumed that Orzhova had slapped him to snap him out of the hallucinating state that he had got into – although, now that he had looked around him when a particularly violent detonation sent slivers of glass splintering away from the shield surrounding them, reality wasn't much better than what was going on in his mind. His throat felt extremely raw, and he wondered how long he had been screaming for it to be like this, but swiftly flattened the thoughts of having a drink and restored the focus that the new change in the fate of things had caused.

He tried to contact Orzhova through the mental communication link the Summoner possessed with their assigned denizen of Sancturia, but all he could hear was the pounding drumbeat of his heart, heightened by his adrenaline, and the sounds that apparently hadn't just been from inside of his mind still rushing into his ears. He quickly got to his feet, impressing the Angel of the Black Sun, and tried to get a grasp of the chaotic situation, assuming that in his folly he had provided the Tempest of Craving with the violent sustenance that it needed to metamorphose into this new and frightening form. _Right, I need to calm down and focus. Giving into the fear isn't going to save the Lucaelian army from this new threat, and I need to prove that Alex putting all of this effort into me wasn't a waste. Since killing Tradax didn't work – _Caiellis looked past the spires of rock that were reaching out of the courtyard, and the lava erupting all around it as the Tempest of Craving blasted lightning bolt after lightning bolt at a screaming figure that was shining brightly with crimson light across from him – _Let's try Redhand. I didn't really want to have to kill him, since in all of this I think he is innocent, but if it saves the lives of the Lucaelians that will undoubtedly die if this ritual reaches fruition, __then it has to be done. He would probably rather be dead than alive now anyway, though it doesn't make the killing any more appealing._

The boy felt conviction filling him as he conjured up the stained glass wings that had served him so well and were truly a gift from Orzhova, though it didn't erase the primal terror that he felt as well as the disgust of what this being that would soon enter the world represented, and grabbed his sword from where it had clattered to the ground inside of Orzhova's shield, stating, "We need to kill Redhand, Tradax's so called "vessel". And we need to do it soon, as otherwise whatever is entering Usnaan will do so, and I don't think I'm alone in thinking that we shouldn't allow that to happen."

Before the Angel of the Black Sun could raise any questions, as Cai already sensed that she was feeling guilty over the fact that it had been her technique that had allowed the thirteen year old to go and fight the greatest threat out of all of the Welkalites alone, something immensely risky which hadn't quite paid off as apparently the Tempest of Craving didn't need someone casting it and sustaining it to turn into its final stage, he shot out of the shield, raising one of his own and ignoring the trepidation he felt at stepping out into the hellish environment Jarred Redhand's mansion had been turned into, and he could taste bitter ash on his tongue mixed with his own blood from where he had bitten his lip in fear as he jumped past another vertical eruption of molten lava that would have annihilated his shield and wings.

Surprisingly enough, Carramoshk seemed too preoccupied with his insane and maniacal cackling to attempt to intervene and prevent the prince from reached Redhand, as the boy had to blast apart a falling meteor with a bolt of light that split it apart through the middle and sent the two halves crashing to the ground and the darkened sky roiled even more, reminding Caiellis heavily of the abyss that encompassed the Kingdom of Light and wondering what type of insanity a person had to have willingly invite that upon one's own city, although Tradax was greedy and power-hungry and that mixed with psychopathy wasn't the best combination. The transfiguration of the patio was one of the most over the top things Caiellis had ever seen, as while considering his Summoning ritual he wasn't really one to talk the whole thing seemed specifically designed to kindle immense terror in those that looked upon it, as well as represent individualism (something that in itself Cai respected, only so far as the uniqueness wasn't to the detriment of others) and a complete and utter lack of order. However, the excessive display was certainly no less unnerving and terrifying, and Cai still felt immensely anxious and scared in spite of the mentally fortifying White mana running through his mind, as well as the more ambitious (in spite of the fact that he lacked that particular trait) Black mana that reminded him of his goals and utter hatred for demons.

The boy used one of the halves of the rock spat out by the Tempest of Craving to propel him forward, collecting his blinding White mana to the end of his sword so that he could put the screaming Protector out of his misery as he sat in a pit of lava that had risen up around him, though it strangely wasn't burning him apart and he seemed unscathed by the mana, though his eyes had widened unnaturally and were filled with a red light that bled out of them and sent twin shafts of the same colour towards the sky, joined by a third that blasted out from his open mouth. Cai distinctly saw a large shadow imprinted on the crater filled with bubbling magma that wasn't being made by anything as yet in the material plane, though the boy could _feel _an immense presence pushing in on the walls of reality from the outside, the most powerful thing that he had ever sensed in his short life (and that was including Akroma when his father Summoned the Angel of Wrath) and possessed of such a huge amount of mana that could easily wipe out entire civilisations, and probably had in the past.

Individualistic, destructive and selfish Black and Red mana was forcing itself into reality in huge quantities directly into the poor Jarred Redhand, who seemed like he was coughing up his own lungs as more fire burst out of him, though it left him relatively unharmed in comparison to how much damage something like that should have done to a person, indicating that the instigator of the first revolution – the one that overthrew the Welkalite tyrants (although they were quickly replaced by arguably more destructive and dangerous ones) – was gifted with a formidable physical fortitude or the one that was coming – this "Lord of Riots" that shockingly Caiellis had never heard about, although reading material on the most powerful demons, the Archdemonic Brotherhood of Seven (that was in itself a parody of the First Sisterhood that had been named to Matalis Ortus Lucerna by one of the more powerful servants of darkness that he killed, and so it wasn't known if these so-call Archdemons approved of that name or if they existed in such a way (though the First Sisterhood angels seemed to think so, which was good enough conformation for most people) was extremely rare and what knowledge did exist was heavily restricted (though Cai was sure that Orzhova would simply not care about the rules of the Lucaelian society that prevented anyone but the king knowing certain things and tell him anyway if he asked) – wanted him alive and unharmed.

For what reason Caiellis did not know, but he assumed that the Defiler needed a conduit to focus its power into, as well as something to sustain it in the material plane away from the reservoir of mana that was the mystical world of Sancturia, but Cai couldn't be distracted as to the why of the reasons behind Jarred Redhand's unfortunate involvement – all that he needed to know at the moment was that he was obviously essential to the success of it, and as such needed eliminating. Not for the first time, the boy cursed himself in his laxity and his premature thoughts of triumphant victory that emphasised his perceived naïvety and stupidity, as if he had instantly gone to kill the Protector after finishing off the Archlord of Rapture (that he had a suspicion had chosen the title for himself to elevate him above the other Masters of Passion), though by ending it now he would have another chance to atone for his failures that could easily cost the lives of sickeningly high amounts of loyal Lucaelians legionaries with lives, families and hopes and dreams that he would be letting down if he didn't finish this now.

Not to mention that he would be abandoning his big brother if he failed, leaving the most likely extremely worried older boy in a desperate fight against the vicious Welkalites he had bypassed with the Voidwalk that he knew had been essential for any chance of victory to ever be obtained, no matter the other members of his family's objections to the risky manoeuvre (and Orzhova's, and despite only knowing her for a total of just less than nine days he valued her opinion more than he did his father's), as he still had a chance to end the ritual for good. Determination filled him, a sense of purpose that he didn't often feel in such amounts but was fuelling his mana and coursing through his circulatory system, sending adrenaline and resolve pumping throughout his young body as he descended upon the bound Protector as the shadow around the man was growing ever more solid and bony protrusions were extending from within the man's body, arcing up from his spine and making him arch his back in pain.

Though he doubted that his magic would work due to the shadows coalescing around Jarred Redhand that would nullifying spells derived form both light and death, Cai still shot a beam of light at him with his free hand and launched a shadowy bolt of life draining darkness with his sword, allowing the crystalline blade to become suffused in dripping tenebrosity for a moment before it returned to the righteous glow that was the manifestation of his courage and his resolution to take this burden upon himself so that others didn't have to. A coruscating bolt of lightning crackled down from the heavens towards him, joined by two twins that added their electrical power to the first discharge as it shot from the Tempest of Craving at blinding speed, far too fast for the boy to ever react, but instead of being electrocuted and killed by the scarlet lightning an angelic figure had shot in front of him and was battling against the ruinous and malevolent energy of the storm with her own will to protect her young Summoner from harm that eclipsed anything else she thought, blocking the crackling thunderbolt on her spinning scythe and absorbing the generation of mana with her golden medallion, twin circles of protection drawn into the air by her scythe that was currently infused with guarding White mana that nullified the effects of the impulsive Red and selfish Black mana battering down on her.

"Go! Now!" Orzhova shouted towards Caiellis, but the boy didn't need encouragement as he had already shot towards the shrieking and howling Redhand, his anguish-filled voice becoming inflected and then saturated with undying and noxious rage that visibly seethed and roiled out of his once muscular but now wasted body that hadn't eaten a good meal in roughly twenty years, his wiry limbs tensing and relaxing and locking together in anger as more Black and Red mana poured like a tidal wave out of Sancturia. Cai would only get a single shot at this, and his blade had to kill him fully in a single strike so that the twisted regenerative powers of Black mana could not protect the Protector – at any other time the youngest Lucerna would have shook with anxiety and nervousness at having to complete such an act and knowing that a single tiny mistake could cost thousands – no, _millions – _of lives, but now his thoughts were filled with an adamant strength of will to succeed that completely annihilated any childish fear he could have possessed, although every second it took the terror gnawed on the walls of his resolve and threatened to collapse them at any moment, a testament to the devastating power of this Lord of Riots that hadn't even pulled themselves into the City of Pleasure yet.

Time slowed to a crawl, and every centimetre of progress he made seemed to take years as the Red and Black mana around him doubled in power every single second, rising to an apex of sheer power that's intensification was horrifying to behold, and Caiellis swept the relic blade around, a shining strike slicing through the blackened and ash-filled air that would have suffocated him if not for Orzhova's enchantments and leaving contrails of blinding incandescence and purity that cut straight through the solid corruption that had formed around Redhand, the screaming man clutching at his head and utterly unaware of the Lucerna prince's decapitating strike as the execution blow swept in. It touched the man's sweat-riddled throat that had spikes ramming out of it like the rest of his corrupted body, and the cleansing White mana burnt apart the flesh as it was about to cut through, before a massive explosion of power radiated out from the centre of the mana and the shadow behind him became physical.

Cai cried out in sheer terror, the fortifications within his mind cracking apart at the power that swirled around him and erupted in destructive sprays of pure mana. Horror filled him, as he knew that despite how close he had come to ending the Vessel's life he was still indescribably far away from it, and a mixture of sadness and defeat thrust its way past the tumbling walls of his mind just as he was dragged backwards away from the radiating heat and pulled into impenetrable darkness before he could be immolated in hellfire. He fell to his knees once again, his body suffused with the desire to run as far as he could from this new foe, or press his head into his big brother's side and let Alex battle the fear for him instead, and the forlorn thoughts inside of his mind were exacerbated by the pure blackness of wherever he was now, though the most likely option for the young boy was that he had entered the afterlife, consumed by the explosion and his failure to prevent it from destroying everything that had been built up in the world of mankind.

"Caiellis, you need to stay calm," a voice, comforting, soft, but imbued by an inspiring and motivational resonance thrust its way into his mind, penetrating through the walls of total despair that the presence of the Archdemon dragging its way into reality had incited, so Cai came to the conclusion that he wasn't dead, and that meant he had to stop being pathetic, had to keep fighting no matter how hard the odds became, because it was the duty of a Lucerna to battle on against the forces of darkness until their dying day. In spite of these thoughts, Cai was still horrified, and his body refused to obey his commands to stand up and battle, instead electing to remain unmoving, wracked only by the violent shivers of anxiety and unnatural dread that permeated his being and was added to by where they were now, but the angelic voice spoke again, stating, "I initiated the Voidwalk again, and pulled you out of there before we were both killed by the demonic entrance of the Defiler, so you are safe. For now, at any rate."

Cai nodded, reasoning that Orzhova had been right to do so even as one part of his mind stubbornly and despondently insisted that she should have left him to die in the Protector's mansion and abandoned his pathetic life for good, blaming himself for the successful enactment of the pernicious ritual Tradax had begun, that he was truly a failure and that he was completely worthless, unworthy of the love some people showed him and the respect and devotion the general population the people of the Kingdom of Light gave to him because of his Lucerna heritage that he had thoroughly proved unfitting for. Orzhova had been right, he should have just stayed with his father and brother and then fought this main threat with them instead of running off and trying to foolishly prove something to them.

Then another mental voice, a more pragmatic and adult section of his psyche, quickly silenced it, knowing that the abyss around him would be providing fuel for the fire of emotional and foolish thoughts as well as knowing that in spite of his lack of success in preventing the ritual's completion (though at least he had killed the so-called Archlord of Rapture), it would have occurred even faster if he hadn't have used the Voidwalk to travel here quickly, and that if he sat here wallowing in self loathing and guilt then he would be confirming his fears about not being up to the task and he would never be able to succeed in protecting anyone else if he couldn't step up and face his fears. _Alexander would never complain about something like this, or become consumed by sorrow or defeat before it has actually happened yet. He wouldn't give up; he would keep trying until he succeeded in his task, and I should do the same if I want to be as good as he is. I can't let myself lose now. I won't. It is death or victory for me now, and I won't countenance fleeing or anything cowardly like that._

Cai relaxed his panted breathing and wiped the tears that had started to brim in the eyes that made him look for too young and childish but had inherited from his mother, straightening up instead of curling up into a foetal ball on the shifting shadows beneath him and raising his head up from where he had unconsciously pressed in into his skinny knees, glancing up at the angel who stood warily above him, her onyx eyes flicking back and forth across the endless yet paradoxically claustrophobic and crushing dark expanse of the inner abyss, scanning the area for any sign of foes – like the demon they had encountered in the youngest Lucerna's first Voidwalk – while her adolescent Summoner recuperated and regained his courage.

Her twinkling eyes were tinged with equal amounts of sadness, apprehension (as that was supposedly the closest an angel could ever get to feeling fear, but Orzhova knew that the truth was that they simply hid it from mortals and others extremely well) but pride in the boy as well, despite the fact that it had been his stubbornness but also his lack of self-esteem and sense of worthlessness that had ended with them fighting with an Archdemon alone instead of with the other Lucernas and First Sisterhood angels. She knew that pulling them into the abyss, which would almost certainly be more dangerous than when she had first taken Cai there, even though he had almost been taken from her grasp by a demonic denizen of this infernal realm before the exile of the First Sisterhood could reach him due to the boy being the one to cast the spell instead of her, and that this would only be a temporary respite, which meant that they needed to decide what they were doing now.

"So, we have two choices," the angel spoke down to her Summoner, knowing that he was still locked within inevitable mortal dread at the unholy presence of the most foul type of demon, but then was mildly surprised to see out of the corner of her eye that he had got to his feet and was stood behind her, still breathing heavily and trembling with fear though otherwise the youngster was filled with determination again, which made Orzhova smile despite the severity of their situation. It seemed like Caiellis could go from being overwhelmed by sadness, distress and defeatism to having his mind steeled with strength of will that few possessed, although it aptly highlighted the fact that he was both a scared child and a blessed Lucerna at the same time, so he existed within two states of mind at once and it was down to whichever was the most prominent as to what his mental state was like.

However, Orzhova liked to think that the power of her Summoner's mind wasn't just down to his vaunted bloodline and exalted ancestry, but because of a special type of thoughts that had drawn her to the infant him in the first place, though the Angel of the Black Sun had sometimes nearly been consumed by guilt and remorse at the fact that she, the disgrace of the Sisterhoods, had selected him as a Summoner, and couldn't help but think that perhaps her second favourite (which still put her low on the list of beings she liked (not that there were many on that list in the first place besides Caiellis), as the only angel she had every truly felt kinship and affinity with had been kind-hearted Serenity, her twin that sometimes reminded her of Caiellis, though it was treason in Lucael and the Sanctum Angelica for an angel to be compared to a mere human) sister, the Angel of Hope Avacyn, would have been a much better fit, and that the boy would have had a much easier life with her and with his intrinsic Black mana being suppressed.

The Angel of the Black Sun shook her head imperceptibly, knowing that she had more important things to talk about, and turned around to look at the small boy and examine the threats that could be behind him, looking deep into his wide green eyes that reflected his fear but also his resolve that were silently asking for her to go one, the dark seraph knowing that Cai would have only thought of one option and automatically dismissed the other, but also wanting to provide him with all of the paths available for them, so continued, "Well, technically we have three, but two of them are quite similar. We could go back into Usnaan once you have recovered or when it no longer become safe, and then we could either return to the Protector's mansion in order to finish this battle against the Defiler, or I could take you to your father or big brother's side so that you can tell them what is going on and fight alongside them."

She saw her Summoner's face change slightly, something that wouldn't have been visible for someone not attuned to his thoughts or not having lived inside of his mind all of his life (barring a few hours in the day that he was prematurely born, which was fortuitous for the dark angel as otherwise on the day he was supposed to have been born Avacyn would have got to him first, as the fact that he had been born too early meant that the Angel of Hope hadn't fully prepared so there was a short delay in which Orzhova to intercede, much to the antipathy of her sisters).

It suggested that he would much rather prefer to be alone and accede to this notion he had developed of proving himself, not that he hadn't done that multiple times already and it was his father's stupid refusal to see it that engendered these kinds of thoughts, so she then forged on with the other alternative, which would most probably be utterly ignored by the youth, "Or alternatively we could simply leave Usnaan altogether, and I could take you somewhere safe away from the fighting. Battling an Archdemon is going to be immensely tough, and I'm not going to lie to you and say that there is anything more than a minuscule chance of victory, but I'm confident that if you want to stay that we _can _achieve victory. However, I would personally prefer to take you away from the violence and the danger, or at least get you to your brother or father's side."

"And leave the demon alone to wreak havoc?" the boy countered, and Orzhova sighed, knowing that that had been coming, but was forced to turn away from him to resume keeping a watchful eye on their uncharacteristically safe surroundings, as they thought she had detected something shifting within the murk around them, as Cai added, "I couldn't ever just flee from the battle, and you know that, Orzhova. That would be leaving everyone I love behind, which they would never do – and never have done – to me, despite me being a burden to them. We are going back to kill this Archdemon."

Orzhova was vaguely surprised that he had worked that out already, knowing that the Lucaelians knew basically nothing about the hierarchies of demons, but before she acquiesced to his wishes she added, her voice starting off comforting and reassuring but becoming harsh the longer she spoke, "It is your decision, and I'm willing to follow you, protect you and guide you on it. But first you need to get that stupid idea out of your head that you are a burden on anyone. Firstly, you are still only thirteen years of age, and it is natural for children to rely on those around them for support, and secondly, despite what your father may say or do, you don't weigh anyone else down, and you help them, not force them to carry you."

Before he could reply, rasping and booming laughter that was all too familiar to the two intruders into the realm of the abyss echoed in the empty darkness around them, and a pair of glistening blue eyes opened up and regarded them with malevolence, and when the boy turned around he could see several other glinting orbs glaring at them, cursing himself for taking too long to recover and make his mind up so that the demon who professed that this was his territory could find them again, and a voice, the personification of dark malice itself, cut into his mind, **No matter how much you try to shepherd him, Angel of the Black Sun, the little lost lamb will forever wander, alone, unguarded, and vulnerable.**

"I'm getting sick, and tired, of your damn sheep metaphors!" Orzhova snarled, hefting her scythe and swinging it in an arc of blinding White mana that did little to illuminate the blackness, and the demon laughed again, sounding like it was right next to Caiellis's ear, and the boy instinctively recoiled from the sound and his perceived proximity to the demonic being that was taunting them, as Orzhova's scythe sliced through the spot he had been stood in, cutting through two pair of eyes that opened, but every time she hacked apart the orbs of spite they reopened elsewhere. **Oh, I do apologise. Would you prefer that I use similes instead? Or pathetic fallacy – though there isn't much change in the weather of the darkness? Actually, you puritanical angels have little regard for literary techniques, so what do you think, little lost lamb? Hmm?**

"Do not speak to him!" Orzhova growled, grabbing hold of her Summoner's slender hand to prevent him from being dragged away from her unexpectedly, and also with the contact she could prevent this demon from digging its claws into the boy's mind and disrupting the determination and resolution within it that would be essential for prevailing against the Lord of Riots. **Aww, why not, Orzhova? I have the soul of a poet. **Cai's eyes narrowed and a frown creased his youthful and pale features, and the demon barked with laughter again, **In fact, I have thousands of them. Over the ages I have claimed the souls of ****poets,**** priests, beggars, slaves, philosophers, scientists, criminals, traitors, soldiers, children, rulers – including Lucernas, although my collection of them leaves much to be desired … **(Cai heard the licking of lips and shuddered involuntarily) **and **_**even**_** angels. **

That was directed as a barb to Orzhova, though the Angel of the Black Sun knew that her beloved Serenity did not belong to this demon, but another, and she had very personal reasons for wanting to confront Johnias as well, as the demon continued, **However, I will unfortunately not be claiming your soul today, little lost lamb. My adorable but ever-irate brother would never stop attacking me about it if I did. I merely came to tell you that there is only one path that you can follow, and that is to return to my brother's presence and fight with him. He has decided that he wants your soul, which could have been avoided if you had simply taken my offer earlier, but oh well. There are plenty of other delicious souls in the battle of Usnaan, including the delectable looking Alexander...**

"Don't you dare touch him!" Caiellis yelled without thinking, his anger rising as the demon giggled back and Orzhova increased the strength of the grip on his hand, knowing that she was probably cutting off the circulation but not wanting the boy to succumb to the demon's incessant taunting and launch himself at him, where the creature would have no excuse but to claim the Lucerna's soul for himself, much to the ire of the other Archdemon that they would be soon fighting, and the demon replied, **Oh, I would worry about yourself for now. For all that I demean my angsty little brother, he is still an Archdemon, and far more powerful than any pitiful resistance you could ever hope to mount against him. Ta ta, little lost lamb! ****I hope to see you soon!**

Orzhova growled a profanity-filled response entirely unbefitting of an angel under her breath as the demon departed, leaving the shadows remarkably more pleasant without his presence there, although she sensed that he would return with an even greater force if they delayed any more. She turned to her Summoner, who had forced his breathing to relax, and knelt down to his height, gripping his shoulders tightly and looking into his eyes, uttering, "When you are ready, we can leave this abyss. Time obeys different laws in this other realm, and while it may feel like we have been here minutes mere seconds have passed in reality. This is going to be a challenge, but I am confident in your abilities to succeed, and I will be with you every step of the way. So, are you ready?"

Cai's eyes meandered for a moment, briefly allowing himself to think of the futility of his situation, but the ardent fire that had pulsed through him on the void-demon's mention of Alex was beginning to kindle again until it became a blazing inferno that he tempered into courage and determination to succeed and kill this Archdemon to help avenge the losses that had been incurred throughout history because of the demon race, the lives ended and the families ripped apart by the capricious meddling and vindictive manipulation, turning friend against friend, husband against wife, and brother against brother, so when he met Orzhova's gaze again his eyes were filled with hatred and strength, and he stated, "Yes. I am ready, Orzhova, and it is time to end this war once and for all."

The angel smiled at him, though it was full of sadness and fear of what would become of her young Summoner, who at first she had only cared about because the boy would advance her own ends of showing that she wasn't a disgrace, but after he had passed her Summoning and the angel had truly begun to talk to the one she had lived inside for more than thirteen years she began to like him for who he was, and knew that she had made the right choice.

Orzhova gently pulled him closer, and kissed the boy on his cheek, and while Cai normally would have turned a shade of scarlet at having a female that wasn't related to him kissing him, an angel's kiss was one of the greatest blessings (although technically he had already been kissed by Orzhova, as that was when she had first appeared in the material realm after over a century and it was the way in which a First Sisterhood angel completed their assignment to a Lucerna infant, usually a time of great joy for all in the kingdom ("usually" being every single other Descent of a Lucerna angel apart from his)) that could be accorded to a Lucaelian (one of the rewards for great heroism was a kiss from the First Sisterhood angel of the leading Lucerna, though it had to be the angel's choice to award it so such occasions were few) so he took it solemnly, keeping his face neutral but his eyes were tinged with honour at the gesture, although he remained blank and purposeful in preparation for the coming fight. An angel's kiss was supposed to be one of the most inspiring things in the world, and while Cai was honoured by it he didn't feel that, although it could easily be a by-product of the need to glorify the angelic benefactors of the kingdom and he had already been kissed once and was a Lucerna.

"You are kind, intelligent, brave, strong and selfless," Orzhova murmured into his ear, before she stood up and collected the magic of light onto the blade of her scythe, hacking it round and cutting into the substance of the void that opened up beneath the cutting edge of the ominous weapon, an orange glow leaking out of the temporary hole in the abyss that was already closing up, the darkness re-knitting itself, and exultant laughter could be heard at the other side, as Orzhova uttered, "And that is why demons will never be able to prevail against us, and why we are going to win."

Before he could give the pessimistic, doubtful and frightened parts of his mind time to change it, Cai ran through the portal between reality and the abyss of Sancturia, gripping the ornate and ergonomic handle of his relic sword tight and gathering up his White and Black mana around him, working with Orzhova to create a shield that would block them from the effects of the explosion that was just receding, as mere seconds had passed within reality and the detonation was only now dissipating to be replaced by something much more sinister, as the tempestuous laughter than never got any less terrifying the more he heard it – and was even more frightening because of its nearness to him – boomed across the transformed courtyard that now had the rock spires rising up at either side at least a height of ten metres. Jarred Redhand was still screaming, but he had started sobbing in anguish and madness instead, significantly quieter than his howling from before but still loud.

Carramoshk was also making noises, giggling and cackling hysterically in the entrance of what was most probably his master, the scaly red slug demon snaking close to the crater of lava that Jarred was knelt upon and grinning wildly as the solid shadows fell into it. A fist, massive and blood-red with bulging veins all along the fingers that were larger than Caiellis's slender thighs, crashed out of the pool of bubbling magma, utterly unaffected by the huge temperature of the molten rock, and sending hissing globules of it splattering all around it as the hand gripped onto the ground of the courtyard, cracking it apart under the strength of its grip as it scraped the rock with bloody talons as big as the boy's head. The fist itself was bound with leather stained permanently with gore as the rain increased in intensity as if in greeting to its overlord, like a fist fighter from the Order of Violence would bind their hands to prevent excessive damage (unless they enjoyed that kind of pain), and as more of the arm that was attached to the hand emerged from the pool of lava Caiellis could see a brutally spiked bracer wrapped around gargantuan wrist, and strange, curved and bony protrusions the same crimson colour as the skin of the demon arcing back from its wrist to its elbow.

The ground shook at the being pulled itself further up out of the ground, Jarred's whimpering becoming increasingly more pathetic and painful that made Caiellis immensely sorry that he had not being able to kill the man and free him from this suffering he was being subjected to, but it in turn made his blood boil at the demon who was inflicting it, the demon who was undoubtedly responsible for the fall into corruption and debauchery of the New Empire of Welkas, a hatred only matched by his desire to see it die and his fear at the size of his foe. The full arm of the demon was emerging from the magma, with a gargantuan bicep flexing and straining to allow it to bring its monumental strength to bear, the bulging muscle encircled by a large chain that had many smaller links coming off it and were connected to a variety of skulls in many different conditions and from many different species, judging by the many that were horned perversions of human skulls.

A pillar of flame rose up from the lava, collecting into the rough shape of a raging inferno that was restrained to one location, as two gigantic horns that were twisted and curled and far bigger and more impressive than he had ever seen before from demons kissed the surface of the hissing magma, and the flame remained in between the two horns, rising up in tandem with the rest of the head as the Archdemon slowly and dramatically pulled itself up out of the crater of molten rock, the Sire of Insanity laughing loudly and screaming in pleasure, a howl of atavistic joy that was met by a rumble from the Tempest of Craving above and a baying cry from the tens of thousands of Welkalites still fighting within the city, spurred on to even greater acts of deprivation by the Lord of Riots entering their world.

Then, the ending point of the horns were met, and two eyes were revealed as the last remnants of the lava cascaded away from the demon's malicious visage, though the eyes were currently closed as it pulled itself up. Then, as if sensing Caiellis's scrutiny, they opened, staring straight at him with their pits of malevolent hellfire that reflected humanity's base desires for unrestrained rapturous lust, bloodthirsty violence, gluttonous indulgence and endless wealth, and Cai was powerless to look away, his headache brought on by his receptive mind's proximity to the personification of Black and Red mana that was this godlike and twisted Archdemon.

The rest of the Lord of Riot's face then appeared out of the lava that was pouring away from it, exposing a skull-like appearance with two shorter and more stubby horns snaking out from below the others and resting on the Defiler's mountainous shoulders that rippled with red muscle, one covered by a curved pauldron of rusted metal that was in turn adorned with savage spikes that had human-like figures impaled upon it, their shrieking laughter adding to the din of the most vile and base nature of the human race populating this planet screaming out at the prospect of peace and order that the Lucaelian soldiers were bringing to the New Empire of Passion. Its jaw was as inhumanly proportioned as the rest of the Archdemon, filled with bone-white teeth that were surprisingly enough relatively normal, although "normal" in this case meant huge and frightening.

As the demon reared up, bringing itself to its gargantuan full height even though its lower body was still concealed by the steaming magma, it exposed another arm, this one holding a large, brutal and crude scythe, a barbaric mockery of Orzhova's golden, ornate and imperious weapon, the edge of it crackling with fire and orange lightning that fizzled along its length. The Defiler then opened its wings, absolutely enormous batlike wings redolent of the normal members of its vile race but coloured crimson like the rest of his flesh. It easily had a wingspan that was far larger than the courtyard, or indeed the entire hill in which the Protector's mansion had rested until it had been smashed apart by the metamorphosis of the landscape into something better fitting of the Archdemon that Cai was now facing. It scraped against the curved spires of brimstone and obsidian that reached up from either side, smashing the rock apart as it scraped against it in a spray of sparks, sending massive chunks of it that were larger than Orzhova crashing to the ground. One hit the Lord of Riots straight in the head, but it shattered into rock fragments on the demon's tough skin and the being paid it no heed, if it even noticed it at all.

Jarred Redhand screamed even louder, an agonised shout of pain, before the demon grabbed hold of him in one massive hand and swallowed him whole, silencing the screaming and probably killing the man now that his unholy role as the Vessel had been completed.

The demon had more skulls tied around its chest, but the one that caught Caiellis's eye the most was a large and horned skull definitely of demonic origin, nearly as large as at the Lord of Riot's head and vaguely like that of what the dragons that had once been the Summonings of the old Welkalite ruling dynasty would have looked like in Caiellis's imagination and the art that had been drawn of them (although those that saw the dragons and survived were few and far between) and were no longer in the material realm, although it was rumoured that in the mountains far to the south of the super-continent there were broods of roosting Unbound dragons in an overlap between Sancturia and the material plane, but currently the smallest Lucerna had more pressing concerns involving a massive demon that was in the process of drawing breath.

It roared, a peal of furious sound that would have sent Cai flying and instantly deafened him if he hadn't had a powerful shield that almost shattered apart at the intensity of the sheer volume and power of the noise, and despite the fact that the demon had originally appeared to be the manifestation of all human desires and excess, the roar was representative of a malice and anger far darker than that a billion humans in concert could ever hope to muster. Somehow, even though he knew that the demon was speaking an ancient language not known to mankind, he could understand its bellowed words, and it howled, "**I AM RAKDOS, THE DEFILER, THE LORD OF RIOTS! I HAVE COME TO BRING YOU CARNAGE AND CARNAL PLEASURES IN ALL THEIR FORMS! ****COME, MY MINIONS!**** HERE ME, AND KNOW THAT THE FESTIVAL OF BLOODSHED HAS BEGUN!**"

In spite of the fear that filled him at the emergence of the demon, Cai still managed to shoot a defiant: "Not if I have anything to do with it," at the towering Rakdos, though he immediately regretted it when the colossal demon swivelled its gargantuan head from where it was screaming at the Tempest of Craving as all manner of devilish and insane creations were vomited out of the storm and began rampaging amidst the Lucaelians still stuck in the streets, turning its fiery and malevolent gaze filled with ancient and millennia old spite that transfixed Cai in place.

The flaming orbs widened in surprise for a second, as if Rakdos had only just noticed that there was someone else in the courtyard that Tradax had chosen for the location of the Summoning ritual, although the Lord of Riots was paying no attention whatsoever to his new Summoner who's mana and life he was draining to sustain himself in the material realm. Then the demon laughed. It was a deep and rumbling chuckle that made Caiellis feel like he was a reckless child trying to extinguish a blazing forest fire with a single cup of water and would be burned to death in the attempt, and Rakdos leaned towards him, annihilating buildings either side of the Protector's mansion with his wings that simply battered through the stone that had withstood revolutions, war and countless debaucheries, and although the laughter was tinted with mockery, it was genuine amusement that a tiny boy not even five feet tall was standing up against him.

The demon was about to speak, before the smaller one stood next to it (that was still bigger than some buildings and had belonged to the insufferable mortal that had orchestrated all of this and fallen prey to Rakdos's lies about granting the man supreme power and freedom) snarled back, its voice full of blatant flattery and sycophancy as well as barely concealed envy, "How dare you, _mortal child_, speak to my glorious master in such a-"  
The Sire of Insanity was cut off when Rakdos grabbed the scaly beast with his huge hand, Carramoshk's expression of utter confidence and arrogance fading as Rakdos let go of his huge scythe-blade with his other hand where it floated ready for him to re-equip it, and tore the smaller demon in half, ripping out its distended spine with its head as it screamed in pain, and Rakdos lifted up its head to analyse it closely before taking a bite out of it, acidic and corrosive demon blood spraying across the courtyard and burning through some of Caiellis's shield before he reinforced it with more mana, Orzhova's hatred fuelling him and providing him with more for when the fight began.

The Defiler smiled, his lips and face covered in the blood of his demon scion, at the tiny child stood defiantly in front of him, just out of reach of his arms or scythe but not of his baleful magic, and tossed the remnants of the Sire of Insanity away from him, the fact that the boy stayed instead of dissipating and returning to Sancturia meaning that Carramoshk had been killed instead of just banished, although Cai felt absolutely no remorse for the demon, and spat, the saliva mixed with the vital fluids of the Sire of Insanity (and Rakdos thought that it was apt that the mortal who named himself Archlord, like his pathetic titles meant anything when he was a mere human, was paired was such an irritating demon, although the Defiler's opinion often changed of his children and was as fickle as his attention span, as one moment capricious Rakdos could be lauding the achievements of some of his servants in capturing and torturing angels and the next ordering them to be burnt to death and laughing insanely while watching) and burnt a small crater in the relatively new and still pleasant rock of the courtyard that had remained untouched by the Infernal Bargain.

It then spoke, its honeyed voice a mixture of a strangely alluring enticement tempting Caiellis to abandon his Lucerna duty to the Lucaelians that fought against the new and more disturbing additions to the Welkalite forces that had been made by the most foul and deranged of artisans and revel in the extreme entertainments that would soon be provided, lord over swathes of territory that he conquered in the name of Rakdos while he was lavishly rewarded for his duty and could partake in any hedonistic indulgence of his choice, and a menacing growl that threatened to wipe civilisation and all semblance of order from Magnus-Primae and stamp it underneath chaotic revels of pleasure, and Cai couldn't help but flinch back from the noise, the ancient, malevolent language that he could sense Rakdos _wanted _him to understand, to quail in fear at, "**Now that we are free of interruptions,**" he cast a furious glance over to the corpse of Carramoshk that was being eroded away by the Rain of Gore, before returning to examining the young boy in front of him like one would look at an insect before ripping off its legs and watching how it coped with the sudden inability to walk, "**Who are you, boy who is challenging me? I can see that you are a damned Lucerna, as you possess the stubborn qualities of all of them to perpetually resist giving into my Festival of Bloodshed, as well as the blind confidence to fight against something you have **_**no hope **_**of ever winning against.**"

Cai faltered for a moment. _Wait, what? Didn't the demon in the void say that Rakdos had already decided that he wanted my soul? If so, why would he ask who I am? _But he quickly pushed the concerns from his mind, knowing that the mental weight of them would only slow him down in the coming fight, and that demons lied to gain control over their foes just as much as they told the unchanged truth to do the same, and Orzhova, assuming a lack of response was down to his fear, cut in with, "Caiellis Noctis Lucerna is the one that will banish you from this world once again, Rakdos the Defiler."

The demon was wracked with booming laughter once again, this chuckling also suffused with dark mirth and spiteful delight, and replied to the angel directly, "**Ah, Orzhova! What a treat! The ****exile**** of the First Sisterhood! I didn't know that those dogmatic wenches at the Sanctum Angelica would let you have another Summoner! ****Or did you choose this boy without their knowledge? I would have loved to see the look on their faces if you did.**"

Orzhova simply glared back at the imposing Archdemon, who sneered down at her hatred filled gaze that could have killed lesser beings all on its own, before turning his eyes back to the faintly trembling Caiellis, who was repeatedly running over the edited version of the mantra that had allowed him to complete the Voidwalk in the first place. _End the Tempest of Craving by banishing Rakdos, then save the Lucaelian force. Easier said than done, by I can't be having doubts now. __End the Tempest of Craving. Banish the Archdemon Rakdos. Save the Lucaelian force. And prove that I am not a failure._

"**Now then, young Caiellis, would you like to begin? I'm ready and waiting for your attempt at banishing me,**" the demon taunted, opening its huge wings to their fullest extent and blocking out the crackling light of the storm behind it that was the only illumination in the city from above, and extending his muscular arms to either side of him as if challenging the boy to attack him head on, flexing the muscles in anticipation of fighting against the Angel of the Black Sun again, although the first time he had done it she hadn't yet had a single Summoner from the hated royal family of the last remaining nation preventing the forces of the abyss from overrunning into the wider world. Rakdos was affording this brat with a great honour in even speaking the boy's name, but despite the fact that the Defiler – his older title, though he much preferred his new one befitting his status as part of the Archdemonic Brotherhood of Seven – usually showed no respect whatsoever to his enemies, he knew that Lucernas were important foes that needed to be eliminated despite the fact that he had focussed his efforts in a different nation to Lucael.

Besides, he hadn't yet killed a descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna, and it would cement his relatively newly attained position of Archdemon that he had ripped from the one whose skull was adorning his trophy hoard, Rakdos's creator and the draconic demon Malfegor that he had killed and supplanted, much to the ire of his original brothers, the other six out of the seven (who had only shown respect to the former Monarch of Sin when he was dead, but mostly they were more concerned about themselves as never before had an Archdemon been overthrown by one of their underlings), but he had attained the title through bloodshed and destruction, as was the way of the abyss, and proved himself to be stronger than his former master.

It was vaguely unfortunate that the first one that he would be killing was only a boy, and a tiny and frail one at that, but the child had a lot of power inside of him and it would allow him to repay his debt to Orzhova by feasting on this Lucerna's soul and subjecting it to the most vile of torments until he inevitably grew bored and discarded it in favour of another toy so that his minions could fight over it. Rakdos knew that because of the rarity of combined Black and White mana, even more so in the _oh so holy _Lucerna line, every Summoner Orzhova could access was one that was immensely precious to her, and he sensed that this time she had built up a strong bond with the child, which would make it even more delightful to break it. But first, Rakdos wanted to inflict some pain to the boy in this life.

Cai gulped, before he utterly removed uncertainty from his mind, knowing that if he didn't try then he would meet exactly the same fate then if he did and didn't succeed, and that Archdemons had been defeated by First Sisterhood angels before many times in the past and banished back into the vile abyssm from whence they came, so conjured up his wings of stained glass and blasted a bolt of darklight at the demon to judge how resilient it was to such attacks. Rakdos batted it aside with his fist, the beam of shining darkness repelled by the spiked bracer and refracted into one of the spires of rock that it cut straight through. Cai pondered for a tiny moment over whether the Archdemon had intentionally blocked the magic on his bracer to ward off the effects of it on the metal, suggesting that Caiellis would deal damage if he hit the demonic flesh, or if Rakdos had simply done it without thinking and was utterly unconcerned by the magic of the prince.

He would have directed it as a mind question to Orzhova earlier, but Rakdos's disruptive presence was completely anathema to any form of mind magic so the boy wasn't able to and had to work of his own assumptions, just like during the civil war in the few occasions that he was left to fight enemies on his own or when communication wasn't an option, but before he could think about that anymore the demon frown suddenly, as if noticing something for the first time, and then growled, raising his free left hand as generating tremendous amounts of Red and Black mana in the palm of it, snarling, "**But before this fight begins in earnest, let us play fairly.**" he then swept his hand down, crashing the mana into the earth as it rose through cracks in the ground and shot towards Caiellis and his angel, both of whom raised new shields and flew away from it. The rapidly blackening lava (that strangely wasn't solidifying into rock like it would if it was cooling, and instead turning into something more akin to sticky tar that vomited out of the ground towards Caiellis) crashed straight through the shields and flowed swiftly through the air towards the boy, who instinctively raised his arms despite knowing that it would provide little defence against the ruinous magic of an Archdemon.

Instead of immolating him and covering him in a solidifying liquid, the bituminous blast annihilated the shield that was hovering just above his skin, allowing the Rain of Gore to immediately drench him in hot blood that would take away one of his greatest advantages, one of the abilities that he desperately needed in the fight against this Archlord. The blood matted his brown hair down, and he blinked as it went into his eyes, shaking his head as droplets of gore cascaded down his face and the rest of his body, staining the light leather armour emblazoned with the sigils of the Lucerna family a deep crimson that would take days of washing and purifying to remove the taint of the corruption. Cai automatically licked his lips as the moisture washed over them, grimacing and almost vomiting at the iron-rich taste of the blood as his stomach churned.

"**I don't approve at all of you spurning my gifts, Caiellis and Orzhova, and now that you have been forced to embrace the Rain of Gore we are on much more equal levels,**" Rakdos sneered, and while the Rain of Gore would prevent any dark rejuvenation he would ever want to undergo the Archdemon enjoyed the sensation of pain that was far more intoxicating than any agony stimulus a human would ever experience. Besides, both he and the boy knew that there was little chance of the child damaging him, and if he did then it would only serve to incense the Lord of Riots into an even greater rage. Cai glared back, hoping that the fear that he tried to keep quashed into the core of his being didn't leak into his eyes or his defiant posture, instead attempting to focus his righteous hatred of all things demonic – especially this paragon of sin that was currently facing him – into the emerald orbs, channelling even greater amounts of offensive White and Black mana since he had no use for draining or healing spells now that the Defiler would simply break any form of protection he or Orzhova mounted against him, and keeping a figurative eye on the amount of mana he had remaining, which was still a very large amount but was almost surely be exhausted by the end of this battle, unless he died before he could bring it to bear, which was a very real possibility.

The demon smiled at him, exposing wickedly pointed teeth that were covered in the desiccated strands of flesh that was once part of the Sire of Insanity, and it seemed to Cai like the Archdemon was taunting him to attack, urging him to be the one to strike the blow and try to replicate the deeds of his vaunted ancestors in banishing the foulest of Sancturia denizens from the mortal realm, and he wondered how long he could wait before the Lord of Riots tired of his delaying and tore him apart. He needed to get a greater picture of what kind of attacks Rakdos would favour, although he had a vaguely clear idea in his mind, as well as which methods of assault would be the most effective against him, though he was guessing that purifying and cleansing White mana combined with the murderous effects of hatred-fuelled Black would be key to achieving victory. Orzhova attacked first, launching herself at the demon that was much bigger than her despite the fact that she in herself was larger than the tallest of humans, the golden scythe in her hands sweeping around to hack at the Defiler's arm, who smashed it aside with his own crude weapon and reached out to grab the Angel of the Black Sun.

Cai opened his arms wide, coursing golden White mana through his palms and launching a wave of blinding mana at the demon, who recoiled from the blow and elected to move his arm away instead of having the magic touch it, ceasing his attack on Orzhova who blasted a bolt of shining darkness into the towering demon with her free hand, holding the scythe one-handed for now and dodging an eruption of flames that vented out of the ground below her due to the demon's will. Rakdos, grinning all the while, simply blocked the lance of darklight on his hand, the energy of the darkness powered by holy radiance unable to penetrate below the demon's leathery skin, who then hacked his own scythe blow at Caiellis's dark seraph. The boy immediately launched himself into the air in order to fight with his angel on his iridescent wings that glinted in the light of the hellfire surrounding the pit the courtyard had become and was covered in streaming rivulets of claret liquid pouring down from the Tempest of Craving as it deposited yet more unholy minions and creations of Rakdos into Usnaan, screeching devils that were alight with the flames of hell and eager to feast on mortal flesh.

"Stay back!" the angel shouted at him, loud enough and full of and otherworldly imperative that gave the youth pause and forced him to momentarily obey her commands, and blocked the Archdemon's weapon with her own, an explosion of clashing mana radiating out from the crash of enchanted metal. Rakdos swept his free fist into the Angel of the Black Sun, backhanding Orzhova back to where Cai was, though the impact force of the blow and the crashing landing that followed was absorbed by a spherical shield of glittering fragments of interlocking glass that minimized the damage to the boy's dark seraph, who quickly beat her wings and ascended to her feet, shooting a glance at Caiellis and sternly telling him, "I will be the one to fight Rakdos in close quarters, and I want you to provide magical support. You running in behind me is exactly what the Defiler wants you to do, and if he touches you then you die, simple as that. I can take the punishment much better, being a First Sisterhood angel, although we don't have access to our healing any more. You are nowhere near strong enough to engage an Archdemon in melee combat, so let me do the fighting."  
Cai nodded, not wanting to argue with her in the middle of a fight, though his gaze was firmly fixed on the gargantuan Rakdos, who simply smirked down at him, making his blood boil and sending a foreign impulse to through himself at the demon and personally making him pay for the destruction wreaked on Welkas and Lucael by his race through his mind, though he quickly resisted the urge and reminded himself of what Orzhova had just said, and that the demon was easily ten times (if not much more) bigger than him, and sensed that the Archdemon was placing the messages in his mind, although whether Rakdos was doing it consciously or if it was the rage-inciting aura that oozed out his corrupt flesh was a mystery to the youngest Lucerna, who knew that they needed to attack again and try to at least inflict some damage, even if he died in the attempt and it was others who brought down Rakdos.

Before Orzhova could swoop at the denizen of the abyss again, the Lord of Riots collected huge quantities of screaming mana into an extremely rough semblance of a sphere in his open left palm, throwing it at Caiellis who worked with his angel to form a shield around them and leapt back from the assault, though he knew that there would be no escaping the blast. The orb violently smashed its way through several layers of crystalline protection that shattered onto the ground, forming the possible basis for another attack in the future, until Cai conjured up substantial shadows that wrapped around him and reached out towards the purely destructive ball of mana that had no finesse or technique behind it at all, just a blast of unadulterated devastation that would kill friend and foe alike.

The inferno exploded all around him, making him unintentionally recall the events of the battle for Fort Egetau, when he had been the subject of a Welkalite bombing and had used darkness to protect himself then but had been knocked unconscious by the detonation, though while that had been explosive Red mana released as an indiscriminate blast this was a much more malevolent blaze that desired to inflict as much pain as possible. The pure gloom wrapped around him, desperately attempting to ward off the effects of the roiling Red and Black mana that took no shape – such as fire or darkness – and simply destroyed all they touched, and as the heat and the intensity of the explosion reached a crescendo it burnt through his shield of darkness, clawing at him with dark power and slamming the boy backwards with the force of the detonation.

Caiellis skidded painfully for a few seconds, some of his clothes – such as his trouser leg – torn open by the rock of the courtyard and the rubble that had been formed in its metamorphosis, and the fragile flesh of his leg which hadn't completely healed from his and his brother's ordeal against Aksua cut open again, spilling crimson liquid onto the ground where it mixed with the unnaturally coloured blood of the thunderous and hellish heavens, the Rain of Gore seemingly specifically coloured so that it did not disguise the wounds of those suffered underneath it (as one could clearly distinguish between the human lifeblood and the torrential vitae). Nevertheless, it still ran into his wound, and Cai inadvertently hissed in pain at the stinging agony of the unnatural blood ran into his wounds, quickly bringing up a shield that would cover his wound (but not heal it as to not inflict even more pain on himself) that immediately shattered, although luckily the shards of glass did not shred his flesh and simply passed through it as they fell down to the ground.

The boy shot to his feet again, conjuring a fresh pair of wings that had been smashed in his painful tumble, and, pushing the pain to the back of his mind where it could not bother him, leapt to the side as another pillar of lava erupted up from where he had been laying after by thrown by the explosion and collecting quite a few painful bruises, but luckily the thing that was the most severe was the leg wound so he had emerged relatively unscathed in comparison with the power of the detonation. He dodged another eruption of gurgling magma, and then hacked apart several shapes that the gore began to form around him, pre-emptively killing the figures that would be made of the blood and evaporating the vital fluids on his energised blade, but more were being woven into existence around him from the near-endless supply of blood at a faster rate than he could cut them down with his blade alone, reaching out towards him with wriggling limbs of blood before he split them in half with his Sword of Glass.

Caiellis charged White mana into his free hand from where it was still coiled around his left side, the effects of the Summoning ritual that he had used before the fight with Tradax Yulica still surrounding him and making him look divine to normal humans, but to an Archdemon would only serve to distinguish him from the rest of his race, and released it into the air, emitting a flash of blinding light that destroyed the animated blood figures that were shambling towards him and vapourised the droplets of gore raining down and forming puddles of blood on the ground around him, though the area of the courtyard that he cleansed didn't stay clean for long and was soon covered in blood once again, though every time it touched the crackling Black Sun birthmark on his cheek it was instantly turned into steam as the ominous reminder of his Lucerna heritage lit up with purple light that shone from his youthful face that was otherwise stained with blood but glowed with the darklight of his aura.

He turned back to Rakdos, using the spell that he had copied from his father to bombard the Archdemon with thousands of shards of shining glass that shattered apart on impact as Orzhova flew towards him, using the distraction of the magical assault that her Summoner initiated to attack him from the side as he used his massive weapon to burn through the ranks of scintillating projectiles, and hacked into the exposed flesh of his right arm, carving a vertical slash into it with incandescent White mana and making blood spray out of the wound, the foul demonic liquid fountaining onto Orzhova's shield that Caiellis helped to conjure, immediately disintegrating the glass-like protection and forcing the angel to dive away unless she wanted to meet the same fate. Cai was galvanised by the fact that they had wounded the demon, but instead of crying out with pain Rakdos grinned at him as the Angel of the Black Sun returned to his side, and the medium-sized wound knitted up and no more blood came from it.

The boy blinked in surprise, assuming that the demon wouldn't be able to regenerate itself with the Rain of Gore splashing onto it, though Rakdos let out a small but still bellowing and terrifying laugh, explaining in a mocking voice as it beat its wings and sent debris from the spikes he knocked over crashing onto the ground below, as well as flicking the blood from them everywhere, "**Oh, you thought a blow like that would harm me? How cute. And while with the Rain of Gore does prevent me from using magic to heal myself, just as it does you, it does not stop my dark vitality from naturally **(as if there was anything about this avatar of sin that was natural) **repairing shallow wounds, which are the only wounds that you will inflict. You may have access to Orzhova, Lucerna boy, ****but you should know that the power of a First Sisterhood angel pales in comparison to the overwhelming force of an Archdemon!**"

"Empty boasts," Orzhova spat, not loud enough for the Lord of Riots to hear, and while that normally would reassure Caiellis he detected a hint of consternation in her tone that she had clearly tried desperately to hide from her perceptive young Summoner, and that made the words seem drastically more hollow. She glanced at the fragile boy for a moment, assessing the state of the wounds he had suffered, and felt the urge to protect him running through her.

Cai was coming to the realisation, as the Defiler smiled at him malignantly, that Rakdos was just toying with him. It was obvious, really, but he had been too concerned trying to survive the onslaught of the chaotic magic to notice at first, although now that he was able to look at it he knew that the Archdemon would have easily been able to wipe him off the face of the earth with either of the two spells he had cast, or simply batter Orzhova out of the way and crush him into a pulp. The Archdemon's flaming eyes were lit up in sadistic amusement, and Cai knew that Rakdos was simply playing with his food before he ate it, full of the exultance of finally entering the material realm and knowing that there was nothing this Lucerna child could do to hurt him. He just wondered how long it would take the Lord of Riots to tire of this new distraction and kill him so that he could move onto something else.

Then it hit him, an excruciating cognizance that filled him with despair and youthful fear until he quashed it. Rakdos wasn't just _playing _with him – though he certainly was, and this new revelation confirmed that he was part of the demon's sick game – the Archdemon wanted to _break _him. Not physically, of course, as that would be an effortless task for a being that large and formidable, but shatter his will to fight and plunge his young mind into a pit of despair before he killed Caiellis, crush his adamant confidence to battle and try to banish the demon and enact his duty as a Lucerna to the Lucaelian people, and make him give up out of his own sense of hopelessness and sorrow instead of simply murdering the littlest prince, though whether that was because he wanted to strike back at the hated Lucerna line or because he wanted to emotionally hurt Orzhova before he forced her to return to Sancturia was an enigma, although Caiellis suspected a mixture of the two powered by the Archdemon's sadistic and fiendish sense of enjoyment. Nonetheless, it was still a possible that the evidently whimsical demon could change his mind and simply choose to kill him instead of breaking his will first.

However, no matter that the demon was only mocking his determination to fight Rakdos and inflicting pain in the slowest manner possible, Cai knew that he still had to fight, and that he would try to never give up, because even if he did die in battle against the Defiler anything that he did could help others to exile it from the world would be worth it.

Otherwise, Welkas, Lucael, and even the whole world would suffer.

.*.*.*.

Arith Fedili was a soldier from Scientia Mos, a humble legionary that was fighting with her division and backing up her partner and husband Galeon, hacking down Welkalite foes from the Order of Rapture with her standard issue military longsword and blocking their strikes upon her medium sized steel kite shield adorned with the ornate book symbol of her city combined with the heraldry of their captain, who was a youthful commander named Vadnan from one of the many small noble families (that were not as impressive as the larger ones) of the City of Books – the (once basically unknown) Noctis family, in fact, which made him a relative of the youngest generation of the Lucerna line and would have gained him great acclaim in spite of his lack of military achievements, as he was only a young twenty one and hadn't fought in the civil war that had claimed so many lives.

Vadnan was supposedly the half-cousin of the unfortunate Queen Emili, but hadn't risen to the rank of the captain of Division Seven because of his relation to the king's former wife, but because of his military skill and a dogged determination to attain a rank of leadership – and because of the fact that the Noctis family wasn't known before King Marik's marriage to one of their members (which was, while not unprecedented, quite uncommon for a monarch to choose their partner from anything less than the most prestigious noble families), he wasn't arrogant, and often spoke to his soldiers, almost all of whom were older than him. Arith liked her captain, and her original opinion of him had improved after he had taken the role from Division Seven's old leader who had died in the siege of Fort Egetau and had been much beloved by the troops, and told his men that he didn't want them to show him undue respect because of any relation he had to the two young princes; Arith thought that the blessed Lucerna brothers probably wouldn't be aware at all as to their very distant relation with the man, although they didn't have any family members apart from their exalted father on the Lucerna side of things.

Arith knew that she wasn't a particularly courageous nor powerful warrior, just one of the many troops that made up an army for the generals and those with strategic skill to wield like living and breathing weapons. She had never wanted to go to war, but had been conscripted into the army of Scientia Mos alongside her husband when the City of Books was besieged by one of the Arch-Heretic's (Arith still had trouble believing that a Lucerna would betray their family and kingdom, despite the fact that it hadn't lessened her opinion of the ruling family at all) armies in the final year of the civil war, and neither of them possessed Summonings or magic to use, relying only on their skill with a blade to prevail. However, when in the army Arith and Galeon had realised that they did want to help, they did want to make a difference – however small – to the Kingdom of Light, to repay their debt to it for giving them a safe place to live instead of being at the mercy of the abyss.

A tactic that she had developed so that she didn't lose herself to the fear and terror brewing up inside of her that so many others had been consumed by was to think about her life in general, and let her mind wander as she killed. She knew that a soldier should only think about the battle at hand as to be sharper, but she also wasn't an acceptable warrior and probably would have turned tail and fled from her first battle if she hadn't employed this method, distracting herself from her predicament so that the true horror of it never became apparent. Arith wasn't a leader, and she had no strategic penchant, so she didn't have to concentrate too hard on the battle as a whole, just the engagements her division got into and fought, otherwise she would need a much greater focus like those who led her. The thirty two year old was confident on relying others to direct her and those around her, and simply do her duty to the Kingdom of Light that had protected her all her life.

Her husband thought similar, although she was sure that the man had dreams of one day somehow becoming a hero on the battlefield, and was much more courageous than she was in Arith's opinion, in spite of the fact that they both had similar skill with a blade, demonstrated when she hacked apart a screaming cultist, blocking his crude weapon on her shield and chopping the semi-naked man who was tattooed with snaking yet angular and jutting symbols that lacked the clean and orderly resonance of Lucaelian emblems and hurt Arith's eyes if she paid close attention to them in twain, all the while ignoring the sickening spray of blood that coated her armour with human vitae that joined the torrential downpour of gore from the forsaken tempest above. The bloody rain had killed Division Seven's young mage when she had attempted to cast a healing spell upon the wounded soldiers, turning searingly hot and melting the skin off of her bones as she screamed in pain, almost making Arith throw up despite the horrors she had seen before in previous combats until the thirty two year old had occupied her mind thinking about the maths problems she had loved (though not had any massive talent at) as a young child and her husband Galeon had placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Arith could _feel _something momentous entering the world nearby to the large and flamboyant palace near to the centre of the city, but since she didn't have access to any form of magic it was only the back of her mind that was affected, a restless itch rising up that she couldn't quite pinpoint instilling her with equal amounts of horror and excitement, and the woman shook her head when she thought she had seen disturbing patterns in an explosion of blood from the man that her husband fighting killed, the colour of the crimson vitae more vivid than she had ever seen before as the prickling at the back of her mind increased in intensity.

A woman wielding two flails with their weapon heads as spiked skulls advanced on Arith, cackling and screeching in ecstatic shrieks of pleasure and pain at the scant armour that she wore that dug into her tanned skin and drew blood, and the Lucaelian blocked the first spinning strike on her trusty metal shield, half of her mind – the brutal and cold survival instinct creator – focussing on the battle whilst the other part, the more sensitive and sentient part of her brain, diverted her mind away from the battle, back to thinking about the happy points of her life even as she shoulder barged the other woman to the ground and chopped off her head, sustaining a painful crack to the arm that would leave a large bruise from one of her flails.

Arith and Galeon didn't really want to fight, but they wanted the Kingdom of Light to be safe from any form of attack, especially now that they had a child to look after and take care of as well – they wanted Lucael to be a place where children could grow up in peace and security, and the Welkalites were threatening that so it was entirely selfish of them to rely upon others to do that for them. This had been their motivation during the civil war, and was their motivation now, though they had promised each other that this would be the last battle they would fight in unless the situation was extremely desperate, as they had a son to raise. Zephris wasn't their biological descendant, as he had originally been born in the City of Quiet and had been taken with the refugees by a soldier that saw the crying four year old in the besieged metropolis and taken him with them in the flight with the heroic Guardian Lelia.

The refugees, those that couldn't be expected to fight in the further war, had been transferred to other cities while the rest of the small army from Gol, and she and Galeon had known instantly when they saw the frail-looking boy that he needed a family, and because Arith wasn't able to have children (which was a cruel irony as she had wanted them all of her life) it had been perfect, and a blessing from the angels. Of course, the proper procedures had to be completed, but there was no delay on it because everyone was more focussed on the war and there had been no problems with giving Zephris a home.

However, unlike Arith and Galeon, who had raised Zephris as their own despite the fact that he knew at the back of his mind that he wasn't (_although he is my son, and that will never change no matter who gave birth to him_), their son possessed quite powerful magic, and could one day become a formidable fighter or mage in the name of the light. Zephris would, in his future, serve the Lucerna family admirably and protect the community around him, Arith was sure of it. Her son (who was the same age as the youngest prince, Lord Caiellis, who had led the legions of Scientia Mos to glorious victory despite his obvious nervousness due to his youth, although Zephris was taller and slightly more muscular (though still quite thin) than the smallest son of Marik, though his small height did nothing to stop Lord Caiellis from performing superlatively) was staying at Galeon's sister's house with his three cousins for the duration of his parents' venture into Welkas, and had touched Arith's heart when the thirteen year old had cried when they left, proving that he had accepted them fully as parents – as there had been quite a bit of difficulty at first with their emotionally (and, more disturbingly, physically – which made Arith's blood boil, as who could possibly harm a four year old in such a way?) scarred new son.

Arith and Galeon had to survive through this so that they could go back to Zephris, and make the world a safer place for him and everyone else in the Kingdom of Light – and indeed, the New Empire of Passion. Arith had everything to live for – loving parents that had supported her throughout her life, a devoted husband that never ceased to surprise her with his love for her which was only matched by her own love for him in return, and a young son that she loved above all else.

Which made it all the more shocking when Arith found the sudden and irrepressible urge to savagely kill Galeon, who was in the process of finishing off a downed Welkalite foe who frothed at the mouth, his saliva flecked with blood as he thrashed the stumps of his limbs in a frantic and bloodthirsty attempt to attack the thirty three year old that put him out of his misery. A demonic and terrifying roar of a language that Arith couldn't understand but somehow roused a lust for wanton violence that she had never thought she had possessed within her reverberated across Usnaan, making the woman's head hurt and pound with more agony than she had ever suffered through before as she bit her tongue, almost shearing her tongue off as blood exploded out from the muscle, tasting sweeter than Arith had ever thought possible before and making her want more – but not of her own. She had already partaken in that flavour; she wanted to experience many more and revel in the intoxicating sensation.

As she staggered towards her husband, who was turning his frightened gaze towards the sky as the abnormal thunderstorm named the Tempest of Craving by King Marik and screaming creatures of all shapes and sizes descended from it to partake in the Festival of Bloodshed (_strange … how do I know that name? What even _is_ the Festival of Bloodshed?_) and slay the Lucaelians, one part of Arith's mind frantically interjected: _wait, what in the name of the holy angels are you thinking?! __Do you really__ want to hurt the love of your life, Galeon Fedili, and deprive your young son of a father __once again__?_

The other part of her mind, the one that suddenly hungered for blood, for violence, for excess and pleasure and death and wild indulgence and a multitude of other things that she would have found shocking and abhorrent only a moment earlier, but now seemed all the more appealing, insisted that she did, and the man turned towards her, his handsome hazelnut eyes that had made her instantly attracted to him opened wide in shock and concern for himself, but moreso his wife, and his mouth opened, but Arith didn't hear the question that he posed to her to do with the nature of the frenzied beings, the words that spewed out of his mouth meaningless babble that would merely distract her from the prosecution of violence and the administering of pain.

"Arith? Are you ok?" the man asked, his facing creasing in bemusement at the strange actions of his wife as she stumbled towards him, and at the fact that her eyes had opened unnaturally widely. Despite his concern for the love of his life, he was forced to turn away from her when he heard desperate and panicked screaming from the rest of his division, a devilish creature that was in fact about the size of a growing teenager but hunched over and with legs jointed backwards like those of a canine.

It glared at the Lucaelians with gleaming red eyes and extended long, glinting talons towards them as if relishing the notion of slicing them apart. The devil was riding on a hell hound that belched fire at a warrior both Arith and Galeon knew quite well and was fond of their son, burning the woman to death within her armour and crashing down on the pavement, flattening a screeching Welkalite Enforcer as the hell hound chomped into his head, its sinewy crimson flesh rippling with the strain of the landing as the bare muscles tensed to reduce damage as the devil sat atop it caterwauled and pointed excitedly at captain Vadnan and his Sancturia creature, a shimmering elemental with the features of both cats and sheep, violently yanking on a chained collar attached to his mount, which growled at him but nevertheless obeyed.

Galeon ran forward to intercept it and fight by his captain's side, the youth twirling his twin-bladed glaive as it lit up with glittering White mana and preparing for the demonic rider's charge, but his combat instincts blasted an alarm inside of his skull so instead he leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding a Lucaelian sword from behind that split the air where he had been stood. The man turned around in shock, and was momentarily put off guard when greeted by his usually gentle and nurturing wife, having expected a Welkalite that had looted the standard issue weapon from a dead legionnaire, but her pale green eyes were still opened wide but becoming bloodshot and filled with an emotion he had never seen from the woman before.

"Arith? What are you doing?" he demanded as the woman charged at him, shrieking in fury and primal craving and launching a rough swipe at him, not deigning to use all of the technique that she had learnt in the few training sessions that had been provided before the civil war before they were thrust into the force (as every single person that could hold a sword – including their adopted son, bit luckily Hierarch Martha and Guardian Weiss had placed the divisions of children in the centre of the city so that they would only have to fight if they enemy had got that far, so Zephris hadn't had to kill anyone as the besieging army was hit from behind by King Marik's force – had been pressed into the army at the sighting of the huge force coming for them), and those that they had attended after it before the Welkalite conflict, which meant that the strike was easy to batter aside with his shield, though the strength behind it was astounding and Galeon had never known that his wife had been that strong.

"Arith!" he shouted as she recovered and launched another attack at him, this one a thrust that he deflected to the side with his own sword, leaving him in the perfect position for a counterattack – it would have been child's play to ram his blade into her throat, but Galeon could never countenance ever hurting his beloved wife and as such withdrew instead, stepping back from her as she began drooling uncontrollably, reaching out her already bloodied tongue to lap at the gore coming from the storm above. "Stop! Please, I don't want to have to hurt you!"

The woman didn't hear him; Galeon doubted that she heard anything as her pupils were widened and had expanded to be massive, almost eclipsing her beautiful irises, which suggested that she had suffered some sort of concussion – but that wouldn't explain why she was attacking the husband that she had professed to love, and Galeon knew that darker forces were at work in the manipulation of his wife. He knew that, if push came to shove, he would never be able to kill her, while Arith looked ready to inflict death at a moment's notice, his wife's mouth cracking into an insane smile, and past her head Galeon noticed that his love's situation was not unique: several other warriors were turning on their friends, brothers, and sisters, madness in their eyes and violence on their minds, but some of them had already been killed by the soldiers they were attacking that hadn't known them that well, but were now being screamed at by anguished relatives and friends as the less emotionally cold of them were crying over the corpses of their former comrades.

Arith screamed at him and ran at him, arcing another overhead strike at him that he blocked on his shield, bringing his sword up to the crossguard of hers and executing a disarming manoeuvre, sending the blade clattering across the street as his wife glared balefully at him for a second before she tackled him, ramming her body into his and knocking them both to the ground, as Galeon fought to get Arith off of him without hurting her, but his wife was as strong as he was and pinned him to the ground, slamming the pointed edge of her kite shield into the connecting area between the forearm and bicep of his left arm, the one holding his sword. The man hissed in pain as the bone broke and he was forced to drop the blade, and the shield ground against the breaking bone for a moment in a few seconds of white hot pain before his wife let go of it, as if satisfied that she had prevented him from bringing his weapon to bear, and tore his shield away from him, attempting to use it to brutalise his face and crush it into the ground.

"Arith, please, stop! I'm your husband, Galeon! You are my wife, Arith Fedili! Stop this madness! I don't want to have to fight back!" he shouted, though the words had no effect on her as she pulled up the shield for another strike. Galeon reacted faster and punched her in the face, hoping that his mailed and gauntleted fist wouldn't cause too much damage to his charming and kind soul mate, but putting enough force into it to knock her out and send her backwards, allowing him to push her off and gain ground, or so he thought until he tried to move and found that his left arm was stuck underneath the heavy shield that had been rammed into it, and he looked up in horror as Arith returned the favour and punched him in the first, her other arm grappling with his right as he tried to bring it up to block.

She hit him in the eye, grinning and giggling insanely all the while, and blood exploded from the eyesight-giving organ as the vision on that side of his face immediately blurred and then became black, and then turned her attention to his other arm, drawing a slender dagger with an ornate hilt inlaid with a small piece of amethyst – Arith's favourite gemstone – that had been a present from Galeon the night before the siege of Scientia Mos. It was supposed to have been enchanted with blessings that would ward off the advance of the darkness and the curses of the inhabitants of the abyss, but obviously seemed to have no effect on the madness that had suddenly afflicted her, and she stabbed it into his free time, once, twice. The small blade rose and fell until his arm became riddled with cuts and slices and pumped blood onto the ground, Galeon losing his ability to move it as she severed veins and nerves, and every attack was like a stab to Galeon's heart as he thought of what would happen to his family after his wife killed him.

"Arith, think of Zephris! We have a son! Think of our son, Arith! What would he think if he saw you doing this!" he yelled desperately, frantically trying to pull away from his wife who sat atop him and pinned him down, and the knife blows suddenly stopped. He stared out of his wife with his one open eye, the other one forced shut by the swelling of the flesh above and below it, and the shuddering woman lowered the blade slowly, looking back at him, then to the knife in her hand, and then to him again, tears emerging at the corners of her eyes and sending relief flooding through the pinned Galeon, and he urged her, "I know you, Arith … You don't want to hurt me … You don't want to hurt _him _… And leaving him without a father, without a mother as well … it could end the lad …" he trailed off, swallowing nervously and hoping that it had worked.

Arith leaned towards him, and for a moment Galeon thought that the woman was going to kiss him, but instead of their lips meeting she remained just out of reach, her eyes still bloodshot but her pupils returned to a normal size, and perfectly lucid, she spat, "I'm sorry, Zephris … But daddy isn't coming home tonight," she whispered malevolently, before drawing the knife across her husband's throat in a spurt of blood. Then, long talons punched into her head, emerging from the other side as glistening and dripping with Arith's lifeblood, and Galeon screamed in pain. Well, he would have done, if he could have drawn in the air to do so, but with his carotid arteries severed he could only let out a wretched of heartache and emotional gurgle as blood spluttered out of his mouth.

The lustre of her pale green eyes faded, as well as the madness, and the woman slumped onto him when the devil, who had slaughtered the rest of Division Seven of Cohort Six, pulled away its talons, cackling maniacally. Galeon was crying at the murder of his wife and the fact that once again, his adopted son would be left without a family, when the hell hound's fiery jaws clamped around his head and the world went black.

.*.*.*.

All across the besieged city of Usnaan, the once magnificent Welkalite capital that had endured years of bloodshed and revolutions and was now being laid to ruin by the devastation of international war, hellish creatures descended on the clashing Lucaelian and Welkalite forces in a carnival of slaughter and carnage, the personifications of the most disturbing rendition of the acts the Welkalites themselves had committed in the name of carnal pleasure and addictive violence. Screaming in delight, the creatures rampaged through the lines of both armies, trampling over corpses and smashing apart carefully ordered formations with sadistic glee, murdering and slaying all around them as they were joined by screeching Welkalites who joined with the unnatural forces to push against the Lucaelian invaders that would dare to try and stop their revels.

As the denizens of the circus of madness bolstered the lines of the warriors and Enforcers from the Orders of Passion, who were galvanised by the thought of finally meeting their dark patrons and participating in debaucheries that would have been impossible without the favour of the demons that had given them the gift of freedom from morality, Lucaelian troops, turned insane and suddenly homicidal by the effects of the climax of the Tempest of Craving and the demonic roar that bellowed across the battlefield, attacked their loyal brethren in a murderous rage fuelled by the tempestuous laughter echoing from the rumbling thunderstorm that crackled above and discharged bolts of lightning just as it vomited more creatures of insanity into the City of Pleasure.

While he wasn't aware of the Lucaelians that had been gripped by a psychopathic rage and turned on their allies, having long since abandoned or lost any soldiers that had trailed behind him on his quest to the dark heart of the city, where the source of this corruption was located in a concentration of chaotic Red and Black mana, and hopefully where his youngest son was as well, though he couldn't sense the familiar White and Black mana of the reckless boy, Marik was quite well acquainted with the denizens of the Tempest of Craving attacking the legionaries of the Kingdom of Light, as he split apart another Welkalite in a single blow before disembowelling two others with a large slash of his thrumming greatsword, his power augmented by his and his angel's hatred of this corruption that had gripped the New Empire of Passion and had led to this war and the danger his sons were in.

An eruption of blinding light from the right of him disintegrated the throng of about two dozen Welkalite Enforcers blocking his path to the Palace of Desire, although he had no intentions of going there and would instead be attacking the site of where Caiellis had somehow used the magic of darkness to bypass the Welkalites and appear there, and Marik gave a quick nod to Akroma before he began sprinting down the avenue again. Marik would have been incredibly easy to follow, as the route that he had taken after defeating Enforcer-general Fraetus Etin was covered in corpses that was, despite the amount of them, under representative of the number of foes he had killed, as the vast majority of them had been annihilated by the magic of Wrath that his angel and he had used to clear a path to the location of the thing his little boy would be fighting.

Akroma was fuelled by a haste to get there as well, though for completely different reasons to the Lucaelian monarch – while the Angel of Wrath wanted to approach there quickly so that she could kill the reason for the sinfulness of the inhabitants of Welkas, Marik of course had that desire to save his force as well, but combined with the parental need to protect his youngest son (and his eldest as well, which he would be indirectly accomplishing by doing this) from the mess he had gotten himself into, though Marik knew that it wasn't Caiellis's fault for what had entered reality and that the boy had been trying to stop it – or maybe it was, and his son's presence had quickened the ritual since the thirteen year old evidently had not been strong enough to stop it alone.

_Caiellis, if you are still alive after this battle – _STOP_ entertaining the notion that he won't be – then there will be serious repercussions for throwing yourself into this danger, you damn fool! I should have never brought you to this war in the first place, and now you might get hurt because of your own damn disobedience! I ordered you to stay at my side! If you didn't want to do that then you should have at least remained with Alexander!_

Marik's mind voice was becoming ever more frantic and agitated, his worry for his fragile son mixed with his anger at the boy's stupidity and impertinence was fuelling his desperation, as well as combining with the fact that he was more than that angry at himself for making his son think that he should have to go and kill Tradax Yulica alone, but another part of his mind soon smothered that, the more angry section of it that was furious at Caiellis for randomly becoming hypocritical and throwing himself into mortal danger without any allies, as normally he was a careful warrior and wouldn't have done something like that. He couldn't help but think that this was just another way for the boy to rail against him, just another way for him to defy his orders and make Marik think that he had done something incorrect, instead of the actual situation being the other way round and his son being in the wrong.

Akroma turned to stare at him for a moment, probably reading his thoughts, though her eyes were as piercing and cold as usual and didn't show any emotion other than hatred and wrath, and Marik knew that his angel didn't care about him or his sons personally, just the continuation of the Lucerna line – whereas Alexander's Aurelia seemed to like her Summoner as a person, and while Marik didn't know much about Orzhova's opinion of his son having not yet seen him Summon the Angel of the Black Sun near to him (though he had seen her leaving him and seemed quite fond of the boy), she had seemed to care about him quite deeply on the day of his birth.

However, his angel was right to be filled with righteous detestation of their current greatest foe, as Marik could sense a deep taint permeating the air around him, a stain on the land that he had only felt once before, when he had fought Johnias in the final battle of the civil war outside of Cassida Principia and left his brother gravely wounded as he fled with the remnants of his shattered army (although the king of Lucael instinctively _knew_ that his treacherous twin brother was still alive and active in the abyss, though he hadn't reared his traitorous head yet in the month and two weeks after the civil war's conclusion). The Arch-heretic had traded away his First Sisterhood Angel, Serenity, for a powerful demon that contaminated the area around it with Black mana of an immense power, an Archdemon like the one his son was fighting against – although that one had been bound and under Johnias's commands whereas Marik could sense that the one within Welkas was acting of its own accord – which made it more powerful than Johnias's, who had relied upon his Summoner's power to fight.

Furthermore, while his twin brother's Archdemon had comprised solely of Black mana, this new one that Marik could feel was made up of the magics of darkness and impulsive emotion, and was bleeding it across the city of Usnaan and made him feel even more concerned for Caiellis. However, he had defeated an Archdemon before, and with his sons and his army in peril the supreme king of the Kingdom of Light was certain that he could do so again and slay the foul beast that had dared to set foot in the world.

Marik heard a squawking screech from above and felt the presence of concentrated Red mana above him flying down towards the ground, and his irritation rose when he saw a swarm of batlike creatures with the four limbs of humans – imps, he reminded himself, was what they were called – jetting out fire and leaving trails of smoke in the dark sky that flickered with orange embers, sighting him and Akroma and diving towards them, their heads spiked skulls far out of proportion with the rest of their flaming bodies and their ribcages open and trailing fire behind them as they shot towards the king, who scowled and snarled in annoyance. He really had no time for this delay, as the imps let out excited squeals at being able to attack an enemy and possibly feast upon them.

Akroma launched herself into the air, splitting apart one screeching imp of chaos with her gargantuan broadsword and, prompted by the king's irritation and her own need to get to grips with the Archdemon that they couldn't see because of the ostentatious Palace of Desire blocking out their view of it, raised her other hand, a scintillating display of light beaming out in all directions from it as she crushed it, the light piercing through the gaps in her fingers and targeting each and every imp, some of whom gazed curiously down at the light illuminating them whilst others ignored it and dove at the Angel of Wrath, who with an influx of mana from Marik opened her hand wide and placed it at the hilt of her sword, the Blade of Wrath becoming infused by the holy white luminosity as she tossed the massive weapon into the air.

It hovered for a moment, the beams of light still streaming from it and mapping the position of every chaos imp as they closed in on the angel and her Summoner who was bracing his weapon it case the spell took longer than expected. Then the Blade of Wrath began moving, animated by a holy will of its own and shooting towards the first imp, cleaving it in half and then firing at the next one, hacking that one in twain as well before the sword was joined by a host of other shining blades that Marik conjured into existence by holding his free hand up. He then brought it down quickly, and the swords flung towards the imps, impaling each one despite their best efforts to dodge and burning apart their corrupted essence with the cleansing power of righteousness, killing the horde in one fell swoop that aptly exemplified Marik's perturbation and worry, as any second that he delayed might put either of his sons in mortal danger.

"Marik!" his angel's cold voice suddenly snapped, though it was bereft of any emotion, and the king turned towards Akroma who was aloft in front of him and had sheathed her Blade of Wrath across the elegant scabbard on her back and was holding out her hands towards him. Further words were not needed, and the king of Lucael nodded, knowing from his experience at fighting alongside the powerful and exemplary seraphim what she wanted to do, and glad that she had suggested it as because of his fatherly fear he hadn't been thinking quite as clearly as he would be normally. The angel was asking for confirmation to carry him the rest of the way to the top of the hill behind the Palace of Desire, which would help him to avoid any further resistance as well as mitigating the amount of time wasted by him sprinting up the side of the hill, though he assumed that it must have had some sort of staircase for ease of travel.

The forty year old had never flown on incandescent wings of his own – as while Akroma was perfectly capable of gifting him with the method of flying, Marik had quite a severe dislike of heights, and although normally he was able to press it to the back of his mind because it was only a small fear and he had greater concerns as the king (or prince, when he had learned to control it), allowing him to travel by air (such as in an airship or being carried by an angel), he couldn't do it alone as he lost all sense of balance and was filled with nausea at the act. However, in spite of that his quality as a warrior had never been reduced, and Marik had never seen any occasions on the battlefield where that skill would have been useful or irreplaceable by any of his many others. Nevertheless, it seemed like Caiellis had not inherited his abhorrence of using conjured wings of magic, and he had often seen his youngest son launching himself into the air on wings of iridescent and beautiful stained glass, which was perfect for the boy as it conferred him greater manoeuvrability, which he needed considering that fragile physical frame of his.

He let the angel grip onto his shoulder guards and begin to fly into the air, looking down at the ground beneath him as they rose above the spires of the Palace of Desire, and repressed a gasp at the huge demon rising up on top of the hill which had once clearly been the location of an old mansion, but now looked more like a gateway into hell itself, with spires of rock rising up on either side and rupturing out of the earth, and pools of magma collected around the ground.

"Rakdos, the Defiler," Akroma spat, and Marik took solace in his angel's hatred of the Archdemon, as well as becoming more worried for his youngest as the angel only ever showed emotion when they were against a significantly powerful opponent. The demon itself was massive, a bit larger than the one he had fought against in the past (though size was not necessarily indicative of power, as he was sure that his youngest son would agree) and laughed again as it blasted a wave of hellfire at a figure on the other side of the abused courtyard.

Marik's heart leapt into his mouth as his anger rose when he saw his little boy, covered in scratches and cuts from his battle with the Archdemon raising a shield of sparkling glass alongside the Angel of the Black Sun, who spun her scythe in a circle and added to the power of the defence, and then the roiling undulation of flames washed over them. The king felt its heat from here, alongside the proximity of this Rakdos making his headache rise up with even greater intensity, becoming a spiking frenzy when he glanced at his son when the fire faded, the boy breathing heavily, his small chest hitching up and down, but otherwise unscathed by the magical attack and driving barbs of pain into his brain as Orzhova looked up at them, her serious expression curling into a mixture of a hostile snarl and a relieved exhalation of breath.

Marik was tempted to order Akroma to drop him onto the demon so that he could launch the attack from their, but noticed that his son had barely scratched the avatar of sin as well as knowing that such a reckless attack was more likely to get him killed within seconds if anything else, and that his damned foolish son needed him at his side if they were going to prevail against whatever in the forbidden name of the abyss that brat had – however inadvertently – caused the Summoning of, though as he scanned the plaza he saw no sign of Tradax, the Master of Rapture, which probably meant that Cai had at least succeeded in accomplishing something with his carelessness. At a nod from the king, Akroma let go of him, and he braced his armoured body for the landing as the ground rose up to meet him, trying to ignore the uncharacteristic thought that popped into his head about how much of an idiot he would look if he landed face first onto the hard stone, but he had executed the dramatic entrance many times before and was familiar with how to land it.

He smashed into the ground with a heavy impact, cracking the ground underneath his armoured bulk and landing only a couple of metres away from his youngest son, who's youthful face lit up surprise and sheer relief at having his father come to help him, despite the fact that it meant that Alexander would have been left alone (unless the older boy was coming to his little brother's aid to fight the greatest threat) and the reality that they were not on the greatest terms at the moment – although that would be put off until the end of the battle and Cai couldn't seriously say that he was anything less than grateful for his dad's entrance, as Akroma descended from the heavens next to him, her greatsword firmly pointed at the Lord of Riots, who grinned widely at the new entrances and laughed again, the thing that he seemed the most fond of doing, "**Oh, has daddy King and big sister Akroma come to save you now, Caiellis and Orzhova? How sweet. Now I have an audience to show your painful and agonising deaths to!**"

"Dad!" Cai shouted in mild happiness, although he knew that in no way he was out of any danger whatsoever, running to the man's side and holding his sword outstretched as well as the Archdemon guffawed loudly at its own joke, though it did so more because of the expressions on the faces of the two Lucernas and two First Sisterhood angels presently railed against it. Now _this _was getting entertaining. The man didn't turn around, as much as he wanted to, and one part of his mind told him that he should be checking his son's wounds and reassuring the boy that now that he was here, Caiellis was now safe(r than he had been before), but that was soon overwhelmed by his sheer anger at the boy that crushed the other part of his mind, the fatherly and parental part, underneath it at having been defied by the _brat _once again, despite all that he had done to try and prevent it and warn the child from repeating the actions every time he did it.

That, coupled with the headache that reached a crescendo of agony that blocked out all other thoughts and almost had him sprawling on the ground and curling up in a foetal ball as his head felt like someone was driving white hot daggers dripping with agonising venom into it from every angle, his pain flaring up in synchronisation with his anger at the boy for defying him at every single turn and baiting him to violent rage so that Caiellis could pretend that he owned the moral high ground and turned others – such as Guardian Tristram, who needed to be severely punished for his impertinence, and his eldest, Alexander – against him. One section of his psyche protested that he should be focussing on the demon, but one look at Rakdos showed that he was more than happy to watch his pain, until the demon faded from his sight and mind, accompanied by the two angels, until it was only him and Caiellis on the plaza, the boy babbling his name again and placing a slender palm on his shoulder that had pain exploding through Marik's skull, the vindictive reverberations exacerbated by the contact with the boy as he automatically swung round to try and get the boy away from him, who recoiled responding to the look of rage and _hatred _on his father's face with one of confused fear as the man staggered towards him.

Marik couldn't see anything; it was if some sort of red mist that blocked out everything other stimulus had descended, and felt like he wanted to throw up as he experienced a massively unpleasant and nauseating sensation of being sucked inwards, like a perverse version of the entrances to his personal Mind Realm that he partook in. A glimmer of light in the darkness of the tunnel he was falling through, like a maliciously twinkling star in the night sky of any place other than Lucael, gradually opened up, and Marik gasped at the sudden queasiness that rolled through him, mixed in with anger at what was happening to him, as he knew that he should be doing something to help his son against Rakdos, but he couldn't see anything and felt like he was being pulled away from the world as he tumbled through the seemingly endless vortex, before his eyes finally shut and he fell through the barrier between consciousness and the realm of dreams.

.*.*.*.

"Where … where am I?" he directed the question outwards, a general inquiry that was only answered by the echoing sound of his own voice as he sat up, rubbing his head, until anger spiked through him and he surged to his feet.

He needed to find a way out of this place so that he could go and help his son, and looked around him, Marik's tactical mind exploding into action as he analysed his surroundings for a way to escape, before realising that he was simply sat in his Mind Realm, a massive castle/cathedral that echoed the construction of the Lucerna Palace in Capitalia Lux but was indescribably vast, and each time he had spent days exploring it as a youth after passing Akroma's trial at the age of eleven (the same day Johnias passed his trial but after his brother had done it, as he had been spurred on by not wanting his brother to been seen as superior as him by their cold and judging father King Garius II) the vast corridors throughout it changed even if he took the exact same route, though Akroma would only meet him in the main hall, the placed that he was in now and where he entered his quiet Mind Realm usually.

However, the angel was not here, which was understandable, as they were supposed to be fighting against an Archdemon of great power and danger to the legions of Lucael, and his son would be in mortal danger if his father had simply slumped into unconsciousness. Marik tried to focus on leaving, which usually worked, but then found that there was a barrier on the mental exit of the Mind Realm, the thing that had been causing the headaches – evidently they were not just the product of an unfortunate illness that he had caught and that his body had not disposed of – blocking his re-entry to consciousness and reality. Marik began to be filled with rage as a snaking pool of viscous liquid leaked out of the corner of his vision, seeping out of the cracks in the granite walls of the main hall in Akroma's citadel and spilling across the floor towards him, rippling unnaturally to the sound of a malignant and unheard melody.

He automatically grasped at the space that his Lucerna relic greatsword would be located so that he could purge this intruder to his mind and return to fighting alongside his son, as if they boy got hurt while he was trapped in his own mind then he would never be able to forgive himself, before finding his fingers clenching over empty air, and his choler rose even more as the throbbing and sticky puddle of blackness began to take shape, rising up out of its shadowy depths. The king of Lucael then tried to focus his mana, to blast a shaft of holy incandescence at the invader into his sanctified Mind Realm, but nothing was coming out of his outstretched palm, nor did he have access to any mana in his mind, no matter how hard he tried to generate some or summon it – it was as if the reservoir of magical energy in his body had suddenly dried up completely, leaving him without the power of his mana.

Then, he heard a tutting sound which was strangely familiar and yet in the same instance not, and out of the pool of blackness the vague form of a figure appeared, with humanoid limbs but instead of hands and legs simply tendrils of darkness that rippled and throbbed, about the size of the king, and then three orbs of red that were pits of unrelenting despair and malice opened up on its head and a slit appeared underneath them, revealing rows of bleached teeth that gnashed together before speaking in a mocking tone, "Now now Mariky-boy, calm yourself. I'm not going to hurt you … not yet anyway." it added with a malicious wink of its third eye nestled between the other two.

"What have you done with my son?!" the king thundered, smashing his fist into the being's face with an explosion of tar like liquid that spattered over the room, before slowly dragging its way back to the horror and reforming its face again, as it smiled mockingly at the monarch of Lucael as he snarled angrily back and launched another attack. This time, his fist was blocked by a snaking tendril that possessed surprising strength, twisting Marik's hand down and away from it, but the king had been ready for such a response and kicked it in what would have passed for its abdomen. It splattered into multiple droplets but got back together a few metres away, laughing to itself and heightening the king's ire, saying to the man, "Aww come on, Mariky-boy, we could become real great friends if you would stop trying to kill me, ya know?"  
Marik scowled again at the intruder's usage of the verbal slang that his twin brother had often used when talking to his brother or friends in an attempt to seem more popular (which worked, though Johnias had been extremely charismatic and charming – he had even got young Alexander using it at one point, though Marik knew that his eldest would have stopped when Johnias betrayed them), but knew that trying to kill the creature was proving to be fruitless, so instead snarled a, "What have you done to me, you monster?"

Its eyes opened wide in feigned shock, and it pouted, muttering sullenly, "Aww, so you don't remember me, Mariky-boy? But I thought I had made a great impression on you..."

"I do not believe we have had the pleasure of meeting," the king growled back, his body still full of adrenaline and his posture still ready for combat and to defend himself from any form of attack, entertaining the creature with his responses whilst he thought up ways to either kill it or break out of the hold it evidently had on his mind, and it smiled even wider, all pretended offence gone. It then clapped its two hand-tendrils together, which created an unpleasant wet slapping sound like two lumps of freshly carved meat at a butchery being smacked together, and said, excitedly, "Oh, I think we have. Here, let me show you."

The king watched with curiously veiled underneath his rage as the creature blinked was, and then pain exploded within his head as circles of expanding light pulsed painfully beneath the eyelids that he had involuntarily clamped shut. Then, the darkness behind his eyes faded, and Marik was presented by a dark expanse in front of him lit up by the wan illumination of dying golden flames as well as a more powerful and blinding luminescence that almost had him looking away. He was moving, channelling mana, and Marik soon realised that he was powerless to act, though his body was still doing fine. He saw Akroma, the Angel of Wrath, with her gargantuan blade shining with incandescence light and about to swing into a target in front of her, though he couldn't yet tell what it was.

Then he turned, though not because of his mental own orders, and glanced at the foe they were facing. Marik recognised the corrupted beast that the last vampire Aksua had become, her once beautiful and unnaturally alluring body pulsating with the horror running through her veins, and then Akroma's blade had slammed into her, exploding in a calamitous discharge of thunderous energy that shook the earth beneath them. He now realised why he couldn't move other than what the Marik that he was looking through the eyes of was doing – he was reliving one of his memories, and as such it couldn't be changed as he was merely being shown what he had experienced only a week ago.

The horror that Aksua had become exploded in the angel's finishing strike, Akroma's Vengeance, every trace of her disintegrated by the holy light of the angel – or every trace apart from one. Marik watched on with horror, though he still felt the mixture of pride and awe that he had felt on that fateful evening that had almost lead to the death of Alexander and had been the catalyst for his and Caiellis's arguments, as a single droplet of oily black liquid splashed out from not-Aksua and landed, splattering on his cheek. He unintentionally brushed it away, not noticing it and far more concerned for his eldest son and his angel's righteous declaration after the Vengeance, and then with a strange feeling of detachment Marik was ripped out of the past him and observed the scene from another point of view. The black droplet, instead of being brushed off of his face, curled round his finger and deposited itself back on his cheek, too small to be noticed, and flowed into his short (and whitening) blonde hair and then into his ear, where it would reside next to his brain like a canker at the heart of his being.

Then, Marik returned back to the marble cathedral fortress inside of his mind, with the horror – the last vestiges of the thing that had possessed and been Summoned by Aksua – grinned at his horrified expression, purring malevolently, "Don't look so alarmed, Mariky-boy, I've been a peaceful and helpful passenger, as I'm sure your little boy would agree."

Marik's eyes opened wide – this, this angel-forsaken-_son-of-a-bitch_, had been the one responsible for his headaches, and his violent rages and urge to hurt his youngest son, and he snarled at the horror, who tutted once again, like he was talking to a petulant and stubborn child, "While I may have caused your headaches, you can't blame me for the anger you showed to precious little baby Caiellis. I merely removed the barriers of control that were stopping the entertainment from happening. Your rage – your _desire _to hurt your youngest son – was entirely your own. I just let it free. And it was magnificent, if I do say so myself-"

"You bastard!" Marik shouted, releasing all of the anger that he had for Caiellis and himself at the horror in front of him, and while normally that would have been represented with mana fists were going to have to do the job on this occasion, and though he had already established the futility of the act he flung himself at the creature, needing to release his rage for the injustices inflicted upon him and his son – though most of his anger was from the latter – and the being shook its head sadly, moving with a preternatural agility and bending its body to dodge the king's strikes, Marik's kicks and punches meeting empty air whenever he threw them, so instead he became full of defeat and self-loathing, slumping resignedly to the hard floor, and his thoughts were full of accusations aimed at himself.

_What … what have you done? You knew that Caiellis didn't deserve any violence! You knew! You knew that you were supposed to be the adult in the equation, the one supposed to end arguments first, the one supposed to know what they are doing, but you've certainly failed to deliver with that. From making him hate and cut himself, to making him seem like his life was worthless enough so that he found it acceptable to throw it away in an attempt to complete Orzhova's trial, to pinning him down on his bed and strangling him! What sort of father does that to their children?! _The answer was quick to come. _A failure of one._

"Oh, so you don't think that every parent has a right to discipline their child?" the horror inquired, its voice full of an almost-genuine curiosity that made it sound like a young child and unfamiliar with the world, before it turned darker and more malicious, "Because I distinctly remember you thinking that Caiellis's safety and obedience came before anything else, and that the only way you would shut him up was to hit him, and that "desperate times call for desperate measures." And I'm surprised that you haven't given into the temptation to forcibly silence him before, because _boy_ does that brat whine like a dog!"

"Shut the fuck up," the king growled, full of enough rage to make even the horror pause, before it returned to taunting the man who held his head in his hands, thinking about what he had made his youngest son go through by wrapping them around his throat, though he had never wanted to do that, just hit him and shut him, "Aww, Mariky-boy, don't blame yourself. I wouldn't in your situation. And while hitting him would have accomplished a similar thing, the strangulation was a little touch added by yours truly on the orders of your very own big brother."  
"Johnias," Marik breathed, his voice full of malice, anger and hatred at the man that had ripped his and his family's lives apart with his wanton lust for power and insatiable desire to rule matched only of his envy of Marik's success and ascension to the throne and how much it had hurt to know that his slightly older brother had never cared about him, and had been prepared to – no, _wanted _to – kill his young sons so that there would be no one to ascend to the throne apart from him, as when fighting his brother Prince Johnias had revealed that one of his plans had been to attain near immortality through demonic contracts and simply wait until Marik had died after killing his two sons so that the rest of Lucael would only have one member of the Lucerna line left. However, his brother's impatience and arrogance had been his downfall, as well as the fact that while he had threatened such tactics he was too narcissistic to ever do so and wanted the love of the people instead of just their resigned acceptance to his ascension – something that he had possessed, but unlike before the death of their father Marik was liked more by the people because of his position as king and his intelligence and success in the role.

He wouldn't put it past Johnias at all to want to turn his youngest son against him, as while Alexander wouldn't be swayed as easily because of his greater familiarity with Marik and the fact that his eldest had realised that he loved him much more than Johnias did despite the latter never disciplining (though Marik had never had to sanction Caiellis before the civil war) him and the fact that his beloved uncle showered him with gifts, whereas at the age of four his youngest son might not have understood it as well as his big brother. Furthermore, Caiellis had access to Black mana that had been with him from birth (and, according to Orzhova, hadn't been created by her) whereas Johnias had been forced to trade away his powerful White to attain it, so his little boy could be a perfect second in command for his traitorous brother should Caiellis ever turn to him – and though he doubted that, he had almost throttled his youngest son on his bed in a fit of rage, which could easily turn a child against their parent. Nonetheless, while he hadn't seen it in action, he knew how much Caiellis (and Alexander) rightly hated Johnias due to how he spoke of him and the utter detestation present when he uttered the man's name.

"My master's master is also my master," the horror babbled, grinning as Marik when he pulled himself out of his hands and glared back at it, deciding that he needed to take control of the situation now to firstly stop anything from happening that could push Caiellis away from him and secondly help the boy against the Archdemon Rakdos – though hopefully Akroma was aiding her sister and his son in combat whilst he was in an unconscious state, so to that end he questioned, "If you are talking to me within my mind, then what is happening to my physical body?"

The horror's grin widened, and Marik had the distinct impression that something awful was occurring while he was stuck inside of his mind, which made him resolve to concentrate extremely hard on breaking out, shutting his eyes and relaxing his breaths and focussing to the determination within himself to do his duty as both a father of two sons and a king of a massive nation to break out of his mind and continue fighting against Rakdos to help save lives and protect his thirteen year old son, but there was nothing he seemed to be able to do. He refused to let defeat and despair gnaw away at him from the inside, as well as desperation at knowing the precarious situation that his sons and his army was in – not one thought of Marik's was directed to the fact that the likely possibility for what was going in with him was that he was unconscious, and easy prey for an Archdemon, and so was in grave danger – but his concentration was disrupted when the horror, evidently bored with the lack of conversation, stroked his face with a slimy and sticky tendril that had him automatically opening his eyes and recoiling from it as it smiled at him, "All will be revealed soon, Mariky-boy. But right now, you should stop trying to break out. I want to talk to you, and the longer you delay that then the longer it will take for you to be freed."

"What are you planning, foul creature?" the king demanded, and the horror smiled at him in an extremely infuriating manner, clearly enjoying having control of the encounter despite the fact that they were in Marik's mind, and replied sibilantly, "As I said: all will be revealed soon. But first, shall we take a look at your relationship with young Caiellis?"

Apparently his silence served as conformation of that as he again tried to rail against his mental restriction, knowing that he needed to break out and escape from the trap of his own mind before something irrevocable happened in the world of the awake, as he felt more tugging on the back of his psyche, indicating that he would be thrust into another flashback like the one he had experienced further but dragged fully into it, unable to feel or think any differently to how he had done in his past, so he resisted it, aware that there was even less chance of him retreating back to consciousness with two mental areas to force his way free of, and the horror broke into his thoughts again, "Tsk tsk, Mariky-boy. I already told you that there is no chance of escaping until I have finished with you. The more you resist the longer it will take. Stop fighting against it."

Marik sighed loudly and punched the horror again, though it splattered everywhere and quickly formed back into its original form, looking at him with exaggerated offence out its three glistening eyes, but knew that there was no benefit to continuing to try and smash his way out of the barriers placed upon his mind. While he had no reason to trust this servant of Johnias's words, he had no reason not to either and it was the only course of action he was able to take. Marik stopped fighting back, and let his memories swallow him.

.*.*.*.

_Marik smiled lovingly at his little boy – his _eldest, _boy that would need getting used to – as they walked out of the small classroom of other infants that were the progeny of other noble families in Capitalia Lux and schooled in the palace nursery by the former Hierarch Tybalt Litria that had once been a mentor to the twenty seven year old king himself, the boy clutching his father's much larger hand tightly and looking up at him with his adorable blue eyes that rested underneath a spiky blonde fringe that needed cutting, but Emili had always liked Alexander having longish hair and didn't want it as short as Marik's. _

_The boy was chattering excitedly about his day at school with his friends, and while Marik should have been listening he couldn't help but think about the events of the day that he knew would change all his family's lives – for the better. Alexander was possessed of the boundless energy of a young boy, and bounced along at his father's side as they walked towards where Marik had just come from, the birthplace of his youngest son._

_After Emili had told him on that night less than eight months ago that the results of a test that she had gone to see the Ordo Medella doctors about why her mana wasn't generating came back to her and confirmed that there was another mana presence – another _life_ – growing inside of her womb, the overjoyed couple had often talked about how best to introduce their young son to the fact that he wouldn't be the youngest anymore, that there would be another, younger member to their small family, and that he would be a big brother and what such a thing would entail. They had kept it relatively quiet until it had been noticeable that his mummy was getting larger, but Emili and Marik had eventually decided that the best way to go about it would be to pretend that nothing would change and to simply make sure that Alexander knew that his parents would always love him no matter what._

_Marik didn't actually remember the exact circumstances in which new Caiellis had been conceived, but it had been on the night of Emili's twenty seventh birthday and suffice to say Alexander had been sent to have a sleepover at Marik's friend Carlis's house where he could play with the twins and his parents did something that would not have been suitable for a four year old, after rather copious amounts of alcohol had been ingested (and Marik hadn't touched the stuff since, hating the fact that there was a section of his life that he couldn't remember). The couple had never overtly planned to have another child, as Alexander was more than enough for them, but it hadn't made them any less ecstatic when they found out that they were having another child and that Alexander would be getting a younger sibling._

_They hadn't said anything about the new baby until seven months into the pregnancy, when Alexander had returned from his school day and innocently inquired why his mummy was getting such a big belly (though it had been noticeably smaller than when she had been carrying Marik's little boy at that stage), which had led to Marik commenting that if he had said the same thing then he would have been sleeping outside of the palace for a month, but with Alexander she found it cute. The king fondly remembered his wife of five years' reply._

"_Alex is an innocent little boy," Emili had replied, smiling all the while and affectionately ruffling her relatively confused son's hair, who protested that he was a big boy, not a little one, "But you are my husband Marik, and an adult, though I do doubt that sometimes. You have to support me all the way. Even if I look like an oxen, you have to lie to me and say that I'm attractive." she added with a wink._

"_An oxen? No, Emili, you're my beautiful wife, as beautiful as ever in fact!" Marik quickly protested, hoping that Emili wasn't thinking negatively about her appearance because of the fact that she was going through a pregnancy, but his wife widened her grin and responded, "And you, Marik, you are a very quick learner!"_

_Then they had explained to Alexander what was going on, that there would soon be another member to their family to join him on the side of the youngsters (although Emili still insisted that she was young, and at twenty seven that was completely true), but that just because someone else would be taking up the attention it didn't mean that they loved him any less. Neither Marik nor Emili had younger siblings, so neither really knew how to explain what it would be like for their first born, who Marik was sure still hadn't really understood what was happening to their mother. Nevertheless, they kept his life the same even as they prepared for Caiellis or Thaliecia to enter their family, so Alexander had continued with his education with the other children, which they had planned to happen even at the allotted date for their baby's birth._

_However, evidently extremely eager for life and bored inside of his mother's womb, Caiellis had decided (although he was wording it in this way, in no way did Marik blame his youngest for the premature birth) that he wanted out, which meant that a month before he was supposed to have been born he started to kick and come out, which meant that instead of the family having a nice tea together Emili had been rushed to the private Ordo Medella unit of the Lucerna Palace that had been the location of Alexander's sunny birth as well with Alexander becoming extremely panicked and scared for his mum. Marik had made sure to reassure him, though Alexander hadn't really believed him due to not being able to see his mum as there was barely enough space in the hectic hospital room for a controlled and contrite adult, let alone the agitated and frightened little boy that Alexander would become seeing his mother in the amount of pain that she had been in over the course of almost twenty two hours._

_That was why Marik had left his wife after only having a relatively brief glimpse of his new baby boy before he was rushed inside of an incubation tank that would help to preserve and strengthen his tenuous hold upon life to go and fetch their four year old son, and while Alexander was good at picking up that things were wrong the boy luckily hadn't yet inquired or noticed the stress lines on Marik's forehead that had developed from watching his wife screaming in pain for hours on end, or the horror in his eyes from seeing the woman he loved having her stomach cut open in a caesarean section, or finally his worry, both for his stricken but delighted wife and his fragile and incredibly thin newborn son that undoubtedly would have died within seconds of the birth without the blood of the royal family running through his young veins. _

_He had gone to fetch Alexander from his lessons, as while it would have been easy enough to send a guard to do it and he didn't want to leave his wife or Caiellis unless something happened, Emili had wanted him to go and tell the news to Alexander and bring him into the surgery, knowing that no one else would be able to tell the boy like he could about what had happened and that he had a new little brother, and that sending a guard would make Alexander scared and worried, even if he knew most of the Lucerna praetorians and adored them._

"_Daddy? Where are we going?" the voice of his beloved eldest son pierced into his thoughts, and Marik relaxed his grip on the boy's small and childishly chubby hand because his consternation had led to him accidentally increasing the force of his grip on his little boy, who to his credit hadn't complained, though Marik would never hurt his son – either of his sons -, intentionally or not. The boy was still holding the pictures that he had been drawing with Leodred and Elizabex, his best friends, in the lesson, childish scrawls that Marik would have immediately disliked if they hadn't belonged to his own son, and as such thought that they were amazing. The blonde boy was looking up at him, his wide blue eyes reflecting his curiosity, and Marik increased his pace, not wanting to spend any more time away from Emili and Caiellis than possible._

"_Do you remember when me and your mum told you about the little brother or sister you were going to have?" Marik asked back, and the boy narrowed his eyes for a moment in an utterly adorable expression of deep thought that Emili had pulled before before nodding, though it wasn't a particularly happy nod – the king assumed his son was still apprehensive about the thought of a little brother, and still worried about his mother being urgently rushed off and taken from his side. Marik praised, "Well done, Alexander. Now, buddy, your mother has just given birth to him. You have a little brother now."_

_Marik raised his eyebrows from where he was looking down at his son and focussing on the walk simultaneously, returning the respectful and happy nods that the servants sent him, as the news of the birth of another exalted Lucerna had spread like wildfire and the whole kingdom would soon be overjoyed, though Marik knew that they could never match his and Emili's happiness. Alexander had frowned, though he seemed reticent to share his thoughts so Marik prompted with a, "Is there something wrong, little guy?"_

"_I don't want a little brother," the young boy replied sullenly, though the monarch sensed that his unhappiness was derived from his own and the fact that he knew that everyone else was really happy about it and thought that he should be himself. Marik narrowed his eyes himself and inquired, "Why not, Alexander?"_

_The boy seemed unusually nervous to answer, so to encourage him Marik patted his son on the shoulder with a large hand gently, letting go of his son's hand to do so, though Alexander had long since mastered tha art of walking, and the boy murmured, "Eliza says that little brothers are lame and they smell. Please can we have a puppy instead?"_

_Marik rolled his eyes at that – having a puppy had been Alexander's most recent obsession, in spite of the amount of times he had been informed of his mother's allergy of the hair of canines and the fact that Marik personally didn't like dogs much either, and quickly told the boy, "Well that isn't true at all. I promise that Caiellis isn't lame, champ. And trust me when I say that having a little brother is going to be much better than having a puppy. So no, we can't have a puppy, and you know that your mother is allergic to them."_

"_Aww … Please?" the boy pleaded for the umpteenth time after being told that he couldn't have one, prompting Marik to think that maybe they needed to be harsher on the boy when informing him what was what, though he knew that Emili would never agree with him on that and Alexander was only four years old and would grow out of it. Nevertheless, the king still inflected his tone with a tinge of sternness to reaffirm that he was the adult in the conversation when he uttered, "No, Alexander, for the last time you are _not_ having a puppy. Got it, little man?"_

_The boy just kept walking, but his face fell and his shoulders slumped in defeat, so to get an answer out of him Marik said his name before Alexander replied quickly with a drawn out and sad: "Yes, daddy. I'm not having a puppy." Marik smiled down at him as they passed another few servants, knowing that his excitable eldest wouldn't be able to resist breaking his sulking silence for long, confirmed by, "I drew some pictures of Sancturia creatures today, daddy. Do you think that Caiellis will like them?"_

_Marik resisted the urge to snort with laughter at the pure innocence in his son's expression, his earlier misgivings about having a little brother evidently pushed aside, for now anyway, and instead of responding with an: "He's only just been born, so won't have developed the necessary cognitive functions to like or dislike things such as illustrations, let alone the ability to convey that information," he replied to his little boy with, "You can ask him yourself when we go to meet him and your mother, ok?"_

"_Cool!" his son responded excitedly, picking up his pace to match his sudden burst of youthful enthusiasm and forcing Marik to increase his own to match it, striding close behind his son in case he fell over or took a tumble, and quickly overtook him before they reached the entrance to the surgery, wanting to prepare his eldest for what he would encounter within. He knelt down to his son's height and placed his hands on his small but healthy shoulders, gently tilting the boy's face away from looking into the sterilised and not entirely pleasant room that had been the site of two of the most paradoxically horrible yet delightful and undoubtedly best experiences of his life (apart from his marriage to Emili Noctis), and looked deep into the warm blue eyes that Alexander had inherited from his father._

"_Alexander. Before we go in there and you can meet your little brother Caiellis for the first time, I want to speak to you, and I want your attention, ok buddy?" Marik asked, and the four year old looked at him with a child's seriousness, happy to obey his father's commands and not wanting his daddy to get more sad, as the man looked remarkably more drained than Alex had ever seen him before, even when he had left him alone with the swords and Alex had just wanted to play with them and cut his hand on the blade and mummy had slapped him for it, though Alex couldn't understand why she had done that. He stopped resisting his father's gentle but firm prevention of his fidgeting, and looked back at his daddy, who smiled lovingly at him again._

"_I want you to know that, no matter that you have a little baby brother, me and your mum will always love you more than anything else in the world (apart from Caiellis, but that didn't need adding and Marik could tell that Alexander understood that) and that we will never, ever ignore you, or pay less attention to you than your little brother. You are more precious to us than words can describe, and we love you, Alexander," Marik let all of his emotion out in those heartfelt words, and, ensuring that it was more personal and knowing how much more powerful it was, added, "_I _love you, my son."_

"_I love you too, daddy. And I love mummy as well," the boy replied resolutely, and Marik pulled him into a tight hug and kissed him on his forehead, almost wanting to hold the moment forever but knowing that he had two other family members that would make it even better. The boy squealed loudly, which made Marik cock an amused eyebrow at his eldest son's outrage at being kissed, wondering if he did it any different to Emili and therefore why it was received differently by Alexander, but he knew his wife was softer than him and much better with children than he was – though Marik was improving._

"_Do you want to go and see Caiellis and your mum?" Marik then asked him, gently putting him down on the floor and turning towards the doorway into the surgery and pushing it open before there was a response. Then he paused, lingering in the entrance as the aged Ordo Medella nurse that had helped to deliver both of his sons stepped out of the surgery to give the family privacy and smiled at the king and his son, and glanced back at Alexander, who murmured, "Yeah."_

_The king kindly took hold of his son's chubby and warm hand and gently pulled him in front of him, encouragingly pushing him forward when he shot an uncharacteristically nervous and anxious glance back at his dad, though Marik could see why his son would be apprehensive about entering. The boy trotted forward, his father right behind him to provide emotional support if necessary, glad that the macabre implements that had been utilised to slice open his wife had been cleaned and removed before he returned, otherwise Alexander might have felt sick and been put off even more than he seemed to be. Every so often, there was a quiet beep, which reassured the occupants of the room that the one in the incubation unit was still alive, and when Alexander stopped moving again Marik picked him up in his muscular arms and carried him over to the section of the room at the opposite end and near to the window that, contrasting with the sunlight of his blonde son's birth, was as midnight black as usual._

_Emili sat up in her hospital bed, still looking pale but remarkably more healthy than alive than before, although both husband and wife still had large bags underneath their eyes after the two days of the childbirth, and she smiled affectionately at her eldest son, but otherwise wanted him to meet his new brother instead of talking to her – that could wait. The king smiled back at the queen and deposited his son next to the bed with the quietly thrumming glass tank to the right of it, a shudder going through him at the unwanted thought of how tenuous his baby boy's hold on life was, and instead of grasping onto Alexander's outstretched hand he said, "There he is, buddy, that's Caiellis."_

_At a sudden cough from Emili, Marik cursed himself and brought over a small stool for his son to stand on, as otherwise he wasn't tall enough to peer inside of the incubator that held his little brother and filled his fragile body with White mana that would ensure that he stayed alive as well as fed nutrients to him through a tube that luckily for Alexander couldn't be seen at the moment, and the youngster gasped in surprise mixed with amazement, "Daddy! He's so little!"_

"_Yeah," Marik replied with a soft rumble of laughter, "He is." He looked down at his youngest son, the newest member of his perfect family, who was sleeping quietly, his yellowy red face full of innocence and purity and wrapped up in a fluffy white blanket, and other than his tiny size and thinness no one would have known the amount of stress he had put his parents through in his tumultuous birth. _

_A small wisp of blonde hair adorned the baby's head, and Marik smiled widely, unable to stop a grin of joy plastering itself onto his features at the sight of his new son, whispering, "Hello, Caiellis. I'm your dad." to the glass, wishing that he could pick up his son and hold him like he had done with Alexander after his birth, but the fact that Caiellis had been born one month early – and would have been frail and small even if he had been born a month later - meant that any contact with the boy could permanently damage his brittle bones. Only Emili and the Ordo Medella Surgeon-General (as delivering the child of a Lucerna was an extremely important duty only undertaken by the most professional operatives) that had taken the baby to the mana incubator had touched his son._

_Alexander didn't copy his father, feeling that there was no point in talking to the boy when he was asleep, and instead continued to stare at his small brother, eventually asking, "But … why is he so little, mummy and daddy?"_

_Marik suppressed a saddened sigh and shared a glance with his bed-ridden wife. He should have known that his observant little prince would pick up on it in spite of the blanket his truly little brother, as Alexander had seen other babies before from other noble families that the Lucerna family had visited to commemorate the other births, and was bound to notice that his little brother wasn't just _little. _Try _tiny...

_At four years old, Alex didn't understand medical terminology such as "premature" and "jaundice", and phototherapy treatment meant nothing to his young mind, but he already felt a deep rooted sense of something that he couldn't describe rising up from within him, like he instinctively wanted to keep this tiny person that he had never seen before safe._

"_How is my little monster doing?" Emili's tired, strained but still loving and beautiful voice broke the painful silence that had descended upon the small family, looking at Alexander with her exhausted but still bright green eyes and reaching out a hand towards him, directing her son's attention away from the slight and fragile form of his infant sibling, and the boy broke of his concerned gaze before jumping off the stool and running to his mother's side, grasping hold of her hand tightly as she reached down and lifted him onto the bed, Marik rushing to their side before he could stop himself as his wife glanced at him, her eyes saying: "While I may be bed-ridden and I have just gone through an extremely painful childbirth, I can still pick up my son and hug him." The king smiled back at her but remained close in case his wife hurt himself, knowing how she hated to feel useless and therefore was more stubborn in doing things that she technically shouldn't._

_Alex shared a hug with his mum as she planted a kiss on his head, Marik almost snorting amusedly when instead of reacting with disgust Alexander snuggled up closer to the monarch's wife, as she smiled and said, "You are getting bigger every day, Alex. I'm sure that you'll soon be as big and strong as daddy. You'll be a great big brother, I'm certain of it." _

_Marik had never quite got used to referring to Emili as "mummy" in a way that defied the normal application of grammar (as Emili wasn't his own mother), but his love had thrown herself into the other way round of it, and Alexander smiled at her before his face became full of concern and worry, as if suddenly noticing how pale, weary and thin his mother had become since he had last seen her, and he asked, "Mummy? Are you ok?"_

"_I'm fine, Alex," Emili assured the boy, though Marik knew that she wasn't and had just had her stomach cut open and subsequently stitched up, and while she was ignoring it Alexander's position would have been hurting her, so, pretending not to notice the burning glare the queen directed in his direction, Marik picked up his eldest and easily held him in his arms instead, as his wife continued to try and reassure her son, who looked about ready to burst into tears, "Giving birth is a painful experience, so be thankful that you will never have to do it."_

"_Did Caiellis hurt you?" Alexander then questioned protectively, shooting a vaguely hostile glance over at the sleeping form of his new little brother, while Marik and Emili shared and alarmed meeting of eyes and the latter said, "No, not on purpose, it's just what happens when a mum gives birth to a child. It was the same with you."_

_Although Marik knew that his wife was trying to simplify it for his little boy so that the solicitous youngster wouldn't immediately dislike his little brother before seeing him awake, in no way was the agony that Caiellis had inadvertently put his mother through comparable to the strain she had undergone when giving birth to his eldest son. But anyway, it wasn't Caiellis's fault in any way for what happened, as he was only a baby. Alexander looked up at his mother, his youthful eyes doleful and brimming with tears as he said, "I never meant to hurt you, mummy..."_

_Marik couldn't help but find that immensely sweet, so brought all three of them into a hug when Emili insisted, "No, you didn't hurt me Alex. It is just what happens when a woman gives birth. Neither you nor Caiellis ever meant for me to go through pain, and while I don't look as big and strong as daddy I am, and any pain that I go through in the name of my sons and who I love is worth it." The boy nodded into his father's shoulder, before Emili turned to smile at Marik and admitted, "Though I do think that is enough giving birth for one lifetime."_

_The man grinned back and kissed his wife on the forehead, so proud of this beautiful woman that had gone through so much to give him love and children, turning back round to look at the newest member of his family again and commenting, "It seems like we are going to have another one looking like me, what with Caiellis's blonde hair-"_

"_No," Emili denied vehemently, vaguely shocking her husband at the force of the declaration, "I had blonde hair like that when I was a baby as well, and I can tell that Caiellis will have brown hair and green eyes. Trust me on that."_

"_Have you seen his eyes?" Marik asked, and when his wife shook his head he couldn't resist chuckling at the fact that Emili had spontaneously decided that her second son would look like her instead of his father, brother and only uncle. His wife glared at him, pouting when he inquired, "So how do you know that Caiellis will look like you then?"_

_She stuck out her tongue at Marik when Alexander's gaze strayed back to his sleeping little brother, returning her expression to a pleasant smile when he looked back at his mother, "He has my last name as his middle name, so he should. I'll prove it to you. Come on, Caiellis. It's time for you to wake up and meet your daddy and big brother." _

_The king shot her a weird glance, and then turned back to his youngest son when his eldest gasped in surprise, grinning in delight a second afterwards when Caiellis's eyelids opened and his blinked at the light around him and cascading over his form, glancing around the room with wide and glistening emerald orbs that looked exactly like Emili's, prompting his mother to smile victoriously at Marik, who had fallen silent, stumped by the way Emili's voice had called their youngest son from his sleep. He turned to his wife, as Alexander shot to the stool, clambering onto it so that he could look more closely at his little brother now that he was awake, a question in his piercing blue eyes, and the woman simply blew him a kiss and smiled back, tapping her nose, though Marik knew that she hadn't used any mana – as he hadn't sensed it and there was no way she would have been able to access it – to rouse Caiellis from his slumber._

_Caiellis sat up in his blankets, moving slowly as he got used to this new world around him, so different to the one that he had lived in before. He turned his head, scanning the room with his new eyes for the one that had called him, as when he had ascertained what they were he could analyse the rest of the room – or that was how it looked to Marik anyway, who had no idea what – if anything – was going on in his baby boy's new mind. He stared at the woman who had given birth to him for a few seconds as Emili smiled and winked at him, almost bursting into tears because of her sheer happiness that had only been matched by the birth of her eldest._

_Marik then found himself the recipient of his youngest son's gaze, looking into those wide green eyes that seemed full of a wisdom and intellect that someone new to this world should not possess, so similar to his wife's dazzling orbs, and the king gave his tiny son a small wave and a welcoming smile. The gaze of Caiellis seemed to promise so much – that they would have so many good times in the future. It promised the love and adoration of a son to a father, of times spent in each other's company, of times of hardship and strife when they would argue as he grew up or he would squabble with his big brother, but most of all it made Marik think of how much he loved both of his sons, and the fantastic future all four of them would have together – the perfect family. Then the moment passed, and Caiellis looked away from him, his youngest son soaking up all of this new experience, and Marik made a silent promise to the boy that he would protect the fragile child from the dangers of the world. He was indescribably glad that his baby boy had survived his turbulent and bloody entrance into the world._

_Alex grinned when his little brother then stared at him, pressing his face into the glass despite his father's insistence not to (which was quickly silenced by Emili's brushing off of his concerns) and observing the occupant of the incubator, wishing that he could hold and touch Caiellis and not understanding why he couldn't, though he knew that it had something to do with why he was so small. Before he could introduce himself to the baby as his big brother, a soft gurgling took him by surprise, and he smiled wide in delight, exclaiming, "Wow! He just laughed at me!"_

I'm pretty sure that was just wind, _Marik thought, but kept that to himself and smile parentally at his two sons' first meeting, when Emili interjected, "That's because he loves his big brother already, Alex, __and is just saying hello__."_

"_Really?" Alex asked, his eyes opening up to at least twice their original size and shooting a glance back at his mother and father, and Marik stroked Emili's shoulder lovingly. His wife was amazing at being a mother, and was excellent at adding things that the colder Marik would never have thought of that made Alexander so much happier – and would make Caiellis happier, he was sure of it. She was the perfect parent and wife, and much more than he deserved. Four year old Alexander was overwhelmed. He giggled back at his little brother, turning his eyes back to the tiny person behind the glass of the mana-charged neonatal support unit. The baby's eyes were wide open and fixed on Alexander, __who asked, his young voice full of wonder,__ "How does he know who I am?"_

"_Because, just like you, Caiellis is an intelligent boy," Emili replied, adamantly, as if challenging anything like Caiellis's premature birth to say otherwise, though that wasn't picked up on by Alexander, who continued to stare at his little brother, pressing his hand against the glass as well as he leaned on it. Marik smothered a grin when his little boy began to introduce himself as well as the rest of his family, to Caiellis, who simply absorbed all of the information as his brother began to talk about where they were living and what the names of different places were called and what the year and the month and the day was. He then began to chatter about his day at the school, presenting the pictures he had drawn to his little brother, who looked at each one before turning back to Alexander in a way that had the older boy instantly endeared. _

"_They are so perfect," Emili suddenly uttered, and Marik turned around to her and nodded his agreement to his weary wife, who ideally needed to be sleeping but Marik knew that should he suggest such a thing he would be met with fierce defiance. He entwined his large hand with her slender palm, brushing their ornate but not ostentatious (like some of the options) silver wedding rings together as he squeezed it comfortingly as his wife continued, "They are so perfect. Our perfect sons."_

_Marik turned from looking at the two boys to his wife, who had begun to be wracked with sobs, though she tried to keep them quiet as to not alert Alexander, and he leaned in closer to her in an attempt to comfort her. She had started to cry, tears of happiness mixed in with sorrow at the possibility of anything happening to their family, and Marik held her shoulders, murmuring soothing words as she trembled, breathing, "We made them, Marik. Alexander and Caiellis. They are more than I ever could have asked for."_

_The king was completely ready to go and fetch an Ordo Medella operative (as one would not be far from the room in case something went wrong) as his wife almost began to hyperventilate, before she brought her breathing back under control as he soothed her. They looked into each other's eyes, and Marik couldn't help but think that his wife looked more beautiful than ever. This woman had given him not one, but two perfect sons, and the king's heart ached to think that without his late father's idea to give advisers to his sons and Emili's tutelage underneath Hierarch Martha of Scientia Mos, he would have never have met her. Marik leaned in closer and she reciprocated the gesture, their lips just about to meet..._

"_Daddy? Daddy! DaddydaddydaddydaddydaddyDADDYDADDYDADDYDADDY!" Alexander's voice got progressively louder and more high pitched the longer his father took to respond, and Emili winked at the furious Marik just before the kiss could begin and motioned her head in the direction of their children. __The man turned around in annoyance, in the right mind to reprimand his son for not being more patient, but his anger couldn't remain for much longer when he was presented with an adorable sight._

_Caiellis, having obviously mimicked his brother's movements, had sat up in his tank and crawled to the glass that separated him from Alexander, __and his tiny and fragile hand was pressed to the transparent material, meeting his big brother's hand. Alexander looked thrilled, and Marik smiled at the sight of the two bonding despite the fact that the youngest of the two had only been born less than an hour earlier, __as Emili murmured, "Aww."_

"_Daddy, look! He's saying hello to me!" the older boy exclaimed loudly and proudly, __as if happy that his little brother was extending a greeting – in his own opinion, anyway, as it was more likely that Caiellis was simply copying his actions and didn't understand the significance of what he was doing, nor why the recipient of the gesture seemed delighted by it, and Marik moved over from Emili to place a hand on his son's shoulder and press his face to the glass as well, gazing at his youngest son who stared back before returning his gaze to Alexander, __who was giggling happily and smiling warmly at his little brother, studying the __helpless and__ much smaller boy with growing affection, if not yet instant love, though the king was sure that would come when the two were able to interact better. "So he is. Hello, Caiellis."_

"_What's his name?" Alexander asked, elaborating quickly at the look of confusion that Marik sent him, "Full name, I mean. I'm called Alexander Ensis Lucerna," he pronounced proudly, "But what is his?"_

_The king smiled again, an expression that he couldn't get off his face because of how happy he was, and glanced over at his wife, silently asking for conformation on who was going to say it, before the woman nodded at him and blew another kiss, happy for him to do it. Marik wasn't in the mood for explaining the intricacies of Lucerna naming tradition to his four year old son, who might not understand anyway, so instead replied, "Ensis is my middle name, which is why you inherited it. But your little brother instead got your mother's last name before she married me – her maiden name. He's called Caiellis Noctis Lucerna."_

"_Caiellis … Noctis … Lucerna," Alexander repeated, testing the words, the _name, _as if it was the most important thing in the world – and to be fair, to the occupants of the surgery, it was – and letting them spill across his tongue. Marik loved the name, and while Emili hadn't exactly approved of his choices of first names for son or daughter she couldn't deny that Caiellis suited the baby in front of them, who was forever a part of their family which already had an infant sized hole ready for him. Alexander then sniffed proudly in consideration, __the only way a four year old filled with big brother importance could. "Yeah. That fits him. Kind of... It's a bit long though."_

"_That's why you only use his first name. Just call him Caiellis," Marik told his oldest son, who looked back up at him before automatically being drawn back to the vulnerable infant in their midst, knowing from the core of his being that he would have to make sure that his new little brother was safe in the world, and muttered, "It's still too long though."_

_Marik resisted the urge to retort with something sarcastic, not wanting to spoil the mood of innocence and happiness associated with new life, so instead ignored Emili's muffled snort of triumph and replied, "What would you suggest then, Alexander?"_

_His eldest son was brewing up something, and he knew that in the way the kid gently chewed his lower lip just like his mother, tilted his head slightly and moved his hand to accommodate the movement, though Caiellis made sure that his fingers followed his older brother's, and narrowed his youthful eyes. "Cai." he stated simply, and Marik wondered what had taken him so long to come up with that, and instantly didn't like the nickname – though then again he had never called his eldest "Alex", feeling like the whole of his son's name should be celebrated, whereas Emili loved doing it and seemed to do it with a greater frequency after he specifically asked her not to. The blonde nodded, tentatively at first, but much eagerly the second time, affirming, "He's Cai."_

_Caiellis – __or "Cai" as he had newly been dubbed by his big brother – __rubbed his eyes with a small hand, __and broke off the contact with the glass__, sending a sleepy glance at each of his family members one last time, before slowly closing __his eyes and slumping his shoulders, curling up into a foetal ball within the comfortable blankets and appearing blissfully unaware how close he had got to death before he was saved by the commendable efforts of the Ordo Medella doctors that Marik hadn't yet had the chance to truly thank, with his new family silently watching him and each thinking about what their future with him could entail. _

"_You never told me why he is so small," Alexander's youthful voice broke the companionable quiet that had swallowed the room, punctuated only by the gentle humming of the mana incubator that made sure that Caiellis would stay alive, and Marik couldn't help but be incredibly proud of his oldest boy's compassion – not just because he was so concerned about his little brother, but because he had waited until the younger baby was asleep until he asked the question, suggesting that he didn't want Caiellis to hear about his condition and wanted to protect the boy from being worried himself, though there was no way that Caiellis would understand at his age. Nor would Alexander himself, not really anyway, __and Marik pulled his eldest son back against his chest in a deep, loving hug of solidarity and reassurance, explaining, "He was born too soon, buddy, but he's going to be ok."_

_Alexander wiped the single tear that had appeared in his eye away, not wanting to look like a baby in front of his father, then stared up at the man, his eyes filled with a mysterious and strange kind of child wisdom that Marik would probably never comprehend. Then the boy nodded, with absolute certainty, replying, "I know." _

_Both Marik and Emili held back the proud tears as Alexander turned back to his sleeping brother and gently pulled away from his father, standing back up on the elevation provided by the stool one final time and pressing his fingers to the glass once more, looking down at his fitfully sleeping brother as his tiny chest rose and fell, smiling down at the baby boy and whispering softly, "Good night, Cai. I'll be there when you wake up. I promise."_

_Emili found it extremely hard to keep herself from bursting into tears at the utter sweetness and kindness of the act, as Alexander had bonded better with his little brother than she could have ever imagined – though he still hadn't experienced what it would be like to live with another, smaller person taking up the attention having only known him for several minutes, and the wife of the king knew that they would have a lot of challenges to face in the future when the two grew up, not least because they were princes and sons of the reigning monarch and as such would have extremely large amounts of pressure on their young shoulders, pressure that Marik and Emili would help them through and to overcome._

"_Come on, Alexander," Marik said, as he saw a selection of doctors lingering in the doorway and knowing that they wanted to perform tests on his youngest son to ensure that he would survive, gently pulling his eldest son into his arms and sitting on the hospital bed beside his wife, who smiled lovingly and exhaustedly at them both, but she wasn't planning on giving in to the urge to go to sleep any time in the foreseeable future. The boy resisted for a moment, before snuggling up against his mum and dad and keeping a watchful eye on his little brother, as Marik added, "Caiellis needs his sleep, anyway. The doctors are just going to make sure he is ok."_

_Alexander nodded again, resting his head on his mother's relatively bony shoulder as she stroked his hair, and Marik couldn't help but think that somehow his boy knew how close both Caiellis and Emili had got to death today and wanted to comfort his mother about it, so the king squeezed hold of his son's hand reassuringly, asking, "So, Alexander, what do you think about your little brother?"_

_The boy looked up at him with his adorable blue eyes, and then grinned, though it soon became replaced by a kind of pleading expression as he exclaimed, "He's cool and all." and then diverted his gaze towards his mother, his eyes filled with hope, "But … Can we have a puppy as well?"_

.*.*.*.

Hierarch Tybalt blasted his way through another formation of glittering Enforcers lit up in the flickering crimson light of the storm above just like everything else plated with gold in the Augur's Quarter, the ostentatious decorations of the place making the aged man feel relatively sick, though that was nothing compared to the debaucheries he had seen committed within some of the structures he and the Swords of Silence, Guardian Lelia's elite veterans of the civil war that had each survived the massacre of Gol and saved others during that horrible time.

The silent Guardian was by his side, quietly hacking apart Enforcers from the Order of Wealth with her large broadsword, her eyes full of revulsion for their foes, and though he was in the middle of the battle Tybalt couldn't help but marvel at how quiet it sounded around him, as each and every member of the Swords of Silence had taken an oath of Silence like their leader until the perpetrators of the inter Lucaelian civil war were brought to justice – although their captain and Lelia's second in command was allowed to speak and relay the Light-bearer's orders, as otherwise that would be massively impractical. That meant that there was barely any sound coming from the Lucaelian side – no battle cries, no inspiring hymnals and not even quiet prayers, and even though the Welkalites were screaming it still did little to break the strange tranquillity of the brutal violence.

Even when those that suffered horrible and painful deaths in the ranks of the Swords of Silence died, they remained quiet, succumbing to their wounds peacefully, and Tybalt felt like he was being incredibly intrusive whenever one of his thunderous magics blasted discharges of light into the ranks of the Welkalites opposing their spearhead into the Augur's Quarter to find the Master of Passion that lead the Order of Wealth. He sensed that each warrior's armour and weaponry, whether they had access to magic or not, was etched with ancient spells passed down through the generations of Gol that Matalis Ortus Lucerna had once used to kill foes in the distant past, a type of silencing spell that surrounded the soldiers and wrapped them in a bubble of quiet that deflected the loud magic that the Welkalites blasted in their direction. The Hierarch had access to a similar spell himself, mixing the nullification properties of his Blue mana that could destabilise a spell as it was being cast with the silencing magic of White that would prevent them from attempting to use any more.

It was one of the strangest things he had ever experienced in his many years of life, but the Hierarch felt that it was a very valuable novelty to be fighting with warriors that have given up the privilege to use words so that their blows rang truer. He could never do such a thing himself, as words were the strongest weapons that he had and the only real thing apart from magic – which often required them – that he could offer to the Kingdom of Light – additionally, his job for the next few years of his long life was to teach the king's sons (or at least Caiellis, as Alexander would become an adult soon and could choose to attend the lessons or not), and that would be incredibly difficult without the usage of speech.

Tybalt's main objective at the moment was to storm the three huge spires looming over the avenue that they were in which were apparently known as the Towers of Ecstasy, as if the Master of Wealth was anywhere then they would be there. That would require breaking through the glimmering Welkalite forces that looked surprisingly like Lucaelian legionaries and were almost as disciplined that were blocking the Swords of Silence from progressing through the street. Tybalt conjured up White mana at the tip of his oak staff, channelling a ray of light through it that cut apart the Enforcers opposing them, before yet more of them repaired the breaches in their ranks and swung their halberds into the elite Swords of Silence, though they were slowly being broken apart by the greatest warriors of Gol Secondus, the City of Rebirth that marked the Lucaelian ability to triumph over any foe, no matter how vile and powerful, through the power of their unyielding faith.

Tybalt stayed in the second rank of the formation, knowing that his aged body and slower reaction time would make him unsuitable for the front line, and provided the warriors with numerous blessings and enchantments taught to him by his Second Sisterhood Angel, alabaster plates surrounding the soldiers and protecting them from the blasts of lightning and fire, and more mundane projectiles like crossbow bolts and arrows that were launched down from the Enforcers on top of nearby buildings, though there weren't as many as them are there were those that preferred to fight in melee combat against the Lucaelians – which, despite this being the territory of the Order of Wealth instead of the Order of Violence, didn't surprise the Capitalia Lux Hierarch at all, who focussed on blasting pillars of light amongst the warriors that the legionaries of Lucael couldn't reach.

Then, in spite of the bubble of tranquillity surrounding him, Tybalt heard a tempestuous and demonic roar of a darker nature than he had ever experienced before echoing across the battlefield, and felt a huge rise in Black and Red mana from a place nearby to the large and ornate palace in the Hedonist's Quarter, the Tempest of Craving crackling above them and releasing a horde of devilish creatures into the fray. However, the Hierarch was not concerned about himself, as he could sense that his youngest student was facing against what could well be an Archdemon all on his own, and while Marik was coming to his aid he was quite far off. The Hierarch was immensely worried about the boy, and as such promised to persevere and destroy the Order of Wealth so that more could come to the Lucerna's aid.

.*.*.*.

"Well that was simply adorable," a sneering and mocking voice roused Marik from his unconscious drifting, and the king shot to his feet, his body suddenly filled with adrenaline coursing through his veins as he instinctively grasped at the place where the handle of his artefact greatsword should be, before being greeted by the grinning face of the horror that had infected his mind and recalling that he had no weapons in this place. Anger rushed to the forefront of his mind, having for some reason expected to be released from his mental imprisonment after the flashback to one of his happiest memories (though it was somewhat tainted by what came after it) ceased, but instead he was thrust back within his mind.

"What is the purpose of this?!" he demanded, feeling almost the most impotent he ever had done on his entire life (the time where he felt the most useless was his wife's death, and the second was his sons' recent abduction), and desperately needing to escape and aid his youngest son in the battle against the Archdemon Rakdos, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't break out of his mind. The horror had too much of a hold on it; if he had noticed earlier than he could have destroyed it and broken free, but now it was far too late for that and the being had prevented him from getting a hold of his mana – and as physical attacks had been proven to be useless, he couldn't think of anything that he could do to murder Aksua's former Summoning and break free apart from waiting until it let him out, which, judging by the grinning expression on its inhuman features, would be a long time in the future, time that Caiellis didn't have.

"Don't you enjoy looking back into your memories, into the "happiest time of your life"?" the horror laughed, twisting Marik's thoughts against him in a sickening parody of what he had often thought, "Your constant thoughts wishing that you could return to that perfect life before your dear brother betrayed you seem to suggest otherwise, Mariky-boy. I'm simply giving you a way to feel happy again. Isn't that what you want?"

The king felt his anger rising once again, and it took all of his self control not to roar at the creature infesting his mind, but his rage was fuelled by the fact that he knew it was true, he knew he would rather return to that time when his wife wasn't alive and he was still happy, and his son's hadn't had their innocence ripped apart by Johnias's demons. However, no matter how much he wanted to go back to the perfect life, Marik knew that he couldn't, and simply retreating inside his mind and playing out his happy memories over and over again was extremely cowardly and negligent of not just his kingly duties, but his living sons. His job as a father was to protect them from danger as much as possible, and that meant overriding the urge to remain within his joy forever and saving Caiellis's life. He now understood why the horror was showing him these memories – so that he could be trapped within them forever while the world continued on. Marik could empathise immensely well with his youngest son now, who would have either been enraptured by the few moments in his short life that were good or tempted by a dream world of perfection.

No matter how much Marik wanted to go back in time, it wasn't possible, and that meant abandoning his living and breathing sons to a fate far worse than death in the clutches of a ravenous Archdemon. His life with Emili had ended long ago, and it was up to him to save the last remainders of her legacy instead of wallowing within his reminiscence, as otherwise he would be desecrating the memory of his perfect wife and she would never forgive him if he left her sons to die. One thing that the king had noticed that he could never begrudge his wife for was that she loved her two sons far more than she did him – though that wasn't to say that she wouldn't do anything for him and loved him more than anything else but Alexander and Caiellis – whereas he had loved each of them equally, as while his boys were his flesh and blood and as such easy to adore his wife had been perfection incarnate and she wasn't even related to him in any way.

"Poor, poor Marik. Always thinking about your wife instead of those still alive," the horror murmured, with feigned sadness that made the king's blood boil, but before he could ask it what it meant or reinforce the personal revelation that the horror was trying to prevent him from leaving by ensnaring him with his memories – although even before that he couldn't escape – he felt himself being dragged unwilling back into the past again, no matter how hard he tried to resist it.

.*.*.*.

_The highest room in the Lucerna Palace, the location of the holy throne of the Lucaelian people was slowly filling up with a trickle of people all wearing their most magisterial and ceremonial outfits that walked in after being permitted entrance by the Lucerna Guard who were stationed at the door into the room from the large staircase leading up to it and next to the royal family, mingling amongst the crowd of other influential figures in the kingdom that had managed to arrive before the day's end, only heralded by an intensification of the darkness that perpetually surrounded the Kingdom of Light and had only ever been broken in small periods, the last roughly two years ago and the one before that the birth of Marik's eldest son. _

_The king wished that his youngest could have been afforded with such an honour, as while he didn't inherently believe that that made Caiellis any more inferior to his older brother some of the more narrow-minded or dogmatic in the kingdom may think so, and, coupled with the premature birth of the youngest making him appear weak could serve to make him less popular in the future. Marik brushed the concerns from his mind, still overwhelmed by the happiness that had suffused him since the birth a few hours ago, and would be further cemented in the time of the Angelic Descent which was very soon and the whole purpose of this gathering. _

_The Hierarchs that had managed to arrive – including arguably the most important, Hierarch Mithres of Capitalia Lux and the former student of his predecessor and Marik's own mentor Tybalt, who stood in the gathering as well and talked to some other nobles and Light-bearers – generally agreed that the word of the angels was that Avacyn, Angel of Hope and a very prominent First Sisterhood angel was to be his youngest son's holy Summoning, and while such predictions had sometimes been proven false as the plans of the revered angels changed, Marik was proud to think that his baby boy may one day wield power that had been passed down from his ancestors in the protection of the people. He knew that he didn't mind which angel blessed young Caiellis with their presence (well, apart from one, but she hadn't been seen for over a hundred years and there was no reason to suspect why she would appear), and his fatherly pride made him certain that his son would excel no matter who it was that descended from the heavens to serve under him._

_The mood of the occupants of the ornate and quite frankly imposing room that Marik had never particularly liked (he found it far too intimidating, though it was not ostentatious like the throne rooms of other nations' sovereigns, just reflected the wealth and power of the royal family) was full of quiet jubilance, reverence and respect for the Lucerna family and its newest member, though none were happier than the parents and older brother of the new baby boy. As tradition dictated, instead of Marik being seated on the gigantic throne on the other side of the room Caiellis was placed in front of it instead, so when the First Sisterhood angel greeted him they paid their respects to the Lucerna family that the First Angel had chosen to bless with her divine presence – that meant the monarch was free to interact with the people. _

_However, the room wasn't quite as crowded with influential nobles and those with enough prestige to be at the official ceremony as Alexander's ceremony, but that was down to the premature birth of his youngest son that had almost killed the boy and his mother as because he had been born a month early, several of the Light-bearers and generals that would have arrived on the allotted time for the birth (or a bit earlier to ensure that they weren't late) were still in the midst of duties that they had planned to end before the birth of the newest Lucerna. As the monorails that Marik had planned for were still only in the early stages of construction and building in the abyss was a very perilous endeavour, travel between the cities still took days to complete and as such the news of the early birth was only just spreading, much less the Light-bearers setting off to be at the palace and pay their respects to the newborn descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna. _

_Marik wouldn't let anything ruin his jubilant mood, as he greeted a couple of generals from the City of Nourishment who bowed and loudly proclaimed their allegiance to the Lucerna Throne, and then walked past him to go and look at the newest prince, who was fast asleep and unaware of the attention focused upon him as he rested within the mana incubator that had been carefully transported from the surgery to here, as if the king's fragile youngest had been taken out of it he would have soon died, much as Marik didn't want to entertain the awful thought. He still hadn't been able to touch his son, to hold him and impress the fact that he was his father upon him, and probably wouldn't be able to for several weeks if not months as his condition stabilised, though there was little doubt in Marik's mind that Caiellis would be a small boy for a long time._

_He looked around the gathering, smiling at the albino Guardian Axeclion as both of them rolled their eyes amusedly at his teenage apprentice Tristram who was looking at the floor and clearly not wanting to be here; the seventeen year old had a severe lack of respect for authority – which apparently included the Lucerna line as well – and was full of sullen adolescent angst, though despite all that he was an exemplary warrior and would probably inherit his master's role when the older man either died in glorious battle or retired when he was too old to fight any longer. _

_Marik knew that Alexander looked up to Tristram just as much as he idolised the other soldiers scattered around the palace (constantly declaring that one day he would be as big and strong as them), though wasn't sure whether the Guardian-in-training was a good inspiration for his older son due to his sarcastic and disrespectful nature that Marik found (much to the boy's chagrin) quite amusing as he had often acted in a similar way at that age and knew he would grow out of it. Originally he had made Alexander stay at his side and be there to greet the guests, but because his son had (admittedly understandably) got quite bored he had let the lad wander so long as he stayed within the sight of both Carlis – Marik's friend and the father of Alexander's best buddies, who, much to the displeasure of his son, hadn't been invited to the ceremony since they were only children – and his dad, though right now Marik couldn't see the boy._

_It wasn't as if he was that worried, as this was the safest location in all of Lucael, but the excitable little gut could often get himself into awkward situations or start pestering some of the guests, who luckily found it extremely cute but Marik knew from experience how annoying it could become over a protracted period of time. He wanted both of his young sons in vision so that he knew nothing was happening to them and that they were safe and sound, so to that end he casually walked to the middle of the hall until he saw a flash of blonde hair next to the Hierarch of Scientia Mos Martha, who smiled warmly at the king and whispered something to Alexander that had him giggling for a few seconds before he guiltily looked up at his father, who cocked an eyebrow at the four year old. _

"_Come on, Alexander, over here. Didn't I tell you not to go out of my sight?" the king asked, holding out his hand for his eldest son to come and grab hold of, and despite the fact that he only put a small modicum of sternness that he didn't actually feel into the words his little boy still hung his head in shame, sad that he was receiving his father's censure in spite of how mild it was. He smiled lovingly down at his son, who looked back up at him and grabbed his hand, waving goodbye to Martha who smiled sweetly and went to go and get a drink from some of the palace servants that were serving them. The king smiled and nodded affably to the generals and Light-bearers that bowed in his direction, used to the respect from years of receiving it (though at first it had terrified him, while Johnias used to half hate it and half bask in it), gently pulling Alexander along with him as he went to check on his youngest and newest son._

"_Daddy?" the four year old inquired as they walked through the room, his young eyes wide with wonderment at the elaborate but not ostentatious tapestries and stained glass window patterns adorning the throne room, making Marik belatedly remember that the only time Alexander had been in here was when he was in the same position as baby Caiellis, and so wouldn't have remembered it at all._

_Expecting his oldest son to carry on speaking without his conformation, the twenty seven year old king kept walking towards the incubator that was placed on top of the holy throne that made little Caiellis looked even more miniature as he peacefully slept, Marik was vaguely surprised to see that his son had grown silent, obviously feeling that he should be showing respect (though Marik had never really wanted deference from his children, just a respect one shows to their parents out of love and gratitude – not fear, as that was what had forced his politeness to his and his brother's late father) because they were in company, the king diverted a glance down to his son when no further words came out, prompting, "Yes, Alexander?"_

"_I'm bored," the boy slowly stated, his voice a mixture of a childish whine and a shameful admission, fiddling with the collar of the ceremonial suit that the king had made him wear – Alexander had made it known on numerous occasions that he didn't like it, probably because he couldn't play rough and tumble with the expensive garments on that he wasn't allowed to damage otherwise he knew he would get told off, but Marik personally thought that he looked immensely cute and smart within them – and it belatedly occurred to the monarch that this sort of environment was entirely inappropriate for a four year old possessed of boundless youthful energy that would much rather be playing than sat in a gathering of boring adults. _

_However, as a Lucerna prince Alexander needed to be here at his brother's ceremony, though he wouldn't be able to Summon Aurelia the Warleader to greet the First Sisterhood angel like Marik would call upon Akroma (and hopefully Johnias would be here to Summon Serenity, but the king's older identical twin hadn't yet arrived and it was looking as if he wouldn't), so Marik softly told him, "I know that this isn't the most interesting place to be in-" he shot a glare to Hierarch Mithres who stifled a giggle and bowed to conceal his smile - "But this is an important occasion for your little brother Caiellis, and you can't miss it."_

"_But he's asleep," Alexander replied with confusion, casting a glance over at the tank that held his baby brother and prevented his big brother from hugging him, though the boy assumed that it had something to do with Caiellis being born too early and too excited for the real world outside of mummy, although at his height (which was relatively tall for a four year old, but he was a four year old nonetheless) he wouldn't have been able to tell if Cai actually was slumbering or not. _

_Anyway, he wondered why, if this was so important, his brother was allowed to stay asleep, and how it could be important Marik repressed the urge to reply, "So were you at your own Angelic Descent," as he knew that wouldn't explain anything to his little boy, so he instead put an arm around his young shoulders and inflected his voice with importance, thinking about what Emili (who was sleeping and needed her rest down in the surgery after the torment of the birth) would say, "And that is exactly why you need to be here: so you can tell him what will happen, as because he is asleep Caiellis won't know."_

_Alexander considered the words for a moment and then nodded, suffused with his new-found big brother responsibilities that he had taken upon himself more than because of any prompting from his mother or father, as while the two had told him that he would have to set a good example for his younger sibling and sometimes protect or help them, they hadn't made it seem like Caiellis was his responsibility as he was theirs as parents and Alexander would have enough to do without trying to look after someone younger than him. Of course the couple wanted him to get on well with his little brother, as there were many benefits to a strong brotherly bond and when one of them became king the other would have to support them (just as Johnias supported Marik now by acting as his emissary and taking the burdens of running Vectura, Crescia and Epulaeous), but they didn't want him to feel as if it was his job to ensure that his brother was doing well._

"_What is going to happen?" Alexander then inquired as they reached the throne and Marik pulled up a couple of chairs (though the majority of the people in the room were standing as the customary celebratory meal would come after the angel arrived and branded the Lucerna infant with their exalted sigil) so that they could sit next to his youngest son until it came closer to the time, and while he knew the prince was aware of the general idea he didn't know exactly what would occur. He sat down on one and patted the other for his son, who swung up onto it and let his legs dangle off the edge, and Marik hoped that Alexander didn't think he was ignoring him when he looked into the neonatal support unit that contained his sleeping new son and whispered, "You're going to have your own angel soon, little guy. Don't worry about it at all, you will be perfectly fine, Caiellis. I love you." he kissed his fingertip and placed it to the glass, and turned back to his eldest, who Marik knew had been watching intently but pretended that he had been looking somewhere else by quickly turning and almost falling off of his chair, steadied by his father's hand._

_The king hoped that Alexander wouldn't feel like he and Emili were showing him less affection because he had a little brother that was far more fragile and would undoubtedly take up more attention at the moment so that his precarious hold upon life could be cemented and strengthened, but to help assuage that he ruffled his son's hair lovingly as the boy giggled and pushed his hand away, not wanting to be embarrassed in front of all of the other people, though he did enjoy playing with his father in spite of its relative rarity because of his important job as the king. Marik then explained, "This is where Caiellis is going to get his angel, just like you did the day you were born. We don't know which one it will be yet, but before she arrives I will be Summoning Akroma as well."_

"_I get to see some angels?!" Alexander inquired excitedly, virtually bouncing in his seat at the thought, and his father smiled back and chuckled – he had been the same as a young child, though had not been as vocal about it to his cold and unloving father, whereas Johnias and now Alexander was. He patted the youngster on the shoulder fondly, replying, "Yeah. You will be seeing Akroma, and (he declined to mention Serenity because if his brother didn't make it – having planned to arrive a few days before the official birth to help them through it – then he didn't want to dash his son's hopes) one other First Sisterhood angel, though as I said we don't know which one its coming to bless your brother."_

"_Cool!" the boy exclaimed, kicking his legs on the seat happily and full of an infectious youthful enthusiasm that could make Marik happy even in the direst of situations, and the king smiled patently at his son before turning back to his other one, who still hadn't awoken and probably wouldn't. While he had never particularly been happy about his own Lucerna heritage, though he was more understanding of it now than when he had been a teenager and hated it with a passion, especially because Garius had favoured Johnias over him, he was monumentally glad of it now, as without the blood of rulers running through Caiellis's veins he would have succumbed to his frailty already and given out. Marik tried not to think of the fact that being infused with an extremely powerful First Sisterhood angel's mana could easily kill an infant as brittle and delicate as Caiellis, as the reason behind them only choosing Lucernas as Summoners was because no other mortals could sustain such a high amount of magical energy within them._

"_Will it give him a symbol as well?" Alexander's joyful and excited words cut into the sudden melancholy that had broken through Marik's happiness at the thought of his already beloved youngest son dying without him being able to do anything to help the boy, but he quickly reassured himself that it had never happened in the past (although, unless it hadn't been recorded – which it probably hadn't, no Lucerna infant had ever been as fragile as his own) and the First Sisterhood angel that had selected Caiellis wouldn't allow him to die on their watch. He shook his head, though not vigorously enough for his son to notice, and responded, "Yes, _she _will give Caiellis a birthmark, like you have your Swords of Flame."_

_To emphasise his point, Marik gently tugged the sleeve of his son's right arm and prodded the crossed swords of Aurelia that were stamped onto the bicep, smiling when Alexander repressed a giggle at the touch sending a laughing stimulus through him. On a whim, the king carried the boy onto his chair and placed him on his knees (which luckily weren't armoured as while he could have chosen to wear his official and ceremonial armour he decided instead to appear much more like a diplomatic ruler and father that wouldn't just protect the people through force of arms) and started tickling his son, who was sniggering loudly and trying to push away from his father. Marik knew that there were eyes on him and Alexander, but none remained for long and none were disapproving of his showing affection to his own flesh and blood – not that he would care that much either way, Alexander was his son and he deserved to be loved, and that meant that he didn't have to be formal and dignified around the four year old._

_He thought he might have gone a bit overboard when his son shrieked with delighted laughter after he had flipped the boy onto his back, and he heard someone tutting in front of them, but the sound was full of joviality and fond amusement. A tired but strong voice then broke into the laughter of his oldest son, laughing, "Ah, Caiellis, what are we going to do with them?"_

_Marik looked up into the beautiful and dazzling face of his wife staring down at the father and son, who was suppressing further giggles and pushed himself up so that he was sat upright on his father's knee, before sending a quick side glance over towards the incubator protecting his youngest son, who was blinking tiredly and watching him and Alexander playing, obviously roused by the laughter, but after Marik and his wife each gave him a little wave he drifted back off into the realm of dreams. Emili smiled down at her seated husband and son, who looked half guiltily up at her before Marik gently shifted Alexander over onto the other seat (which he remained upon for about a second before following his father's example) and stood up, taking in the queen fully._

_Only Emili, his perfect wife, could suffer though hours of agonising exertion and brush against death's door numerous times earlier in the day and then emerge from sleep and stay as heavenly (though it was blasphemy to compare a human to an angel and Marik was simply using it as a figure of speech) and stunning as she always was. The queen still looked pale and still had blank bangs underneath her beguiling and intelligent emerald green orbs, but her face was full of happiness and contentedness that counteracted the exhaustion. She was wearing a graceful purple dress that fit her form perfectly and scintillated in the golden illumination from the mana-fuelled light sources scattered across the ancient room._

_A golden circlet that had originally belonged to Marik's own mother (that had died in childbirth of twins as all of her mana had been sapped into them, which was one of the many reasons why his father had become broken and cold) and was inlaid with a single amethyst gemstone in the centre that matched her dress perfectly adorned her head, with her brown hair plaited expertly upon her head underneath it – the circlet matched Marik's own crown that was placed upon his own head, a simple band of enchanted silver that had once been worn by Matalis Ortus Lucerna – or so the history books liked to suggest, though the official Lucerna crown did thrum with energy in his magical sixth sense. Marik was lost for words for a moment, feeling the same undying love for his wife that he had done on numerous occasions in the past (though, amusingly, not when he had met her as at the time he had severely resented her presence), before his concern for her broke through his silence that had only been punctuated by Alexander's exclamation of, "Wow, you look nice mum!"_

"_Are you sure that you should be up? The Surgeon-general suggested that you should be resting for at least a whole day?" Marik asked, leaning forward and gently embracing his wife after kissing her on the lips, ignoring the chemical tang of them because of the drugs that she had been forced to take to aid in her survival and attempt to numb the pain, though he heard Emili sigh sadly at how delicately he was handling her in order to not exacerbate her weakness because of the premature birth. She responded warmly, "Thank you, Alex. You look very smart yourself, young man," her son beamed with pride and held himself straighter, adjusting the outfit that had been slightly crumpled in his playful wrestling with his dad, and she made her voice more stern, adamant and determined when she spoke to Marik next, stating like it was an undisputed fact, "And I am perfectly capable of being here, Marik, no matter what the Surgeon-general suggested. I am not missing this important moment in my youngest son's life for _anything_, my love. And nothing you say will change that."_

_Marik simply smiled back at her and kept his thoughts to himself, knowing that when his wife got into the stubborn streak of hers then nothing would make her back down (apart from in very few occasions), which was the same as him and often their rare arguments would last for days until one of them realised that it was pointless and that neither of them would win so acceded to the other side and they forgave and forgot – both of his sons had sometimes very obstinate parents, as Marik and them had the notorious Lucerna stubbornness and adamant defiance whereas Emili's personality would be like that. He wasn't looking forward to his sons becoming moody teenagers, that was for certain, especially when they argued with each other. _

_He was proud beyond words of his wife who had delivered him two perfect sons and had strength far beyond that of her frame and relative lack of magical strength (though she could still Summon a reasonably powerful kirin), and didn't want to argue with her in front of his son (well, both of his sons, but after his brief foray into the world of the awake Caiellis had fallen back into his sleep, which Marik supposed was because the frail baby needed to conserve as much energy as possible), especially not on such a happy and glorious event that would mark the entrance of another member to the Lucerna family and could one day rule the entire nation. _

_Marik wished that his sons didn't have the possibility of that hanging over them, as instead of growing up as normal children with hopes and dreams they would have to be taught (and Alexander already had, but very slightly) how to act as a Lucerna and how best to protect and lead the Kingdom of Light, but the current king had long since told himself that if the Lucerna family didn't step up and take the responsibility of sovereignty, then no one else would be capable of doing so, and he would rather have one of his own sons on the throne than anyone else, because that meant he could teach them not to abuse the power._

_However, that didn't bear thinking about right now, as Marik intended to grow old with Emili and have one of his two sons, as adults, inherit the throne from him, so instead he pulled his wife closer and kissed her on the forehead, knowing that what he wanted to do (which was to go and basically snog Emili) could wait for later, and was entirely inappropriate in front of their young children. He felt a touch near to his legs, so looked down to see Alexander attempting to join in the hug by wrapping his arms around his mother's leg, who smiled and twirled some of his blonde hair that was so much like Marik's own and shone in the golden light of the chamber of the holy throne. He picked up the boy and shared the weight of him with Emili, although took most of it himself because despite the brave and adamant face she was putting on his wife was exhausted and should really be resting, and murmured, "I love you both."_

"_We love you too, daddy," Emili replied for her distracted son, who was using the height given to him by his parents carrying him to scramble further upwards and glance at his sleeping little brother, sticking his tongue out at the boy in a manner that he must have learned from the partner of the monarch, before Emili gently admonished, not as occupied with hugging Marik as Alexander had believed, "Don't be rude to Caiellis, Alexander. He's a part of our family too now."_

"_I wasn't being rude, mummy. I was just playing with him," the boy muttered innocently as Marik put him down on the floor and he immediately rushed to the glass tank containing his brother, though Caiellis hadn't awakened. Marik rolled his eyes with his wife, who smiled, happy that Alexander was taking to his sibling despite the fact that he had only just met him, though still couldn't really understand why he was so small in spite of the fact that he was born early. One thing Emili was sure of was that the novelty of having a little brother would soon wear off for him when the time came for them to get older, especially if Caiellis pestered his big brother. Emili turned back to her husband, her green eyes twinkling with love for her family, and then noticed that he wasn't looking at her or his sons anymore, one of whom was prodding the glass of the incubator in an attempt to make his little brother wake up that Emili would have to stop him from doing, but instead at the entrance to the room, a smile working its way onto his face._

_Another Lucerna had entered the throne room, the praetorians allowing him entrance with a smile of their own, with a face very similar to Marik's but only set apart by the scar of his chin that had been inflicted by a creature very similar to that of an extinct vampire that had been purged from the world by Queen Matrice whilst he was in Vectura, the City of Transportation that was the city most focussed on the monorail lines in construction that Marik knew would revolutionise transport and would hopefully be a lasting legacy of his reign – another difference was the four pointed Star of Serenity imprinted onto the top left of his forehead. Finally, if the physical differences didn't give it away, one could ascertain the identity of the twin through the warm and affable tint to his blue eyes, an easy confidence in the presence of others that Marik didn't possess, instead of a cold and icy glimmer that was often tinged with familial love – as it was now._

_Marik marched quickly to the other side of the room as his twin brother walked in, the other twenty seven year old's open eyes betraying his tiredness at probably having travelled at maximum speed in an endeavour to reach his new nephew's Angelic Descent, and the king couldn't help but grin widely at his older brother and forget the animosity between them that had ruined his teenage years, though Johnias hadn't caused it – it had been Garius and Marik, with the older twin in the middle but having to support his cold father. "Johnias! It's so good to see you again."_

_The other man smiled back at him, and instead of accepting the respectful handshake that Marik offered he pulled the king into his arms and wrapped him in a bear hug, though both mens' strength was equal and Marik returned the gesture, embracing his brother in a way that highlighted his enjoyment of the evening, though the fact that Johnias was still in his armour made the hug less than comfortable. The slightly older man ruffled his hair, earning himself a glower for his trouble as well as his brother's face going slightly red at being embarrassed in front of his subjects, increasing in intensity when Johnias replied, "It's good to see you again as well, little bro. It has been too long."_

_When they had been younger, the two twins had (through no desire of the antisocial adolescent Marik had been) stuck together constantly, and while he pretended that he had disliked it Marik had always felt comfortable at his brother's side, as Johnias had helped his through his battles with their father and even protected him from a beating once by standing up to the indignant Garius, earning his own for his trouble that had made Marik realise how ungrateful he had been being to his twin brother. Going almost a full year without seeing each other would have been distinctly alien to their young minds, but both of them had duties to complete (especially Marik) and so they often went periods of time separate, but then again they were adults and independent now._

"_Don't call me that," Marik growled, though the words were not tinged with anything more than boisterous and playful aggression, and Johnias merely grinned at him and punched him lightly on the shoulder, before bowing respectfully to him for a second as if reminding Marik that he still wanted to show respect in spite of them being twin brothers and both of them being Lucerna. Johnias had often named him that in spite of (or, most likely, precisely because of) how much it annoyed his four minutes younger brother, though Marik wasn't sure whether he did it because it irritated him or because he liked to feel like he was the dominant one in the brotherly relationship. "But anyway, I'm glad you could make it. It wouldn't be the same without you here, and it will be good for both my sons to see their uncle."_

"_I'm sorry that I was so late. I wanted to arrive early so that I could help you, Emili and Alex through the birth period, maybe even take the little one off your hands for a while to give you two more chance to prepare, but you know how it is..." Johnias apologised, though Marik raised an eyebrow at that as they casually began to stroll back to the location of baby Caiellis, the eldest living Lucerna evidently quite excited to see the newest member of their distinguished family. He was quick to reassure his brother, telling him, "You have nothing to apologise for, Johnias. Caiellis was born a month early, as you already know, and it came as a shock to everyone. You've clearly travelled a long way in a short space of time to be here, brother, and I really appreciate it. I'm just glad that you are here."_

"_Thanks. And, yeah. I came as quickly as I could once I heard the news," the man replied, grinning at the generals and Light-bearers according him respect, though now after three years of Marik's reign they showed the king the most honest deference, whereas at his coronation a large number of them still believed that Johnias would have made the superior king and were very, very apprehensive of the new King Marik. While Johnias's suitability in the throne could never be tested (unless Marik and his two sons died, which wasn't something the king wished to think about at the moment), and personally Marik still thought that his brother would have made a much better king than him, his own merit had been proven through his achievements in allying with the curious and friendly Yentarian Republic – an unprecedented event in the history of Lucael, one that many were suspicious of, but had many visible benefits such as vastly superior technology – and annihilating the last vestiges of the Grafnica Dominion._

"_Johnias. It's good to see you again," the voice of his wife pierced into the king's thoughts, and his brother smiled at Emili and kissed her on the cheek, something that mildly offended the king but Marik sensed that it was done without any ill will. When he had first starting dating Emili at the age of just eighteen (having been forbidden a girlfriend until he was an adult by his father, though he had disobeyed with the daughter of a Light-bearer of Cassida Principia) Johnias had expressed that he was glad that he had finally started to interact with the fairer sex, though the words had been tainted with jealously at the fact that while he had been taking out many women of a similar age to him, he hadn't been able to find permanence like Marik had with Emili – and still hadn't, even after years of the two being married._

_Emili merely winked back and stood next to Marik, remembering long ago when Johnias had originally flirted with her when she had merely been the younger brother's logistical advisor, but the two had never got further than that after she discovered her love for Marik. She liked her husband's brother, finding him to be the perfect counterpart for her sometimes socially awkward and cold spouse, but she had never really ever been attracted to his personality like he had once been attracted to her, though when she and the youngest of the twins had started going out Johnias had spoken to her in private and impressed upon her the seriousness of dating his "little brother" and that he would never forgive her if she broke his heart. That was before Marik had become the king and she in turn the queen, and Johnias had been very happy for his twin brother that he had managed to find someone that made him cheerful, not even mentioning the little fling that he had had with Emili, which the woman had taken as a hint that they were going to forget about it for Marik's sake, something she wholeheartedly agreed with._

"_It's nice to see you as well, Emili. But shouldn't you be resting? You have just given birth to a one month early child, and I can tell how exhausted you are," Johnias suggested mildly, receiving a fiery glare from his sister in law that indicated that she had already had the conversation with Marik, who simply rolled his eyes and shook his head in despair, putting an arm around his wife's waist as she pecked him on the cheek, hoping that the display of affection didn't make Johnias feel intrusive since he was a part of their family, and all three of them smiled when they heard an excited, "Uncle Johnias!"_

_The addressed grinned widely and turned around to see a small boy running at him, a goofy smiled plastered onto adorable young features that reminded the man quite strongly of the pictures he had been shown of himself as a child, although as the photography technology that was in the process of being developed in Lucael hadn't been around then he had only seen portraits of a young him and Marik, though even then the artist had been a mage so the expressions and emotions were conveyed almost perfectly, albeit it took too long to smile in and Johnias had hated sitting still on one place for over an hour. Alexander launched himself at his uncle, who took the four year old's charge and picked him up in his arms, making a show of grunting at the added weight, and spinning Alexander around, laughing, "How are you doing, little buddy? Though I suppose you aren't that little any more. You get taller and taller every time I see you."_

_The boy grinned proudly and hugged his only uncle tight, before the man put him down with a smile as the middle prince said, "Daddy didn't say that you were coming."_

"_Didn't he?" Johnias asked in feigned confusion, shooting a glance over to Marik, who's blue eyes were betraying his shame at ever countenancing that his twin brother wouldn't turn up for his nephew's Angelic Descent, so Johnias grinned at him, knowing that the only reason his sibling wouldn't have mentioned it to his eldest son was because he didn't want to disappoint the lad, so said, "Well he should have. I'm not going to miss your little brother's ceremony for anything."_

_He patted his nephew on the head fondly, smiling at the boy's contagious and adorable grin that he shot in the direction of his uncle, and reached down to the satchel that was hanging on his waist before slowing bringing out something long and wrapped in cloth to protect it from the hurried journey he had undertaken that had almost killed his horse, his grin broadening when he saw Alexander's blue eyes opening wider in excitement, as he always made sure to bring his nephew a present. Marik shared a smile with Emili, because as Johnias had no children of his own he spoilt Alexander – and probably would Caiellis as well – and adored his nephew, and though one could say that they spoilt their son they preferred to think of it as treating him to the occasional gift when he did well at something, it was his birthday or another celebration, or they just felt like making their son happy, but it was nowhere near the amount that they could have pampered Alexander with the resources they had at their disposal._

"_Here. Uncle Johnias has got something for you," the man told the boy, passing him the gift which was received by tiny hands that waited a second for conformation before removing the fabric and gazing delightedly at the contents of the package – Marik smiled when he saw that it was a wooden (the material seemed to be of Erian origin, probably some from of oak imported from Geansse) training sword elegantly engraved with Alexander's full name along the "blade" and with the boy's Swords of Flame symbol adorning the crossguard. Alexander was overjoyed, he loved anything to do with soldiers and angels, and this sword would allow him to get closer to his mental picture of them that hadn't yet been tainted by the cruel reality of warfare, "Wow! Look and what Uncle Johnias got me, daddy!"_

_He swung the sword in a wide arc, Emili suddenly extremely thankful for the fact that the other members of the gathering gave the Lucerna family a wide deferential berth so that Alex's relentless attacking of the air as he pretended to be a knight or a Lucerna king of the past and slaying imaginary foes around him didn't hit any of the other nobles, and all three of the adults smiled lovingly at him, the king saying, "It's wonderful, isn't it? That's really nice of your uncle."_

_As Alexander started to move away, chasing pretend enemies that were further away from the three adults, Marik grabbed hold of the back of his suit and gently dragged him back in front of his uncle, patiently telling him, "So what do we say, champ?"_

"_Thank you, Uncle Johnias," Alexander murmured, suddenly seemingly quite shy and his youthful enthusiasm having dissolved for a moment, though the words were heartfelt and they made the eldest surviving Lucerna smile and wink at the boy, jostling his shoulder and encouraging him to play with the training weapon again, as he had enjoyed watching the limitless energy of the boy and found it refreshing to all of the darkness, evil and sorrow of the adult world. It reminded him of his own past, and that was something he wanted to cherish just as much as he was looking forward to the future. "Don't sweat it, kiddo. So long as you continue to be as good a boy as you have been, you are deserving of every gift you get. And it's nice to see you again."_

_He locked eyes with Marik and indicated his head in the direction of the Lucerna Throne, and his younger brother smiled, though it was tinted with sadness and tiredness that made Johnias feel concerned for the newest member of his family as he followed Marik over there, the man explaining, "He is called Caiellis."_

"_That's a nice name. Caiellis Noctis Lucerna," Johnias replied, testing the words in his mouth and finding that he agreed with the statement as they reached the mana incubator containing the sleeping prince, who's pale face was full of an innocence and purity that Johnias found breathtaking, as did many of the other guests who came to see the boy on this day who may one day be ruling over them all, though he couldn't help but notice how tiny he was in comparison to other infants that he had seen, especially Alexander, who had been a heavy and healthy baby ready to meet the world, and still exhibited a lot of that childhood chubbiness (though of course he wasn't obese) now, whereas Johnias's youngest nephew looked as if removing him from the support unit would kill him. He smiled down at the boy, sensing his own brother's worry increasing tenfold just by being in the presence of his second son, and ascertaining that both the boy and his mother had almost been killed by the premature birth, though looking at Emili wouldn't show it._

_Caiellis looked quite a bit more like his mother than his brother had, though he still had the high cheekbones reminiscent of the Lucerna bloodline – anyway, what he looked like now wasn't suggestive of how he would appear once he had grown up and developed fully, though he would probably always be smaller than his other family members unless he progressed out of the thinness brought on by his early entrance into the world. The baby was sleeping softly, his little arms wrapped around the blanket that hung over his body, and Johnias reached down to touch him before his hand was instantly intercepted by his brother's firm grasp that prevented him from doing it. He looked up at Marik, and was taken aback by the sadness in the man's eyes, immediately feeling sorry for what he had done when the king uttered, "We can't touch him yet, Johnias. His bones are too fragile, and any contact, no matter how gentle, could irrevocably damage them for the rest of his life. I haven't even been able to touch him yet."_

_Johnias saw a deep sorrow in the man's eyes because of the fact that he was incapable of holding his son who Marik already dearly loved – it was impossible not to -, unable to press upon the boy the fact that he was his father and hold and comfort his fragile youngest through the pain that he was probably in, as well as the confusion at being isolated from everyone else within a glass box. Marik was more scared than Johnias had ever seen him before, and that included the time when Garius had almost beat his youngest scion to within an inch of his life for the severe disrespect Marik had shown him, his love of his children and wife eclipsing all else, so to help combat that the man put an arm around his twin's broad shoulders, apologising, "I'm sorry. That was incredibly stupid of me; I saw that he was in an incubator and I knew that he had been born early."_

"_No, it's alright," Marik replied softly, gazing intently at the sleeping Caiellis and wondering if some part of the baby's mind was aware of all of the worry he was causing the members of his family, or even if he knew who they were – though he did at least seem to be aware of Emili's role as his mother since she was the one who he had lived inside of for eight months and first been hugged close by after he had been cut out of her stomach. He added, "You didn't know, that's all. The Surgeon-general said that to be safe we should leave him for around a month, but … that's so long..."_

"_I'm sure he knows who you are, Marik," Johnias soothed, figuring out the main source of his brother's worry past his son's fragility and deciding to comfort it upon it, and changing the conversation back to blaming himself for things so that it would distract Marik from his own feeling of impotence at knowing that his son could give out any second and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it, "I'm sorry, but I didn't bring Caiellis a gift, as I was planning to get it once his gender was found out around this time before when he should have been born."_

"_Stop apologising for things that aren't your fault," Marik told him sternly, "Caiellis took us all by surprise, not least me and his mother. We haven't even got his room completely ready yet, though he is going to have the one that I used to have because as you know Alexander inherited yours, because me and Emili couldn't agree on a colour without a gender to decide it from. At least the fact that he has to stay in the incubator for a while will help us get properly ready for him."_

_A brooding but companionable silence descended as the two Lucerna twins stared at the son of the youngest, both of them thinking different but ultimately the same things about unaware Caiellis, before a small figure pushed itself in between them and placed their chubby hand on the glass again, telling the two adults, "I'm looking forward to being able to play with my little brother. He seems really nice."_

_Marik couldn't stop himself from smiling at the happiness present in the statement, but had little time to ruminate upon the words or even respond to them when he felt a gigantic mana presence closing in on the world, giving the Lucaelians a warning of its coming in the age old tradition so that the other Lucernas who were capable of Summoning their own First Sisterhood angels did so before the holy sister arrived. All of those invited to the gathering unanimously and silently took their places at each side of the throne room, leaving a central avenue from the entrance to allow the angel that would be blessing the youngest part of the exalted royal family with their presence to walk or gently fly to the location of the babe. _

_Emili took hold of Alexander's hand and gently pulled him to one side after a moment of resistance, though they remained close to Caiellis's incubator due to their importance as family of the child, though the woman was vaguely sad that her parents hadn't made it because of the earliness of their new grandson's birth. Marik and Johnias stood in the central path to the throne, the king's holy crown glowing with White mana as he prepared to Summon, capturing the attention of all of the occupants of the room as Johnias mimicked his actions, though the twins' Summoning rituals were quite different due to the nature of their respective seraphs._

_Marik placed his palms in front of his bare throat as the Blade of Wrath birthmark illuminated the room with pale and milky mana that shone with a blinding intensity as a sphere of it formed within his hands and the air around him began to be charged with incandescent energy, a pure white outline forming around the king as the sphere expanded and the sound of a glorious but also deadly serious war hymn could be heard in the background, complemented by a melodic, rich, thoughtful and tranquil tune that was coming over from where Johnias had pushed his arms out with his palms outstretched, pink circles of mana forming around them and reaching out with four points, one extending from every ninety degrees of the circles._

_The Star of Serenity on his forehead was pulsating with serene pink and white light, and his eyes became glowing orbs of the same colour as he brought the two circles together just as Marik's sphere of wrathful White mana expanded to a size that eclipsed his human form that forced the occupants of the room to close their eyes and divert their gaze. Alexander watched with baited breath, filled with awe and pride at the sheer power of his father and uncle and knowing that the darkness and the monsters could never defeat his heroes, before Emili covered up his eyes with her slender hand when she saw her son watching, not wanting his young eyes to be damaged by the brightness of the luminescence. A ritual circle of pink magic was expanding out in front of Johnias until it reached a size enough to accommodate an angel and flashed upwards, angelic and calming characters in a holy language revolving around the edge of the circle._

_Then, all of the mana in the room began to be focussed into two large figures that immediately captured the gazes of everyone within with their divine power that radiated out of their perfect bodies. Akroma, the Angel of Wrath, stood in front of the king, holding her gargantuan marble blade out in front of her in a saluting position, and though she was as cold as ever Marik thought he could perceive elements of pride and exultation in the angel's expression on her flawless milky features, extending her golden white wings topped with pale armour edged in gold outwards and stirring the hearts of all the mortals within the room._

_Though her presence was not as commanding or dominating as her sister's, Serenity's form was no less impressive, with magnificent and feathery white wings opening to match her sister, though hers were left unadorned by armour. She had more colour to her skin than Akroma's waxen pallor, and more warmth and genuine friendliness to her smile as she directed it at the Lucaelians within the throne room. Her hair was golden and blonde as she flicked it to the side, glowing in the holy illumination from the Summoning rituals and the light that unnaturally lit up the throne room from the inside and reflected off of the plated silver armour decorated with precious gold that protected her holy form from attack. _

_She held two swords, the one in her right hand a trusty and relatively unadorned blade of steel that was of a similar make to Akroma Blade of Wrath, though much smaller than the massive weapon, while her other one was far more eye catching. The blade itself was not made of any form of metal, but instead was a blazing sword of lucent pink luminosity, with a long handle of red wood and a silver crossguard representation of the Star of Serenity that shone on Johnias's head above his left eye, though it was inclined at an angle instead of being flat from the handle. The most spectacular thing about Serenity however was her eyes, orbs of pure light that promised peace, and end to the war against the darkness where the good and the righteous would be rewarded for their efforts and the generations to come could live in a quiet world away from the screams of violence that echoed across this one. _

_Although she had appeared to many Lucernas in the past, though with not as much regularity as some of her sisters (such as Akroma or Aurelia), Serenity had never been the Summoning of a monarch, though whether that was just coincidence or something deeper was unknown to the humans that had made the connection. It didn't seem to affect the angel, who Akroma seemed to sometimes treat more like a child than a divine First Sisterhood angel, hinting at their relationship in the Sanctum Angelica, and when Marik had asked her about it the Angel of Wrath (had actually answered, which was surprising enough) said that Serenity was her youngest sister (though still timeless compared to the lifespans of humans) and was the most innocent, the most suited for a world away from war instead of being focussed more upon that war. She had likened it to what one would show when trying to protect a virtuous younger sibling or child from the true horror of the world and preserve their innocence for a long as possible, though Serenity had long since known about the darkness of Sancturia and the material plane. _

"_Nobles of Lucael," Marik proclaimed, feeling the gazes of everyone in the room (even his eldest son, who pried himself away from looking at the angels to listen to his dad's speech) converging upon him, and his voice was filled with a magical an inspiring resonance, "We are gathered here today to celebrate a momentous occasion – both the birth of another Lucerna, another in the line that is descended from Matalis Ortus Lucerna himself and has ruled Lucael for as long as the Kingdom of Light has existed, and my son's Angelic Descent, where an angel from the exalted and revered First Sisterhood will come from the heavens to bless Caiellis with their presence and serve him and the kingdom."_

_The speech was traditional, and though it was a bit pretentious Marik said it with pride in his family and for his tenacious youngest who had clung to life with all of his strength and forced his brittle body to carry on living so that he could be here now and received his Summoning, and both angels held their blades out in front of them, ready to bow respectfully to their sister that would be entering the world very soon, judging by the increase in mana that wasn't coming from Serenity or Akroma._

_Marik narrowed his eyes when he sensed something strange making the breach into reality, as the candles of wisps and golden light across each side of the room and surrounding Caiellis suddenly snuffed out, an extremely dramatic and theatrical move if he had ever seen one that seemed uncharacteristic of a First Sisterhood angel, but if their power drowned out that of the lights and the angel was doing it unintentionally that was understandable. Nevertheless, he was still quite concerned about the fact that his youngest son's incubator had turned off, the golden glow that was preserving the boy's perilous hold upon life extinguished at the same time as the rest of the luminescence, though soon a purple radiance was permeating throughout the throne chamber, suggesting to Marik that either what he knew about Avacyn, the Angel of Hope wasn't a complete index of the angel's characteristics and what constituted her descent into the world of mankind, or another angel had been chosen to bless his little Caiellis._

_The man felt a sense of magnificence and awe flowing through him, though it was a mixture of respect and terror he found entirely uncomfortable sending adrenaline coursing through his Lucerna veins, as well as a melancholic tinge that was completely different to anything he had ever experienced from an angel before, so the king wracked his mind and the knowledge that he had absorbed from sessions in the library as a child away from his father and duties for which potential First Sisterhood this could be, analysing each and every one of them before finding them unsuitable for the type of energy he was feeling now, one that put him on edge and had him involuntarily moving protectively towards Caiellis._

_He heard Akroma snarl and switch her weapon to a ready position, the jubilance and pride that Marik had felt shattering like panes of fragile glass impacting upon a hard surface, sending millions of pieces of his happiness falling away from his mind to be replaced by nervousness and a fatherly protective instinct to defend his helpless son from this new threat, though he was certain that what was coming was an angel, as they engendered the same response in his mind and the one demon that he had fought had inspired terror and revulsion instead of awe and fear. A symbol of shining darkness had appeared at the other side of the room, a star or sun with eight points and pulsing with malevolent purple light._

_There was a general murmur of confusion, some nobles placing their hands on the hilts of their weapons, but most of them instinctively knew that the being that was soon coming was an angel and so it should be obeyed instead of railed against, but then, quite clearly, Marik sensed the presence of hated Black mana and was stuck in indecision, his mind halfway between awe and hatred that prevented him from doing anything other than standing defensively in front of the neonatal incubator and behind his and Johnias's First Sisterhood angels, though he didn't dare draw his sword and blaspheme against a holy angel. _

_The star of dark light across from him shimmered with golden energy, and Marik registered that it was not just Black mana that was being conjured, but protective and glorious White as well, although he had been focussing too much on the former because of his hatred for it. However, the presence of both of the types of magical energy in conjunction confirmed the identity of the First Sisterhood angel that would be "gracing" his smallest son with her blessing, though Marik didn't dare think the thoughts until he was certain that what he feared was true, and, with his heart in his mouth and the drumbeat of it in his ears, Marik watched as a figure began to step out of the star of darkness – or, more precisely, the dreaded Black Sun._

_She was beautiful, like every other First Sisterhood angel, majestic and terrifying in the same instance, clad in ornate golden armour and framed by huge wings the colour of midnight black that unfurled wide as she walked into the chamber out of Sancturia, Marik's dread increasing with every second as she pulled herself into reality through the portal she had created, his mind alight with, _Why did it have to be her? Why did it have to be _her_? My poor Caiellis doesn't deserve this … Why does it have to be _my _son? She hasn't appeared in over a hundred years, and she hadn't ever set foot in our world before that … so why _now_?

_The angel of darkness held a massive and ornate golden scythe with the heel moulded into a golden representation of her Black Sun symbol in her right hand, the haft made from a solid darkness while the large blade gleamed in the light from around her. Robes of black drifted behind her as she walked, flowing perfectly around her body and never impeding her graceful movements, a golden medallion dangling from her left hand and also showing the sigil of the sun of gloom that would have once been revered as a holy symbol but was now treated with scorn and fear, but not just the terror that one would show to evil beings: it was a darker horror, the dread of those that were supposed to be your protectors turning upon you in their own lust for power and the physical manifestation of a reign of darkness and greed unprecedented in the normally illustrious and successful Lucerna family and prosecuted by this seraph of darkness and light._

_Her pale features were framed once by a golden collar in the shape of the Black Sun and wing like protrusions rising up from a second collar from the black leather of her clothing, a cascade of black hair flowing behind it. The dark angel had a small golden orb in the middle of her pale forehead, and tears of the same imperious metal etched underneath her eyes, which were onyx spheres that reflected purity but the potential for evil that had been shown in King Xarius's reign. Marik could see both duty and commitment in the twinkling eyes of the angel, undying loyalty that was somehow more than that of the other angels he had seen, and it went against all he had been taught about the harbinger of death and misery that had been the once worshipped Angel of the Black Sun before Xarius had used her to murder his sister the queen and forcefully take the throne and then reinforce his new reign by sending her to massacre those that stood against him with the powers of both light and darkness. _

_The angel had been the cause of the largest catastrophe in Lucaelian history and the largest civil war that had ever been seen as those loyal to Xarius fought against those that followed Princess Matrice, who had used the Warleader that now resided inside of his eldest son, and while Marik could well believe that this herald of radiance and gloom had caused that how she appeared now was no less impressive than any of her loyal sisters – it suddenly occurred to the king that maybe the Angel of the Black Sun had never corrupted Xarius, but the self-titled Emperor of Light may have always been narcissistic and megalomaniacal, and this dark seraph had simply followed his commands that other angels would have refused to ever even think of. Her eyes reflected loyalty, that was for certain, but it was as if that duty was to an empty void, not the exalted First Angel who all of the other divine denizens of Sancturia served, though as she looked upon her sister Akroma her lips twisted into a haughty sneer, before becoming more guilty when she gazed upon the sorrowful Serenity._

"_Where is Avacyn?!" Akroma barked, hefting her gigantic Blade of Wrath and looking about ready to strike down the Angel of the Black Sun if she didn't explain herself, and the dark seraph – Marik's _son's _dark seraph – merely smiled mockingly back, telling her, "There has been a change of plans. I, the Angel of the Black Sun, will be blessing Caiellis Noctis Lucerna upon this day, in the tradition of the holy partnership between the Lucerna line and the First Sisterhood."_

_Her silken voice was like honey to Marik's ears, though the proud words carried a significantly sinister undertone and an inflection of melancholy that the angel wasn't otherwise showing and suggested a very deep sadness, and the king allowed himself to believe that the Angel of the Black Sun wasn't doing this to spite his son, rather to prove that it had been Xarius that was evil, not her. He just wished that Caiellis, his infinitely precious baby boy that had only just entered the world, wouldn't have to be "blessed" by the disgrace of the First Sisterhood that was hated by all, including the other angels – why did it have to be her? Why couldn't it have been Avacyn, the Angel of Hope that Marik could already tell would fit his youngest son very well, aptly exemplifying the hope that had driven both him and Emili when she was giving birth to him, the hope that he would survive in spite of his fragility, but this … this was just cruel._

_Caiellis didn't deserve it. He would be walking into life feared and scorned by those around him but still respected as he was a Lucerna, which meant that he would be extremely lonely as the people were scared of him but would hide it underneath their reverence and use that to keep him at arm's length instead of forming a relationship with him. His fragile son, that had enough to contend with, both being the son of the king that may well inherit the throne and having his own weakness to contend with, without having to factor in the fact that he would be the host to the most hated – the only angel that was subjected to that emotion – seraphim in history. _

_He would have to work harder than _any _other Lucerna in the past to gain the adulation of the people because of something that he hadn't done and had had absolutely no part in, and receive stigma smothered under deference of the royal family but not admiration of him. He would have Black mana within him, which was another curse and another reason for people to fear him, though Marik could already tell that his son would never be another Xarius – or maybe he just couldn't see it because the boy was his own child, and, innocently asleep, no one could ever suspect him of one day becoming a tyrant. Marik resolved to make sure that Caiellis would never become one through showing him all of the love he had available and making sure that he was satisfied with life, as the other possibility was for him to be controlled and physically told that he couldn't do what Xarius would have done which would stunt his development and probably end up making him a much more cold human being than the first option, which was to treat him no differently and the one that Marik currently favoured._

"_Our holy Mother would never authorise that!" Akroma snarled in indignation, blocking the Angel of the Black Sun's path to the infant with all eyes in the room glued to the confrontation, and holding her sword out in front of her. _

_Alexander grasped hold of his mother's hand tightly, though he was too young to have been taught about the cataclysm the angel that would be inhabiting his little brother had brought about, but could still sense that something was wrong because of what was going on. _

_However, because this was the first Black mana that he had ever felt before, and while he had been told about all of the five colours of mana that shaped the two intersecting realms he didn't know exactly what each of them were (apart from Black being the "bad one") and as he wasn't being told that this was Black mana he didn't see anything wrong with the angel that was going to be his little brother's, and couldn't understand why everyone seemed so scared of her. Sure, she was quite frightening, and the weapon that she had chosen to wield wasn't as glorious as a sword and was more scary than one, but there was nothing really wrong with her, but there must have been something because of the way the grown ups and the angels were acting. _

_Viewing her without the stigmata attached because of her Black mana and her horrific actions within Xarius's reign, Alexander couldn't work out why everyone seemed so scared and seemed to dislike her so much, but since they were he wanted to protect his new little brother from that – he hadn't even had a chance to touch him yet, much less play with him!_

"_Well, Akroma, as you can see Serra clearly did order it, otherwise I wouldn't be here. So I would appreciate it if you would stop obstructing this holy ceremony further, dear _sister_," the Angel of the Black Sun smiled, full of the arrogance and imperial haughtiness that Marik had always imagined and been told that Xarius had exhibited, though the king somehow sensed that there was a deep sorrow and even … _remorse? No, that can't be right … _underneath the façade of conceit and contempt that was met by Akroma's anger as she realised that her disgraced and hated sister was correct, and that if their holy Mother had chosen to give her a second chance she couldn't defy the orders even though she disagreed with them and thought that now the Angel of the Black Sun had been found she should be imprisoned and forced to repent. Even so, Akroma still maintained that her errant sister had done this without their creator's consent, but was forced to stand down as it seemed that none of her other sisters was going to arrive and denounce the angel's claims._

_The dark seraph smiled derisively and winked as her sister stepped out of the way, her face full of wrath and emotion that Marik had never seen from his detatched angel before, and pacing forward two more steps before finding herself blocked by the aghast Serenity, her perfect features twisted into an expression of sadness and despair instead of the hatred her wrathful sister had shown, and the smile fell from Caiellis's angel's face, making Marik abruptly notice that she hadn't been named, not in the history books and not now, before it returned twofold, as if she was making sure that the humans around her hadn't seen the crack of her mask, the slip in her contemptuous act that had revealed the true emotion underneath, as the angel of light and peace murmured, "Sister … what are you doing here?"_

_The Angel of the Black Sun leaned in close to her heavenly sibling, close enough to her sister's ear so that her wings blocked out her face from being seen and the expression on it from being observed, and Serenity's horror filled expression softened and she nodded, withdrawing to the other side of the room and taking up her place opposite from Akroma, and when the dark seraphim's face was shown again she was completely serious instead of mocking, her eyes filled with nothing but duty and loyalty to the Lucerna family and the Angelic Sisterhoods in spite of her actions – or that was what Marik had originally perceived it as, but as he looked closer into her sparkling black orbs he noticed that both of those loyalties were directed at two individuals in the room – the first was Serenity, whose angelic face was cast in resolute determination, which made Marik wonder what had been said, while the other was seemingly aimed at the present occupant of the golden throne, the sleeping second son of Marik and Emili._

_She walked closer, before almost giving into the temptation to roll her eyes as she noticed more people obstructing her path, though she also had to fight against the urge to glance back into the portal from where she had arrived in the Lucerna Palace from, frightened that some of her sisters might be coming after her but not willing to let Akroma nor Serenity notice that. _

_Emili let go of Alexander's hand, placing her own slender hands on his shoulders and gently diverting his gaze from the angels to her, so that she was looking into his scared and confused blue eyes that he had inherited from his father but were filled with her Noctis warmth, telling him softly but firmly, "Stay here, Alex. I'm just going to stand with daddy, ok?". The woman didn't wait for a response and strode to her husband's side as he opposed the unnerving Angel of the Black Sun, starting of walking shakily because of her sheer exhaustion but resolving to suck it up for the sake of her youngest son. At any rate, the jubilation that she had been filled with at such an important celebration for her new son that Emili had only delivered a few hours ago after the most painful experience of her entire life, but also one of the best only matched by her other son's birth, had dissolved away, replaced with apprehension, anxiety and concern for her sleeping baby who was blissfully unaware of the confrontation happening in the same room as him, and as of yet didn't look too troubled by the removal of the mana incubator's power supply._

_Marik turned to her, his eyes full of surprise at her coming to his side, and Emili shook her head as if to say: "What did you expect?" before filling her green eyes with determination and placing a hand on Marik's arm, both to comfort him and to find stability – physical and emotional – in the solid and strong form of her husband, squeezing it tightly to show that nothing would come in between them and their sons' safety, not even a First Sisterhood angel if they were the ones that were threatening their children. Marik clearly thought that as she wasn't a Lucerna she should just leave this to him, but Emili didn't care that it would be child's play for the Angel of the Black Sun to carve her apart with that rather frightening scythe of hers, and would rather she got hurt than her innocent and vulnerable son._

"_I – _we –_ will not let you hurt Caiellis," the king uttered, drawing upon his suddenly lacking reserves of confidence that he had built up for himself in his years of forcing himself to act as an exemplary Lucerna, and because he found that lacking instead took strength from his parental determination to prevent any harm from coming to his beloved children and his need to protect his beautiful wife to stare down the Angel of the Black Sun. Both Johnias, who was hefting his elegant twin swords, Fortune and Peace, to the left of the king, and Emili, who felt left out without any form of weaponry, to her husband's right, nodded in agreement of the statement._

_The Angel of the Black Sun stared back at them, though to her credit she didn't seem surprised at all for the father and mother of the child she had selected – the only infant barring Xarius that she had ever been _able _to choose – opposing her at this final stage, and while it would have been contemptuously easy to wipe them off the face of the kingdom the seraph thought that perhaps that course of action wasn't the most suitable to take if she ever wanted Caiellis to like her. Additionally, she couldn't really blame the parents or the Summoner of Serenity, the boy's uncle, but instead of ordering them out of her way and since no one else apart from them could see her face she let the mocking and derisive persona slip and presented them with what she had shown to Serenity, though they were a modification of her genuine feelings and not what she was truly thinking._

"_I'm not going to hurt Caiellis, King Marik," she told them simply, but infused the words with the heartfelt truth of them. She could waste time explaining how it would be utterly detrimental and incredibly counterproductive for her to harm the infant that she had chosen to be her second Summoner, but right now all they needed to know was that she had no plans to harm their son/nephew. She honestly felt relatively sorry for the baby, as he would have to contend with the shame of something that he couldn't be blamed for at all, but this boy was her last chance to prove herself, to prove that she wasn't evil – for all she pretended to be sarcastic and mocking and enjoy the hatred of her sisters, all she had ever wanted was to be accepted for who she was, and this would help her achieve that. _

_Marik looked deep within the angel's black eyes that showed the cold expanse of the void but twinkled with the light of loyalty and prosperity, and knew that for all he didn't want the only angel that had ever betrayed the Kingdom of Light that her sisters had blessed and protected for millennia to be his youngest son's Summoning, didn't want the boy to be subjected to prejudice and discrimination from his birth that was none of his fault, he knew that ultimately there was nothing he could do to stop her if it had been ordered by the First Angel. He nodded his head solemnly, hoping that his little Caiellis wouldn't feel the effects of it too much or have a horrible life because of it and cursing the angel's selfishness, though he could tell that the Angel of the Black Sun wanted to atone for her past mistakes through his youngest son. _

_Marik wished that his son would be able to prove that it was the man that had been evil, not the angel in spite of her dual nature of light and darkness, and silently promised that he would be there every step of the way to help the boy through it and make sure that he felt loved and wanted for all he was shown scorn and terror by those that may well one day become his subjects, and that the people would one day learn to remove their grudge, though he could already see resentful and disdainful stares directed at the inactive neonatal support unit that held his son from the figures on either side of the crowd, though there were some that were full of pity. _

_He was about to silently acquiesce and move to the side, before a woman's voice rang out, full of defiance and a protective resonance, "You'd better not. I don't care that you are an exalted angel, and that I am only an insignificant mortal, but if you lay a hand on my son with the intent to do harm, or do anything that will make his life worse in any way, then I will make you pay."_

_Marik shot a worried glance at Emili before flicking his eyes up to the angel, hoping that she hadn't taken offence from the words, but if anything the seraph nodded soberly, the words of the queen and the mother of the boy she had selected as a Summoner speaking to her heart, though it was clear that it hadn't been directed at her just because of her Black mana and the actions she had undertaken in Xarius's time on the throne, but because she was in a position to ruin Caiellis's hard-earned life before it even started, and made the Angel of the Black Sun feel incredibly selfish because while she had wanted Xarius to make her as glorified as her sisters, she had been going to use Caiellis to restore her tarnished reputation with no thought for the boy himself, leaping at the chance that another Lucerna with intrinsic Black mana presented, but she would make sure to cherish and protect the boy, that was for certain – though she utterly refused to have a repeat of the "Xarius incident" and so would be a lot harsher on Caiellis then she was on her former Summoner._

"_If it is any consolation," the angel began, her voice a quiet murmur at too low a volume to be heard by any of the occupants of the room other than the two Lucernas and the one that had married into their family, "I haven't created Caiellis's Black mana. It has been within him ever since he was conceived."_

_She inclined her head in the direction of the incubator, where a single shaft of purple light that came from the ornate stained glass windows above illuminated the child within, and Marik gasped when he saw the shadows rising up around Caiellis, tendrils of darkness stroking and wrapping around the helpless boy as he whimpered, his tiny face screwed up in pain, his breathing getting faster but his breaths getting shorter by comparison, though his eyes were screwed shut. He only just resisted the urge to rush to his side and carry him out of the incubation unit, knowing that that would be the death of him and the only thing that would stop it would be the Angel of the Black Sun. _

_Marik nodded once again, swallowing nervously and feeling more useless than ever, powerless to soothe his baby boy's pain and unable to protect him, and quickly moved out of the way of the angel, dragging his wife forcefully but still gently with him and tenderly making her sit down before she collapsed out of exhaustion, Emili still looking like she wasn't convinced by the angel's promise to not hurt their second child, and as Johnias went to the opposite side of the hall the path was left clear for the Angel of the Black Sun. Apart from one more small defender who blocked the final few metres to Caiellis Noctis Lucerna._

"_Alexander!" both Marik and Emili exclaimed at their eldest son stood protectively in front of their youngest, evidently having disobeyed his mum's orders to stay put. He looked smaller than ever in front of the large and imposing angel that stood in front of him, and Marik tried not to visualise the seraphim effortlessly carving him apart with her huge scythe, and the blonde held the training sword that Johnias had given him today in front of him, like it would be able to do anything to a member of the exalted First Sisterhood. The four year old said, his voice full of child-like determination that nevertheless made Marik incredibly proud of him, though he was concerned for his safety but couldn't get to him without pushing the angel out of his way, and she seemed like she wasn't going to hurt Caiellis's brother either so was going to avoid that for now, copying what his parents had said, "I won't let you hurt my little brother!" and stamping his foot in verification and reinforcement of the statement._

_The angel regarded the boy in front of her with annoyance, knowing that she needed to get to her new Summoner soon before his fragile body gave out because of the deactivation of the machine that had been keeping him alive, but as she looked into the blue eyes of Alexander she saw that he didn't hate her, nor did he detest her like the other Lucaelians did, he was simply possessed of the need to safeguard his vulnerable younger sibling. She knew that this boy would be one of the most important people in Caiellis's life, especially because he wouldn't show him any discrimination due to the fact that he didn't yet know about the reign of the Emperor of Light, and if the seraph wanted his opinion to stay like that and have him see her as a blessing to Caiellis, not a curse, and not have his views changed when he did learn about Xarius, she needed to assuage his worries and protective instinct._

"_Are you scared of me, Alexander Ensis Lucerna?" the angel asked, kneeling down to the boy's height but coming no closer to him or her objective behind him, leaning on her scythe as she looked into his frightened blue eyes. She suppressed a smirk when the boy shook his head vehemently, as if disgusted by the mention of the mere fact that he could be scared, and while she thought it was quite brave of him to stand up against an angel of death Alexander obviously didn't know what she had done, nor what she was capable of doing, nor had seen anyone die before. The eldest prince tightly squeezed the handle of the wooden sword Johnias had bought him with a white knuckled grip, as if drawing courage from the training weapon that wouldn't even scratch the metal of the Angel of the Black Sun's armour, and to support the gesture that he was still making he said, "No, I'm not scared."_

_The angel flicked her onyx eyes to the painfully whimpering baby behind Alexander, and then to the king and his wife who looked as if they were going to intervene, their eyes full of worry for their brave but also foolish eldest son who the seraph hoped would treat his little brother to the same standard in the future and therefore would be a valuable asset to young Caiellis. She kept her awe-inspiring visage impassive but still vaguely friendly to show that Alexander currently had nothing to fear from her, though she was relatively impressed that the four year old would get in her way to protect a baby that he had only known for a few hours and had never had a conversation with. She then asked, "Then do you hate me, young one?"_

_The child shook his head again, though with much less vigorousness than the first time, and slowly lowered his sword, although he didn't put it away, telling her sternly, "I'll only hate you if you hurt my little brother."_

"_I'm not going to hurt young Caiellis," the Angel of the Black Sun made her voice resolute and serious, and the boy nodded for the third time, convinced that she was telling the truth – which she was, it was just that while she didn't intend to overtly hurt Caiellis she firstly wanted the Summoning trial that she would present him with to be incredibly hard and also mysterious, requiring a certain type of mind to work out – which meant that if Caiellis wasn't right for her then he would probably never be able to Summon her and would live the rest of his life in shame (though the Lucaelians would most likely be secretly glad that she couldn't enter the world through him), and secondly she couldn't account for what others would do because of his new position as the host of the Angel of the Black Sun. _

_Alexander moved out of the way of the angel, running quickly to his mum and dad, both of whom had held their hands out so he grabbed hold of one each and stood in between them, watching the angel with wide and innocent eyes as she let go of her scythe, though it didn't obey the laws of most things that Alex had ever seen and remained upright instead of falling over, and raised the medallion of the Black Sun above the inactive neonatal support unit. Both Marik and Emili wanted to talk to their eldest son, but that could wait until the Angelic Descent ritual had been completed, as the two sensed the mana levels of equal amounts of White and Black mana reaching a breaking point, the former only more present because of the two other First Sisterhood angels watching as well._

_The Angel of the Black Sun was speaking softly, quietly singing words that blended into a tune that sprung up in the background, the shadows wrapping around the king and queen's infant son being repelled by shining golden light and crackling coruscations of purple lightning that fulminated through the sigil and around Caiellis, Marik remembering when his eldest son had been surrounded by incandescent and radiant golden fire and wondered what his own ritual would have been like, since he had never asked anyone, but assumed that it would have been the same as all of the other times Akroma had entered the world and been bonded with a Lucaelian child. _

_Imperious golden light spilled across Marik's baby boy, but instead of removing the shadows it blended with them in a way that the king had never seen before and had never been able to visualise the magic of light and dark interacting and bonding in such a way; the man had to resist the urge to run to the boy when he heard him crying softly and squeezing his tiny hands into tight fists, knowing that the ritual had to be completed and that it had been painful for Alexander as well (though of course neither of his sons would remember, and he supposed it would have been just as agonising for the infant him), though because the first-born son of him and Emili had been stronger physically he had been better equipped to deal with it than Caiellis was now._

_The Angel of the Black Sun's voice became sterner and louder, enunciating words that Marik had never heard before as the maelstrom of luminescence and tenebrosity swirling around his son began to coalesce more prominently around him, golden coated shadows mingling with coils of incandescent darkness and discharges of purple energy and flowing around his baby boy, saturating the air with the pure power of a First Sisterhood angel, as it was incredibly easy to forget that just because Xarius's unique angel had followed his evil commands she was still a member of the pinnacle of the angelic hierarchy and as such possessed of massive amounts of mana. _

_He only wished that his son didn't have to contend with an angel that had murdered massive amounts of innocents, but seeing her up close had made Marik understand that she seemingly had no plans of doing something like that again and that it was Xarius that had been evil, not her. Or that was what he wanted to believe, anyway, as he couldn't deal with the thought of his youngest son being abused and controlled by the only betrayer of the Angelic Sisterhoods, and perhaps she was trying to hide it so that no one would intervene, which, if that had been her intention, they had all walked into her trap. Marik realised with a start that he had just let _the_ Angel of the Black Sun_, _the angel that had murdered thousands of loyal Lucaelian souls in the service of the only evil Lucerna in history, walk straight past him and use his youngest son to further her own plans. Of course there was no way that the First Angel had allowed this to happen! How stupid had he been?_

_The king cursed himself for his stupidity, but he had been convinced by the angel's seemingly genuine want to protect and serve his vulnerable and easily exploitable youngest son, but it was far too late to stop it now and if he did he would be killing Caiellis, who wouldn't be able to hold that much energy in his fragile body without something within him controlling it for him, and the fact that he, Johnias, Emili, Akroma and Serenity – who had more cause that him to hate her – had been convinced by the Angel of the Black Sun had to be sufficient for him now, since there was nothing else he could do. He told himself that, when his son passed his Summoning trial, he would make sure that the angel within him wasn't trying to manipulate or corrupt him, though apart from that he wouldn't mention it that much to Caiellis or make him feel in any way unwelcome or unloved because of it. _

_He already loved the boy more than anything else in the world apart from his other son and wife, and knew that there was no way he would show stigma to him because of which angelic member of the First Sisterhood had chosen him and because he had Black mana inside of him, as it was just another, more different burden for the boy to bear that his family would help him through, another dark power that had been gifted to him and should be used responsibly. Marik reminded himself that because his son had both White and Black mana – a powerful combination that he had never seen before but whose first recorded user almost overturned the entire kingdom with – within him from birth, and never sought out the power of the latter, he wouldn't abuse it since if the seriousness out it was impressed upon Caiellis and he had never asked for it would mean that he wouldn't use it for evil purposes, though Xarius had been born with it – though he had hidden it from everyone until the time of his coup d'état came – and turned out evil._

_It was Marik's duty to make his son always feel loved and wanted so that he would never turn to his inner darkness for power, in spite of what the rightly afraid people of the kingdom might try, though for some reason the father had already decided that his baby son was a kind and considerate soul that wouldn't misuse the deadly power and Lucerna responsibility given to him, and while there was no logic behind a parental love to that claim it was what the king was thinking of as he gripped Alexander's hand tightly as the shaft of light illuminating his son rose in dark intensity to paradoxically blinding strength that Marik would have looked away from had this been any child other than his son that it had been subjected to. Instead, he covered Alexander's eyes with one large hand, the boy immediately beginning to pull at it with the tiny hands of his own so that he could see what was going on, and looked straight into the pillar of shining dark light blasting into his son as the maelstrom of radiant darkness around him pulsated and coiled round the beam._

_The Angel of the Black Sun leaned down into the incubator, and, in a moment of gentleness utterly out of place with the destructive energies flowing around Caiellis, kissed the boy on his pale and small right cheek, the angel's lips leaving a small mark of darkness and light there as she pulled away and held the medallion above the placed where she had touched the boy, Caiellis's young eyes opening as the combined force of light and darkness flowed into him, crashing through the air and pouring into his cheek as he cried loudly now, tears of shining incandescence and dripping shadow cascading down each of his cheeks, the former to the right and the latter to the left side of his face, until the output of blinding energy rose to such a level that Marik with his protected Lucerna eyes and the blessing of the holy crown was forced to look away, though only for a second._

_When he, tentatively at first but much quicker when the light faded from the interior of his retinas, reopened his eyes, the Angel of the Black Sun had vanished, and his son was back asleep again, as if he had roused from the realm of dreams only for a short amount of time before falling back into his slumber, and all eyes were on the king and his son as Marik walked towards the incubator that had activated again, thrumming peacefully as his son was breathing normally again. Caiellis now had a black stain – _no, _do not_ think of it like that! It is his birthright, a blessing not a curse, and he will use it to attain glory and renown just like every other Lucerna –_ the Black Sun symbol, imprinted upon the place where the dark seraph had kissed him, and Marik vaguely felt the other First Sisterhood angels departing as he gazed down at his sleeping son, the tears of gloom and light faded but leaving normal tracks stark against the boy's pale face, though where they had touched the Lucerna birthmark it glowed a kind of peaceful purple. That was Caiellis's colour, he decided. One part of his room had to have that colour in it._

_He felt a hand being placed on his shoulder, and turned around to see the grim face of Johnias, who gave his younger twin brother a smile that failed to reach his serious eyes, though Marik was certain that his sibling wouldn't persecute his son for it either, confirmed by, "It's alright, Marik. Yes, Caiellis may now have the Angel of the Black Sun inside of him and as his Summoning, that doesn't mean anything. He's not gonna be evil, bro, trust me on that. He's not going to be another Xarius."_

"_I know," he replied, his voice little more than a whisper as he shook his head while looking down at his blissfully unaware son, who was curling up within his blankets again and wearing something akin to a smile on his young face, though whether he was doing it on purpose or not was unknown to the king, who was filled with love for his baby boy and wished that the Angel of the Black Sun hadn't chosen him as her Summoner, but she had, and there was no point wasting time thinking about it now. All that there was to do now was look to the future by improving the present, to make Caiellis's life the same as any other Lucerna's childhood so that he didn't feel discriminated against because of his … "unique" First Sisterhood angel, and so that there was no way he could fall to the darkness like Xarius had done. At any rate, Marik didn't want him to know about it until he was old enough to truly understand that it didn't make him a monster, though he wouldn't be able to hide all the stares and fear from him._

"_I think that there is only one thing that can be done now, my lord," an imposing voice that reminded Marik of his father very well boomed across the room, and the king spun around to see Hierarch Incedian of Civitas Sol at the other side of the room, having evidently arrived whilst the ritual was already under way, with Guardian Malleus and his seventeen year old student Oleic stood next to him._

_The former was swathed in imperious golden robes and had been one of Garius's staunchest supporters and Marik's main decriers when he had inherited the throne, much favouring Johnias over him, though he had of course obeyed the new ruler – just objected against everything he did at every single turn. However, Marik couldn't get rid of him because of how well he was respected, and because of the fact that the former Hierarch Tybalt of Capitalia Lux who was the same age as Incedian had stepped down the people naturally looked for a spiritual leader who was aged and wise instead of someone new to the role (though Marik liked young Hierarch Mithres). Incedian was a manifestation of the older Lucael, the ancient traditions and the way that Lucael had been ruled within his father's realm with a xenophobic hatred of all outsiders instead of seeing their benefits – as trade with the other nations had brought huge amounts of prosperity and technology to the Kingdom of Light that it would have been bereft of without Marik's alliance with the Yentarian Republic._

_The aged Hierarch, while he was smaller than he had been in his middle age and had never been a particularly huge man, still commanded a vast amount of attention and had a massive presence, and added to the fact that his eyes were the colour of golden sunlight after being almost blinded by his first glance at the sun when he looked at it in all its glory it gave him a terrifying stare that he was now levelling at the king. He had short white hair on his head, but a large moustache and beard of the same colour that instead of making him look friendly gave him an even more grandiose appearance, and as he walked through the space that the dark seraph of Xarius had only minutes earlier his large golden staff clacked on the floor, topped with a sun symbol of five points (the last would have gone into the staff's handle) and surrounded by two priests, one both carrying censers of burning leaves from the gardens underneath Civitas Sol and blindly ignoring the fact that only the palace servants were allowed in the Lucerna throne room. _

_Guardian Malleus was a silent giant of a man clad in golden armour etched with ornate sun symbols that Marik personally detested because of the fact that he wasn't in any way suitable for the role of Guardian – yes, he was good at fighting and protecting the Hierarch, but he had no individuality of his own and was content simply to serve and follow orders to the letter instead of form his own opinions and be a thinking warrior, something that the current king of three years wanted out of his Light-bearers. He held a massive hammer as he walked behind the Hierarch, tailed by his tall apprentice who shot Tristram a glower as they walked in. Malleus had stony features, and his grey eyes were like orbs of unyielding granite._

"_Which is?" Marik asked, barely bothering to increase his hostility, his anger fuelled by the injustice done to his youngest son that he stood protectively in front of, and the fact that Incedian was everything he hated about Lucaelian society – he was haughty, heavily religious to the point of being severely blinded by his faith, narrow-minded, ethnocentric, conservative and afraid of change, but most of all because he clearly had serious problems with the way that Marik did things but hadn't got the courage to overtly oppose him because of the fact that he was a Lucerna and Incedian was just a humble subject, in spite of all his platitudes and bluster. _

_The man strode down the central pathway between the two sides of nobles, though most of them were too shocked by the reappearance of the hated Angel of the Black Sun to do anything other than stare at the incubator in horror, which Alexander noticed so he stood in front of his little brother's glass tank in an attempt to stop them from looking at him like that, joined by his proud but shocked mother who grasped his hand reassuringly and whispered a few encouraging words in his ear, smiling down at him in spite of her apprehension, similar thoughts to those of Marik running through her head but with less emphasis on the duty of ruling and more focus on making Caiellis happy with life._

"_Is it not obvious?" was would Incedian would clearly like to have barked out, but instead he composed himself in front of his king and lord, who had to resist the urge to smirk arrogantly at him – though he probably wouldn't have been able to manage it, and stated gravely, "The Angel of the Black Sun must not be allowed to corrupt another Lucerna infant. The Kingdom of Light cannot have another repeat of Xarius's unholy reign. I suggest that, to prevent such an awful cataclysm that almost ended our nation from ever happening again, we end the potential for a tyrannical reign now by ending the life of the young prince." _

_The way he spoke was like an oratory, and Marik would have sensed that he was speaking in that way to engender support from his flock – the audience of nobles, Light-bearers and other influential figures from all across Lucael that had been able to make it – if he could get any thoughts out past his rage at such a course of action being suggested. The Hierarch of the City of the Sun continued, making his voice much louder and holding his arms to the side, his golden and white robes spilling out underneath them, capturing the attention of the horrified individuals around him, "With respect, King Marik, you already have one exemplary son-"_

"_HOW DARE YOU!" the king shouted, interrupting him mid sentence, his words suffused with an anger that he had never felt in such intensity before at the mere suggestion that his youngest son was to be put to the sword because of the fact that some angel that had done awful things over a hundred years ago, and Marik already knew that Caiellis would turn out nothing like the Emperor of Light because of the fact that he wouldn't be neglected or ignored in favour of his siblings, because when Xarius had been born his fifteen years older sister, Queen Wendicia (who he had murdered to claim the throne from) was already ruling the nation after the death of their father, and as she had had children at eighteen the young Xarius had never had any chance of obtaining the throne ever since he was three. _

_However, this sort of behaviour, this mistrust and fear and willingness to kill a child because of something more than a century had done with the same Summoning had done was the exact thing that would end up replicating Xarius's reign. Johnias quickly turned around to his raging brother, placing his hands on Marik's forearms and looking him in the eyes, the fact that he had always been slightly taller (and physically stronger, at least in Johnias's opinion from the wrestling they had done in the past) than his brother working in his favour, though he almost expected Marik to tear out of his grip and hack the Hierarch, who was recovering swiftly from the shock and preparing to launch another point, apart with his greatsword._

"_I will handle this, Marik," Johnias told him sternly, not wanting his brother's anger – that the boy's uncle clearly felt judging by his eyes, but obviously with much lesser intensity because Caiellis wasn't his own child – to get the better of him and make him do something that he would regret later, and Marik almost wrenched out of his grip, hissing, "I will not let him – or any of them – hurt my son! Emili almost died delivering Caiellis, and it was a miracle that he survived at all. And I will not allow them to lay a finger on him with the intent to harm because the Angel of the Black Sun is now his Summoning!"_

"_I know, I know," the older of the two placated, increasing the strength of his grip on his brother's arm to the point where it would probably leave bruises, but the way that Marik was about to break out would not bode well for Incedian, who Johnias personally despised as well, "I'm angry as well, Marik, I mean, he's my little nephew, and since I have no children of my own yet him and Alexander are the closest things I've got to them. I'll make sure that Caiellis comes to no harm, you have my word as your older brother on that. I don't care that the Angel of the Black Sun has returned after over a hundred years, I won't let him be hurt or even killed. But you are __clearly too understandably angry to do this. Just stay with your family and make sure that they are alright."_

"_I … Thank you, Johnias," the king responded, still trembling with anger, and Johnias slowly released his painful grip on his arms, Marik seeing sense in his brother's calm and logical words as he knew that he would never be able to stay composed and collected in an absurd discussion about his son's life. The man smiled back at him, replying, "Don't sweat it. That's what big brothers are here for. Besides, ultimately, they can't do anything to Caiellis if we order it. We are exalted Lucernas. They are our subjects."_

_Marik forced a grin that he didn't feel in any way at the attempted joke, choosing to overlook that once again his _twin _brother had referred to himself as a "big brother" when they were the same age, though the teasing did put him slightly more at ease. He turned around to his wife and eldest, who looked scared at his loud outburst, while Emili herself was shaking with anger at what had been suggested happen to her baby boy that she had gone through so much pain to give life to, __though she tried not to give that away to Alexander. Marik picked up his eldest son and held him tight in his arms, drawing comfort from his innocence and the fact that he loved both his sons so damn much, and just wished that he could hold Caiellis as well and assure him that he wouldn't allow these people to hurt him._

"_I for one agree wholeheartedly with Hierarch Incedian," Hierarch Francis walked out of the crowd and took his place by the similarly aged Light-bearer of Civitas Sol, who nodded his approval, "This boy, Prince Caiellis, could well be the end of our kingdom if he ever inherits the throne, and I for one do not want my grandchildren – or any of the kingdom's children – to be forced to live through the reign of a tyrant, much less if no one succeeds in overthrowing him and he destroys the entire nation in his lust for power."_

"_That assumes that Caiellis will lust for power, Francis," Hierarch Martha, another venerable Light-bearer but one that was much more to Marik's liking, spoke up from the gathering as well, though because there weren't that many people __there each person that spoke could easily be looked at and given space, "Which is entirely unreasonable. We already know that the identity of a Lucerna's angel, or even any Summoner's assigned Sancturia creature, while it can shape their personality and give advice, does not dictate how they will live their lives. By that line of reasoning, Hierarch Francis, your angel, Basandra the Battle Seraph, failed to save the life of King Garius I when he was assassinated – does that mean you will fail in your service to the Lucerna line as well? I should certainly hope not."_

_Francis looked cowed for now, and Emili shot her former mentor a grateful glance, though she sensed that Martha wasn't doing it solely because Caiellis was the son of one of her students, but because she didn't believe in murdering an innocent child because of what their angelic Summoning was. __Then Hierarch Incedian replied with, "Well we all knew that you wouldn't support the prevention of another reign of Xarius, didn't we?"_

"_And why is that?" the aged woman snapped back, glaring at the Hierarch of Civitas Sol as there were nods of agreement in the audience, Guardian Weiss placing a restraining hand on her shoulder to prevent any possibility of Martha doing something stupid, though it was more for the comfort than any chance of the tact and venerable woman attacking another Hierarch. The two had argued many times in the past, as the viewpoints of Scientia Mos – the city that had arguably benefited most from the Lucael/Yentar alliance – and Civitas Sol were quite different, and represented that way in their Light-bearers. Incedian simply gazed back, unfazed, "Your City of Books suffered by far the least under Xarius's reign, especially because Queen Matrice made her headquarters there and fought away the tyrant's armies. Your people never had to live under the mad king's rule, and by far the least Lucaelians died in your metropolis."_

"_Why does that matter? None of us were alive during Xarius's tyranny, and the entire kingdom felt the impact of his sovereignty. Yes, your cities may have suffered worse than Scientia Mos, but that means nothing because the kingdom is not made up of eight individual cities – it is a nation, and all of us share it. And you are making the same presumptions as Hierarch Francis that Hierarch Martha mentioned in assuming that simply because Prince Caiellis has inherited the Angel of the Black Sun he will turn out evil like Xarius, which is infinitely more likely if you treat him with mistrust and suspicion instead of accepting who he is," Johnias cut in seriously, nodding respectfully to Martha who inclined her head back, about to reply in a similar manner but glad that a Lucerna with more weight behind his words had said them, "And Caiellis is my nephew; I won't allow him to be killed because of what is inside of him. It would be unprecedented and severely wrong."_

_There was grumbling from the two sides of the audience between figures who accepted the side of the living Lucernas in the argument and those who backed Incedian's claims, though Emili knew that division was exactly what the kingdom did not need at this time, as it was the most prosperous it had ever been and enmity between two sides now could destabilise that, but didn't add her own viewpoint because she knew that it was immensely biased and she would find it hard to keep her voice level, as while she was the wife of a Lucerna she was not a descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna herself and as such it would not be forgiven as lightly, nor did the people feel any particular loyalty to her. _

_Then Teylaisian Illustri, the Guardian of Vectura who was only just older than the king and Johnias though had no children of his own (as his daughter had died when she was two years old because of a demonic disease she had caught, and his wife had taken her own life after that), cleared his throat loudly, the tall warrior armoured in glinting dark steel attracting the attention of the nobles around him, "With all due respect, Lord Johnias, Prince Caiellis now has Black mana inside of him because of the Angel of the Black Sun, and the magic of darkness cannot be tolerated no matter where it resides. Xarius taught us that, and a Lucerna, an avatar of holy White mana and the blessings of the Sancturia Angels, cannot have such a foul energy inside of him without corrupting his Lucerna purity. Even if he isn't a monster like the Emperor of Light, the prince may still be unable to control it and invite demons inside of the kingdom who would happily feast upon a Lucerna of light and darkness. Ending his life now would have many benefits: utterly preventing a replication of Xarius's occupation of the angel-given throne, stopping any malicious demons from getting their hands on him that could divert him to the side of the abyss if he isn't already on it, and freeing him from having to live with such a curse all of his life. As Incedian said, Prince Alexander is already the perfect descendant, and while I can appreciate that you do not want to have to end the life of your own son, I know from experience that sometimes it is the only way to ease their pain. As you all know my young daughter was possessed by a demon at only three years of age through the form of a disease, and I was forced to kill her to prevent her from being corrupted and turned against the kingdom. This is the same as that."_

"_No it is not!" a gruff voice barked, and all faces turned towards a fuming Guardian Xathan, one of the two Light-bearers of Civitas Sol who marched to the side of Johnias and stood there resolutely, as if he was daring any of the ones that were advocating the death of the youngest prince to come and just try to get to Caiellis past his broadsword. He continued, making his voice slightly less of an angry shout, "This is not the same as your poor daughter's case, Teylaisian, as she was possessed by a demon whereas Lord Caiellis has an angel as a Summoning, albeit an angel that can use the power of darkness. While I am truly sorry for what happened to you, as I couldn't bear the thought of any of my three kids being hurt, much less having to kill them to stop them becoming a host for a bastard demon, Prince Caiellis cannot be treated in the same way. First, he is a Lucerna, and killing one of them is considered heresy by some of you, and two the power of darkness doesn't automatically mean that he is evil. And are you forgetting that before he turned Xarius used his angel to carve out swathes of territory and defeat hordes of invaders from the abyss? The power of White and Black mana combined could be a valuable military asset."_

"_I agree completely," Hierarch Mithres, the youngest of the Light-bearers at the age of just nineteen, though he had proven himself to be an exemplary figure in the fields of running a city and delivering religious sermons, met at Xathan's side, dwarfed by the much larger man, "Prince Caiellis could help us understand much more about our ancient enemy, as while we have fought the vile denizens of the abyss for over a thousand years we know little to nothing about them in spite of what we have been told by the angels, which means that we are almost fighting them blind and on the defensive – if we face an enemy we can quantify, like when our esteemed king's father destroyed the dastardly Grafnica Dominion, we can defeat them. The child could be the key to finally ridding ourselves of the abyss that blocks out the light of the angels and makes us live out our lives in fear, and you fools are suggesting that we kill him before he's even lived a day!"_

"_Watch your tongue when speaking in the presence of your elders, boy!" Incedian snapped, turning his fiery and austere gaze upon the defiant youth, who brushed his fringe out of his eyes before glaring back, "What you are saying is tantamount to heresy! It seems like you may have an unhealthy fascination with the darkness, Mithres, that should be purged by days of holy repentance in the churches you are supposed to be running! And how dare you say that we should be using the power of darkness to combat the darkness, as that makes us no better than the demons and heretics we wish to strike down! The divine Lucerna family and the holy angels have lead us through the millennia and protected us from the predations of the unholy abyss, and you would countenance using that sacrilegious power?"_

"_You just contradicted yourself," Mithres replied mildly, continuing before the fuming Hierarch of Civitas Sol could explode in righteous rage, "You said that the powers of the Lucerna family and the First Sisterhood angels that bless them were holy, and then that the mana young Caiellis has inside of him is sinful? How can it be if that power belongs to an exalted Lucerna? Who are you to say that the angels haven't blessed Prince Caiellis with that power so that he can use it for the greater good? Who are you to question the divine plan of the heavens, Hierarch Incedian?"_

_Alexander didn't understand what these people were talking about, or why some of them were suggesting that his baby brother be killed because of the awesome angel that everyone had seemed scared of (though he wasn't, he was just as brave as daddy and Uncle Johnias and he wasn't afraid of anything) was now inside of him, though obviously they were frightened of the angel and probably wanted to kill Caiellis now so that they didn't have to see her again in the future, and to spare the kingdom from "another reign of Xarius", whatever that meant, as Alex couldn't remember being taught about a king called Xarius, not that he paid that much attention into boring history lessons unless they talked about the angels of his family or the weapons that his great-great-great-great (etc) grandparents had used. _

_Nevertheless, he wasn't going to let them hurt Caiellis, because his little brother was too small and weak to defend himself so it was Alexander's job as a big brother to do that, and smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring to the little baby, who was rubbing his eyes tiredly and looking exhausted but startled at all of the loud voices in the room, his green eyes that reminded the four year old of their mum flicking to and from the shouting adults and the unfamiliar environment. Alex let go of his mum's hand and clambered up onto the throne beside the incubator, Cai's eyes locking onto him and following his movements, vague recognition making the baby more at ease, though he still seemed scared and wrapped the blanket around himself further, huddling down in the fabric and getting ready to cry until all of the loud noises went away._

"_Shhh," Alex told the infant boy when he opened his mouth to scream, Caiellis looking over at his brother when he pressed his face to the glass and his mouth, narrowing his eyes at the symbol that he had seen on the angel on his baby brother's right cheek, and as if he sensed the scrutiny of it he placed his small hand to the black birthmark. Alex worked out that with his brother looking at him through the glass, just like he could see himself flipped round Caiellis would be able to see his own reflection in the glass, though Alexander was impressed that the baby knew that the thing that it would show wasn't another person since Cai didn't know what he looked like. Mummy had been right: Cai was a smart baby, just like apparently Alex was. _

_The eldest prince blocked out the sounds of the arguing that quite frankly scared – no, he didn't get scared, but he couldn't think of another word for it so not-scared would have to do – of it, as his little brother hadn't done anything wrong and didn't deserve to die. Alex would go and say that and join in the argument, but he didn't want to since his daddy wasn't and so he shouldn't either, and knew that he didn't yet understand some adult things so wouldn't be able to help Uncle Johnias or Mithres, who sometimes patted Alexander fondly on the head, but Alex didn't like him all that much because he wasn't as big and strong as the other people he idolised, though he was friendly and nice and sometimes helped Alex with his school work. He focussed on his little brother, who he couldn't find any reasons for wanting to kill, and smiled at him, proud of this younger person who had figured out what a reflection was already, though he wouldn't know the name for it. Or perhaps the birthmark on his cheek hurt, as Alex knew that it had been freshly put onto his brother, so maybe that was it._

"_That's your Lucerna birthmark," Alex informed him, although he didn't know if Cai understood or not because he was still a baby and still technically stupid, though the four year old hoped that wouldn't last long and he would be able to actually talk to his brother and have him reply – anyway, he liked doing it, and could feel in his heart that Caiellis liked his big brother talking to him as well, as he looked at Alex with his cute wide green eyes. Mummy had mentioned something about sibling rivalries to him once, which was linked with the older brother or sister becoming jealous of the new one, but Alex thought that was silly and didn't feel envious of the attention his little brother and had been receiving at all, because it meant that he could go and play and have fun instead of having to be the centre of attention. _

_He shifted closer to the glass so that Cai could see him better, tapping it when his brother's gaze drifted to where the old man that Alex couldn't remember the name of but who had spoken first after his brother's ceremony exploded in a particularly loud shout, telling him sternly, "Don't be scared, Cai. I'm gonna protect you, because I'm your big brother – and so are mummy, Uncle Johnias and daddy, as well as loads of other people." The boy slowly turned his head back to Alexander when he tapped impatiently on the glass again, attracting the attention of Emili who decided not to warn him to stop when she saw that her youngest was awake and quite clearly scared out the shouting and arguing as her brother in law launched a barrage of points that she was incredibly grateful for, but would have been frightening to the younger members of the room. _

_Instead of letting go of Marik and going to them, she let Alex speak to his little brother for a bit longer, enjoying watching her two innocent sons "conversing" (as it was rather one sided) and looking forward to the point where both would be able to participate. She wanted to speak to both of them, but right now Emili was content to watch her adorable little boys interacting without outside interference, her face forming a smile at Alexander's words in spite of the direness of the overall situation, and his innocence at the fact that because he didn't know about Xarius yet he hadn't condemned his little brother. _

"_So, as I was saying, that's your Lucerna birthmark," Alex repeated now that he had his little brother's attention, making Emili grin at the phrase that her little monster had definitely picked up from her, though she turned her attention back to the argument concerning her innocent son's continued existence. Alex pushed his right arm to the glass, struggling with the sleeve of the outfit he was wearing for a short moment before managing to pull it up far enough so that the Swords of Flame on the bicep could be seen. "I have one as well, see? These are called the Swords of Flame."_

_Adorably, Caiellis mimicked Alexander's motions of pulling up an imaginary sleeve that he didn't have on his own body, before glancing bemusedly at the fact that the flesh of his thin arm was bare instead of having a symbol there like his big brother had. He looked up at Alex, who was still showing him his own birthmark, and then down at his arm again, and then back up at Alexander, who was beginning to realise what he was doing so snorted, "No, don't be silly. You don't have the Swords of Flame. Me, you, daddy and Uncle Johnias each have a different one, though they all mean the same thing which is basically that we are awesome, though I'm not so sure about you yet."_

_Emili was certain she saw her youngest son cock an eyebrow in amusement, though if it had happened it had been imperceptible enough to leave herself seriously doubting it now, as Alex added, "Though you don't need one to be awesome, as there are plenty of cool people without one like mummy and Ackeshlion (he butchered the name of Guardian Axeclion) and Tristram and Lancalo and loads of others. So yeah, I suppose it just looks cool, and means we can use a type of strong angel that his stronger than the others. Yours just came in, though I don't think you were awake then, and you missed Akroma and Serenity. We each have our birthmarks on different places." he went through visually describing the locations of the Blade of Wrath and Star of Serenity on his father and uncle, with Cai replicating the actions and touching the same places on his own body, showing large amounts of self awareness for a child of his negligible age, and the twenty seven year old mother got the distinct impression that he would be a very intelligent child and was absorbing everything for future reference now._

"_This is going nowhere," Johnias murmured aside to Marik as Emili heard, the woman turning back to the two still young but eldest living Lucernas, and sighed at the exact same time as her husband. The king replied, "I know, Johnias. I have tolerated this long enough, and it is time to end it."_

_Marik let go of his wife's hand and walked in front of his twin brother, adjusting the crown upon his head as the person who was currently speaking, a general from Epulaeous, stammered and fell silent at the baleful glare the king cast him that the twenty seven year old swept along the ranks of noblemen and women that had come to his youngest son's fateful Angelic Descent, sparing no one from his wrathful gaze – even those that had protested against Caiellis being killed – until each and every one of them lowered their eyes to the floor, including Incedian, who he had to stare at the longest to force him to do so, infusing Lucerna mana into his eyes. When he was satisfied that no one was looking at him, he bellowed, "I have had enough of this. Tell me, when was it accepted for the subjects of the Lucerna line to defy their will and bicker amongst themselves?"_

_Emili swallowed nervously – she knew that while Marik may hate his position as king, and detest what he was saying now, he was very well suited for the role, and could wield his influence well, "And when was it ever tolerate to even mention the possibility of laying a finger upon a divine descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna with the intent to do harm, much less discuss it as a realistic possibility? Never! I care not that Caiellis has the Angel of the Black Sun, the only one from the heavens that has acted to the detriment of the Kingdom of Light, as the First Sisterhood Angel assigned to him – he is a member of the Lucerna family, the son of the king that may one day rule over you all in the divine right of my family, the line of monarchs that has protected you from the horrors of the abyss and the corruption of the demons, arch nemeses of the angels, since before the kingdom had been formed."_

"_Apart from in the reign of the insane Emperor of Light, the only time that a member of the Lucerna family betrayed the people of Lucael, which was prosecuted by the Angel of the Black Sun-" Incedian cut in gravely, and Marik's furious and piercing blue orbs landed on the Hierarch as he was about to continue, his arms raised like he was going to spout some more meaningless rhetoric again, the king's voice suffused with an otherworldly resonance which emphasised the amount of mana that he had inside of him, "BE SILENT IN THE PRESENCE OF YOUR KING! SAY ONE MORE WORD ABOUT THE MURDER OF MY YOUNGEST SON, AND YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF EXCOMMUNICATED AND EXILED INTO THE ABYSS!" _

_The Hierarch rocked back as if he had been smashed backwards by a gigantic hammer, and Marik took another breath after he sensed righteous White mana responding to his anger and collecting around him, dismissing it but making his voice no less commanding, just not suffused with magic, "Do not _dare_ to suggest that my son be killed, for, as the Angel of the Black Sun said, the First Angel herself chose this to happen, and you would presume to know better than her divine will? Are you, a mortal Hierarch, better equipped to decide the fate of the Kingdom of Light that She, the goddess that blessed Matalis Ortus Lucerna with the power to carve out this holy domain within the light and has given us the aid of her sacred daughters? I think not, and I also think that you should stop defying my commands unless you want to suffer the punishment that I outlined earlier. That applies to all of you. My son will live. Now leave us."_

_The silent gathering of nobles slowly began to trickle out of the doorway like a class of sullen children that had just been loudly admonished by their teacher, and when the nineteen year old Hierarch shot the king a glance Marik inclined his head in the direction of the exit – he only wanted family with him now, and while he liked the youngest Light-bearer Mithres wasn't a part of that. In spite of the emphasis he had placed upon his words, he knew that the talk of killing Caiellis would still go on in private, though he wouldn't hear of it any more and his youngest son's life was secured. That was the nature of the Lucaelian hatred of the darkness, and Marik hoped that the fear and hatred others would show to him wouldn't affect Caiellis to much in the years to come. _

_Alex vigorously brushed the tears that were appearing in his eyes away, determined not to cry in front of his little brother who was whimpering quietly at the sheer volume of their daddy's declaration, as if he made himself look like a baby in the presence of an actual baby he would look really stupid and not brave at all, but it took all of his self control not to bawl his eyes out in front of his family like his little brother was doing. Marik turned back to his two sons, one of whom was crying softly and the other on the verge of doing so, and forced the intimidating visage he had adopted to fade to be replaced by a soothing and affectionate look of fatherly love, though he wanted nothing more than to start breaking something, ideally something that would make a good smashing sound. Instead, he decided to calm himself down by focussing on doing the same to his sons, and lifted Alexander into his arms while he sat down on the side of the throne his eldest had been on, wishing that there was some way he could soothe his youngest son without touching him._

_He tried anyway, "Come on now, little buddy, don't cry. I wasn't shouting at you, and I'm sorry for shouting. Come on, Caiellis, I'm sorry, ok?" The king felt like a complete idiot and utterly powerless to stop the baby from crying, as while that had used to happen to Alexander when he had been born and was typical of infants he had been able to bring his eldest into a hug whereas now he had to resort to just saying the words. He rested his head on Alexander's blonde hair, knowing that he had to comfort both of his sons to make sure they weren't scared of him after his wrathful bellowing, as the four year old sniffled into his shoulder and wiped his tears away whenever they tried to arise. Emili sat on the other side of the incubator in the centre of the large throne, and started to calm Caiellis down herself, making Marik open his eyes in wonder as the boy suddenly stopped screaming, though tears were still streaming out of his puffy eyes, and looked over at his mother, who smiled lovingly back and spoke to him in hushed tones. The king shook his head in awe of his wife's powers with children, and met Johnias's grave gaze when he did so._

_Caiellis stopped crying completely and then went to sleep, and Emili had been able to hold it in until that point. She got off the throne and walked to the other side of the room, not wanting her eldest son to see her crying as it would make the kind-hearted boy sad as well, as the tears began to pour down her own face as she stifled sobs, feeling the sheer exhaustion of the day begin to catch up with her, and she staggered and almost fell over backwards. A pair of strong hands held her upright, and she instinctively leaned into her husband's solid chest and sobbed into it. Marik had handed Alexander to Johnias, who was beginning to ask his uncle about why everyone had seemed so scared about his little brother's angel who he had thought was "cool, but a bit scary I guess", though one look over at his slightly younger brother informed Johnias that the parents of Alexander wanted to personally tell him about it when they were ready, so he diverted the conversation with the kid to something else._

"_Why … why did it have to be our son?" Emili cried, her slender body wracked with sobs as she rested all of her light weight onto her husband in a parallel of when she had cried of happiness after giving birth to Caiellis, wishing she could act stronger, though unbeknownst to her Marik was silently crying himself as well, after the anger at the suggestions of murdering his baby boy had left him and Caiellis's predicament had truly hit him. However, he needed to console his wife, who had gone through tremendous amounts of emotional and physical pain over the last couple of days, though she had handled it admirably well and in Marik's opinion Emili was far stronger than he was, so he said, "I know … I know this is a shock, Emili, but we will work it out."_

"_They wanted to kill him, Marik … they wanted to kill my baby..." she murmured, resting her head against her husband's pectorals as he squeezed her tight and kissed her on the head, dragging over a chair and gently forcing his wife into it as she tried to stand up again, replying, "I wasn't going to let them. No one touches our Caiellis – or Alexander, for that matter. No one touches either of our sons. We can work through this though, Emili – we can make our son realise that his power isn't a curse, nor is it something that requires hatred. Caiellis will be able to prove that it was Xarius that was evil, not the Angel of the Black Sun, and that the darkness inside of him can be used in the protection of the people with a gentle and kind soul wielding it."_

"_Yeah. But he doesn't deserve this at all. And I hope that she was good," Emili whispered as Marik sat beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders until she forced herself to stop crying. The two sat in silence for a few seconds before Johnias appeared in front of them, holding a sleeping Alexander in his arms and smiling, "I think someone needed their sleep." he passed the boy over to Marik, who nodded, checking his chronometer, though he already knew what time it was – after midnight, as the Angel of the Black Sun had assigned herself to his son at that exact moment when tomorrow became today. He stroked Alexander's blonde hair fondly, provoking the boy making a cute sighing noise that made them all smile, though it didn't hide the sadness in their eyes._

.*.*.*.

"Dad … What's wrong?!" Caiellis asked, his earlier relief at having someone else – especially his strong father, as while he currently hated the man Marik was a massively powerful warrior (by far the strongest in the whole of the Kingdom of Light) – at his side to fight the grinning Lord of Riots with him, as maybe with his father and king here they would be able to defeat the terrifying Archdemon, starting to fade as he saw the man clutch his head, the Lucerna crown upon it shining with a bright White light. He had been immensely glad that his dad had made it here to help him, as while earlier Caiellis had been possessed of the desire to want to do everything by himself Rakdos had been more powerful than he had ever imagined, though he wasn't afraid of death. He had already worked out that the Defiler had been toying with him, holding back on the power of his spells but making them no less agonising to receive, but now that his father and Akroma had arrived the tide could be turned.

But now the demon was grinning even wider, his flaming eyes opened wide in amusement, and before Cai could repeat the question to his clearly stricken father the Archdemon swung his scythe into the space where they were in, the flaming blade hacking through the air in a screaming display of soulfire that was reminiscent of the spell that the Sire of Insanity had cast earlier in his battle with Tradax, but much more destructive, shrieking victims of the Lord of Riots forming the blade of his fiery weapon as he shot forward with a speed that he shouldn't have been able to achieve with his monumental size. Caiellis felt adrenaline course through him in a renewed frenzy of stimuli, and, desperate to protect his father while the man sorted out whatever was happening to him, he raised a huge glittering shield of interlocking darkness and light forming a scintillating defensive matrix of glass that pulsed with shadows and coils of gold.

"**Bah. You think **_**this **_**will stop me**?" the demon roared as it descended, wielding its massive weapon two handed as his gigantic muscles tensed in preparation to attack, hacking downwards through the shield as Orzhova threw herself in front of the strike, the paralysis that was immobilising the king apparently afflicting the Angel of Wrath as well, and as the enchantments shattered the Angel of the Black Sun met Rakdos's scythe with her own. The two locked together for a few seconds that seemed to take hours, their respective mana pools clashing together and straining against each other as Caiellis frantically poured more of his own into his angel, giving up parts of his own life that would have to be repaired when he was out of the Rain of Gore (as otherwise the effects of the unholy torrent would prevent him from healing himself) to further reinforce her Black mana, shadows bursting forth from his outstretched hand and becoming wrapped with golden coils of incandescence as they flowed into the angel's medallion, but, in a battle of strength against an Archdemon, there was no contest.

Orzhova smashed aside by the force of the roaring blow, thousands of souls that died in ecstatic agony and the slaughter of bloodthirsty violence screaming their hatred and defiance of the angels and their love of the Festival of Bloodshed into the air, making Caiellis clutch his head in pain as reverberating echoes of madness shuddered and bounced within his skull, blood pouring from his ears as they were assaulted by the horrific cacophony and then his nose as his headache was exacerbated by the mana, but forced himself to remain standing instead of curling up on the ground and giving up until the pain ended, because if he did that then the pain would never end as his soul would be taken and abused by the Defiler. His vision blurred, and he vaguely saw his dark seraph hurtling backwards and crashing into the ground, a huge wound of black and red flames hacked into her midsection as she cracked the ground, angelic blood spraying everywhere, until she disappeared in a flash of purple light that had Caiellis rocking back and almost falling onto his knees.

It briefly registered in his mind that this was the first time he had ever had Orzhova forcefully dispelled and sent back inside of him because she had "died" in the material plane, and it was far more painful than he had ever imagined it being. He tried to keep his feet, but had to fall to his knees, the wounds his fragile body had sustained so far that he couldn't heal and now exacerbated by the sudden rush of exhaustion from Orzhova's departure, glancing over despairingly at his dad in the hope that he had recovered but, the actions replicated by Akroma, he was holding his head in his hands and trembling with what he would assume normally was rage but could only in this instance be pain.

Then he felt a rush of mana pouring through his birthmark that caught him entirely off guard, White and Black mana combined rushing through the symbol of the Black Sun as it shone with a blinding darklight and surrounded Caiellis in an imperious glow that derived sustenance from his increasingly depleted mana pool that was still fuelled by his hatred of the Lord of Riots and what he had done to Welkas and was planning to do in the future, and his need to protect the soldiers and his father, as while he might detest the man he didn't want him to die or get fatally wounded, because if he did then firstly Alexander would become despondent and his big brother didn't deserve that, secondly the kingdom would be left without a king in one of the direst situations ever to face the Lucaelian legions and either Cai or Alex would have to inherit the throne at a young age, and finally because that place deep within his youthful heart, underneath all the misery, sorrow, fear, defiance, anger, anguish and hatred that he had become well acquainted with after that fateful day nine years ago that had heralded his descent into deep sadness that had only been staved off by precious few people – most importantly his brother – where he was still a young child wanted his daddy to love him.

That place inside of him that he thought he had eradicated after he had opened up to his father and apologised for everything he had done and been met with disapproval and scorn, but had instead simply become smaller than ever, still cared about what his dad thought and did, still wanted to feel the love of a father whereas everywhere else had abandoned that childish notion and convinced itself that there was no way Marik ever wanted him – as wrapping your hands around your child's throat would certainly suggest that -, blossomed into life as golden White mana flowed around him, interacting with his dark hatred of the Archdemon that would _dare _to prevent him from rebuilding his family and having the life that he had waited for after nine years of desperation, fear and pain, the two sides of hope and hatred flowing through the Black Sun birthmark as the spherical manifestation of Orzhova's symbol was birthed into life again, crackling with holy and dark energy as it exploded.

Orzhova smiled as she re-entered reality, the star of darklight detonating in a blast of shining darkness that blasted the demon backwards, Rakdos protecting himself with his leathery wings at the sudden resurgence of mana from Caiellis, his exhaustion replaced by the divine feeling of a Lucerna that has Summoned once again, though he was massively concerned by the fact that he had just Summoned Orzhova twice in a row with no gaps for recuperation or the regeneration of his mana, although he hadn't yet cast an immensely powerful spell. He blasted a lance of darklight at the demon, who snorted and batted it aside with his scythe, his power still massive compared to Caiellis's and easily able to resist such a weak strike, before his flaming eyes narrowed.

"**Interesting...**" he muttered, though his demonic voice that spoke of humanity's base desire to destroy, to rip down the fabric of order just as they ripped apart one another and feasted on the warm flesh and blood within, and it was a second before Cai realised that Rakdos wasn't talking about the way he was suffused with new resolve and had Re-summoned Orzhova just after he had destroyed her, but instead was looking at the king, who seemed to have recovered from his brief inactivity, and Caiellis's heart leapt, not that it wasn't doing that already. He was still terrified, still indescribably and unnaturally frightened of the Archdemon who hadn't yet started to use its true power in killing him and still wanted to break his determination, but hopefully with his dad and ruler at his side they could prevail over the Lord of Riots, as Cai's father and the Angel of Wrath had defeated Johnias (though not been able to kill him) in the civil war and he had possessed an immensely powerful demon to command.

"Are you able to fight now, dad?" he asked, coming to his father's side as Orzhova stood protectively in front of them, though what disturbed the youngest Lucerna was the sick and sadistic smile on the demon's features, like it was preparing to watch something that its malicious and evil mind would find incredibly entertaining, but the man didn't respond, just kept staring at the ground in front of him with his gauntlets gripping his Lucerna greatsword. Akroma was doing the same, having not moved from where she had landed and begun gripping her head in pain, and Caiellis added a concerned, "Dad? What's going on?"

"Be quiet, Caiellis!" was the booming reply, making the boy instinctively back away, though his heart pounding in his head already, and Rakdos laughed, a malevolent, horrifying sound that inspired pure terror or absolute rage from whoever heard it. The youngest prince blinked to clear the warm blood that was rushing down from the rumbling heavens that had poured into his eyes, and when his vision was restored he could see his dad, hefting his broadsword and glaring with a deep, deep hatred at his second son that hurt him far more than any of the Archdemon's attacks had, emotional torment exacerbated by the amount of strain he had gone through today and the massive quantity of mental (and physical, but that lead on to more of the former) he had suffered in his short life, especially in the past two weeks, pulsing through his shocked mind as he replied, his mind unable to process this sudden turn of events, "What do you mean?"

"You know full well what I mean, you pathetic excuse for a Lucerna!" the man snapped, and when Caiellis looked into his eyes he saw the same thing he had when his father had pinned him down on his bed in the tent that belonged to him and was about to choke the life from him, the same murderous hatred and anger that had terrified Cai and made him instantly realise (in spite of what was said) that Marik had wanted to kill him, or at least violently silence him, and the resolve and hope he had suddenly built up shattered. He backed away from the king, flicking a glance up at Rakdos, who simply grinned back but seemed perfectly content to just watch as Akroma picked herself up off of the ground, her piercing grey eyes alight with more emotion than Cai and Orzhova had ever seen from them before. Marik continued, snarling, "I never want to hear your whining voice again, you worthless brat! And now I'm going to make sure that I will never have to!"

* * *

New Summonings and Sancturia Creatures in this chapter:

Rakdos's Carnival: Rakdos, Lord of Riots (I used the alternate art when describing him); Chaos Imps; Hellrider

Vadnan Noctis: Meadowboon

* * *

_I congratulate you on getting this far. Seriously. Not just for reaching the end of this ridiculously long chapter (I considered splitting it in two but I prefer it like this), but for staying with me throughout the entirety of this story and putting up with my habits of writing way too much for everything - it means a lot to me. I'm sorry for the amount of flashback in this chapter, as while I had planned for it to be like this since the start of the story so there was no way I wasn't going to implement them I (involuntarily, I swear) made them far too long and in my opinion it could easily detract from the drama of the rest of the chapter. I also lost my enthusiasm near to the end today (which, strangely enough, was when I was writing the bit with Hierarch Tybalt (I work in strange ways)), which kind of shows, but by the last bit it had a resurgence and I am now pumped for the next chapter. While there will be more adorable flashbacks, since I enjoy writing them and there is more of Cai's past with pre-civil war Marik to show, I've learnt my lesson and won't make them take as much space up in the chapter._


	32. Betrayal

The bloody rain poured down from the heavens around the three circling figures, staining the already bloodstained plaza outside of the Slaughterhouse, crimson rivulets pouring down the garishly coloured posters depicting lightly armoured individuals circling one another or ramming their jagged blades into a variety of different animals, the prices for attending the Slaughter Games obscured by the blood dripping down it.

Despite the cacophony of the battle that was only a few metres away from them, the constant violent crackling of the Tempest of Craving, and the tempestuous laughter that shook the earth, a kind of quiet had descended, punctuated only by the sizzling of the corrupted blood as it impacted upon Aurelia and the plinking sound as it poured onto the large armoured figure, the claret liquid pouring down the burnished bronze gladiator plates that they were clad in that left much of their monstrous musculature bare, the veins pulsating on the surface as the one they carried the vital fluids of prepared to attack or adversely repel his opponent's attack.

Alexander's blade was shining with holy fire, the edge of his father's old weapon alight with incandescent golden flames that matched the contrails of fire swirling around the Swords of Flame that his First Sisterhood angel the Warleader held, the impulsive Red mana powered by his anger at the Master of Violence for not just killing Telaia Gladium, and the survivors of Division Five of Cassida Principia, but for also his perverse lust for violence and bloodshed in kidnapping and choking the eldest prince's little brother that had led to this brutal war and Alexander's dad's and brother's arguments. His mana was still relatively high, though he was concerned because of the fact that Arendus Draal had proven himself to be a formidable fighter and though he hadn't even Summoned yet the brutish Master of Violence had still been able to block Aurelia's sword strikes without breaking into a sweat.

Neither of the two spoke as the circled one another, the man's massive axe held almost casually, but Alex had seen first hand how he could wield the weapon with superlative and savage force, and the fact that it was spinning lazily while the rest of his body was tensing meant that he would be able to move it incredibly quickly. The seventeen year old didn't sense much mana coming from his daunting opponent, which meant that, as he expected, the Master of Violence would be relying almost exclusively upon physical attacks, with the occasional use of Black or Red mana to augment them or attempt to catch the middle Lucerna off guard.

In spite of the reality that he knew he shouldn't rush or be reckless, Alexander wanted to defeat this enemy very quickly so that he could make his way to the point that his father and younger brother were fighting the most powerful source of mana in the entire City of Pleasure. He needed to get to them so that he could help with his own First Sisterhood angel, but rushing this battle would end up getting him killed within the first few seconds – that wasn't to say that he wasn't going to be extremely aggressive, on the contrary his entire fighting style revolved around taking the initiative and battling quickly, but he was going to put all of his concentration into his engagement so that he didn't get caught off guard and gutted by the huge double bladed axe of his enemy.

He analysed Arendus, hoping to find some form of weakness that he could exploit in his first few attacks to gain a greater advantage, but couldn't see any obvious ones apart from the lack of mana that probably wouldn't equate to a lack of combat strength. He had expected the Master of the Order of Violence, the Welkalite establishment that revelled in the brutality and bloodshed of battle and slaughter, to be angrier, full of momentous rage, or showing more emotion, but Arendus seemed perfectly calm at the moment, just like he was in any other previous occasion the Lucerna had ever seen him. He glanced over to Aurelia, who returned it, her eyes alight with fiery hatred and fanatical rage, and then blasted a tongue of flame at the Welkalite.

Arendus blocked it with his axe, the weapon shining with a type of numbing power that Alex remembered from the mana inhibitors that had been used to restrain his brother and him in preparation for their abduction into the city they were now besieging, a deadening resonance around the black metal that would nullify any mana based attacks if one used it to block, which meant that if Alexander wanted to attack the Master of Violence with magic he would have to do it when he was unable to block with his axe. He wished that he could see the man's eyes, but his face was concealed by his brass gladiator helm and as such he didn't know where he was looking or what he was going to do next, an advantage that Arendus had over him as Alexander's blue orbs lit up with Aurelia's ardent fire were open for anyone to look into.

Then, the gladiator blurred forwards, moving at a tremendous speed as his massively muscled legs propelled his bulk across the courtyard, and his battle axe swinging down into Alexander, who blocked it with his sword but only used the weapon to deflect the black metal of the axe blade, directing the force behind the blow away from him as he slid back in a spray of sparks that, instead of being doused and extinguished by the gore coating everything that Aurelia had informed him prevented the few healing spells he had available (which made him even more concerned for his little brother, as the runt's whole combat technique was dependent on being able to repair the wounds his fragile body sustained), blazed even brighter before they went out.

Arendus swung the bottom of his huge axe at the prince who was jumping backwards from the first strike, though it was blocked on a golden shield that Aurelia conjured before the angel charged at him herself, her swords flashing in a storm of steel that had the man quickly parrying the strikes, before throwing himself into the angel in an attempt to tackle her into the ground and execute her with his massive weapon. Aurelia beat her wings and emitted a pulse of blinding White mana that the Master of Violence prevented from getting to him with a swing of his axe, the metal naturally repelling the mana, which suddenly gave Alexander the idea that it would probably just as easily dispel Sancturia creatures, and that was why he had baited Aurelia into attacking so that he could destroy her and then fight Alex on his own.

He mentally sent a warning to the angel telling her not to allow the axe to even touch her, and threw himself into the Master of Violence with his sword arcing round from the side to distract him from his angel. The man quickly dodged the spout of aggression and kneed Alexander in the stomach, flipping him round and using his forward momentum against him, reminding the boy of when he had been a lot younger and had started sparring for the first time, utterly unable to hold his own against the adult strength of Guardian Tristram and only able to get a few strikes in before he was defeated – or alternatively making him feel like Caiellis must do when sparring against him, someone of a much greater strength and experience.

At any rate, he quickly arched his back and barely avoided a scything strike that would have ripped out the contents of his stomach and spilled them across the floor, scampering across the bloodied stone of the Champion's Quarter as a blow obliterated the space on which he had been half knelt after Arendus had sent him flying, and then launching a thrusting strike of his own from his sword, that was still shining with his internal mana but had had its flames extinguished by the contact with, in tandem with Aurelia blasted a helix of crackling silver lightning from her crossed swords, one pulse of holy electricity pulsed from each of the tips and coruscating through the air towards the Master of Violence. Alex had done the attack because if Arendus wanted the block the spell, he had to use his axe – otherwise it would slam into him and inflict maximum damage – which would leave him right open for Alexander's blow, the boy aiming for a gap in the man's armour that bared his numerous scars.

The hulking Welkalite shunted to the left, intercepting the twin bolts of twisting lightning on his axe as the magic conducted into it and faded into nothingness, but it left him vulnerable to Alex's strike, which rammed into the bare flesh as the man spun, the blade scoring a fresh cut that instantly began to spurt out lifeblood but not embedding within the Master of Violence's body and as such not damaging any organs, such as the lungs which were underneath the skin at that area. He let go of the axe with one hand, holding the heavy weapon that many people wouldn't even be able to pick up and hold, much less attack at a blinding speed with, effortlessly in the other, and swung his fist into Alexander's face, the punch smashing him in the cheek but luckily not pulping his eye (as that had evidently been Arendus's intended target) or breaking any bones as he automatically recoiled when he had seen the fist rushing towards him, though it drew blood as the bare fist covered only in tattered strips of leather crashed into his cheek.

Nonetheless, it still sent him tumbling backwards as his vision blurred with tears of pain, but he was determined not to be defeated so easily and rolled back from another ground shattering axe strike, flipping to his feet with commendable agility and launching another blow of his own, his blade moving with a huge velocity of its own as Alexander focussed his speed augmenting Red and White mana into it, figuring that he had to use every advantage he could get against a foe who was undoubtedly physically stronger than him, flashing forwards and leaving trails of luminescent golden light in the air behind it, though this time the Master of Violence managed to deflect the blow on the haft of his axe, the wood hacked in half by the elegant bastard sword that fit Alexander's style perfectly (just like the relic Sword of Glass that empowered magical attacks suited Cai marvellously).

Arendus threw the splintered wood that was already catching fire at his opponent, who, pumped full of adrenaline and energy with all of his sense heightened by the extremely fast combat, parried it with his sword that smashed it apart before he realised that the strike had only been a distraction and the Master of Violence was closing on him again, before the Warleader blasted a wave of roaring golden and red flames into his back that sent him flying away from Alexander, his bare flesh charring as he tumbled into a smoking heap. Aurelia, angered by the fact that he had hurt her Summoner and full of zealous fury at the man who was the manifestation of the corruption of righteous warfare and combat – as in her opinion the brutal gladiator arenas were utterly abhorrent, whereas things like honour duels were tests of skill instead of gaining the crowd's favour – slammed into the ground next to him, her flaming swords hacking through the air towards the downed Master of Violence.

The man crashed his fist into the ground, and Alex cried out a warning as he sensed a build up in Red mana around him, but Aurelia was already aware and leapt backwards as several pillars of rock burst out of the ground, dripping with molten lava and glowing orange with an internal heat, impacting upon an aegis of gold the Angel of War created around herself and fracturing it and themselves, rubble crashing to the ground and sending blood that had collected into puddles from the sheer amount of it ejected from the Tempest of Craving. More tectonic rippling shuddered across the ground, and though it wasn't a particularly powerful spell it prevented Alexander from charging forward as he had been planning, the stone cracking in front of him an exposing pits of bubbling magma that were too large to jump over without going back and preparing himself with a run up, allowing Arendus to leap back to his feet as Alexander jumped over the rocky barriers the man created, Aurelia returning to his side as the two human combatants began waiting for the other to attack again.

He hadn't known that Arendus was a geomancer, but he supposed that it would be easy enough for him to learn such a spell if the Master of Violence had desired a way to prevent opponents from attacking him whilst he was downed, which made complete sense as Arendus was a gladiator that probably fought dirty so that he could have survived to reach his position as the head of the Order of Violence, a post that had evidently granted him freedom to do whatever he wanted judging by how Tradax had referred to him and acted in his presence. Neither of the three embroiled in the violence were talking, Alex too focussed on the battle and not the sort of person to insult his opponents, and Aurelia hadn't yet released her fervour in an emotional war cry.

Or he had spoken too soon, apparently, as Arendus grunted sadistically, "I was hoping to fight your little brother again, boy prince, so that I could finish the job that I started when we abducted him and I was forced to obey that tool Tradax's orders in not killing him."

Alexander bristled at the mention of his younger brother, though he restrained himself from charging at the Master of Violence who was clearly baiting him into trying to over extend with his words, Alexander glad that the man clearly wasn't predisposed to provoking and manipulating as opposed to some of the other Masters of the Orders of Passion, and instead replied calmly, "You will have to be satisfied with me instead, you bastard. And I'm glad that it is me fighting you instead of my little brother, as now that we are on even ground and you have nothing to bargain with I don't have to hold back. Prepare to face justice, Arendus Draal."

The other man laughed, a harsh, grating and guttural sound that was entirely unpleasant and made it seem like he hadn't ever done it before, the bark of laughter coloured with genuine amusement in the prince's confident words, and twirled his axe in anticipation, pacing slowly round the courtyard as Alexander mirrored his actions and Aurelia flew upwards, providing herself with the ability to strike down at the Master of Violence at will since he had no air support.

Alexander's cheek throbbed painfully, but that was the least of his concerns and nowhere near as agonising as some of the things he had experienced in his short life, trying to ignore the strain on his ribs from some of the wounds and hits he had suffered earlier in the battle that had set off his still healing injuries that had been inflicted by the vindictive but still caressing touch of the last vampire, hoping that it died down and it wasn't reflective of the state of the rest of his recovering wounds, as the Master of Violence snarled, "Beggars can't be choosers, I suppose, so I will have to content myself with killing you, _Prince_ Alexander."

He spat the title, and Alex sensed that it was infused with the Welkalite hatred of any form of rulers after the revolution that had occurred twenty years ago though he found it immensely ironic that the Masters of the Orders of Passion were just as tyrannical and autocratic as the old tyrants had been, but because they let those with the right amount of money indulge in anything they want and let the Welkalite citizenry run wild in the throes of debauchery, they were not hated as much – and that reminded him of the Resistance that had saved the life of him and his little brother, and since there had been no sign of them he guiltily assumed that they must have been wiped out in the distraction that they caused to allow him and Cai to escape the City of Pleasure. Instead of that belated reaction making him feel guilty and depressed, it infused Alexander with an even greater sense of purpose, to make the sacrifices of all those that had given their lives to help take down the Orders of Passion worth the cost.

He quickly cast a multitude of White and Red enchantments upon him, enhancing his already formidable speed and strength with the divine power gifted to him by a First Sisterhood angel, knowing that he and Caiellis had defeated a Master of Passion before (and he was pretty sure that the squirt had again, since he had sensed Tradax's presence slipping from the world until it became replaced by the huge, swirling mass of Black and Red mana at the near centre of the city that Alexander needed to get to as soon as possible), so this should be something he was capable of doing, and his thoughts were filled with determination and anger, contrasting sharply with the seemingly calm demeanour of the Master of Violence, though he had got less cold and more enthusiastic than the start of the battle.

It was quite clear to Alex that Arendus Draal had been despatched to delay him and prevent him from reaching the place where is brother and father had converged upon (well, the latter had as the former had teleported there at the start of the brutal battle for the city of Usnaan), or possibly kill him and deny the Lucaelian host of a First Sisterhood angel. Now that he thought about it, judging the man's earlier words, he had wanted to go and kill Caiellis – who depended upon his enchantments and magic to fight and so would have been at a severe disadvantage to the Master of Violence – it was quite probable that Arendus, in his sick and twisted way, had wanted to kill his little brother, but had instead settled upon the closest user of a First Sisterhood angel since Cai had bypassed the entire city in his rush to the place where the Tempest of Craving had been cast.

The boy pushed the thoughts away from his mind, focussing entirely on the combat as he knew that any distractions would be fatal, and rushed the Master of Violence, arcing a sword strike towards him that was blocked on the blade of his shortened axe. The man's huge fist reached round towards the seventeen year old, who instead grabbed hold of it with his free hand, the appendage covered in fiery Red mana that seared the Welkalite's tanned skin as he pushed it away, their weapons still straining together, so Arendus pulled away (though he didn't react to the burning in any way) and launched a blisteringly fast kick at the boy's stomach.

Alexander coughed and spat blood as he was kicked backwards, the huge foot crashing into his organs and sending pain exploding through his lower abdomen, and then Aurelia slammed down from the sky, her twin swords flashing in a deadly dance as the carved through some of the Master of Violence's armour and skin, sending blood spraying everywhere that was immediately cauterised by the flaming blades as Aurelia struck again, this time with a bolt of magical light that blasted into the man and send him flying backwards. Alex surged to his feet, emboldened by this new turn in the fighting and the fact that he had vaguely underestimated the exalted power of Aurelia, who was strengthened by his thoughts of justice and righteous rage. He ignored the pain in his lower body – again, he had lived through worse – and charged at the embattled Welkalite, who was busy warding off the Warleader's repeated strikes with his axe and spikes of rock that he conjured up from the ground.

He couldn't afford any more delays if he wanted to get to his little brother; Alexander hated leaving the kiddo to fight alone because of the fact that his older brother instinct could never be satiated unless he was by the side of the boy and making sure he was safe (though it was vaguely satisfied by being aware that he should be safe and sound (which, in the current situation, didn't apply to Caiellis's predicament at all), and he knew that he had to stop being as obsessive because they would become adults soon), and now that he was fighting some sort of extremely powerful demon Alex could not waste any more time. It didn't matter that their father, the strongest individual human warrior in the entire Kingdom of Light and quite possibly the world, was with the youngest member of their family, and Alex knew that combined three First Sisterhood angels was more powerful than two, and any instances where that many had been Summoned almost always resulted in an overwhelming victory.

Arendus threw spikes of rock at the Warleader that cracked apart on a shield of shimmering Red and White mana she created that diverted the trajectories of the stone projectiles and sent them flying right back at the Master of Violence – while the vengeance and deflection aspect of Red and White was perfected by her twin sister Razia, Angel of Purity, Aurelia still had access to the ability that had been taught to her by her sister when they were not in the midst of one of their perpetual rivalries that always faded away in times of war, as she had once told a younger Alexander who came to speak to her about training himself to get stronger. The rocks smashed apart on the man, who raised his arms to shatter them and threw himself out of the way, turning to block one of Alex's strikes with a remarkable agility that the boy had come to expect from this opponent.

The Tempest of Craving crackled above, crimson lightning streaking towards the City of Pleasure from above as the dark and angry sky rumbled with a mixture of thunderous booming and demonic laughter that set Alex on edge, not that he wasn't already, and reminded him that he had to be done with this bastard quickly – for all that he half-teasingly admonished his little brother for his very occasional use of profanities, that was because he still saw Caiellis as an innocent kid – which he was – and not yet a moody teenager, though if his recent performances heralded anything it was that a hormonal and brooding little brother was on the horizon in the years to come. That was if they all survived this battle in one piece and without severe emotional scarring from what could occur.

Alexander twisted his body away from a kick and blasted a bolt of flaming light at Arendus, forcing him to block it with his axe if he didn't want to be incinerated by the powerful magic, as though Alex didn't rely on it as much as his brother did he was still very proficient in its usage, and its power was fuelled by emotions much more than it was through training and technique, and the beam of light streaked forth from his outstretched hand, predictably slamming into the blade of the man's axe and dissipating as it was absorbed by the dripping metal when he flicked it around. His face deadly serious, Alex then flung a kick out of his own as Aurelia closed on the two from behind Arendus, who had to twist away from Alexander's flaming foot and jump back from Aurelia's strikes, slamming his foot into the ground to conjure up earthen spikes in a bid to get the Lucerna prince or his angelic guardian away from him, but the eldest prince would not be deterred as the rocky shrapnel smashed apart on a shield he created, the sharp debris from the collision raining down upon him but only inflicting a few cuts and tearing some of his leather armour.

Aurelia darted into Arendus Draal from the back, cleaving into empty space with her blades as he jumped upwards, Alex following the movements and hacking down with his sword as the man lashed out with his axe, the two landed on the opposite sides of each other though not that far away as blood sprayed from both of them, the boy grunting in pain as he spun around quickly and blocked a strike on his sword, tensing underneath the man's massive strength as it was pressed down against him, golden enchantments wrapping themselves around his muscular but not brutish arms so that he could better resist the brawny Master of Violence's physical capabilities, the two straining against each other in a battle for physical dominance. Draal attempted to unbalance his opponent with a series of swift kicks complimented by a tectonic shaking underneath Alex that would have pitched a less skilful warrior forwards, which would have made them disengage with the grinding of metal on metal and had the boy hacked apart by the large axe.

Instead, Alexander pulsed White and Red mana into the ground, his generation of the magic powered by his need to protect those weaker than him and the Lucaelian forces mixed with his rage at the Welkalite Orders of Passion, bright circles of incandescent golden and white flame expanding out from him in an imitation of his Summoning ritual but with far more destructive force behind the spell. Aurelia clanged her swords together, channelling her own mana through her Summoner with the Swords of Flame as a potent conduit that amplified the boy's feelings with emotions of the divine, his Red mana reacting to the passion present in his thoughts whilst the White was augmented by the need to dispense justice and help other people, as well as avenge those who had died to get him this far.

Arendus had to shield his eyes as the light rose to a blinding intensity around the boy, his blonde hair reflecting the power and buffeting into the air with the displacement of air around him, ripping his axe away from where it had been tangled with Alexander's sword and placing it in front of him like a shield – gripping onto the blade to better protect himself from the magic and cutting his fingers, though if the Master Violence was concerned at all by it he didn't show it – as the White and Red mana ignited the air around the teenager and seeped through his skin, holy lightning that was as far removed from the crimson coruscations spat out by the Tempest of Craving as fire was from water despite sharing the same structure crackling around him and Aurelia's blades. The metal of the straight edged and simply elegant sword was emitting huge quantities of light and flame that burst forth from it, while the curved blade held in her right hand flashed with blazing electricity as she shot towards the Master of Violence who was staggering backwards from the assault of light coming from Alexander.

The boy sprang forwards, galvanised by the energy flowing through him as thoughts of his comrades that had suffered and died, the nameless Welkalites who had been abused and exploited by the Orders of Passion, and his innocent thirteen year old brother who had been thrown into a war and been forced to endure awful things because of the Master of Violence stood in front of him, as the Welkalite dodged Aurelia's blinding strikes that had only ever been just a distraction. Alexander leapt into the air, ignoring the pain in his body that was exacerbated by the fact that he had been forced to shut of his naturally healing White mana that flowed through him when he Summoned, because otherwise he would have been murdered by the Rain of Gore that stained his body even through the light and fire surrounding it that should have purified and evaporated the perpetual and torrential downpour of claret blood.

In spite of the speed of his movements, Alexander's adrenaline filled mind slowed time to a crawl as he flew through the air towards the man, his muscles filled with a glorious and motivating fire that would enhance his attacks much more, and gripped his father's former sword that the man had personally given to him and was a reminder of his infinitely precious family and why they had to win on this day – not just to save the lives of the inhabitants of two of the largest civilisations on the planet, but so that his dad and baby brother could rebuild the relationship that had firstly been broken by the nine year long civil war, and secondly tarnished by their arguments and the violence that Marik had showed to his last son, coupled with Caiellis's defiance. However, after this battle that Alexander would _make sure _they survived through by killing this big bastard and coming to the aid of his family, there would be little left to argue about, and because of the fact that the two were fighting together and their disputing would be put into perspective by the life or death situation surrounding them they would realise how precious the other was to them and as such stop their fighting.

That was what Alex wanted to believe, at any rate, as while he refused to think of the possibility of either of them dying because of the fact that he wouldn't allow it to happen, it was still a possibility that something could happen that would make them hate each other even more – like Caiellis under-performing and being blamed by his father, or the horrifying amount of casualties the Lucaelian force was sustaining because of the method of besieging the City of Pleasure that had been chosen making his gentle little brother even more nasty and sorrowful because he would think that it could have been avoided by his more methodical and careful tactics. However, that was why all three of them would survive, because it was Alexander's duty as an eldest son with younger siblings to make sure that his parent and his little brother were getting along well, and nothing would stop him from doing that.

It was amazing how fast the mind thought when it was pumped full of adrenaline, as Alexander had completed thinking about all of the things that had gone through his head while he was still mid air, despite the fact that he was still intently focussed upon Arendus Draal as he leapt towards him, and the thoughts filled him with an unstoppable conviction as he shot through the air at Arendus, carving into the man with his flaming sword as he brought up his axe to block, Alexander's blade crashing into the numbing metal and instantly extinguishing the light that was pulsing through the sword, until, quick as a flash, the middle Lucerna brought it away and launched another strike as Aurelia hit from behind, the Master of Violence electing to dodge the angel's strike instead of her Summoner's.

Alex's blade sliced into him from above, hacking into his horned bronze gladiator helmet and cutting it in half, the last second juddering movement he made preventing the boy from hacking his head in two, though the flaming blade still carved down a line his already scarred face in an explosion of quickly purified and cauterised blood that turned into steam within seconds. Arendus rounded on the boy who had over extended himself, grinning down at the eldest of the newest generation of Lucerna heirs with his horribly scarred and pitted face that had been the recipient of hundreds, if not thousands of blows in the Master of Violence's bloody and brutal path to the role. It was horrifying, like someone had taken a blade to it and made sure that no single square inch of the tanned skin was without scratches, stitches, cuts, pockmarks or scabs, and Alexander's vertical slice down it was simply another addition to the array of battle wounds.

The middle Lucerna felt slightly disgusted at the leer that the older Welkalite directed towards him, as the vast majority of Arendus Draal's face was raw muscle and flesh with few sections that had a thin layer of unhealthy skin stretched over it, and staggered backwards from the Master of Violence, who grinned widely in a sickening display of exposed moving tendons and muscles, his bloodshot red eyes alighting on the seventeen year old as the numerous veins on his forehead that had survived the abuse wreaked upon it pulsed with the adrenaline infused blood rushing through them. Arendus capitalised on the distraction, rushing at his opponent who had suddenly lost the advantage of being on the offensive, which was exactly what Alex had wanted him to do by feigning disgust in the first place – it was obvious that Arendus didn't know much about him (which was a good thing because Alexander had access to barely any information concerning the Master of Violence), as otherwise he would have known that Alex wouldn't be too fazed by his scarred visage and that his terror was mostly feigned.

Alex knew that he was taking a large risk by pulling this type of manoeuvre, as if the gladiator warrior saw through his ruse then it would be easy enough to feint an attack and have Alex respond to that instead of being able to counter an actual assault, so to that end the boy used all of his years of training of playing jokes on his little brother and more seriously lying to his elders about feeling fine when in actual fact he had been ill or hurt in the past so that they didn't worry about him and focussed more upon fragile Caiellis to ensure that his face was set in perfect and youthful startled shock, making sure that he looked exactly like a seventeen year old that had been exposed to the brutality of some battle but not as much as he had and was still innocent after all of it with his face cast in a hopefully convincing mixture of surprise and horror as the Master of Violence swept towards him, whipping his axe round from where it had been clashing with the boy's elegant sword and aiming it forward so that it would cleave into Alexander within seconds if he continued on his current course of staggering backwards in shock.

If the eldest prince hadn't been planning the movement out, he would have been caught by Arendus's axe as the hulking Master of Violence had anticipated that despite his false shock he still had finely attuned combat instincts that had been highlighted in the earlier stages of the fight and would have sprang back to dodge the blow, expecting Alexander to take that course of action so angling his axe so that it would cleave into him no matter how far back he managed to get in the short space of time and conjuring up spears of rock that pierced the ground on either side of the Lucaelian adolescent and would have impaled him had he leapt to the left or right to avoid the blow, as while they wouldn't have killed him because of the enchantments that Aurelia (the angel who was swooping forwards to his aid and delayed by numerous spikes of stone that erupted out of the ground, but Arendus was entirely concentrating upon him since if he killed the Summoning the angel would dissipate without any need to avoid her blow) had gifted him with wrapping around his body, they would have immobilised him and left him easy prey for the brutish warrior's gigantic and mana nullifying axe.

However, the Master of Violence was entirely prepared for Alex to charge forward into him, recovering from his apparent shock instantaneously and propelling himself towards the towering man with his shining sword that radiated the holy and protective light of the Lucerna family bloodline that would guard the good and punish the evil of the world, his speed augmented by the auras that blessed him with their mana infused power as the magic of light and emotion bled through his skin and was channelled into his sword as he plunged it into the Master of Violence's heart, punching through the bronze armour that covered it as blood rushed through his veins exultantly and pounded through his head, the momentum of Arendus immediately falling as he was stabbed into by the sword that had once belonged to Alexander's father.

Blood exploded from the man's back, and Alex wrenched his sword out with the intent to do as much damage to the other organs as possible and in case any other Welkalites, until a large hand wrapped around his wrist and his heart skipped a beat. Though the action seemed to take years, less than a second elapsed as the blonde flicked his eyes up to look into the brutally disfigured and bullish features of his opponent, the bloodshot eyes of the man lit up with ecstatic joy and exultation that he wouldn't have originally expected from the seemingly dour Master of Violence but conformed to his first interpretation of the man after hearing his title for the first time and learning about what the Order of Violence was in their forced visit to the city they were now in, although neither he nor Caiellis visited the Champion's Quarter or watched any of the displays of wanton savagery so favoured by the Welkalite public.

He vaguely recalled once talking with Kaled, Caiellis's roommate at the Scholaria Magnus, about what his life had been like after Cai passed his Summoning trial, with the fifteen year old that vaguely looked up to him telling him that he had fought in some of the much smaller events against weak Unbound creatures in order to get money so that he could help pay the extortionate taxes set by the Order of Wealth. But right now he didn't have the time to think about the past, didn't have the time to think about anything other than his current situation as the Master of Violence, who had a vice-like grip on his forearm, smiled down at him with a predatory grimace, blood streaming down his face both from the wound Alex had inflicted earlier and from his lips, Alex's blade evidently having pierced into his lungs as he had stabbed into the Master of Violence, though Draal did not seem overly concerned as he squeezed with a tremendous strength that instantly cut off the seventeen year old's blood flow to his right sword hand in a dire reflection of how Alexander had defeated his little brother in the Summoning sparring match they had undertaken.

The teenager heard Aurelia cry out in zealous and fanatical fury as a maddening crimson glow surrounded the Master of Violence, whose triumphant expression was inflected with a vague smugness that indicated he had been aware of Alexander's ploy all along and had baited him into reacting in that manner, sacrificing his own health in order to lure the oldest Lucerna prince in for the kill as Red and Black mana pulsated out of him and the place where his heart should have been, tendrils of bloody darkness that resembled arteries and veins from a nightmarish distortion of the vital structure of the blood vessels of humans pouring out from the hole in his chest and dislodging Alexander's sword as the Master of Violence was crushing his wrist as he the boy blasted a lancing beam of blinding light from his reserves of mana that were not yet depleted – he still had a relatively substantial amount of time before he was, and he would be damned if he didn't help his brave little brother and father by surviving now and overcoming his current foe -, though it was more to force him to block the powerful magic with the axe to prevent him from hacking it into Alexander and killing the teenager rather than any hope of dealing damage.

However, Alexander was feeling the strain of the wounds he had sustained in this fight mixed with those that hadn't fully recovered despite his insistence that they had from his ordeal with Aksua after their first visit to the City of Pleasure, and had exhausted a lot of mana in the blow that he had just rammed into the Welkalite with seemingly no effect to the man apart from the wounds it caused, as either Arendus was immune to the pain due to the amount of wounds he had obviously received in his life or was revelling in it like some of the other sick members of his debased nation, and as he tried to pull away the man increased the intensity of his grip. Alex could feel the bones in his wrist grinding together and reaching breaking point, and in a desperate attempt to get the much stronger male away from him he released a blast of radiating Red and White mana in an explosion all around him, forcing the Welkalite to let go of his wrist as he pulled his sword away, the ignited air around him obscuring his vision because of the large release of mana he had emitted.

His instincts that barely ever failed him then flared into life, and as he leapt backwards he barely avoided the large axe that hacked through the light surrounding him, the edge of the black metal now trailing blood that was not of a natural origin and left trails of smoky crimson imprinted into the air as Alex felt the Master of Violence's almost non-existent mana levels flaring into life through the wound that he himself had caused, sinister and savage Red and Black mana leaking out of the gladiator and staining the already abused ground around him as the Rain of Gore seemingly increased in intensity, although whether that was centred around his battle with Arendus and the demonic taint that was emanating from the man or had occurred across the whole battlefield because of the huge demonic presence (that was far larger than Alexander had ever sensed before and as such must have belonged to one of the most powerful demons that would rival, or even massively outclass, an exalted First Sisterhood angel – which meant that it was a good job they had three) was a mystery.

The obscuring cloud of dust and light that Alex had caused to billow around the courtyard disappeared, revealing the Master of Violence stood quite close to him as more sinewy ropes of Black and Red mana pulsated out of him, wriggling across the ground to form up next to him. Alex saw his Summoning, the Warleader, rush towards his size but get blasted away by a chaotic and screaming explosion of the mana of disorder, selfish passion and unadulterated love of violence, savage murder and bloodshed. Draal rushed him again, the man closer than he had originally thought, and as Alex deflected one axe blow with his sword and sidestepped a lashing return strike that had been possible because he hadn't taken all of the force of the first blow, merely directed it elsewhere so that he didn't have to focus the impact on his wounded and most probably broken wrist that throbbed with ignored agony like a petulant child demanding attention from uncaring parents who was essentially taken no notice of.

Then the man shot forwards, even faster than before because of the mana pouring through him and coursing through his corrupted veins as the magical energy that had crawled along the floor began to form the semblance of a figure as spikes of barbed metal rammed out of the ground and created a huge serrated barrier already dripping with claret fluid from the bloody torrent of the now shrieking Tempest of Craving that extended high into the sky and prevented the Warleader from getting to grips with the one assaulting her stricken Summoner. After a brief delay, a bolt of crimson lightning attracted to the macabre fence, electrifying it as vibrant red and pink energy fulminated through it and made breaching the crackling walls an even more dangerous proposition.

Alex was taken aback by the sudden speed the man put on, automatically raising his sword as Red mana wrapped around his free left fist and ignited it with holy fire that would augment his human strength – which was already heightened by the fact he had Summoned – with magical resonance, blocking an overhead strike of the blurring axe that the boy had trouble following with his blue eyes as they flicked to track the blade but absorbing all of the tremendous and inhuman force behind the blow upon his already damaged wrist that erupted in agony at the jarring impact that shook the hurt bones and forced him to pull away, already twisting away from a strike he knew would come from one of the Master of Violence's other free limbs and sending a spinning flaming kick at the man that was unexpectedly blocked by a snaking tendril of raw flesh that wrapped around his ankle, yanking him off balance and making him empathise immensely with how Caiellis must feel when they sparred, to be utterly at the mercy of someone much stronger than him who only had to grab hold of him to fling him backwards.

He twisted mid air to try and change the situation to be in his favour, as an amused and growling laugh like thousands of serrated blades made from bone being dragged against each other mixed with a scream of agony and pain of a person submitted to endless torture erupted out of the pile of flesh that was forming a humanoid – though much bigger than that – shape, the storm above the city reacting frenziedly to this new demonic arrival, which was strange as though Alex sensed two other demons – not counting the massive _thing, _the personification of hedonistic destructionat the centre of the city that his family was embroiled in fighting against – in the City of Pleasure, none had been greeted as such by the Tempest of Craving, which did not bode well for him whatsoever, though he had little time to ruminate upon the thoughts as when he flipped round in the air to launch an overhead strike at the Master of Violence with his blazing sword the tendril of blood that was wrapped around his left ankle suddenly grew spines and stabbed them into his lower leg.

The boy cried out at the utter agony as pain flared up throughout his nervous system, the spikes of magic digging into his leg and drawing blood pulsing dark magic through his bloodstream that amplified the pain that he was experiencing, making him remember when he had been in a similar situation and Aksua had been draining his blood and corrupting the remnants of it, and although he had Summoned which made him significantly more resistant to the magic this was worse because his rejuvenating and healing powers that automatically surrounded him had to be deactivated due to the sadistic Rain of Gore that was the perfect antithesis to the Lucaelian force.

He was flung towards the Master of Violence, but this time not out of his own volition as the barbed spikes dug into his leg, and tried to bring his sword up as he was launched through the air to block a strike of the man's axe, his wrist exploding in agony that he gritted his teeth through and ignored as the axe ground against his blade and removed the mana that was suffusing the strong Lucaelian steel. The boy poured fiery Red mana mixed with purifying and disenchanting White mana out of his leg as the tendril vindictively ripped away from him at the touch of the holy magic, tearing out through Alexander's skin as it recoiled from him and dumped him on the ground, where he was pressed backwards by Arendus's axe and staggered to try and resist the unrelenting force of the Master of Violence as the structure of veins and vessels that was making up a large humanoid figure began to take a more pronounced shape, armoured plates of muscle and sinew forming up around a body of black yet raw flesh, but Alex couldn't look over at the Summoning as he strained against Arendus Draal once again, the man wearing him down over the course of the battle.

He lashed out with an experimental kick meant to catch the man off guard and potentially inflict some damage onto his resilient hide, more of a feint than anything else so that he could distract the Master of Violence and get him away from him because of the fact he would have been able to pull his sword away without getting hurt if the Welkalite moved, but right now the angle that they were fighting at meant that he couldn't get any leverage to twist the axe away without it burying its heavy blade in his chest, something he would prefer to avoid at the current moment. The maddening laughter increased in intensity, volume and insanity, becoming something more akin to a blood-curdling cry of the desire to inflict pain upon others and Arendus smiled, reading Alexander's move all the way through and grabbing onto his leg, yanking him forwards whilst also dropping his axe and shoving it at the boy.

Alex automatically stepped backwards away from the blade as the full weight of it suddenly slid down his sword, the splintered handle of the axe ramming into his already abused wrist and forcing him to drop his own weapon if he wanted any chance of defending himself against the Master of Violence whom he launched a vicious kick at as he was dragged towards him by the man's hand, the strength of the grip almost definitely leaving large bruises on his relatively pale skin and hurting the bones underneath, but it was nothing that Alex wouldn't be able to ignore if he wanted to survive any longer and wanted to defeat the powerful Welkalite foe that he was fighting against. His second kick, which was delivered by his free but wounded left foot that was covered in fire – which mimicked the actions of the other leg, though Arendus seemed to be unconcerned by the fact that his hand was gripping a golden and orange flame that flickered around it – slammed into the man's bare abdomen, charring the flesh but bouncing off the solid muscle with little to no effect as he tried to squirm away from the Master of Violence, who growled and twisted Alexander's leg at a painful angle.

The boy was starting to feel slightly light-headed, but allowed more mana to rush out of him just before agony pulsed through his body, Red and Black mana coursing through his veins from a selection of spines that were launched into him from the demon that had entered the world, piercing into specific clusters of nerves as they rammed into him with a sadistic glee and subsumed him in paralysis for the moment. The Welkalite brute he was fighting let go of his leg as he thrashed, kicking desperately as the pain resounded through his body, the frantic need not to become helpless and at a vile enemy's mercy ever again fuelling his limbs as Red mana rushed through them, battling a hedonistic and bloodthirsty perversion of itself aided by corrupting and immoral Black mana and losing, and then punched him in the face again, the fact that he twisted away lessening the impact of the blow, though the bruise that was already there was exacerbated as he was knocked flat off of his feet onto the warm and blood slick but hard stone.

Alexander quickly rolled to the side to avoid a large boot slamming down on the space that he had been upon, and then juddered forwards to dodge a spray of spikes like the ones already causing him immense amounts of pain fired from where Arendus's demon had entered the world and the tide had been turned, Alex thrown onto the defensive in the face of the Master of Violence's renewed offensive as he blocked a punch on his bracers, twisting to try and get himself upright so that he could fight back after another powerful kick that he launched was rendered utterly ineffective by the auras of Black and Red swirling around the giant and surrounding his body in a blood red glow that emanated out of his tanned and gore-covered skin as he lanced a fist at the eldest Lucerna prince.

Alex raised his hands, a shimmering barrier of Red and White forming in the space between his open palms that were pouring out mana in a way that Aurelia had taught him, the Welkalite too far into his momentum to pull back now, and Alexander was glad that he had abandoned his axe that was the bane of magic because now it meant that the variety of combat tricks he had at his disposal could now be utilised, such as this one that would reflect the damage the Master of Violence would deal back onto himself. He didn't really like the vengeance spells, but supposed that was because it was just turning the enemy's strength against them instead of proving one's own strength, but really in the midst of this brutal and desperate combat he couldn't care less.

The man's huge fist crashed into the barrier, the force of the blow directed backwards into Arendus instead of at Alexander, who used the brief distraction to attempt to scramble away before the man attacked him again, needing to meet up with his angel as the Tempest of Craving was ruining any chances of mentally communicating with her meaning that he didn't know what she was doing, though judging by the fact that the demon wasn't attacking him and had left before he could get a clear look at it. Arendus's knuckles exploded in blood, gore erupting out the closed and huge fingers, his bones within them fracturing and ramming themselves out of the back of his hand, but instead of dissuading the man it instead seemed to energise him as he rounded on Alexander again.

"I will make you pay for that, you little brat!" the Master of Violence snarled, coughing up a spray of blood and spitting it in Alex's direction, the wound that was in his chest still gaping open and pouring with blood despite the fact that the demon he had Summoned had dragged himself out from the hole, his scarred face that was also leaking blood to mingle with the unnaturally vibrant contents of the Rain of Gore as it cascaded down the towering man, his damaged hand surrounded by the pulsing and violence-inducing glow in a greater intensity as he forcefully push the dislocated finger bones back into his hand in a loud snap that must have been extremely painful, though the Welkalite didn't seem overly fazed by the discomfort. Arendus suddenly flung his hand out, an oily and bloody fireball erupting into life and crashing through the air at the prince, who performed another dodging manoeuvre to get out of the way of being incinerated and then slipped in an uncharacteristic display of clumsiness that had him cursing profusely until he looked at what he had tripped up on with his diving move.

The detatched head of Telaia Gladium stared up at him with dead eyes that were wide open in shock, terror and what seemed, to Alexander's eyes, to be accusation, transfixing the prince in place as he gazed at the head of the captain that his own had almost slammed into in his tumble on her body that was a metre or so away from her face that glared at the middle prince in an expression of pure betrayal, or so Alex's mind imagined it as he retreated backwards in horror, apologies almost spilling from his lips before he remembered that he was in the middle of a battle that was occurring because he had failed to protect those from Division Five that had looked up to him for inspiration to get through this siege of the City of Pleasure, just like how he had failed to guard his little brother and stop him from recklessly forging ahead to fight on his own because he felt that he had something to prove to both his older brother and his father, and how he had failed to stop his little sibling and dad from arguing because he had been too pathetic to intervene and too self-centred to notice it.

He swiftly spun around, harshly reminding himself that he was in the middle of a battle and shouldn't get distracted by that kind of thing, as while it did empower his magic Alexander knew that he had to concentrate on the fight and think of that in the background, or alternatively think of the things that he had to protect and were precious to him instead of focussing on the things that he had failed in, but by them it was too late as an imposing figure with bloodshot and terrifying eyes loomed in front of him, Black and Red mana swirling violently around him in a maelstrom of bloody black shadows that whispered words of blood-thirst and malice and made the back of Alex's mind ache with the desire to do violence upon those weaker than him, before a booted leg slammed into his gut again and he was kicked across the bloody ground, some of his ribs that hadn't yet recovered from his ordeal with Aksua and as such were more fragile breaking again.

Alex suppressed a yelp of pain, growling it through his teeth instead as he instinctively raised his arms, coating with mana so that the Master of Violence hopefully wouldn't be able to attack him any longer, though he was hugely on the back foot and needed to regain the initiative – or even bring the battle nearer to even ground – was essential if he was to survive this new onslaught, as Arendus's magic (that the man wasn't actively casting, it was just his violent aura that bled out of him) was amplifying the pain and agony of his wounds and disrupting his normal train of thought and distracting his usually extremely perceptive instincts with the screaming, primal desire at the back of his mind to inflict pain and kill, murder the Master of Violence and show him who the true master of violence was, rip out his spine and feast upon his still beating heart as it poured steaming blood across his hands and...

Alex shook his head of the vile images, some of them making even him feel sick inside at the fact that his opponent would have given into the desire to commit all of these savage debaucheries, partaken in these bloody degeneracies and enjoyed them with his sadistic mind while the demonic patrons of the New Empire of Passion watched and laughed, feasting upon the sins of pleasure and pain and the destructive loss of life in all the hedonistic context of entertainment that made Alexander's blood boil just thinking of it as he tried to reinforce the mental barriers of White mana around his mind so that the hallucinations would have no effect on him, but as he was shown increasingly violent and disturbing illustrations of bloodshed he concentration, focus and ultimately resolve was beginning to waver.

He barely felt another punch crashing into his guard of bracers, smashing apart the sanctified metal that Caiellis had personally blessed for his seventeenth birthday and had served him well ever since he had started wearing them and sending pieces of it digging into his athletic forearms, drawing blood all around as the large fist knocked the crossed arms away from each other, utterly ignoring the flames of incandescence that had been wrapped around them as bloody shadows surrounded the hand. Time seemed once again to slow down, each second lasting years to Alexander's adrenaline filled mind that was perpetually assaulted by scenes of horrifyingly violent depravity of bloodshed, the claret vital fluids that sprayed out from his arms when the blessed Lucaelian metal cut into them lazily arcing through the air in front of his eyes, every detail picked out in crystal clarity.

He could see how the crackling crimson electricity of the Tempest of Craving was reflected and refracted in each individual droplet, the unholy light bonding with the golden illuminescence from his White and Red mana that was still filling his eyes with Aurelia's ardent fire as the drops of his own blood mingled mid air with the bloody tears of gore the abused sky cried across the battlefield, the natural and vital scarlet of the lifeblood that belonged to him spilling around the unnaturally vibrant globules of cruor and coating each other in the different yet essentially identical shades of red, each shining with the light of the sources around it and brightened in a different manner with each.

Alexander frowned as he looked closer, seeing his own reflection in one particularly long spray of droplets ejected by a sliced vein within his cut arm, a beaten, battered and bruised seventeen year old with once bright and shining blonde hair now dirty and matted down with torrents of gore, streaked with trails of blood from himself, Arendus Draal and the Rain of Gore, but the strangest thing about it was his eyes. Instead of being piercing yet warm blue that shone with Lucaelian charisma and the zealous fire of the Warleader in protecting innocents and slaying the guilty, they were bloodshot and wide, full of a malice the boy knew – or thought he had known – that he didn't possess, that didn't belong to him, the predatory lust for ferocity and barbarism coating his sapphire irises in threatening intent.

The reflection smiled, wide and savagely enthusiastic, at him, exposing teeth wet with crimson blood that scintillated in the bright flash of another streak of pink and indulgently devastating lightning, and Alexander could clearly pick out that there was the blood from two different sources on his teeth – one was from himself, as his unholy reflection had bitten through its own tongue in its primal wish for murder and violent cruelty, and to his horror the other was from someone else, as it wasn't the abnormally vibrant blood perpetually spat out by the vile Tempest of Craving that the Welkalite Orders of Passion had willingly conjured above their own capital city, ignorant of the damage it would cause and the true corrupt nature of their dark patronage that would see them all dead or enslaved to the whims of demons possessed of a hedonism far more evil than any human could ever imagine.

However, he was soon to find out who it belonged to, as while one droplet showed his madly grinning face that scared Alexander like little else did, another that splattered past his vision (taking minutes to do so that would have been seconds had time been progressing normally) showed another scene – or the same, just from a different angle, and the adolescent was presented with a second, and even more shocking image that made his blood run cold and his heart miss a beat. There, pushed up against a wall with his gaunt, pale and innocent face screwed up in pain, the Black Sun stark against his white right cheek (and had Alex been thinking clearly he would have wondered why his reflection was affected by the Rain of Gore yet his apparent victim was not, but right now the eldest prince was enraptured and transfixed by the sight of the single worse thing that could ever happen to him), was Caiellis.

His green eyes showed what Alexander could still see in the first few drops of his own blood, a terrifying and intimidating distortion of the middle Lucerna covered in blood that was mostly not his own, and the older of the two potential heirs to the Lucerna throne wished that there was some way he could assuage the terror in his young and wide emerald orbs, but his protective instinct quickly turned to a sick sensation that made Alex's stomach churn and want to violently expel the contents of the hearty breakfast he had eaten this morning when he soon realised that the absolute fear in his little brother's eyes was directed towards him. He vaguely felt himself being lifted off of his feet, though was utterly focussed upon the image of his younger brother in pain that he knew wasn't real but was powerless to tear his gaze away from.

The thirteen year old was crying, tears of fright and pain spilling out of his distressed eyes, and Alex noticed with horror that blood was trickling out of his little brother's mouth, the torrent increasing in intensity as he let out a strangled cough, spraying more blood across the false-Alex's arms and hands and he was pressed – _more like slammed – _harder against the stone wall, the boy's fragile head bashing against the unyielding granite, but what concerned the big brother more was the bruises and cuts that had seemingly suddenly appeared on Cai's cheeks, painful hand marks covering his cheeks as slices inflicted by a precise yet sadistic knife bled crimson fluids down his face. The boy's lips were blue where the blood that was bubbling out of his mouth hadn't streamed onto them and coated them with red, but Alexander couldn't yet see what the cause of Caiellis's current distress was, until another few streaks of blood spurted out from _my own face?, _Alexander's vision spontaneously shifting and following the new liquid droplets of crimson life that leapt through the air.

The third image was the same as the second, only as if the person that had been providing the vision – the blood-reflection of Alexander – had shifted backwards slightly, the real seventeen year old crying out in horror when he saw that one of his hands were wrapped around his little brother's throat, gripping the centre of it painfully and digging in with the clear intent to kill, but somehow even worse than that was the dagger pressed into the boy's neck, the efficient and ornate Lucaelian silver reserved only for nobles and those who had earned favour slicing into Caiellis's flesh and drawing blood as the little guy squirmed in his brother's death grip, shrieking in choked pain as the knife – _Cai's self defence knife that he used to cut himself? _\- was sliced further into him.

_No no no no no! No! This can't be happening! Stop it! This isn't real! _Alexander's panicked mind shouted as all of the blood drifting through the air around him showed the same image, the one of Caiellis screaming in pain and clawing at his big brother, the one was was inflicting the agony upon the thirteen year old, and he thrashed in an iron-hard grip to try to get to the aid of his frail sibling, to stop the bloody refraction of him from hurting his innocent little brother any more, the utter betrayal and pain in the boy's eyes freezing him to the spot as the older brother that he had loved, looked up to and trusted for all of his short life was killing him.

_This is all your fault, _an insidious voice whispered into his mind, the words as sharp and agonising as the knife he was driving into his little brother's throat, cutting into Alexander's abused mind as he shook his head, repeating the mantra that the images weren't real over and over again despite how hollow the assurances sounded to him, because this _was _his fault. It didn't matter that the pictures of his younger brother in torment that Alex himself was causing were not real in the sense that they were not happening right now, because the words stabbing into his mind were right and whatever happened to his little brother whilst fighting the most powerful being the middle prince had ever sensed before was due to him. _Yes, that's right. You were too weak to protect him. You were too cold to listen to his concerns, you were too stupid to see that he was going to try and solve everything on his own, you were too untrustworthy and pathetic, still recovering from wounds that you should have healed days ago, to be good enough to be worthy of his plans._

The voice was a mixture of the demonic whispering/exultant shouting that the first had been, and now tinged with traces of his own voice, the dejected and defeated tone coming from his personal failure to stop his little brother from feeling that his life was worthless and that he had nothing to live for, that no one would ever respect him or love him unless he risked his own life in a dangerous attack on the Master of Rapture alone, and to prevent him from arguing with their dad in a way that he, being the eldest son of one participant and the older brother of the other, should have been able to solve. And now his little brother – the one person that it was his job to protect more than anyone else could easily die, and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. The worst part of it all was that it was his fault, that by not being a good enough big brother he had caused his younger sibling to do this and to think that this was the only course of action.

Alexander cried out his defiance of that fact, before realising that he had barely made any sound at all. Reality snapped back into focus and time resumed its normal course, the specific droplets of blood showing the youngest Lucerna in pain falling at high speed through the air and splattering upon the already covered ground of the courtyard entrance to the Slaughterhouse Colosseum, and dark spots flickered into life at the corner of Alex's vision as he blinked to try and clear them, which had the added effect of removing the blood that had dripped into his eyes and had also been obscuring his sight, and instantly gagged when he tried to breathe and felt a strong grip clamping around his own throat.

Even more adrenaline pumped through the vessels in his skull as his heightened heartbeat pounded within his head, pain erupting across specific points in his body where he assumed that he had been hit as he kicked his legs when Alex registered that he had been lifted off of the ground, his boots slamming into tough and solid flesh and armour that didn't flinch at all under the frantic thrashing as Alexander's vision was restored. The seventeen year old was presented with the baleful but also victorious visage of the Master of Violence, his scarred face twisted into a sadistic leer as the boy felt the pressure around his neck increasing. Flicking his eyes down confirmed the fact that he had been hoisted off of the earth by his throat, Arendus's massive hand encircling it as he coughed for breath, the dejection that had flooded his thoughts and left him powerless to defend against the much physically stronger Welkalite pressing against his mind and becoming mixed with his defiance of the fate he now found himself in, the desperate need to survive so that he could aid his family and people shuddering throughout his skull as his blood pounded against his ears.

Alex knew he didn't have much time left. He couldn't get even a trickle of air into his burning lungs, and his head started going lighter and lighter as he tried to feebly pull the man off of him, any mana that he tried to conjure swiftly battered down back inside of him by the defeatist attitude that had developed within him ever since realising just how badly he had failed his little brother, that he deserved this and more for his failure to be a good big brother to Caiellis and for his failure to lead and protect those that it was his duty to keep alive. Arendus was snarling something at him, increasing the intensity of his grip despite the fact that Alex hadn't thought that he could possibly squeeze any tighter and fully empathising with his brother's terror at almost being choked to death by the Master of Violence, but he couldn't hear the man's brutish words over the pounding within his skull.

Arendus's already hellish face was starting to be distorted into something even more terrifying as Alexander's oxygen starved mind registered that this was the last sight he would ever see, his vision twisting the man's expression until the black spots covered it completely and blocked out his sight of the Master of Violence. Every sensation was growing distant to him, the holy fire that had previously been flowing through his Lucerna limbs dying down as he tried to speak, to shout his defiance into the man's face as he felt his life slowly slipping away from him, his feeble resistance having little effect on the man's veiny arms and hands as he tried desperately to pull them away from him, despite the fact that in his mind he had already given up and was submitting to the insidious whispers at the back of his skull that accentuated his agony and brought his guilt to the fore, amplifying it to such a point that he couldn't do anything but be washed over by it.

The extremities of his limbs were becoming number and number, and Alex faintly felt tears welling up and spilling out of his eyes in a way that they barely ever did – because he was an older brother, and it was his job to be tough when his little brother cried so that he could protect him and assuage his emotions – joining the blood that was already streaming down his cheeks from a cut above his forehead that bled into his eyes and the ever present Rain of Gore constantly jetting out claret fluids from the Tempest of Craving, its maw opening up even more and spewing an increased number of insane creations and devils onto the abused Usnaan below as it rumbled in expectation of even greater killing.

_Is this it then? _He thought, absently, like he wasn't worried at all about his impending death, before a golden lance of determination was driven through his mind and smashed through the web of pain and guilt that had formed a lattice around his adamant resolution not to be defeated, his promise to Division Five that he would not let their deaths, their noble sacrifices of their own lives in service to the Kingdom of Light, be in vein, and his need to protect and preserve his family because it was his duty as the eldest son to do so. _I'm a Lucerna, dammit! We don't give up so easily! Fight back, Alexander! It is your duty to fight and protect the people of Lucael, and if you fucking give up now and let your worthless ass die at the hand of this bastard then the words that you directed towards yourself earlier are true! You still haven't paid this son of a bitch back for what he did to your baby brother, and I'll be damned if I let you surrender now!_

A fiery meteor crashed across his vision, the incandescent and golden flames surrounding the occupant of them powered by Alexander's sudden burst of defiance and energy, streaking across the corner of his eyes and into Arendus Draal, who was launched across the courtyard, the hand that was restricting Alex's breathing slackening and falling from his throat, joined by the rest of the arm attached to it that landed with a wet _thunk _on the sodden earth of the entrance to the Slaughterhouse Colosseum, the straight edged sword that shone with a divine glow of righteous and zealous anger leaving after-images on Alexander's retina as the black spots faded and were replaced by simple blurriness.

The middle Lucerna fell to his knees, his vision and head swimming as he greedily drank upon the oxygen that flooded into his starved lungs, and was sure that if he hadn't had to breath out the waste products of his respiring cells he could have inhaled the air forever, it was the best air he had ever tasted despite the fact that it was tainted by the acrid stench of burning corruption that felt like ash upon his tongue combined with the scent of fresh meat and blood that spilled into his gaping mouth. Instead of pressing the attack against the one who had been assaulting her Summoner, Aurelia let go of one of her Swords of Flame, where it remained hovering in the air ready for her to pick it up and wield it again, grabbing hold of the panting boy and gently hoisting him to his feet as Arendus did the same on the other side of the courtyard, pulling himself up whilst his greater demon simply watched and made no move to help him.

As his vision cleared once again, Alexander looked into the fiery golden eyes of his First Sisterhood angel, noting that her magnificent white (though stained with crimson) wings were burnt, hacked and cut into and becoming filled with even more anger at the things that the demon Arendus had Summoned had clearly done to his guardian seraph as she had tried to protect him, before she placed her palm to his forehead.

The angel's slender and delicate but immensely strong hand was extremely hot, and would have burnt anyone that she considered an enemy, but to Alexander it was a soothing balm as golden energies ran through his mind. She may not be able to heal her Summoner, but Aurelia would be damned she didn't destroy if the malicious and cruel parasite that the greater demon – one of the most powerful – had placed inside of him. The Warleader was more angry than Alex had ever seen before. And that was saying something about an angel that was the epitome of righteous, bordering on fanatical, zeal when directed towards her enemies but could be remarkably calm and friendly in the presence of allies, her eyes shining with her hatred of the enemy they were fighting was well as more than a little angry guilt, forcing Alexander to process that, in a similar way to him, Aurelia had been full of hatred for herself that it had taken her that long to get to the seventeen year old's aid.

"This is going to hurt, Alexander," the angel intoned, her words filled with a sympathy that did little to disguise the passionate rage that suffused her otherworldly voice with an intimidating and slightly terrifying timbre that had the boy incredibly glad that the Angel of War was on his side instead of against him, and he nodded to show that he was ready for whatever she was going to do. He was aware that while the purifying fire that she may rush through him wouldn't normally hurt because of its healing effects, now that he was affected by the torrent of blood from the holy storm it might be agonising now, but gritted his teeth and prepared to go through with the pain.

He was thoroughly unprepared for the Warleader to reach behind him and grab onto something that was wedged within his back, probably having stabbed into him when the demon fired its projectiles of corruption at the boy when it was first entering reality, and was pulsing Red and Black mana throughout his body in alternating waves of pain that he had simply attributed to his other wounds sustained in that initial barrage and gotten used to it, and tear it out of him, crushing the fleshy thing that had been rammed into Alexander with spiked tendrils in her hand as it mewled pathetically, burning in the holy fire surrounding Aurelia. Alex arched his back in pain as the last tendrils of the creature were painfully dragged out of him, hissing through his teeth as the torment flooded through him, but he already felt slightly better because of the fact that the painful and tormenting magic of Red and Black was no longer rushing through his bloodstream.

He nodded his thanks to his angel, who returned in kind and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder for a second, murmuring, "You share a trait of mine, young Alexander, in blaming yourself for things that are far out of your control. However, you are correct in thinking that we need to finish this fight relatively fast so that when can help your father and brother, but do not ever think that your life is worthless. You are a Lucerna prince, one of the most selfless of the family that I have been blessed with and given the holy duty of being their angelic guide through the world, and you are strong enough to defeat this demon-worshipping cretin." She turned her furious gaze upon the Master of Violence, who was prodding the cauterised stump of his right arm with a kind of sick curiosity, not flinching at all when his fingers were dragged across the burnt flesh and then picking his axe up off of the muddy and bloody ground.

"Don't be so angry, Aurelia. I've barely started on him yet," a rasping voice, like a combination between numerous fractal blades being excruciatingly scraped along one another and then the tempestuous booming that the second oldest Lucerna had heard from the Tempest of Craving and the demon that Caiellis and their dad was fighting at the centre of the city near to the Palace of Desire, but less ruinous and more hedonistic, taunted as it sliced through the air and hurt Alex's ear drums, amplifying the pain that he already felt just with its words alone, and the teenager turned to look at the large beast stood upright and sinisterly by the side of the Master of Violence as it grinned sadistically.

It was a tall creature, easily eclipsing even Arendus's formidable and inhuman height of at least seven feet, clad in black armour burnished the colour of raw flesh and rippling with a life of its own, looking to Alex like the greater demon's armour was a part of itself – which must have been the case, since the way that the infernal Sancturia denizen had been formed would seem to suggest that. It was the most heavily armoured demon Alexander had ever seen, making up for its lack of any form of wings with the platemail that covered its chest and shoulders with a fluted but sadistic and barbaric pattern, the gauntlets that enclosed each of the demon's hands moulded into a similar form. The actual skin of the demon simply was raw flesh and muscle, sinewy tendons and fibrous crimson strands of tissue forming the being's arms and head.

It had four horns arcing backwards from its skull-like face, though what would normally have been bone was the same meaty substance that made up the rest of the demon's form, and instead of eyes it had empty pits of blackness that promised an eternity of unrelenting pain for any that landed themselves in its malevolent clutches, and despite the fact that it had no eyes Alex could still feel the piercing scrutiny of the demon, like he was simply a bag of meat that was to be used to experiment upon with different methods of causing pain and that's only purpose was to inflict torture upon, the demon licking its lips with a four-pronged forked tongue pierced with several gleaming white spikes in expectation. In lieu of having any wings, the greater denizen of the abyss of Sancturia wore a cape of a mixture of many different shades and textures of human and _angel _skin, with a loincloth hanging down from its frontal armour of the same vile material.

It held a relatively small (it was large and tall, but not as wide or high as a weapon belonging to a being of the demon's size should have been) spear in its left hand, with the glinting head of the weapon shaped surprisingly like an inhumanly proportioned scalpel, a precise weapon that despite its lack of any form of corrupt iconography or obvious debasement was still steeped in cruel intent and malevolent power, giving Alexander no illusions about what would happen to him or Aurelia should they allow themselves to be touched by the demon's blade.

"I love you Lucernas. Unlike the weaker and pathetic individuals that perpetuate your pitiful race, you can withstand so much more agony," the demon purred, stepping to Arendus Draal's side as the man scowled at him, evidently possessed of a dislike of his resident demon that he had traded his original Summoning for in the unholy ritual known as an Infernal Bargain, which Alex found as relatively ironic but supposed that the Master of Violence had simply wanted more power to most likely obtain his position of dominance and hadn't bargained on being given such a vocal greater demon that now laughed and sneered at the same time at Aurelia's furious expression, "Do you remember me, little Warleader?"

The fiery seraphim didn't reply, simply grabbing hold of her blade again and releasing her Lucerna Summoner, who was beginning to be filled with the last vestiges of his mana, ready to release it in a final assault against the Master of Violence so that he could get to his younger brother and aid him faster, but he had quickly come to the conclusion that his earlier stance of trying to preserve some of his mana for aiding his brother and dad had essentially been quite stupid and arrogant of him, as Arendus Draal was quite clearly the most powerful foe he had ever faced – including Aksua, as the vampiress had attacked when he and Caiellis had been at their most vulnerable and couldn't access their First Sisterhood angels – and he would need every bit of his magic in order to defeat him, especially now that he had a demon on his side. Even if he didn't have much mana left by the end, he would have taken out one of the strongest Welkalites that were opposing the combined Lucaelian force, and would still try and help Cai and their father and sovereign against the most formidable foe.

"Fine then. Since you refuse to introduce me to your young Summoner, I will have to do it myself. I am known as Zankranith, Master of Cruelties and the favoured scion of Rakdos the Lord of Riots, Lucerna whelp. I will enjoy inflicting as much pain upon your resilient body as possible before consuming your soul-" the demon taunted, before being cut off by a burning retort from Aurelia that left Alexander vaguely stunned because she had never said something like this before, snarling, "Will it be you that consumes my Summoner's soul if he dies here, or Rakdos? I was under the impression that your lord and master Archdemon would want all of the descendants of Matalis Ortus Lucerna for himself and leave none for his underlings."

The demon glared balefully at her, exposing its sharpened fangs and gnashing them together in annoyance as Aurelia stood protectively in front of Alex, her left wing shielding him from any form of magical bombardment the Master of Cruelties could try to assault him from range with and forcing their opponents to go through her first. The boy sensed a change in the posture of Zankranith, his exalted angel's words shattering the haughty and arrogant character it had built up for itself and revealing the base destructive and callous hedonism and savagely underneath as it loped forwards, Alex raising his blade and focussing his mana in preparation for this next stage of a fight that had already nearly had him killed and left him beaten, bruised and with broken ribs.

"I will say that I underestimated you, boy prince, but I will not make that mistake again," Arendus sneered and snarled at him as he retrieved his large axe from where it lay on the floor as Aurelia quickly got Alexander's sword for him, handing him the elegant and blood slick blade, the Master of Violence glaring at him and utterly unperturbed by his newly missing arm as he easily hefted his huge weapon in the other. He paced round to the side of the demon, his heavy footfalls leaving imprints in the sodden ground of the earth that seeped crimson blood out of numerous pores created by the man's geomancy, and continued, "I'm enjoying this fight far more than I expected to, and once I have finished with you I'm looking forward to finding your precious little brother and father. If they are still alive by then."

Alex normally would have replied with something sarcastic, but while Arendus Draal seemed completely unconcerned with his horrific wounds having sustained huge amounts of pain in the past, Alexander was, while more experienced with pain than anyone his age should ever have had to be, in large amounts of agony (though not as much as he had been when he had been in the clutches of the vampire whore Aksua whose wounds that she had inflicted still hadn't fully recovered despite his vaunted Lucerna heritage) and didn't want to risk increasing it by wasting his words on the Welkalite gladiator lord.

His throat throbbed painfully and hurt to much to attempt any form of speech without causing himself unnecessary pain, and all of his body ached, but Alexander had an angel of the most powerful magnitude on his side and was fighting for the cause of righteousness and justice, whereas his degenerate opponent was battling to help preserve his degenerate and sybaritic way of existence, with a corrupt demon to call ally and one arm missing. This would predominantly be a fight between Summonings now, but that wasn't to say that the eldest prince wouldn't get involved and lend his aid to his angel. He would fight until his body gave out and he could no longer move any longer until he won and could go to the help of his precious younger brother that it was his job as an elder sibling to protect and help him realise his destiny and potential. It was the least he could do if he wanted a happy family and to be able to have an enjoyable life once this accursed war ended.

However, his foes were certainly not weak, and Red and Black mana saturated the air, battling for supremacy against the incandescent Red and White of the Warleader and her temporary master, the magic of fire, emotion and passion filling the courtyard with the sensation of impulsive anger that made all four of the combatants want to rush one another and brutally murder them in the name of their conflicting ideals. The tension was reaching a breaking point as each side waited for the other to attack, and Alexander knew for certain that no matter which of the two humans emerged victorious, which of the residents of heaven or hell survived until the end of the battle and earned triumph through the spilled blood of their foes, it would be an extremely hard fight.

.*.*.*.

_Marik smiled lovingly at his wife from across the medium sized table to him, the mahogany wood fluted with gold and silver etchings that ran down from either side and showed several abstract patterns of different angels and other prominent Sancturia beings. It had apparently been a particular favourite of the prestigious Queen Arie, who had ruled the kingdom around four hundred years ago, as well as the rest of this room that had been added to the huge palace in her reign. _

_It was a relatively small but not claustrophobic – more comfortable – compartment of the citadel that had been the current Lucerna family's distant ancestor's favourite place to study in the long days of planning war against the almost forgotten Drenure Kingdom, an ancient rival civilisation that had ignored the Kingdom of Light in favour with its constant wars with the Grafnica Dominion that Marik's father had destroyed, until King Acarn's forlorn expedition into the Deep Forest of the Erian Conclave had left Lucael wide open to attack, an opportunity that King Rakaous of Drenure had been loathe to waste, and when the newly crowned queen returned home she had found it besieged by the destructive forces of the enemy._

_The room had also been Emili's favourite place to plan, as while she had been Marik's adviser while his father was on the throne now that he was king his wife had still wanted to help in any way she could, and often provided many other points of view that he wouldn't have considered without her help. The woman liked the feel of the White, Blue and Green mana contained within the room that was simply known as Queen Arie's Study, and as she possessed medium amounts of the former two within her (though that trait had passed onto neither of her sons as far as Marik could tell) he could empathise with that._

_When she had first become his adviser at the age of seventeen and lent one of the many rooms within the vast palace that Marik had often wandered and got lost in as a child and inevitably being told off by his father (echoing the wandering he did in the cathedral inside of his mind, where there had been no coldly disciplining parent to stop him or find him), the room had been collecting dust – though it was still tended to by servants, as were most of the places in the Lucerna Palace – and hadn't been used for many, many years, lacking a personality as most of the centuries-old furniture and ornaments had decayed into dust. _

_That had soon changed when Emili had arrived and instilled the room with her own personality and sense of cluttered order, having had the decaying wallpaper repaired and the maps set upon the walls replaced by modern and accurate versions of what the Lucaelians knew about the world (instead of the vague guesses that the maps in the reign of Arie would have consisted of), and becoming far more comfortable and homely, with a large fireplace on one side that heated the room pleasantly and pictures of her relatives, their marriage and their sons (the latter dominating the personal sanctum of his wife when she didn't want to be in their shared bedroom) – as well as some of her favourite drawings that Alexander had given her that weren't still in the nursery – on a cabinet that she had once had in her bedroom in her parents' house. _

_It had been the location where she had proposed to him (he had been planning the occurrence for many, many months, making sure that everything would be absolutely perfect using his influence to make it that way, but apparently his wife had had similar ideas and done so the day before he was going to do it – though she still wore the ring that he had bought for her), and it was also the location of her twenty ninth birthday dinner. _

_In contrast with his own a couple of months earlier, which had been a very formal occasion whereby he had reaffirmed his vows as a king in front of the Light-bearers and other living Lucaelians, Emili's birthday had been a simple celebration with her family simply taking a break from all of the rigours of being a king and queen to enjoy themselves with their two young boys, as Marik's role had been getting increasingly busy with the fraying tensions between the Kingdom of Light and the New Empire of Passion, which meant that he had been spending barely any time at all with his family – the longest time he had seen his wife in the past few months was when he staggered exhausted into their shared bedroom, kissed her on the cheek and went to sleep with an arm draped around her._

_Marik had bought his wife a relatively modest topaz necklace that she wore now and had loved instantly, some clothing, books and other small gifts, since Emili hadn't specified for him to get anything. He had set up an adorable routine in the morning where his five year old and one year old – who had mastered the art of walking (well, "toddling" was a more accurate phrase, but he didn't want to detract from Caiellis's achievement) quite quickly into his young life and had put the skill to good use – had presented their mum with some of the presents, though he had a vague sense that his youngest had little idea what was actually going on, although the boy could switch from remarkably self aware to a more normal distracted mode that other one year olds would spend all of their lives in in the blink of an eye. Emili had found it incredibly cute, and it had been a start to a day which both the king and queen had thoroughly enjoyed, simply spending it with their children and each other and revelling in their company._

_They had just finished a large meal cooked by the proficient chefs of the palace, though his sons had had simplified versions of the meal due to their smaller appetites (even though Alexander ate a lot, he still couldn't manage adult portions since he was just a child, and had a vehement hatred of all things vegetable or fruit (well, basically all things that his parents told him to eat that he didn't like)), tiny Caiellis just having a form of soup because neither of them wanted to risk him choking in spite of having a few teeth, which gave him an adorable crooked grin or smile the few times that Marik had seen it. Now the king felt tired knowing that tomorrow he would be back to trying to convince the Light-bearers to give negotiation with the Welkalite Empire a chance, something that proved to be hugely difficult with the amount that supported war though at least Johnias was on his side in wanting to keep the peace._

_Arguing with Hierarch Incedian and those that backed him drove the twenty nine year old into a rage that made him want to slam his head against the wall at how stubborn and narrow minded the old bastard was being, though at least he hadn't mentioned the topic of Caiellis's Angel of the Black Sun in the king's presence yet. The Black Sun birthmark on his son's cheek made the little toddler seem extremely serious, like it was a stain upon his childish innocence that he didn't deserve, and though Marik tried not to think of his son as being cursed it was often quite hard, although he had never raised the issue with Emili because he knew that what he was thinking was wrong and that his wife would hate it._

_A pair of slender fingers snapped in front of his face, and Marik jumped back, startled at the sudden interruption of his introspection and the fact that he had been jolted from his brooding reverie, almost falling off his chair, a fact that Alexander apparently found hilariously funny until the king sent him a baleful glance from the other side of the table, the blonde stifling his giggles and suddenly transfixed by the table as his brother on his high chair (that was, amusingly enough, styled like a throne) watched him intently. The man hid a smile at how reticent his eldest son had become, and then turned to his amused wife, who flicked her eyes back in the direction of the five year old who still hadn't looked up from his almost empty plate, pushing the vegetables around with his fork in an attempt to somehow lessen the amount that he had to eat._

"_Yes, Alexander?" Marik asked, knowing from Emili's expression that his eldest son would have attempted to inquire something to him, and the woman usually refused to answer questions that were directed at him unless he was immensely busy or in the middle of a conversation with someone else since it was a reminder that he should be paying attention to his children, not that he didn't, and the older one of his two son's looked up, narrowing his eyes when he saw his little brother watching him and then turning to his dad, "Daddy, I've finished. Can me and Cai go and play now?"_

_Marik cocked an eyebrow at the boy before replying, "You haven't eaten your vegetables Alexander. I know that they aren't the nicest tasting things in the world (he received a fiery glare from Emili because, unbeknownst to him, the queen had been trying to convince her sons that they tasted wonderful – which they did to adults at any rate), but they are really good for you. If you want to be big and strong when you grow up, then you have to eat your vegetables, buddy."_

_The boy pouted at him, his bottom lip curling petulantly which suddenly made Marik immensely worried that because he hadn't really been able to see his sons that much then his authority over his eldest had faded, before the more pragmatic part of his mind sternly reminded him that Alexander had always been vaguely recalcitrant (he still occasionally asked for a puppy) and that there was no real change here, as the five year old muttered, "But I don't liiiike them..."_

"_You might not like them, Alex, but do you really want to set a bad example to your little brother?" Emili interjected, her own sweet voice parental and affectionate, and she entwined her hand with Marik's as she continued, "Look, you only have to eat half of them, alright? Then you can go and play with Caiellis if he wants to."  
Marik smiled at the woman sat next to him and squeezed her hand as the boy sighed, slowly and begrudgingly digging his fork into the vegetables and painfully chewing on them as if it was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, though he would realise in the years to come how essential they were for a healthy diet and that many civilians in the kingdom subsisted solely on the botanical products of the photo-refectories for most of their lives, meat a large treat only eaten at special occasions. He then felt a pair of young eyes gazing upon him and Emili, and turned his head to the other side of the table where young Caiellis sat, looking at him with his endearing and wide emerald green eyes intently, and the king smiled warmly at his second son. He was vaguely surprised when the boy didn't return the gesture, just kept staring at his dad, as often when Emili or Alexander grinned at the one year old he would reply in kind, emulating the actions of his elders. _

_Marik refused to let it annoy him and, as Alex starting devouring his vegetables at a greater speed after realising that doing so would reduce the amount of time he would have to wait until he could play, got up out of his seat and walked behind his youngest, giving the boy a ruffle of the short brown hair that had been growing for a few months but ensuring that he was careful, as although the boy's condition had stabilised a few weeks into his short life he was still fragile and Marik didn't want to cause any damage. He abruptly realised that the last time he had held his second son was over several months ago, and went to unfasten his little toddler from his chair before realising that Emili hadn't strapped him on at all. Marik shot a glance at his wife, who shrugged and replied, "He never tried to break out of it or run off like Alex used to, so a few weeks ago we tested having him simply sat on the chair. It's been fine," she added, evidently to assuage his concerned look when he immediately got worried about the possibility of the boy falling off the chair and damaging himself._

_While Caiellis had become slightly pudgier, as all children his age should, he was still noticeably quite thin and almost weightless when Marik lifted him up out of the seat, nesting his son underneath his arm as the boy looked curiously up at him. Most children his age would be making strange noises in a language that only they understood in an attempt to convey their messages, but apart from giggling, crying or copying his mother's "hmph!" noise, Caiellis barely made any sounds, which was quite concerning despite the fact that his son seemed to be progressing incredibly well in all other forms of mental development – as Alexander had been at that age, but maybe even more so than his eldest, as Caiellis gave off the impression that he grasped topics that he shouldn't be able to with his newness to the world._

_It wasn't as if he didn't understand speech; Marik had found that out the last time he had carried his youngest son when Alexander had been having a "conversation" with his little brother, as Caiellis had discerned the correct usage of nodding and shaking his head in respective positive or negative gestures, a fact that made both of his parents incredibly proud and had entertained his big brother to no end. But he had never made any attempts at all to speak, though looking into his wide and ineffably wise eyes that were simultaneously adorably cute and seemingly possessed of an intelligence that a child should not have, despite the fact that Marik had no idea whether he did or not – nonetheless, he was a smart toddler, that was for sure. Marik would like to think that his son was preparing his speech until he was confident that it was to a good enough standard to be met by approval by the rest of his family, but it could be a sign that his premature birth or the fact that he was the host of the Angel of the Black Sun had affected his mental development, which would not be a good thing at all for a Lucerna that had a fifty percent chance to rule the kingdom when Marik himself died._

_The king bade the thoughts about his role to leave his mind at the moment, as tonight he simply wanted to enjoy himself as a dad and a husband instead of the supreme monarch of the most powerful nation on Magnus-Primae that had a divine duty to protect the millions of inhabitants of the kingdom, and smiled down at his youngest boy as Caiellis adjusted his position, obviously uncomfortable with the way that Marik had been doing it which aptly emphasised how inexperienced the man was with his second son, a fact that the man was immensely sad about though he knew that, as much as he hated it, his duty to the kingdom came above two beloved children and that Emili was a wonderful parent._

_He planted a kiss on the boy's forehead, indescribably glad that the boy had survived his premature birth a year and three months ago despite the fact that he hadn't been able to spend as much time as he would have liked with him. The tumultuous year had seemed to pass in a flash while paradoxically seeming extremely slow, but at least Caiellis seemed to know that the man who was holding him was his daddy by the way he snuggled into the crook of Marik's arm and yawned, indicating that he was tired – a fact that would be opposed by Alexander, who wanted to play with the boy, which was honestly something Marik had barely seen before. He smiled at the sensation of the boy's tiny hands gripping his arm and thumb tightly, murmuring, "Did you like your meal, Caiellis?"_

_The boy nodded after a brief delay, returning his father's smile with one of his own as well that exposed his new teeth, though there were still gaps where others would grow. Marik had occasionally returned to his room to find that Emili wasn't there, and the few times that he had managed to resist the exhaustion he had gone to the nursery which was next to Alexander and Caiellis's rooms that they would use more when they got older instead of sleeping next to each other in the nursery, where his wife had been tiredly comforting his youngest son because of the growing pains he was going through which were especially prevalent for him due to his fragility._

"_I'm finished!" Alexander announced, leaping off of his chair and almost sending it falling over, bouncing excitedly on the spot for a second as Marik hid a scowl of disappointment that had almost formed over his still young features, because he felt he wanted to savour this moment of intimacy with his youngest son that he had rarely had forever. Emili, sensing this and smiling at Marik, stood in front of Alexander before he could charge towards his dad and little brother, taking a napkin from the table and wiping her eldest son's face that was splattered with sauce in his haste to finish the meal, laughing as the boy tried to pull away and squealed in disgust at being babied. _

"_I love you, Caiellis," Marik whispered into his youngest son's ear as Emili finished cleaning off his older brother and ruffled the boy's blonde hair, and he somehow knew that the boy understood the sincerity of his words, and the apology present because of the fact that Marik hadn't been able to be with him as much as a father should have, before he put the small toddler down on the ground and ruffled his hair as well as he clung to his father leg in order to stabilise himself, yawning again and letting go once he had achieved balance and trotted forward to his big brother who was quite a bit taller than him but no less youthful and cute looking._

"_Hi Cai!" the older boy said, as if they hadn't been in each other's presence for the entire day, and the younger one blinked his wide and tired eyes, prompting Marik to interject and suggest, "Maybe you should be going to bed, Caiellis. You look tired, little guy."_

_The boy shook his head vehemently, echoing what his sibling would do in the same situation as Alex grinned at him, replying for his brother with, "Cai isn't tired, dad. He wants to play just as much as I do."_

"_If he's alright with it," Marik uttered, before turning back to his wife as she walked towards him, saying, "That was a delicious meal, Marik. Do you want to move to the nursery so that we can get more comfortable?"_

_The man nodded, though before he confirmed the gesture with words he turned towards his two sons when he heard Alexander speaking, feeling incredibly proud as his eldest son put his hands on Caiellis's bony shoulders when he thought that his two parents had started talking to each other and weren't concentrating, looking the smaller boy in the eyes as Caiellis swivelled his head towards his brother when the contact was made, his wide green eyes staring deep into his brother's warm blue orbs before the older boy blinked and said, "I know you are tired, little brother. You don't have to play just because I want to, you can go to sleep if you want."  
The younger boy shook his head again, though not as vigorously as the first time because of the fact that he was talking to his brother, who put a small arm around his sibling's smaller shoulders and turned towards Marik, the smile adorning his features becoming something more akin to a childish frown when he realised that his parents had been watching him interact with Caiellis, who began toddling forwards towards his mother and father. Emili smiled and knelt down to her sons' heights, asking, "Are you two ok with going to the nursery and playing there? It's too late to be bothering any of the soldiers now."_

_Alexander nodded in response, murmuring, "Uh huh. The nursery is great, mummy. Cai thinks so too," He added after a brief delay when the youngest member of their family replicated his brother's actions, his youthful face lit up in excitement as if he had just realised what they were going to be doing and that he would be able to spend more time with his best friend, though said best friend was often too rough with him. Caiellis didn't complain, as he enjoyed the older boy's company and thought that unlike his mummy and daddy, his big brother would be more inclined to stop being interested in him if he didn't make his time worthwhile._

"_Come on then, you two," Emili smiled affectionately and patted each of them on the head, loving the way that the eldest of her two young sons was so encouraging and fond of his little brother (though he had been ever since he had been born, as this was a younger friend that didn't know as much as him and allowed Alexander to display his knowledge to someone who would actually learn from it, as well as someone who lived with him – as opposed to his best buddies Carlis's twins (even though Emili knew he preferred Leodred at this moment in his life) who had their own house and parents and couldn't be with him all of the time), as while she had always tried to advise him on how to be nice to Caiellis Alex had taken his responsibility of a big brother very seriously. For now, at any rate._

_Marik turned and took the hand of his eldest before planting a kiss on his head, Caiellis's and then his wife's cheek (all of which were accompanied by a chorus of "eew!"s from the five year old until he glanced incredulously at the boy), before letting go of his son's hand when the five year old pulled away so that Alexander didn't hurt himself from trying to slip out of Marik's grip, shooting across the room and then standing by the doorway uncharacteristically patiently, turning around with the youngster's adorable blue eyes full of youthful energy and excitement and waiting until his parents got close to him before carrying on, like an animated puppy (the king supposed that the boy did want one, and knew that such an animal would suit Alexander) that was thrilled by the sheer prospect of living and freedom to play, wearing his infectious grin that spread onto his parents' adult features like wildfire._

_Before she went over to the practically bouncing youngster as Marik did so anyway, walking towards the five year old and simply talking to him as they left the room, Emili sensing that her weary husband just wanted to chat to his little boy about something innocent that would distract his thoughts and make him feel happy, the wife of one of the most influential humans on the super-continent turned towards her youngest son, her motherly instinct having informed her that Caiellis hadn't yet moved from where Alexander had been speaking to him. She smiled when she saw that the toddler's face was pulled into the deep thought expression that sometimes adorned her own features and that Alex had also adopted from his mum, his deep and cute green eyes staring at a fixed point in a silent contemplation._

What is going on in that young mind of yours, Caiellis?_ Emili though as she strode towards her tiny baby, who was stood perfectly still in a way that not many his age could manage without assistance, wishing that the boy could communicate what he was thinking to her. While she knew that her husband was getting worried about Cai's lack of using the infant speech common to one year olds – indeed Alexander had spoken his first word a few months younger than her son who had inherited her physical appearance (and that meant that he was probably also going to be as naturally slender as she was, which, coupled by his premature birth, meant that there was a high possibility of Caiellis staying quite small and thin for a while, contrasted quite heavily by the fact his bug brother was growing at a very fast rate, though there was still a long time to change), which had hilariously enough been "muddy", though he had said it due to the fact that it was a combination of "mummy" and "daddy" and hadn't wanted to choose between them more than any inclination to randomly talk about dirt – because of the fact that her youngest son was a Lucerna with a duty to the kingdom that would need to be intelligent enough to cope with the burden of ruling should it pass on to him, but Emili wasn't._

_She knew that Caiellis was a very bright boy from the amount of time she had spent with him, and though both her sons were her youngest fathomed topics that he shouldn't have whereas her little munchkin was better at understanding people and the emotions and feelings that they showed – which had made him a very good big brother, that was for sure. Caiellis would wait until he was ready to speak, and she knew that he wasn't because he was somehow aware that if he would attempt to speak in his baby dialect it wouldn't be understood by his family and that it was the incorrect way of speaking. _

_This could have been because there were no other infants around his age in the noble families in Capitalia Lux, and while Emili would have absolutely no objections to sending him to a normal school for those without high magical power it would be a massive deal for everyone else, which meant that her baby boy hadn't interacted that much with other one year olds that would be speaking in their own gurgling but adorable language, __and as he was often in the company of those that spoke normally he would assume that that was how he should act. _

_The woman remembered sending Caiellis to a nursery with around ten two and three year olds from the noble families in the city __that was quite prestigious (she needed to stop thinking of organisations like that since she belonged to the most important family in the entire kingdom – the thought still sometimes left her as breathless as she had been when a seventeen year old her had been told by her former mentor that she would be seconded to one of the current king's sons) as a kind of experiment to see how he would act – as Emili was perfectly capable of teaching him herself at his age, with occasional lessons from Tybalt and rarely the twenty year old Hierarch Mithres (who adored the queen's young children) which would increase in frequency as he got older and had to learn more, but she had wanted to see if he would prefer being with others when they were being taught._

_The fact that the lessons were tailored to those a year or two older than her littlest boy had concerned her not one bit, as she often tested him herself on questions (he had answered by pointing, nodding and shaking his head, which had been enough for the type of questions she had been testing him on) that shouldn't really be directed to one year olds – not that most one year olds received an education at any rate, but it was more of a mother son interaction than anything else, and if he could understand what she was saying and telling him then why shouldn't she? However, as she had chatted with the other parents who had stayed at the back of the classroom (as the youngsters were too young to leave on their own without their mums and dads), Caiellis had quickly started crying, the only time so far she had seen him do it when he wasn't in pain or wanting food or drink. Emili had assumed it was because of the noise (it was impossible to discipline and silence two and three year olds, and even the strictest of parents wouldn't do something like that (well, she supposed that Marik's father put a halt to that train of thought), as when the woman had gone to him he was curled up with his hands covering his ears. _

_She had immediately taken her bawling youngest out of the nursery as he pressed his head into her and slowly stopped crying, shaking his head violently when Emili had asked if he wanted to go back in, and supposed that he much preferred simply being on his own or with people that could better control themselves (Alexander didn't exactly fall under that category, but he had more self control than those around Caiellis's age, that was for sure). __Though the upset of the day had been mitigated when they went back to the palace and met up with Alex, who had just been finishing his lesson with the venerable Tybalt that was surprisingly amazing with children and had instantly sensed his brother's distress, telling the boy that everything was alright and that he was going to make sure that he didn't have to cry._

_At any rate, her youngest son was silent for now, and he would speak when he was ready. Emili hoped that Marik would understand that rushing that would simply make it worse, as Caiellis wouldn't know what was going on or what was expected of him, __and was aware that the only reason her husband wasn't seriously concerned by it was the fact that he sadly wasn't able to spend much time with the boy, especially not one to one because of the fact that the limited amount of his life he was free to do what he wanted he chose to be with his entire family (or just Emili) rather than with one or two of them. __She smiled warmly at the boy, who looked up at her when his mummy got close to him, the sounds of Alexander chattering enthusiastically to his dad as the man laughed, for once allowed to remember that in spite of his position as the __sovereign__ of the kingdom __the weight of the world didn't just rest on his shoulders,__ fading as the progressed further down the corridor. _

"_Thank you for being a good boy on my birthday dinner," Emili told him sincerely, because although Caiellis had not yet played up like his big brother had done at that age (though he did it with much less regularity now that he didn't want to look like a baby in front of his baby brother __and because Caiellis took up some of the attention that had been directed towards Marik and Emili's firstborn). The boy smiled back at her and reached out a small hand towards her that was quickly grasped by the woman's own, sheer happiness flooding through her at having such amazing and lovely children that she wouldn't trade for anything in the world, __and instead of letting him walk alongside her like he wanted to she pulled the small toddler into her arms, planting a kiss on his hair that would soon turn out like hers and if it continued at the current rate, the soft brown locks growing out of Caiellis's head matching the wide emerald eyes he had inherited from her as he snuggled up closer to his mother __as she stroked his hair, saying, "We should get going and follow daddy and Alex now before they start worrying about us, ok?"_

_As if on cue, a youthful face poked its head around the doorway, followed quickly by the curious features of his father who walked back through and into the room, smiling at the unique bond that Emili had with both of their children and knowing that he would have to create one with his youngest son because of the fact that ultimately he hadn't had much influence of the boy's extremely short life so far, whereas Emili, the mother that had carried him and painfully delivered him and was the only one that had felt his pain in entering the world, __meant all the world to his baby boy, who turned his head from where he was in his mother's arms to stare at his male family members inquisitively, as if wondering why they had come back to them when they were just about to leave, __and as Alexander blew a raspberry at his little brother the boy giggled loudly, which made all three of the others smile._

"_Are we going then?" Marik asked, musing over what had taken his wife and youngest son so long but then supposing that perhaps baby Caiellis had wanted something from his mum __and Emili had been catering to his needs in that respect, reminding Marik how out of touch he was with his newest son's wants and needs – he assumed they would be similar to what Alexander had wanted, as he was more familiar with his older son because of the fact that he wasn't yet the king up until after Alexander's first birthday, and even after that his kingly duties weren't so time consuming, but Caiellis was somewhat of an enigma to him since the boy was almost always asleep when he finally finished each day's rigours or crying with Emili helping him to do the former. The woman grinned at him, placing Caiellis on the ground as he started wriggling and squirming in her arms as he toddled forwards with an encouraging pat on the back from his mother._

_Alexander smiled at his baby brother as he was approached by the younger boy, his bright and dewy green eyes reminding him of their mother, and placed a restraining had on the much smaller male's chest when he was about to topple over from his headlong rush towards his elder sibling, Cai giggling and gurgling in happiness all the while as Alex poked him on the nose, eliciting a bemused blink and Caiellis's head being cocked to one side in a questioning movement that made him seem far older than his physical age of just fifteen months __as his brother blew another raspberry on front of him to try and obtain another laugh from his smaller sibling, which he was rewarded with as the one year old giggled in innocent amusement and drooled all over his face and his brother's hand that was still holding him, sparking a disgusted, "Eeew! Cai, that's so lame!" response from Alex who pushed him away into his mother's __catching__ hand, who shot a small glare at the five year old and said sternly, "Don't be rough with your little brother, Alexander Ensis Lucerna. We've alr__eady had a conversation about this, young man, __about why Caiellis is too fragile for you to be pushing him around."_

"_But … but he drooled on me," Alexander replied in vague annoyance as his little brother looked up at his mother and then back at his big brother, as if he was absorbing the situation and the cogs in his mind (a lovely metaphor that Emili had come up with and would continue to use for as long as she lived, and it aptly described Marik's youngest son's expression in his opinion), his head going from one to the other and his green eyes filled with curiosity but also a form of concern for his older brother who he could sense was in trouble for something. It seemed to Marik liked the boy wanted to say something, to interject and make his voice on the matter heard, but as he opened his mouth he faltered, leaving it gaping open before shutting it again and shaking his head, such an imperceptible gesture that the king was sure he had imagined it and Caiellis had simply been opening his mouth like most children would, not with the intention to speak._

_B__ut the kind of dejected disappointment in his son's eyes was all too real to him, like he already felt the burden of being a Lucerna – especially a Lucerna with the Angel of the Black Sun as their host – __resting on his incredibly young shoulders. Or perhaps Marik was just over exaggerating, seeing emotion and thoughts in his son's eyes whe__n__ there was none __and perceiving feeling where none existed, but nevertheless his son was clearly disappointed at not being able to form words as Emili harshly admonished, her words inflecting with a parental sternness that she hated showing but for the sake of her youngest son she would, "I don't care if he drooled on you, Alexander, you shouldn't push him so hard. What if I had not been there and Caiellis had fallen over and hit his head on the floor? I know that you would never want your little brother to be hurt, Alex, but if you are too rough with him then you could cause him serious pain."_

_The five year old instantly went contrite, his bright blue eyes welling up with __guilty __tears that instantly made Emili feel sorry for him and that she had spoken out of turn but before she could __remedy__ the situation her husband, thoughtful and compassionate as ever, cut in, __turning away from the sight of his youngest son struggling to find words and placing a hand on each of his children's shoulders__, __and though his voice was firm it was comforting, "Your mother wasn't telling you off, Alexander, just warning you. __I know that brothers are normally rough with each other – heck, when me and Johnias were children we used to fight a lot of the time, and that most of the time it is just being brotherly instead of doing it with the intention to hurt. Me and your mother both know that you would never deliberately hurt Caiellis, and I'm sure that he knows that as well, but because you are older and stronger than him and he is just a baby you have to be careful with him at the moment, ok?"_

"_Yeah..." the older of his two sons drifted off, looking anywhere but his mother or father and meeting his little brother's gaze, the younger boy utterly unconcerned by the fact that Alexander could have pushed him over and hurt him really badly, and the tears in his eyes dried up as he whispered, "Sorry, little brother. I guess you drooling on me didn't mean that I had to push you."_

_Marik and Emili shared a knowing and loving glance as Caiellis trotted towards his big brother and held out his hand for the older boy's larger but still childish hand to grab it as the king then muttered, "Are we going to get to the nursery some time this century?"_

"_You just want Alex and Cai to go and distract themselves so that we can go to our bedroom and you can give me the birthday treat you promised, don't you?" Emili teased, lightly punching her husband on his solid shoulder as he went bright red, his face aptly highlighting how nervous and socially awkward he had been when Emili had first met him as he __spluttered, "Emili, please! Not in front of the children!"_

_Both of their little boys had no idea what their mother had been alluding to, their minds far too young for that, though Alexander thought that maybe there was another present in the bedroom that his dad had decided not to give his mum in the morning, though for what reason he didn't understand, nor did he understand why said father's cheeks were blushing bright red as their mother laughed in a way that in the future he would come to know as flirtatiously. He shot a glance towards Cai, who was looking up at his big brother with his wide green eyes and inclining his head towards his parents, indicating that he didn't know what they were talking about and that he wanted Alex to tell him what it was, but the older boy simply shrugged and muttered, "Grown ups."_

_Then he let go of the younger boy's paradoxically slender and bony yet still pudgy hand and grinned at him, patting him on the back and then shooting off, yelling behind him, "Race you to the nursery, baby brother!"_

_Marik immediately recovered from his embarrassment at his wife's hands, silently promising himself that he would wait until it wasn't her birthday to get her back for that, his head immediately turning to where his eldest son ran off, bouncing with youthful energy and leaving his younger brother behind, who was starting to walk at a fast rate as well to try and catch up with Alexander. The king knew that there was no point in shouting his five year old son, and that the route to the nursery wasn't exactly dangerous despite their being a flight of stairs that Alexander could easily topple down and hit his head on, though hopefully if something like that happened one of the servants scattered around the palace (though they were normally confined to the areas used more for meeting the other members of the kingdom than the Lucerna family's private residence as not to intrude) would notice and come to the aid of his impatient and excitable little boy. When seeing the boundless energy of his eldest son, Marik either felt energised himself or extremely tired and exhausted, depending upon how much he had had to deal with the boy in a day, and then spotted the way that Caiellis was trotting after his brother in an attempt to keep up._

"_Be careful, Alexander!" Emili shouted after the boy, sending Marik a smirk at having one upped him in the small game of joking that they had played with each other ever since that day where the angsty seventeen year old version of her husband had collected the most menial and infuriating tasks he could come up with for his new logistical advisor and dumped them on her desk, the younger her vowing to obtain her vengeance despite the fact that the one she was helping was a part of the divine royal family respected across the kingdom, and it had progressed more into a flirting game before dying down after they got married and sparking up again after the novelty of being married to one another wore off – though their love for each other didn't, although Emili knew they would have to be careful should Marik make true on the promise he had made last night, as she didn't intend to have any more children than the two adorable youngsters she already had that she loved spending time with, especially when her busy husband could be there to do it as well._

_As a queen, Emili of course had many duties that took her away from childcare, though because of Caiellis's age at the moment it was understandable of her to take the one year old with her to political disputes with the Light-bearers of the kingdom and meeting the noble families across different cities (although she didn't have to prosecute that duty as much because of the fact that she had children), as well as overseeing large scale building projects and the expansion of the kingdom's technological development. She wielded a simultaneously large yet small amount of experience within the kingdom, as she was the wife of the Lucerna king yet not a Lucerna herself, though unlike in other kingdoms that had been destroyed (by Lucael or other nations over the course of history), it was much more to do with the fact that she didn't belong to the family rather than her gender, as in the past when it was a queen that reigned the non-Lucerna king at the time was as influential as she was now. _

_Emili was aware, and had been for the past few years that she had been married to Marik, that quite a few of the more … "traditional" was the word she was thinking of, Lucaelian nobles and powerful Summoners had disapproved of her engagement to the youngest son of King Garius II, as she was not a particularly formidable mage (compared to the others in the Kingdom of Light that were as important as her) and couldn't Summon a Second Sisterhood angel either – combined with the fact that she wasn't a family member of the more influential noble families, her own relatively modest and barely recorded in the annals of their nation, made many dissatisfied with the choice of Marik to marry her. At the time neither of the two had really cared that Garius was fuming at the decision, having already began to form a list of prospective candidates for the post of being married to one of the two princes for when his sons became eighteen, as while the man had personally selected her as an advisor she wasn't ever meant to become anything more than that. _

_Of course Marik had argued with his father over it quite a bit, and though the man had endorsed their marriage with his seal of approval and celebrated at the wedding Emili knew that he had never approved of it, a stance taken by some of the other powerful Lucaelians – though luckily not by Johnias. How he remained popular as a king was a testament to the excellent and intelligent way in which her husband ruled, as he had the trifecta of marrying someone that wasn't a massively powerful mage, being crowned king when his brother was the favoured in the nation and having his son inherit the Angel of the Black Sun from King Xarius, but Emili had often worked behind the scenes to ensure that dissidence was not tolerated. Nothing drastic, of course, just subtly reinforcing her husband's rule and making sure that all of the noble families across the nation supported the ruler of the kingdom, though she was doing less and less of that because of the fact that she had two young children to raise as well._

_She walked quickly after Alexander to make sure that the youth didn't hurt himself in the unfair race with his little brother that he started, leaving Marik and her youngest son alone after she sidestepped the furiously toddling little one to catch up with Alex, smiling at the servants she walked past as some that she hadn't yet seen today wished her a happy birthday. Marik followed close behind Caiellis, his mind stuck in a dilemma – should he prioritise his son's independence, allow him to keep walking on his own in an ultimately futile attempt to beat his older brother at the race that had been initiated, or to pick him up and carry him to victory, as he would enjoy the look of dismay on Alexander's cute features should he undertake the second option. _

_He thought that he hadn't done much for his baby boy yet in comparison to the amount that he had played with Alexander, though he made sure that whenever he played games with the boy – and would do this with Caiellis as well – he Marik had never let his son win, as if the boy thought he was going to get everything without working for it he would become spoilt and bratty, especially because he was the son of the richest man in Lucael and he was a Lucerna, but in the tradition of their family barely any of the youths had ever become spoilt or pampered because one day they might rule. Of course his sons were privileged, they were the children of the king, but with that privilege came a great responsibility that more than outweighed the wealth, respect and prestige they would receive in his opinion. _

_The want to help his youngest son and make an impression upon his young life won out, and he reached out a hand towards the boy and grasped onto his, Caiellis directing an incredulous stare in his direction as he tried to pull away and win in the race, his face set in an adorably adamant determination not to lose that was definitely a trait of the Lucerna family and would serve him well when he got older, though if his own childhood was anything to go by one of his two sons would probably become very defiant in their teenage years. Caiellis tried to tug away and continue on in his little competition with his big brother that he had no hope of winning but was too young to understand that, so to assuage him Marik said, "I'm going to help you win, Caiellis, since you are four years younger than your big brother and I am your dad." Marik had never quite got used to saying "daddy" or "mummy" like Emili did, but had no doubts in his mind that when his baby began to speak he would refer to his parents with those terms. With his own father it had always been "sir", ever since he learned how to speak, otherwise he would be in for a coldly inflicted beating relating to the magnitude of his disrespect that had terrified him as a young boy._

_He never, ever, wanted either of his own sons to see him in that way, see him as a father to be scared and frightened of, and wanted them to respect him because he had helped them through their lives and shown love and warmth to them instead of being forced into it through violence, condemnation and the fact that he was a king. Though he did respect his father as a king, and sought to emulate his success within his own reign, he had feared and hated the man with a passion, and was secretly glad he was dead so that he could have no influence on his grandsons' lives, as while he had only met Alexander and not overtly said it to Marik the then prince had known that Garius heavily disapproved of the way he had been raising the one year old, though Marik thought that perhaps it was jealousy in the way that he had a wife to help him with the children whereas Garius's love and Marik's mother Ismerelda had died giving birth to him and his brother, the only twins in the Lucerna line that had drained her dry of her mana and unintentionally consigned her to death. _

_That was why his father had always been so cold, harsh and unloving, and though it was tragic it did not excuse how he had treated his sons in Marik's mind, although Johnias had always been more forgiving on their old man – which had contributed somewhat to the fact that he was Garius's preferred out of the two almost identical twins. Additionally, it was hard for his sons as well, as they had never known a mother or a father's love and had only ever had each other to rely upon to provide warmth and affection, well until Tybalt arrived to be their mentor when they were around ten and both boys had grown a fondness of the Hierarch. _

_The king smothered the maudlin thoughts, knowing that this was his wife's birthday and that he had promised her not to be melancholic or think about his duty as a king, impossible as the latter was, and smile abashedly down at his youngest son who looked up impatiently at his father, blinking at him and raising his eyebrows as if in annoyance that he had stopped him, told him that he was going to help, and then just stood there lost in thought and reminiscing. He picked up the boy once again, wishing that he could do it much more often and vaguely concerned at how weightless Caiellis was to him, still being careful around him after a year and a quarter of him being alive, making sure that his grip wouldn't hurt and that his strength was controlled. The boy's expression instantly changed from one of slightly exasperated confusion to happiness when he began to be carried forward by his father, who didn't go as fast as he could have done for fear of dropping the boy that was in the process of snuggling up to him and nestling himself in the king's muscular and strong arms._

_He shot through the palace, quickly sighting his other son at the last ornate corridor across from the welcoming, warm and child-friendly nursery that was a far cry from the drab grey and unfeeling room that it had been before Emili had gotten to it, making it the perfect place for her first son that she was carrying within her to play in, which surprisingly enough Garius hadn't raised an issue with. The twenty nine year old woman who was trailing her eldest proudly and must have been saying encouragements (as well as probably lightly chastising him for starting a race with his one year old brother) turned and grinned mischievously at her husband, who quickly strode past her and then overtook his five year old._

"_Daddy! That's cheating!" Alexander exclaimed in annoyance, picking up his own pace but unable to compete with his father's long strides, resorting to pouting petulantly and glaring at his dad's back as the six foot seven man tenderly put down his fragile son who was grinning widely in victory, toddling his way the last half metre or so to enter the room and then turning round to his brother who entered a few seconds afterwards as he glared at the one year old, though Alex knew that he couldn't blame his baby brother for his impromptu victory so he ruffled the toddler's hair (eliciting a tut from his mother at the roughness of the gesture and the fact that Caiellis pulled away sharply) and congratulated, "Well done on winning, Cai, though daddy cheated and helped you. Oh well."_

_He turned around like it was suddenly the most inconsequential thing in the world, though he was still panting heavily from the run through the lower sections of the vast and ancient Lucerna palace, grabbing his brother by the hand and yanking him further within the simultaneously neatly organised yet chaotic nursery that Emili took great pride in creating for her two children._

_Unavoidably it was filled to the brim with a mixture of toys bought by the parents themselves and the Light-bearers/nobles across the kingdom wanting to celebrate the birth of a new Lucerna, though Marik was sure that some of the people expected his children to be adults instantly from birth what with the gifts they bought them, such as suits of armour and swords, which was vaguely ironic since in spite of the fact that Marik never wanted to seem ungrateful for the presents directed towards his sons barely any of the blades would see use in actual combat (well, not wielded by the princes at any rates, but maybe by the praetorians that were taken into the Lucerna Guard) because of the large repository of relic weaponry in the sacred vaults underneath the citadel – however Marik's first sword before he had inherited his father's one was a steel blade made by the former Guardian of Gol, City of Quiet, the teenage him not deigning to utilise the weapon his father made, finding it not matching his style at all, although that could be attributed to his adolescent rebellion._

_The room was quite warm because of the fire that had been lit prior to them coming in by servants who must have anticipated that the family would make its way over here, but was perfectly safe and controlled by some of the many niveous wisps that perpetuated the palace and had captured the attention of most, if not all of, the young Lucerna children when they first saw them. It had a carpet of warm gold and was quite a large room, with several comfortable sofas situated around a central table for playing things such as board games upon, with quite a few relatively empty spaces where the children could run around in circles and please themselves._

_Marik smiled when he saw the numerous bookshelves on either side of the large but warm room, next to the beds where his children and wife could sleep upon if they were too tired to be going to their own rooms that were relatively close to the nursery, as although he had seen them before it always put a smirk on his face at the exemplification of the stereotype about those from Scientia Mos not being comfortable unless the room they were in was filled to the brim with books – which they were, placed in an order that he couldn't work out but knew would seem logical to his wife, whereas if it had been him that had organised them the books would all be in their assigned places based upon category, as now more child-friendly history books shared the shelves with picture-filled children's novels and tomes concerning mathematics. _

_The king had always loved reading as a child, as it was a way to escape the world and his duties until his father had prevented him from doing it because apparently he had been concentrating more on that instead of his lessons in combat and ruling (which was entirely false, but communicating that to his father would have been tantamount to a death sentence), and knew that his wife did as well, though while he had read to retreat from the uncaring reality of life and his role as a prince Emili had absorbed the knowledge within to volumes to expand her own understanding more than any desire to get away. He knew that at the moment Alexander didn't like reading, though that was understandable because of his age and the fact that he was forced into it through his lessons so that he could learn, and had no idea what Caiellis would turn out like in that respect. Besides, just because the boys' parents had been bookworms (despite the fact that Marik never had the time for it any more, and wasn't sure he would if he could since he had a loving family to spend time with now) didn't mean at all like they would turn out that way, and Marik wasn't certain that if he had had a similar childhood to the one he was trying to give Alexander that he would have read as much, echoing Johnias in that respect._

_The two boys made their way to the centre of the room, Alexander chattering happily to his silent but smiling little brother who responded with a series of nods, shakes of his small head and pointing gestures, and Emili beckoned Marik over to the larger of the two tables, this one surrounded by chairs (though one of them was a high-chair that Caiellis had inherited from his big brother now that Alexander was tall enough to sit on a normal seat) where they could watch their children play, asking, "Would you like a drink, Marik?"_

_The kitchen was connected to the nursery, and Marik nodded before gently pushing his wife into a chair, kissing her on the head and murmuring, "Since when did the birthday girl serve the other people? I'll go get the drinks, Emili, so what do you want?"_

_Marik could see in his wife's bright green and expressive eyes that she was heavily considering to select something awkward that would make him regret offering to go and get them, before smiling sweetly and responding with a simple: "Water, please."_

"_What would you like to drink, boys?" the king asked, the silently cursing himself knowing that more than likely he wouldn't be able to deliver upon Alexander's inevitable request of a sugary drink, especially not this time in the evening, and that in any case Caiellis wouldn't be able to respond and was nowhere near old enough to be choosing his own drinks. Emili rolled her eyes at him, evidently sensing his mistake as well, as if she had done it then she wouldn't have asked and brought them both milk because of the fact they were developing children and needed the calcium, though Marik was quick to rectify and before his eldest son opened his mouth he cut in, "Never mind. I'll just get you both milk."_

"_But daaaaaad!" the boy immediately moaned, unaware that he was the recipient of a stony glare from his little brother when he stood up and blocked the one year old's path that Emili had to stifle laughter at, and she said, "No buts, Alexander. You need milk to get big and strong bones."_

_The king vaguely heard his eldest son grumble something about the fact that everything that he needed to make him "big and strong" tasted horrible, and chuckled quietly to himself as he stepped into the kitchen, instantly sighting a couple of mugs engraved individually with his sons' names upon them, returning half a minute or so later and settling down on the table with Emili, placing his sons' drinks on the smaller table that was next to them so that they had easy access to them, though after a second his wife silently stood up and got Caiellis's mug, placing it next to her own so that she could give the one year old drinks._

_She turned to her husband without words and put a reassuring hand on his arm, silently assuring him that he was still a brilliant father after he turned around with a dejected expression on his face that he had missed so many things that he had once found obvious when catering to Alexander (though of course it had been a learning experience) as the oblivious children started to play with some of their numerous toys, Alexander inventing a surprisingly realistic universe for the knights and warriors that they were playing with._

_When Caiellis had learnt to understand what other people were saying to him and be able to respond to others with yes or no gestures, his older brother had become even more smitten with him than he already had been, especially on the day that they had first been able to touch Caiellis around a few weeks into his life where the baby had reached out to his big brother and wrapped a tiny hand around his index finger and instilled the older boy with the desire to protect the fragile baby that he had been finally allowed to touch. Alexander spent almost all of his free time chattering excitedly to his little brother, who always watched with wide eyes, looking to Emili as if he was marvelling at the vast array of information his older sibling was imparting onto him, looking at his brother with the ill concealed admiration that he sometimes showed to Emili as well when she was talking to him._

_The two boys got on extremely well for now, though that could be attributed to age and the fact that sibling rivalries had not yet had chance to develop since one of the two couldn't even speak at the moment, with Alexander loving sharing his knowledge with someone younger than him and teaching the one year old about what he thought of the world – Emili knew that her eldest son had seemed to realise that those that he would talk to about things like that, such as her (or more rarely his father when he was around to listen) actually knew more about it than he did, but with someone that knew less than the five year old did it was more of a learning experience for that person, rather than the adults he would talk to replying with pleasantries or praise of how much he knew._

_Marik and Emili soon started talking, revelling in the presence of each other's company when the former of the two didn't have any pressing kingly duties to attend to that couldn't be pushed aside like he sometimes had done when he had been a prince and if push came to shove his father could do it, and watching their two children play. Marik was tempted to join in with his two boys and launch himself into their idealistic and innocent universe as well, but was enjoying simply watching them interact, something that he barely ever got to do but wanted to make the most of. He was immensely proud of both his children, even though that pride would increase when they got older and started to discover their individual talents, but right now he was very pleased with how Alexander had become the ideal big brother for Caiellis, and that the younger boy had held on through his tenuous birth so that he could be here today, as well as the fact that they both had First Sisterhood angels inside of them – no matter the identity of the said angels._

_Furthermore, he didn't want to make it seem awkward for his youngest son, who probably wouldn't understand what was going on or why this man that had never joined in with their games before had spontaneously decided to intervene and play with them. He already knew that he wanted to spend far more time with his family, would balance his time out better so that he could raise his sons – and none could fault him for that, since they were the ones that were going to rule the kingdom once Marik had gone. There would be plenty of time to play with his children in the future, as they were still very young and hopefully the kingdom would remain as prosperous as it was now for many years – especially since the alliance with the Yentarian Republic meant that other, non-abyssal nations would be less inclined to attack them because of the help of the island dwellers – but right now he was happy to just watch, talk to his wife, and bask in the company of his perfect family. _

_He soon got caught up in a conversation about their different points of views on a situation, each of them calmly arguing their own point of view without any malice or emotion behind it, and it would look to anyone else like they were simply having a normal chat instead of a fully fledged debate between two opposing viewpoints, though the king wasn't really participating in it because it was Emili's birthday and it could do without disputing – although he was aware that his wife enjoyed debating with him in an intellectual manner. Marik kept looking over to his sons, smiling warmly at them when Alexander turned his head towards his father, Caiellis still absorbed in playing with the toys, and he gave his eldest son a little wink of affection._

_The five year old grinned cheerfully, exposing the gaps in his teeth where his baby versions had been pulled out and newer denticles were beginning to replace them, and then turned back to playing with his baby brother, who was silently arranging the toy figures that they had in an order that was only apparent to him and seemed entirely arbitrary to Marik, though Alexander seemed to understand – or at least tolerate and allow – the movement of the knights that Caiellis had. _

_He thought it was adorable that instead of playing against each other (like he and Johnias had in the few times that they got to play with toys or, more commonly but still rarely, board games) – although that was sure to come when Caiellis got a bit older – they were both using their allied forces of soldiers (both regiments were from Capitalia Lux (and had been Johnias's first combined present to his nephews) judging by the colour schemes, though Alexander had taken the golden paladins and given his little brother the silver warriors) to battle against exaggerated and overblown representations of monsters and abyssal inhabitants that still had a vaguely scary hint of realism to their designs, even though it seemed like Alexander had appointed himself the commander (which Caiellis seemed to agree with or was too young to know better than to follow his big brother) of the combined force._

_The king turned back to Emili, who had fallen silent and was watching their children with a wistful expression on her face, her wavy brown hair falling across one of her beautiful and expressive emerald green eyes and her delicate pale skin. She almost jumped out of her chair when Marik tenderly brushed the strands out of her eyes, suddenly broken from her quiet contemplation in wondering what her beloved sons would grow up like and the challenges that were sure to come in later years when the first became a teenager, as both Marik and Emili had been through explosive and hormonal adolescences with equal amounts of showing defiance and rudeness to their parents (admittedly in Marik's case he had an excuse for it, since Emili's mother and father were what inspired her own parenting, which meant that they must have been good) and spending hours alone in a brooding isolation. _

_Marik just hoped – foolish as it was, because if one thing about teenagers was certain then they would defy in some way – that he would never have to deal with his two absurdly cute and sweet sons being disrespectful and obstinate towards him, as while he would try to deal with it he thought that he probably wouldn't be very good at it. It seemed so strange to think that one day his playing – well, now squabbling, as it seemed that Alexander had taken one of Caiellis's pieces and the younger boy was trying to get it back, Marik rolling his eyes fondly and resolving to end the dispute when he finished with his current train of thought, or let Emili do it, though it was her birthday … - children would be as tall and old as he was (which was still not _that _old...), with families of their own one day, but that was the way of the world and they wouldn't be little kids forever._

"_Stop being mean to Caiellis, Alexander. Give him his toy back," Emili gently admonished, the five year old guiltily handing his brother the figure of a glittering soldier on horseback and wielding a large sword and ignoring the victorious smirk that the one year old gave him, making Marik chuckle quietly to himself at how mature the expression seemed, as his wife got up out of her chair and, checking her watch that had been a present from her parents for her eighteenth birthday and still functioned eleven years later, said, "It is way past your bedtimes anyway, so we need to put our toys away now, get into bed and have a nice sleep."_

_Alexander instantly looked as if he was about to protest, Caiellis clutching onto his regained toy with his tiny hands and glaring at his brother to ensure that the older boy wouldn't try something like that again, before flicking his gaze to his mummy who had stood up and was smiling down at them, so Emili then added, "Of course, I'll read you a story before you go to bed my little ones. And I know that you want to stay up longer, Alex, but you are only five years old and you need a good sleep so that you can be awake tomorrow. We've already let you stay up an hour past your bedtime, and that's saying nothing about the fact that Caiellis should have been in bed at least couple of hours ago. But don't worry, you two can sleep in the nursery tonight"_

_Marik almost replicated his wife's surprised actions from earlier, fishing his own chronometer out of his pocket and stifling a gasp when he realised that they had spent an excess of two hours within the nursery already, but he had been so caught up in talking to his wife, watching his sons taking part in their brotherly game and generally just relaxing as a father to a young family instead of the king of a gigantic nation that depended upon him for leadership, that he had missed out on the passing of time. It seemed that Emili had as well, though he sadly supposed that it was a rarity these days that he would do something like this and his wife had enjoyed it just as much as he had, and he stood up and slung an arm around her slender shoulders, adding, "Come on then boys. How about daddy reads you a story tonight instead?"_

_Emili smiled at him and nudged her husband in the ribs at him finally acquiescing to referring to himself as a "daddy" to his young sons, but soon frowned when Alexander suddenly stated, "No."_

_She shared a confused glance with Marik, who's blue eyes were starting to be filled with self-loathing at the fact that his eldest son – the one he was the closest to, which meant that Caiellis would be thinking in the same manner – didn't want to spend time with his dad, or have him read them one of the children's books detailing figures that were actually the boy's ancestors, but the five year old soon elaborated, clambering to his feet himself and standing in front of Caiellis, "That would be really cool, daddy, and thanks for saying that you would, but I promised Cai that I would read him a story tonight."_

"_Aww," Emili breathed as her husband nodded, smiling himself and silently wondering when Alexander's affection for his little brother would become less obvious and the sibling rivalry would begin in earnest, Caiellis getting up alongside his big brother and clutching onto the fingers of the boy's larger hand with one of his own tiny fists, nodding his head in agreement of Alex's statement and then letting go, starting to collect up their toys in readiness for them to be placed back inside of the box from which they were taken, placing them back inside quickly and efficiently to Marik's eyes, as if he was that excited by the prospect of Alexander reading him a story that it energised his tidying up routine that he had already mastered._

"_If that is what you two want to do, then I have no objections," Marik replied succinctly, earning himself a vaguely confused glance from his blonde little boy who clearly didn't understand what the word "objections" quite meant yet, and knelt down to help Caiellis who was struggling with manoeuvring the box that was larger than him across the room before he hurt himself, the king easily able to effortlessly push the crate back to where it had been placed beforehand as his son marvelled at his strength with wide eyes full of admiration for his parents, holding out a hand for Marik to grab as if in reward for his aid and yawning in a way that appeared extremely magnanimous to the king, who knew that he was thinking too much about his toddler's actions but enjoyed the little mental games with himself at pondering what Caiellis was thinking and trying to mean from his actions._

"_Get your pyjamas on then," Emili told them, kissing her firstborn son on the head again and going to fetch Caiellis's nightwear, which consisted of an immensely cute outfit that had been knitted by the boy's only living grandmother that Alex had laughed at when he had seen Cai snuggled inside of it before being told that he had worn the same when he was his little brother's age and that Emili would happily make him wear it again if he didn't stop sniggering at his unamused sibling, and though both her boys could dress herself her youngest sometimes had trouble simultaneously keeping his balance and putting the clothes on. _

_The queen didn't want a repeat of the horrible occasion when her fragile one year old had toppled over while walking too far away from Emili or any adults – as she had gone to fetch something and left him in the apparently incapable hands of the eighteen year old apprentice Guardian Tristram and smashed his frail head on the floor, though luckily not causing any permanent damage. Nevertheless, the fall had caused a nasty cut and put her baby Caiellis in large amounts of pain, and when she had rushed to his aid with Tristram trying – and failing abysmally – to comfort the youngest prince it had taken her hours to calm the boy down with soothing words and gentle healing. She couldn't stand either of her children in pain, as it made her feel completely useless as a mother, especially when she hadn't been able to stop it when Caiellis had spent the first we weeks of his life alone in his mana-powered neonatal support incubator due to the premature birth that (combined with his inheritance of more of Emili's physical characteristics) would probably leave him smaller than his brother and father unless he had a massive growth spurt in the future._

_Marik squeezed his youngest son's tiny hand tightly, though not hard enough that it would hurt the boy in any way, as Caiellis rubbed his green eyes sleepily, having pretended that he wasn't tired earlier so that his big brother would have someone to play with for the evening, yawning softly in a way that made the king love his son even more. He then raised his free hand, pointing towards a stack of teddy bears and soft toys piled up next to his nursery bed (that was his permanent residence at the moment since he wasn't old enough to sleep alone), and looked back up at his dad with his sparkling emerald eyes. _

_The twenty nine year old assumed that his the toddler was indicating that he wanted one of the various teddies that many people (including his parents) had bought for him because of the fact he was a Lucerna prince (which meant that all of the many noble families across the kingdom felt that they had to purchase gifts for the newest potential heir to the throne, and also his first birthday), but in case Caiellis meant something else he asked for clarification, "Do you want one of your teddies, Caiellis?"_

_The boy nodded happily and tiredly, glad that his father had understood, so Marik strode quickly over to his bed, smirking when he saw that the vast majority of the soft toys were larger than his youngest son, and selecting a suitably small one made in the shape of a baby leonin – a cub – from Sancturia, referencing the common animals of the Lucaelian Summoners that weren't massively powerful, though the king wasn't sure what the honour-bound and ferocious Sancturia residents would think of this adorable imitation of them. Most probably they would challenge the maker of the soft toys to an honour duel and proceed to rip them to shreds alongside their cuddly creations, but for now Marik secretly thought that the leonin certainly suited being made into huggable items for young children. He frowned when he noticed that the bed across from Caiellis's, Alexander's sleeping place when he was too tired to go to his room and wanted to sleep near to his little brother and mother, was bereft of any trace of the numerous teddy bears that had once adorned (_more like covered_) it, and he distinctly recognised some of the ones that were now on his toddler's side._

_Knowing that he shouldn't keep his youngest son waiting, though Caiellis did seem more patient than Alexander had been at that age (but then again he had spent less of his time with the boy so probably didn't know how demanding he might be), he swiftly brought leonin cub toy that he had selected over to the one year old. Caiellis stared up at him out of his bright yet dark green eyes, the orbs locked in an expression that seemed to be something akin to slight confusion mixed with annoyance when he looked at the teddy that was being handed to him that, as opposed to some of his other cuddlies, was actually able to pick up without being swamped by the size of it, and it suddenly occurred to Marik that perhaps his little boy had been pointing to a specific one of his teddies, maybe the one that he favoured the most that Emili would assuredly have gotten for him, but Caiellis accepted the leonin cub anyway and hugged it close to his chest, his tiny arms barely able to wrap around despite the fact it was one of the smaller options._

_The king smiled proudly at his son, wondering whether to praise him for the fact that he hadn't thrown a tantrum or acted immature – _Wait, what the hell I am thinking? What is immature for a _one_ year old? - _when he had clearly been given a soft toy that he hadn't selected, but decided to stay silent instead as the boy graciously ran in a circle with the cuddly representation of a cat before bumping into his father's leg as he looked over to Emili when she had arrived with Caiellis's pyjama suit, Alexander already having changed out of his prince outfit that he had worn – in spite of his numerous protestations to Marik – in order to look smart for his mother's birthday and into his nightwear ready for his bedtime story to be delivered to his little brother. The boy blinked in startled surprise, as if not expecting the tall man to still be there, and looked back up at him with a vaguely sheepish smile on his young face before Marik picked him and the teddy up again, gently prying the leonin from his baby's grip and saying, "You can have it back soon, Caiellis, but your mother needs to get you changed so that you can be comfortable when Alexander reads you a story."_

_The youngest prince nodded to show that he had understood, and didn't impede his mum when she stripped off the garments he had been wearing, prompting Marik to wonder when the last time he had gone to the toilet had been considering the fact that his nappy that had been put on him before the dinner they had eaten several hours ago was still dry, Emili casually informing him, her voice full of parental pride that her nonchalance added in for the sake of Alexander did little to dispel for Marik, "Oh, Cai is potty trained already. He trained himself in fact, after demonstrating it to me the first time I got concerned that he hadn't wet his nappy in several hours."_

_Marik nodded, having been the same at his youngest son's age according to the few adults that had known him well then and were still alive now, but was nevertheless very proud of his bright sons, though both seemed to excel in different areas. Caiellis was certainly a model child however, apart from the fact that he couldn't speak and had made no effort to even try which could quickly be rectified and his fragile form which was through no fault of his own, though if he grew at his current rate would be to his detriment within the future, as well as the fact that the Angel of the Black Sun inhabited him _which means absolutely nothing and I'm sick and tired of having this foolish conversation with you so just stop. Caiellis is a perfect son, and his Black mana in no way detracts from that so I would appreciate it if you would get that foolish and narrow notion out of your head.

_However, from what Emili had told him about, his youngest son wasn't yet that good at interacting with other children and babies around his very young age due to his inexperience with them, but Marik pushed the thoughts from his mind and went to see Alexander after stroking his son's brown hair for a second, the soft locks so much like the ones that adorned his beautiful and beloved wife's head, and placing the leonin cub soft toy on the floor next to the queen where she could hand it to their youngest once she had finished dressing him._

_The boy was puzzling over a shelf of children's books, picking some out, flicking through the book and glancing at the pictures so that he could remember the story before putting them away, before glancing up when his father companionably knelt down beside him and smiled at his eldest son, ruffling the boy's blonde hair fondly and so glad that his fragile youngest had such a protective and loving big brother to live with instead of one that hated him for taking up attention and indescribably proud of Alexander that he had become so affectionate of his baby brother ever since first seeing him and having established their brotherly connection even through the glass of Caiellis's necessary isolation._

"_What are you going to read to your little brother then?" Marik asked after his son stopped giggling because of the fact that he was ticklish about his hair being ruffled and resumed his task of searching for the right "book" to read to Caiellis, the king's large hand making its way to his shoulder and squeezing it with a firm solidarity that he hoped conveyed the fact that despite his temporary almost complete abstinence from his fatherly duties, he would continue to be there for his children and reinforce his bond with Alexander and well as create a much stronger one with younger baby Caiellis. The blonde adopted the deep thought expression that he sometimes did that reminded Marik of Emili, but not as much as the one that Caiellis wore did and had elements of the face he had apparently used to pull according to his former, Alexander's current, and Caiellis's soon to be mentor Tybalt, and murmured, "I don't really know yet. I was thinking about reading the one about King Matalis and the First Angel to him, but I don't want to read something too boring and I couldn't find the one that is my favourite story."  
"Would this happen to be it?" Marik asked, though he already knew that answer due to the fact that he had often read the book to a wide eyed son who had adored being in the presence of his dad, grabbing the thin book that was mostly pictures and omitted most of the brutality of war and the dark demons that the first Lucerna monarch had saved the people from, mostly focussing on his heroics in battle and the fact that he had built up the kingdom, from where it was resting on top of the shelf and out of reach of his tall for his age but still small five year old, and handed it to the boy who grinned in that infectious way that made Marik smile as well as he exclaimed, "Thanks, daddy! You're the best!"_

"_I try," he replied humorously, though the lightness of his words was meant to dispel the fact that he knew he was an awful father, having not seen his sons nearly as much as he should have (though he made sure to see them once a day, even if he was extremely busy and they were sleeping) done and opening his arms wide when the boy launched himself at his father for a hug, making a show of grunting at the added weight in a way that his little boy loved because it made him think that he was getting to his desire of being a strong adult faster despite the fact that lifting his healthily weighted son was easy enough for a man of Marik's physical capacity. He laughed at his son, lifting him up off of his feet and spinning him around, before putting him back down on the floor and patting him fondly on the head. _

_The king missed playfully wrestling and playing with his eldest son, as it had been something that they both thoroughly enjoyed and was a way in which they could bond that was unique to them, as while Emili could easily do it it wasn't something she had ever liked doing, his pacifist wife a rarity within the Kingdom of Light. However it was something that was far more common within the League of Isak within the friendly and inquisitive Yentarian Republic that treated the Lucaelians with great respect but also a strange sense of something that made Marik feel like a small child again whenever he spoke to the Council, which he had at first believed to be a group of each of the leaders of the Leagues of Thought and then some representatives of those not affiliated with any of the Leagues, but apparently were only elected spokespeople from the different organisations within the Republic and not the most powerful. _

_However, he knew that that feeling came from the fact that the Lucaelians knew little to nothing about the outside world apart from a few forays out of the abyss to explore potential territories, and as such the Yentarians made him feel uneducated in other matters. He got the impression that the Republic was far, far older than the ancient Kingdom of Light, as while the Yentarians had used the Lucaelian dating method (with the year 0 being the year Matalis formed the nation and ascended to the holy throne) out of respect Marik knew that they at least seemed to have been around for thousands of years. Nevertheless, the Yentarians – or at least the ones that had the duty of communicating with the other nations of the world – were always very happy to share the knowledge that they had accumulated, in exchange for being allowed to talk and learn more about the culture of the kingdom – a trade of information that Marik had been all too happy to enact, keeping many things about the Kingdom of Light hidden from the Republic as he was sure the Yentarians did in turn. _

_He felt a pair of curious eyes gazing at him and Alexander, and Marik turned to see his youngest son watching his playful fighting with his five year old brother inquisitively, a pang of sadness erupting within the king's chest when he realised that he hadn't yet played with his youngest son, but he knew that the boy was far too fragile at the moment to be as rough as he was with his big brother. At any rate, they would have to wait a year at least before he could, and hoped that Caiellis understood why, but quickly stopped his messing with the older of his two little boys and kissed him on the head. Emili smiled at them both, pulling her youngest to her chest tightly before placing him down on the bed, assuming correctly that that was where Alex wanted to read the story to his little brother._

"_This is really kind of you, Alex," she praised when her five year old bounced across the room, though not as hyper as he was earlier and stifling a yawn of his own, and he smiled sweetly at his mum before saying, "Yeah but mummy, Cai is my little brother, so I'm doing it because of that. He's pretty cool, and not as lame as I would have thought a baby brother would have been. Just don't tell him that," Alexander hushed his words around halfway into his sentence, though Marik had no idea whether or not his baby boy had heard his brother's lovely words, and Emili shared a proud glance with her husband before vacating the space next to Caiellis's teddy bear filled bed (that made his son seem even smaller and more fragile by comparison, making Marik want to put him in an impenetrable bubble of protection forever despite the fact that he knew he was safe for now, especially in the presence of his loving family) and putting an arm round the king's waist._

_Alexander looked at them as he leapt up next to his little brother who grinned at him, giggling softly to himself and pulled the bear that he liked the most down from its resting place upon another few teddies, causing a chain reaction where they all started to tumble down, though luckily Alex turned around and stopped them before they landed on his baby brother – not that they would cause any damage to the one year old, but he was still protective of the toddler – just didn't really want him to know that yet because Cai would start thinking that his big brother was his only friend and hanging around with Alex too much – glancing in a way that he hoped looked like the disapproving gaze his father, or Tybalt, did when he did something stupid, tutting softly to his laughing little brother and repairing the cocoon of soft toys around the younger boy, and muttering, "Well that was pretty stupid, Cai."_

_If it was up to Marik than the number of teddy bears and other assorted cuddly animals on the littlest Lucerna's bed would have been greatly reduced to sensible numbers – i.e.: one or two – instead of having them all piled up there together, but obviously Caiellis liked it that way and Emili had arranged it, his wife's fondness for soft toys evident in the way that she had enjoyed purchasing them for both of her sons, and was glad that that disaster in the making had been averted. He turned back to see Alexander looking at his parents again, and narrowed his eyes at the expression that he was giving them before Emili gently took Marik's arm and pulled him back to the table, seating him on a chair and murmuring, "Don't embarrass Alex any more, Marik. It's ok now, Alexander, we aren't listening any more and we can't hear you here."_

"_Ah," Marik breathed softly, having been wondering why his eldest was taking his time to start, a fact that now made sense with the realisation that his son was vaguely abashed at reading in front of his parents despite the fact he was only five, and probably wanting to share this moment as one with his little brother. However, as Emili turned to him with a mischievous grin on his face when the boy started reading it to his enraptured brother, it was evident that his wife had no intentions on making her earlier words a factuality, staying silent and listening to the boy read out the chapter and describe the pictures to his little brother, before he cut off and glowered at his parents, exclaiming in annoyance, "Mummy! I can't concentrate with you listening!"_

"_What do you want us to do then? We aren't leaving because you have to be in bed soon?" the woman replied patiently, though obviously her perceptive eldest would have deduced that his mummy and daddy's silence suggested that they were in fact listening to him read to his baby brother, who was frowning in bemusement at the interruption and reaching out to the comforting form of his big brother that had helped him through the time where he hadn't been allowed out of his glass box with the way he had talked to Caiellis and been the only one out of his family that hadn't pitied him. Alexander noticed his little brother's small hand extended towards him and grabbed it with his own with an intensity and strength that unintentionally hurt his baby brother, who resolved to suck it up and not complain because of the fact he didn't want to appear lame to his truly awesome big brother who was about to read a story to him. Alex then let out a slightly exasperated, "Just talk or something! But don't listen to me."_

"_Alright, alright, we're talking," Emili soothed with an attractive roll of her dazzling eyes, the deep blue dress she wore matching the mysterious forest colour of her alluring orbs perfectly and flawlessly complementing her slender form, before turning back to Marik and immediately beginning a completely random conversation about vegetables with him, causing the man to stare at her with confusion until she motioned with her hands to try and get him to reply to her so that they could keep up the talk and satisfy their son. Soon his young voice could be heard enthusiastically and nurturingly – taking clear cues from both his mum and dad – reading out the tale to Caiellis, answering questions with his big brother knowledge that left the one year stunned at how Alexander seemed so similar to him yet was so much smarter than he was._

"_Why does Alexander no longer have any soft toys?" Marik asked, utterly changing the course of the conversation and figuring it would be more natural if they talked about things they actually wanted to instead of forcefully spewing random stuff about topics neither of them were interested by in an attempt to satisfy their eldest son's conditions for reading to his little brother, and Emili gave him a small smile when explaining, "A few months before his fifth birthday and after seeing Caiellis was all of his teddies – which at the time was comprised of a lower number than Alexander's collection – Alex spontaneously decided that he was too old for soft toys now and wanted to give them all to his little brother. I tried to talk him out of it, though I'm sure that Cai wouldn't have minded if Alex had changed his mind and had to give our eldest the teddies back after a few days or sure, but the munchkin was set on it and nothing could dissuade him from letting Caiellis have all of the toys, which is why he now has such a ridiculous amount of them," she lowered her voice as her husband nodded, leaning closer as well and knowing that she was going to be talking about their firstborn son without wanting the kid to hear, and said in hushed tones, "He's so kind to his little brother. It's adorable, and I'm glad it is like this because if Alex had disliked Caiellis from the start than our youngest's fragility would mean that if he ever tried to hit Cai then it would really hurt him."_

_The king nodded once again, having had similar thoughts himself, and the two started talking about how much they were looking forward to their sons growing up as well as how much they were enjoying raising them now – though Marik had always been waiting for the day that he could interact with his sons as young men instead of small children, as that was more his wife's forte and he often felt like he was fumbling around in the dark when something was wrong – it was alright now, when the two were in a perfect state of mind, but if one of them started crying then he wouldn't be sure how to solve it whereas Emili would instantly deal with the situation in the correct manner. _

_He was in the middle of communicating as much with his wife, when she placed a slender finger upon his lips and pressed down gently on them. Annoyed, he frowned at her but shut up anyway, before listening closely to the rest of the room and realising that Alexander had gone silent, a kind of mystical atmosphere filling the nursery as he turned to the two boys, his wife mirroring his actions, Caiellis opening his mouth to his big brother for the second time. Marik's heart leapt in his chest as he heard a youthful and innocent voice fill the silence of the room, a voice that was at the same time intimately familiar to him yet one that he had never heard form words before, and he smiled with pride as his youngest son opened his eyes again, his emerald orbs filled with an utter certainty as well as excitement at finally figuring it out, whispering, "Alesh."_

_Caiellis then frowned as his family burst into excited and happy animation, annoyed at the fact that he had mispronounced the x in his brother's name, saying the name again as if testing the new ability to speak words, rolling his big brother's abbreviated name upon his tongue and saying it for a third time to the wide and proud eyes of his family, his confidence that had initially been hurt when he knew that he had said Alexander's name incorrectly now emboldened and encouraged by the look of their happy faces as he felt himself being lifted into a warm hug by the five year old who had abandoned the book that he had been reading, leaving it open on the bed as he wrapped his baby brother in his arms and ruffled his short brown hair._

"_He just said my name!" Alex exclaimed in excitement, and Marik was vaguely concerned that he would be suffocating his little brother with how he was squeezing the one year old to his chest and burying Caiellis's head in his chest, repeating in thrilled elation, completely overjoyed that his baby brother had said his older sibling's name as his first word and willing to overlook the fact that he had vaguely garbled the second oldest prince's name (as Johnias was still technically a prince, though he had no chance to inherit the throne unless the sons of Marik somehow died, which wasn't going to happen with their father watching over them), "Cai just said my name!"_

_Marik walked over to the bed after his youngest son started trying to pry himself out his brother's affectionate but overbearing and constricting grip that he knew wasn't meant to hurt him but was doing so anyway and gently tugged his youngest son away from his eldest, letting him rest in his father's arms anyway. Caiellis's green eyes were lit up with a mixture of happiness at finally being able to get a word out of his mouth that meant he had achieved his voice and would be able to better communicate with his family, as well as the fact that it meant that he could join in with their conversations and stop worrying them about the reality that he hadn't been making any effort to speak whatsoever because he knew in the back of his mind that whatever he tried would have failed, but also a bit of bewilderment at how ecstatic his family seemed. All he had said was one word – well, he had said it multiple times, but that still didn't mean like it was the most important thing in the world like his brother, mummy and daddy seemed to think it was, and he still had a long way to go if he ever wanted to be as awesome as his big brother was at the moment._

_Marik sat down on the bed next to Alexander with Caiellis in his arms as Emili came over to them, the extremely young boy's head flicking between the other members of his loving family and supposing that his first words were ones that would cherish forever. The king sighed happily, figuring that this was the perfect end to a perfect day of having fun and enjoying himself in the presence of the family that meant the most to him out of anything in the entire world and that he would give up everything for in a heartbeat, and said quietly, "Well done, Caiellis. We are all really proud of you little one."_

_Alexander still hadn't got over the excitement that the first thing his baby brother had said was his name, which meant that he was being a good big brother to Caiellis and hoped the one year old knew that he would continue to protect him and love him for as long as they both lived, and was bouncing in his seat with joy and cheerfulness, smiling broadly at his little brother whenever the boy looked sleepily in his direction as he yawned and stretched out in the strong arms of his dad, before suddenly sitting up as if just remembering that he had forgotten something. Which he had, he thought it was completely unfair that he had said his big brother's name without paying heed to the rest of his family, the loving mummy that always spent time with him and who showed him tremendous amounts of love and the father that he didn't see very often any more but vaguely remembered from the part of his life that he could barely recall anything from, not that he was under any illusions that he understood anything about life at the moment._

"_Mummy. Daddy," he said, almost as an afterthought, his head turning to look at the ones he had addressed to ensure that he wasn't saying it wrong or mispronouncing what he knew as their names, nodding his head when the looks on their faces confirmed that he had been speaking their names correctly and seeming to Marik like he was in some way thanking them for all that they had done for him, until Caiellis then pressed his head into the king's chest and abruptly fell asleep, his sudden departure from the world of the awake punctuated by a soft and cute sniffle as he adjusted his position to make himself as comfortable as possible. All three of his family watched him lovingly, extremely proud of the fact that he had spoken his first words on this night, and Marik and Emili gently pulled Alexander away from the bed and tucked Caiellis underneath the comfortable covers, the queen arranging the teddy bears in a protective circle around him as the one year old unconsciously grabbed out for one of them and dragged it closer to him._

_Both of his parents took turns in planting a kiss each on his cool forehead, Emili stroking his hair softly and whispering, "Good night, Caiellis. That was so kind of you, saying your big brother's name like that. We'll see you in the morning."_

"_He said my name!" Alexander jumped on the spot and loudly proclaimed it to the world for the third time, placing his finger to his lips and looking guiltily at his sleeping brother when Marik shot him a censuring glare that suggested he be quiet and Caiellis made an adorable snuffling sound, rolling over in his bed to the other side as Emili rose up from his side and declared, "Right, Alexander, it is time for you to be getting to bed as well."_

_Surprisingly enough, instead of protesting the delighted little one looked up at his father in an inquisitive manner that the man had gotten used to seeing from his eldest son and would have to become accustomed to Caiellis doing the same because both of his sons had inherited their parents' – especially Emili's – undying curiosity for the world around them, which meant that he had to be ready for answering many questions in the future – especially about Caiellis's angel when the smaller boy was old enough to know that he had one inside of him as it was a very delicate topic and he didn't want his innocent baby boy to become sad because of the Angel of the Black Sun choosing him as a Summoner instead of the other loyal First Sisterhood angels. Pre-empting the coming question, he asked, "Yes, Alexander?"  
"Can I speak to Cai before I go to bed?" the boy asked innocently, running a hand through his blonde fringe that had been recently cut to stop getting it in his eyes after Marik had briefly saw how long it was becoming because of his wife's penchant for long hair on her little boys that was entirely impractical in the monarch of Lucael's opinion, a clear sign that the five year old was tired – though he would never admit it and would continue to declare that he wasn't tired until he physically fell asleep on his feet and pitched into the realm of unconsciousness and dreams that Caiellis was already within, moving in his bed in an attempt to get comfortable. Marik shared a glance with Emili, who shrugged and nodded as if to say: "What harm could it do?" and leaving the ultimate decision up to him because of the fact that he had to be more confident with his fatherly duties instead of looking to her for help._

"_Don't wake him up then, and be quick. It is already way past your bedtime, champ," Marik replied as the five year old nodded, full of the big brother importance he had become filled with ever since seeing his fragile and tiny younger sibling in his mana incubator with his life hanging at a thread, assuring his father, "I'm not going to, daddy." He then delightedly shot over to his brother's bed, where the boy who would, according to Emili, be quite a light sleeper in the future – and Marik had no idea where she had acquired that information from, but didn't bother to ask because of the fact that he utterly trusted his young wife with her notions concerning their children, surprisingly didn't wake up, though he knew that babies generally did sleep through things and that Caiellis had when he had been younger and even smaller than he was now, which was still at a very unhealthy weight despite the amount that Emili fed him._

_He placed a small hand next to his little brother's head and quietly got onto the bed beside him, more stealthy than Marik had ever seen his normally quite loud and vocal first son before and ensuring that none of his motions would cause the slumbering infant to be roused from his not yet peaceful sleep, and whispered quietly, "Good night, Cai. That was pretty cool. For a little brother anyway. Have a nice sleep, and I'll make sure that the bedtime monsters don't get you."_

_Alexander grinned down at the baby when Caiellis subconsciously reached out a hand towards him and curled his tiny fingers round Alex's own chubby index finger that was becoming thinner due to the fact that he was now growing up, but was still as wide as it had been when he was four because of the increase in size of the bone, just longer now. The boy stopped fidgeting in his bed, relaxing now that he had a grip on the other child in his family and starting to drool over himself now that he was truly asleep, and Alex made a face at him before gently taking his hand out of the one year old's grip and tiptoeing back to the other side of the room where his own bed was, though it wasn't that far away from his baby brother's after requesting that it be moved closer so that he wouldn't bee too distant from Caiellis should he wake up in the night and their mother not be there. _

_Marik just wondered when the novelty of having a little brother would wear off for Alexander, as of course when they were older there would be plenty of fights no matter how well they got on because of sibling rivalries and hormones, but he couldn't help but think that Alexander would always be there for his little brother whenever Caiellis needed help, such was the strength of the bond that he sensed between them that far eclipsed anything he or Johnias – in his own opinion anyway, as the eldest Lucerna had often stated that his brother was one of his best friends – had ever felt between each other despite the fact that the twins had always been close. Marik had just never sensed the type of connection that identical twins were apparently supposed to have between him and his brother, but maybe that was because of the fact they were Lucernas and as such had been raised significantly differently to others. At any rate, at the moment his five year old son was more attuned to his little sibling's needs than the one year old's own father was, which was a cause of shame for Marik who made himself promise that he would spend much longer with his sons – they were Lucerna heirs and needed to know that their dad cared about them, both for their own benefit and the benefit of the people of the Kingdom of Light._

"_Alright, Alex, its time for you to be going to sleep as well," Emili, ever the one for taking the control of the situation instead of losing herself in introspection – though Marik was aware that that was what his wife did in the short amounts of time that she got to herself now that she was a mother of two young little boys – as the blonde repressed a yawn and nodded, rubbing his eyes sleepily and slowly getting into his own bed, his youthful excitement diminished now that he knew that it was time for going to bed so that he had enough energy to go to school and see his friends there as well as play with his little brother in the morning if they woke up early enough, and obediently pulled the covers over himself and rested his young head on a soft but not overly plump pillow, murmuring, "Good night mummy. Good night daddy."_

"_Good night, buddy," the man replied, giving his eldest boy a wink of reassurance when his wife knelt down next to the bed, understanding that they needed to give Alexander just as much affection as his baby brother if they wanted him to feel loved as she said, "And thank you for being a good boy on my birthday, Alex. It makes me really proud of you when you are well behaved, which is most of the time now."_

"_Mummy … how _old_ are you?" Alex asked, completely innocent and with his blue eyes wide with harmless curiosity, making Marik have to suppress a snort at the fact that you were never supposed to ask a woman her age, before Emili sent a glower his way before turning sweetly back to her son after winking at Marik, replying nonchalantly, "Oh, I guess this makes one hundred and five."_

"_WOW! Really?" Alexander replied in awe of his mother's apparent agelessness and wisdom and wondering what he would be like at such an impressive age, before Marik rolled his eyes and cut in, grinning, "Your mother was joking, Alexander, she is only twenty nine. And as beautiful as she has ever been," he added, moving round and kneeling down to his wife's side and placing a large arm around her shoulders when she pouted at him at having her little joke destroyed so quickly and kissing her on the cheek, continuing, "I hope you find a woman as lovely as your mum in the future when you grow up."_

"_Oh. Ok," the boy replied, though he supposed that twenty nine was still very old and way older than his own age of only five years, as Emili kissed him on the head again as he turned over in his bed and pressed his young face to the pillow. Within a few seconds he was asleep, having none of the problems of getting to sleep that Caiellis had been suffering over the course of his very short existence, and Emili slid out of her husband's grip as he watched the boy sleeping peacefully as she went and controlled the wisps dancing around the safe fire, extinguishing it so that the room was darker. She then turned around to Marik, murmuring, "That was the best birthday I could ever have wished for. Our youngest son spoke his first words today, Marik."_

_The man nodded as his wife spun around fully, her green eyes full of flirtatious mischief now that she was certain that her sons were asleep, and said, "Now, about that final birthday gift..."  
_

.*.*.*.

"I never want to hear your whining voice again, you worthless brat! And now I'm going to make sure that I never have to!" the king roared, his loud voice filled to the brim with the steaming anger that Cai had always felt within it whenever he had been shouted at his father before, but one that utterly crushed his new resolve that had started building up when the king had arrived in his losing fight against Rakdos. Hopelessness began to fill him when he saw the rage in his father's piercing blue eyes that stabbed straight through him and held him to the spot, and he resisted the almost overpowering urge to fall to his knees, curl up into a foetal ball and wait for the end that flooded his mind.

"Dad, please! What are you saying?" the thirteen year old asked, still unable to process the fact that his father had suddenly turned on him and not willing to believe that the man was saying these things, though it dawned on Cai that he had said similar in the two days before this brutal battle that had been the most savage thing Caiellis had ever experienced and would probably haunt him forever. He had simply pushed his argument with dad to the back of his mind in the desperate fight for survival against the Master – or Archlord – or Rapture ad then against the Lord of Riots, hoping that his father would have done the same now that they were in a battle and the hostile animosity between them, but obviously his high expectations of the man had been proven false.

Cai was terrified, there was no point in not admitting it to himself.

He gulped nervously as his father stalked towards him and his mind decided that this was the most opportune time to thrust flashbacks of that awful time yesterday where his dad had pinned him down on his bed and strangled him, his eyes full of the same dissatisfaction and cold anger that the king of Lucael was now showing to his youngest son, and though every instinct he had was screaming at him to move away he stayed still, silently willing for his dad to turn around and fight by his side instead of striding with menacing purpose towards him. The man sneered coldly at him, growling, "Are you fucking stupid, Caiellis? You heard what I said, _boy_! I've had enough of _you_ and _your constant defiance _of me."

The fact that the last sentence wasn't even shouted but was filled with such malice from the person that was supposed to love him as a father made it all the more painful to Cai's ears as he stiffened, fear shuddering through his spine as his dad hefted his huge greatsword, as if testing the weapon's suitability for something that was soon to occur. He again shot a shaky glance over to the Archdemon that was still by far the largest mana presence in his mind and had prevented him from sensing his father's arrival in the first place, but Rakdos seemed to be simply revelling in the family argument – _if it could be called that –_ and the fact that Caiellis's hope was utterly crushed out of his body.

He had unconditionally hoped that despite the fact that he and his dad had been quite literally at each other's throats the past week and had each said things that they shouldn't have, despite the reality that Marik had tried choking him to silence and discipline him and even before that had almost crushed his arm, despite the truth that the king's youngest son was a useless dead weight that had failed in every conceivable task imaginable – such as protecting his big brother as Alex guarded him and not falling prey to a dream world, from leading a group of troops to victory in Fort Egetau and then repairing the relationship between him and the Lucerna brothers' father no matter how hard he had tried and how much he had opened up after their final strategium fight – and forced Alexander and the other adults to have to salvage every situation that he made a mess of that Marik would put aside their differences in the middle of a battle that would decide the fate of two of the largest nations on the planet to protect his son and come to his aid in his time of dire need.

Caiellis had been wrong. So, so_ wrong_. He could faintly see Akroma advancing upon her dark sister in a similar manner that the supreme monarch of Lucael was doing to his unwanted second son, and assumed that this had been planned before hand. He could feel the anxious sweat soaking his palms even with the blood from the vibrant and oily Rain of Gore drenching him in crimson fluid, and felt all of the inexperience and fear someone of his thirteen years of age had every right to feel in this sort of situation, but looking weak wasn't going to earn himself any favours with his furious father. The boy pointed towards the towering Archdemon that cast a long shadow over them (in spite of the lack of sunlight and any illumination past the crackling storm and the pit of lava beneath the godlike being) with the Sword of Glass, hating the fact that the crystalline blade was shaking violently in his trembling grip as he shouted, attempting to infuse his voice with righteous confidence but instead having it emerge as a pathetic squeak of: "I know you hate me dad, but we need to kill the Archdemon Rakdos so that we can save our Lucaelian force-"

"_Our _Lucaelian force?!" the six foot seven man bellowed in outrage, making Caiellis start to breath even faster to the point that he began to hyperventilate, though managed to at least stop himself from whimpering, "You mean the force made from the combined armies of the one that I and your brother led while you failed horribly at obeying orders and messed around with the legions of Scientia Mos?! You mean the force that you abandoned on your fool's errand to this place whilst directly disobeying the orders in which I specifically told you and your brother to stay close to me?! Or do you mean the group of soldiers in Fort Egetau that you made die horrible deaths simply because you couldn't follow _simple damn orders_?!"

Cai visibly shrunk and rocked back with each of the accusations, and for the second time when arguing with his father he felt absolutely no defiance whatsoever, no burning desire to turn the conversation on its head and repel his dad's harsh and illogical assertions, though how he felt now was redolent to the beginning of most of their arguments, the deep sadness that swallowed everything else apart from the blazing spark of resistance that had kept him going after his only release, which had been cutting himself ever since that first meeting with dad over a month ago, had been forbidden, though that had more to do with the overwhelming pressure and the fact he had felt all alone with his seventeen year old brother understandably wanting more personal space after spending nine years almost constantly in his kid brother's presence. Now there was nothing, and he had to accept his father's criticism for what it was: the truth. He had just foolishly hoped that that truth could wait until after this battle, and blinked his eyes clear of his tears that had started to well up, seeing his dad sneer at him at the pathetic gesture entirely unbefitting of a Lucerna, but then Caiellis had always been a useless descendant of Matalis Ortus.

"And don't worry, I intend to deal with that bastard demon over there that you caused to be Summoned in your reckless and stupid charge to this place!" the man snarled, before his simultaneously icy and furious blue eyes narrowed at his son's reaction as he leered at the boy, a cold sneer of hatred stretching across his face, "Oh, did you think that I had simply failed to notice that it was your failures that led to the Summoning of Rakdos (who gave a little wave unseen by any of the four on the plaza below and licked his lips hungrily at this new gift given to him – he did love surprises!) in the first place?! How damn unexpected of you Caiellis, hoping that I wouldn't see your mistakes! If you were going to place your family and army in massive amounts of danger by fleeing from them, you could at least achieve your objective with a modicum of success!"

Cai slumped, knowing that what the man said was true and that it was his fault an Archdemon had entered the world, but that was exactly why they needed to combine their forces and kill the grinning Lord of Riots together, so he replied quietly, his voice carried on the wind that had sprung up to his father's ears, as if speaking any louder would cause his brittle body to shatter into a million pieces with even the slightest intensity of noise, "I was trying … and now that you have arrived I thought that we could kill the Archdemon together to help atone for my mistakes-"

"There is no way you can atone for what you have done you selfish, self-entitled little brat!" the man barked at him, looking to Caiellis as if he was finally releasing all of the anger that had first started brewing ever since their first ever argument because of the fact that Alexander had almost died, Cai had been at the end of his tether what with the abduction that had been caused by his weakness and the reality that Marik hadn't listened to him at all before they entered the fateful negotiations with the Welkalites that had led to them being here now, and the king had been pulling at his hair over the kidnapping of his precious _son _and his near death that was Caiellis's fault.

The Aksua incident and the resultant arguments had left a huge storm hanging over the small family (_kind of like the demonic one now blocking out the sun above us_) that his big brother had desperately tried to dispel and attempt to bring the sunlight back to the Lucerna family, but Alex's efforts had ultimately been in vain, only stemming off the inevitable when Marik turned on his youngest son. Alexander's presence had only prevented Marik from continuing their argument because of the fact that their dad clearly loved the older boy and didn't want him to come to any harm, but Cai had to forcefully drag his wailing mind from his thoughts as he saw Akroma launch a blinding strike at his own Angel of the Black Sun, Orzhova blocking the crashing blow on a shield of glass and shadow that was cleansed by the thrumming Blade of Wrath. Marik then growled again, "When are you going to take responsibility for your mistakes, instead of blaming them on everyone else?! Huh?!"

"I told you, dad," Caiellis spoke calmly and clearly, though he had to mentally force himself to stop at least some of his frightened shaking, watching his father carefully for any sudden movement as the man threateningly paced towards him, his heavy footfalls laden with malice and forbidding intent as his boots slammed on the abused ground of the Redhand Mansion courtyard, as he was quite worried by the fact that the Angel of Wrath was attacking Orzhova and driving his angel away from Caiellis, and while he would normally have been able to hear their heavenly words the cacophonous and disruptive power of the Tempest of Craving was drowning them out for the moment, though if the thunder stopped he would be able to perceive the angelic dialogue. He just hoped beyond any rational thought that it was indicative of what his father was about to do, as he added softly, "I was trying to make up for my mistakes by coming here and facing Tradax alone so that no one else needed to go through the pain of doing so."

"How damn selfless of you, my son," the king smiled mirthlessly, the sarcasm of his words laced with unadulterated hatred that bit into Caiellis deeply as the boy took a step back to increase the distance between him and his wrathful father, not wanting to have to risk himself in the combat with his dad but also not yet fully believing that such a thing would be the outcome of Marik's current actions of insulting and belittling his youngest son, forcing his breathing to relax when his vision started going blurry as he wiped the blood matted hair out his eyes. The small prince mentally prepared himself for more words, trying to make himself not affected by the degradations coming from the man that had once shown affection and love to him long ago before the violence, loss and betrayal of the civil war that had ruined Marik's life and comprised the vast majority of Caiellis's relatively brief foray into living.

Whilst he had been able to sustain himself after Alexander's wounding with his fiery defiance, feeding upon his anger because he knew that it wouldn't make him turn to self-loathing and hatred for himself, now that he didn't have any of that rising up within him at the moment Caiellis felt very similar to how he had after that portentous day in which the king of Lucael had returned back to Capitalia Lux a few days after Tristram and Tybalt (who had been newly elected Guardian and Hierarch respectively when the king arrived) and faced his youngest son who had failed to pass his extremely suicidal Summoning trial (that in essence Marik had caused him to complete because of the fact that he had thought so little of himself in spite of Alex's (and others', but his big brother was the greatest contributing factor in this instance) reassurances that he wasn't worthless) had taken them there for the final time.

The pain of rejection and betrayal stabbed into his young heart that Cai wasn't sure could take any more torment without breaking completely, as the only things holding it together at the moment were the love that his big brother and Uncles showed to him combined with the shame that he would bring upon his family should he end his own life and the sadness he would inflict upon Alexander that his selfless and loving older brother didn't deserve at all. He knew precisely why he didn't have any anger inside of him despite his father's awful words that shook him to his core and might have finally dislodged any naïve and childish hope that the man would ever love him again that somehow still survived within his soul in spite of the abuse that his father had wreaked upon him. It was because truthfully, he was absolutely terrified.

He was so damn _scared_ of this battle, and had his fear amplified when he killed Tradax and the most powerful being that he had ever seen before entered the world, was exhausted because of two consecutive Summonings of his First Sisterhood angel when only one left him drained and spent even if he didn't use any powerful spells, in pain because of the magic of the Defiler, but mostly frightened of the demon that couldn't be touched by anything that he had tried to attack with it and even playing with him had completely outmatched the youngest prince, and just wanting someone else to come and give him emotional reassurance and help him through this almost impossible fight, someone that he would be happy dying next to because that was the likely outcome of the battle against Rakdos.

Instead he was presented with censure and hatred from someone who had shown love and disapproval in roughly equal amounts to him before – with the latter very recently and the former so long ago that he could barely remember – and it did absolutely nothing to help combat his tremendous fear. Cai just wanted someone to come and help him to fight against Rakdos, but knew that the world didn't work in such a way and instead he had been given his furious father who was still pacing towards him, the most terrifying Caiellis had ever seen him which included the time that he had choked his youngest son. His blue eyes were blazing and his face was red from the blood splattered upon it that coloured the short blonde and white hair, dripping down his shaven face – as for as long as Cai could recall Marik hadn't ever had a beard – and spilling in cascading rivulets down his silver armour that made him look even bigger and was occasionally brightened by a frightening flash of crimson lightning from the Tempest of Craving.

He swept his gaze round to the two First Sisterhood angels, and Akroma was very clearly driving Orzhova away from him so that him and his dad were alone, though for what purpose Caiellis refused to think about because he knew that unless it happened he would continue to assure himself that it wouldn't even with all evidence pointing to the contrary. It was incredibly naïve and foolish, but he was grateful for what little comfort it gave him. Despondency and fear swept through the small boy, as his father growled, "You've had your chance to make amends for your failures, and now, before I kill the Archdemon and lead the Kingdom of Light's army to victory over the Welkalites, I'm going to make sure that you never have chance to make mistakes that will cost the lives of loyal Lucaelians any more!"

Caiellis was fully unprepared for the sudden burst of speed his father put on, launching himself across the courtyard with his massive greatsword arcing down towards Caiellis and cutting a sizzling trail through the numerous droplets of blood pouring down from the crack in the sky, and even worse found that his body had frozen upon, becoming paralysed in the sheer terror of betrayal before a scintillating blast of White mana pulsed through his limbs and fortified his mind, though it could not salve his distraught emotional state as he leapt backwards at the last second, the man's Lucerna broadsword hacking through the air where the thirteen year old had been stood, frozen to the spot by his father's piercing accusations.

He knew that the mana had come from Orzhova, who had managed to be focussed on her own fight against her furious sister enough to augment her Summoner's speed, but didn't have any way of thanking her or ruminating upon it when his dad came at him again, his austere face set in a cold and hostile scowl of annoyance and hatred as the blood from the Rain of Gore ran down it, and he desperately cried, feeling just as powerless as he had been that horrible moment yesterday morning, hoping that his voice was inflected with enough desperation to make Marik feel concerned for him as well as enough strength that hopefully would tell the man that he wanted to make up for his mistakes, "Dad, please! Stop this! We can fight together against the demon, and once we have one I can pay the price of my errors!"

"And risk having you stab me in the back as I risked my life for you fighting against the Archdemon?! Not a chance!" the king scoffed loudly, his hard voice full of unsympathetic disdain for his exhausted, hurt, emotionally sore and frightened thirteen year old son, as he blasted out a beam of light from his free hand that shot through the air and impacted on a shield of combined shadows and imperious incandescence that Cai created in an attempt to block it. The bolt of wrath sheared straight through his magical defences, though luckily – _not that I can really call this "lucky" -_ its intensity was severely reduced as it crashed into his chest, sending him tumbling backwards but not incinerating a hole through his slender form. Cai was sent tumbling across the hard ground again for the umpteenth time today, scraping his easily damaged and already bruised body on the hard and suffering a wide variety of grazes and abrasions even through his light armour.

He pushed himself to his feet quickly, blinking his eyes to clear them of the bloody rain – _and the tears –_ that were blurring his vision, his father striding towards him again as he tried once again to dissuade the man from his current course of action, although it felt to Caiellis like he was trying to reason with a blaring and unstoppable monorail train that was seconds from running over the stupid little boy that was caught on the tracks, "Dad, you know I wouldn't do that! Please, dad, stop! When have I ever hurt you before?!"

"You can't even see your own mistakes?! How pathetic. I thought that I had raised you better than that!" the man snapped back, running forward again and unleashing a blistering array of heavy strikes with his large blade that Cai was hard pressed to avoid and deflect away from himself, knowing that his father was far, far stronger than he was and that any attempt to block the powerful blows with his lamentable physical strength would end in abrupt failure and probably even end up severely hurting his arm. He needed to delay, to see if he could somehow convince him of the wrongs of this course of action, though he still couldn't help but think bitterly, _you didn't raise me at all. _The boy knew that close quarters would only spell failure for him, so conjured up his stained glass wings and flew back from his dad only to have them shattered by a dispelling pulse of disenchanting White mana that destroyed his aerial mobility, but at least he had managed to put a bit more distance between him and his irascible male parent.

"Let me enlighten you then! You left your older brother, _my_ eldest son, to die while you pranced around in happy fantasy land!" the king roared, leaping towards Caiellis and hacking round with his blade, capitalising on the boy's dodge to catch him with a backhand blow with the mailed fist of his free hand that slammed into his left side, though the awkward angle had prevented him from hitting or damaging any organs. It still sent the boy flying back as pain erupted in his arm, although no bones had been broken and he resolved to deal with it as he had suffered worse, though he wasn't sure if he had suffered any worse emotional pain than this. _Of course I have. My __perfect and loving__ mum died right in front of my eyes __at the age of four years old._

The words and blows were supposed to hurt, that much Caiellis understood, and he fully agreed that he deserved his father's anger, but as much as he hated to admit it he was still young and was going through a very hard period of his awful life and _angels damn it I don't know what to do, alright! I don't know what I am supposed to do! I know that I should have been there to protect my older brother when he almost died, and I know it was my fault, but maybe if the world wasn't so awful now then I would never have been enticed by Aksua's dream realm! _Cai forced himself to try and remain calm, but it was like trying to stop a tsunami of emotion with a small wooden fence, and he couldn't stop thinking of Alexander laid on the ground, with blood pumping from his wounds and an oily black substance pouring out of his gasping mouth with the Light-bearers frantically trying to save him. Sure, Alex had recovered, but it had been far closer than he had ever wanted his big brother to get to the threshold between life and death, and his eyes widened as he realised the next words that his father was about to snarl just before he did them.

"And now, because of your idiotic fool's errand, you have forced me to abandon Alexander to try and help you! Your brother, who has only just recovered from life-threatening wounds could be anywhere in the city and fighting for his life against thousands of Welkalites without me at his side and able to protect him, all because of you stupidly abandoning the rest of the force disobeying my orders and causing an immensely powerful demon to be Summoned!" Marik bellowed, and Cai was unprepared for the sheer blast of wrath issued forth from his father that crashed straight through the fragile half-formed shield he tried to quickly raise against it, sending him flying back across the courtyard as he slammed one the large spikes curling up out of the ground, the force of the mana that his dad emitted pressing him against the hard rock as Marik walked closer up to him, striding with a fast speed and yet with inexorable and relentless purposefulness at the same time.

He swung his sword at Caiellis, who managed to block it with the Sword of Glass in such a way that he was actually able to push it away from carving into him, augmenting his lack of strength with golden mana that flowed through his arm and into the crystalline blade, the two swords overflowing with magical potency grinding against each other as the boy was pressed further back into the rock pillar, wincing in pain as his wounds scraped up against the hard stone and he had trouble breathing, his father growling as he increased the force behind his greatsword, "You don't pay attention, you never listen, and I'm fed up with all of your questions! You're incapable of obeying orders and that puts other people at risk! I fucking _warned _you … I told you that someday you were going to get one of us killed!"

"Dad … please," Cai begged, before releasing his grip on his blade and sliding away by ducking down from the pressure on his blade, catching his father off guard as his shining sword slammed into the rocky spire arcing up into the air behind them, hacking a deep gouge into the stone and sending rock fragments clattering everywhere as Cai yanked on the magical tether connecting him to his sword as he skidded back from his dad. The man was in a perfect position for Caiellis to counter attack as he struggled with pulling his sword out of the rock, but the boy found that in spite of all that his father had done to him, he couldn't countenance raising a blade against his dad or attacking him with a burst of magic, and Marik seemed to realise that as a grim smile etched itself onto his austere and coldly furious features as he dragged his broadsword out of where it had lodged itself in the rock, sending a spray of debris spattering out from it as he turned to face his son, who had retreated back further and held his sword with a trembling grip.

_Damn it, Caiellis! You had the perfect chance to incapacitate him there! Why didn't you take it? _A more angry part of his mind yelled at him, but the young adolescent knew exactly why he hadn't tried to weave some form of magic to send his father into the realm of unconsciousness, and it wasn't just that it was nearly impossible – though not as impossible as defeating him in combat – and would probably end in failure, _just like everything else I do, _but it was because he knew that he couldn't face Rakdos alone again and needed aid with it, and because he knew what his dad was saying was horribly true and that what he had done would may well end in the deaths of more Lucaelians. All he had wanted to do was try to take away some of the pain of others, but he had just ended up causing them more pain.

Had he been able to muster up any anger, he would have shouted at his father that it was his fault for bringing Alex to this fight in the first place and had he listened to his youngest son's strategies this never would have happened, but that would have required him to be able to summon any emotion up but the fear that was flooding through him, making his breaths faster and shorter and making his palms sweat and his small body shake with terror and sadness. Why was this happening to him? _Why does dad want to do this to me? I know he hates me, but … doesn't he understand that Rakdos is just baiting him into this? The demon _wants _to fight him alone! _"Dad, why do you think that Rakdos is just letting you do this?"

"Stop trying to change the conversation you little brat!" the man snarled back, implacably advancing once more towards his son's new position with his eyes full of hatred and no parental love whatsoever, as he continued, his words like icy daggers stabbing into Caiellis's spine as more genuine fear rushed through the boy, "And I don't care why that damn demon is not trying to kill us now, but I'm grateful for it since it allows me and Akroma to deal with you and Orzhova! Rakdos probably thinks that by letting me finish you, he is cutting down out power, but we both know that you would just be dragging us down and getting in my way like you always have done, you pathetic burden of a Lucerna!"

Across the courtyard, two angels that were extremely similar yet massively different faced off against each other, one a coldly angry avatar of wrath and the ultimate price of disobedience whereas the other was a golden and imperious representation of darkness combined with the light, her scythe shining with golden light as she repelled the strike of the Blade of Wrath. Unlike her young Summoner who was struggling to think of striking back against his horrible father that Orzhova had trouble believing had changed so much over the course of the two wars (the civil war and the one they were ending now) and the battle – as he had comforted Caiellis before the arguments began, and had congratulated his son before they met up after the liberation of Jeksaan – the Angel of the Black Sun had no compunctions about fighting against Akroma, and it was fully expected for her sister to act in this way.

Akroma had never cared about her Summoners in Orzhova's opinion, using them to further her own goals of making the light more powerful than the darkness and not taking an interest in them personally – which in fact was how quite a few of her elder sisters acted – and now that she had seen her traitorous sister for the second time after the reign of the Emperor of Light Akroma had decided that now was the time to turn upon her and eliminate her from the world of mortals, as the first instance in which the two had met in the material plane poor, dear Serenity had been there and would have stopped them from fighting. Nonetheless, Orzhova was still extremely perturbed that she had chosen now to do it instead of waiting until the fight against the rather pressing issue of an Archdemon finished, and the madly spinning halo above her sister's head that hissed when the blood from the Rain of Gore impacted onto it that was more visible than usual and had been a gift from their divine mother herself disturbed Orzhova, though she supposed that she had never seen her cold sister show this much emotion before and her halo could be symptomatic of that.

"What are you doing, Akroma?" she demanded, her voice full of an anger she herself felt at the betrayal of her precious young Summoner, batting aside a bolt of milky White mana with a shroud of dark shadows coiled and moulded by golden luminescence before it smashed into her and retaliating with a burst of darklight bolts that impacted upon her sister's shield against the magics of darkness and chaos that made her all but immune to weak attacks and would serve her well in fighting the Lord of Riots should they be able to put aside their differences and combat the Archdemon together, "What are you and your Summoner trying to achieve through this? Why aren't you helping me and Caiellis against the Defiler?"

She bombarded the Angel of Wrath with questions as frequently as she did magical missiles, her frustration rising when her sister simply snarled in response and ignored that magic of Black and White combined crashing into her heavenly form, conjuring several spheres of blinding and unsympathetic White mana that she hurled at the dark seraphim, who managed to deflect some of them on her scythe while others exploded in blasts of light next to her and scorched her flawless flesh.

Orzhova wasn't sure she could take on one of her most powerful sisters at the best of times, as any potential engagement in Sancturia between the two would last quite a long time, but she was well aware of how drained her Summoner was and didn't want to sap away much of the boy's manner since he was already struggling against his stronger and older father that of course would prevail over his thirteen year old son, as well as having his emotional state slowly wrecked and shattered by the man's words. The Angel of the Black Sun couldn't hear what the humans were saying, nor could she communicate mentally with her boy Summoner, but Cai's emotions of dejection and deep sadness were clear in her mind, as well as the fact he was running out of mana quite fast the longer she was active.

As Akroma flew towards her, Orzhova responded in kind and met the Blade of Wrath with her nameless scythe as the two signature weapons of First Sisterhood angels clashed, their mana clashing against each other and spraying into the air all around them as they strained against each other. Orzhova raised her eyebrows when her sister growled at her again, but this time with words, as she had been fully expecting the Angel of Wrath to have stayed silent and full of cold wrath throughout the fight, "You need to be brought to justice, Orzhova, and it cannot wait any longer!"

"What, so it can't wait until we have banished an Archdemon from the world? Am I missing something here? I thought you hated demons more than anything else, which was the one thing we could agree on, and surely the Lucaelians will benefit more from destroying him rather than attacking me?" the Angel of the Black Sun questioned, knowing that while she could do reasonably well against her sister and hold her own for a while her fragile Summoner desperately needed help and the fact that Akroma was keeping close would prevent her from initiating a Voidwalk and coming to his aid, as well as being driven further back from Caiellis by the Angel of Wrath.

The other seraph snarled again, filled with a sheer anger that Orzhova had never seen from her sister before, as normally it was simply cold and wrathful hatred that she favoured her enemies with, as she ripped her blade from where it was grinding against Orzhova's scythe and launched another searing attack against the dark angel that she was hard pressed to block, much more comfortable with magic than physical combat – a trait that she and her Summoner shared – and forced her to land on the ground in order to block the overhead blow on the shadowy haft of her weapon, the ground cracking beneath her golden heels as her black robes billowed out in response to her collecting mana within her scythe.

"I do hate demons, and rest assured that I will destroy the Lord of Riots once I have finished you and made sure that you cannot escape again!" Akroma yelled at her, her otherworldly voice suffused with a powerful and emotional resonance that heightened the strength of her blows as she pulled her sword away and attacked again, landing on the ground as well and rushing at her angelic sister, their blades clashing in scintillating and incandescent displays of opposite and complimentary energies as she replied.

"But it is the nature of demons to be destructive and evil, and they could never be good or serve the light! They are like vindictive and sadistic vermin that do not know any better and need to be destroyed!" her hissing voice became akin to a furious shriek as she screamed at Orzhova, "But not you! You were an angel of good, a creation of the light with the holy duty to protect and serve it, and you chose to throw that all away in your selfish quest for your own egotistical goals! You _betrayed _our divine mother and lead the Kingdom of Light into a reign of darkness not seen since the days She descended to the world of man and created the holy realm of Lucael! You served the light and spurned our mother's blessings, and that is why you are a greater threat than any demon because you willingly turned to the darkness!"

Orzhova frowned deeply. She had known that all of her sisters hated her just as much as she hated them, which was a significant amount, but to see the cold Angel of Wrath expressing such anger and fury was unheard of – as Orzhova had expected her to be as coldly irate as she had been on the day of Caiellis's Angelic Descent and want to bring her to the judgement that she apparently deserved, just not this controlled by her rage due to the Angel of Wrath usually having a harsh stranglehold on her feelings, pushing them aside in the completion of her duty. It was especially worrying what Akroma had said, that she thought her renegade sister had turned to the side of the demons and darkness despite all pieces of information indicating the opposite, as surely she and Caiellis would have turned on the Kingdom of Light if her goal had been to destroy it or corrupt it by now? Something was wrong, but she didn't have enough time to figure out what or collect all the information in her head as her sister attacked again.

The words hit Caiellis hard again, as he knew that he was just a burden, a weight around all of their necks that would be better off cut free instead of just being carried around and weighing his family – which included his Uncles – down as his dad glared at him with undisguised hatred that no father should ever feel towards their son, but even so he tried to keep his tears in even though the effort in holding them back was costing him despite being so well practised when it came down to his dad. Right now, all he wanted to do was give up and cry his eyes out while waiting for the end to come, but knew that would be even more pathetic than trying to convince his dad to fight with him instead of against him and he wanted to help in the banishment of the incredibly entertained Rakdos because it was his fault that he had been Summoned and a stronger person would have stopped it, a smarter person would have realised that killing Tradax so late wouldn't achieve anything. It was too late for that now.

Had he been any less swamped by his emotions, Cai might have noticed that all of his father's movements, magic and blows were at less power and speed than they should have been, that he hesitated slightly before every attack as if one part of his mind was railing against what he was doing to his youngest and most fragile son and attempting to hinder him.

Had he been less consumed by despair, he might also have picked up on the fact his father was quite heavily wounded, with two large holes through the armour covering his lower abdomen that leaked blood down his protective covering where it was concealed by the torrential downpour of gore from the Tempest of Craving, as well as numerous other injuries such as electrical burn marks and several blades small embedded in his back, but all Cai could think about was the fact his dad rightly hated him and wanted him dead and the reality that his big brother would be filled with worry – _though I don't know why anyone would ever worry about me –_ and trying to his fight through the City of Pleasure to get to Cai and could well be dead, as the boy couldn't sense anything in his sixth sense past the overpowering presence of the Lord of Riots that was watching the two familial conflicts with a sick form of glee similar to that of a little child but possessed of a much darker malevolence than anything a mere human could muster.

The man rushed him again, spitting curses to his youngest son as his sword flashed through the air, and Cai predictably dived back away from it instead of facing the Lucerna greatsword wielded by the supreme king head on before realising his mistake as numerous blades of light lanced down from the sky above him, some held in place by the shield of substantial darkness he moulded around himself as he darted side to side to avoid his dad's magic. One cut into his back as he was busy blocking another on his artefact armament, and he cried out in pain as he felt the stinging sensation of a slice down his soft skin that immediately started to bleed, and he only just managed to twist to half-deflect the king's strike as the man charged at him through the distraction of the magical blades that Cai had seen him use before but never having had it directed towards himself, his arm aching in pain as he blocked the massive sword as he almost dropped his own blade.

His father was furious, but now it was bordering on madness, worse than he had ever seen before from anyone not affiliated with the darkness, and it was really scaring him. He had never been this violent before, even when he had pinned Cai down on his bed and throttled him, because even then he had ultimately held back and hadn't been as angry as he was now. At the present Caiellis was afforded no such luxury and shook with fear as he tried to resist his father's blade and stop it from carving into him, though for what reason he wasn't sure. _For Alex; I'm doing this for him, and all of the innocent Lucaelians and Welkalites that need someone to kill the Archdemon and remove its corruption from this world. But dad is trying to do that as well..._

The man dragged his blade away as Cai almost fell forward with the sudden removal of force against the momentum that he had gathered, but righted himself at the last second as a sword was swept past the spot his head had been in, cutting off strands of his medium length brown hair that was drenched in unnatural blood much like the rest of him was, and then a leg slammed into his right one and tripped him over with the force of the blow. He rolled frantically, indirectly firing projectiles of light at his father to delay him, if not outright hurt him, all the while cursing his weakness at harming the man who had created him while dad didn't hesitate at all to do the same. He scrambled back to his feet, cutting his hands on jagged rocks on the ground as he pushed himself upright so that he could better dodge the man's blows, though he still wasn't exactly what he wanted to achieve by doing this.

All his mind could think of was the need to be safe that Cai knew wouldn't come within the immediate future unless his big brother turned up, but because of his own idiocy the seventeen year old had probably rushed through the city and met greater resistance than their father had in coming here, and he relied upon the older boy enough. Well, that and the fact that he was a useless failure and his dad hated him. He blocked another sword blow on his magic, drawing it up from reserves within him and trying to ignore his sheer exhaustion that constantly threatened to drag him into the cold embrace of sleep, blasting chains of gold at his dad that he had planned to wrap around him and prevent him from attacking his son while they talked, but Marik snarled in a mixture of contempt and fury as a blast of White thundered around his tall and intimidating form.

Cai ignored his first failed attempt and this time flung coils of shadow at his father's sword hand and greatsword that wrapped around it, but he wasn't strong enough to pull it out of his grip as he advanced, sending a shockwave of mana at his son a second after he cast a silencing spell upon the boy that would prevent him from flying away on his wings of stained glass as the wave crashed into him, sending him sprawling as he lost his grip on his blade and skidded painfully along the cracked ground. He yanked on the chains around his dad's blade as he fell, dragging the heavy broadsword out of his grip and flinging it away despite the fact that it would leave him defenceless should the Archdemon suddenly get bored watching the show and decided to kill the Lucernas, just as a booted foot impacted into his side and sent him rolling even further as he gasped in pain and his vision was clouded by tears of agony.

At least two of his ribs had shattered upon the impact, making him able to empathise with Alex's pain when that had happened to his older brother, though his were more fragile than the older boy's were and would break after less force was applied to them, and as he blearily gazed up at his dad the man stalked menacingly closer, his eyes full of the intent to hurt the boy who tried to withdraw as best he could, knowing he had failed when a hard grip encircled his upper left arm that would definitely leave a bruise – the least of his concerns – and in the next second he was tossed through the air like an unwanted doll and crashed into one of the last remaining walls of the Protector's homely mansion that had been shattered apart by the demonic transformation of his private residence.

His head smashed sideways into the stone and burst open, spraying crimson blood in every direction as he whimpered pathetically, his back also bruising on the impact and his newly broken ribs protesting on being moved and thrown about like that. The boy's terrified eyes flicked up to where his father was striding slowly closer, taking his time now that Cai was utterly at his mercy, the boy recalling his sword to him as Marik snapped the magical tether with his boot enchanted with erasing mana as he walked towards his son and lifted him off of his feet, his blue eyes full of hatred as Caiellis tried to squirm away and let out an involuntary shriek at the pain he was in, met by his father's sneer of disdain at his son succumbing to the pain so easily.

He stared up at his dad through the haze of pain and turmoil, his head swimming and his gut churning violently which did no favours for his damaged ribs as the man glared at him, raising his son's head so that he met his burning gaze, a mirthless and cold smile utterly bereft of parental warmth stretched across his features.

"You worthless little shit," the king whispered, softly, out of place in the shouting and violence of only a few seconds ago as his son gasped in pain and tried to pull away as he was hoisted off his feet and pressed into the wall, "To think that Emili, your _mother,_ my _perfect wife_, died to save you..."

He shook his head with disgust and pushed his son harder into the wall as he cried out, and then said the worst thing a father could ever possibly say to his child, "I should have just left you there to die along with her."

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Arendus Draal: Master of Cruelties

* * *

_I almost feel sorry for the Lucerna family. Only almost because there is worse to come ;)_


	33. Through the Spyglass of Memory

Caiellis gasped in pain, completely mortified as the tears methodically conquered his defences because of the agony he was in mixed with the horrific words from a father that he already knew didn't love him and so shouldn't have cried about it, but in this dire situation his inner thirteen year old broke out of the shell he had created for himself and poured in liquid form out of his pained and young green eyes, streaming down his bruised and bloodied yet pale face and cascading down his gaunt cheeks, weakly pleading, "Dad … no … you don't mean that ..."

The pain in his back increased as the man shoved him further into the stone wall, a cold leer stretching across his face as he glared down at the boy, and after a few seconds a sick smile etched itself upon his features as he saw his thirteen year old son writhing in pain and feebly trying to break free, but Cai couldn't spare any of his limbs to remove the emotional tears that were pouring out of his eyes and blurring his already hazed vision, both physical and mental pain combining to put the youngest and smallest Lucerna under tremendous amounts of pain that no boy his age should have had to suffer through in an ideal world.

"Do you really think that?" the king smirked maliciously at his crying youngest son, though Caiellis couldn't see the fact that one of his eyes was baulking at the pain inflicted upon the boy as he shook him again, jolting his broken ribs painfully as the hand on his left shoulder that he was desperately trying to remove increased the intensity of their agonising and implacable grip, almost snapping the bones within as Marik ignored the frantic thrashing of his child, the other hand holding the front of his fabric shirt – as the enchanted leather above hit had split open – pressing into his upper chest and making it even more difficult to breathe, though not so much that his terrified sobs couldn't be heard. Marik studied the just teenager like he was a pathetic and weak insect under a magnification glass, and Cai suddenly felt as – or perhaps even more – worthless than his dad had declared only moments earlier, not that he didn't already, although now his emotions were amplified by the distraught torment he was in.

"Let's see then. I had to leave my eldest boy, my only _true _son..." Marik seemed to enjoy the flinch of purely emotional hurt Caiellis displayed for a second and shook his son again, sending the tears misting up his vision cascading down his face as they were soon replaced by more, but now Cai could actually see – and it certainly didn't confer any reassurance, as the brief glimmer of aghast terror and remorse had disappeared completely from the man's cold blue eyes before the littlest prince was given chance to observe it in his dad, and now there was only unadulterated hatred, disappointment and anger present in his simultaneously frosty and chilling yet burning gaze that increased in power as he fatefully and sadistically spoke his next words, "All alone in the capital city of Welkas with the largest army he has ever fought against just because I had to come fix your mistakes."

Cai sunk further into his misery and despair, blocking out everything around him as one part of him tried to conjure up some form of mana to blast his father away – though that urge didn't belong to him and was Orzhova trying to help while she was still occupied with a frenzied Akroma, as Cai was utterly despondent and knew that he couldn't fight back – but was cancelled out by his father's powerful technique of preventing his enemies from casting spells when in close contact with the king of Lucael, a similar ability to those from the former City of Quiet and now the City of Silence but one that was amplified to a whole new degree by his Lucerna heritage.

He let the thoughts take him away from the pain, though the emotional hurt still seethed around the temporary conscious sanctuary he had inadvertently created for himself to block out the agony his young and fragile body was in and screamed his father's accusations and degradations upon him, both in the man's original voice and Caiellis's hissing tone that was full of self-loathing and hatred directed at himself, his own idiocy that could easily have led the Lucaelian force to defeat and put his precious big brother that was ten times the Lucerna he could ever hope to be in terrible danger.

A vicious backhand from a mailed gauntlet soon broke him from his sorrowful reverie as his already hurt head bounced off of the wall behind him that hadn't crumbled under the wrath of the Lord of Riots who had leaned forward so that he could hear the words of the gift delivered to him by one of Malfegor's brothers, Cai letting out an involuntary yelp of pain as his dad shook him, the pressure on his shoulder and chest that he had previously thought couldn't get any worse increasing even more to the point where he felt that his very soul was being crushed out of his body.

Had he been able to process normal thought through the turmoil of sadness and despair swirling within his mind, Caiellis would have been worried about the amount of damage his body was sustaining in this battle for Usnaan, especially since it couldn't be healed because of the Rain of Gore that fell down from the dark heavens of the crackling Tempest of Craving, but right now the boy was entirely focussed upon his thoughts and what his father was saying to him, though for a moment all he could hear was a white noise resounding through his skull because of the further abuse inflicted upon it, until that faded and he was able to perceive what his dad was saying anyway, although he soon came to the conclusion that the sensory deprivation was much worse.

"Are you hearing me, boy?" the man hissed, suddenly much more angry than he was before as instead of just cold fury his rage then became inflamed, the grip on his shoulder and the front of his shirt becoming even more painful as the boy whimpered, slumping against the wall and resigned to his fate, though his dad wouldn't let him attempt to escape from the pain and pressed his face forwards, letting go of his shoulder with his right hand (which only eased the pain slightly, suggesting that it was broken or near that point, and subsequently heightened the pain on his chest as he had to be pressed harder so that his father could keep him off of his feet) and grabbed the side of his youthful face, forcing him to look into his eyes as the purple light of the tears streaming down his Black Sun birthmark was contrasted heavily by the pure White light emitted by the man's normally large hand that was even bigger with the bloodstained gauntlet sheathing it, the man's large metal-clad finger resting just above the large cut on his head and pressing into the wound.

Cai tried to pull away, but his dad's grip was as strong as it had ever been and easily held his physically weak son in place, leaning closer so that the boy could feel the heat of his breath on his bruised and bloodied face, and if he didn't already have blood from numerous cuts and the steaming Rain of Gore as well as tears rushing down his ashen face underneath all of the crimson, the boy would have felt the flecks of lifeblood from Marik's breath spattered onto his face that suggested internal bleeding as he was forced to look into the man's eyes. Caiellis could feel his very soul and internal essence shrivelling up under that white hot glower of rage and felt smaller than he ever had done in the past, powerless to move or force his father away from him, not that it would erase his failures and his uselessness and the fact that everyone he had ever loved had gotten in danger because of him.

The pressure on his lungs made every breath he took painful as his dad hauled him further up the wall and pressed his own face closer until they were virtually nose to nose, the king's physical strength coupled with his youngest son's insubstantial weight making the move easily possible as Caiellis squirmed as his father shouted right into his face, "Your brother, my precious Alexander who will one day make a great king, could die at any moment just because _you _thought that it was acceptable to disobey my orders and rush into the city on your own! You could have at least got yourself killed without allowing this to happen! Alexander could be murdered at any second because of the fact that you made me have to run after you! He is the best thing that has ever happened to you, you worthless, useless, disgusting little brat! And what is worse, your mother who almost died giving birth to a son we never wanted, died to save your pathetic, miserable existence! The most perfect woman on the planet gave her life for _you_!"

Every word was like a piercing stab from a blade designed to inflict huge amounts of torture into the boy's brain as he cried, knowing that he looked as pitiful as his father suggested as he recoiled away from the words that condemned his whole life and even his existence, Caiellis's dad punctuating every bellowed statement by pulling his son back and smashing him into the wall again, sending dust and rubble crumbling from it and crashing into the ground next to them because of the fact his already strong attacks were augmented by the mana pouring out of him because of the fact he had Summoned the now crazed Angel of Wrath as he roared, "SO YOU COULD WHAT?! WASTE IT ARGUING WITH ME AND PUTTING THE KINGDOM AND THE ONLY SON THAT I EVER WANTED IN DANGER?!"

The man pulled the hand holding Caiellis's head in place back and punched him across the face, though not hard enough so that it would knock the boy unconscious nor prevent him from hearing the words that he was shouting at him, simply to put his son in more pain in an act that wasn't characteristic of what Marik would normally do nor something that matched his earlier assertions that he simply wanted his son dead or out of the way so that he could focus solely on the grinning Defiler as the king grabbed the boy again and shook him hard, once again forcing him to look back into his eyes as he shouted, "YOU CAN'T BE MY SON! NO SON OF MINE WOULD BE THIS PATHETIC, THIS PITIFUL, THIS SELFISH OR USELESS! EMILI WAS THE PERFECT WIFE, AND ALEXANDER IS THE PERFECT SON, AND YOU HAVE CAUSED THE DEATH OF THE FORMER AND ENDANGERED THE LATTER! TELL ME NOW THAT I DON'T MEAN IT!"

"Dad … please stop … please … I'm sorry … I didn't..." Cai gasped out through the pain, looking pleadingly up at his furious and mad father in the vain hope that his words and pain would penetrate through to him, but if what Marik had said was true – and the youngest Lucerna had no reason not to the believe the words – then the man had never loved him, that the affection Marik had shown to him in the past had never happened and had just been conjured by his young mind because he hadn't truly understood what was going on, because of the fact that the king had never wanted another son after having Alex. Marik simply glowered at him, moving his hand round from the side of the boy's face to the front as he alternated between gasps of torture and attempts to get air, and whimpered sobs at the feeling of utter hopelessness and despair worse than he had ever experienced before, even when trying to kill himself in the past because of him learning about the terrible deeds of the Angel of the Black Sun inside of him, begging, "Dad … Please … I'm sorry … I just … wanted to-"  
Marik's hand lingered over his son's thin and still bruised throat for a second, assuming the exact same position it had been at the morning of yesterday, though this time if it was placed on there then it would be squeezing with a killing force, but some internal force within him prevented him from keeping it there and strangling his youngest son to death, the last remnants of free will that the king had over his anger stopping him from re-enacting the worst actions apart from these that he had ever inflicted upon either of his sons.

This was all unbeknownst to Caiellis, who had snapped his eyes shut, unable to take his father's piercing gaze any longer and was still whimpering, pleading desperately for the man to let him go despite the fact that deep down he knew he deserved his dad's punishment, knew he deserved the pain for his crimes and his failures against the people of Lucael and his big brother that had always protected him while his sibling failed to reciprocate the acts of kindness and do the same. He then opened his eyes again, tears still slipping out of them from the whirlpool of emotion within his broken heart, still imploring his dad to let him go despite the fact that he could barely string together a few words in a row because of the pressure on his chest and small lungs and the fact that his body was wracked with shivering sobs that made it hard to speak, "Dad … stop … I only … wanted to help."

Instead of grabbing him by the throat, Marik forced his son's mouth shut with his hand instead, harshly closing the jaw with a force of grip that would leave bruises afterwards as the metal of his gauntlet dug into the boy's chin, shouting, "Shut the hell up, Caiellis! Just shut up!"

Pawing at the man's arms didn't achieve anything but increase the pain he was in, and Cai's dad's grip didn't even move in the slightest despite his son's resistance as he tried to pull away or somehow make his father let go of him and release him, though Caiellis wasn't sure was he hadn't just given up already and let his dad end his pitiful life so that he couldn't be there to ruin anything else. No, he decided, he needed to live because the Lord of Riots was his responsibility, the Archdemon had led the Welkalites to this dark fate and abused the population through the Orders of Violence. _He _had caused this, which was exactly what his father had said, and it was his responsibility to end it no matter how wounded he was at the moment.

There was no doubt in Caiellis's mind that he was in an awful state, as he was still crying like some sort of pathetic child, though right now he was honestly very surprised he could focus his thoughts into clarity with the amount of emotional pain and turmoil he was in, or until his dad suddenly overcame the compulsion with him that was preventing him from going for his son's throat and slammed the boy against the wall by it, releasing his chin and shirt in favour of wringing his neck. Pain blossomed in Cai's back when he was smashed into the wall again, his ribs aching with agony that shuddered throughout his being as his air was cut off violently, his train of thought immediately disrupted as his fear resounded tenfold through his body as he tried to cried out in pain, but all that came out was a muffled and strangled gasp for air as one of his greatest fears was enacted upon him by the man that was supposed to love, care for him and nurture him until he became an adult but who instead had never even wanted him and now was going to kill him in the worst way possible to Caiellis's young mind.

Tears dripped down his face as he frantically tried to pull away or wrench himself out of his father's grip as the man smiled mirthlessly and sadistically, clearly taking pleasure in his son's pain despite himself, before the smile was replaced by further anger at Cai's barely heard pleading and he squeezed tighter to cut off the boy's air completely, leaving him utterly oxygen deprived as he thrashed despite the pain and primal fear flowing through him even though he knew that he had earned this torment through his failings and his worthlessness in keeping the people that depended upon him and protecting him safe in firstly rushing away from them to try and prove himself in a naïve attempt to have them, his fellow Lucaelians that either looked up to him as a divine Lucerna prince with an emissary from the highest of heavens to aid him in his exalted duty or the ones that knew him more personally and tried to nurture him (much like his dad had failed to do, although Caiellis could still remember a time where the younger him had loved the man and felt that it was mutual, which made the fact that Marik was killing him even more terrifying) go through less hardship, and secondly failing to stop the demonic Summoning of the Lord of Riots through the poor Jarred Redhand when he had been distracted by his victory over Tradax.

As black spots appeared in his vision and the drumbeat of the adrenaline fuelled blood within his skull became even louder and more painful, his consciousness – and with it, his life – slipping away from him every second, the tears slipping out of his now bloodshot emerald green eyes ran down his chin and onto his father's gauntlets, collecting there and fusing with the blood from the Rain of Gore and Caiellis's injuries that had poured onto them while the Black Sun on his pale cheek stained with crimson rivulets pulsed with a malevolent purple glow entirely eclipsed by the White mana emitted by the king of Lucael.

He couldn't breathe at all, that much was a given with his dad's prodigious physical strength directed against him in the man's anger and hatred, and he looked up at the one who had been an essential part in creating him imploringly, knowing that he was going to die if Marik didn't let go within a matter of seconds as darkness swirled around his vision and distorted his father's visage into something more akin to a demon, twisting the man's furious expression into the one of sadistic glee worn by the grinning demon that had killed his and Alexander's beloved and loving mother, and though that was terrifying in itself his starved and terrified mind blended the reality of the situation with the boy's memories, presenting him with images representing both the death of his mum and the fact that she had been ripped away from him and his brother, and the anger, disappointment and pure seething _hatred _of his dad's current appearance, the betrayal of his dad.

Well, it wasn't really a betrayal, as Marik hadn't ever wanted to have a second son, and Cai didn't blame him because of how much better Alex was compared to him. However, despite the fact that he had once thought that Marik had loved him when he was four years old as well, some part of his mind insisted that Emili Noctis had wanted him, had loved him, but it had been his fault that she had died. He had clearly been strong enough to kill the demons that had murdered his mum, as he could remember with absolute clarity the rush of pure Black mana that had erupted from his extremely young hands and had utterly destroyed the demonic assailants in a blast of dark flames, but had been too weak, too useless, to protect one of the few people in his life that actually loved him and she had paid the price for it.

Caiellis looked up at Marik pleadingly, his fingers scrabbling at the edge of his dad's armoured and unstoppably strong hands, not even dislodging one of the fingers with the increasingly faltering combined strength of both of his own thin and small hands as he tried to eke even a small breath of air into his burning lungs, his father's hands clamped harshly around his windpipe and putting painful pressure on the bruise that he had created the day before, not letting any life giving oxygen into his choking son who couldn't even gasp. Unbeknownst to him, his beloved big brother Alex was suffering the exact same fate as him at this moment in time, but the seventeen year old was much further away from death because of the fact he was stronger and his larger lungs could make his last breath last longer, whereas his fragile younger sibling was moments away from a plunge into darkness of which there would be no end or escape.

He batted weakly at the man's constricting hands before his fingers lost all energy within them and his arms fell numb at his sides as his dad's thumbs were pressed harder into the centre of his neck, the man's eyes piercing blue mixed with the gleaming peals of midnight obsidian the shape shifting demon that had ruined his life had fixed the four year old him with, and a thin trickle of crimson blood that was stark against the bluish pallor of his gaunt features and the vivid, almost pulsing red of the Rain of Gore spattered upon his face ran down from his corner of his mouth, just as unnoticed as the tears that joined it on the way down his face, splashing on his dad's uncaring and choking hands as his son died in his arms, his kicking legs falling still as well as the extremities of all of his limbs became number still, Marik almost completely crushing his windpipe though it was evident that at the moment he wanted to avoid that – as he could have easily snapped Caiellis's neck by now, or smashed his brains out on the wall behind him, or incinerated him in an immensely powerful bolt of wrathful White mana, but the man seemed to be enjoying prolonging his suffering for a few seconds longer than entirely needed as he killed the thirteen year old.

_So this is what my life amounts to, _Cai thought, deep within his mind as the rest of it drowned in fear and began to shut down in a last ditch effort to preserve his oxygen deprived form, _A complete failure, a burden to everyone that has ever tried to help me or had to take care of me or protect me because of their duty in protecting the Lucerna line. I've failed in every way possible, and now all that is left is for me to die, killed by the one that made me in a mistake. But … But I don't want to die, _one whimpering and quivering part of his mind begged, sobbing uncontrollably and providing sustenance for his tears that slipped silently out of his eyes, his fear controlling him and removing the more calmly disappointed and loathing-filled part of his psyche.

The young adolescent tried one last time to pull his father's hands away from his throat and didn't even succeed in moving his arms from where they had fallen limply at his side as he hung in the air, lifted up by Marik and pressed up against the last remnants of masonry in the Protector's Mansion as his vision began to fade away and he began the plunge into the place he hoped would take him away from the pain, the place that might allow him to see his mother again and feel the touch of her loving and tender hands on his forehead again. The loving embrace of his mother after huge amounts of pain that he didn't remember that must have been due to his premature birth was his first memory, and some gentle and caring part of his mind tried to focus on that, interspersing it with the brotherly love Alexander had always shown to him and the friendship that the older boy had forever given freely to his little brother so that he could concentrate on something happy before he left this world of hurt, but that happy image was soon shattered by his father's words and the realisation that Emili had died because of him and Alex may well suffer the same fate because of his foolish and selfish actions.

Marik placed his mouth next to Caiellis's ear as his son's eyelids began to flutter and more blood trickled out of his open mouth as he tried to breathe and fill his dying body with revitalising air, ensuring that his whispered words were loud enough to be heard over the pounding that would be inside of the boy's skull as his body began to give out, though there would be less than a minute after the slip into unconsciousness where the king would have to keep up the pressure of his grip if he wanted his son dead, as he muttered, his voice full of hatred and disappointment that made Caiellis's heart ache and would be the last thing he ever heard, "Why don't you do us all a favour, and just die?"

Cai was wracked with one last sob, though he couldn't hear whether or not his whimpering had got out past his forcefully closed windpipe over the crescendo of adrenalized blood resounding within his brutalised skull, though none of the pain in his body was worse than the burning in his lungs, and even that was easily outmatched by the emotional torment of his entire life focussed into one point of sadness and terror as his eyes began to close, mere seconds away from drifting into an unconsciousness he desperately wanted to avoid despite knowing that he had earned it, before the pressure on his throat suddenly eased up and he slumped to the ground, scraping his back on a jagged spike of rock as he tumbled down the wall and jarring his ribs on the fall.

He fell to his knees, automatically gasping for breath and unable to do anything other than greedily drink upon the air that flowed into his lungs, the taste of copper on his tongue from his own blood that had got into his mouth because of his father almost crushing his already fragile windpipe mingling and mixing with the unnaturally rich and vile metallic flavour from the Rain of Gore and the taste of ash derived from the corrupted air that flooded into him as he took in several long shuddering gasps, his vision still blurred with tears and the rush of air to his brain that would have seemed euphoric – and did to Alexander, as the same had just occurred to him in the Champion's Quarter – had he not been suffering so much emotionally, and his head pounded with the new air and blood – as his father had cut off his supply of it in the last moments of his near death – rushing through his form that was trembling with fear in spite of the proximity to death being removed for now.

He could sense an incredibly powerful presence filled with anger and hatred in front of him, but all the boy could see past his blurring vision was alternating streaks of different shades of light and darkness flashing across his vision, and past the resounding drumbeat within his skull that was resting limply against the wall despite the pain that it brought on he could hear the beating of angelic wings and feel the air buffeted around by them on his face. His head hurt, but Cai knew that moving it would simply bring on more pain as his lungs drank upon the gift of malicious air that was tainted by the overwhelming and land-altering power of an Archdemon that was increasing every second they delayed, no doubt warping Usnaan into its own hellish visage of a hedonistic and degenerate paradise for pursuing any and every forbidden sin.

The fact that he was breathing at an extremely heightened rate and almost hyperventilating – though each of the breaths was very long to maximise inhalation in spite of his fear and screaming instincts – was causing large amounts of pain to his damaged ribs – _pain that I deserve because I allowed this and much worse to happen to Alex when we were fighting Aksua – _which could help him immensely in empathising with his older brother who had suffered worse, and felt very light-headed because of the fact he had almost been asphyxiated and now he could breathe again and his body was taking full advantage of that sudden freedom, though his throat hurt more than anywhere on his body and would almost certainly develop a gigantic bruise to supplement the one already inflicted upon it by his father that hated him.

Caiellis knew that he wasn't out of danger yet, and that he should be moving to help whoever had saved him – probably Orzhova – against either his maddened dad that rightly hated his failure of a son more than anything else on the super-continent at the moment or the Archdemon if for some reason Marik thought that he had punished his son enough and that was why he let go, but didn't want to move and couldn't get over his sadness of having the life almost squeezed from him. It was similar to how he had reacted the first time it had happened with his father, unable to process any information in his mind other than the fact that the person he had idolised for the awful nine years of his short life in the brutal civil war caused by his uncle hated him and had tried to kill him, and for real this time – although the youngest Lucerna supposed that the incident previous to this one had been prevented by his Uncle Tristram who was probably being hurt right now because of his smallest student's utter failure to achieve anything in his pitiful life.

That was probably because if Marik had been seen killing his son by someone else, while the kingdom would be happy because the dreaded Angel of the Black Sun would lose her ability to enter the mortal realm for a long period of time, those that were for some stupid reason close to the thirteen year old would never forgive the king, whereas now Caiellis's father could blame his death on the Lord of Riots and get away with it easily, and that agonising revelation came with another burst of despair within his mind as the frequency of tears spilling out of his eyes increased as he succumbed to his sorrow again, wishing that whoever had saved him hadn't done so that he could have just died and got away from this horrible world that hated him and held the people that he held the most dear to his heart that the boy was just hurting by existing.

The adolescent could vaguely perceive the stony and angry tones of his father snarling something at the one stood protectively in front of him, but couldn't make out the content of the words over the sound of his blood rushing through his head - had the youngster been thinking rationally, Caiellis would have identified the concussion when it occurred, which was the first time he had been thrown across the courtyard by his furious dad and monarch and his frail skull had collided with the wall that was the only thing stopping him from sprawling out on the blood slick stone of the plaza now and had been accentuated by the repeated slamming against the aforementioned wall that had almost been the site of where he had died, but right now the ringing in his ears that temporarily blocked out the sounds of the world around him proved to be a perfect opportunity for his sorrowful thoughts to drown out any other logical thinking that might occur as he sobbed loudly in pain and mental distress.

_I wish … I wish he hadn't stopped. It would have been better than having to face his anger for a second time and having that happen again, because I'm not strong enough to face him – just like I'm not strong to do anything of merit – again. I can't do this any more … I don't want to live any more … I'm just a burden … I don't want to hurt anyone else; I don't want the people I love to be hurt because of me. All I want is for Alex to be safe and happy, and he can't be with me here, putting him at risk and making him feel that he has to protect me because I'm too pathetic to do so myself. I don't know … I'm so scared … I want my big brother, but he's probably being hurt because of me right now. I don't … I don't know what to do. _Caiellis's was wracked with more sobs that hurt everywhere on his fragile form as the tears cascading out of his eyes became a torrent of sadness and misery that he could remain drowning within forever because of the wounding of his heart that most likely didn't survive any more.

_Stop being so damn selfish! _Another part of his mind shouted at him, rousing the saddened part of him from where it was submerged in a pool of shed tears and the dejection that had encapsulated his entire life after the death of his mother; Cai could say that the voice sounded like the strong and confident tones of his older brother mixed in with the accusing voice of his father that had failed to deliver all that he had ever wanted from him, which was parental love that Caiellis knew he hadn't earned but greedily wanted anyway, the same type of love that he showed to Alexander, or the urging tones of Uncle Tristram when he was about to give up on the final lap of one of the brutal exercise regimes the Guardian had set for him and his brother during the civil war so that they could keep up their fitness, but most prominently the voice was his own, inflected with self-loathing that made the other part of him want to hide away from himself and continue wallowing in misery and self pity.

_Nobody cares that you don't want to live any more, you have a duty to the kingdom and to those that had loved and protected you since you were born to atone for your crimes and end the threat of an Archdemon that _you _caused to be Summoned with your own weakness and stupidity, Caiellis Noctis Lucerna, and I will not let you give up now! You will fight, you will destroy Rakdos and banish him from the City of Pleasure so that the Lucaelians who are depending upon you as a Lucerna prince can win this war that the Lord of Riots caused and so that the people that have given up so much for you. This is your duty, your responsibility, and I won't let you run from it any more despite the fact that you feel terrified, sad and betrayed by your father who had no cause to love you in the first place. You can have your rest once you have killed the Defiler and removed the stain of your mistakes from the world so that everyone else can get on with their lives and stop worrying about you. _

Caiellis forced his eyes to open, tears still dripping out of them but at a much lesser rate than they were before, and was presented with an upwards range of vision that indicated his head had lolled back and he was staring at the roiling and rumbling Tempest of Craving that streaked bolts of lightning across the sky. He shut his mouth, grimacing at the pain he was in and the foul taste of his own blood mixed in with that of the Rain of Gore that he was sure would corrupt his insides should he accidentally swallow it, and tried to ignore the horrible throbbing within his head because of his overwhelming fear at what had occurred so far in this battle against Rakdos and then his father, the horrific images of ultimate debaucheries and abominable vice dancing behind his open eyes as he stared up at the crackling sky that fulminated crimson lightning as well as releasing gouts of bright orange and red hellfire that erupted out of its gaping maw of angry clouds onto the City of Pleasure below, lighting up the courtyard where the Lord of Riots resided in a wan glow of flames that augmented the hot illumination of the pits of lava surrounding it. Ash fell down from the sky, mingling with the bloody droplets still falling torrentially onto Usnaan and placing a bitter taste on Caiellis's tongue, though every sensation the boy was feeling – including his pain and terror – was exacerbated by the malicious effects of the storm above and more prominently his proximity to the Archdemon that had created it and was an avatar of hedonistic destruction.

The boy placed his palms on the ground that was covered in blood, his own and that generated by and deposited from the Tempest of Craving, the hot and sticky liquid flowing between his thin and weak fingertips that only moments early had been feebly trying to pry his father's own large, metal-clad and incredibly powerful fingers from wrapping around his neck, and Cai was afflicted with another wracking sob as he came to terms with how close he had got to the death in his dad's hands that hurt his broken ribs and back and had him coughing violently by the end, his hot saliva inflected with blood coming from his throat and drooling down his face like it had done when he had been on the precipice of a death he had wanted yet had been extremely scared of. He watched as the screaming tempest above ejected several large and screeching meteorites out of its passionate depths that streaked through the sky and left contrails of fire in the after images of Caiellis's vision as he blinked to remove the tears of pain, melancholy and fear and blood that was blurring his eyesight and stinging his eyes, and felt the impact of the ones that smashed into locations nearby to the dead Protector's private mansion shaking the ground and increasing the pain he felt.

Cai could say he was in agony, which was true, but he knew that Alexander had been through much worse with the wounds he had suffered at the delicate but vindictive hands of the last vampire temptress they knew existed and that was just the physical injuries the seventeen year old had been forced to endure, as Aksua's vampiric curse had travelled through his bloodstream and made him cough up buckets of thick and viscous corrupted black lifeblood that the thirteen year old saw in some of his nightmares that taunted him with the near death of his big brother, and so if he wanted to try and prove one last time that he was at least worthy of the title of Lucaelian, if not Lucerna – as there was no possibility of that happening – then he would have to suck it up and continue on with this fight. He could have his escape from the pain soon, and would rather die in combat against the Archdemon that polluted the New Empire of Passion with its malignant presence than give up now and succumb to his wounds. Maybe then, even if he couldn't ever make Marik love him, his father might be proud of his loyalty to the cause of righteousness and his desire to help other people that had helped him and preserve the lives of innocents.

Cai started first by moving his head round in an attempt to look over at where he now sensed the hazy presence of Orzhova protecting him from any further attack from his father and, he assumed, Akroma, though his sixth sense was heavily distorted by the entrance of an Archdemon made of disruptive Red mana sadistic Black and, because of the concussion he had now identified, it was extremely painful to try and focus on his magical detection, much less use the Lenses of Innocence or Guilt for more than a second, but soon regretted the quick movements as they sent pulsing waves of pure torment resonating through his hurt body and increased the loudness of the ringing in his ears, reminding him of when he had suffered through migraines in the past – such as the worst one he had ever experienced eight days ago – although the littlest son of Marik knew that he wasn't going through one because of the fact he wasn't that confused, just incredibly scared as his heart pounded in his ears and was in his mouth. He cried out in a gasp of pain that hurt his heavily abused throat as the world began to swim, instantly stopping his actions and waiting until the pain abated and the thirteen year old would be able to move his bleeding and seemingly extremely light yet paradoxically monumentally heavy head again.

He slumped again, tears falling out of his sad green eyes that were full of fear until he closed them, almost fully exhausted and incredibly tempted to just to give up – _what is the point in living if all I do is put other people in danger because of my weakness and my father, my last living parent, doesn't love me? _\- but with that came an adamant steel he hadn't felt since Orzhova had pulled him out of the courtyard during the Lord of Riots's explosive entrance into the city of Usnaan and they had talked in the Voidwalk, a determination to at least atone for this crime slightly fortifying his mind because of the fact he was still oxygen-starved and scared almost more than he had ever been before – Cai was just as terrified as he had been when his kind mother had been ripped apart in front of his young eyes and there had been nothing his pathetic self had done about it until she had died, the moment that had defined his entire life of being a burden to others and having his loved ones torn away from him because of his worthlessness that his father had informed him of.

Caiellis tried again, opening his eyes for a second time and ignoring the blurriness of his vision that came with the feeling of light-headedness at suddenly being able to breathe again after almost being choked to death, moving his head slower this time so that it didn't hurt as much and pushing his hands on the ground, the sweaty and hot palms almost slipping on the gore on the cracked and heated stone, something that would have sent him toppling over and put a stop to his recovery, his breaths coming in short and sharp wheezes as the numbness he had felt as his body had shut down due to the lack of oxygen within it caused by the constricting hands of the angry Marik dissipating completely as painful sensation returned to him, and he would have smiled wryly if he could manage any other expression than a grimace of pain and mournfulness as he couldn't even recall all of the wounds he had suffered since first fighting against Tradax in what seemed like months but was less than half an hour ago – which, coupled with his forced second Summoning of Orzhova, did not bode well for his current situation – and he repressed a yelp of agony as he shifted his ribs.

That was before imperious golden-white mana that didn't heal because of the disastrous consequences that would entail due to the rejuvenation preventing effects of the unholy Rain of Gore wrapped around his limbs, and while it did little to sooth his pain – even forcing him to stifle a shout when coils surrounded his broken ribs – the boy knew that it would help him with his goal of standing up and then continuing in his fight with the Lord of Riots, perhaps even helping his father if the man- _right, get that ridiculous notion out of your head now you idiot. There is no way that dad, who has just tried to kill me and almost succeeded in his task because of how shamefully weak I am, will permit me to fight by his side against the Archdemon, so stop thinking that now. You know that he hates you, and rightly so, because you caused his wife to die and are now stopping him from taking care of your much more deserving of his help and love older brother, and I don't understand why some part of me keeps thinking that there is a small possibility he will aid me, because there isn't._

_I don't deserve anyone's help, that much I've already established, because I am just a weak, frightened and scared little boy that is trying (and horribly failing) to be an adult and emulating the rest of his family and who isn't strong enough to protect himself and forces other people to do it instead, who end up getting hurt because of it. __No matter what I have tried – whether it be constantly rebelling and defying, or trying to act as the perfect son and silently obeying all the orders that come at me without objection – it has always just ended the same: in failure. I can't do anything worth me continuing to live, and it has forever been that way, but maybe I will be able to help before I die. _

_That's all I want now. Just to help, to try and repent for my failures so that most of all Alexander can be safer and have a happy life, and maybe that Marik can be happy as well, though if I'm honest I don't really care that much about him at all. I mean, how could I? He threw me across the courtyard, broke my ribs and burst my head open, hit me in the face and lifted me off my feet and choked the life out of me, and all of these things are exactly the opposite of the perfect father I had imagined in the civil war. But in the end, all of our arguing, all of our disputes over strategy as well as personal issues relating to our fractured relationship and both our failures to help my brother, has led to this, this fight in front of the laughing Rakdos who is clearly the greater threat and needs to be dealt with first, no matter that I know that my life is pointless and dad would rather end it sooner than later, and I _refuse _to let the Lord of Riots exist for longer in this world than I will._

_I refuse to let other people have to deal with my mistakes, and if that means immobilising dad because he won't stop trying to kill me then so be it. _Fear and determination warred for supremacy within the young boy's mind, who marvelled that his brain hadn't simply shut down because of the amount of emotional stress it had gone through and the conflicting thoughts that had battled for dominance over the last month as his hope had been crushed and rekindled almost too many times to count.

Even though he knew it was extremely selfish to everyone else, Caiellis had often wished that they were still within the civil war, that he hadn't met with his and Alex's dad after nine years of wishing to do so and imagining it as the perfect point in his mind (although his sibling had seemed to realise (having progressed out of his childhood naïvety whereas his little brother was still stuck within it) that it could never be as fantastic as the image they had cultivated, just hadn't had the heart to dispel Cai's foolish dreams of a flawless parent that had been looking forward to seeing them just as they were emboldened by the possibility of meeting him again), that it was just the four of them (Cai, his brother and his two "Uncles") relying on each other again, but each time he thought it he reminded himself how much happier everyone else was now that the civil war had ended, and that he should be incredibly grateful that it had and he had survived. At any rate, there was no time to think about that now, and he had to focus on what was important.

Which was the damned Archdemon that had caused this entire war and the arguments between him and his dad in the first place, the focal point of all of his hatred apart from the darkness that was reserved solely for Johnias (and to a lesser extent those that had betrayed the Kingdom of Light with him, enticed by the promise of power from the abyss) and that he had no idea if he was strong enough to beat or not (_haha. Very funny_), but the teenager would be damned if he didn't try and remove the stain of its presence that, in his laxity and premature thoughts of victory, he had allowed to gain a foothold in reality because of the fact he had been the only one that could have stopped it. _Dad was right. I could have at least succeeded when I made them all worry by rushing to the middle of Usnaan alone. And this is my last chance to do so._

Caiellis forced himself to calm down, trying to block out the screaming and terrified voice that he knew belonged to him in his mind as it whimpered in emotional pain and shrieked in a child's fear at the presence of a scary demon and the betrayal of the trust that he had stupidly placed within his dad to save him from the Lord of Riots, and the tears rushing out of his eyes dried up, though his wide and apparently adorable green orbs were still wet with stinging tears as he slowly pushed at the ground, glad that his arms and legs weren't that wounded.

He would have snorted derisively at how pathetic he was being, as in essence he hadn't been injured that badly over the course of the battle, and when Alexander had been badly hurt – much worse than the eldest prince's brother was now – he had done everything in his power to comfort a scared Cai who was in the process of rightfully blaming himself for his big brother's fate, and it was with thoughts of Alex in his mind he gripped the ground hard, cutting his fingers on the shredded ground and the jagged rubble that had tumbled from the destabilised wall, but he didn't care and pushed on to it, trying desperately to get to his feet as he was confronted with one of his more recent memories of the battle for Fort Egetau the day previous to yesterday when he had been knocked unconscious by a Red mana explosive and had his legs burnt painfully, unable to stand up despite his uncaring and stony dad's insistence and urging. He refused to have a repeat of that, one of his many failures in attempting to be a Lucerna, and bit his lip hard as his ribs screamed at him because of the movement as he forced himself upright, possessed of a determination that would have been praised had this been any other situation, and ignored the wave of exhaustion that threatened to halt this endeavour to stand back up and face the Defiler once again in his tracks.

Despite the fact that Caiellis felt it had been hours since his father had been crushing his windpipe with his gauntleted hands against the wall he was using for support now, it had been just less than forty seconds ago and by all means he was still suffering from the effects of the oxygen deprivation that had almost killed him and would have caused permanent brain damage if it hadn't and Orzhova hadn't come to his aid as quickly as she had.

He felt light-headed, his body ached with pain in numerous locations but most prominently from his ribs, split head and (slightly less) his throat as breathing hurt the first and the last as well as exacerbating the concussive effects of the second, and because of the Rain of Gore he couldn't heal any of it, though the enchantments his kind angel who for some reason believed in him and thought he was special had blessed him with were helping out greatly and reducing the pain from moving, as well as the shining respirator that was surrounding his mouth once again now that the silencing mana of his dad and supreme monarch had been removed purifying the air so that he could breathe easier without having to ingest too much of the ash when he had gasped almost convulsively for air after having been dropped.

Caiellis pushed past the pain, knowing that this was what his brother would do and that the quicker he ended the threat of the demon, the quicker Alexander would be out of danger (_if I haven't caused his death already..._) and the less likely he would be injured or hurt, and surged to his feet with the fortifying mana accommodating his movements and moulding around him like a full set of crystalline armour that shimmered in the flashing and blaring lights of the Tempest of Craving that hurt his eyes and reminded him of the headache he had suffered after first laying eyes on the City of Pleasure during the abduction that had been his fault and that he had been in the throes of recovering from a lack of air then as well because of Arendus Draal that would be fighting against the Lucaelians now (or hopefully dead), just these dangerously individualistic and hedonistic flashes were the product of demonic and sacrilegious magic instead of machines that used mana to power them.

The small and frail boy that was not yet five feet tall scrambled to his feet through his adamant will to succeed with at least one thing worthy of merit in his life, his head pounding and ringing as if it was attempting to distract him and force him to submit to the pain and let the tears that were retained in an endless and eternal reservoir of sadness and despair that could pour out of his eyes at any moment despite the fact that the amount that had done already could provide water for a whole Lucaelian metropolis drown him in their cold embrace, and his vision spinning with the sudden change in altitude (as, contrary to his earlier thoughts, he had decided not to take it slowly and complete the task as soon as possible and ride through the pain) that almost had him staggering over and falling flat on his face the second he stood up, which would not have been nice on his head and broken ribs, before a slender yet extremely strong and restraining hand held him upright and prevented him from falling. Caiellis couldn't suppress a yelp of pain that slipped through his bloodied and split lips at the touch that was intended to be gentle, although it was more due to the fact that his body decided that now was a good time to put him under even more pain as circles of light and shadow spun behind his eyes in tandem with the vibrantly disgusting images that he had seen ever since Rakdos entered reality and had caused a constant pain in his young mind that he had ignored and had been overrun by other emotions and thoughts because of his dad arriving and almost immediately starting to kill him.

The first thing that he heard when the ringing in his head dissipated slightly, receding to tolerable levels that would allow him to hear other things, was the cacophonous rumbling of the Tempest of Craving combined with the sound of crackling lightning, booming thunder, screaming meteorites of hellfire as they howled through the darkened sky, cries of ultimate pleasure and sounds of the most debased indulgence and excess combined with the agonising deaths of thousands of weak innocents, but after that he could hear his own heavy, almost sobbing breathing, and could feel the saturation of three types of mana – White, Black and Red – in the air around him.

"I half expected you to stay down after that and just give up, you damn disappointment of a son," a voice that had last been heard by him when it was whispered in his ear just as he was about to be throttled into unconsciousness spoke from a few metres away, full of hatred and barely repressed anger like his father had managed to push it back inside of him now that his son wasn't close to him and he didn't have chance to unleash it upon the boy right at this moment, as if he was saving it for another chance to attempt to kill his youngest son once again, and Caiellis looked past the angel that he could now see was stood protectively in front of him who had let go of him with her hand and spun back around before he could thank her or look into her eyes, though the boy could sense the darkness swirling within the Angel of the Black Sun rising to the fore through her flawless skin and felt some of the magisterial awe and terror he had experienced when meeting her and Summoning her for the first few times, although it was still eclipsed by his fear and sadness.

The man snorted, stood only a few metres away with him, and crossed his arms with his Lucerna greatsword pointing into the ground, evidently having retrieved it in the time it took for Caiellis to recover from his strangulation, although underneath the disdain and the contempt the man was trembling with barely suppressed anger that seeped through his entire being and make the imposing man shake with the force of it, and aloft next to him was the Angel of Wrath that Cai almost gulped to see but pre-emptively stopped himself from doing so because he knew that it would only make his throat hurt further and ideally he wanted to avoid that, wishing that the Rain of Gore wasn't active so that he could repair some of the least significant wounds and not have to deal with them while he fought, but then again if he was going to be wishing for things then there was a lot he would prefer to have instead of being able to heal himself.

One part of him still felt the almost primal and instinctual desire to have Alex here so that they could face this threat together like they were apparently (according to the older adolescent, although the youngest Lucerna knew that while Alexander trusted his little brother to back him up in confrontations the eldest prince would much prefer Caiellis to be away from the fighting so that there was no chance of the weaker thirteen year old being damaged), but the rest of him knew that if his older brother and best friend was there with him then there would be a very high chance of the blonde getting hurt as he threw himself in front of blows intended for his sibling in order to protect his physically (_and mentally_) weak brother from any harm that would affect his fragile form much more than it would Alex's toned physique that was usually filled with youthful energy that barely ever failed to make Cai happy.

"But then again, it is typical of you to take every opportunity you can to do the exact opposite of what I expected of you and to disobey me at every turn," the man continued, his voice as relatively austere and stony as it usually was, and if his vaguely normal tones didn't belie a hint of anger that Caiellis's life had been taken out of his grasp and that his youngest son had survived to bother him further then the boy would half believe that his father was utterly unconcerned by the turn of events, like choking your son half into unconsciousness was just a generic routine that he had gone over millions of times and didn't require his attention any more than remembering to eat did, though it was the fury present underneath the cold and dispassionate voice reminiscent of how they had first spoken after nine years when Marik had been informed that his second born hadn't yet passed his Summoning trial despite being the age of thirteen and having started his teenage years and when his dad had attempted to stay calm during some of their arguments, an endeavour which inevitably always failed, that scared him.

For all the boy might profess that he didn't want to live any longer and that he wanted to leave this world that was full of pain and failure as he, the square key, was rammed into the circular hole built for a Lucerna again and again and again with potentially cataclysmic consequences for everyone involved, he was utterly terrified of having his dad place his large hands around his son's throat for a third time, as he knew that if it happened then there would be no way he would survive and that his dad wouldn't make the same mistake of not snapping his neck almost immediately and ensuring that he died instead of revelling in his pathetic and feeble struggling to remove the obstruction to his breathing in a way that seemed uncharacteristic for the king of Lucael but aptly emphasised how much he hated his youngest son. If he was to die at his father's hands, he would much rather it be by a bolt of incinerating holy light, or to be impaled or decapitated by the gigantic broadsword he wielded – a quick death, not one accompanied by the thoughts of desperation and fear as his last reserves of air seemingly slowly but in actual fact quickly gave out as he tried frantically to breathe.

Caiellis tried not to shudder in fear at the thought of going through that for a second time on this day, as he had barely recovered from the first and his mind was in a state of heightened adrenaline – both from the sense (apart from his magical one, as it simply disrupted and confused that) enhancing effects of the Tempest of Craving most likely meant to allow those underneath it to relish the ultimate sensations and augmented experiences they were undergoing, and the fear and terror as well as his hatred of demons that made his small (and in the minds of others, courageous, though Caiellis would never think that about himself) heart beat ever faster – that would mean he would be extremely exhausted when it ran out and he couldn't sustain Orzhova any longer, and the only reason he hadn't yet collapsed and given into the pull of blessed unconsciousness at the back of his mind was because he was in an adrenalized state, and when that ended he would definitely fall into some form of sleep, whether it be one that he engendered himself to free himself from all this pain and free others from the detrimental responsibility of caring for him or one fuelled by his utter bone tiredness.

"Do not speak to him!" Orzhova snarled back at the king, her voice full of more hatred than Caiellis had ever heard from it before, which was surprising considering they had spoken with Archdemons, the manifestations of vile sin itself and the highest order of power within the darkness (known to mankind, at any rate) that surrounded the Kingdom of Light and the land known as Lucael, though Cai sensed that this was a different type of detestation than the semi-righteous (as the Angel of the Black Sun was dissimilar to her other sisters in that respect, her desire to kill the demons derived more from her hatred of them than any particular loyalty to protect the things that they destroyed or threatened – in Caiellis's point of view, at any rate) she reserved for the demonic denizens of Sancturia – this was the hatred of traitors that he had felt himself, which was in itself quite ironic considering her past, but this was more the loathing for those that broke bonds of family and endangered things that she loved, a variation of his own all encompassing fear at having his father turn on him then.

A sudden thought occurred to the small boy, who was incredibly grateful for the auras clothing his fragile and damaged body that allowed him to stand, as he wasn't entirely sure how Orzhova had got to him to protect him from the king of Lucael because of the fact he had been half-conscious and dying at the time – Cai assumed that she had initiated some form of Voidwalk and had been able to pull it off without the influence of the (vaguely attention seeking in the thirteen year old's opinion, although his fear of the being far outweighed his desire to make fun of it, which reminded him of his older brother – Alexander had always used to make jokes or insult their opponents when they were fighting (sometimes when they were sparring against each other as well) malicious residents of Sancturia in the civil war, but Cai sensed that he had done it to make his little brother feel less scared and to allow him to place more trust in his sibling, as if he was joking like they would in a normal situation then Caiellis would feel more comfortable – not that he ever became at ease) void demon that seemed to enjoy taunting him and making him feel small and weak, which was true, but if the dark seraphim had been fighting Akroma as Cai had seen, there would have been little chance for her to rush through the abyss to her Summoner's side with the Angel of Wrath assaulting her relentlessly.

However, at the current moment in time the youngest prince knew that there was little time for a chat about how his angel had saved him from a death he had earned, as he was aware that because of his father's fighting style logic dictated that Marik wouldn't leave long for his smallest son to recover from his near death ordeal and press his attack further, and was only delaying slightly so that he could get ready to launch his next assault with the angry looking Angel of Wrath by his side that Caiellis did not look forward to fighting at all, though he knew that he would rather die at her hand than because of his father due to the fact that she was an angel of the highest order and as such wouldn't make his death painful because she didn't care about him as a person and simply hated the Angel of the Black Sun that was inside of them.

He retrieved the magical artefact armament that laid still a few metres away, glad that his father hadn't been able to stop him from getting it back this time and hadn't taken it himself, and when he gripped the hilt of the blade in his trembling and thin hand that was lacerated with numerous cuts from the ground that made it painful to hold things – though there was much more torment going on elsewhere in his fragile body, which made it easy to ignore to more minor wounds he had suffered – he was reminded of a time less than two weeks ago when his dad had finally interacted with him nicely after the end of the civil war and proceeding his family's discovery of the self harming he had enacted so that he could cope with the pressure of not passing the Summoning trial that he had attempted every single day on his own, and it just made him feel even sadder that despite his dad never wanting a second child in the first place, he had still occasionally acted pleasantly towards Cai and the boy had just spurned it, although Caiellis knew that it wasn't his fault for all of their arguments – well, it was, but at the time he hadn't thought that, and with that realisation came more internal pain.

Even though his father had tried – he remembered the two times they had talked over the personal mana communicator that had involved the king of Lucael praising him for things that he had done, which must have been incredibly hard for someone that didn't want their last son – Cai had always pushed him away and argued with him instead, acting like the pathetic and petty little boy that he was that didn't deserve the effort other people put into him because he was just a failure – how else could a father countenance choking their youngest son to death other than hating him as much as an enemy that they would happily kill?

Caiellis had never been blessed with a particularly high self esteem because of the fact that the closest person in age to him that he had to train with in the civil war was four years older than him and as such the smaller and more fragile Cai had always compared himself unfavourably to Alexander, and it certainly didn't help that the people that didn't know the two that well did the same and measured the Lucerna brothers alongside each other, but now the confidence in himself had been steadily dipping ever since that day thirteen days ago when his self harming had been revealed after everything that had occurred, and was now at an all time low after rising slightly when he had initiated the Voidwalk that had lead him into the Protector's private residence and allowed him to kill the most likely self-styled Archlord of Rapture, his father's words having utterly crushed the tiny semblance of a stunted and fledgling ego that he slowly developed into millions of tiny pieces that the boy knew would never be repaired.

Then the youngest Lucerna saw something odd in the way that his father appeared. Now that the man wasn't trying to kill him (in or the process of stopping him from living) and wasn't slamming him up against a wall with a strength that far outmatched anything his littlest son could muster in response, he could see clearly that Marik was breathing very laboriously and heavily, probably due to the ash laden and corrupted air that he had no protection from, and two quite large holes in his stomach that he must have sustained coming here to clean up after his second child's awful and potentially deadly for the entire Lucaelian force mistakes, the wounds bleeding out over his armour and combined with several others, but without being able to employ any form of healing the injuries in the man's lower abdomen could be fatal if they were left untended to for a while – despite the fact that he was an exalted Lucerna.

Caiellis cursed inside. His father was far more injured than his son was, as while broken ribs and a bleeding head weren't exactly pleasant occurrences the wounds in Marik's stomach area were quite bad and his heavy breathing suggested that they were in fact worse than they looked, but of course Cai hadn't noticed and had been too swept up in his own misery of having the man he had thought would finally provide some form of protection against the primal terror of the Lord of Riots, not that his dad had let the injuries prevent him from almost squeezing the life from his son either. Cai was pretty sure that in his frantic and desperate thrashing to try and somehow have the king removed his hands from where they were clamped firmly (though the word "firmly" was a significant understatement in this case and didn't do justice to the strength that the man was using to try and throttle his youngest potential heir to the Lucerna throne) around his windpipe he had kicked the holes in his dad's armour, but that wouldn't have – and hadn't, without the aid of Orzhova -stopped the eldest Lucerna from killing the young adolescent.

It was a testament to how powerful his and Alex' father was that he was still standing with the amount of blood he had lost, much less looking completely unaffected by the wounds that must have been accentuated by his movements, but the youngster knew that there was no way the forty year old would be able to contend against the destructive power of the Defiler in the state that he was in – not that Caiellis was sure that he would be able to either, as while he wasn't as physically hurt as his dad he was aware that he didn't have that much mana left to battle his father with, much less banish a godlike Archdemon from the mortal plane all alone (as it had been established that there was no way Marik and Caiellis would be working together), and Cai knew that if he died and then Marik took on the Lord of Riots then Alexander (assuming he still survived) would be the last Lucerna left in the world of man.

That meant that, as was right because he had been the only one that could have stopped the unholy Summoning of the Archdemon and failed shamefully in doing so, Cai was the only one that could take down Rakdos and save the Lucaelian force, and as such if Marik was to survive – as Caiellis didn't want to leave Alex without any family members and knew that there was no way (physically or mentally) he would be able to kill their father – he would have to incapacitate the man in such a way as to not hurt him, maybe with a spell that would end if he died so that if he did get killed by the Lord of Riots the monarch of the Kingdom of Light would be able to finish the job and hopefully capitalise upon the wounds he may have created with his sacrifice. Despite what his dad had done to him, Caiellis didn't feel anger towards him, he didn't feel anything apart from a sense of self worthlessness and pain that ran soul deep that could never be erased apart from by one thing, one thing that he had earned already but that could wait until after he dealt with the problems he had created. He could have cried forever, but that wouldn't accomplish anything, and he had to do something right for once in his life.

"And who are you to tell me who I can and cannot speak to?! Caiellis is my responsibility (the boy noted how the man didn't say "son" like he would have done at any other instance) and he belongs to me!" the king snarled back at the terrifying Angel of the Black Sun, not worried at all by the fact that the seraph's onyx eyes had become two of the darkest things he had ever seen in his life and that black and purple lightning seething with hatred was coruscating along her entire heavenly body of light and shadow, her eyes no longer glinting with the holy and imperious luminescence that usually tinted them and suffused utterly in shining darklight that covered her entire form in a sheen of blinding darkness that created golden covered shadows around her and exacerbated the shade caused by the towering Rakdos who watched with entertained and flaming eyes at the spectacle.

Orzhova knew that she was using up the last remnants of her young Summoner's mana pool quite quickly in the display of channelling mana ready for her wrathful opponents to rush her. She didn't care. The Angel of the Black Sun was furious; what sort of father could ever do that to their own child?! She had seen her precious and delicate boy Summoner in the hands of his dad and the host of the hated Angel of Wrath that was being far more emotional than usual, his pale cheeks streaked with blood and tears as they started going red and purple as he gasped for air, progressing into a shade of choked blue that still coloured the youngster's gaunt and young features and lips (where they weren't split from the abuse Marik had heaped upon his youthful form) and then finally simply pale and coloured with the strangled form of the former colour as he had almost slipped into a sleep he would never have awoken from if Orzhova hadn't had anything to do about it.

She had gradually become more and more desperate the longer that she had been fighting with Akroma and watching Marik throwing his youngest son and the second Summoner she had ever been able to choose around the courtyard and slamming him into the wall that he had almost died against, but had not been able to help as she was forced to concentrate upon the quite drastic issue of preventing her almost frothing at the mouth sister splitting her apart with the overly gigantic Blade of Wrath.

Orzhova had got increasingly frantic and therefore distracted as the king of Lucael that thirteen years ago she had respected because she thought he had loved his son more than anything but his four year old and his wife (the Angel of the Black Sun suspected dark powers at work in the potential manipulation of Marik, but couldn't be certain and if there was something involved it was beyond her extremely powerful sense of Guilt that was admittedly very distorted and confused by the presence of a hellish member of the Archdemonic Brotherhood of Seven – she also didn't want to lie to or misinform her Summoner about it and get his hopes up), but, conforming with what she had seen of him through the eyes of her Summoner, Marik had changed drastically in the civil war after the murder of the queen and Caiellis's mother, pushed her thirteen year old host up against the last remaining infrastructure of Redhand's mansion and then started choking the life from him.

Orzhova had fought tooth and nail to get Akroma away from her so that she could come to the aid of her asphyxiating and dying Summoner who was desperately pulling on his father's crushing hands that were wrapped around his throat, but she throughout the entire fight she hadn't managed to push the Angel of Wrath away and tear a hole in reality then step away into the abyss and returned to Caiellis's side, but the thing that had done it was when the Black Sun on the boy's cheek reacted in a way that she had never seen before through the mix of tears and blood pouring onto it, allowing her to turn herself into incandescent darklight and pulse out of the birthmark, defending the small and helpless boy with her powerful magic and pushing the sovereign of the Kingdom of Light away from him, reforming herself out of rays of shining darkness that allowed her to protect him and give the boy time to recover, which Cai had done so admirably despite the pain he was obviously in and the deep sadness within his eyes that appealed to the softer side of the dark angel and made her heart ache in empathetic pain for the one month teenager.

She once again wished that the final stage of the Tempest of Craving and the presence of the Lord of Riots wasn't preventing her from hearing her Summoner's thoughts and stopping her from talking to him, as while she knew that he would be immensely sad Orzhova couldn't hear what Marik had said to his son while he had the tiny boy at his mercy, and she desperately wanted some glimpse into how emotionally hurt he was and how that would impact upon the fight. Orzhova would like to say that she sensed darker powers at work with the Angel of Wrath and her male Summoner turning on them instead of allying with them – as it should be – and battling together against the greater threat of the Archdemon, but she knew that Rakdos wasn't manipulating the two to his own ends and she could well believe Akroma using this chance to remove her from the material world and then turning on the Archdemon, as even if the Angel of Wrath had attacked her without her Summoner being in danger Orzhova would have simply retreated back inside of his Mind Realm and remained there.

"How dare you treat Caiellis like he is some sort of burden, like he is your toy that you can just throw around and abuse!" the angel shouted back at the man, her choler risen at the mistreatment that Marik had shown to her defeated looking young Summoner who had at least stopped crying for now, blinking his eyes fully free of the tears and staring fearfully at the one that had almost killed him yet was related to him in the most direct way possible, and it was Akroma who responded, cutting in front of Marik's opening of his mouth as he snarled darkly at his son's traitorous angel, his eyes full of hatred directed against Caiellis that roused Orzhova's protective instinct that she barely ever felt (especially now that Serenity was dead) as the Angel of Wrath yelled, her heavenly voice infused with an otherworldly resonance combined with fury as well as abhorrence, "And how dare you show yourself in the material plane again without submitting to your punishment in the Sanctum Angelica, Orzhova! How dare you choose a Summoner without the express permission of our divine mother, and how dare you talk about protecting the boy who's life you doomed from the onset by forcing him to become your host!"

Orzhova fell silent for a moment, her eyes opening wide at what had just been said as more than a little guilt worked its way through her mind because she knew how hard her Summoner's life was because of his intrinsic Black mana that was abhorred within the Kingdom of Light due to what it had done over the millennia (and two centuries) the nation had been formed and existed relatively prosperously because of the blessings of the First Sisterhood angels belonging to the Lucerna line. Caiellis tried to speak, intending to refute Akroma's claim and add his own thoughts to the discussion, as speaking to his dad despite the fact that there was little to no chance of it accomplishing anything was something that he wanted to try before he enacted his plan of removing his father out of the way without hurting or killing him and then attempt to deal with the smiling Archdemon, but all that came out was a cough that hurt his throat and brought more tears to his eyes as he tried to form words, a hacking sound that would have concerned him a dramatic amount had he been in any other state of mind erupting from his mouth as he was forced to bend almost double, his vision blurring as he tried to control it and felt sticky blood being coughed up from his mouth before he wiped it away and shakily returned to his former upright position.

Marik glared at him for a second, another cold sneer of expected disappointment, as if he fully anticipated his youngest child acting as pathetic as he was now and as such didn't have any of his hopes dashed, etching itself across his hard and stony features, though his blue eyes still transfixed Caiellis in place and made him almost desperately wish that he could somehow avoid fighting him again and fleeing from the possibility of more pain and agony, but he soon told himself that that was just his fear talking and that there was no way to get past this without incapacitating his dad and then battling with the much more terrifying but less emotionally scarring Lord of Riots (who for now at least was very interested and entertained by the fight and as such hadn't decided to intervene and tear the participants apart yet – Cai would have to twist that arrogance to his advantage if he was ever to win against such a powerful being), and that if he let other people clean up his failures again then he would be more pathetic than even he thought that he was.

"I will treat Caiellis how I damn well want to," the man coldly but forcefully told the Angel of the Black Sun, the words suffused with malice and each syllable dripping with the intent to repeat the actions he had performed earlier, and the way he said seemed to Cai like he was dismissing Orzhova's concerns and informing the seraph that this was between father and son and that she, a denizen of the heavenly domain within Sancturia, should stay out of the violent proceedings, and then he laughed, the sound scaring Caiellis to the core, although the anger present in the false mirth frightened the small boy more, the fury that Marik had erupted with only a minute or so earlier that had lead to Cai almost dying before atoning for his mistakes bottled back up within him but slowly leaking out of him, ready for him to explode in rage and hatred once again when he could attack his son once more, chuckling without humour or parental pleasantry, "In fact, in spite of what Akroma may think, I like the fact that you are that worthless brat that dares to call himself my son's Summoning, because it means that no one will miss him and you when you are gone, Orzhova. Prince Caiellis died in combat against the Archdemon in the centre of the City of Pleasure! How does that sound to you?"

Orzhova saw the boy stood behind her flinch out of the corner of her peripheral vision, still hurt by the stinging and insulting words thrown almost casually out by his father in spite of the high frequency of them from what the Angel of the Black Sun could gather, but before she could ruminate upon a reply that would both offer comfort to her Summoner and dispute his father's horrible words, the Angel of Wrath launched herself at her younger sister, the titanic blade in her hands thrumming with White mana that crashed through the air in its release as Orzhova deflected it with her golden scythe.

Despite not wanting to return to the almost fatal combatant arrangement of earlier, the Angel of the Black Sun knew that in his current state there was no way little Cai would be able to contend against the might of Akroma whilst he may still stand a chance against his powerful father because of the fact Orzhova was at his side supporting him – as she refused to be driven away again and would happily throw herself in front of blows aimed at her Summoner now that she was back next to him, and she supposed that because Marik was Caiellis's father it was how choice how to deal with him, whether he wanted to kill the man (which was very doubtful as the boy was very compassionate and had a gentle heart that he often tried to lock away so that he could better perform as a Lucerna) or simply to remove him as an obstruction from fighting the Lord of Riots that Orzhova ideally would have liked to avoid battling against with just the two of them, though it was extremely unlikely that any of the other Lucaelians fighting their way through Usnaan to get to the Hedonist's Quarter would manage to reach here (as it was representative of how strong the duo of the king and his Angel of Wrath was that they had been able to get to the Summoning location of the Defiler, even though that in turn made it even harder for them to defeat it instead of aiding them with the already monumental task) – because if it was up to her then the dark seraphim would be hacking the man apart with her scythe because of what he had done to her Summoner.

"Dad … why?" was all Caiellis could force out of his mouth, his voice extremely shaky after the ordeal that had only occurred approximately a minute or so ago, and the tone was brimming with sadness and despair that Orzhova hated to hear as she blocked another strike on the shadowy haft of her scythe. The man snorted back, hefting his huge broadsword and ignoring the blood spilling out of his lower abdomen and cascading down his armour because of the movement, prompting Cai to think of how immune to pain his father seemed to be and how much of an asset the man would have been on his side in the greater and much more important fight against the demon, and Caiellis knew that while his question was pretty stupid and that he had already had the reasons explained to him (_well, shouted in my ear_), but he wanted to make sure that this course of action was correct one last time before enacting it as the man growled derisively, "You know full well _why_, you stupid little shit. You caused the death of my perfect wife and endangered my perfect son, and that is why you are going to pay! I never want to hear your voice or see you again!"

The man was fuming once again, the anger that he had at his disposal to direct against his youngest child saturating his tone again despite the fact that he had obviously attempted to pull it inside of himself for a while whilst the Angel of the Black Sun defended the boy and he had thought that Caiellis was going to die, a fresh supply of rage fuelled by the kid's escape from death shooting through him and infusing him with fresh strength as Cai's new sense of purpose did the same to him, allowing him to focus his mana much more than solely his fear, terror and mortified despair had done, his determination mixing with his sadness and sheer disappointment and interacting with his mana as it flowed around him, though he kept a metaphorical eye on how much he had left and how much he had to expend against his heavily wounded father now – although if it came to it he didn't have the advantage of time and the late game on his side now, and not just because of the removal of his draining magic that was almost essential for victory to be achieved – it was because despite his dad bleeding out (though he wasn't the only one dripping with blood that belonged to them and Cai wasn't sure if his more fragile body could last as long in spite of the lesser severity of his own wounds), Marik could sustain Akroma far longer than he could allow Orzhova to remain out of the Mind Realm through his own mana.

He made sure to fortify his perception of things with White mana so that his concussion combined with the effects of recovering from a near deadly stretch of oxygen deprivation didn't distort his vision whilst he was fighting as the ringing in his ears receded to tolerable levels so that he could hear the sounds of the battle around him, the crystalline auras surrounding him and allowing him to stand instead of forcing his frail and weak self to capitulate to his wounds as the Sword of Glass lit up with shining White mana and dripped with shadowy tenebrosity. He knew what he wanted to do in this fight, whereas before he couldn't process the notion of his dad betraying him and suddenly turning to try and kill him, and while it could be said that Cai was more confident now and less affected by the awful words and accusations they cut precisely as deeply as before, he was just more determined now and knew that the words were right so instead of trying to rail against them he simply accepted them, the boy becoming filled with a solidarity of purpose that was quite strange because of the fact he was less confident than ever but knew that there was no one else to kill the Archdemon now and that he had to rely upon himself and do so so that Alexander didn't lose both a father and a younger brother on this day.

Caiellis shook his head sadly, wondering where it had all gone wrong and why it had ended that his life would amount to this, and blocked a bolt of blinding White mana that carved through the air towards him on a scintillating shield of stained glass much like the wings he would have conjured if he wasn't so light-headed or hurt (as the Gift of Orzhova would have likely caused him to misjudge his flight patterns and end up with him crashing into something), the shining purple of the mana formed crystalline material absorbing the force of the opposing magic, though Cai wasn't able to turn it into healing that would repair his wounds.

Now that he knew that his father was attacking him and so Marik didn't have the element of surprise on his side any longer, the man was clearly more tired and his wounds were affecting him more, and he had gotten over the shock of the horrible words that had pierced into his mind and almost drowned him in a tsunami of youthful sorrow that aptly emphasised how weak he was mentally as well as physically, the youngest prince knew that he needed to keep his dad at a distance so that Marik couldn't bring his much greater physical strength to bear again, and his defence of shadowy tendrils of solid gloom that wrapped around the ubiquitous golden magical blades that lanced down from the sky in a storm of holy energy was fuelled and powered by his primal fear of being forced into the same position of a few minutes ago for the second time in one day, as well as not wanting to die by his father's hand because while the man may hate him with a passion, Caiellis thought that there was a slight possibility that he would feel guilty over it afterwards, and as such that might affect Alex's life in the future which was something the young boy wasn't willing to allow happen.

He pulsed more numbing mana through the empty (apart from the bloody droplets from the Rain of Gore and the ash) air between him and his dad, hoping that by building up layer upon layer of debilitating magic he would eventually be able to easily overcome him and send him into an unconscious state where he wouldn't be able to endanger his own life further, and was vaguely unprepared for his dad to leap through the air on wings of pure White mana, having never seen him use the technique before and wondering why he didn't if he had access to it, launching a strike from above with his sword humming with the mana placed into it, his eyes set in cold fury once again as he growled his hatred of his target. Caiellis responded by letting his desensitizing and peaceful White mana channel through the translucent crystal blade of the Sword of Glass, all the while wondering why his dad had ever wasted the time giving him the gift if he had never loved him, and brought up a shield of hindering shadows with his left hand that coated the relic weapon as he blocked, the two types of delaying mana aiding him in absorbing the force of his dad's powerful strike as he landed, cracking the abused ground with his boots and pressing into his son.

_No no no! No! Don't let him get close to you! Don't let him disarm you, and don't let him get an advantage over you unless you want to be lifted off of your feet and pinned to that wall again by your throat! _A frantic part of his mind shrieked at him as the two forces of White mana – one a pure representation of light and righteous wrath, while the other was more imperious yet paradoxically solemn (suggesting that it came from within Cai instead of his exalted and magisterial angel) at the same time and backed up by the force of darkness, the thirteen year old's instinctual hatred of what had made his life become so horrible (mostly focussed upon Johnias, though there were other things) mixed with his desire to see every single demon dead so that they could no threaten anyone else – clashed against each other, sending Cai's hair that was matted and slick with the constant torrent of blood from above that would send lesser warriors than hardy Lucaelians used to unnatural circumstances due to living within darkness for almost their entire lives into screaming frenzies (which was, in essence, what it had done to the Welkalite troops who were probably already insane) blowing back from his head as his dad snarled, his mouth twisting into a sneering and mad growl.

"I don't know why I ever bothered with you, boy!" the man shouted at him, although this time Cai was fully prepared for the insults and harsh words that would be coming from his dad and therefore wouldn't let him use them to create an opening against him. His heart still ached worse than any of his other wounds scattered around his small body, so to combat that he had almost closed it off completely, assuming the blank expression that had served him well over the past few weeks the few times he had been able to keep it up instead of letting the emotion swirling within him overtake him and control him, but he didn't shut off all of his feelings completely as that would have reduced the potency of the magic that he desperately needed to triumph against his wounded father that was breathing heavily and showing his strain more obviously now that there was actual resistance coming from his second child, letting the hatred of his life and of demons leak out of it to empower his Black mana whereas the desire to protect others was emboldened by his White mana and combined with the Black in a prosecution of duty above all else.

He withdrew his Sword of Glass suddenly, leaping backwards and ignoring the way his vision blurred and a horrible and shaking pound ricocheted through his skull, but before he could cast the spell he had been intending to Marik leapt after him and crashed through the shield of delaying darkness that he conjured up in an attempt to slow down his dad and create a bit of distance in between them, the purifying White mana exuded out of him making a mockery of the effects of the Black magic that Cai was using and overwhelming the White as well with the sheer amount of it, and he coughed again, his head swimming despite the enchantments that Orzhova had cast upon him that he had reinforced with his own auras more tailored to what he was going through (as, from a very young age, Caiellis had become proficient and using supportive magic and enchanting his allies because he was too young to fight with the princes' protectors (and Alex when it came down to it and the eight year old tried to protect his four year younger brother) but could still aid them in that manner and improve their combat capabilities from a distance) as he flung a bolt of scathing darklight at his dad, although it wasn't at the same killing potency had he thrown it at an enemy that needed to be killed.

Caiellis wished that he could be ruthless enough and not as weak as he was now to be harsher on his father, considering the man had lifted him off of the ground with the clear intention to kill his youngest son, and knew that if he wanted to defeat the man quicker he could have used more offensively powerful spells that he would never dream of using on other people that he loved and were innocent – though his dad didn't fall into that category (as as much as Cai wanted to deny it, he still automatically loved his father and wanted the man's affection in return because he didn't have a mother either and wanted – no, almost _needed_ – the love of person that had helped conceive him and brought him up (despite his current professions that he had never loved his smallest boy) and his support in things, which was why it was even harder to countenance this betrayal, especially since they were in the middle of a war and as much as he didn't want to admit it Caiellis had needed emotional reassurance just as much as the physical help) – but he couldn't get his mind to hate his dad for what was happening and what he had done.

How he was feeling now was a far cry from the emotional turmoil he had experienced these past two days (and before then, but the occurrences after the liberation of Jeksaan were what had rekindled his hatred and defiant anger and the fights before that had been down to Alexander's wounding) when his rage and aversion had sky rocketed to levels higher than they ever reached before even in the most dire argument with his older brother, though when he had been choked the first time the fear had at first doused his obstinacy but then provided more fuel for it when Alexander had arrived and had to break up their final strategy dispute that had lead to them throwing themselves into Usnaan in the first place.

He wished that he could blame his dad for this, reason that it was his fault that Alex was in danger now and not Caiellis's – no, just combined with the blame that was directed to the youngest Lucerna – as Cai had always accepted the part he had played in things and become guilty and contrite because of it, but he couldn't because he couldn't muster up any emotion or feeling other than a deep sorrow that would never be erased from the core of his being, one that he had tried running from and distracting it with the presence of those that made his life worth living, but now that those people had been launched into perilous situations because of his weakness and stupidity (both in allowing himself to be captured and therefore having the brothers abducted (he still maintained that Marik and Alex should have just let him be killed and left the Scholaria Magnus safely) and by failing to prevent the entrance of Rakdos) he had nothing to stop it overwhelming him, and his dad's words were just repeating what he already knew but had never wanted to hear from anyone else.

He stayed silent, not willing to hurt his throat or to indulge his maddened father with his words, knowing that they would come out as a mixture of a sorrowful sob that would aptly show the sadness he was desperately trying not to let overcome his determination to kill the Lord of Riots as his final act, and a terrified mewl entirely unbefitting of the glorious Lucerna that he should be but had failed to become ever since his birth and selection by the reject of the First Sisterhood, although the kid didn't feel any bitterness towards Orzhova because of it any more (as that emotion had been dispelled after the first proper talk he had with her and the conversation they had had after Alexander's near death) and just wondered what the Angel of the Black Sun had seen in him – whatever it was, he must have disappointed her expectations of him, and Cai assumed that she had simply rushed to the occasion of being his Summoner because he was cursed with Black mana that had made him hated and feared by the people, albeit they would never show that in his presence and most would retreat from him under the pretence of being respectful.

"I don't know where you have got this penchant for failure, disobedience and blaming others for your mistakes and expecting them to clean up after you like you are some sort of incapable child – which I suppose you are – from, Caiellis!" the man snarled, rushing him with another flurry of sword strikes as his thrumming blade cut through the substantial shadows permeating the air between him and Cai that were thickening every second and drinking upon the boy's despair as his father's words hit him, his mana levels rising as the last vestiges of his mana pool were being dragged out of his young form, the effort of holding back his tears hurting him more than most things ever had when all he wanted to do was cry his eyes out and let someone else take control, let someone else come to help him, one part of his mind protesting that he was far too young for this and that a thirteen year old child should have to think about his foray into puberty (which had started in some areas and not in others, such as facial hair or _growing taller_) and the raging hormones (and attraction to girls that he hadn't exactly developed yet) it entailed instead of the fate of thousands of adults that shouldn't have to rely upon a child to take care of them, no matter how powerful and magically gifted that child was, that he should be worrying about his education and friendships instead of how best to kill demons and how to lead an army of legionaries into war, but he soon crushed its pleading underneath the cold and adamant will that he had most likely inherited from his father, not that the man would ever say that or tell him about his own experiences.

"It is not from me, and you certainly haven't inherited these qualities from your perfect mother!" Marik bellowed, the sheer volume of his shouted words amplified by the White mana suffusing the already rage steeped tone with an otherworldly and wrathful resonance as his sword crashed into the ground, Caiellis retreating back into the shifting shadows in a way that he hadn't ever done before, though the abilities he was using were coming to him naturally and he supposed that this was the result of using solely Black mana, or at least with less of an emphasis on his White for now as he focussed the colour of healing (that he couldn't use) and fortifying mana onto ensuring he was actually able to fight, although his dad's heavenly light that showed he was a Lucerna penetrated through the darkness quite easily, which meant that it was a good job he wasn't intending upon relying on them to hide and retreat within forever as he jumped back from a shining pillar of mana that his dad conjured by raising his free palm to the sky and shouting loudly, the loudness of the words coming from his father hurting Caiellis's abused and still bleeding head just as much – if not more – as the movements he was enacted were.

Had Cai ever been told about his father's and grandfather's almost constant arguing as Marik railed against nearly everything that Garius did because of the fact he had never been able to love the man as a father (and though he respected him as a king, that didn't influence his actions as much as his fear did) and as such didn't feel that he should have any authority over him despite the beatings that just served to incense the boy Marik further and make him colder like Alexander had been informed by Tybalt, Cai might have been able to figure out that his dad's current words weren't quite as representative of reality, but since he didn't he took the words to heart just like he did all of his father's awful assertions and things that one should never say to their own son.

The boy's inability to speak without hurting his throat wasn't affecting him one bit because he had expended all of his protestations and pleading with his dad before the man had forcefully cut off his air and watched him struggle with a soul burning scrutiny that defied all paternal love instincts the man might have possessed (and undeniably did when directed against his eldest son), and he had exhausted all of his begging and denying what his dad said as the man shouted threats and hissed horrible statements at him when Cai had desperately tried to refute them and get his father to come back onto his side so that he could have the tall and strong man help him.

The youngest Lucerna was glad that his mind went into a robotic and almost emotionless state of thought after he was hurt badly physically and emotionally by someone that he loved (no matter how far down one had to dig and find that love) because otherwise he knew that he would have given up the second Orzhova saved him and he had been given a second chance before the end and before his dad had choked him to death, and it meant that he could focus much more instead of bawling his eyes out and curling up into a foetal ball, clinging to the foolish and childish hope that one of his elders would fix his broken heart and repair the situation for him. He had no one to rely on but himself because of his own mistakes in abandoning the (apparent at the time, though now he knew that the former man was lying) protection of his father and big brother, and everyone else was embroiled in their own precarious battles because he was too weak to have ended the battle before it had really started in stopping the sacrilegious ascent of Rakdos.

However, he knew that after the state of mind he had developed to help combat these situations by locking up his emotions after someone hurt him (such as firstly when Marik and he had talked after nine years of not seeing each other and the forty year old had set the precedent for their subsequent interactions, and secondly the first time that the man had harmed him physically and almost crushed his arm, a wound that still hurt but was more than eclipsed by his more recent injuries, such as his throbbing head and aching lower ribs) and turning him to his survival instincts with logical thought also unimpeded by most of his emotions that would usually detract from it, similar to a big brother within his mind that would activate when the weaker and more sensitive and gentle part of his psyche got hurt and took it away from the pain so that it wouldn't be harmed any more, his emotions always resurfaced with a greater intensity than before unless the thing that had worried or harmed him made it up to him (like in some of the more recent arguments with his brother (as before he was around eleven or twelve he hadn't yet developed the technique) where the older boy had always apologised afterwards), which meant that if he couldn't sustain this type of thought for very long then he would soon be drowned under a flood of dejected tears.

Orzhova swung her scythe round into the Angel of Wrath, the hatred of these beings that would dare to harm and betray her now recovering Summoner who was definitely hiding away his emotional and soul deep pain so that he could better fight against his father, as there was no way that the king in his current maddened state would ever be able to defeat the Lord of Riots who would be fighting against the victor of the two Lucernas and their exalted First Sisterhood angels, fuelling her strikes and allowing her to take the initiative against her heavenly sibling, who blasted several lances of milky white energy at the Angel of the Black Sun. She spun her weapon in an arc of protective mana that nullified most of the magic and had them crashing to a halt upon it, but knowingly let one of the bolts through so that it could crash into her and send her tumbling backwards, her balance in the air disrupted by the thunderous mana as the Tempest of Craving roared its approval of the violence and murder enacted underneath it.

More than any notion of pretending to be weak so that she could ambush her pure and xenophobically White sister, Orzhova let one of the blasts of purifying energy hit her so that she could assess the Angel of Wrath's mental state and to make sure that the hypothesis she had come up with about her sibling's sudden rage and emotional fury reflected in her madly spinning and bloody halo that gyrated frenziedly above her blue hair stained with blood from, the symbol of her membership of the Angelic Sisterhoods that wasn't normally visible other than being a white and golden glow usually surrounding Akroma's head.

She grimaced at the pain in her lower chest as her golden armour absorbed the force of the magic, leaving it smoking as the blisteringly hot White mana impacted upon it and almost melted through the elegant protection and into her flawless pale flesh that hid underneath, but hid a smile that would have been quite unbefitting of the current situation and also not suiting her thoughts of enacting vengeance upon those that had hurt her precious Summoner that was far more affected by the words than he was letting on now as he fought against his father, as her sister capitalised upon her sibling's apparent weakness and shot forwards, the need to spill her divine blood evident in her usually inscrutable and cold eyes that had always made it hard to know what Akroma was thinking (only Serenity had ever managed that), though all of the angels had guarded thoughts so that their deceitful enemies could not manipulate them and Orzhova's usually twinkling but now utterly dark and malevolent onyx eyes were just as impenetrable as Akroma's milky orbs normally were, but now her intent to do as much violence as possible to her traitorous sister as possible was as obvious as the plan of Marik to kill his son.

However, Akroma's rush to attack her downed angelic sister was incredibly reckless but exactly what the dark seraph had predicted from the Angel of Wrath in her current way of fighting, as apparently she was now unable to restrain her anger and hatred that she had reserved for the only angel that had every betrayed holy Serra in the Sanctum Angelica who was the creator of all (well, almost all) angels, which subsequently made Orzhova think even less of her puritanical and zealous sibling that had aided the scions of the Lucerna family ever since she was the first queen's Summoning after the death of Matalis Ortus Lucerna that their mother had exclusively blessed with her aid in the darkest days of the innocent humans in the abyss as all of monsters of the night and the civilisations that had willingly used the power of the darkness (such as the Drenure and Grafnica) preyed upon those without the power to defend themselves and those who used White mana.

She was glad of Akroma's lack of foresight as it meant that she would be easier to manipulate, although the worst thing the Angel of the Black Sun could do now would be to become conceited and arrogant and assume that she had achieved victory prematurely, as while the Angel of Wrath's all consuming fury that was controlling her every action meant that she was less inclined to pursue strategy in the fight or battle cleverly, making her just as aggressive as Alexander's fanatical Aurelia that could at least restrain herself from trying to kill her twilight sister, she was just as dangerous as she ever was and potentially more so as she would be more vicious than usual against her disloyal fellow member of the First Sisterhood.

Orzhova hoped to be able to turn the battle to her advantage soon enough so that she could come to the aid of her young Summoner who was embattled against his snarling and horrible father who still had tremendous amounts of rage that he was still shaking with to expend against his little boy, as while he had recovered from his ordeal remarkably well considering he had almost been asphyxiated, had at least two of his ribs broken and had the back of his head split open and dripping blood down his back the boy still needed her aid and was fighting against a man over a foot and a half taller than him that was at least three times his physical strength, though the Angel of the Black Sun sensed a type of magic she hadn't sensed from her Summoner before coming from the child, although he wasn't releasing it against his father – if Orzhova had been in the same situation she would have had no compunctions about blasting him apart for what he had done to Caiellis over the last few days, but if her Summoner was willing to forgive and simply wanted to end this conflict by incapacitating his dad then she wasn't going to disobey his orders despite the fact that she thought Marik's continued existence could be immensely detrimental to the boy's future if the man didn't change at all.

"Are you even listening to me, you damn ignorant brat?!" the man growled angrily, crashing his left foot into the ground as a shockwave of White mana rose up out of it all around him with a thunderous discharge of wrathful mana and dispelled the darkness that was making it hard to hit his son, and if Cai thought that he might get used to the insults coming from his father he would be sorely mistaken and disappointed, as in spite of their frequency each one hurt precisely the same – if not worse than (though one thing that Marik had said was the worst so far) – the last, as he tried to conjure up a shield of glass surrounding the area underneath him so that he would be protected from the blast that his father had just thrown in his direction (or mire accurately in every direction) before it shattered apart almost immediately, his dad's magical potency terrifying to behold despite the fact that he was clearly wounded – and unbeknownst to Caiellis holding back through no fault of the director of his current modus operandi of killing his youngest son, preventing him from utilising his most powerful spells in the prosecution of that awful task.

Nonetheless, when the White mana blasted into him it sent juddering waves of kinetic force throughout the boy's fragile body, jarring ribs and sending him falling to his knees as he began to breathe heavily in an attempt to push through the pain, as while it may seem that he had recovered well from his ordeal at the hands of the supreme sovereign of Lucael that was only if he didn't sustain any more wounds or damage, as anything remotely harmful that was inflicted upon him would be severely exacerbated by his prior injuries – just like what was happening with this shockwave of light that juddered through him and jolted his wounded ribs as his hand went to his mouth, more blood coughed up out of him as his dad advanced, though this time he refused to become a victim again and his instincts began to scream into overdrive, mana rushing through him in response to his sudden surge of desperation as he launched himself at his father, the Sword of Glass whipping through the air and leaving contrails of light and shadow behind it as it crashed into his father's swiftly prepared block, magic coursing through both their bloodstreams at a greater intensity despite the boy's face remaining blank, though his eyes still reflected his pain and sadness in spite of the fact he tried to keep them blank as not to incense his dad further, as he really didn't blame the man for his hatred of his son any more.

"Trying to act all resolute and determined now, are we Caiellis?!" the monarch snorted derisively and mockingly at his son's sudden change in tactics from all out defence to all out offence but ready to take advantage of it as he used his much greater physical strength to grind his larger weapon against his son's crystalline blade in an attempt to either force to boy to withdraw and therefore fall prey to a retaliatory strike, disarm him and then finish him off or completely overpower him and carve into his fragile form as Cai struggled against the weight and power directed against him, the only reason he hadn't been smashed backwards yet the powerful magic that was augmenting his strength and discreetly sapping his father's as the man mocked, "It is a bit late for that now, don't you think?! Where was that strength when you were watching your mother be ripped apart in front of your eyes?! Where was this strength when you lost yourself in a dream of darkness whilst your brother, my precious true son, was being assaulted by the last vampire and I had to go and protect him?! I think I have an answer for you!"

Caiellis failed to stifle a yelp as his dad pushed against him harder and bolts of light rained down from the sky above him, shattering and effortlessly piercing straight through the hastily crafted shield of stained glass surrounding a mass of shadows the youth automatically created when he sensed the threat from above, though he couldn't pull away from his dad and dodged the attack because the Lucerna greatsword wielded by his father would crash into him, and couldn't execute some sort of ridiculous evasion manoeuvre because of the pain it would cause in his ribs and concussed head that was most likely making his pupils dilated. The bolts, instead of burning holes through his young body, merely pierced into the skin (luckily his head was unscathed, but his shoulders and back were not) and were intended to restrict his movements as well as prevent him from calling upon some of his mana reserves that were being drained every second he didn't give into the pain and rest, Unsummoning Orzhova as well, and Cai resisted the urge to shut his eyes in an attempt to block out the agony and fear cascading up and down his spine, knowing that he had to be perfectly aware and have access to as many of his senses as possible if he wanted to achieve victory over his dad.

Marik seemed to know that his son was against hurting him as otherwise he would have employed more potent magical defences to ward against any potential bombardments of magical light or darkness, but right now all he was using was a guard against the possible delaying negative auras his smallest and youngest son might try to use to subdue him peacefully or force him away from him, and pressed in with his attack as the bolts impacted into his son, splitting through some of the enchantments of White and then making a mockery of the boy's recklessly light armour and piercing into the soft and young flesh beneath, drawing more blood that was instantly joined by the unnaturally vivid and extravagant Rain of Gore as it pattered and splashed into the circular cuts and starting stinging. The man wielded his words as weapons against his youngest heir just as much as he deployed his magical attacks and utilised his ancient relic greatsword, continuing on with his demeaning and hateful assault that Cai tried to block out of his mind but failed to do so, Marik hissing, "It is just a façade, a show of false power that you don't possess and never have done! You are weak, fragile, and an unworthy bearer of a First Sisterhood angel!"

Caiellis had noticed that, in this fight between two members of two very different but fatefully entwined families, once that Akroma had been used to take Orzhova away from the youngest Lucerna the king and the Angel of Wrath didn't seem to be fighting together, though the most plausible explanation of that would be that the two wanted to deal with the failures of their different families individually with no input from the other, and he assumed rightly that the father of two and his dutiful and furious seraphim wouldn't be able to mentally communicate because of the disruption caused by Rakdos. It was quite different to how Marik and Akroma usually fought, as while the two weren't as close when in combat as Caiellis and Orzhova (though that was because he was still young and weak, therefore dependant upon his angel – even so they usually fell into the tried and tested strategy of having the Sancturia creatures fight one another as the Summoners duelled most of the time) and the forty year old wasn't as reliant upon his angelic guardian as Cai was his, they usually directed a series of blows in unison and exploited their enemies' weaknesses together, but now each was fighting alone with seemingly no coordination with the other, happy to deal with their respective targets alone and allowing Marik to make use of his son's emotional and physical fragility.

He hadn't realised how much he had come to depend on the Angel of the Black Sun being able to mentally converse with him when the two were fighting together, and he was taking an immense risk by following through with this course of action, but the last time he had looked over at Orzhova – which was when he had been able to hide within his shadows, using it as a temporary respite from his dad's wrath as well as a chance to quickly observe what was going on the battle between two First Sisterhood angels – she had been either hit by an attack born of wrathful White mana, or was baiting her heavenly sister in so that should could strike her down or gain an advantage in the fight against the very powerful Angel of Wrath, which was what Caiellis was betting on. This was an immense risk, and it did not suit his fighting style at all, but not having access to the most powerful ability in his arsenal – his healing – didn't suit his fight style either, and neither did having to suppress his enemies peacefully or battle with wounds. Hopefully his dad wouldn't expect it from him, since the man seemed to have observed his way of combat quite well in the opportunities that had been afforded to him, silently assessing and judging it whilst also declaring it unfit for purpose, but that was another matter entirely. He just hoped that Orzhova wasn't truly on the back foot and would somehow be able to pick up on what he was doing and that she wasn't too distracted by Akroma.

However, Cai knew that he would never win against his dad in the conventional manner, as even though the man was bleeding quite heavily – having done nothing to staunch the flow of the wounds in his lower abdomen – he was far stronger than his thirteen year old son who was still unlocking his own power and growing in strengths of magical and physical (although the latter left a lot to be desired in terms of its development and Caiellis was pretty sure that he looked thinner than ever despite having access to plenty of food (as opposed to during the civil war that had contained most of his life), as the fact that he had grown taller (to a fantastic four feet eleven inches) meant that he looked even more skinny), as well as the fact that Marik was fully prepared to kill his progeny whilst the littlest Lucerna was extremely reticent to even harm his flesh and blood (apart from one person that fell under that category that was no longer part of his family) in triumphing over his dad.

He was glad that he wasn't too pathetic to even take control of his emotions and lock them away for now, although each and every one of his father's awful words cracked the dams he had placed around the whirlpool of remorse and sadness inside of him, because it meant that the boy was able to think objectively about his current situation. Caiellis made sure to let more of his pain and internal agony leak out of the crumbling barriers in his emerald green eyes, hoping that it would signal to his father that his words were having an effect upon his second born and that he would continue upon his attacks and focus upon his words, concentrate solely upon ending his son's life instead of looking at the wider battle to see what the angels were doing.

It was very dangerous, because Cai knew from past experience that his dad was quite a good strategist and had to be perceptive of all the different occurrences across the battlefield, but normally he was leading an entire army and directing them whereas now he was focussed exclusively upon his youngest son and had no soldiers to order around, and perhaps his anger would stop him noticing what was going on behind him, though to be fair Caiellis wasn't exactly aware either because of the fact he had to intently watch his father if he wanted to avoid death. He winced at the pain in his back, the bruising from being slammed up against the wall flaming up in tandem with the pain caused by the bolts of immobilising mana that had stabbed into his shoulders and back, used to restrict the movement of an opponent more than cause them pain as his and his father's massive sword of cold Lucaelian steel shining with the power coming from his dad, the mana crashing against his own and threatening to overpower him at any moment as his dad continued on with his words, damning his son with each of them as he forced the boy further backwards, and Cai grimaced as his father yelled, "But I tried with you! I tried, you ungrateful little shit, despite the fact that I had never wanted you, but instead you threw it back in my face and endangered the life of the only son I had ever wanted as well as causing the death of the one who almost gave her life to bring you into this world!"

Cai felt sadness stirring within him when he heard the slight tinge of an emotion other than anger in his father's voice, one of severe disappointment in his youngest son, and wished that he had tried harder to repair their relationship as well and hadn't been as weak as he had been, but now was too late for thinking about the past and his pushed the thoughts back into their prison within his mind, focussing his thoughts down to only those required by the battle with his dad, utterly smothering all of the unnecessary mental pathways until all that was left within his mind was a complete and utter concentration upon the battle at hand and the emotions required to empower his mana, those of sadness and his hatred for demons combined with his desire to protect those that had given up so much for him and keep Lucael – or even the world – a prosperous place for people to realise their dreams and not have to go through the same things as him, a potent mixture of White and Black mana generated within him allowing him to resist his father and keep upright against his might.

"Dad … please can we just stop this? Neither of us want it, and if you want me to die that badly I can throw myself into the battle against Rakdos while you watch and wait for a time to strike against the Archdemon," Cai pleaded, and although mostly he was doing it to rouse his father's ire and contempt – knowing that the pathetic and begging words was sure to elicit that sort of reaction from his furious dad – so that he could be baited into further attack and want to hurt his son even more, one small part of him was using this chance to throw his and Alexander's dad one last lifeline, give him one final opportunity to renounce his earlier words and fight alongside his youngest son in the name of the Kingdom of Light and unity instead of division, even though he was aware that building up hope within him was absolutely pointless and that if someone hated him enough to try and strangle him to death as well as breaking his ribs, smashing his head open and attempting to eviscerate him with his sword, then there was to be no swaying them to suddenly want to ally with him and help him against a common enemy.

Not that the boy considered his dad his enemy any way, as while that may have been how he had thought even just the day – or perhaps up until the point where he had started to battle the Lord of Riots and realised how foolish his arguments with his father had been and how stupid he had become in rushing through the City of Usnaan without help in spite of knowing that otherwise the Archdemon would have been Summoned without opposition – before now, all he wanted was the man to help him and in fact felt sorry for Marik, knowing how much of an incidental disappointment that the king's second son happened to be and the amount of failures that he had caused. He didn't blame anyone for not loving him or wanting him dead, because there was nothing that he had that was worthy of merit compared to anyone else – but that meant he was perfect for being the sacrifice needed to slay the Archdemon.

Caiellis had already prepared himself for what his dad's response to the words would be, but to get him to be convinced that Cai was succumbing to his sadness once again and that he was all alone while Orzhova battled with the growling Angel of Wrath, he carefully let out sections of his mind that screamed for this to stop and for his dad to embrace him like a father should, irrespective of what he had done in the past, and battle together with him so that the nations of both the Kingdom of Light and the innocents of the New Empire of Passion could be safe and they could return to having a happy family again. He needed to balance it out, make sure that his voice reflected the all too real internal despair that he had locked away behind his eyes at being rejected by his father and having one of his greatest fears being enacted upon him by the man, the agony knowing that his big brother could be in immense danger because of him and the truth that his dad wanted him dead so that he couldn't put any more people in a similar situation, and the hope, that foolish, childish, naïve hope that the adults and elders in his life would fix everything and transport them away from this city of pain and death that contained foul demons of hedonism and destruction as well as their corrupt mortal servants.

"Dad, we can work this all out, please, I don't want this and neither do you," Caiellis begged as his father increased the pressure of his greatsword against the littlest Lucerna's crystalline and glowing Sword of Glass whilst simultaneously calling down more holy missiles from the sky that thudded into his son, reducing the amount of mana he could take in – obviously Marik knew him well enough to realise that weakening his youngest son physically any more than he had already done was completely superfluous and wouldn't accomplish anything, deducing that the only source of power for the fragile boy was his magic and it was the sole reason he was able to stand up and, however fleetingly, resist his dad's sword and power, the man's lip curling into a derisive frown all the while as his son cried out in pain, his voice youthful and shaky and inflected with large amounts of the agony that he was in.

While Caiellis would have liked to say, if for no other reason that to have some semblance of pride and self confidence within his mind that he could stoke in these last few hours, was that he had yelped in pain to better reinforce the image he was creating of himself and adding to the plethora of things he had done to convince his dad that he was on his last legs and that this was his final hope – which is was, but not in the way that the king would think – instead he had done it involuntarily because the magic was burning through his skin and sending an awful and tormenting stimulus coursing through his nervous system that made him want to arch his back and cower until it ended, but the fact that his pain was all too real meant that the appearance of a terrified young and fragile boy that just wanted his dad to help him like a father should – which was not far from the truth at all – was even more persuasive.

The wounds caused by the magic would probably take days to heal (as if he didn't repair his wounds near instantly with his draining magic the instantaneous healing would cease to work and force him into conventional methods, such as waiting for his Lucerna bloodstream to repair the injuries) even with his faster healing (which was balanced out by his increased fragility, making him rejuvenate minor things only slightly faster than normal Lucaelians unless he utilised mana – also meaning that during the civil war he had caught many more illnesses than his older brother), and could even leave permanent scars – like the ones that hadn't yet disappeared on his abdomen and chest through his self harming. It was a good job that Caiellis had ceased to care about what happened to himself any more.

He coughed again, feeling his saliva that was flecked with blood dripping down his face in a rather unpleasant display as his throat felt raw and his body begged for a drink, a nourishing and cold intake of refreshing water, but Cai had no idea where the army standard bottle that he had had in his light armour had gone, and there was no time for a short break now anyway (not that there was any guarantee that the water wouldn't have been hot and corrupted by this point at any rate), not with his father bearing down on him and his mind needing to be utterly focussed upon what would happen if he was to avoid death.

Knowing that there was little point in holding them back any longer and that they were already at the threshold for pouring out of him in a tidal wave of dejection and sorrow, he let the tears start to rush – no,_ cascade –_ out of his young and emerald eyes that aptly showed his pain again, spilling down his soft pale and bloodied cheeks and carving clear paths through the blood with the transparent liquid (as his tears were only shining when invoking powerful magic, the fact that they were clear and normal aptly emphasising that in the end he was just an innocent and scared child – not a Lucerna, just a normal boy that only wanted love and to be accepted – forced to go through such a large amount emotional strain that many adults would never be able to recover from) before his ashen skin was again stained with the vivid blood from above and that it turn was swept away by more tears replaced by more gore splattered onto him from the Tempest of Craving.

"Stop it! Please! Dad, just help me … I'm scared … why … why are you doing this?" Cai implored, knowing that his eyes would be wide with terror and sadness, the tears pouring out of his right one streaming over the ominous Black Sun birthmark that had set the standard for the rest of his life, a stain upon him that made him the recipient of the people's fear and mistrust when all he had wanted to do was to help them just as much as he wanted help himself, an utter lack of confidence in anything that he did mixed with a deep hatred of himself that was only staved off and made non-existent by his older brother (and to a lesser extent his "Uncles") who had encouraged, supported and loved him, made him feel wanted and worth something. The dark mark was flashing and glowing with a riotous and sombre purple glow, gifting him even more mana in return for tasting his emotions, and Cai suddenly realised what he had to do to make this plan work and to ensure that Orzhova had enough time and warning at her end, something that would make those that care about him baulk in concern and fear for him but something that ultimately didn't bother him one bit, because physical pain was nothing compared to the emotional agony that had suffused his mind.

Now it was time to deliver the final part of his admittedly true speech, the boy wielding the truth as a weapon to manipulate his dad into over extension just like Orzhova had lied to make Akroma do the same a moment or so earlier, taking a step back to ensure that he didn't lose balance and died before he was ready to initiate the next part of his plan that would end with the death of the Lord of Riots, who was watching the proceedings with a sick sense of sadistic entertainment that made Cai want to end his wretched and abhorrent existence even faster and made hatred war for control with his misery within his breast.

He took a breath wracked with sobs as his dad pressed harder, knowing from his son's strength weakening with every second that the boy would soon give out and be at his complete mercy as he growled at the child's weeping and begging for forgiveness, before speaking for the final time as the loser in this fight, infusing the words with every ounce of raw emotion that he possessed within him as it all came flooding out, releasing the hold upon the cages restraining his overwhelming mournful sadness and allowing all of his despair to pour out of his eyes and take a physical form, and to be brought to melancholic life through his words, "Dad … I love you..."

"That feeling is not mutual," Marik started gravely, the seriousness of his words coloured with his monumental anger but moreso severe dissatisfaction and disaffection mixed in with his disgust that this pleading and weak boy was related to him in any way, all of this showing in his piercing blue eyes as they glared at his youngest son in a way that would stay with Caiellis for years if by some turn of fate he would survive this battle for the City of Pleasure, as Cai was slowly pushed backwards, their swords grinding together in a furious display of colliding magics and physical sparks as the last vestiges of his body's non magical strength began to give out, pain clouding his vision as his ribs ached with the strain as he held his blade with both hands, one covered in a small cloud of shadow that allowed him to grip his extremely sharp sword's luminescent crystalline blade whilst also protecting him from any attempt his dad might make to hack off his fingers, his relic weapon slowly pressed back against him until he took another step back and found himself back against the wall that had been the site of his near death in the hands of the one who was trying to repeat that act.

Adrenaline flared up in his mind. _No! I need to have space behind me in order to go through with my plan! _The youngster cursed himself; he had been far too focussed upon his emotions and his father's reaction to his release instead of where they were in comparison to the geography of the desolate courtyard. Cai's back ached in empathetic pain from the ordeal it had suffered earlier, and his eyesight began to be blurred with tears of agony and despair that streaked down his face and were absorbed greedily by the radiating Black Sun before he forced his vision to be cleared, knowing that the next few seconds were vital for the success of his incredibly hazardous strategy that placed him at immense personal risk, and while he knew that it didn't exactly match his appearance as someone who was about to give up he supposed that this could be seen as his final act of defiance, his last try in an ultimately wasted attempt to preserve his life seconds longer in a desperation born from his overwhelming fear, and pulsed an immense beam of light out of the flat of his sword and into his father.

The man was completely prepared for such an attack, absorbing most of the gigantic pillar of blinding radiance onto his swords as interlocking shields of milky White mana were birthed into the air around him to protect his body from the last ditch effort to kill him, but he still took a step back and allowed the boy to move away from the wall before pressing his sword in with a renewed offensive against his now exhausted son who had used everything in a final blast of mana to try and resist his inevitable death, and though his eyes highlighted how he found it pathetic that his child hadn't been able to scratch him – or even singe the hair on his skin, leaving him exactly the same as he had been before the admittedly powerful blast – he didn't transfer the thoughts going on in his head to any more insults, simply infusing them into his words as he ended with more than a hint of finality, "And it never has been."

Everything moved in a shining blur after that. Caiellis pulled back his sword the precise moment before he would have been overwhelmed by his father's large physical strength augmented to inhuman levels by his magic and sent sprawling as the man's blade lashed forwards, carving a blinding slash across the air between them that hit the boy in his thin chest, luckily just avoiding his already broken ribs as otherwise he may not have been able to pull off the manoeuvre. He leapt backwards the second his father did so, pressing his back against the wall again as one part of his mind wished for more space before he crushed it and clamped down on his emotions, one part of him ignoring the stinging pain as his dad's ancient Lucerna broadsword cut into his fragile skin through his armour that offered no defence whatsoever, clamping down on the emotions that he had released from himself and crushing the pain that shot through him as the tip of the blade sliced into him and carved a line across his lower chest that joined several others that were self inflicted and had faded with time, although the fact that he had jumped backwards meant that it hadn't impaled him or hacked into any vital organs.

There was a large explosion of blood and pain (that the boy dismissed) as he cried out, the red liquid spurting out from the wound that was slightly more significant than just skin deep but didn't penetrate to his organs (though it did graze his ribs above those that were broken) and fountaining into the air as he brought his desire to enact justice upon the Archdemon and mixed it with his deep sadness at being attacked with by his father as the Black Sun began to shine with a blinding intensity of purple radiance and luminescent darklight that eclipsed even the light coming from his dad, Orzhova sensing and ready for his plight and infusing the boy with huge amounts of mana as more blood jetted from his wound as the light and shadows began to be collected into the spray of scarlet.

He dropped his Sword of Glass and held his hands out to the sides, palms open and facing opposite areas of the courtyard as the one in his left began to be suffused with an imperious and holy White light that collected into an orb of blinding intensity and golden luminescence as the opposite happened to his right, coils of snaking darkness and billowing shadows wrapping around his thin forearm and accumulating into the rough shape of a sphere dripping with tenebrosity and hovering above his right hand as his White and Black mana rose in intensity. He slammed the orbs together, fusing them for a second into a shining star pulsing with darklight before releasing the power trapped within it.

All of this took him less than a second, and the magic of White and Black combined flowed into the blood jetting out from the wound inflicted by his father who was, instead of instinctively recoiling in an effort to preserve himself – as while Cai was not using the magic to kill, his dad didn't know that and he could easily turn his mana offensive (although he doubted that it would be strong enough to dramatically harm his father) if he so desired, though that would most likely end up with him dead – and the crimson droplets fused together in a cascade of lifeblood began to crystallise, vitrifying into a stream of scintillating glass fragments made out of the caster himself that surrounded his father, pulsing with debilitating and numbing mana as they built up a cage around the king that would not harm him but would lull him into a sleep until his youngest son finished what he had started, Cai's eyes shining with tears and full of pain at the magic he was using, siphoning off bits of his own life that wouldn't have to be reclaimed later to heighten the power of the spell made from his own pain that restrained his father, who released light indiscriminately all around him in an attempt to break free from the glass fragments surrounding him that were infinitely fragile and delicate but ultimately unstoppably strong as they slowly drained him of the will to stay awake.

He shouted in fury and rage, banging his fists (as he was forced to drop his sword due to lack of strength) against the perfectly formed crystal droplets of blood that shone with a calming but forceful purple light and hummed with a quiet but resounding melody that sounded strangely comforting, and Cai knew that instead of damaging his dad it would keep him safe until either his duty was complete or he died fighting the Archdemon, and sudden panic rushed through the boy's mind as some of the blood crystals that contained all of Caiellis's pain and sadness and simple desire to protect those that he loved, to protect Alexander from further pain, shattered because of his father's resistance. He could hear the frenzied clashing of blade on blade a few metres away but assumed that Orzhova was delaying the Angel of Wrath so that he could finish here.

"What are you doing, you damn brat!" the man shouted furiously and incredulously, although in his voice there was a slight hint of something that scared Caiellis – fear, though it was not a fear for Marik himself, as he protested in rage, destroying more of the crystalline prison as the other thrumming stones of bloody amethyst increased the spaces between them to compensate, and Cai poured more mana into the spell despite knowing that he would need enough to defeat the Lord of Riots. He started to have doubts – _if I don't have enough mana to complete this spell, then what hope do I have against _that – before brutally crushing them under the heel of his determination when he saw his dad cough up blood himself, one large gauntleted hand automatically clutching his bleeding lower abdomen as the other banged on the prison created by his son and his angel's mana.

The man's wounds were far more severe than his violent and strong actions would let on, and Cai wished that he was as strong as that – able to easily ignore any form of wounds in the pursuit of his goals – but knew that with his fragile frame and admitted over reliance upon magic instead of his physicality (although any training he did seemed to just make him become thinner, and he couldn't stomach eating as much as his brother did without exploding), and that meant that the youngest Lucerna was the only one able to take on Rakdos, as it should be because it had been his mistakes that had lead to his Summoning after the Archlord of Rapture was killed, just like he had been the only one able to prevent the entrance of the Lord of Riots before all of this, he had simply failed to do so. He reinforced his magic with those thoughts, calling the Sword of Glass to himself and gripping it when it levitated in front of him, using it to strengthen his magic and allow him to channel it through the crystal blade and trying to ignore his father's shouts as the volume of his magic increased, "You'll get us all killed, you foolish brat! Let me out of here, you worthless little shit, so that I can finish with you and then kill Rakdos! Release me now, or we will both die and Alexander will as well!"

Cai gripped the handle of his sword tightly, blocking off the more sensitive and emotive parts of his mind that would be affected by the words and start forming doubt within him when he desperately needed to be focussed on what he intended to do once he had finished this spell for it to work. Some parts of him were considering the possibility that what his dad was saying was correct, as he wasn't exactly sure how long it would take his father to rouse from his slumber if Cai failed and was destroyed by the Archdemon, but it was better than letting the man who looked extremely pale despite the blood pouring off him – that was now splattering and sizzling on the shield of purified darkness surrounding him in the gaps between the gems formed from blood that he had shed from his own youngest son, infused with emotion and pain that allowed the spell to work and his dad to be restrained as he smashed another of the crystalline droplets. Caiellis didn't let it faze him, not even whispering an apology to his dad in his mind as he increased the strength of his mana and held the man's arms to his body to stop his resistance with coils of gold that sapped the will to do violence – or even stay awake – from him, also blocking out his vision of the man as the light formed from imperious and golden incandescence as well as the paradoxically blinding shadow that the host of the Angel of the Black Sun had got used to but would be extremely surprising for any who hadn't witnessed the full power of united White and Black mana combined with the purple and melancholic glow of his sadness completely removing all hope of seeing the man, who shouted, "Is that what you really want?! For your brother to die, all alone, just because you had the foolish conception that you can defeat a demon of Archdemonic magnitude alone?!"

A multitude of thoughts rushed through Caiellis's head in response to the words, ranging from, _I wouldn't have had to fight Rakdos all alone if you had just helped me instead of trying to choke me to death and kill me, _and _me defeating you this easily shows how bad a state you are in, and that you are in no way any condition to be fighting an Archdemon either, dad, _but he didn't voice any of them, focussing on ending his spell as soon as possible so that Orzhova wouldn't be in any more danger as Akroma threw herself into her darker sister with an almost suicidal fervour that the Angel of the Black Sun was only too eager to exploit and use against her, leaving the words unspoken because he knew that they would be too quiet to be heard over the magic and the crashing noise of his dad still managing to release mana in an attempt to free himself from the cage that would give Cai one final chance.

He tried not to visualise his big brother being surrounded by endless hordes of enemies on each side of him and bleeding from numerous wounds scattered across his body, wearily raising his sword one last time as Aurelia faded from existence and he was left on his own, pushing it down whenever it tried to resurface as he almost lost the hold on the spell and his dad attacked the barrier with an even greater ferocity, light blasting out holes in the black and white luminescence surrounding him as the crystals that were destroyed release their payload of blood upon the man, panic rushing through Caiellis's mind as he was forced to sidestep a bolt of disintegrating white incandescence that shuddered through the air only a hair's breadth from him, his concentration intentionally disrupted by his dad, before suddenly plunging his mind into the image of Alex dying horrible deaths at the hands of swarms of Welkalites because he had been alone and no one had been able to help him, his magic levels increasing as he brought the situation under a form of control again by blasting a bolt of darklight at one of the vitrified drops of his blood, the rough glass refracting the unlight all around it and into the others, creating a shining matrix of darkness around it that resisted his father's endeavours to free himself from his youngest boy's magic.

"Why are you wasting time trying to restrain me?! Why don't you just finish me off now, eh, Caiellis?!" the man questioned, trying to bait a response from his second and unwanted son, who didn't bother to favour him with one as he drew several shimmering sigils that thrust themselves to the forefront of his mind with his Sword of Glass, knowing that if he turned the magic to be killing it would lose its restrictive and numbing properties and allow his dad to burst out and swiftly end the life of his son as he taunted, his voice inflected with that same hint of fear for his firstborn son and those that he cared about within the armies that might have sparked a flare of jealously from within Cai had he still been under the illusion that his dad should worry or be concerned about him, but instead just made him feel sorry for both himself and his father who had been forced to deal with him. Both of them knew that his spells wouldn't be powerful enough to end his dad, not with the Lucerna crown resting upon his brow, and Marik was just trying to put him off so that he would be able to escape, so he closed his eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath as his father jeered, "What, are you a coward?! I suppose I already know the answer to that, my boy! You were never cut out for honourable Lucaelian life, ever since you first developed Black mana within you!"

Caiellis would have liked to say that he was disappointed that his dad couldn't look beyond what type of mana he had inside of him, like precious few others had managed to do, but truthfully he already knew that it was one of the many reasons he was inadequate and didn't expect anything more from the king of Lucael who had already tried to kill him. He reopened his eyes, determined to see this through to the end and endure his father's insults and degradations to their fullest extent, knowing that they would increase the amount of sadness that he was experiencing and that if he faltered now and gave the man the chance to escape because of his words then he deserved his death, and increased the power of his magic further, not even flinching at the pain blossoming within his limbs as he calmly traded more of his life force for mana and subsequently converted it into White so that the spell could be empowered in that more peaceful respect, the light covering his dad fading to the point where he could see the man glaring at him and conjuring up magical energy to fling at the barriers preventing him from getting to grips with his youngest son.

He looked deep into those coldly angry and contemptuously furious blue orbs, meeting his dad's disappointed and damning gaze with his own that was probably full of raw emotion and welling up with tears as he thought of what could be harmed if he failed now, and forced himself to keep looking into them instead of doing what he wanted, which was to avert his eyes and stare at the ground in shame and fear as he felt his own soul shrivelling up underneath the white hot fury of the glare directed at him by the one person living that had created him and raised him up until the tender age of four, failing to keep a few tears from spilling out of his eyes as his dad's desperately angry visage was replaced by one of cold fury and a sneer of hatred as Cai murmured softly, not sure if the words would be carried over the din of the combat (although, saying that, it had fallen eerily, almost _hauntingly_, quiet), "I'm sorry, dad."

He truly meant it, but it was far too late for apologies now and he swept his blade across the pattern of different symbols he had etched upon the air that sizzled with the potentially fatal torrent of the Rain of Gore, carving them in half as his dad was pulled into an abyss of sleep from which he would be roused if either Caiellis ran out of mana (which included him dying) or deactivated the spell himself, but before the king fell unconscious Caiellis still saw him glare at his youngest son one last time, hissing, his voice full of utter and absolute hatred tainted by worry and love for Alexander, "You're not my son."

Caiellis couldn't stop himself from flinching back, because, even after all the damnation heaped upon him by his father's words and violence, the words still hurt the core of his being, and his dad frowned one last time before plunging into unconsciousness within his cage, his eyes snapping shut as his head drooped, and if not for the battle damage tarnishing his father's armour and the large wounds in his stomach that must have been exacerbated by the fight one could easily mistake Marik for simply being in a peaceful slumber, which was quite ironic and unexpected since Cai had anticipated him fighting it as soon as he had lost consciousness, but the way that his dad seemed to be sleeping was almost blissful, though his heavy and pained breathing soon put that impression to rest.

Cai turned from his dad, glancing over at Orzhova who sent a look back at him, her onyx orbs impenetrable to her Summoner which suggested that she wanted to hide her emotions from him to not worry him, not that he could get any more worried, as strangely, instead of being Unsummoned and returning to the Mind Realm, Akroma fell to her knees as if in repose, closing her eyes and falling still. To her credit, the dark angel didn't even glance at her sister despite wanting to bury her scythe in her skull while she had the chance, knowing it wouldn't achieve anything other than forcing her away from reality and back into Marik, and flew to Caiellis's side silently, landing next to him as he turned towards her, his eyes full of emotion that made Orzhova's heart ache like little else did and made her want to protect this little and fragile boy that she had picked as a Summoner that was one of the strongest people she had ever met and would certainly help her achieve her goals in the future.

The smallest Lucerna was trembling with fear and pain, and she knew that what he had done must have been incredibly hard for him because of the fact it would have been so easy to lash out at the person who had wronged him so much and betrayed him when he had needed him most, and his breaths came in short gasps as he looked up at her, fear, pain, and sadness all flashing through his wide green eyes before he evidently attempted to crush the emotions within him. Orzhova wanted to comfort the boy, who was filled with dejection from what his damned father had said and most likely thinking that he wasn't worth anything; she wanted to remind him that he was precious to a lot of people including herself and that he shouldn't be downhearted because of what his idiotic dad had said, but there was no time and if there had been Orzhova knew she wasn't entirely sure what she would have said.

She wished she could sense the entirety of what was going on behind the fortifications that were starting to be built up in his young and soulful eyes, or to be able to read his surface thoughts and ascertain the truth of his emotion from there, but she couldn't and the reality was she, the dark seraphim that had had him condemned through the years for no fault of his own, might not have been able to help him. However, what she could do was make sure that he lived through this battle and help him to kill the Archdemon, who was rising up now that the family feud had ended and laughing balefully.

"**Ha ha ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA! That was truly entertaining! Now do you see, young **(he paused for a second, almost comically, as if he had forgotten the boy's name) **Caiellis**?" he roared tempestuously, almost sending the boy flying off his feet as his head snapped round to where the Lord of Riots was bellowing, cracking the ground with its grip as it pushed himself upwards opened his massive leathery wings to their fullest extent, sending the blood that had collected on them spraying everywhere as he shattered some of the massive spikes of rock that had driven up out of the hellscape the plaza had become around him, the sheer volume of the demon causing his head to throb violently as the world threatened to spin all around him until Orzhova's resolute grip steadied him, the concern that she had hoped wasn't showing in her midnight eyes turning to hatred as she glared at the cackling Defiler and gripped her Summoner's thin shoulder tightly as he continued, "**Now do you see how futile your resistance is? Subduing your poor daddy has taken everything out of you, and you didn't even kill him! HA! ****If he, a pathetic mortal, almost killed you, then what possible hope do you have of defeating me?!**"

Caiellis swallowed nervously, before calming himself as he began to shake even more visibly, somehow having forgotten the terror of being alone against the Lord of Riots through the emotional turmoil of the fight with his dad that _had_ almost killed him, trying to space out and increase the length of his breathing before he hyperventilated and hurt his throat even more. This was _his _responsibility. _This is my duty. I cannot fail now, or my big brother and the people of Lucael will pay the ultimate price as the Lord of Riots rampages across the world. I cannot allow that to happen, and I will fight until my last breath to kill you, Rakdos. I need to end the Tempest of Craving so that the soldiers and the innocent people of Welkas can live and enjoy their lives of freedom from the dark beings that the foolish Orders of Passion invited upon their new empire. I am the only one that can do this, which means that I _have _to succeed, I cannot fail now. I cannot fail now. I CANNOT FAIL NOW!_

.*.*.*.

_The hall was moderately large and had been the scene of many of Marik's undesirable memories to do with arguing with his father that had now been dead for five years, and was one of the many scattered around the vast Lucerna Palace that had always been massive throughout history unless one went back to its construction in the reign of Matalis Ortus Lucerna. Despite the fact that several sections – such as this medium sized hall (although it would be seen as cavernous by those not used to the scale of Lucaelian buildings) that could be used for strategy sessions or training depending upon what needed – had been refurbished over the years by the ever diligent servants and reverent caretakers that saw to the running of the imposing and gothic citadel, every single room in the palace still exuded a sensation of magisterial awe and ancient sacredness that Marik's wife had been taken aback by the first time she set foot within it, after being impressed to rare speechlessness by its size on the exterior._

_It was still the morning, and whilst when he had been a moody teenager Marik would never have dreamed of having eaten breakfast (on the few days that he had done in the past) and been fully dressed and showered before ten o'clock unless his father forced him to or the day was special in some way, now after six years of having children it had become a normality for the king. He felt more relaxed than he had done in a long time, as today, barring anything sudden happening, was one of the extremely few days where he didn't have anything to do, and that meant that he could spend time with his family again. Marik had, in his opinion, failed in his promise to himself on his wife's birthday in the earlier months of this year that was now almost at an end, as while he had definitely spent more time with his family as a whole it had been quite unrealistic to promise himself that he would devote almost all his time to them._

_Then again, Marik had always been extremely harsh upon himself, a trait that he hoped his sons only inherited as much as to make sure they weren't too arrogant and cocky, but not to the extent that it afflicted him, and both his wife and his two little boys seemed to be very happy at the moment and loved having their dad around more often than he had been in the past, as the tensions with the New Empire of Passion had died down for now after some Yentarian intervention and the absolute annihilation of a raiding party sent to assault trades routes between Civitas Sol and Crescia by an army lead by none other than the king's own twin brother._

_He swept his gaze along his family that were stood with him within the hall after finishing the breakfast that had been attended by the Guardian and Hierarch of Capitalia Lux as well (and, surprisingly enough, the nineteen year old apprentice of Axeclion Tristram, although his surliness suggested that he had been forced by the albino Light-bearer to interact with the Lucerna family that he would one day be guarding), and he knew that today would be quite special in a way that it shouldn't have been. Well, it was unique in two ways, one of which he was immensely proud of and the other not so much. Alexander, his eldest son that was six years old and full of childhood enthusiasm, was about to start his official combat and magic training with Guardian Axeclion and his apprentice, and while Marik would have watched he had not spent the entire previous day schooling the excited youngster personally to ensure that he was ready for this formal training session._

_Alexander was incredibly thrilled by the prospect of finally beginning to learn the ways of the warriors that he idolised, something that Marik might have objected to if he didn't know that as a Lucerna the boy had to learn combat and become more skilled than most of the soldiers across the Kingdom of Light, as he wanted to preserve the six year old's innocence as much as possible, though it was good that Alexander saw it as more of a game and something to be excited about instead of what war truly was, a mixture of the highest glory and one of the most horrifying things known to mankind, not that Marik had thought that way until he had married and had children of his own and baulked at the prospect of them having to fight for their lives. _

_The blonde was even more animated than usual, something that had amused his mother and his little brother to no end as he bounced around the room, seemingly unable to contain himself until the training began. Marik had known that Alexander had itched for this moment for several years now, and had often caught him wrestling with his little brother – although luckily not too roughly besides a little tumbling, and it was more done to Caiellis's benefit than anything else as his big brother gently tossed him around. The younger boy in question was stood next to his mother, who smiled at the six year old's antics as he jumped up and down on the spot in hyper enthusiasm, although he himself was quiet for now as he studied the paintings on the other side of the hall's walls, his green eyes full of silent introspection and a curiosity for knowledge that was borne from both his parents, and it was with a slight pang of guilt that Marik looked at the two year old, who didn't realise that he was being observed and turned back to his brother._

_The other reason that this day was noteworthy was because it would be the first day since Caiellis had been less than one year old that his father spent solely with him, as while Marik had been staying with his family for longer periods of time he had spent that time with his entire family. He had privacy with his wife when his two adorable little munchkins went to bed, and also had longer with Alexander as he was older and didn't have to go to sleep as early as his baby brother, whilst Marik had also trained his eldest son in the art of combat alone the day before this one. That meant that, as was entirely wrong, he had stayed with Caiellis the least and had spent the shortest amount of time with just them alone. _

_This was because Emili was going to visit other noble families today in a way that his sociable wife surprisingly didn't do very often, as she enjoyed interacting with the circles of her friends in the families, and it was to reinforce the diplomatic appearance of the Lucerna family as well as make sure that they would have the support of the other prestigious households of the capital city that could also trace their ancestry back to the dark days of the first king and had aided the Lucerna royal family since should there be another push from dissidents across the kingdom for a discussion about the continued existence of young Caiellis, who had thankfully been kept away from the hatred and fear directed to the angel inside of him._

_Caiellis already knew that this day was reserved for him to spend some time personally with his dad, which, to the man's sadness, was why he was acting slightly sullen, not joining in with his brother's happiness as he stared at the opposite wall, clutching his mother's hand tightly as she smiled down at him, and not even directing a glance at his dad, who stood rather awkwardly to the side and next to the Capitalia Lux Guardian that grinned at the eldest prince when he asked, bouncing on the spot, "Can we start the training now?"_

_Marik shared a glance with Axeclion, who smiled back at the limitless energy of the boy that he would be training today, and the king couldn't wish for a better combat mentor for his eldest son than the dependable yet masterfully skilful Guardian that had risen through the ranks of the army one by one until he reached this post, his utter undying loyalty to the Lucerna family one that thousands of others aspired to. He patted his son on the head fondly, and replied, "Of course, if Guardian Axeclion is ready for you." When the albino that had surprisingly friendly red eyes nodded, the man continued, "Be good, little man, and behave for Axeclion. He is giving up a lot of his time for you, Alexander, and I don't want you to waste it, ok?"  
Marik heard his wife tutting at the overly strict message that he had just delivered, but he had hoped to impart the seriousness of this type of education that his little (_well, "big" as he'd rather be called_) boy was about to participate in, and it was shown that his words had penetrated when Alexander stood still for a moment and nodded solemnly back, making his father smile proudly at how grown up his boys were becoming as he cautioned, "Alright then, champ, make sure that you say safe during the training, though I'm sure Axeclion and Tristram will make sure that this won't be dangerous at all."_

_He directed the last statement at a kind of barb to the teenager, knowing that the only reason the Guardian tolerated his apprentice was his combat skill and potential for the role of Guardian, but the youngest man in the room stared back resolutely and nodded to the king, clearly realising that he had been too disrespectful this morning and eager to please Marik. Alexander nodded again as his dad ruffled his short blonde hair and he ran over to his mother's open arms, Emili kissing him on his forehead and grinning widely at the boy. When he was free, Alexander turned to his toddler brother, who had finished staring at the wall opposite and looked up at his older sibling with his wide and young green eyes, a smile forming on his face as well as the older boy wrapped a small arm (though he was growing very well for his age) around smaller shoulders._

"_I'll see you later, Cai!" the boy declared loudly for all to hear as the adults in the room smiled at the brotherly bond developed by the young Lucerna siblings as Caiellis smiled back and remained silent despite the fact that he knew full well how to talk at this stage in his life, having shown the ability to do so the last birthday of his mum, and when Alexander pulled away he found a tiny hand grasping at his arm, turning back to the brother that barely came up to the bottom of his chest and asking him, "What are you doing, Cai?"_

"_Can I come with you, Alesh?" the youngest Lucerna inquired, his doleful green eyes brimming with hope and the want to remain with his big brother. While the younger brother still slurred and gurgled his words because of his age, still mispronouncing his brother's name as he had difficulty with his x's, it wasn't something that would concern Marik as all children were the same at that age. However, Caiellis seemed to be able to converse in a way that was not common at all to those his age, grasping nuances and ways of speech in a way that Marik hadn't seen a two year old before and interacting with his older brother almost as well as the six year old spoke to him. Alexander grinned down at his little brother and ruffled the curls of dark brown hair adorning his head affectionately, though obviously a little too roughly for the younger boy's liking as he tried to push his brother's hand away with his tiny own, mumbling a small yelp of pain, making Marik almost reprimand the eldest of his two sons, though he knew that his six year old wasn't doing the actions with the intent to harm his fragile sibling._

"_No, little buddy, you have to stay here with dad," the older boy informed his little brother vaguely sternly, making Marik smile as Alexander favoured the titles that he had used on his eldest son when talking to Caiellis, and the smaller boy hung his head in a sorrowful manner that made Marik's heart ache, although he supposed that his youngest boy wasn't acting in that way to make his dad feel bad or insult him and was only two years old, but the boy's cuteness level increased even more as he looked up at his big brother with adorable puppy dog eyes that the king himself might have been swayed by, as he asked, "Pweeease?"_

"_When you are older, Cai," the older boy told him, filled with older brother importance and responsibility as he used what speaking with his dad had taught him when he put his hands on the smaller child's shoulders and looked him in the eyes when Caiellis sent a dejected glance at the floor, before turning back to his older brother and curled his bottom lip in disappointment as Alexander grinned at him despite his sadness at not being able to be with his brother and added, "And as big as me. Then you will be able to come with me."_

_He pulled the fragile two year old into a hug and squeezed him tight, lifting him off his feet before putting him down and running over to the side of the Guardian and his apprentice, who was smiling in a manner that the king hadn't seen often from the nineteen year old at the brotherly interactions. Alexander waved to Caiellis, who looked back hopefully, as if his brother was just pulling one of his jokes and would rush back to his sibling's side any moment now, and shouted, "I'll see you soon, little guy! Then I'll be able to show you some of the moves that I learn today!"_

_Caiellis turned around in a huff as the three left, not meeting eye contact with his exasperated father who wondered what he had done to incur the toddler's wrath that he had never experienced before, supposing that it was only directed at him because the boy would rather spend time with other people and hadn't spent a protracted period of time with his dad with the two on their own, and then looked up at Hierarch Mithres when the young man said, "I'd best be going then, my lord and lady. The papers won't write themselves, and the students at the academy certainly won't get taught by being left to their own devices." he smiled at his king and queen before grinning down at the youngest Lucerna, who stared back at him before thrusting out his hand, another expression of hope etching itself onto his young features as he looked into the eyes of the Hierarch, deploying his puppy dog eyes once again on the twenty one year old._

_Mithres flicked his eyes to Marik, his expression remaining a smile although his eyes showed that he was vaguely uncertain on how to respond, because he knew that the youngest son of the king liked him because he read books to little Cai and helped him with his mathematics, and often took the youngest boy off of the hands of his family to satiate his unlimited curiosity for learning. He was aware that he would have to turn the two year old down, but wasn't sure whether the king or queen wanted to do it themselves or let him do it. His question was answered when Emili picked up her smallest son and held him in her arms as he snuggled into them, "Come on, Cai, you know that Mithy is very busy today. He has a job teaching other students at the academy, and while I'm sure he would happily spend time with you he doesn't have any to spend."_

_The pleasant twenty one year old grinned at the woman using the old nickname she had developed for him when he had just been a nine year old learning under the fantastic teacher (at the time) Hierarch Tybalt and ruffled the disappointed youngest Lucerna's hair, much more softly than his brother had done, before etching a quick bow and leaving the room and the Lucerna family alone apart from the ever watchful Lancalo who remained to guard them just in case, saying as he went, "Your mum is right, kiddo. I am busy. I'll read a book to you tomorrow, ok?"_

"_Ok," the youngest member of the room replied quietly moments after he had left, his young voice infused with dissatisfaction as he hung in his mother's arms, Emili realising her mistake too late but making sure that her son didn't know that as she looked over at her beloved husband, kissing her boy on his brown curls that, if her own hair was any indication, would straighten out and only curl at the bottom if he was allowed to grow it to a reasonable length (for a boy/man, at any rate), and then putting him down on the ground and glancing back at Marik, who seemed to be lost in thought and staring at Caiellis as he began to glare over at the wall again. Emili opened her mouth to inform her son that she was going to leave before the boy cut in before she did and said, "Mummy, can I come with you?"_

"_No, Caiellis. You would find going and seeing the other noble families very boring," the twenty nine year old woman replied quickly, though her voice was tinted with a soothing and motherly note that Caiellis and Alexander loved to hear from her, before she knelt down in front of her premature second son that was still small because of his birth, gently turning his head towards hers before asking, "Why don't you want to be with your daddy, Caiellis?_

"_...I..." the boy cut off, seemingly lost for words as his young mind wasn't able to articulate what he was thinking and unable to transfer the thoughts into words, his eyes highlighting that he didn't know how to make his thoughts heard and making Marik feel sorry for him, although he knew full well why the boy did not want to spend time with him – it was because the two year old didn't know him well enough and hadn't done it before. Emili looked at him expectantly, before murmuring when the boy fell silent, "There's nothing wrong with daddy, Caiellis. Daddy loves you just as much as I do, and you know that. You've played with him before, and now you are going to spend a whole day with him. Doesn't that sound exciting?"_

_Caiellis's adorably incredulous expression showed that he evidently disagreed, his face falling as he realised that this meant that he would be with his daddy, who he wasn't quite sure was someone that he wanted to be with. Sure, the man was cool, and he had played with him and his big brother, and he had helped Caiellis speak and he felt protected when he was with the towering and encouraging daddy that aptly exemplified how big and strong his already big and strong but not yet as big and strong as that brother wanted to be in the future. He wasn't exactly sure why he didn't want to be all alone with daddy, because he loved the times that he saw him and felt more safe than even when he was with his big brother and mummy, which was why he found it hard to say what was wrong. Emili continued regardless, urging, "Well I think it does. You two are going to have loads of fun together today." _

_She brought him into a hug and kissed him on the head, vaguely concerned by the fact that he seemed to be lost in thought and didn't respond to the motions, before rising to her feet and embracing her apprehensive husband. Emili laughed inside – here was Marik, who had stared down a powerful greater demon without even flinching and banished it from the world of man, held his own against his late father that had terrified Emili despite the fact that Garius had always been very polite and courteous to her, if not even loving to his daughter in law and faced Hierarch Incedian's potent wrath without even a blink, scared and nervous about confronting a two year old boy that was his own second son and someone that he loved more than anyone apart from the other members of his family._

_Emili could have snorted. Her beloved husband constantly thought that he was an inadequate father, useless compared to her at caring for his children, but if he took a step back and saw that all he had done for his little boys without thinking about it, then he would realise that he was the best dad this world had ever seen, especially when one considered that he had his kingly duties to complete and the fact that he prosecuted them admirably._

"_You'll be fine with him, Marik," he assured him in a comforting whisper as they hugged, resting her head on her husband's solid chest for a moment before turning to their youngest son and holding out a hand for him to grab so that they could share the cuddle with him, but Cai didn't even glance over and persisted in staring at the walls quietly. Emili wondered how reticent to speak he would be in his teenage years if this was how hushed he was at the age of two, although she supposed that he wasn't usually this quiet and normally chattered away about different things and posed a multitude of different questions to his family and their friends, though it was vaguely concerning for her that her youngest hadn't made any friends of his own age. _

_Marik smiled, because personally, he was massively glad for this chance to be with his baby boy and knew that he wanted it to be special for the boy, but also anxious about the fact that he was never sure how to interact with children. He had known with Alexander, because the eldest of his two boys had become a known quantity after the years, but little Caiellis was a different matter entirely and Marik was unsure of whether or not the techniques that had worked (and still did) with Alexander would prove to be successful on his baby. He let go of his vaguely small wife of only just more than five feet and six inches, and smiled as she left the room, leaving him alone with his son who was still staring intently at the opposite wall._

_From what Marik had seen, which was quite a bit although he didn't give himself nearly enough credit for it, his youngest son was quite a quiet boy, as while he did speak and wasn't completely silent he was nowhere near as cutely loud as his big brother had been at that age, even though he was the centre of attention in any of the official celebrations due to his status as the youngest and newest Lucerna, and was more likely to stare at things inquisitively and let his thoughts play out in his mind instead of voicing them. Marik had always got the impression that the now two year old knew more about the world and his surroundings than was usual for those of his very young age, and his intelligent and sparkling wide green eyes seemed to confirm that._

_However, for all that Caiellis was quiet in the presence of other people, there was one person that brought out the talkative side of his youngest son, and that was Marik's eldest. When the two sat by each other or spent time together as they often did, though Caiellis was always sad when his brother went to school because he wasn't old enough yet, Caiellis almost became as loud as Alexander himself, chattering happily away to his smiling big brother, giggling adorably when his sibling played with him and lifted him up in a way that he barely ever did and acting far more his age than at any other time. Alexander had become even more endeared by his little brother when the youngest Lucerna had learned how to talk in the quite remarkable capacity that he did, and loved having conversations with the two year old despite Caiellis not knowing as much as his brother and sometimes not understanding exactly what was said._

_Watching his two sons play was one of the most enjoyable things in the world to the king, a chance for him to forget about the rigours of his occupation and the responsibilities of his holy duties, a time where he could just be a father instead of the supreme sovereign of a gigantic and powerful nation and have all of the needs of the people resting on his shoulders. Alexander broke Caiellis out of his peaceful quiet and made him excitable and happy, and the bond between his sons was something to behold and something that would aid them both in the future if anything awful like war happened. Marik pushed the thoughts of his mind; right now he had a vaguely surly two year old to bond with and enjoy a day with, not spend time thinking about the future and revelling in the present instead._

"_Caiellis," he said, but the young toddler didn't turn around and continued to stare at the wall opposite silently, an introspective and slightly thoughtful tinge colouring his eyes and relaxing his face that had been pulled into a frown as his father walked closer to him, towering over the small and fragile boy before he knelt down to his height (although he still dwarfed his youngest son and was far taller than him even on his knees), coaxing and infusing his voice with both an affectionate timbre and a firm note, "Come on, Caiellis, look at your daddy."_

_Slowly, the boy turned his head towards his father, a mixture of curiosity, attentiveness and apprehensive disdain inflecting his young and pale but healthy features, regarding his dad with a kind of judging resonance which made Marik feel like he was being placed under a spotlight and was back training against his twin brother in front of their cold father, although it was nowhere near similar to that and Marik was just nervous about making a good impression upon his son and didn't exactly know what to do to interact with him, whether to throw them into a day of closeness and fun from the get go or to take a while to build up their familiarity with each other – well, his son's familiarity with him at any rate, as he had seen the boy every day of his just two year life._

_Caiellis's eyes said it all, and Marik found himself doing what his wife often did and trying to measure and imagine what their son was thinking through his sparkling emerald orbs alone. They seemed to suggest: _Right, I have looked at you like you told me to and stopped staring at the wall to do this. Now amuse me,_ and Marik hoped what he was doing today would impress his smallest child and show him that a dad wasn't just someone who protected and guarded from a distance and made them feel safe, but someone who could enjoy themselves and have a laugh with their children as well, someone to talk to in times of need and share their greatest hopes and fears with in confidence. He smiled warmly at the boy, who did not reciprocate the gesture, and Marik was sure that had his youngest son possessed and known how to read a watch or chronometer then he would have looked at it impatiently and maybe tapped his foot._

_Marik didn't exactly know what to do, so instead used a tactic that had been tried and tested upon a young Alexander and had worked wonders for breaking the awkwardness and amusing the child, placing his hands in front of his eyes and face to conceal them from his baby boy, although he could still see through the gaps in his fingers and saw his youngest watching intently, as if slightly taken aback by this new development and gauging what would happen next, narrowing his eyes but remaining where he was as he stared at his dad. Marik chuckled to himself inside, knowing that had he not been a father he would have wondered how stupid he looked to other people (such as Lancalo who had remained in the room) and been embarrassed but because he had children he couldn't care less – his sons' and wife's happiness was his happiness._

_He then revealed himself quickly, pulling his hands away from his face and hoping that Emili hadn't often done the same, otherwise Caiellis would have been used to it, shouting (but not loudly) "Boo!" to his son, who blinked in vague surprise and then smiled back, laughing softly which was an improvement to how sad he had seemed to be left with his dad before Marik had pulled the move. He giggled, a high pitched noise that warmed Marik's heart and made the world seem even more perfect, and his eyes were lit up in reasonable amounts of amusement as he told the man, "You're funny."_

"_Being a comedic genius is one of my many talents," the king replied nonchalantly, although inside he was extremely glad that he had provoked a response from his two year old son, who then narrowed his eyes and stopped his soft giggling, a frown of consternation furrowing his brows as he looked at his dad bereft of the humour that he had possessed only moments ago, making Marik vaguely concerned that his son was puzzling over what his dad had just said and was annoyed at himself for not understanding it – as Caiellis had exhibited that trait before and seemed to put himself under a lot of pressure to be able to understand what his elders were saying to him – before the toddler stated firmly, "No. You're not mummy or Alesh funny, you're … you're..."_

_He seemed to be lost for words, his face screwing up in concentration and irritation as he tried to find the right word to say, to voice his thoughts, stamping his foot on the ground in a display of annoyance that Marik had never seen from his quiet and often shy youngest son, before he raised one tiny hand and began tapping himself harshly on the forehead in a way that would leave bruises, rousing the king's fatherly instinct to instant action as he shot out his arm and gently but firmly encircled his son's immensely small and fragile wrist with one large hand and tenderly stopped him from hurting himself, exclaiming slightly aghast," Don't do that, Caiellis."_

_The boy glared at him for a moment before he stopped trying to resist the overwhelming power of his father and let his arm fall still in the man's warm grip, before excitement and elation flashed in front of his eyes and he smiled proudly, obviously having located the word for describing his father within his young mind as his dad let go, always worried about bruising or hurting his youngest son who was still affected by the fragility conferred by his premature birth and natural smallness that he had inherited from Emili, Caiellis smiling happily at having found the correct word and making Marik feel happy himself as he smiled at the boy. Caiellis then declared happily, "You're stupid!"_

"_Thank you, Caiellis," Marik replied without a hint of annoyance or surprise, knowing from his son's expression that the boy had said the words without meaning any harm and sending a fiery glance over Lancalo as the Lucerna Praetorian stifled a laugh that came out as a choked snort at the words of the youngest prince who seemed to have no idea what he had just said, proud of himself for speaking the words and not realising that they could have a negative affect upon other people's feelings. Marik turned back to his son, who directed a cute and confused glance over at the bodyguard as he repressed more laughter that was converted into more loud snorting, a question in his wide green eyes as to the reaction of the man when his dad had been perfectly fine with the words._

_Marik could have rolled his eyes. Of course his youngest son would find him stupid, that was just typical because of the fact he had an older brother and mother to interact with who had probably pulled the same move before on the newest member of their perfect family, and Marik needed to find his own niche so that he could have a unique influence on his boy that wasn't just a faulty replica of his mummy or Alexander. Maybe he should tell Caiellis that it wasn't very nice to call people stupid, but he didn't want to make a negative impact upon the young toddler. _

_Instead he wanted to revel in the fact that his boy had such a good grasp of communication at his tender age despite not being exactly aware of the connotations of his words and what they could do as he turned slowly back to his dad, his eyes returning to their earlier tint which informed Marik that he only had a limited time before the boy dismissed him and decided that his earlier apprehension over being solely with his daddy was correct._

"_So, Caiellis," he began, smiling as his boy turned to him attentively again and regarded his dad with a mixture of inquisitive curiosity, love and also a slight modicum of annoyance and sullenness over being prevented from being with his big brother, mummy or Mithy. The youngest member of Marik's family stared up at the second oldest, ready for his father to initiate the conversation and giving the man a small smile that Marik found very encouraging despite the fact that Caiellis wouldn't realise the amount that it was helping his dad – or perhaps he did, but his eyes still seemed to say that the king had to hurry up in spite of having his second son's full attention. He then asked, his voice comforting but not patronising at all because he knew that his children shouldn't be spoken to in that matter, "What do you want to do today? You have a whole day with me. We could play with your toys, or we could go out of the palace and into the city, or play hide and seek, or..."_

_Marik broke off as his son didn't react to any of his suggestions, still staring at his dad with his wide and innocent eyes although they were more eager than before, and the man knew that he had made the right decision in asking his son what to do instead of deciding it for him, though he hoped that Caiellis wouldn't ask anything absurd or ask to be taken to his brother that would be distracted with the two year old watching him and Alexander needed to be focussed and serious, because if he did then his baby boy would be severely disappointed. The boy looked at him, another question working its way into his dazzling green eyes that would one day help him a lot when it came for him to find a woman and continue the Lucerna line, and Marik grinned cheerfully to encourage him to voice his own ideas, telling the boy, "Anything you want (within reason), little man."_

"_Can we go to the librawy?" Caiellis mangled the word at the end of his sentence because of his age, although it was very clear what he meant to his father, who frowned for a second before turning his expression back to an affectionate smile so that his son didn't think that he was disregarding or disagreeing with the proposal. It had simply taken him slightly aback, but he supposed that he was more used to Alexander's incessant need for excitement and action whereas Caiellis had always been enthusiastic about being read to by anyone that was available and loved being taught how to read himself, and he knew that his little boy would be an avid reader like he had been in the past and Emili was now, although hopefully infused with his mother's desire to learn and expand their knowledge instead of his father's former want to get away and escape from the world. It was a good idea, he admitted, because it meant that his son would be heightening his mental education and it would be much easier for him than chasing the boy around the palace (not that the exercise was a bad thing)._

_Even so, Marik wanted to make sure that his son was entirely set upon this course of action before starting upon it, because if Caiellis got bored then he would probably blame his dad and the two would have to do something else, so he asked, "Are you sure, Caiellis?"_

_The boy narrowed his eyes almost comically once again, as if wondering what the problem with his suggestion was, before opening them wide again and eagerly nodding to his dad who had placed a large hand on his slender shoulder, still not sure what to think of the man quite yet when they were on their own (apart from the praetorian that Cai kept occasionally staring at when he thought that the perceptive Lancalo was unaware, though the man was used to childish adoration from the eldest of his lord's two sons), and he wrapped a warm hand around his dad's large index finger as the man stood up, taking care to leave his arm dangling down so that his son could hold his hand as he declared, "To the library it is then!"_

_He didn't fail to notice the unamused glance Caiellis sent in his direction then, and he cursed again, knowing that while his eldest son had loved everything being exciting and dramatic and loud his youngest probably didn't enjoy things being overblown or made to seem more fun than they were, not that Caiellis though the library a boring place because he himself had asked to go there. It was early in the morning still, a couple of hours until midday, and Marik thought that perhaps he should have made his son participate in an activity that would help him release some of his limitless energy that he possessed as well as his brother (as the king had seen both of his children's endless ability to run around in circles in action) instead of going to the library and reading, as there was no room to play there if Caiellis decided that he wanted to._

_The second eldest Lucerna held his son's fragile and small but warm hand that was full of life and clutching onto his father's own as they walked out of the hall and into one of the many vaguely comfortable corridors in the palace, nodding respectfully to servants as Caiellis hid shyly behind his dad's leg when the aged woman asked how the youngest son of the king was doing, prompting the man to roll his eyes to her and wait until she walked past before turning around to his son and automatically kneeling down in front of him when the two year old stared at the floor, Marik's concern rising slightly as his son brushed his free hand over the ominous Black Sun mark on his right cheek that could serve to make him look terrifying for some, but to Marik just emphasised his innocence and purity in spite of the First Sisterhood angel that had chosen his precious baby boy._

"_What's wrong, Caiellis?" he asked, wondering why he had been acting so timid in the presence of one of the motherly servants that had known him all his life, and Marik gently tilted his son's head up so that he could see into the toddler's eyes as the boy mumbled, "Nothing, daddy."_

"_Is your Lucerna birthmark hurting?" Marik inquired, and the second he did so the boy stopped touching it and let his arm fall by his side in an extremely exaggerated motion that would seem to suggest that it was, but the baby didn't look like he was in pain and would have communicated it by now if he was. He replied, "No, daddy. Let's go."_

_He tried to stride straight past his kneeling dad with his toddling gait set determinedly on the destination of the palace library that stretched, but the man gently wrapped an arm past his waist and pulled the boy into a hug. He fidgeted for a few seconds and tried to pull away, before realising that the effort was fruitless and resigning himself to the cuddling embrace with a sigh that sounded far older than his short life of two years, used to being forced into hugs by his sometimes overbearing big brother, but then again in Alexander's defence Cai knew that he often pushed himself into cuddles with the older boy because he liked the feeling of them even though Alex found them lame and girly._

"_You know you can tell me if anything is wrong, don't you?" Marik told him, the soothing question in his voice rhetorical, and Cai was slightly annoyed though tried not to show it. He wasn't sure why he had wanted to hide from the nice woman, but at that moment all he had wanted to do was to stop her from looking at him and so took the chance to conceal himself behind daddy's leg, not comfortable being fawned over. Marik felt his son nod into his shoulder and smiled patently, deciding that he may as well carry Caiellis the rest of the way because it would be much faster and it would allow him to enjoy the feeling of his young son in his arms, even though it concerned him how little the boy weighed – which was a good deal more than the first time he had carried his youngest son only a month or so after his birth – and adjusted his grip as the toddler squirmed uncomfortably for a moment. _

_Marik let himself be moved around by his son as he walked, the boy altering the position of his dad's muscular arm to better accommodate him so that he could snuggle into the crook of it, murmuring softly, "I'm fine, daddy." The king planted a kiss atop his forehead, taking in the scent of baby boy as well as breathing in the smell of the girly shampoo that Emili used to wash him with earlier that morning before striding quickly to the library, his son leaning forward almost precariously until Marik moved him backwards slightly to prevent him from falling over, Caiellis looking like a captain directing his vessel around as they entered the vast repository of ancient knowledge within the palace that stretched far underground and contained things that only the Lucerna family were able to access – and some documents were exclusive to the reigning monarch, things that others could not be trusted with and information that could easily be wielded by the forces of darkness should it be misused. _

_He smiled friendlily to the aged caretaker that tended alone to the palace library as he organised some of the books again, and noted that Caiellis also gave the man a little affable wave of his own when the venerable curator waggled his wrinkled hand to the toddler, Marik recalling that his youngest son spent quite a bit of time here with his mother or Hierarch Mithres when the twenty one year old was free to teach the boy (having wanted to start mentoring the king's sons like his own former master Tybalt) and so would be well acquainted with the warm and lonely librarian that had tended the library when Marik had visited there himself as a young child to get away from his stony dad and well intentioned but irritating twin brother and had looked just as old then as he was now, which made him veritably ancient._

"_Good morning, my lord," he bowed as far as his aged back and aching bones would allow him to the king, who hadn't entered the library with just his second son before unless his addled memory was making a mistake, and he shook his head slightly as the large man's visage was replaced by that of the slender and lean youth he had been in the past when he had first starting coming to read in the storage of ancient books and tomes that had been tended to by the librarian's father and his father before him, and he smiled as he saw the resemblance of Caiellis's little face to what Marik looked like in his adolescence as he mumbled distractedly, "Would you like me to make you some tea or sandwiches?"_

"_No thank you," Marik replied succinctly, knowing from the past that for some reason there was a small facility for making tea or coffee as well as a small kitchen within the library but supposed that it gave the old man the ability to make himself meals and vaguely recalled some texts mentioning the creation of the tiny storage kitchen as being a way in which the Lucerna family children that were too young to fight could hide below in the event of a siege of Capitalia Lux or an attack on the palace, as well as the fact that it was easy to replenish due to its proximity to the underground prestigious photo-refectories that provided the palace with its meals of the highest quality. He then added, "We've just had breakfast. But thank you for offering."_

"_Thank you for offering," Caiellis's soft and polite voice was an echo of his father's, and he looked up at the man who held him to make sure that he was doing the right thing, confirmed when Marik grinned down at him proudly and ruffled his medium length and vaguely shaggy curls that would become straighter in the future according to Emili, and both men smiled at each other as Marik put his son down and he began to wander further into the vast library, Lancalo not following them into the many rooms of the archives and instead staying to converse with the old curator to give him a bit of company so that he didn't feel too lonely. _

_The king let his little boy lead the way, gently nudging him or giving him a helping hand when his balance became treacherous and grinning as he followed him into a familiar piece of the library down a large aisle with both large walls filled almost to the ceiling with books, as for one this place had also been one of his favourite aisles to randomly walk down and was the one that he had found Caiellis and Emili in before when he went to pick Alexander up from the school located in the palace and available for the children of the noble families in Capitalia Lux. His son located a comfortable looking fortress of blankets and cushions that must have been created the last time he visited and looked up at his dad for conformation that was given when he nodded and the boy sat on the cushions. _

_Marik saw several children's books slotted neatly into a cleared out compartment in the bookshelves, with some ranging back hundreds of years whereas others were very new books that he had bought himself for Caiellis, and supposed that they had been left here whilst the others that were in the nursery bookshelves remained there, and picked out one of them to read to his son, one that Caiellis had often loved having read to him about the conquests of Queen Arie. It was strange; most children grew up fantasising about the heroes of the Lucerna family and reading stories of those from the royal bloodline in the past that were passed down through the generations and even from birth learning to have faith in the ruling family and the champions of the people within it, whereas Caiellis and Alexander would get older being read stories about people that were considered akin to divine beings belonging to their own family and who's ancestry could be traced directly to them. All other young boys and girls would read stories of the Lucernas of the past whilst Marik's two sons would read stories about those that they were descended from and related to, but such was the way of the Lucerna family._

_Anyway, this book was made for young children and had been one that Emili had purchased for Alexander that the blonde hadn't liked very much, but Caiellis had adored it and so Marik wanted to start by reading one that he knew that his son liked. He turned back to the small toddler that looked almost drowned by the blankets (something that Hierarch Mithres and/or Emili had definitely conceived to make Caiellis appear even more adorable) and was about to shift him up slightly and sit beside him before the boy exclaimed, "No, daddy! Not that book."_

"_Which book do you want then?" Marik asked, trying not to let his exasperation show, and it occurred to little Cai that he had just assumed that his daddy would know exactly which book he wanted reading to him when the man hadn't ever come to the library with just him before, but even so he acted slightly petulantly and with a bit of irritation when he jumped up out of his cushioned citadel (that Marik had to admit made his frail son look safer) and pointed towards one at the very top shelf next to the one that Mithy had finished reading to him a few days ago, a history of known Second Sisterhood angels that the Hierarch had read to him to test that he wouldn't be too bored and could understand the historical texts before they progressed onto the First Sisterhood angels that Caiellis was massively excited about reading on, telling his daddy, "A Compendium of Firwst Sistewerhood Angels pwease."_

"_Are you sure? That books is for grown ups and you might find it very boring," Marik questioned, though he realised that there was no child friendly literature on the angels of the highest order bar the First Angel that had helped form Lucael itself and if Caiellis wanted to learn about them then that would be the easiest way of doing so, and his son scowled at him in a way that he must have copied from Emili when Marik asked his wife a stupid question, although on his young features it made him look immensely sweet instead of angry and Marik knew why most of the people that met his second son wanted to baby him, and the toddler huffed and crossed his arms stubbornly, frowning deeply at his father as the man rose his hands to placate the boy, "Ok, ok, I'm getting it. I just think it will be a bit complicated and dull for you, that's all."_

"_Mithy read the Second Sistewerhood one to me," Caiellis stated, and Marik nodded in reply, quite taken aback at the fact that his youngest was perfectly fine with understanding the material of the older and adult books, though he presumed that the young Hierarch had diluted the words and hadn't just read straight from it, showing the youngest Lucerna the detailed pictures that became even more breathtaking when powered with mana (almost as brilliant as the ones inside of the Codex Angelica were). Anyway, that was what he was planning to do, though in now way had he been expecting to have to read adult books to his son and would definitely cut out some of the more brutal sections detailing the power of the angels, and he settled beside his book with the ornate tome in his hands, preparing his reading voice that hoped would spark Caiellis's imagination and help him to visualise the words he would be saying, and asked, "Which one do you want me to tell you about first?" he asked his son, who was snuggling up in his warm sanctuary despite the fact that it was morning and most children his age would be bouncing off of the ceiling and walls at this time, and the boy smiled sweetly at his dad and responded, "Tell me about your angel, daddy. Pwease." He added after a moment's delay, as if suddenly remembering that he should use manners when asking for things from people, and Marik chuckled softly to himself, having anticipated Caiellis asking about his own angel first but instead wanting to know about the one that his daddy used. One day Marik would show his youngest son Akroma so that he could form his own opinions on the Angel of Wrath (as Alexander had already seen the awe inspiring seraph of light on a few select occasions), but for now he contented the boy with a description of her that failed to mention her coldness and sometimes terrifying lack of emotion that nevertheless made her a perfect servant of light and one of the most powerful First Sisterhood angels._

_The two sat for a while together, with Marik answering the inquisitive questions posed to him by his wide eyed and impressed son that became more excited and animated the longer they remained with each other. The king wrapped an arm around his youngest son's slight shoulders as the boy snuggled up closer to him, glad that his daddy was reading to him and that he was responding to the questions in a way that made sense to Caiellis as well as didn't dumb it down too much like others made the mistake of doing. Marik was quite astonished at the toddler's patience and capacity for learning, as when on a whim he quizzed the boy about Aurelia the Warleader that inhabited Alexander at the moment and would protect his eldest boy well, Caiellis had correctly replied to each of the (admittedly not perplexingly difficult) queries directed towards him about the knowledge that the monarch of the Kingdom of Light had just imparted upon him._

"_Daddy?" Caiellis asked, his green eyes reflecting his insatiable inquisitiveness that was redolent of how Alexander had been in the past but yet quite different, though Marik was sure that both his children had asked questions difficult for their parents to answer before (he just hadn't been there if Caiellis had), and the youngest of the brothers didn't ask for things that he knew he wouldn't get (such as a puppy, which to his credit Alexander hadn't pestered him about ever since his baby brother was born), probably because he had already realised from watching his sibling that they wouldn't be overindulged and that tantrums would get him nowhere, not that he had ever acted up before. _

_Apart from his fragility that scared his parents every day and the angel that had selected him as her second Summoner, Caiellis was pretty much a model child, but Marik knew from his past to not compare his sons (especially because of the age gap which would mean that Caiellis would naturally be at a disadvantage should they be judged against each other physically) and Emili had always told him not to do it as well, and besides Alexander's occasional childish rebellion was just as endearing as Caiellis's craving for knowledge and constant questions that Marik had been subjected to now. It seemed that once the boy broke out of his shell as it was, then once he was comfortable in the presence of others he would begin to inquire about a multitude of different things his dad was only too happy to cater for. Marik replied, relaxing further out on the cosy but not suffocating pile of cushions and blankets surrounding him and his baby boy and throwing his arm around the youngster again, "Yes, Caiellis?"  
"Can you tell me about my angel now?" the boy inquired, his eyes wide and eager and Marik repressed a sad sigh, aware of how perceptive his little boy was and that he had the ability to pick up on a lot of things – just like his brother and mother, whereas Marik was sure that he himself wasn't good at detecting emotions from eyes or actions alone. He had been dreading this question since the second his son wanted to know about First Sisterhood angels, and closed the book as he already knew that the single page on the Angel of the Black Sun would be inadequate for his son. He looked the boy deep in the eyes, gulping nervously inside as his mind worked in overtime to invent a believable story that would satisfy the boy's curiosity but also not make him too suspicious that his dad was telling him lies._

"_Pwease," Caiellis added after a short moment, knowing that his mummy wanted him to say the word when he asked for things so that his demands weren't so abrupt and offensive, and it was the please that did it in for Marik, who was considering distracting the boy so that they didn't have to go over the issue and so he didn't have to deceive his innocent baby that did not deserve his lies but was too young to handle the truth. He leaned in closer to the boy, making sure that his eyes conveyed a seriousness that only a father could when speaking to his son, and Caiellis resisted the temptation to hold his breath at the dramatic motions, instead settling on leaning closer excitedly as well. _

_It was all Marik could do not to chuckle at the way that his baby moved his head closer to his dad's like the two were politicians from another nation discussing a scandalous conspiracy, but he made sure that he was firm as well as comforting when he placed his hand on his youngest son's small cheek, the boy closing his eyes for a second at the touch as he rested his tiny and slightly chubby (which was an extremely good sign) hand on his father's much larger own, the touch soft and gentle. Marik then murmured, "Your angel is very special, Caiellis. She is called the Angel of the Black Sun, like the Black Sun of your birthmark here, and is a very unique seraph to have. She hasn't been seen very much, but the times that she has she has always protected the people."_

_Marik felt like he was spewing bile at his son and the words were like acid in his mouth, but he didn't want to make him feel like a pariah at such an early age and knew that if he told Caiellis that his angel had been the cause of one of the largest Lucaelian disasters in history and part of the reason for the civil war over one hundred years ago that, that she had murdered thousands of innocents under the orders of the most insane and evil Lucerna king to ever blight the holy throne and that she had only ever served him, then his little boy would begin to think that he was evil and feel like everyone would hate him because of it, and Marik personally wanted both his sons' innocence to be preserved for as long as possible. He would deliver the truth to Caiellis when the boy was ready for it and knew that it didn't mean that he was evil or cursed, but right now at the age of two his youngest son was in no way prepared for the truth, the awful knowledge of what his angel had done._

"_It is a special gift to you, Caiellis, that one day you will use to help and protect other people," Marik told him, gently brushing the mark on his son's cheek as the boy stared at him in wonder, and the king knew that his words were infused with emotion that he hoped his son wouldn't understand, a deep sadness that his fragile baby boy would have to contend with mistrust and suspicion because of something that he had no association with and something that he didn't choose to happen. However, that didn't mean that the king wouldn't do everything in his power to make his second son have a fantastic life and a brilliant childhood just like his eldest would as well if he had anything to do about it, the Angel of the Black Sun and the misgivings of the Lucaelian people. He closed his eyes for a moment, before reopening them and staring deep into Caiellis's green orbs as if silently telling the boy that he would be alright in his father's care and that he wouldn't let anyone hurt him even as he smiled warmly and told him that the angel he possessed was just as good as his father's and big brother's, just wasn't known as well as Akroma or Aurelia. _

"_Why are you lying to me, daddy?" the innocent voice of his youngest son broke into the reverie that he had fallen into, his eyes doleful and full of childhood purity and such utter seriousness that Marik almost forgot he was talking to a two year old boy instead of a teenager or even an adult like himself, and it was with great difficulty that the king of Lucael concealed his shock at the boy's surprisingly accurate words that pierced to his heart. _

_He was the parent in this situation, and it was his job to make sure that his son thought that he was safe and protected and that he wasn't inferior to anyone because of his First Sisterhood Summoning, he was just startled that his baby had easily seen straight through his protective lies. Marik held the boy's inquisitive gaze firmly, pulling his hand away from his slightly gaunt cheek and placing it on his small shoulder instead, curling it protectively round his head and the top of his neck and hiding his shock so that Caiellis didn't have his words confirmed, as the way the boy was looking suggested that he wasn't entirely sure whether his dad was telling the truth or not despite having no cause to suspect that he wasn't. Nonetheless, his son's eyes reflected an intelligence far beyond his couple of years spent living, a kind of haunting version of the child wisdom that Alexander had displayed before._

"_I am not lying to you, Caiellis," Marik told him, tinting his voice with a minute slice of sternness but mostly suffusing it within a solicitous parental tone that nevertheless brooked no dissent or disagreement, gazing deep into the boy's emerald green irises and hoping that his son would be satisfied by the fact that even thought that he was telling the truth – Caiellis would use his angel to protect the people, he wouldn't turn into another insane and narcissistic Xarius and the Angel of the Black Sun was a gift to him from the heavens, albeit a double edged gift that could serve to detriment him just as much as it would aid him. He could see the "gears" in Caiellis's mind twirling as his mother so often put it when he was puzzling over questions more suited for those at least two years older, Emili so proud of both of their children just as Marik was, and he cocked his head to the side, an expression of deep thought heavily reminiscent of the ones that Marik's beautiful and insightful wife often pulled, something that both his sons had inherited from imitating her but one that Caiellis did with much more similarity to Emili's._

_The silence drew on for around a single minute as Caiellis considered his daddy's words and the man gently stroked the back of his head with his large hand, before Caiellis's cute face little face broke out in a wide smile and he replied happily, the earlier haunting and almost mournful look to his eyes that no two year old should feel now gone and replaced by love and cheerfulness, "Ok, daddy!"_

_Marik pulled his son into his arms once again as he breathed a sigh of relief inside, uncomfortable with the topic, especially with his youngest son who it directly affected, and planted another kiss on his head, stroking his shaggy and unruly curly hair that ideally needed cutting but Marik wasn't too bothered since his youngest didn't have to fight at all, and the boy wrapped his tiny arms around the king's broad chest as far as they could go, flashing his adorable dimples at his father and pressing his head into his solid chest. Marik wanted to hold the moment forever, having not been able to embrace with his youngest son that often, and the only things that could have made it better would be the presence of Emili and Alexander, although the embrace shared by dad and youngest son was special and something Marik would treasure forever within his heart._

_They sat on the soft and fluffy blankets like that for a while, each revelling in the other's company silently as Marik wondered what he had done to deserve such a fantastic wife and wonderful sons, three blessings upon his life that he would preserve for as long as he lived and would give his life a thousand times for in a heartbeat, until Caiellis started squirming restlessly in his arms and he placed his youngest son gently on the fortress of blankets and pillows that must have been created by Hierarch Mithres and Emili together as it encompassed facets of what both would have in a construction (and he knew that the Hierarch found both his sons delightfully cute in spite of Alexander's petty dislike of him because he wasn't a physical warrior). _

_Marik raised a sardonic eyebrow when his little boy began to climb him like one would scale a mountain, reaching out a hand to steady him when his balance looked precarious despite the fact that the only thing he could possibly fall on would be more rumpled sheets that had been pillaged from the nursery if their colour and familiarity to the twenty nine year old monarch was anything to go by, and laughed softly when the boy began to try to pull himself up onto his dad's chest impatiently, pushing away his father's aid and tickling the man with his soft brown hair, squirming and wriggling on his dad like a little luminescent caterpillar conjured by very young children that would one day unfurl its wings and grow into a Goldenglow moth, and he asked with a slight tease in his voice, "Are you being a nuisance, Caiellis?"  
"No. I'm being a leonin," the two year old answered reasonably, and Marik chuckled as he remembered that despite his deep wisdom and thoughtfulness, his son was only just in the third year of his life and had every right to play around with his family and friends (not that he had any and was perfectly content with the members of his bloodline). It hit Marik with a pang of sadness that he had never playfully wrestled with his youngest son before, something that he had often done with Alexander although it was with much less regularity now that he was more busy as a sovereign and spent time with all three members of his family. _

_At first it had been because he had been afraid to even hold his baby boy after the ordeal that was him entering the world a month early, scared of damaging his fragile bones and somehow hurting his frail youngest, and that notion had persisted to the point where he had always been far more careful with Caiellis than he ever had been with his eldest – not that he wasn't cautious with the older one of his sons, but Alexander had always been more healthy and weighty than his brother at the younger boy's current age, and then he had been too busy for playing and messing around with his sons often so could only do it. He remembered a night only a couple of days ago where he had been throwing Alexander around playfully and tickling him, and had felt immensely guilty when he saw his youngest silently watching the two curiously but also with a vaguely lonely tint to his bright green eyes so had stopped and let the two play instead._

_That meant that he hadn't bonded with Caiellis in a way that only he as a father could (as Emili had always been more of the soft one and would prefer to cuddle her sons instead of playfully wrestling with them, though she had always found her husband's antics in that regard quite amusing), although he had often seen Alexander playing with his little brother in a way that Marik had played with the blonde it wasn't the same. However, there was always time to start now, and since he had already made Caiellis know who he was now and feel safe with him, and he snorted with happiness as his son leapt off him and onto the blankets, plopping down onto all fours and demonstrating his roar, "Rawr. Rawr!"_

_Marik's eyes were filled with love for his son, who was in essence just a normal two year old that needed attention, love and a meaningful way to expend his energy just as much as any child did despite his self sufficiency and intelligence far beyond his two years and his role as a prince, and he laughed to the boy, "No, you aren't a leonin yet. You are just a cub, I am the leonin."_

_Caiellis adopted a deliberate prowl, his eyes filled with an excitement that Marik had rarely seen from his more withdrawn youngest son before as he growled playfully, and the king of five years was ready and waiting when the two year old hurtled towards his daddy and launched himself off the ground. He caught the young cub easily and used his much bigger paw to flip Caiellis onto his back and tickle his exposed underbelly, knowing that sort of technique often worked with Alexander and eager to see the response that his youngest son would give to it. The toddler shrieked happily with laughter, batting at the assaulting hand and sinking further into his father's chest as he laid down on the pillows below him and fell into the soft and plump fabric, glad that he had placed the ancient book concerning the First Sisterhood to one side before this happened and the tome got ruined, and Marik grinned widely at the infectious sound that could bring a smile to even the most dour of Lucaelian warrior veterans, pushing down the thought that it probably wouldn't even provoke a little smirk from his late father when the man had been alive as Garius would definitely have agreed to the plans of murdering the his youngest son's youngest son._

_The king wrestled his son gently, laughing when the boy threw his warm and mostly insubstantial baby weight against his father again, flipping Caiellis a few more times and continuing his relentless tickling until the munchkin was puffing with exertion and laughing breathlessly, a wide smile gracing his young features as he giggled hysterically in his daddy's grip, smiling up at the loving relatively young man and melting over his chest, his baby limbs splayed in a carefree hug utterly out of place with the intensity that he had summoned up earlier in his dark green eyes. Marik was smiling like an idiot, glad that the palace library wasn't that public so that they weren't disrupting others' reading with the playing but enjoying it immensely as he jostled his son, sitting upright and placing the young boy on his lap as Caiellis regained his breath, still shivering with giggles of joy from the experience. Marik starting bouncing him slowly, enough to make it enjoyable but not too much to overwhelm the boy and allowing him to recover as he laughed happily, the sound like music to the king's ears and letting him forget the pressure placed on him if only for a moment._

_Caiellis pushed himself upright so that he was sat instead of laid on his father's legs, and then leapt upwards, wrapping his arms around the back of his daddy's neck as he hugged the man. Marik felt a brush of wetness on his cheek and then the nuzzle of soft hair on his neck, and it took him a moment to realise that his son had just kissed him. _

"_I love you, daddy," the toddler told him sincerely, his voice still full of jubilance but more soft and genuine now, and Marik's defences melted. He had missed hearing that from his sons, missed it more than he had ever realised, and he wrapped one large arm around his son's warm body as he held Caiellis close, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of his baby boy as he replied affectionately, "I love you too, Caiellis."_

"_And I'm not just saying it because Alesh says it," Caiellis then informed the king, a note of indignation creeping into his tone, and the man chuckled quietly at the notion that his son was simply repeating the words of others and didn't mean it himself, as well as the fact that Caiellis showed quite incredible (although Marik would be proud of his children no matter what they did because he was their father and they were the little monsters that he had helped create) perceptiveness in deducing that perhaps his daddy might think that he wasn't genuinely expressing his love for his father because other people said the same. The king responded fondly, "I didn't think you were."_

_He then opened his eyes again after the hug, and saw the young face of his eldest son peering at them somewhat shyly at the other end of the aisle of bookshelves, the blonde's cheeks slightly red and the kid was regaining his breath after most probably running here. Startled, Marik almost fell backwards in shock from suddenly seeing the six year old and almost let go of Caiellis before ensuring that he didn't drop the two year old toddler, and held his youngest in one arm while he fished the ornate chronometer that had been a gift from the then Hierarch Tybalt to his favourite student (one of the few people that had preferred Marik to Johnias). His jaw almost literally dropped when he saw that it was almost one in the afternoon and that he had spent three hours in the library reading to his second son and playing with the boy, and he then composed himself and asked, "Well, Alexander? How did it go?"_

"_It was really fun," the boy announced, although it was without his usual burst of enthusiasm despite the words still being sincere, just more quiet, and Caiellis, hearing his big brother's voice, spun himself around and dropped out of his father's grip, crawling forward on the blankets before pushing himself up to a standing position and using a tiny fist to brush the hair out of his eyes before declaring, "Alesh! Daddy and I were playing!"_

_Marik saw vaguely puzzled gratification work its way into his firstborn son's warm and fond blue eyes and it occurred to him that perhaps Alexander had been reluctant to speak because he had wanted to enjoy the sight of his dad and baby brother bonding together for once. _Hmm … I guess I don't do this often enough, _the king of Lucael thought, not wanting either of his sons to be surprised when he showed such outright affection – sure, he often favoured them with a small kiss, fond pat on the head or a ruffle of their hair (though he had stopped picking Alexander up as much because he was six and now had to start developing his own independence, not be coddled by his dad forever), but this was the first time ever that he had ignored Caiellis's fragility and treated him like a baby boy instead of a delicate sculpture of glass. He threw his eldest an inviting wink and reached round to tickle his youngest son in the sweet spot he had discovered around his ribs and upper tummy just to hear that delighted shriek again, saying, "Would you care to join us, Alexander?"_

_The talk about his first son's training could wait until they fetched something for lunch (and Marik was kind of guilty that he hadn't fed Caiellis for a while, though he had taken the bottle of water with him that belonged to his youngest and had made him drink that in breaks between the reading), and Alexander seemed to agree, grinning and willingly assisting in the endeavour of playfully tormenting his little brother who batted this new attacker with his tiny paws, deciding that it would be a good idea to demonstrate his powerful roar to this new and older cub. Marik chuckled to himself quietly; he had to admit: Caiellis made a good leonin. _

"_Alesh!" the boy yelled at his big brother, throwing himself at the larger boy instead as Alexander caught him and made a show of grunting at the added weight which Marik knew wouldn't be bothering his eldest son at all – it might have been if Caiellis had been a healthy weight or size for his age, but since he wasn't and Alexander had trained wielding wooden swords even at the age of six he would easily be able to carry his lightweight little brother. Alexander roared back at his brother, imitating the younger boy and making him laugh with more tickling as Marik stood up and watched the two fondly, the way that his eldest handled his youngest carefully but not enough to allow Caiellis to notice something to behold. They would need to have lunch soon (otherwise Emili would get annoyed at him, sensing that they hadn't eaten in spite of the fact that she was further into the capital), but for now Marik was content to watch his two sons wrestling light heartedly, hoping that they would never have to fight in war or be hurt in the future. He would do everything in his power to prevent that, that much was certain._

* * *

_Well exam season is pretty much in full swing now, so expect this to be the last chapter for a while until they are finished (June 19th is the last). I would like to say thank you again to my loyal readers who have stuck with me through this. I hope to have this fight concluded in the next chapter, but considering the siege of Usnaan was only supposed to take two chapters in total I could easily be underestimating the amount of time it takes. _


	34. A Hero's Death (Part I)

_Well originally I wasn't going to upload this as one chapter, since in my plans it should have been combined with the next, but I looked at the size of it and knew that another scene would take way too long. On a side note, if you are leaving a review (and I'm always happy for anyone to review so please do) please tell me what you think of a chapter length of around 40,000 (which the past few chapters have been). I like it at that length, but what do you think?_

_Furthermore just to clear up any confusion that could arise, I am changing Caiellis's height from 5 feet to 4'11'' since I only picked the former because it was Hope Estheim's height in FF-13. I really had no clue whether it was small for his age or not, but I thought it would be since a couple of years ago when I was that age I was around 5'6'' and that wasn't even close to being in the top quarter of heights (and since I had my growth spurt early now nearly all of my friends are taller than me) I thought that 5 feet would be around small enough. I was looking it up out of curiosity and apparently it is only an inch shorter than the average height of thirteen year old boys in the UK. While I know that Lucaelians would be taller on average, I still think I needed to make him shorter. I thought I'd put that here in case someone was reading it and got confused by the fact that he suddenly shrunk. _

* * *

Tristram screamed out in pain as his arm was lopped off by the glittering and malevolent blade that exuded high amounts of sadistic Black mana that amplified his pain, and Elizabex immediately conjured healing White mana from within her to help repair the wound – although she could not create a new arm and the malicious magic of darkness that had been coating the sword wielded by the Master of Gluttony would seek to nullify her magic. She gathering up the mana within her like her mother had taught her all those years ago at the start of the civil war, where Alexander and Caiellis's mother had been assassinated by demons and the capital city had been besieged only a few minutes afterwards as more demons tore their way from the forsaken void and into reality and hounded the army as it tried to prepare.

It had been a night of bloodshed, murder and fire, and while Elizabex had edited out most of the memory of that awful time only a few things stuck with her – and the only one of any use was her mother, a powerful High Priestess of the Cathedral of Salvation in Capitalia Lux, pushing her small secondary wand into her nine year old daughter's small hands and quickly making sure that she knew the knowledge of a spell to harm and another to heal before throwing her and Leodred inside of their small safe house and leaving to go help the army fight against the demons. Elizabex and her brother had been terrified, and although the younger of the two had professed that he was going to protect his sister Elizabex knew that it had been her job to guard her (only just) little brother from the demons and the traitors attacking the capital.

They had spent all night scared within their temporary sanctuary, hoping that the demons couldn't detect their fear and nevertheless wanting to help the army against them, as they could hear the sounds of the fighting and violence in the wider city, the blood curdling screams splitting through them and reaching the cores of their being and freezing them to the spot. They had wanted to help, but Elizabex knew that they would have just been getting in the way instead and that they were far too scared to be of any use so they stayed cowering within their home's cellar until the fighting abated, praying silently that no demons would come.

They never did, but Elizabex still channelled that fear into her magic, coupled with the desire to help that had been burning within her breast the entirety of that night and the realisation that she could now aid those that were fighting for the safety of the kingdom and the children left behind, the determination within her to allow others to live prosperous and safe lives free of war and destruction empowering her magic. One thing that she had always been concerned about was the fact that if she had been so terrified that she couldn't move or process the thought of leaving their refuge despite the fact that it was almost as dangerous as the outside, then how had that affected the little brother of one of her best friends, Prince Caiellis?

He had only been four years old when his mother had been ripped to shreds in front of his eyes, and had been forced to contend with his perfect life being torn away from him at an age where he barely knew what was going on around him (although Cai had always been an intelligent and perceptive child, highlighted by the way he had "forced" others to read history books to him), and even though she knew how good of a brother her best male friend was it still didn't change the fact that arguably Caiellis had suffered more out of the four of them. If she couldn't cope with the terror at the age of nine, then how had he managed at the age of four?

Elizabex knew that despite what others may like to believe, the Lucerna family were not gods, they were just humans that had power that they could use to help the Kingdom of Light – sure, it was easy to believe that they were divine beings, and the power that she had seen from King Marik was breathtaking to behold and stirred a sense of deep rooted loyalty and pride within her, but the fact was that they were still mortals, still human beings that needed love, warmth and friends just as much as everyone else did. She wasn't sure that she would be saying the same if she didn't have the two youngest in the royal family as friends (although she wasn't sure if quiet Caiellis would class her as a friend or not, or just his brother's friend) and was aware that they were people, young teenagers that were the exact same as normal humans bar the Summonings of First Sisterhood angels, but it was why she had to fight now. Elizabex had to fight and help her allies, family and friends so that they could all live happy lives free from strife and bloodshed, and give thirteen year old boys a chance to live a life away from the pressure and death bearing down upon him.

She cared a lot about Caiellis, not just because he was a Lucerna prince, but for two reasons: she knew that Alexander's inner happiness more often than not correlated to his little brother's happiness, and could well empathise with wanting to protect younger brothers (not that Leo had ever considered himself her younger brother), and secondly she thought it was one of the greatest injustices in the world like innocent children like him (and Alexander, but it was more prominent within his younger sibling) had their childhood's stripped away from them because of the ravages of war and the greedy impulses of narcissistic would-be rulers. Elizabex and Leodred also had to suffer through that, though to a much greater extent than the Lucerna brothers, as their father had left to go fight with Marik as the king's right hand and most trusted general and they had only seen him less than twenty times over the nine year period of the civil war instigated by the king's insidious and brutal brother.

As she channelled the spell, her sharp mind working overtime to create the emotions necessary to override such vile and destructive Black mana pulsing through the Capitalia Lux Guardian that had done so much for her friends, Elizabex wondered how many Welkalite children had been torn away from their innocence and their allowed immaturity because of the Orders of Passion that had corrupted a city and empire that had just obtained its freedom from a lineage of autocratic and draconic tyrants – she remembered when Alex had spoken to his kid brother's roommate about after he invited the Welkalite boy over in the dinner of the day that Caiellis had passed his Summoning trial, and that Kaled had never known his parents and had been taken in by a well intentioned and kind old woman when he had already lived years of hardship on the streets of the very city the Lucaelian soldiers were battling to free (even though some couldn't care less about the fate of the Welkalites and simply wanted them destroyed so that he could not continue to threaten Lucael or the young heirs to its throne). She had felt sorry for the fifteen year old then, and although some of the more narrow-minded within her nation (probably including her father and mother) only cared about the Kingdom of Light, the rest of the world be damned, Elizabex wanted every child to have a chance at life, no matter where they were born.

She felt the White mana flowing through her, more powerful than she had ever conjured it before, and Elizabex thought that perhaps this would in fact heal Guardian Tristram's arm fully and restore the limb completely, and the gentle but tough Purity sang a cry of nobility and light as the magic flowed through the elemental, incandescent circles of healing power surrounding both Tristram, Elizabex and the elemental of goodness as the eighteen year old raised her staff to the raging sky, ignoring the fact that droplets of blood were beginning to pour from what had been named as the Tempest of Craving and splattering on the bare skin of her pale face.

The daughter of Carlis Montlea quickly whispered the final words of the incantation that had only taken a few seconds to cast and that had been started pre-emptively as the Master of Gluttony Ilentia had began her attack, Leodred internally praising his twin sister's foresight in preparing a healing spell of great power the moment the insanely attractive but almost demoniacally pale Welkalite bitch stopped attacking and distracting her as he and his Valour rushed towards the Guardian and his assailant and the angel and demon continued to fight in heavens above. Elizabex felt her hair slowly being lifted into the air through the power of the spell coursing through her as light surrounded her limbs and pulsed through her staff, the girl determined to help the others avenge the deaths of her father's personal retinue and guard, the Spears of Justice, that now littered the ground with their body parts, and she slammed her staff into the ground.

Instead of a blast of light illuminating the reeling Tristram and repairing his wounds, instead an explosion of violent and malicious Black and Red mana detonated all around the girl, spiralling contrails of sadistic darkness combined with vindictive black flames that pulsated with an obtrusively vibrant crimson core consuming her in fire and blood as the magic of repairing and kindness turned inwards and had its pure intentions corrupted by the bloody rain that was burning through Elizabex's skin. She involuntarily screamed in pain as the violent magic blossomed throughout her body and bloodstream, sending spikes of throbbing agony stabbing into every inch of her skin as the circles of orderly and virtuous White mana that had been circulating around her became spiteful and ruinous, losing their perfect shape and mutating into cataclysmic symbols of pain and hedonism that danced behind Elizabex's eyelids as she automatically shut them in the wake of the explosion that was crashing through her.

The girl vaguely felt herself being blown backwards by the sudden generation of large amounts of Black and Red mana that was a sick parody of her healing spell, but the pain of the impact was nothing compared to the agony blasting through her limbs and ramming pounding blades of torture into her skull again and again. It was more pain than she had ever experienced before, and it _hurt_, the agony blooming within her as if some sort of capricious and frenzied god addicted to bloodshed and violence was punishing her for trying to heal and help others, inflicting torment upon her to in payment for her attempts to soothe the pain of others.

Elizabex coughed as she screamed, scarlet blood exploding from her mouth as the warm liquid's taste was strangely amplified and focussed by her agonised mind, every sensory facet of her own blood accentuated by the hedonistic Red and Black mana swirling savagely around her as the circles of once noble White mana that had been revolving around her wrists and slender forearms like enchanted bracelets of holy luminescence became barbed and wickedly spiked and lost their divine light, turning hellish and smoky as they emitted the debased and sacrilegious mana of corruption and impulse. They suddenly started constricting, stabbing into Elizabex's arms and veins as they sent vile and agonising Black and Red mana into her blood, losing their uniform and circular shape and extending outwards like jagged and thorny chains of wire that cut and slashed at her lower arms and wrists, every pain stimulus she felt heightened to insanity inducing levels by the screaming Tempest of Craving that sent resounding pain ricocheting through her skull.

Blearily, she felt blood pouring down the back of her head and noticed that it was resting on stone, and then Elizabex saw something like a shield of golden and white magic cracking apart in front of her, splintering into several metallic fragments of light as the dark magic pulsed through it, and the young woman distinctly felt a feeling of being protected that had nestled within her behind all of her fear and determination smashing apart, the deeply rooted sense of safety and security that she had detected was coming from Guardian Tristram's Second Sisterhood angel, Athela of the Aegis, broken within her and truly exposing her mind to the terror of the battle in the corrupt City of Pleasure underneath an unnatural and roiling storm that could wipe her from existence at any moment its atavistic will chose. A demonic roar resounded across the battlefield, although it was not coming from the ravenous creature the Master of Gluttony had created, and Elizabex perceived the presence of something monumental and indescribably evil entering the city of Usnaan near to where she had vaguely detected the location of Prince Caiellis.

Elizabex, one of the more sensitive members of the Montlea family that had surpassed her proud mother in that department a few years ago, but who was more focussed upon the aura of emotions rather than mana pools (although the two were linked in potency and the feelings of a being with large amounts of magical energy were more obvious to her), screamed in fright for her fraternal twin brother, father and friends, and in fear for herself, as despite technically being an adult Elizabex was still a child and still a teenager, and the pain that was pulsing through her that had destroyed the protective blessing of Tristram's seraph homed in on that fear and used it top exacerbate her agony. Then, blackness consumed her sight and Elizabex let herself be consumed by the lull in the pain for an infinitesimal moment before pushing herself up out of it as the excruciating that revelation unconsciousness only brought more pain made itself known to her.

"Eliza!" Leodred shouted as he saw his slightly older twin sister being flung across the garish but bloody avenue of Banquet Street by malignant energies that crackled through her in a sick mockery of the orderly and kind healing magic she had tried to conjure to aid the Guardian, but there was nothing he could do to help his precious sibling at the moment so instead hefted his longsword that had been a present for his eighteenth birthday and ascension into adulthood, and launched himself at the fiery and red eyed Master of Gluttony that was pressing the attack against Tristram. Valour rushed to his side in a blaze of milky White light that reminded Leo of the exalted King Marik, though he did recall his elemental incarnation warrior telling him that he was a servant of the divine Angel of Wrath and that because of that he used a similar power to the First Sisterhood angel, and the exemplification of soldiery hefted its elegant spear as he augmented his human Summoner with additional speed so that the boy could match him as he charged towards Ilentia, who was now spinning her second strike through the air with the more destructive and chaotic blade of her left hand whilst her right was curving around also.

The sword in that hand was pulsating with dripping malicious energy that craved bloodshed and pain, and as Leodred ran towards her his adrenaline fuelled mind couldn't help but think that now that the Welkalite weapon had caused the Champion of Capitalia to lose his right arm and had caused the noble Tristram a large amount of torment the blade seemed to have developed a liking – _no, an _addiction – to the Lucaelian exemplar's blood and pain by the way that it moved in Ilentia's hand of its own accord and reached towards the reeling Guardian. Leo saw his dad on the other side of the unusually pale Welkalite woman with his androgynous elemental known only as Glory attacking from above, and his eyes locked with the brown sphere's of his father's as they rushed to the attack.

The boy – _young man_, he corrected himself_ \- _knew that while he wanted nothing more than to go and help Elizabex and see what was wrong with her, find out why her healing spell had backfired and comfort the sister that had helped him through many painful experiences and had always been the temperament to his more brash and boisterous nature, killing the seemingly ironically named Master of Gluttony (as while her demon seemed voracious and insatiable enough) that had made a mockery of their fighting skills and danced through them as she killed those without powerful Summonings and exploited the gaps in the Spears of Justice that had been caused by her brutish and slavering force would serve to make Eliza safer in the long run, although Leodred always felt awful whenever he saw his twin sister hurt and felt protective over her to the point where he had often gotten into fights with boys that had wanted to date his sibling but would have just spurned and rejected her given the chance and had only wanted to use her for the prestige of having a girlfriend – which was the content of one of his few fights with his best friend Alexander Ensis Lucerna.

There was a tempestuous roar of a primal and insatiable lust for destruction and chaos that echoed across the battlefield and was originating from something that was the most powerful thing Leo had ever sensed before, but Leodred paid it no heed as he, his Summoning, his dad and the man's own powerful Sancturia creature initiated their three pronged attack on the seemingly oblivious Master of Gluttony who was split seconds away from eviscerating the uncharacteristically blinded by pain Tristram (which only emphasised how potent the enchanted weapons of their Welkalite opponent were). Leo knew that no matter how concentrated upon solely the tall and broad Capitalia Lux Guardian Ilentia seemed to be, she would be focussing upon the battle as a whole and probably perfectly ready for their attack, but they still needed to force her away from Tristram so that the man's angel – the only descendant of the holy heavens that was close enough to provide aid, the others embroiled in most likely equally bloody battles elsewhere across this light-forsaken city – could continue to hold of the greater demon pressing down on her and testing Athela's skills to the limit, as well as preserving the life of the man who was famed all across the Kingdom of Light and who meant a lot to Leodred's best friend.

"Ave Lux!" Valour shouted, his otherworldly voice nevertheless infused with very human conviction as he closed on the Master of Gluttony, his spear carving a line through the air as he lanced at the unnaturally albino woman as the torrent of blood shed from the Tempest of Craving that crackled and screamed in the roiling sky above increased in intensity until it became a veritable downpour of gore and lifeblood. Leo wished that he had access to long ranged magical attacks, but all of his magic was exclusively focussed into a single discipline, that of augmenting the close combat power of himself and others around him which was similar to what his father did, although Carlis's Glory had a wider variety of abilities and spells at its disposal that Leo hoped he would unlock with years more of training and honing his magical potency, because that meant that they would have instantly been able to respond when the Guardian was injured and his arm amputated by the greedy black blade of the Welkalite – as his father's magical attacks took a long time to prepare.

Despite whatever notions of glory and honour Leodred had concerning being the one to slay a Master of a Welkalite Order of Passion, the boy knew that his role in this would be to distract the woman or force her away from Tristram so that either his dad could get in a good blow or they were able to reconsolidate and prepare for her next attacks. He hacked his longsword towards the woman, who predictably spun around to block it on her fiery blade, the strength behind the blow immense as Leodred felt the burning power of the rush of a thousand infernos enhancing the force generated behind the return strike as Ilentia almost casually sidestepped the strike from the fluted spear of Valour.

The demonic power that she had willingly traded her former Summoning for in an Infernal Bargain with the denizens of the unholy abyssm coursing through the corrupt veins of the woman made her far more formidable than a normal human, and her speed would have been incredible to behold had she not been their enemy who had received that power in the most vile of means, and as Carlis slashed his shining blade – channelling his mana into the ornate and ancient sword that had served many generals loyal to the Lucerna line and had been a gift from Lord Marik in recognition of his efforts in a way that the man, his friend and almost brother that was a few years younger than him, had taught his dutiful general – at the Welkalite wench she leapt upwards, her feet surrounded by fire that had helped her push herself from the ground as the ambitious and selfish Black mana that flowed through her bloodstream and would forever corrupt her heightened the effectiveness of the movements even more, and Carlis's blade hacked a swathe of light in the space that she had occupied only minuscule moments ago as the rain of vivid crimson blood sizzled as it touched the holy mana of White.

Carlis immediately looked upwards towards where his elemental incarnation was descending upon the Master of Gluttony as she somersaulted through the air, displaying the astonishing agility that had allowed her to exterminate the to all extents and purposes Spears of Justice that had survived many horrific battles within the Lucaelian civil war and all of whom Carlis had known personally (as he had hand picked each and every one of them himself, apart from the one who had been offered a place in the Lucerna Guard instead), Ilentia ripping apart men that had fearlessly battled against horrors from the pits of the darkness and overwhelmed powerful demons with their unity and skill like they were children playing at the game of being soldiers and had had their folly punished with the ultimate price. He shot a bolt of light at the woman from the tip of his large (though not quite as gigantic as the king's broadsword) longsword, golden mana spilling out of the blade and streaking through the air at her, a single beam of light surrounded by coils of yellow energy that strengthened its already potent power that shone forth from his fingers as both of his hands gripped the weathered handle of his blade that was eroded from many years of use but still kept it optimum condition – as Carlis was loathe to let such a mighty blade lounge in disrepair and refused to let any of his servants or squires tend to it, so he always tended to the sword personally.

The bolt of radiance was met by a shield of wriggling shadows that Ilentia brought in front of it, obscuring the man's vision of the woman with its noxious darkness that would no doubt clog the lungs of any of noble Lucaelian heritage that entered it, though he knew that Glory's post human sight would pierce through the veil of deceit and evil as it had done so many times in the past when the forces of Johnias had shrouded themselves in the blessings of the night and had become invisible to both physical and magical sight (and it seemed that the youngest son of Marik had developed a similar ability, the young thirteen year old named Caiellis that Carlis had never really interacted with before (although he had spoken to Alexander on quite a few occasions) and who Carlis wasn't sure how he felt about despite knowing that any son of Marik and any Lucerna was far beyond whatever his lowly opinions were) and was warily confident that the elemental would be able to force Ilentia out of her concealment.

It was with no small rush of satisfaction that Carlis noted that his magical shaft of incandescence blasted through the cowardly shadows that Ilentia had wrapped around her position in the air as Leodred came to his father's side quickly, the lanky but still muscular boy's only slightly pale face becoming stained with the blood pouring relentlessly from the cursed storm above as his brown orbs reflected his fear and concern for his sister, but Carlis spared his beloved son no more than a glance as he watchfully observed the cloud of darkness that had burst into the air that Glory, its ribbons of protection the colour of midnight shadow, had just entered, and the general and head of the famed Montlea family who had long served the Lucerna line and the Lucaelian people prepared to launch another magical assault. Long ranged attacks were not his forte, but as the holder of one of the highest ranks in the Lucaelian legions he had to proficient in all forms of combat – as one never knew when they would be needed – and as he prepared the attack it was only a second or so until Ilentia burst out of her brief defence.

The woman immediately sighted the Lucaelians below her, her combat instincts blaring within her mind as she emerged from her temporary sanctuary of darkness that was only ever meant to be used as a distraction, and although the new Ilentia fancied herself to be an impassive and serious warrior she could only just resist the burning temptation not to wear a contemptuous smile that would be directed towards the foolish girl who had tried to cast a healing spell whilst under the effects of the Rain of Gore that had just began. However, Ilentia couldn't really blame her, as she had been trying to heal the one that the Master of Gluttony had almost killed, and the girl obviously wasn't aware of the bloody rain or what it could do. Ilentia had planned this out from the start, as she had felt the Tempest of Craving changing in the core of her being, a sensation that she had found extremely disturbing at first but one that she had manipulated to her advantage.

Ilentia had spoken with Arrapackxia after speaking to Eras Stormwind, the young and undoubtedly insane Master of Wealth that had given her the teleportation device that nestled in the pockets of her light armour, and had forced the greater demon to begrudgingly reveal information about the whirling storm above the city of her two births so that she could better plan out the defence of the Glutton's Quarter – Tradax's insistences that everything would be fine and that they only needed the Lucaelians to simply enter the city be damned. To that end she had planned to launch her attack round about when she predicted the Rain of Gore to start pouring down upon Usnaan, as the chaff of the Lucaelian soldiers would die within one or two attacks each and the mages as such wouldn't have enough time to heal them.

However, the more prominent warriors from the Kingdom of Light – the Summoners, potentially those of angelic counterparts to Ilentia's arrogant demon – would definitely be able to withstand some of her weaker blows and almost certainly survive the more major attacks that she could muster as she was still getting used to her new abilities and demonic power, although her instincts and impulses were serving her very well in deciding upon how to wield her mana in tight situations in ways that the former Ilentia would never have done before. That meant that she would have to wait until approximately enough death occurred in the besieged capital city for the hellish Rain of Gore to begin so that the healing of the stronger Lucaelians would be nullified and punished with a vengeance, and so had planned for the dispatching of the lesser enemies from the assaulting forces who had entered the place she ruled over to take around as long as the Tempest of Craving would to metamorphose into its next stage.

It was not normal for Welkalites to think about the long term consequences of their activities nor what alternate courses of action to take that would be just as beneficial, preferring to act on sometimes whimsical compulsion, whereas Ilentia still lived in the present like most of those in the nation she was currently aligned with (as the Master of Gluttony had no particular loyalty to the New Empire of Passion, nor its apparent goals of Summoning demons into the world and creating a domain of hedonism and unfettered indulgence) but made plans for the future as well, a future in which she would survive and not die.

To that end she had attacked the most formidable of the attacking Lucaelian warriors – the man with the guardian seraphim that was tangling with the feasted greater demon who was far more powerful once he had consumed soul essence – with two clear plans in mind. Either she would kill the man and forcefully dispel his angel, the greatest asset of the weak Lucaelians that had been sent to conquer the Glutton's Quarter whilst the rest of their legions hacked their way through the other Passion Quarters and the forces in their way there that were lead by Ilentia's fellow Masters (not that any felt any sense of comradeship with the others), or she would rouse the girl with the abilities of a cleric and who controlled the flying deer elemental to attempt to heal the man – as there was no way that he would have emerged unscathed unless Ilentia had greatly underestimated him, and she had never done that ever since her dark revival. Most likely because underestimating Tradax's capacity for violence and sadism had lead to this situation in the first place, and so the emotions of that had remained with her fiery defiance.

Now she was leaping through the air, having intentionally attracted the boy and the man who seemed to be the father of both the young swordsman and the girl to the spot where she had hacked off the arm of the leading Lucaelian warrior who had wielded the large steel axe (although Ilentia couldn't help but feel a small sense of admiration in the fact that despite the malignant wounds inflicted by Malice that would already be poisoning him without the aid of any form of healing, the warrior was still sustaining his angel and therefore preserving the lives of his comrades a little longer) and baited the young woman into attempting to restore his injuries and purify his afflictions. From the angry blade in her left hand, the Master of Gluttony released large amounts of almost uncontrollable fiery Red mana that took the form of several large and billowing fireballs that arced down through the air towards the man and his son, the speed of the magic faster than any shields they could hope to raise.

Ilentia then landed on the blood slick ground of the once garish but now solely crimson Banquet Street, flipping over backwards and kicking a small and downed market stall at the incarnation creature that had been quickly tailing her acrobatics that would never have been possible in her former body no matter how long she had trained but had been gifted to her by the Infernal Bargain that had landed her with the potent but hatred filled Arrapackxia. The pure white avatar swung its golden staff at the debris launched at it, splitting the wood in half and sending the splintered pieces of it crashing down to the ground elsewhere as it spoke in some unknown language to Ilentia filled with archaic-sounding and magisterial words that nevertheless seemed to invoke great power and a feeling of awe from those less powerful than the Master of Rapture, the numinous being's voice deep and saturated with an ethereal timbre.

As she quickly evaded a jabbing attack from the pole weapon of the elemental, the ribbon of magical substance that was coloured deep black flashing blinding for a second as it carved a swathe of pale light through the air, each of the enigmatic and inhuman being's four angel-esque wings glowing with the same shade of white and adding power to its strikes that discharged energy all around it, Ilentia briefly saw out of the corner of her eye the intended result of her fireball bombardment and the damage it had wreaked, and although she refused to become distracted by it she couldn't help a smile from slowly working its way onto her harsh and pale features that now had rivulets of pulsing scarlet streaming down it.

As she had anticipated and bargained upon, because she had launched the flaming projectiles at the adult man instead of what seemed to be his son – the only one of the children still protected by the shield of the angel that had cracked on his sister because of her attempts to use powerful revitalisation spells – who was almost unprotected by magic apart from the few inherent resistances he had as a Summoner of a powerful Sancturia creature, the elemental of the girl that was still around (as "Eliza" or whatever she was called had only been knocked into a brief unconsciousness by her agony and would soon recover without the protection of the angelic shield that while invisible Ilentia had sensed upon her) reacted as the Master of Gluttony had banked on and rushing forwards, a beam of light bursting out of its open mouth as it sang in defiance of the damaging magic, converting it into rejuvenating and soothing particles of gold that glittered as they floated languidly towards the intended recipients of the attack before being violently snuffed out by bursts of crackling red and pink electricity combined with ruptures of darkness.

Too late, the white deer of Purity that was covered in blood realised its mistake, and it was with no little amount of vindictive gratification that Ilentia witnessed the being crying out in agony and pain as a rush of throbbing shadows electrified by sadistic and baleful crimson lightning wrapped around it in vengeful retribution for endeavouring to stop or prevent pain as it was dragged to the ground, the shadows becoming barbed and sharp in an imitation of what had happened to the being's young Summoner who had attempted a similar move only a minute or so ago and ripping into the elemental's flesh, blood of a more dark scarlet pumping out of the creature's wounds as it screamed, a pealing noise of sadness and innocent hurt that would have once appealed to Ilentia's more sensitive side in caring for her two years younger brother but now only made her despise the beast even more.

_Stupid deer,_ she thought, wondering how foolish a creature had to be to replicate the mistakes of someone that had just suffered the almost fatal consequences of them, and without any sort of divine shield guarding the elemental it would soon be Unsummoned and out of Ilentia's way as the potency of the dark and sybaritic magic afflicting the being increased as more chains of wickedly spiked darkness coiled around it and dug into its white fur, but the Master of Gluttony had little time to ruminate upon the thoughts as the second elemental was joined by the third, the only ground based Sancturia creature of the three that glared at her out of its spiritual helmet of mana substance.

"Ave Lux!" the crusader of White mana that was probably supposed to be some sort of manifestation of Lucaelian and White mana virtues shouted at her again, making Ilentia briefly wonder what the words that were perpetually vomited up by nearly all of the invaders from the Kingdom of Light to an almost irritating degree meant, before deciding that so long as it wasn't a spell that would invoke a specific result she should be wary of and was just a battle cry then she couldn't care less. The flying one dove at her as its partner sprinted across the land, both of their weapons giving them longer reach than the Master of Gluttony who would have to get in close to deal with them, as she wasn't yet confident enough in her unpredictable magical abilities that she had only had less than six says to experiment and train with, and Ilentia's piercing red eyes tracked the movements of the two Lucaelian males as they ran to join with their Summonings as they charged the outnumbered Welkalite in their midst.

Ilentia quickly flicked her gaze up to the clashing angel and demon that seemed completely oblivious to the battle below them, each spitting curses at the other as the angel's elegant and ornate axe tangled with Arrapackxia's lengthy claws that dripped with a deadly venom that wouldn't spoil the taste of his meal, even though Ilentia was sure her ravenous Summoning cared much more about the quantity of his feeding sessions instead of the quality of those that he would feed upon. It was with a stab of annoyance that Ilentia quickly deduced that her demon was simply toying with the angelic shield maiden, leading her on a merry dance as the two fought in the age old battle between the forces of light and darkness instead of finishing with her and moving on to help Ilentia against the other Lucaelians – not that the Master of Gluttony had expected any help from a demon, especially not her demon, but the move reeked of the egotism and conceit that she had come to despise from the Archlord of Rapture and ideally Ilentia wanted the shield that was guarding the youngest male combatant gone so that she didn't have to weave intricate plans around them and place herself in additional danger just to circumvent something that Arrapackxia could have already dealt with.

However, the demonic creature was still occupying the seraphim and without that the Welkalite would have had a significantly more difficult time dealing with the Lucaelians, so she would only recall him to her side if she needed the aid. She jumped back from the two elementals, releasing an explosion of magma and dancing orange flames from the ground that she had been stood on in an attempt to dissuade them from following, but the flying servant of the light placed its staff at a right angle and swiftly turned the colour of its ribbon red, iridescent spheres of the same colour surrounding the four soldiers and allowing them to wade through the inferno unscathed as the fire and lava pattered off their shielding.

Carlis leapt at the insidious Master of Gluttony who had been baiting them since this battle began first, his sword carving a line through the air as it was met and deflected by the more indiscriminately destructive master crafted sabre in the woman's right hand, the workmanship of the two clashing blades of a similar quality but massively different properties – the general's graceful longsword was a devoted representation of purpose and loyalty, created through the dutiful and tireless labour of faithful servants, an object of the wielder's devotion to the cause of justice in the service of his kingdom, whereas Ilentia's curved blade was the expression of impulsive and fiery emotion formed in the passionate heat of the moment and infused with the potential for unpredictable destruction as well as spontaneous creation, an evanescent and fleeting release of passion and emotion scraping against the timeless symbol of undying loyalty that was Carlis's longsword.

By comparison, the malevolent scimitar gripped tightly in the Master of Gluttony's other hand was a darker twin to the passionate sword grinding against the Lucaelian's own, a malicious and fiendish weapon that had much more in common with an implement of torture than a noble blade of honour in spite of the reality that it was simply a mirror of the other sword and both were just expensive and intricate curved blades undoubtedly made by Welkalite artisans and that there were no spikes or hooks protruding from the armament. However, one current quality of the weapon that was rather more pressing than the others was the fact that it was currently arcing towards him, eager to spill his blood and cause him as much pain as possible whereas the other sword simply wanted to eradicate everything that came in its path and see what came from the flames of its obliteration.

Nonetheless, as Carlis strained against one blade and tensed his muscles to react against the other, he sensed that because of the ways in which they had been made and the methods they were employed in, neither of the evidently heavily enchanted swords felt any form of loyalty towards their current wielder besides the fact that she was using them to inflict torture and ruin upon her foes, which made sense because of the utterly disloyal and ambitious Black mana that was the lifeblood of one and the individualistic and temperamental Red mana empowering the other. Maybe that would be something that he could use to his advantage in obtaining victory later, but Carlis knew that no matter he did if he wanted his beloved children that were more precious to him than anything in the world to survive then he needed to take control of the situation.

He was scared, which was something that he would never admit and never show to anyone else, and although the most overpowering fear was the concern for his twins' lives against a Welkalite Master that had shown she was capable and fully prepared to target and eliminate the weakest links first there was still the underlying worry that he himself wouldn't survive this conflict – that wasn't to say that he wouldn't willingly give his life for the cause of continuing the Kingdom of Light's existence, which was simply untrue, but Carlis had always felt that way, always knew that should he die then he wouldn't have anything else to offer in his duties and that the men who he commanded – that he had now led to their deaths – would be left bereft of leadership.

This wasn't a new thing for him, and he had just supposed that fearlessness was what set apart a simple (but successful) general like him from the heroes in the kingdom, most prominently the Lucerna family who would throw themselves into the most perilous situations without a moment's hesitation and were exemplars of selflessness and sacrifice, giving up everything so that the kingdom could survive and stay a refuge for the innocent and the good, a bulwark against the darkness that pressed against them from all sides, and he had for as long as he could remember manipulated that fear to his benefit, using it as a motivation to keep on fighting when he had been younger in the years of constant attacks from remnants of the Grafnica Dominion after the destruction of their capital city Malevioletia, and then turning it into a desire for no one else to have to feel the fear that he did, especially not his twin children that he cared for more than anything else and would sacrifice himself over a thousand times over for exactly like King Marik would give his life for his sons in a heartbeat despite the apparent difficulties that he was having with his impertinent youngest (although Carlis hadn't yet seen how they acted out of the strategy sessions, though if those were anything to base his assumptions upon then the relationship between father and second son was extremely strained to say the least).

He knew that ideally he and Leo had to delay until Tristram and Elizabex could recover and aid them against the formidable foe that was the Master of Gluttony, as there was little chance that they would overcome the Welkalite even with their Summonings and hers being distracted by a Second Sisterhood angel. Carlis hadn't earned his reputation as a master strategist (that he was too modest to ever admit and it certainly hadn't shown here) and become one of the generals to the greatest army on this world for nothing, and he could clearly tell that this Ilentia outmatched them by quite a significant degree even if she was fighting alone, and she didn't seem to be possessed of the same arrogance that seeped from most of the other warriors of the darkness – including these Welkalites -, just a quiet but unbreakable confidence in her own abilities that would make it hard for Carlis to lure her into over extension.

His mind worked in over drive as the woman swung her second blade that had cleaved straight through Guardian Tristram's powerful wards and would make a mockery of his own at him, the man analysing every facet of the battle, and it was a little known fact that the famed Montlea that had attained almost the most glory out of anyone that had ever been part of the noble house that he was currently the head of was actually much better at assessing small numbers of opponents and finding weaknesses within them than orchestrating entire battles of huge armies because of his respect and accolades earned from the latter, but Carlis had been the former Prince Marik's Champion far before he had become a strategist and had been taught to evaluate the capabilities of any enemy (potential or obvious) in the protection of his Lucerna liege who would probably be doing the same by the poor Guardian Axeclion that had been cut down (although "eviscerated" was more of an apt description) by Johnias in one of the first battles between King Marik and the Arch-Heretic's main forces.

However, Carlis Montlea was extremely concerned at despite the fact he could probably come up with a good plan for defeating or at least stalling the slender and seemingly inappropriately named Master of Gluttony, his son Leodred might not be thinking the same way as him and he would have no way of communicating his plan to the lad without Ilentia hearing or taking advantage of his attempts to talk to his youngest child. Furthermore, Carlis had often rebuked his only son for being such an impetuous and often reckless – bordering on foolhardy – warrior that often threw himself into dangerous combat situations with little head of the consequences and was wont to press every perceived tiny advantage he had instead of consolidating his resources and victories and being careful. Carlis of course had always expected to defeat his admittedly skilful son in their sword training and sparring matches since the boy was younger than him and drastically less experienced, but to crush him in such a decisive and telling manner each time they had trained against each other even in spite of his boy's evident proficiency with a sword that made Carlis proud of him no matter how much he chastised him for his recklessness.

This meant that Leo might not see how powerful the Master of Gluttony was or read her constant feinting and baiting for what it was, and Carlis was aptly aware that the bitch would probably be targeting his son or the downed Guardian so that their Summonings could be removed for the battlefield as well, but right now Carlis had to trust that his son could take care of himself well enough for now so that he could concentrate on protecting him from the Welkalite woman that was about to split him apart with the malicious scimitar in her right hand.

Carlis released a quick blast of golden light around him that would have temporarily blinded less powerful and resilient foes, though that did nothing to dissuade Ilentia as she pushed off from the ground, using a burst of flame as a means of propulsion as well as a secondary way to damage the Lucaelian (which was subsequently blocked on his scintillating shield from his elemental) as she pressed against his stuck straight steel longsword with Fire and swept Malice sideways into him, watching intently to see how the man, who was clearly a very analytical warrior just as the one that she had cut the right arm off was as well, though this one seemed to be more concerned with any discernible patterns in her fighting strategy than what she was like as a warrior, would counterattack or block her killing strike, as Malice would slice straight through the plate armour that he seemed unencumbered by at the moment and disembowel him whilst injecting his fragile human body with powerful rending toxins of Black mana that would eat at the Lucaelian from the inside.

Carlis let go of his longsword with his right hand after having both of them holding the blade so that he could resist the surprising might of the fiery sabre, aware that he couldn't execute a move he would have liked to, which would have been to grab hold of the sword that was presently arcing towards him and rip it out of her grasp, as the malevolent blade would cut through his metal gauntlets and poison the skin underneath precisely like it had infected the resilient and admirable Guardian Tristram (that Carlis would always see as a young and moody teenager no matter how much of an embodiment of Lucaelian ideals and the post of a warrior Light-bearer (a position that the Montlea patriarch had once coveted long ago in his foolish youth) the now thirty year old became).

Instead, he quickly drew a small symbol with his forefinger in the air, luminescence flashing from the tips of the metal clad digits and etching a sigil in the ancient and venerated language of the ancestors that had not just been simple words and had carried its magical power over the thousands of years it had been in existence, and clasped his hand over the floating and potent emblem as he pulled back force from his sword that would allow him to disengage easier, although it could entail bodily harm to himself if he wasn't careful or Ilentia pulled an unexpected move, and let the malicious sabre carve an unrestricted path through the air and the droplets of blood that filled it towards him as more light blossomed into existence.

Ilentia watched with a measure of wary curiosity as she continued her attack regardless into the Lucaelian man's magic, fully aware that the boy and his spiritual soldier were circling around behind her, although because of the fact that her current opponent's brown eyes (which were a slight rarity in Lucael with the most common eye colour being blue, although green eyes were even rarer than that) were fixed upon her and his own magic instead of his son meant that either they had somehow planned this and he didn't want to give the ambush attack away or he had little idea of what the heedless (from what Ilentia had observed so far) brat was doing and intended to finish her himself.

She quickly swept her blade towards the unprotected (as plate armour would do nothing against her demonic power) side of the man, supposing that if whatever he was doing took too long then he would be easy prey for the thirsting Malice and that she may as well kill him if she got the chance and therefore wouldn't have to waste time dealing with his magic, but as the light increased in intensity Ilentia quickly deduced that she didn't have enough time to kill the Lucaelian soldier captain before his relatively fast spell completed, so she prepared to pull back whilst still continuing the attack, although she was focussed upon reducing the inevitable damage that would be done to her when the spell finished instead of finishing her attack which would almost certainly be nullified by the magic that she had allowed him to cast.

Carlis smiled grimly as he disengaged from the woman's fiery blade in a shower of swiftly neutralised sparks as the chaotic and individualistic Red mana clashed with the orderly and heavenly White mana of his relic longsword, and instead of the scimitar of Malice cleaving into him and rending his organs apart Glory materialised in the space that he had left for the incarnation of exaltation and magnificence and blocked the sword that was emitting heavy amounts of ambitious and sadistic Black mana with its staff, the blessed Sancturia fabric fluttering from the top of the enigmatic weapon (as it was simply a golden pole with a ribbon attached like a banner and seemed to have no offensive capabilities) and turning shadowy black once again as it charged White mana into the plain sceptre that nonetheless evoked a feeling of awe from all who looked upon the numinous and androgynous being made from the light of Sancturia and so far removed from human characteristics as to be pure and unrestrained by the folly of human beings, sweeping the blade of poison and pain backwards in a blast of searing light that the Master of Gluttony was hard pressed to get away from.

Some of the burst of purifying fire without heat washed over the pale white skin of Ilentia's right arm and burnt the flesh from it in a way that would have been extremely painful and emphasised her corruption (as she wasn't sure whether or not she should be classified as living or undead as she didn't seem to have to eat or drink to exist. And did not require the respite of sleep), exposing bleached bones underneath and bare musculature that tensed as she instinctively pulled away from the manifestation of pretentious and fanatical Lucaelian virtues that she detested just as much as Tradax's arrogance and the annoying hedonism of the Welkalite people despite not being exposed to them for very long (as this was the first time she had ever seen a Lucaelian that wasn't a slave in her entire life, including the time she had spent being called Guena Wranion).

Dark energies whirled around the wound that she didn't flinch from at all, surprising Carlis as every one of the denizens of the unholy and perpetual night or the servants of the darkness had never been able to resist Glory's purification present in the being's attacks and the pain that it caused the corrupt beings, as while Ilentia was different from those that took residence in the Lucaelian abyss that had never been categorised and defied normal comprehension of size she was still clearly tainted by Black mana in a way that every individual who used it was forever stained (bar one exception that Carlis was willing to make, the youngest prince who didn't seem blighted by the magic of darkness – or perhaps he simply refused to believe it because the boy was a Lucerna and could one day inherit the throne, and he supposed that Xarius had managed to hide his growing corruption until the day he initiated his coup d'etat and overthrew his reigning sister and queen) and exuded the stench of evil as well as Summoned a greater demon.

The Black mana within Ilentia's dark heart that beat with the power of her defiance of death and powerful grip on life and had been restarted by her dark resurrection flowed through her damaged limb, reknitting the pale tissue and rebuilding the burnt muscle in spite of the fact that normally White mana of that power would prevent regeneration, and the Black mana repaired her in such a way that defied the anti-healing effects of the Rain of Gore – simply regenerating the skin and muscle around the arm instead of actively healing it and soothing her pain, the Tempest of Craving's dark magic giving those that used the reanimating and regenerative properties of the evil energy of the shadows and death a clear advantage over those that would use light and life to restore their wounds.

Ilentia pulled back from the elemental as it and its Summoner pressed towards her, capitalising upon the brief and minuscule upper hand in the combat they had gained against the formidable Master of Gluttony as the boy and his ethereal warrior Summoning attacked from the back in tandem, which was a stupid move in Ilentia's opinion as while it would surround her they were already aware of her remarkable agility in avoiding attacks and leaping out of groups of enemies and simply staying close but not assaulting her would be much more efficient.

That was what Ilentia would have done had she been in the boy's position, as while she hadn't looked round at him she could sense the White mana through the predatory sixth sense in her mind that she had developed from sharing a Mind Realm with a ravenous hunter demon like Arrapackxia, as that would force her to either fight the Lucaelian's father who was a vastly superior and much cannier warrior than his son who looked about seventeen or eighteen or would prevent her from fleeing as if she leapt into the air away from the man then his brat could attack her, but this foolish move smacked of inexperience and the childish want for the glory attained from a great deed that Ilentia had experienced in her former existence and in the fragmented and fractured memories that haunted her dreams whenever she chose to go asleep (which was not often because of the aforementioned reason), although unlike herself the Master of Gluttony was going to make sure that the boy would not survive his recklessness as she barely dodged a blinding slash from the staff of sanctimonious gold held by the incandescent elemental of pure White mana.

She pirouetted on the spot, releasing a blast of fire in order to force a the being to change the colour of its magic specific protection shields to be able to nullify and absorb Red mana once again, and once that was done Ilentia, aptly aware of the positions of the boy and his celestial warrior as they rushed her from behind, tossed Malice at the man and the ambiguous and abstract representation of White mana, letting go of the sabre that was never wielded by the morbidly obese former Master of Gluttony Ershun Firefist that had been slain by the two young Lucerna princes that really ought to have been killed the second they stepped into Usnaan as a tendril of shadow burst out of her upper arm and wrapped around the ornate and ergonomic handle of the wickedly curved scimitar and flung the weapon at the legionary commander from the Kingdom of Light faster than the elemental could change the type of magical barrier was surrounding the two servants of the self-righteous light, but Ilentia knew that this type of magic would not kill the two as the elemental would throw itself in front of the blow and the man had enough mana to Summon it once again if he so desired.

Instead she infused the willing blade with large amounts of noxious and debilitating Black mana that would slow their movements and prevent them from intercepting or stopping her next actions. Ilentia span round fully before even waiting to see if her distracting attack had its intended effect and leapt towards the startled Leodred who had been labouring under the presumption that the Master of Gluttony had been too embroiled in battle with his father to notice his position, grasping Fire with both pale hands as she charged past the elemental Summoning of the boy, inclining her leap to the side slightly. Leo almost cried out in shock as Valour almost intercepted her attack, his halberd lashing out as the two past and carving a line straight across the woman's lightly armoured lower abdomen as the two passed each other, black and oily blood spraying out from the horrific wound that didn't impede Ilentia at all as she closed on Leodred.

The young man felt his adrenal glands power into overdrive as time seemed to slow down, but even with that the Master of Gluttony was terrifyingly fast whereas it felt like his own limbs were sluggish and being dragged through murky waters as he raised his sword to block a strike that he knew would easily kill him or shatter his bones if he absorbed the force of the more physically powerful fiery sabre that she was wielding with two hands now. He felt like he was a clumsy child trying to mount a resistance against the embodiment of predatory grace and violent elegance, every movement of this Ilentia who had murdered the Spears of Justice that Leo had always looked up to as a child like they were mere chaff perfectly poised and tensed and flawlessly executed to the maximum efficiency so that no energy was wasted in her pursuit of bringing death to the Lucaelians, and as Leodred looked up his gaze was transfixed by the fiery and baleful red eyes of the ferally attractive woman, terror freezing his already lethargic and lumbering limbs in place in spite of the fact that he knew Ilentia was using no magic to paralyse him or hold him in place.

In the back of his mind, the one calm place in the roiling storm of primal fear that his thoughts had become that he hadn't felt ever since that fateful night where his best friend's mother and the queen had been killed and Capitalia Lux had been besieged by hordes of traitors and demons and he had only been nine years old, he mused that this would be what Alexander had felt when he had been fighting the bitch of an apparently insanely attractive (as the younger boy had told his smaller (much to Leodred's chagrin) friend when he had been recovering from the wounds he had suffered, joking about the experience in a way that was clearly to prevent Leo from worrying about him) vampire that had fed upon him and almost killed him.

Leodred knew that he saw his death in those defiant red eyes as the woman shot through the air towards him, her corrupted and vile black blood splattering the paved stones of the once garish and extravagant Banquet Street that was now littered with brutalised corpses from both Lucaelian and Welkalite origin as it mingled with the unholy red torrent from the Tempest from Craving, and while one part of him was screaming at him to react, to move and that he was damn well lucky she wasn't using hindering magic upon him that would stop him from dodging or retreating or counter attacking against her renewed assault (and he couldn't compare his experiences to Alexander's at all because he hadn't just fought his way out of a capital city filled with enemies baying for his blood or capture, killed a Welkalite Master of Passion, Summoned a First Sisterhood angel and hadn't had his actions slowed down by the vile magic of Aksua), whilst another cursed the childish foolishness that his father had often rebuked him for when they were training, hating the fact that despite the reality that he was now eighteen and an adult he relied upon his daddy to come and save him and was too weak to fight for himself.

Finally, the last section of his mind wailed in pathetic but all too real and all consuming fear at the attack of the Master of Gluttony who had sensed weakness and sprung to the opportunity to attack it, and Leodred didn't want to die after not having any time to experience the pleasure and benefits of being an adult combined with the freedom it entailed, he didn't want to die knowing that he had his entire life ahead of him and that he could spend time with his friends and perhaps get a girlfriend, maybe go back to the friends he and Alexander had made within the Scholaria Magnus from other nations and help save people from the darkness. He didn't want to die like this, contemptuously cut down by a user (and most likely slave) of demons like he was nothing, like he didn't belong to a noble family and was the son of one of the most influential generals in Lucael and the King's Champion, like he didn't have aunts, uncles and cousins leading forces elsewhere in the city (though he was the second youngest of his family apart from his eldest cousin's young daughter), like he wasn't a Lucaelian, part of the strongest nation in the world and with the blood of the Kingdom of Light running through his veins.

With that realisation and sudden decision that he needed to do something to prevent his death a spontaneous surge of renewed energy coursed through Leodred's body and he sprang forwards to intercept the graceful Master of Gluttony, though he did not break off his eyes from the woman's terrifying gaze that was as bad as a Lucerna's or a demon's, his frantic heartbeat pounding in his head as adrenalized blood ran through his veins, his desperate need to survive infusing his White mana with power that ran through his straight steel longsword as he automatically cast several enchantments and auras upon himself that would augment his physical power and enhance the strength behind his strikes. His blade clashed into the fiery sabre held in the woman's tight grip, and Leodred almost dropped his sword at the sheer force behind the blow as the impact shuddered up his arm and shook his bones.

The boy could feel his teeth rattling together as he tried to replicate a technique that his father had taught him to deflect the strength behind an attack elsewhere instead of absorbing it fully, but he couldn't do it without the blade cleaving into him and tearing his lean body apart so instead he was forced to take all of the power on his sword, which thankfully didn't crack under the pressure because it was of artisan quality – even so, Leo reminded himself, the fact that the blade was of stout Lucaelian origin meant that it would be reliable and dependable and never give into the forces of darkness just like the holy kingdom's hardy inhabitants. The woman simply glared at him with her red eyes, although there was a vague tint of incredulity in them as if she was surprised that he would pull such a reckless move against her, and Leodred smiled grimly before crying out as her blast of dark magic hit him square in the stomach, sending him stumbling backwards as the solid bolt of spiralling darkness crashed into his lower abdomen and threatened to knock him off balance, stabs of impact pain like he had been just trampled over by a loxodon Summoning resounding through his body as he gritted his teeth.

Leodred clamped his mouth shut, knowing that giving into the pain or even concentrating on it would allow it to overwhelm him as he generated his protective White mana into the place where the damage was the worst, knowing that the Master of Gluttony's magic could easily be saturated with crippling spells that would hinder his movements and speed, so to combat that he infused his own mana with a disenchanting spell so that the curses wouldn't get a hold upon him. He was aware that the magic was just meant to ruin his balance and make him an easy prey for her sword that was hungry for his ruination, but it still hurt quite a bit and had hit him before he had activated any of his shields and as such probably damaged his ribs, if not quite broke them as he would be in a lot more pain if the impact of substantial and formless Black mana had.

Leo just managed to pull away before the woman disengaged herself and sent a flaming strike arcing at him, prior to spinning around and launching a blistering display of fire at Valour who had just been about to assault her with his spear, Ilentia completed out manoeuvring her opponents to a ridiculous degree as the sword of Malice and the shadowy figure that had formed from the single tendril wielding the malevolent scimitar held off Glory and Carlis, the blade's personality suffusing the Black mana with a kind of limited sentience as it attacked the general and his incarnation. The curved sword of some unusual Welkalite metal that channelled the passionate Red mana within it flashed by Leodred's face, missing the skin by mere inches as he could feel the heat resonating off the blade evaporating the sweat and unholy blood on his face with an extremely unpleasant sizzling sound and stinging pain, leaving tiny particles of salt on his cheeks and brow before he pulled away and the Tempest of Craving once again covered his pale face with more blood and more gore in its endless rain of claret fluid upon the damned City of Usnaan.

Leo blocked another arcing strike on his sword, feeling his wrist (as he had been forced to let go of the weapon with his left hand so that he could impeded this attack and stop it from hacking into him, which would have left irreparable damage) aching under the strain and the abuse of repeatedly having to stop these blows, as because of the sheer speed of Ilentia that was elevated to insane levels by her chaotic but sinister (far more than other Welkalites, as the current Master of Gluttony's Black mana had much more influence than her Red) Black and Red mana that far eclipsed his own quite fast movements he was unable to dodge the vast majority of strikes. He swept his free hand round, his mailed fist coated with a sheen of White mana that would add to the power of his punch and discharge light from his knuckles, but the fist was met by a spray of shadows that materialised out of nothing and wrapped around it.

A burst of incandescence from his closed hand destroyed a few of the chains of solid blackness, but the rest of them swarmed around his hand and dug into his fingers, piercing through the hard metal of his gauntlets and through the fabric that made wearing mail gloves bearable, into the fragile soft skin hidden underneath. It drew blood as it stabbed into his fingers, but what was more pressing were the unnatural magical toxins that Leo detected being injected into his bloodstream as he mustered his White mana to try and combat them, diverting the light energy that had been pooling up in his stomach to his hand so that it didn't become too damaged or paralysed by the malignant curses now rushing through his veins as an extremely painful stinging sensation that had him almost recoiling instinctively from the Master of Gluttony, as if moving away from the Welkalite woman would somehow reduce the intensity of the agony.

So focussed on the damage to his hand, Leodred didn't see Ilentia grinding Fire against his sword and displaying incredible flexibility by launching a kick into him before it was too late, the flash of her leg whipping through the air towards him registering a split second too late as all the Montlea could do was close his eyes involuntarily. The pain was instantaneous and blinding, crashing through his skull with the force of a thousand suns exploding behind his eyes as his altitude suddenly decreased, sending him tumbling backwards as the detonation of pain resounded through his skull.

The final Aegis of Athela had protected Leo from the worst of the agony and the force of the kick that would have shattered straight through his skull and smashed into his brain, sending jagged spikes of bone stabbing into his mind and causing him permanent and crippling brain damage if not killing him outright, but Leodred wasn't aware of that and could only focus on the splintering whiteness flashing around in his head as he skidded across the blood-slick ground, not sure whether he still had his sword or not clenched in his grip. He forced his eyes to wrench open, tears misting his vision as blood poured into them from a cut above his left eye, thankful that he had at least pulled away fast enough that the woman's boot didn't blind him forever, and as he blinked again, the world too blurry to focus on in his pain, his surroundings snapped into terrible focus and fear that was somehow worse than the agony shuddered through his mind and sent cold clawing up his spine.

He was leaning against a broken market stall that would have, only yesterday, been covered by the most extravagant and ostentatious delicacies from all across the New Empire of Passion as the final day of the Emperor's Banquet drew to a close and those from the Order of Gluttony gorged upon all of the food available in an orgy of debauched consumption, and as he blearily looked upwards and let out a pathetic mewl of pain he could see the Master of Gluttony launching herself through the air towards him, wasting no time with her almost incapacitated opponent now that the shield of almost invulnerability that had been protecting him was gone. Her sabre was help above her head and reversed, ready to plunge into the boy and impale him, and Leodred tried to move before finding his arm stuck underneath one of the heavy beams of wood that had held up the destroyed stall that must have fallen across his legs in his journey through the air towards where he was now, and fear burst its way through his mind, accompanied by a ringing noise that indicated he had suffered a concussion, which made said consider the impact to his head that he had taken.

However, as he tried to conjure up mana to blast the timber apart so that he could get away from the Master of Rapture, the Black magic that had been running through his hand rushed through his body, converting the White that he tried to muster into Black mana that he couldn't use that simply leaked out of the small holes in the fingers of his left hand, and he raised his sword that he was squeezing his fingers round the wooden haft of with a white-knuckled grip harder than he had ever held something in his life (including the sword that he had gripped on the night that the civil war orchestrated by a traitorous Lucerna had truly begun) in a pathetic gesture of defiance that wouldn't stop Ilentia in any way, but it was all he could do as the rest of him was trapped.

Carlis saw Leodred fighting against the Master of Gluttony and cried out when her lashing kick caught him full in the face, the Aegis of blessed Athela who was holding off the greater demon – the Archdemon of Greed, although it apparently wasn't an Archdemon which was one solemn blessing lonely amidst a host of curses – even now that had saved the general's daughter cracking apart in front of his eyes as his son was sent flying backwards, smashing into a market stall that was flimsy with the amount of unnatural blood the sodden timbers holding it upright had absorbed and sending the stall falling over, splinters embedding themselves in the gaps in his son's armour although that was the least of his current worries as a beam of wood landed on the boy's legs with a painful impact. Carlis almost died then as he shouted his son's name again, the malicious blade that was seeming to take pleasure from his distress and emotional pain at seeing his beloved son in such a perilous situation nearly hacking into him as it took advantage of the rather large distraction of his only son nearly dying before his eyes with him powerless to stop it, before the staff of Glory arced round and the being bellowed in the ancient language of the heavens at the mass of shadows controlled by the almost sentient master crafted sabre and renewing its attack, its master's desperation for his son infusing its strikes with more power as Carlis's protective instinct that had developed ever since he became a father and had two tiny hands wrapping around each of his own large and long thumbs a few days over eighteen years ago sparked into overdrive by the cry of pain Leodred shouted.

Glory lashed at the shadows with its staff, the White mana carving a swathe through the wriggling darkness that was forming more of itself from the disturbing black blood of Ilentia and drinking upon the woman's life fluids, but more corrupt blackness replaced the gaps in it as the blade lashed out again, blocked by Carlis's longsword as he glanced fearfully over at his son again, his heart rising into his mouth as the Master of Gluttony didn't delay in advancing quickly on the boy. Carlis's strikes became more frantic, and he recalled a technique that he had learned from Glory long ago that he hadn't used often because of its risk but would do so now because anything was worth preserving the lives of his innocent young children that he still and would forever see as a little girl and boy instead of two adults.

The elemental looked at him with its mysterious and guarded eyes, and Carlis saw that it seemed to understand what he wanted to do, and that they would probably never see each other again after this, and as the man pulled White mana from within him to the fore the incarnation let go of its staff that hovered in the air, forming up behind him as he held off the malicious blade of Ilentia that kept attacking him as if sensing that its brief independence would soon end if he was allowed to continue on with this course of action. Glory hovered above Carlis like a guardian angel, and the man silently nodded his thanks to the elemental that had served him all these years that he had never had to use this skill, a shield of iridescent White shielding him and burning away the questing tendrils of shadow that thrust themselves at him and his Summoning, the only thing that could damage him the sword that he was preventing from striking with his own.

Glory's four wings detached from its strange body in four opposite directions, the White mana from the elemental flowing around Carlis as he gazed desperately at his baby boy as the Master of Gluttony leapt towards him with Valour far too late to intercept her and sacrifice its current Summoning for his Summoner, the ritual taking far too long as he willed it to speed up, adrenaline pumping through his body as the need to protect his son fulminated throughout his limbs and pulsed to the extremities of his body, filling them all with White mana as the four wings attached to his back, Glory's substance dissolving into him as the creature sacrificed its life – this one and its permanent existence in Sancturia – to save the life of its Summoner's youngest child.

Carlis shot towards the stricken form of Leodred as Ilentia flew through the air towards him, his wings from the sacrifice of glory coupled with the shimmering sphere of protection and grace that surrounded him augmenting his speed and allowing him to fly to the aid of his son, piercing straight through the shadows that screamed as he broke through them and the sword was too slow to reach him as Carlis shouted a battle cry that exemplified his anger at anyone touching his children and the need to avenge the Spears of Justice that had been torn apart by the Master of Gluttony. He knew that this move was foolhardy and stupid, but he couldn't care less because his children were in danger, and as Ilentia's blade sliced through the air towards the terrified Leo who was ready to face his death in the face without screaming or being pathetic.

The two swords met once again, the enhanced and enchanted Carlis crashing into Ilentia and sending her away from his son as his longsword strained against her destructive and emotional blade as Red and White mana strained against each other, bursts of fire on light at either side exploding and showering the two in orange and white luminescence as Ilentia glowered at him, irritated at being stopped from finishing one of her opponents once again and beginning to detest this nameless man that had thwarted her every move as he overpowered Fire, the light coiling round his armoured limbs in an almost blinding intensity as he launched another powerful strike at the recoiling Master of Gluttony who was more annoyed than anything at this sudden reversal and being on the defensive once again just as she caught the scent of a kill.

It was surprising, to say the least, this sudden burst of irritation and detestation within Ilentia's mind, as while she wasn't addicted to violence like some others it was an enjoyable experience and she could see well how some became intoxicated by the prospect of bloodshed and the murder of hated enemies, and the hatred of having her targets – her _prey –_ escape her that had been spawned when the Resistance that she had scoured from the sewers of this sprawling city had teleported away from her flared within her mind as she blocked the strike, incandescence violently discharged into her and met by a wall of flames that rushed through Fire as opposing mana colours battled in a war for dominance against each other as she beheld the shining eyes of the Lucaelian who had sacrificed his Summoning so that he could be here to protect his son, his irises still brown but his pupils filled with righteous luminescence that Ilentia wanted to cut out of him and trample over.

She strained against his sword, her sinewy muscles tensing as she tried to overpower the man, but the new auras encapsulating his being were augmenting his strength to extremely formidable levels as he pushed against her. Ilentia felt her feet slipping across the slick ground that had been made slippery by the Rain of Gore as the sword that was blazing with sanctimonious light pressed against Fire and threatened to overcome it. Ilentia couldn't deal with this, and called Arrapackxia from where he was toying with his prey of the angel so that the demon could help her against this new threat. She sent a frustrated glance over at him for a brief moment as she lost more ground against the Lucaelian, blocking a pulse of light with her own shadows as they were shredded by the holy illumination and destroyed by the heavenly power of the luminosity outputted by the general that she hadn't bothered to learn the name of, and the demon dodged a shining blow from the angel that he was fighting and had enough time to grin down at her self-assuredly, the malicious smile visibly radiating arrogance and hubris (two qualities that were extremely common when it came to demons no matter how powerful they actually were, and characteristics that usually passed down to their Summoners but hadn't in the unique case of Ilentia) and exposed sharpened fangs dripping with blood from the Rain of Gore that Arrapackxia must have lapped up with his tongue.

As the man came at her again, his eyes full of a vengeful desire to avenge his soldiers as well as the punishment wreaked upon his children (the stupid Lucaelian probably blamed her for what had happened to the idiotic girl who had tried to heal with the unholy storm raining blood down upon her), Ilentia conjured up the shadowy chains of substantial darkness that wrapped around her greater demon and would bring it to heel, force the petulant and childish demon to obey her will and aid her in the wider battle against these Lucaelians that she had almost defeated entirely on her own. Instead of shrieking in pain, clawing on the rope of shadows that represented Ilentia's dark will but nevertheless coming to her aid and obeying her directives, Arrapackxia snorted derisively and pulled the steely tether of Black mana off of his neck, grinning down at Ilentia before turning back to his fight with the angel.

**Sorry, my dear, but I am enjoying myself quite a bit in dealing with this self-righteous whore of an angel and I have recently fed enough not to have to obey your commands, so you will have to deal with the little humans down there yourself, **Arrapackxia's sarcastic voice was polite, almost gentlemanly, but it was entirely unwelcome in Ilentia's head and it brought on a spike of pain similar to how she felt when flashbacks sprang upon her when she saw something that sparked the sudden and overwhelming remembrance of a former experience, although the every syllable dripped with a mocking undertone that did little to conceal the demon's hatred of her due to the fact that he had been pulled unwillingly out of the dark nether of Sancturia and forced to serve under her through the contract of the Infernal Bargain, and the taunting inflection to the voice that painfully spoke through Ilentia's mind increased in intensity, **Unless, of course, you can't defeat them by yourself? And if that is the case then surely you are not powerful enough to be commanding me?**

_I am going to enjoy punishing you after this, _Ilentia thought resentfully, though she had no idea whether or not the disgruntled and challenging greater demon heard as it turned back to the oblivious Athela and swung a virulent strike at her with its long claws. However, she had little time to be messing around with demons, and it was with no fear whatsoever that she acknowledged that she was truly on her own in this – in fact it was exactly how she preferred it, and it had been met with great success so far until this point. Just like in her former life, Ilentia had to rely upon her skills and her wits to survive (as her frightened and cowardly younger brother that she had once thought was innocent and cute but now despised had been little help in the slums of Usnaan) and emerge triumphant against all odds, and she concealed a smile when she noted that the man was clearly over extending himself to the point where he would be a complete idiot – which was not what Ilentia had seen of him so far but was inclined to think about his less than intelligent son – in the defence of his still trapped son.

The wound in her side had sealed up now, which was good as the sensation of her own frankly startling black blood running down her leg wasn't the most pleasant, though the pain hadn't really bothered the Master of Gluttony in the first place as she decided that because the Summoning of the man that could switch the type of protection that was in place had been sacrificed to allow him to gain more power (_talk about hypocrisy_) then he wouldn't be able to change the shielding against Black mana – which Ilentia preferred but didn't rely exclusively upon like her egotistical demon – that was surrounding him. At any rate, there was no harm in trying apart from expending her still high mana reserves whereas she was pretty sure that the Lucaelian was at the end of his rope with no Summoning remaining, and if he did change the spheres to be able to nullify Red mana then she could strike with Black before he had chance to change it back.

Furthermore, the man had three glaring weaknesses whereas Ilentia had none, the other three members of his party that were all wounded and hurt whilst the Master of Gluttony had no attachments that would slow here down, and while Ilentia didn't have enough time to review the positions of the angelic Summoner and the girl the scared brat of a boy was still fixed firmly in her sight and still stuck underneath the market stall and suffering because of the poisonous magic she had cast upon him. With a sense of amusement hidden under her veneer of seriousness and sheer anger and frustration directed at her demon she noticed that the ethereal warrior that the teenage male had Summoned came to the side of the man she was now facing before he dismissed it with a shake of his head in the direction of his trapped son, though both he and Ilentia knew than he needed the help now that the shock of his new power had run out and the Master of Gluttony was already thinking of how she could defeat the desperate man.

Even though it was immensely uncharacteristic of her, Ilentia forced a contemptuous smile onto her features as she spat mockingly, "I bet you are wishing that you didn't bring your young brats onto a battlefield now, aren't you?" in an attempt to bait him or disrupt his concentration, thought the Master of Gluttony wasn't entirely sure whether her seething anger bled out of the words or not. Even so, the man still bristled at the taunting words as the two pressed their swords against each other, Ilentia bringing her strength to bear once again as mana swirled up from within her and forcing him to take a step back again, her resentment of her demon and the Lucaelians that were threatening her existence – the only thing precious to her in this life – and had stopped her from completing her kills heightening the rush of Black mana through her veins which was not entirely useful because of the shield safeguarding the man against the magic of darkness but she could utilise it to increase her physical strength.

Ilentia lashed out a violent kick at the Lucaelian soldier, aiming her leg at his head until he let go of his sword with one hand and gripped her slender ankle with his gauntlet, the shining mana of White that was gathering in the large fingers searing the woman's flesh at the grasp, and so to help with the vision that she had been caught off guard she let out a gasp of pain that wasn't entirely faked because the agony of having the pale skin that had clothed her since her dark revival at the hands of the (then Master) Archlord of Rapture that she could no longer sense (although it was fully possible that the mass of Red and Black mana near to the Palace of Desire was blocking him out) scorched off of the bone was something to behold. Normally Ilentia wouldn't have made a sound, but she wanted to give her opponent the impression that he was gaining an edge over her and would be able to finish her and return to his children soon, though Ilentia was not intending to land her soul in Arrapackxia's grubby claws any time in the foreseeable future.

Carlis grabbed hold of the woman's leg as she arced an overhead kick at him whilst still straining against his longsword in a way that she had done against Leodred and caught the boy off guard by doing so, and while normally Carlis wouldn't have been that concerned at a woman of that size launching a kick at him (apart from in his head region) since he was wearing full plate armour everywhere but his head, but Ilentia had already shown that she was possessed of a massive physical strength and could have easily killed him in that one blow had he not halted the kick with his hand. He felt himself slipping across the ground as he absorbed the force of the blow, his hands that were coated with purifying White mana dissolving the corrupted skin of the Master of Gluttony as she hissed in pain at him, perhaps not anticipating the effects of the magic of light that was saturating Carlis's limbs, although regardless of the pain she was still grinding her scimitar against his relic sword and preventing him from bringing it to bear and tearing her apart.

He increased the intensity of his grip, wondering if he would be able to break the woman's bones with his strength and doubting it, instead channelling more mana into his contact with the Welkalite in the hope that it would cause even more pain and perhaps distract or weaken her enough so that he could land a decisive blow, though he could feel his reserves of mana running out now that Glory was no longer with him and protecting him. Then the woman twisted in his grip, arching her back and pulling her sword away from his, a gigantic amount of Red mana suddenly brought to the fore as it ran through her sword, a huge ball of fire that evaporated the bloody rain all around it quickly released towards the still confined and trapped Leodred as Valour had only just reached his side, the mana one of the most powerful Carlis had ever sensed.

As time slowed down around him and adrenalized blood pounded in the man's head, he noticed that the inferno rushing towards his thrashing son was just slow enough to be stopped by him, slower than most of the fireballs she had fired, although whether that was because of the amount of mana focussed into it making it cumbersome and restricting its purpose or the decrease in speed had been deliberate so that Carlis had to choose between himself and his only son and youngest child was unknown to the Montlea general. At any rate, when it came down to it, it was an easy choice.

As the mass of infernal flame sped towards his son, the boy raising his hands and forming a small shield around himself whilst Valour stood in front of him, although both of them knew it would not be enough, Carlis quickly executed a disarming movement on the Master of Gluttony who had inadvertently ruined her balance in casting the immense spell, ripping the sword out of her hand and sending it clattering away so that she could not stab him in the back or carve apart his legs as he sped towards his son, the four wings of Glory enhancing his swiftness until he became something akin to a speeding missile of white, silver and gold, his mind screaming at him to get there faster and save his son as the ball of fire moved gathered speed and rushed through the air towards the entrapped boy who was meeting death in the face for the second time this day, Carlis's eighteen year old son raising his hands in the hope that it might somehow protect him as the inferno closed in on his stricken position.

Carlis knew exactly what he had to do to guard his little boy (who was almost the same height as him but not as bulky as the general, still possessed of his teenage slimness and leanness despite the amount of time he spent toning his muscles and trying to build up more), as with Glory dead and the ribbon staff lying on the ground too far away he couldn't change his colour-specific defence to be able to nullify Red mana or create a powerful enough shield to prevent the flaming projectile from incinerating his son and immolating the pale flesh from his bones, and he was fully prepared to do it, a father's protective instinct overriding any thoughts of self-preservation or making sure that he himself didn't get hurt and pushing down the thoughts of how the remaining Lucaelians would be able to combat the Master of Gluttony with him severely wounded as he ran in front of the ball of snarling flames.

He focussed on Leodred's eyes as the burning agony consumed every single nerve he had and made him feel like each and every one of his pain receptors was set alight, making sure that he looked into the brown orbs because they might be the last things he ever saw and ignoring the smell of scorched and charred flesh that drowned his nostrils in its stench. Carlis could feel his plate armour melting but luckily not sticking to his skin because of the shield of mana he had just above the surface of his flesh that would prevent it from doing so, though the pain was still excruciating and immense and the man was sure that he screamed in torment even though he didn't want his son to hear that, the fire increasing in pressure against him as he held his arms (and Glory's gift of wings) out wide so that none of the flames could get through to his son and Valour, who was staring at him silently whereas Leodred's eyes were wide open in shock, fear and predominantly concern for his father as the burning sensation heightened in pain.

Carlis bit into his tongue as he focussed on blocking out the agony, thinking about the happy times in the past with his wife and his twin children instead of the torture crashing throughout his body, the coppery tang of his blood flowing around his mouth in a strange way that he shouldn't have been able to concentrate on since his entire back was alight in pain, but Carlis could disturbingly pinpoint every exact flavour of his blood, the iron rich and crimson fluid spurting out of his tongue in relatively small amounts as he ground his teeth against each other, staying resolutely quiet against the pain and refusing to let it overwhelm him.

Leodred cried out: "Dad!" as the man ran in front of the projectile of flames, a sense of almost overpowering guilt running through him as he realised that it was his own stupid fault that his and Elizabex's father had been forced into this position, and he was determined to atone for it as he thrashed his trapped limbs against the wood holding him down, ignoring the splinters that pierced his skin as well as the fact that one of his hands was numb and wouldn't move because of the crippling mana that Ilentia had cast upon him. He made sure to keep his dad's gaze as the man stared at him, the adult's own brown eyes screwed half closed in the pain that was rushing through him as the fire finally dissipated, most likely leaving him with sever burn wounds that would never heal, but that and a million times worse than it was worth it to protect his children and he would easily go through it again if they were in danger.

The man staggered forwards, sweat, ash and blood coating his pale and handsome face that had one or two scars on it from the violence of the civil war, and Leo was silenced by horror as he saw the scale of the injuries that were his doing inflicted upon his dad, one of the most important generals in the Kingdom of Light that they could ill afford to lose, but more than that Leodred hadn't had time to repay his father for the man bringing him up and fighting for him – fighting for them all – against the armies of the Arch-heretic lead by his best friend's only uncle. Then his mind was roused to action as he saw a dark shadow sweeping across the avenue to where Leodred and Carlis were situated and the teenager cried out in pure shock and horror, a warning to his dad that was too wounded to react his time and was still recovering from the abuse at the hands of the inferno that had been aimed at Leo.

"DAD!" Leodred cried, willing Valour to be faster and intercept the movement of the Master of Gluttony, but shadowy tendrils burst up from the ground and held the elemental warrior still as he barked in fury at being restrained by the vile grasp of the darkness, solid gloom inflected by bloody and arterial red snaking up the ethereal soldier of the Sanctum Angelica's armour and restraining him. Leodred was powerless to act but also powerless to look away as a dark blade pierced through his father's chest and heart, rending through the heavy and enchanted plate armour like it was nothing and sending a spray of blood fountaining over Leodred as he wailed like a young child and flailed in his restraints of sodden and moist wood that was now dripping with his dad's lifeblood.

The man let out a choked gasp of pain as the blade rammed through his heart, the parasitic and sadistic weapon having returned to Ilentia's grip just after the fireball had been launched and the Lucaelian had sped away, and his vision blurred through the pain as his mouth frothed with blood that crashed through his open lips as he coughed, the all-consuming suffering even worse than the agony he had endured at the fiery claws of Ilentia's flames as the blade protruding from him stabbed through his heart, his fingers scrabbling at the unyielding curved edge of the malicious sabre that greedily drank upon his pain, cutting apart the metal clad fingers as he tried to pull it away, like it would lessen his pain or cause him not to die as his son screamed his parental title at him again, tears of hurt spilling down the boy's young cheeks as he thrashed against his bonds, the shadows wrapping around Valour encircling him as well as he tried to come to his father's aid.

Carlis felt himself being lifted off of his feet as his body sagged, pressing against the crossguard of the malevolent sword as Ilentia hoisted him upwards, blood flooding his breathing system and windpipe and making it impossible to breathe as his body slowly gave out. He knew he was going to die, and while he didn't want to – he wanted to grow old with his wife, to see his beloved daughter and son be successful, revel in their achievements and meet his grandchildren to come – he knew that it was worth it because Elizabex and Leodred would live a little longer. Even so, he wanted to speak to his son, tell him one last time that he loved him and that this was in no way his fault, that every parent would do the same for their children infinite times over if it meant they could be safe, but as he tried to muster words all that came out was a meaningless gurgle and more blood that fountained out of his mouth.

Carlis belatedly and distractedly thought that he must look like how poor Emili had been on the night she had been killed (as he had entered the room just after Marik to see Prince Caiellis annihilate the demons), the demon's claws through her stomach and lifting her off her feet, and wondered if this would allow Leodred to empathise with young Caiellis more.

Carlis started to become desperate, knowing that Leodred would blame himself as his aghast son stared at him, his blood cascading down the youngster's face and cheeks as he leaned over to him, aware that he couldn't speak and that his body was shutting down as not only would the wounds alone kill him but toxic and corrupt fluids were running through his bloodstream and turning the once bright claret liquid a shade of darker and murky red, and he refused to let the tears that must have been brimming in his eyes at the realisation that he wouldn't be able to spend more time with his family rushed through him drip down his face. He would die with dignity, refuse to give in to the Master of Gluttony and fight the bitch until the end of his final breath. He reached towards the boy with his mailed fist, and tenderly brushed the tears from one side of his face away like he had used to when Leodred had been a reckless child and hurt himself or even when he had been a baby, and the eighteen year old was wracked with sobs as his father's loving brown eyes became glazed over and blank as he was ripped away and tossed aside by the vindicated Ilentia like Carlis was just some toy to be discarded when he no longer entertained the one playing with him.

The Master of Gluttony pondered saying something mocking and insulting to the boy who had just witnessed his father die because of his stupidity and folly, but Ilentia thought he had suffered enough and didn't feel that his personal family sadness was something she should interfere with. It was strange, she had enjoyed the kill and the prosecution of that violent act, but felt nothing but a sense of something she couldn't identify towards the idiotic boy that had caused the death of his dad, and stalked forwards silently, intending to put him out of his misery quickly and without unnecessary as he stared up at her with sorrowful and tear-filled eyes.

She readied the blade that she would plunge into his heart, Malice delighting at the suffering it had caused and eagerly awaiting the next kill, before a blast of pure light more powerful than she had felt so far from the Lucaelians hit her in the side, followed a second later by a potent swing of a large weapon. Ilentia let out an involuntary shriek of frustration mixed with pain at being thwarted again, and was sent flying backwards, agony exploding in her side as black blood gushed from the wounds as she based her head on the blood-slick rock of Banquet Street, a ringing noise ricocheting through her skull and bouncing on the inside walls in tandem with the pain.

The Master of Gluttony quickly pulled herself to her feet and leapt away a tiny moment before a huge pillar of light obliterated the place where she had been stood, and Ilentia sent a glance over to where she had last seen the girl. The teenager's face was alight with hatred and vengeful White man was coiling around her staff, buffeting her brown hair as she rose to her feet, but as Ilentia threw herself to the side when her instincts screamed at her to move a large axe that was covered in vibrant blood ejected from the Tempest of Craving crashed into the space she had previously occupied, sending shards of rock flying away from her.

Ilentia looked up and scowled into the face of the man whose arm she had chopped off with Malice and started this chain of events with, his pale Lucaelian features dripping with her black blood and contorted in detestation of her and a golden replacement arm of magic extending from the stump of his right elbow.

"Get the fuck away," Tristram growled at her, launching another spinning blow with his axe that sent juddering pains through her wrist when she blocked it on Malice, the malevolent blade less physically powerful than its passionate twin of Fire and as such less suited for blocking heavy blows, and the man's voice was full of hatred that made Ilentia think that perhaps she had made a mistake in killing the father man and should have instead left him incapacitated until she finished with the rest as he continued, "From the kids!"

.*.*.*.

Marik would have smiled at the fond memory of his interactions with two year old Caiellis and the remembrance of the old librarian who had died in the initial siege of the palace nine year ago at the outset of the civil war, if he could have mustered up any other expression and thought other than rage that coursed through him at the entrapment within his mind, unable to aid his obstinate but well-intentioned little boy against the force of a Red and Black Archdemon, and the smile that the last remaining piece of the horror Aksua had been given as a Summoning wore with its distended mouth, the bleached white teeth smugly grinning at him from the face that defied human comprehension incensing him further.

What was worse was the fact that he knew the smile didn't belong to the horror itself, or if it did then it was specifically designed in a certain way, as it reminded him heavily of Johnias's arrogant and self-assured grin that he had worn the first time they had met in the civil war where Marik had sustained some of the scars on his lower abdomen that had faded but were still there even today, which just showed how much the bastard brother of the king was enjoying messing with his sibling's life.

Marik tried once again to somehow force himself out of his mind, wielding his anger like a weapon despite the fact that there was an undercurrent of fear that was turning into desperation running through his head, a parental fear that he had become well accustomed to over the past few days despite barely feeling it for nine years of not seeing his sons, the fact that he had completely and utterly banished all thoughts of his innocent little boys from his mind proving essential in obtaining victory over the forces of the Arch-Heretic after the man had ripped apart his kingdom and armies and Marik removed Marik the Father and Husband from his mind, fully assuming the cold role of Marik the Supreme King which he had remained within until Alexander's defiant plea for him to care about his sons that had snapped his fatherly instinct into focus with the issue of Caiellis's self-harming.

Now that Marik had met and come to know his sons for the wonderful young men that they were he would find it almost impossible to set aside his parental thoughts again – as he had nearly not been able to in the civil war, but it had been the worry and fear for his two sons that had cost him several potential victories and ended the lives of both Guardian Axeclion and young Hierarch Mithres no matter how he wanted to look at it. He knew that Caiellis needed his help, had seen his youngest son wounded, battered and exhausted after holding off the Archdemon all alone until Marik came to help – _although I'm not entirely sure falling unconscious/something else that I don't know is helping him in any way, but since Akroma isn't here I can only assume that the Angel of Wrath is still in the physical world and hopefully battling the demon with him while I act pathetic and useless._

Self-loathing infused Marik's mind, as well as his paternal fright for both of his sons that he wanted to have in his sight when they were in war at all times so that he could protect them irrespective of what they thought of each other outside of the battlefield, and Caiellis needed to survive so that the king could apologise to his youngest son now that he knew the cause of his rage – whether the thirteen year old would accept and forgive – as he wouldn't have at that age – remained to be seen, but that was something to ponder after this ended.

He stood up once again from where he had been sat in one of the many hard wooden seats in the war cathedral in his mind after plunging into his memories of Caiellis, although the probably sick motives behind making him forcefully remember the times of happiness that he had spent with his second son (as well as his first but these were clearly aimed at Caiellis and any occurrences of Alexander (or indeed Emili) within them were purely coincidental) were still unknown to him, the horror answering cryptically every time he attempted to beat the knowledge out of it or demanded to have an answer, the black being seemingly amused by his anger because they both knew that at the moment it was impotent.

"Sit down, Mariky-boy, we haven't finished the tour yet!" the horror's taunting and complacent voice warbled, like the wail of a child shrieking at uncaring and ignorant parents, and Marik smashed apart with his large fist a fleshy tendril of shadows that languidly reached towards him, the horror stretched out on the rows of benches in the strategium-esque church room comfortably like it was the master of this place, although at the current moment it had complete control of Marik's mind as he tried to force it off, railing against the horror's dominance with every fibre of his being and hoping that it was having some effect on whatever was happening back in reality. Marik had dealt with enough arrogant forces of the forsaken nether to know that the invader of his psyche would continue to act smug and conceited no matter how much disruption Marik was causing to make its victim feel like they were achieving nothing and should just submit to the control of the horror, but even so he had no way of discerning the consequences of his furious resistance as he dodged another lashing tentacle, this one flung with more force as a thought popped into his head.

The horror shouted to him like an exasperated adult trying to reason with a petulant and impertinent child, "Don't force me to come and make you complete it, Mariky-boy. You wouldn't want to see me angry, trust me."

The horror's sibilant voice that was like dark and corrupt honey poured into the eldest Lucerna's ear was almost drowned out by his heavy footfalls on the wooden ground as he ran to the door on the other side of the room. He grasped the handle, but predictably it was closed and no amount of wrenching with his strength could force it open, so instead he took a step back and rammed his shoulder (that wasn't wearing armour as Marik's current representation of himself in his mind was simply clad in plain fabric clothing) into the dark mahogany that was decorated by ornate and magisterial silver etchings. It didn't budge, and the resounding boom of the impact echoed around the large chamber, but that didn't dissuade Marik from trying again, taking another step back as he could hear the shadow interloper to his personal mind that made him feel violated tutted disapprovingly in the background.

The man rammed his large body into the door again, knowing that it wasn't the act itself that would achieve anything within his mind that was under the control of the horror intruder that had once belonged to Aksua – who must have been under the command of Johnias or still had ways of contacting him -, but the thought of throwing off the yoke of dominance and restoring control of his mind and the mental power put behind it that would serve to free him from the horror's clutches, and if he was powerful enough and could muster enough mind power within him then he would be able to leave his mind and protect Caiellis, embrace his duty as a father and a king and slay the blight on the land that was the Archdemon instead of leaving his fragile youngest son to deal with it himself.

The wood cracked this time, a jagged split splintering down its length as the horror sighed exaggeratedly. Marik rammed the door one final time, fully prepared for what he would probably see on the other side. The horror was there, as he had expected, materialising out of thin air and grinning at him like he was being caught off guard or surprised by this parlour trick magic, but Marik continued on with his charged, crashing into the solid and wriggling shadows that made up the wretched child of the abyss that was similar to other nations' visualisations of the underworld. The horror fell back as he attacked unexpectedly, his reckless movements aiding his surprise factor in a way that was oddly reminiscent of how Caiellis had fought that final time against his older brother whilst Marik had watched them sparring, lunging forwards and slamming his fist into what passed for a head of the mind and dream invader that had trapped his youngest son in its vile embrace whilst Aksua fed upon Alexander and was threatening to keep Marik here, with potentially dire consequences for Caiellis.

The horror shrieked, an unholy sound of pain that pierced through Marik's eardrums and almost had him holding his head in agony as the headaches that had been caused by this being fell upon him in even greater pounding intensity than ever before, but Marik could not stop now, he could not give into the pain now because his baby boy's life depended upon it and he would be damned if he died before he and Caiellis came to good terms with one another. Then the denizen of the netherworld smiled at him once again, instantly snapping back on itself from where it had been reeling back from Marik's powerful strikes and wrapping tendrils of darkness round the king as he tried to leap past this interloper. To Marik's credit, he managed to slip out of the cold and nausea inducing touch as he sprinted past the horror, running down the corridor that was lit by several candles and braziers hanging on the stone walls.

His footfalls – for some reason he wasn't wearing any shoes, just socks – were incredibly loud and induced more crashing pain within the Lucerna patriarch's head, the world shaking around him as it felt like someone was systematically smashing every nerve in his head – which the horror probably was. As he ran at full pelt through his mind that had become his prison, not caring where he went because the simple act of running that represented freedom would help his efforts to break out of the hold the horror Johnias had sent had on his mind, his feet taking him far into his mind down some corridors that were familiar and others that weren't.

As he ran, not pausing to consider his surroundings and simply choosing whichever next corridor was the closest and didn't require a closed door to access, the candles that were weakly illuminating the inside of the war cathedral/citadel fortress of Akroma had their light snuffed out, plunging the areas behind the king into darkness as the only source of luminosity within the place was extinguished, smacking of Johnias's penchant for the melodramatic and showing off his dark power. Snaking shadows shifted past the king as he ran, his lungs on fire like he was very young once again and not able to run from the darkness. It reminded him heavily of his own Summoning trial, whereby a similar thing had happened and he had been thrown into this same cathedral and had to run from a similar being of darkness and shadows that had chased him.

However, he had always been caught no matter how far he ran, and every time he had run but been cornered and he had attempted to fight he had been overwhelmed and failed the trial, until finally on the day that his slightly older twin had completed his own Summoning test and Summoned poor Serenity Marik had been filled with youthful pride and brimming with the need to succeed and not give his cold and judging father another reason to ignore him, he had passed his own test set by Akroma. It had been simple, really. All he had had to do was rush at the indescribable creature of the mind that had been the product of all of his fears of the darkness and of failure with utter certainty in his mind – which meant that even running for a bit would end unsuccessfully – and fight his fears. Nothing dramatic like giving his own life to succeed, just being willing to confront anything that came his way instead of running from his inner terror, but most of all being able to defeat it as well – it was all well and good to recklessly launch himself at the terrifying problem, but he had been forced to show that he had the martial skill required to defeat the foe of his own psyche and born from his own nightmares.

However, Marik had already established the futility of trying to destroy the horror through his own physical and mental might, and while one could say that his defeatist attitude was the current cause of his downfall one would only say that had they not had a piece of Marik's mind – he believed with utter certainty that he could leave his mind because it belonged to him and he refused to acknowledge the alternative of leaving his army and two young sons for dead, especially Caiellis who had clearly been depending upon him for help and who he needed to apologise to for his violent actions – truly apologise to now that he knew the true cause of them. Marik only wished that he had pursued the reason behind his abhorrent violence towards his son – violence that he would never had dreamed of before the civil war, his sons were his and Emili's flesh and blood and _nothing _would harm them, least of all himself – instead of simply attributing it to how angry Caiellis had made him with his constant and grating defiance, and thinking about how next to punish his son in an attempt to stop him.

Although to be fair to Marik Caiellis had overstepped numerous boundaries and crossed several lines in his arguing and if the king was honest with himself if he had been acting normally it probably wouldn't have been long before he had hit Caiellis with the angry but cold force vaguely exhibited by his father, although Garius had been seething with anger as well at some points in the past and not just beating Marik with the desire to discipline him but with the desire to release some of that anger. However, even with Caiellis's constant defiance Marik still found it hard to countenance hurting his youngest son physically, not just because he knew that the violence wouldn't silence the impertinent boy (well, it would, for a short while until Caiellis rebuilt his confidence and his fury sparked into life once again), not just because of his fragility compared with Marik's very high amount of physical strength, but because the thirteen year old was his son and no matter that it wasn't the same without Emili Caiellis's well being was still his responsibility.

Nonetheless, the king had little time to think of this as he ran through the darkened corridors of his own mind, the fluttering flames of the candles dotting the walls with their warm spheres of light continually snuffed out and smothered by the gathering shadow. Twisting and wriggling tendrils of tenebrosity and gloom snaked across the stone walls as Marik ran past them, reaching towards him with their quivering arms of darkness before the king sped out of their range of motion, and through it all Marik could hear the conceited laughter of the mind horror who had quite a large part to play in the wounding of his precious and selfless eldest and would hopefully not be given the chance to have a role in any more pain directed towards fragile Caiellis.

Perhaps Marik shouldn't think of his family, should focus exclusively upon the need to achieve victory like he had in the civil war – the type of thinking that he had filled his mind with during the war that had lead to his victory in it, expelling all thoughts of family apart from the need to avenge perfect and murdered by cowards Emili out of his head and filling it with only stratagems for defeating the degenerate and traitorous armies of his twin brother – but this was a battle of the mind, not a battle of armies and men that he had to command and lead to triumphant victory, and now that he had seen his sons again after nine years he had built up a connection to them, especially thoughtful and easier to get on with Alexander, so thinking of what he now cared about instead of simply purposeless and hollow victory that was driven by the need for vengeance against his fraternal twin brother that had ruined his perfect and impossible improve family would serve to aid him in this effort to escape the prison of his own psyche.

The being was playing games with him, that much was for certain, and it seemed to be deriving a sick perversion of enjoyment from watching him struggle and try to flee that was similar to how Johnias in the civil war had enjoyed tearing down everything that he had tried to build up and establish within the kingdom, ripping apart Marik's success with his envy of it as if it would make the fact that he had not been crowned the supreme king with the death vision of Garius II a less bitter pill to swallow. He wondered how much control his brother had over this horror now, how much Johnias was or had been able to watch his actions through the mind parasite inserted within him that had fuelled his genuine rage and turned it nasty, and Marik could remember the invader of his most prized personal space telling him that him pinning down his own son on the bed and restricting his breathing had been added by Johnias himself.

Whether that was meant to be a taunt and actually had no base within factuality was unknown to the king, who would not put it past the heavily corrupted man at all to design the actions in an attempt to widen the ever-growing rift between him and his youngest boy or simply to provide some amusement in his currently unknown plans. If it had been the doing of the Arch-Heretic, this would be the most overt thing he had directly done in the past month or so, as Garod Morr's actions in apparently inadvertently attacking the train that held his youngest son seemed to have no correlation with Johnias's schemes, although several leaders on the side of the darkness (such as generals in the Grafnica Dominion) had reportedly thrown their subordinates into situations that they had no hope to prevail in to get them out of the way or to prevent the growth of a rival, a strategy shown by the Welkalites and most probably the now dead Tradax in placing expendable leaders and captains leading the ultimately delaying armies situated in the cities and forts blocking the Lucaelian progression to Usnaan.

It could have been a lie to make him worried about the progress of Johnias and therefore think less about other potential foes, or make him extremely concerned for his sons – in particular Caiellis; perhaps it was meant to bait him into mistrusting his youngest son now that he had very good reason to be opposed to his father and the Black mana inside of him, but Marik knew that no matter how much they argued and quarrelled incessantly with each other Caiellis wouldn't do anything to hurt him, though Marik didn't know if that was because he was a naturally gentle boy and still loved his father deep down or solely for Alexander's sake.

However, he needed to stop thinking of Johnias and his potential plans and what was the reason behind trapping him in his Mind Realm – ruminating over that could come after he had defeated the Welkalites and the Archdemon that they had Summoned within their city, and he didn't want to have to find out the reasoning for the horror trapping him within his head at this pivotal point in the war. It was entirely possible the being was simply a sadistic servant of Black mana that had read through some of his memories or heard of the Fallen Lucerna and decided to taunt him to entertain its own vile sense of amusement, and was serving its own ends in revenge for having the greater part of its being and its accursed Summoner killed by Marik and his Angel of Wrath instead of being part of some greater plan involving Johnias, but Marik would have no way to tell and he could take nothing that the horror said at face value. That meant he had to resort to the tried and tested method of dealing with those that either had been born in the darkness or had traded the light for it in the pursuit of unholy and undeserved power, which was simply to not listen to them nor let their words have any effect and purge them from existence before they could cause too much damage.

As Marik ran, his footsteps pounding in his head as the world shook in the throes of an excruciating headache that he now knew the cause of as the horror dug its insipid tentacles into his mind, he thought of his two sons stuck inside of the city with him. Although he was worried about them both immensely, knowing that Alexander was still recovering from the life-threatening wounds that had almost snatched his precious eldest away from him, in truth Marik was far more concerned about Caiellis because of the fact that the boy was a lot weaker than his older brother due to the age gap and the premature birth that had affected him even though his height and thinness could be attributed to his age and the fact that he hadn't quite gone through his growth spurt yet instead of his tumultuous birth, and because while Alexander may be fighting against powerful enemies even now there was no way that they would be stronger than an Archdemon.

Emili had always told him never to compare their children and instead revel in their individual characteristics and skills, and while Marik had tried and succeeded to adhere to that before the war it was hard now that they were teenagers fully capable of fighting in war and helping the kingdom in the age-old tradition of their birthright. When they had been younger, when war had seemed unlikely as the aggressive Welkalites could be dissuaded with a combined force of the Yentarian Republic (that Marik had reaffirmed their alliance with after the war but not spoken to them during it) and the Kingdom of Lucael, he hadn't needed to measure his sons against each other, but now that war was upon them Marik found himself unavoidably and increasingly comparing and contrasting the two, something he had done ever since getting back from the civil war where his mind had still been stuck in the set of fighting against Johnias and preparing forces to hunt him down.

Now that he was forced to compare them against each other as a king and as their leader and overall commander rather than their father, Marik was finding Caiellis increasingly less adept when measured against his older brother, as he lacked strength and durability without his magic and that was something that every Lucerna needed to be able to fight in war and stay at the forefront of the army throughout battles. Furthermore, the thirteen year old seemed to not possess the aggressive stint and inclination owned by both his father and elder brother, although the fact that he had thrown himself into the centre of the city and killed the Archlord of Rapture alone seemed to offer an alternative perspective on that.

It was not that Caiellis couldn't tailor his personal strategies to be highly offensive at times, although until this point never anywhere near the amount of aggression in warfare his brother or Marik himself would display, it was just that while the boy was fine with selflessly hurling himself into dangerous situations if he had planned for it beforehand and calculated the chances of victory – as Caiellis had clearly been ready for whatever Tradax had tried to use to defeat him, and Marik wouldn't have put it past his son to compile what he knew of the Master of Rapture's personality and plan out the perfect strategy for overcoming and slaying him (it was just a shame that he hadn't been ready for the entrance of an Archdemon and had failed to stop that, but for a thirteen year old – although the fact he was a Lucerna made his achievement more swallow-able – defeating Tradax was quite the success if Marik was being honest) – he was extremely reticent to put his soldiers into risky positions to the point where it could compromise the entire strategy of the army or place them in even more danger as he tried and failed (as he had done now) to take every burden upon himself.

Then it suddenly hit Marik. The force of the obvious revelation could have caused him to stop running if his mind wasn't focussed upon keeping the distance between him and the cackling horror that had caused him to hurt his fragile youngest son, reinforcing his hatred of the being and of all of the collective forces of darkness with these thoughts of family rushing through his head – Marik hoped that by wielding his mind like a weapon he would be able to expel the horror from it and then surge awake to help his second son against the Archdemon that he hadn't been able to stop entering the world, not that the king really blamed his son. It was entirely possible – and very likely – that the Archdemon would have been Summoned without Caiellis's interference and would have attacked the Lucaelians as they tried to make their way through the Welkalite thronged city of Usnaan if the youngest Lucerna had not been there to delay it.

The king could have cursed at the fact that the realised took as long as it had done to click within his damned head, and while he would like to blame the disruption of the horror for that deep down he knew that it was his fault he had not seen it, that he had missed it because he was busy looking at things other than his children (especially his "failure" of a youngest), just like the anger that had caused Caiellis to be choked by the one who was supposed to protect him and keep him safe was from within Marik and not the cause of the mind invader, albeit it had been twisted into violence by the disgusting and vile abomination.

The reason why Caiellis wasn't harsh upon his soldiers, was reticent to push them to the absolute limit and risk their lives in the service of the kingdom in spite of whatever orders Marik may give him, was because he was only just thirteen years old. No matter that he had spent nine years of his very short life within the most brutal war to have come upon the kingdom in many decades of time, no matter that he was a Lucerna with a duty to the Kingdom of Light, a duty that could only be paid in blood and sacrifice as he used the power he was given to protect the innocent citizens of Lucael from the ever encroaching darkness of the abyss – all that was irrelevant, because Caiellis was only just into his teenage years, still growing and maturing physically and as a person in spite of the fact that he had been thrown into an adult role that would normally have been occupied by someone twice his age at least, and performed admirably despite disobeying his father and doing what he thought was right for his soldiers.

Caiellis was gentle with troops because he was a kind and young person, even under all of the angstiness that Marik guiltily knew that he had a major part in developing, and didn't quite understand the fact that they were soldiers and had been trained specifically for this type of warfare – they had been through some of the harshest and most punishing exercise regimes so that they could move from one battle to the next with minimal pause only to consolidate their victory. He didn't want to put them through too much strain because he was sympathetic and thoughtful, and would prefer to have a rested and fully operational force rather than a prudent but vaguely tired one, and Caiellis didn't want people to die.

Neither did Marik, but because the king was an adult with many years of experience with some of the most bloody and brutal warfare the world had ever seen under his metaphorical belt, he understood that in war sacrifices had to be made and that a few had to die so that the rest could prosper, whereas his youthful and unseasoned (as inexperienced wasn't quite the word because Marik knew that unfortunately his second son had a large amount of familiarity with violence) thirteen year old son thought about preserving the highest amount of lives possible within every battle instead of the amount of lives preserved in the long run.

He hadn't yet gained the emotional maturity to be able to countenance not being immensely careful with his soldiers, and Marik was immensely sorry that he had, instead of tutoring his youngest son and keeping him at his side while prosecuting war alongside him – if he even should have been in the war in the first place -, teaching him about the nuances of fighting and making sure every step of the way that he was emotionally ready for it (as if he wasn't then Marik would have been able to see and take him away from the savagery), instead of figuratively throwing him in at the deep end so that he could learn on his own and develop individually instead of having to rely upon his older brother (who took the burden willingly) for leadership and direction.

Marik had been extremely worried and annoyed at the fact that Caiellis had been trapped in a dream world whilst Alexander had been contending with the last vampire (_how ironic..._) alone, and that even before that the youngest of his two teenage sons seemed to depend upon his older sibling for help and to be the more confident of the two, what with Alexander being the more assertive and least shy of the sons of the king, and it had seemed to the king like Caiellis relied upon his older brother way too much for a prince. That, coupled with Alexander's personality of being a big brother and feeling like he could do everything himself, fully willing to sacrifice his well-being and health for his little brother, made it dangerous when Caiellis was put in danger and used to manipulate the seventeen year old into submitting.

Added to the fact that Marik was extremely angry with the new novelty of having his authority challenged by his suddenly defiant son – although before now he had never stopped to wonder why Caiellis was being so defiant instead of attributing it to hormones, a general lack of respect for Marik and the fact that the king had never been able to truly impress his authority onto the boy, and it was obvious that they had all been immensely stressed with the kidnapping (that Caiellis had nearly been killed within by the Master of Violence's gargantuan and inhuman arms) of the princes and the closeness to death that the third member of their small family had got to, it had been an easy decision to send him to Scientia Mos instead of trying to rebuild their relationship.

Marik had wanted to blame something because of the fact his eldest son had almost died, and he had lashed out at Caiellis because of how he had been manipulated into being used as a bargaining tool for both of the Lucerna children and had left his exhausted brother alone with a vampire, but in truth Marik knew that he was finding something to lay all of the guilt upon for what had happened to Alexander because he was so angry at the fact that his sons had been taken from him and his eldest had almost died with him being able to do nothing about it, a sense of uselessness that had never been so pronounced since the death of his beloved Emili running through him, and it had scared him. To that end, he had blamed Alexander's wounding upon Caiellis's lack of independence and, tired of the arguing and refusing to see from his youngest son's side or comfort the boy who had been through so much as well as Alexander despite not almost dying, sent him to the City of Books so that he could both get out of Marik's head and learn some skills about war and doing things for himself.

That had been a mistake, and despite the fact that it had expanded Caiellis's skills and confidence dramatically (although he was still a very shy and quiet boy that barely ever spoke unless his brother talked to him) as well as making him far more suited to leading an army on his own without needing those older and more confident than him to take the lead, it had reduced his youngest son's respect of Marik even further because it had shown him that he didn't need his father to be there watching him to excel.

It had been exactly as Guardian Tristram, who had once been a quite close friend to him despite their age differences and he couldn't be grateful enough to because of what he had down for the Lucerna sons during the civil war, raising them to be young adults far better than Marik ever would have done on his own (although with Emili at his side the two youngsters would have had the perfect childhoods), but who now probably hated him with good reason for what he had done to poor Caiellis, had predicted – it had seemed that instead of the resentment between father and son dying down (although Marik had been able to focus on Alexander and because he was used to his youngest not being there he had removed the hostility between them from his mind, even congratulating Caiellis on the wonderful speech that he had given out), it had festered within Caiellis.

However, it was more than likely that the boy had simply grown more confident in his own abilities, confidence that was well deserved, and had been ready to push aside their petty squabbling in the name of the kingdom as well, but the dormant defiance within him had been lit when Marik had chastised him over the delay that he had caused because of his gentle and more merciful nature and had raged into a powerful fire that the king had had to work hard in extinguishing, his own anger roused as well as he blamed their argument on the fact that Caiellis hadn't changed instead of looking deeper into it and as such disliking the boy for it.

Overall, it highlighted Marik's inexperience at being a father just as much as it emphasised Caiellis's lack of knowledge of leading armies in brutal warfare – not in strategy, as the kid was excellent at that – and instead of being allowed to berate and reprimand him for his mistakes and then congratulate him on his victory and exceptional skill in wielding an army for his age it had devolved into a bitter argument between them as the resentment flared into life once again.

Their relationship had deteriorated ever since then, what with the horror that he was now trying to break free from and hopefully destroy turning his anger into violence that he was still terrified of ever subjecting his smallest son to again and had made him horrified at himself and how he had lost control, and even with Alexander their to break up their arguments – putting himself in emotional harm's way to do something that wasn't expected of him was very heroic of Marik's eldest, especially since he had only just recovered from his own severe brush with death that had started these heated disputes in the first place – every attempt that they had made to make it up to each other (albeit Marik's hadn't been done very well since he had been trying to prevent the violent headaches that had resounded through his skull turning him to attacking his son again and more focussed on the war than the well-being of a petulant teenager) had ended in failure.

That was why Marik had to destroy this horror that had trapped him within its noxious embrace, had to return to consciousness and destroy the Archdemon that the foolish Welkalites had allowed to enter their city, heedless of the dire consequences, alongside his second son. He would make sure that Caiellis survived so that they could make it up to each other now that Marik would be able to destroy what had turned him abusive and brutal, and ensure that his youngest son would feel safe, protected, and loved around Marik, because alongside Alexander Caiellis was the person that the king loved the most in the world despite their differences and their fighting due to the fact that he was his bright and intelligent son.

Marik kept running through the endless corridors – as a young ten year old boy he had once asked Akroma (when he could pluck up the courage to talk to the terrifying Angel of Wrath within his mind) how big his Mind Realm was only for her to reply unusually cryptically and tell him not to ask again – ignoring the large doors that creaked open as he neared them that lead into large and cavernous rooms like other majestic cathedral halls as he knew that they would most likely be a trap set by the horror that had a scarily potent grip upon his mind, what with how everything around the king was juddering and shaking like the whole Mind Realm was in hazardous flight.

His suspicions were confirmed when he passed the doors and the light that had been spilling out of the warm and inviting rooms turned dark as contrails of inky blackness cascaded out of the doors to join the wriggling and pulsating mass that followed the king through his mind, the vile being laughing all the while. The reason why Marik had been able to identify the trap was because of the fact that the light shining out of the multifarious rooms in his mental basilica of warfare had always been cold, harsh and dutiful, not welcoming and happy, and as such Marik had instantly known that such things had no natural place within the residence of Akroma.

"You can't run forever, Mariky-boy!" the horror caterwauled, the mass of shadows crashing through the corridors behind the king as he sprinted, noting that he was not tired at all because the run wasn't a real one, meaning that he still possessed some measure of control within his own mind, the horrifying creature of the night rushing through the rooms like a tide of solid shadows and ooze that throbbed to the sound of a malignant heartbeat that sent pains shuddering through Marik's head, although that would not stop him now. Too much was at stake, and should he fail the entire Lucaelian force containing almost every person that he cared about personally would be wiped out by the overwhelming force of an Archdemon that could only be challenged by an exalted First Sisterhood angel; the king was not prepared to allow that to happen, not while he still drew breath and the need to oppose the darkness and protect the kingdom still burned within his breast.

The globules of murk and gloom spread across the ceiling, the floor and the two walls of the corridors as the king ran, knowing that it was gaining on him and unsure whether the horror in his mind was simply enjoying playing games with him and could capture him and force him back into his memories of Caiellis at any point or if he was seriously outrunning it and it didn't have a grasp on all of the monarch's mind. However, the horror was correct, for once, and Marik knew that simply fleeing from it would not solve anything – yes, he may be able to escape from his mind, but leaving the being there was a recipe for disaster and there was no guarantee that it wouldn't just pull him back if he even managed to get out of the prison of his own thoughts.

No, he needed to destroy it, to cast out its foul essence from his mind so that it could not influence the decisions of a Lucerna monarch any more – and it was a testament to how far the beast of Aksua had dug its tendrils in and how insidious it was to resist the purifying aura of both the crown and the Angel of Wrath who was usually adept at noticing encroaching corruption and would have murdered it herself – but for now he needed a bit more distance, the man thinking of his family and his duty all the while as it empowered his motions within _his _mind.

"I am the master of your mind now! I can read every thought that comes into your head! Why do you think that you can escape me when I know your every movement before you even think of it yourself?!" the horror shrieked at him, though there was a frustrated tinge to its voice that Marik wasn't sure whether he had imagined or not, and a sudden thought popped into the man's head as he instantly smothered it with another, thinking of how he was going to repair the relationship between him and his thirteen year old son who was going through the turbulent time known as puberty and adolescence, refusing to hope that the horror had not detected it because simply entertaining the notion of that hope within his mind would alert the vile being to his plan.

The king cried out in shock as a door of dark wood etched with symbols that radiated neither light nor darkness and simply unstoppable magic crashed shut in front of him, and the king threw his substantial weight into it in the way that had begun this escapade from the original entrance of his austere Mind Realm in the first place, though despite him mustering thoughts of breaking down the door and striding straight through it in his head the door didn't budge – almost as expected, but if Marik expected to fail in this realm of metaphysics then he would never succeed, as it was the will to win and achieve triumph that was more potent then the actions of doing so.

The king spun around, holding his fists at a ready position as the tide of living gloom crashed into him, leaving him untouched as it swarmed around his form at covered the door behind him in a revolting mass of squirming black fleshy globules that swayed in a mockery of life as he was pinned against the door, his back pressed into the hard wood as he readied his hands to attack, although ideally as the being hadn't touched that he didn't want to stain himself with it yet. A figure was rising up out of the wriggling blackness trapping him in an abyssal prison against the door, the shadows taking the vague shape of a humanoid creature without legs that moved through the solid and throbbing darkness around him.

What was more disturbing than the human appearance that the horror had sued before was the sheer size of the creature that had nestled in his mind ever since the last vampire had been killed and the tainted race of unholy blood drinkers had been consigned to rightful extinction, an endless expanse of blackness stretching back along the corridors as far as Marik could see that wriggled and palpitated just like the rest of it did, a tide of filth that he knew had grown from that tiny splodge of the original horror that infiltrated his mind. Then another thought entered his head, and he supposed that despite the minuscule size of the horror that had originally penetrated to his mind its power over him was still large and it could make itself seem infinite and massive within his head whilst in reality it was a small drop of pure shadow with a sentience of its own. He couldn't remember the horror talking when Aksua had controlled it, and it had simply seemed like a mindless but malicious beast of the shadow, and although he had never spoken to Caiellis about the battle neither one of his sons had said that the horror used words.

It was possible that without the controlling influence of Aksua the being was free to express its own thoughts through speech, or that it was being controlled and someone was speaking through it, but currently Marik had more pressing concerns as the horror's humanoid form drifted through the rest of the darkness and rushed towards him, the three slitted eyes opening up on its head as a single mouth of bleached teeth stark against the shadow ripped itself open vertically down its face and underneath its first eye, one other on each side of the gaping maw as it reached out an arm of gloom and murk that vibrated it time with the rest of the living and corrupt shadow, quivering fingers of dark essence splitting off from the main tendril and branching out into even more like a repugnant perversion of a tree's life-giving roots.

He flattened the thoughts of his plan under more about his family, thinking of how proud he was of both of his young sons at how mature and grown up they were at their youthful ages as the nether being leaned closer to him, its head and neck regions extending so that it could look down at the king as it reached closer, the man recoiling automatically in disgust before realising that he had nowhere else to retreat to and that his back was firmly pressed up against the hard door as the being leaned closer still, shadows whipping around Marik like a maelstrom of darkness that left the king untouched as the creature of nightmares grinned at him.

The king could feel the virulent breath of the horror on his face as it spoke, the smell warm and foetid like rotting but freshly killed corpses undergoing a heightened and faster state of decay, and more disturbingly a scent that Marik hadn't smelt before but incited an emotion within him that he rarely felt – _fear_, "Nowhere left to run now, Mariky-boy. What were you hoping to accomplish anyway with that little stunt of yours? I thought that you enjoyed your memories of the "happiest time of your life?" I though that you would give up everything that you had now to go back there? Surely then I was doing you a favour?"

The horror's voice became slightly sullen and petulant, and Marik repressed the shiver of uncharacteristic fear for himself that he felt that ran down his spine, knowing that it was just the aura of the denizen of the abyss and the hold that it had on his mind stimulating that emotion and that he was no longer ever scared for himself, but frightened for his children and the kingdom. He snarled in hatred when the being must have pulled up some of his recent memories of things that had only happened a few days ago as it imitated Caiellis's young and at the time sorrowful voice when he had been crying for his brother as Alexander went through the operation that had saved his life, and continued, its voice somewhere in between the genuine sadness that it imitated and a mocking resonance, "I'm sorry if you felt that I wasn't helping; all I have ever wanted to do was to help you, Mariky-boy."  
It then grinned, dispelling the image and its voice returning to normal, although hatred was still surging through Marik which would have been obvious to the one that had control of his mind, and then the king sensed it digging its claws into his mind again and wrenching loose another of its memories. As it spoke again, it wore Caiellis voice for the second time, but on this occasion it was the defiant and angry tones his youngest son had used against him when they had been in one of their many awful arguments that the king dearly regretted now, "Was I simply not good enough for you? Were the memories that I chose not to your esteemed standard, Lord Marik? Or are you simply too wrapped in hatred knowing that I am controlling you now and making you do the right thing?"

"What _are_ you doing?!" Marik demanded loudly despite himself, having originally planned to keep silent until he was ready and the horror was close enough to strike, but the sheer anger at having someone else dominating him and using him to their own ends – ends which obviously involved hurting Caiellis judging by the horror's track record – and the being laughed as it leaned in, taunting and its voice turning back to its original sibilant whispers, "Wouldn't you like to know, Mariky-boy? Don't worry. You will find out soon enough that I have done you a great favour. But for now, why don't you be a good little king and submit while I take you through a tour of your happiest memories?"  
Marik had had enough, and when the horror bent forwards, about to brush his cheek with a shadowy tentacle, he put his plan into action. Surging forwards, Marik brought up every single memory of his precious family that he had to the fore of the mind from where he had been mustering them behind his veneer of hatred that surge to the fore as well in tandem with the recollections of the past.

He thought of his first meeting with each of the three most valued people in his life, those that were part of his family. He thought of happy memories, of the golden sunshine of his eldest's birth and the cute happiness of his youngest's tumultuous entrance to the world. He thought of sadness and pain, of arguments with Emili where they almost considered never seeing each other again, of Alexander cutting his hand on a blade that Marik had carelessly left out and having his wife slap him for the first (and only) time because of it, and of Emili's near death at Caiellis's birth. There were unfortunately far more memories in this latter category, including the abduction of his sons, the awful wounds Alexander had suffered at the hands of Aksua, and his explosive arguments with his youngest son as well as Caiellis almost being blown up by the Welkalite skyship in the battle of Fort Egetau, but Marik brought every single one of them up as he sprang forwards – every single memory but one, one that he refused to go back to.

Light burst into being around the king in response to this renewed outpouring of powerful emotional thoughts, illuminating the horror in a harsh golden glow and burning apart the shadows that had been moving to grasp at Marik's ankles, blinding light ensorcelling Marik's tight fists as it burst up from within him and formed a shining crown around his forehead that dispelled the shadows around him. The king leapt forward, pulling the memories of his family to the fore as he charged the short distance to the horror, his thoughts of the ones that he loved more than anything else swirling around his hands and making his fists into weapons of divine magic. _Focus on your family, Marik! Focus! Think not of the horror, but of the family that you have to protect and the happy memories of the past, the possibility of making more happiness in the future if you overcome this being!_

Marik brought up three images in his mind, the first of Emili Noctis the day that she had proposed to him, a happy smile on her face and her green eyes twinkling with her love for Marik, interchanged with that when she interacted with their beloved children and her emerald irises shone with her motherly affection for the two youngest Lucernas. The second was that of Alexander Ensis Lucerna the last time Marik had seen him, his face full of agitation and concern for his little brother the moment before he had sprinted off into the city to try and make his way to where the smallest prince had travelled to, and that too was interposed with the visualisation of the four year old blonde when he had first met his younger brother and his bright and warm blue eyes had been glowing with fondness and excitement.

Finally, the last vision of the members of his family was Caiellis, and like the others it was a combination of two other images from different memories of the boy. The one before the civil war was the last flashback that the one with a malevolent grip on his mind had forced him into, where his two year old son had snuggled up against his father and shown him love that Marik would never forget and cherish forever, whereas the second was similar to Alexander's in it being the most recent occasion the thirteen year old boy had been viewed by his father.

Caiellis was beaten and bruised, his light armour (that Marik really thought that he needed to wear more of considering his physicality and fragility, but supposed that his son might not obtain the manoeuvrability conferred by his iridescent stained glass wings should he become too heavy) torn and ripped at numerous locations, exposing scratched and bloodied flesh underneath. His face was ashen pale with fear and exhaustion, and slick with the blood that endlessly poured down from the insanity-inducing heavens of the Tempest of Craving. The Sword of Glass that Marik had gifted to his son and had served the boy well was gripped tightly in his small and slender hand, and although his eyes were full of relief at having his father there that spoke volumes about the fact that their arguments were just petty squabbles that didn't mean anything now that they were in battle, the wide green orbs that were so much like Emili's had been full of fright at the Archdemon, highlighting his age and the power of one of the strongest beings spawned forth from the darkness.

The trifecta of family members infused Marik with strength and magical power that surged through the mental representation of himself within his mind, light swirling around his muscular limbs and burning back the darkness as it was purified by the divine illumination and mewled in pain as he charged at the one who had caused him to hurt his youngest son, a crime that could never be forgiven and would end with this vile creature dead and expunged from his Mind Realm.

The horror was completely unperturbed that Marik had been able to conjure up a form of mana within his head and that it represented the king breaking free of the control the being had upon him that had prevented him from accessing his magic, and it simply looked on unconcerned as the grand monarch of Lucael charged at the humanoid form of him. Its eyes were unimpressed and impassive despite the fact that other parts of its being were hissing and sizzling away as the cleansing light purged away their taint from the ornate war cathedral of the Angel of Wrath, but Marik paid no heed to that as he leapt into the air, magic coalescing around his closed fists as he sprung at the face of the creature, concentrating his thoughts of his family into an undiluted and powerful, weapon like form that he would use to banish the foul creature that had taken refuge in his most private of residences.

_Alexander, Caiellis, _the king thought, his mind voice a combination of an inspiring and stirring war shout of pure hatred of the foe similar to the one that he had bellowed as the Lucaelian legions had gathered outside of the walls of the City of Pleasure, and a quiet but no less firm and determined promise to himself and his children, _I am coming! _

He thought more of his most recent memories of his two cherished sons that he had barely been given the time to know and love, the ones showing that they needed his help as a king but most prominently as a father and that as their dad he was required to help them through this time of turmoil that he should have prevented them from getting into in the first place by being sons someone that the boys (well Caiellis at any rate, because Marik was reasonably confident Alexander was warming to him and trusted in him) could trust and talk to, instead of someone that his youngest found intimidating because of his actions and judging because of his words. Finally, he thought of the precious wife that had been snatched away from him because of his own twin brother's greed and envy, and how disappointed she would be in him from her place in paradise watching over them if he failed their sons now. _Think of my family!_

"Oh, Mariky-boy, why didn't you just say that was what you wanted to do?" the horror giggled at him maliciously, and the king involuntarily cried out in agony as the reverberating torment within his mind skull rose to unbearable levels even with the golden magic of his protective defiance cascading out of him, and the humanoid figure within the tide of vibrating darkness simply swayed to the side out of the headlong rush of the king as he pitched forwards, pulses of pure pain crashing through his head and distorting the images of Caiellis, Alexander and Emili that he had conjured within his mind, turning their gazes hatred filled and condemning as they glared down at him, their faces contorting and warping into leers of disgust and sadism that his family had never worn before in their lives.

The void being laughed again, the sound like icy daggers being rammed over and over again into Marik's mind as he swung around, wondering if this is what Caiellis had felt like when the king had forced him to spar against the older brother that was clearly better than him as he slammed his shining fist into the space where the horror should have appeared according to his predictions of its movements – even with the pain he was in the strategist within the man had anticipated that the mental intruder would move its most important section – the human-esque figure that had its eyes and mouth – to the section of its roiling shadow body that it rose up out of now, far enough away from the king's first attempted blow to avoid damage but close enough so that it could still taunt and jeer at him.

The king of Lucael was not disappointed as the being reared up its head out of the place that he had postulated as being the location of its resurgence, and with a cry on his lips that was half fervent and half pained he spun on the spot, the darkness around him pushed out of the way of his feet by the light as it tried to grab hold of his legs, and launched himself at the horror again. He put all of his defiance of the darkness and need to protect his sons into the attack, and the light became blinding in its intensity as he arced his shining fist at the cowardly creature of shadows.

It laughed again in spiteful amusement as it lashed out a tendril of dark matter, blocking Marik's fist as the light instantly died out, the memories of his family drowned out by the pain and sudden feeling of hopelessness that overwhelmed the king as the horror extended its neck in a sickening motion of expansion towards him and whispered in his ear with its sinister words, "Why didn't you just say that you wanted to think about your family? I would be only too happy to please you there."

Marik tried to roar his defiance at the creature who had made him _choke _his own son and hurt his baby boy, to swing at the being now that it was _so close _and smash it out of his head so that he could embrace his duty as a father and king and lead the Lucaelian warriors that depended upon him for strength to victory, but every part of him was becoming numb as he felt his mind being dragged out of him again. He toppled to his knees, and then fell forwards as his mind screamed at his unresponsive limbs for them to move, to make the most of the advantage he had created for himself since he might not get another chance to be in the same position again, but as the darkness overwhelmed him and smothered the light Marik was pulled back into his memories once again.

.*.*.*.

"_Why can't you just see the merits of what I am suggesting?!" Emili demanded, her voice full of anger that Marik knew wasn't directed at him and an undertone of fear, fear and apprehensiveness that they all felt about the recent news that could have been considered treasonous. Marik would have had the person who had delivered the message severely punished – and other, harsher Lucerna kings may have had them killed – if the source that they had come from hadn't been so reliable in the past. Apparently, his twin brother, Johnias Otium Lucerna, along with Vectura, City of Transportation, Crescia, City of Commerce, and Epulaeous, City of Nourishment, had declared their independence from the rest of the Kingdom of Light and their succession from the reign of the Lucerna line._

_Such news was absurd, only twice ever before in the annals of their race had a civil war occurred, one that barely had any history upon it at all as the rebelling armies and their corrupt general had been crushed underfoot by the might of Queen Tidisa and the second was the revolution against evil King Xarius, but Marik hadn't as of yet had any communication from any of the aforementioned metropolises nor his brother as to what this was all about. At any rate, the news was shocking to say the least, and utterly terrifying if it was true, but Marik still couldn't believe that Johnias would betray him and turn three cities against him, for all that his brother had been the favourite to inherit the throne seven years ago from their late father._

_Nonetheless, the two Light-bearers from Civitas Sol reported that some of their armies that had been patrolling the border in case of further Welkalite incursions (which thankfully had stopped the past two years apart from the very occasional bandit attack that the leaders of Welkas assured the Yentarian Republic and the Kingdom of Light had nothing to do with them) had been attacked and wiped out very recently and almost inexplicably, and scouts from the Capital City had noted that the abyss had seemed more active than usual, shapes roiling in the darkness with a greater frequency than ever before in Marik's mostly peaceful reign. _

_Marik wanted to take control of the situation instantly, as it was not unheard of for specific generals of figures of importance to lose themselves to the temptations of the void and trade their holy Summonings away for demons or other abyssal residents in an Infernal Bargain, and if there truly was a rebellion than it needed to be put down immediately before the stability of the nation could be affected too much. However, for all that the king thought that it was unlikely and incredibly dreadful if the three aforementioned cities that had been under Johnias's direct command in a way that gave the man a method of using the leadership skills that Marik's brother possessed in abundance, he thought it was ludicrous to suggest that his loyal and loving brother would turn on him like the news had indicated._

_Nonetheless, because of the amount of trusted sources that Marik as the king had informing him of the developments such an implication could not be taken lightly, and he had given the word to mobilise Capitalia Lux for war and sent the message to everyone of of the other sanctuaries against the darkness, although because the monorail systems that would revolutionise transport were still in development it would take a few days before the responses of each of the seven other cities could be heard and their loyalty ascertained – apart from the reply from Scientia Mos, as the City of Books with its Yentarian links had finished their monorail connection to the Lucaelian capital and their loyalty had been confirmed almost instantly. _

_Meanwhile, he wanted the capital to be a bastion of hope and solidity against any tension or talk of insurrection, an invincible monument of Lucaelian ideals and a bulwark against the ever encroaching shadow. _

_The reason why he was arguing with his wife now was over the plan that she had suggested for herself and their two young children of age eight and four, after hearing the news (but not from Marik who had been busy fuming with outrage at first at the suggestion Johnias would ever turn his back on his twin brother and then becoming clinical and acting like a king) for herself. Emili wanted to take Alexander and Caiellis to Scientia Mos, the city that she had been brought up in and the one that her parents that they had all visited less than a year ago lived in, using the newly constructed first monorail line to travel quickly out of Capitalia Lux. _

"_And why can't you see that the palace is far safer than Scientia Mos?" Marik questioned back, his voice also coloured with anger that was not targeted at his beloved wife, but fury at the possibility that the darkness would ruin his perfect family and bring death upon the kingdom, and vexation at himself because of the fact that if what had been reported had truly occurred then he should have been far harsher on the kingdom and spent less time with his children, not trusting Johnias to take care of the three aforementioned dwellings apart from a few routine inspections that Marik had subjected them to and meetings with the Light-bearers within Capitalia Lux, the most recent of which had been Teylaisian Illustri, the Guardian of Vectura, and if the dependable, faithful and honourable warrior had turned his back on the light of the kingdom then he hadn't shown it and Marik hadn't been able to pick it out – which he should have been able to considering that he was a Lucerna king. _

_However, now that Marik thought about it, he had often considered removing Teylaisian from the post of Guardian because there was one thing that might have been able to convince him to stray from the path the holy angels had set for them, but Marik didn't want to entertain the thought of betrayal now and instantly assume that he was guilty right from the start. He would retain a healthy scepticism of the news until he had established just what was going on and crushed any dissent in his kingdom without any outsiders being involved – as if the Yentarians saw that there was a civil war going on Marik wasn't sure how they would react, and Lucael would certainly be viewed as weak by the New Empire of Passion should they ever hear the news – restoring order as soon as possible, because even if there was only limited rebellion the greater darkness would take every opportunity that it could to exploit the chaos and resentment._

_The husband and wife were stood in the medium sized kitchen/dining hall (since they had moved out of the former as they were too close to their sleeping young ones) connected to their sons' nursery, although Alexander slept there less and less because of his age of eight (angels, he was growing up so fast... well, they both were, as Caiellis was now almost as old as Alexander had been when the younger of the two had been born), and while their voices conveyed their emotions they didn't raise them much past hisses because of the fact that both of their youngsters were asleep in the room next door._

_They didn't often argue, Marik and Emili, but when they did it was very heated as each was extremely stubborn and refused to back down until one of them thought that the whole argument was pointless and gave in – or more rarely a compromise was made. Right now, the king thought that his wife's idea of taking herself and their two sons to the City of Books was completely absurd because the capital city was the safest metropolis with the largest army and the Lucerna citadel was the most protected place in the entire kingdom, whereas Scientia Mos was not._

_Furthermore, Marik wanted his children and love where he could protect them, which would not be in the City of Books, to make sure that they were alright as he returned order to the nation and cowed the apparently rebellious cities under the hammer of the Lucaelian legions, and if they were in Scientia Mos then he would have no way of ascertaining their safety. While he would have to leave Capitalia Lux with a sizeable force (from every city that would lend its aid – as if they didn't then that would be disobeying orders and would show that their loyalty was not to be trusted) to quell any potential uprising, he would be able to do so knowing that his infinitely precious family would be safe within the palace, guarded by some of the kingdom's finest soldiers, not in Scientia Mos where attack would be much more likely – as assaulting the imposing and massive capital city was tantamount to a death sentence for any besieging force._

"_Because Johnias – or whoever is the leader of this damned rebellion – knows that we are in Capitalia Lux! If we secretly move to Scientia Mos any of the traitors won't realise and will continue to focus their efforts on the palace!" Emili hissed at him, filling the tense quiet that had descended with her words, about to speak again in that way that she did – as arguing with the queen was like debating with a hurricane of shouted words, ideas and arguments, and one had to be an immovable object against the force of her suggestions and accusations otherwise they would be overwhelmed by her barrage of points. In contrast, Marik often left gaps for his opponents in the dispute to respond so that he could calmly dissect and destroy their point of view. He had been forced to develop that method so that he didn't become swamped over Emili's veritable bombardment of arguments and words, and as his beautiful partner's mouth opened again he spoke over it, "And why is Scientia Mos so much safer than the citadel? This palace has barely ever been breached by enemies before, not counting Xarius's reign, and I want you three here so that I know you are safe and sound instead of sending you away to another city that I can't watch over you in!"_

_They were just going over the same ground again, all of the points that either of them were raising now had already been launched into the heated air between them, but neither was willing to give up and Marik couldn't understand why his usually intelligent wife had got this silly notion into her head that the Lucerna palace, the bulwark against the darkness that had stood for thousands of years and held many generations of the Lucerna line, was suddenly unsafe and somewhere unsuitable for housing the king's young family. The thirty one year old woman shook her head at him, her curled fringe flicking to the side and concealing one of her fiery emerald eyes, though Marik consciously had to stop himself from reaching forwards and gently brushing it out as he knew that it wouldn't be appreciated by his wife. The argument was clearly hurting her, Marik suddenly realised, just as much as it was hurting him underneath the barriers of determination he had placed over his now cold blue eyes, and Emili had never been forced to conceal her emotions before so they bled out of her expressive green orbs (or orb, since one was covered up), showing her anger at Marik and the thought of a war ripping her husband away from her and tearing a father away from their children as he campaigned across the kingdom._

"_The safety of the palace didn't stop your grandfather being assassinated by the shadow agents of the Grafnica Dominion," Emili replied, uncharacteristically quiet in one of their arguments, and Marik had to check and stop himself before he exploded at his wife. She knew that saying the words would strike a cord with her husband because of the fact that the murder of Garius I at the time when the late father of the current monarch had only been sixteen had been one of the factors attributing the austere coldness to Garius II, although the death of his beloved wife Ismerelda due to giving birth to the only Lucerna twins had been the final point in the destruction of his love and warmth. Marik would have shouted extremely loudly and angrily at his wife had she been anyone else and if they hadn't been relatively close to their sleeping children – only two rooms away – so instead he took a deep, shuddering breath as he gathered his thoughts, preparing to make the most of this lull in the relentless assault of points to come up with a good counter argument._

_The fact that Alexander was also sleeping in the nursery was very unusual, but it was a perfect example of how emotionally attuned he was to the rest of his family and how he could sense when things were wrong or now. He had decided a few hours ago when it had been Caiellis's bedtime – as it was now midnight and both of the boys would be soundly asleep – that he wanted to sleep in the same room as the youngest Lucerna, somehow knowing despite not being told anything about the potential for a civil war (as Marik and Emili had agreed that their sons would be kept relatively ignorant as to preserve their innocence and make sure that they were not worried too much) and wanting to protect his younger brother from whatever might happen. There had been no objections from Caiellis, who was probably very happy for the company considering that his big brother was maturing now as a person and would rather spend time with the friends that were his age instead of the sibling that was four years younger (though he in no way ignored Caiellis), and their parents had left quietly with them sleeping in each of their respective beds that had been pushed closer together at Caiellis's request._

_Marik wished that he had possessed that kind of brotherly bond with Johnias when the two had been younger and only really had each other to talk to (as friends were considered a distraction to the learning Lucernas and a reward to be given out when they performed well (meaning that Marik was given barely any time to spend with people of his own age besides his brother)), as it was supposed to be twins that were close, had some sort of mental link with each other and were accustomed to each others' wants and needs, not brothers who were four years apart. Nevertheless, even without the closeness that Alexander and Caiellis shared, Marik had still been friends with his brother and knew that he could trust Johnias with anything and his identical twin could do the same with him, and that was why he found it ridiculous to imply that the eldest living Lucerna would betray his twin on the throne._

"_And how many important officials have been murdered by the foul operatives of the darkness whilst in the Scia Atria of the City of Books?" Marik asked his wife, though the question was rhetorical and the bristling Emili knew it, although his wife's eyes showed that she was slightly sorry for what she had said earlier and didn't enjoy emotionally hurting her husband at all, and continued before she could reply, "Far more than have been killed within the palace, and that is a fact. Every time agents of the shadow have penetrated the Lucerna citadel it has become even stronger and safer for the royal family within it. Besides, what makes you think that Johnias – if he is even leading this supposed revolution - will be sending assassins to murder you and our sons anyway? If he wanted the throne, then he would challenge me to combat over it or focus his efforts on me, not on you three. Johnias wouldn't do that, he doesn't approve of the killing of innocents or children, and he would not want to murder his beloved nephews and sister in law." _

_Emili's dubious expression make it quite evident that she was unconvinced, and Marik knew that was because Johnias wasn't her biological brother, she hadn't shared the same experiences as him like Marik had and she was only thinking about their children to make sure that they were safe – Marik agreed with that, but it wouldn't be like Johnias at all to target Alexander and Caiellis whom he clearly loved very dearly since he had no children of his own, and even if he or whoever had orchestrated the reported uprising had been corrupted by the darkness and wanted the Lucerna children dead so that there was no chance of Johnias not being put on the throne, the boys and Emili would be in the most protected location within the entire kingdom instead of a random city._

"_I'm not so sure, Marik, and I mean no disrespect to your brother by saying that, but if he does want to become king he has to kill Alexander and Caiellis (her voice almost broke when she said the words and Marik had to fight the increasing urge to wrap an arm around his wife's slender shoulders and comfort her), as otherwise your Death Vision will choose one of them as the successor to the throne," Emili replied, her voice quieter again as if she was horrified by even mentioning the awful ideas, and Marik frowned at her for the umpteenth time on this night of disputing, as she forced herself to suck it up if she wanted any chance of winning this argument and the timbre of her voice was more steely and adamant as she spoke again, "And moving our children with me to Scientia Mos will make sure that whatever assassins might have been sent to the palace won't know where we are, and if any are sent during anything that will occur when you leave to put down this rebellion they will be entering a trap as we will no longer be at the palace."  
"And risk you three travelling to another city and being ambushed on the monorail? No chance," Marik snorted, almost derisive of his wife's points by now because of the fact that she was trying to argue against keeping their children in the safest place in Lucael, something that Marik was never going to give up on arguing for and if it came down to it as the king he could order Emili to stand down and give up with this altercation if he wanted his wife to hate him and be extremely angry with him when he would leave to restore order to the nation. The queen's eyes flashed angrily at him as she removed the hair from her left eye with a flick of her head, and Marik returned the gaze stonily as he sensed that his wife was about to launch another barrage of arguments at him, confirmed by her (quietened but no less emotional, although it was by far the loudest either of the two had been so far) yell of "Why won't you just listen to me, Marik?! The enemies know that your only weakness is your family, and if they want you dead then they will target that, and they know that they are in the palace! The citadel has been breached by assassins before, and it might happen again, and I am not willing to take that chance! Moving the chil-"_

"_And I am not willing to take the chance of something happening to you and our boys while you are in Scientia Mos or travelling there and I won't be able to help you!" Marik shouted back, to his dismay quite loudly as he exploded at his poor wife, who instead of being cowed by the display of anger was just about to respond to it in kind. He was more angry with the fact that his perfect family that was so young and hadn't nearly had enough time to bloom and develop could be threatened by these developments in the outer kingdom, and was releasing that fury in his heated words to his wife, but right now Marik didn't care and knew that Emili could take it – she was one of the strongest people he knew and wouldn't be hurt by a few shouted words, not least because she was the one who had started this whole argument in the first place that had been going on for several hours in hushed tones before this, although the king was confident that the fact they were two rooms away from their sons meant that the boys wouldn't wake up._

_Emili opened her mouth, taking a deep breath which only served to emphasise how loud this next point of hers was going to be shouted into Marik's ears, and then blinked in surprise for a second, the anger instantly fading from her bright green orbs and her mouth closing for a moment after it had been gaping open. She looked past Marik, who had his back to the door and whose eyes narrowed at the sudden change in demeanour undergone by his wife, and her eyes became softer and sympathetic in a way that could only mean one thing as she opened her mouth, her words far more comforting and calm then they had been only seconds ago, but also slightly stern, "Caiellis, how long have you been there? Why aren't you in bed, mister?"_

_Marik spun around instantly as he heard a small and extremely sad sniffle, and his eyes stopped on the sight of his youngest son stood beside the doorway of the room, the door (that had been closed to act as another sound barrier between them and their slumbering young ones) opened ever so slightly to allow him to peek through and watch his parents shouting at each other, and upon seeing the four year old's welling green eyes as they glistened in the light catching them Marik instantly felt sorry for shouting, although he was still fuming at the suggestion that his wife and children leave for Scientia Mos and the interruption of his youngest son hadn't changed that._

"_I'm sorry … mummy … I had a nightmare..." the boy snuffled ashamedly, and Emili shared a pitying glance with Marik before walking over to the other side of the room (concealing a frown at the way that her husband just stood still and made no moves to help her in comforting their fragile second son, as she didn't want Caiellis to think that he was angry with her). It was obvious that Caiellis had woken up in the middle of the night and Alexander had still been asleep, so instead of waking up his big brother and asking him for comfort the four year old had walked out of the room to find his parents, as after going into the kitchen that he still hovered in, half of his body behind the door, he would have been able to hear them talking – well, shouting at each other. Caiellis would have probably been nervous to go in when his mummy and daddy were yelling at one another, so would have lingered in the doorway and waited until they were finished before entering._

_Caiellis's green expressive green eyes were moist with tears and the Black Sun mark on his cheek glowed a melancholy purple where the tears had obviously trickled down his face, making Marik wonder how much of the argument that had been progressing for some time now the boy had heard and understood, dearly hoping that he hadn't been there when Emili had talked about the rebellious armies sending people to kill Caiellis and his older brother, because that was the last thing that a young boy who had obviously just suffered through a horrible bad dream needed to excite his vivid imagination even more. _

_Before Emili reached the boy who was still reluctant to enter, still probably under the illusion that his parents were angry at him for getting up in the middle of the night when he should have been in bed – as parental censure was something that Caiellis feared greatly since he had never experienced it before and tried to be as much as a good boy as he could for his mum and dad – Marik wanted to make sure that there would be no more disputes on this matter because he had other things to focus on instead of arguing with his wife, so pressed, "So are you three staying in the palace then?"  
"Yes, Marik, angels above! We'll stay in the palace!" Emili replied exasperatedly, glowering at him for a second before softening her gaze as she turned back to little Caiellis, her concern for her son overriding any incentive to debate with her husband and her intentions to comfort the scared little boy far more important in her mind at the moment, and Marik concealed a smile at having obtained victory for once in their very, very rare shouting matches, because he knew that said triumph hadn't been fairly won and he certainly didn't want his son to take any cues from that sort of ungracious behaviour – Caiellis was set to grow up into a fine young gentleman, and Marik didn't want to change that._

_He followed his wife with his eyes as the woman gently coaxed the snuffling Caiellis into the room, the four year old far more slender than someone his age should have been (although his scary thinness had dissipated and he had put on some healthy mass, though he was still underweight) and smaller than was expected for his age – though at least he wasn't extremely tiny and seemed naturally small like Emili had been at that age instead of malnourished and not growing properly. _

_Marik knew that he had to stop thinking of Caiellis as one would think of a delicate and precious sculpture of glass simply because of his premature birth four years ago that meant that he hadn't been able to touch his son for the first month or so of his young life, as his youngest son wouldn't shatter at the merest touch and he had already established that playing and wrestling gently with the boy was entirely possible, and he had improved in that respect a significant amount. No, he concluded, he didn't regard Caiellis as something that would break even with the lightest force applied to it, hadn't done so for a few years now, it was just his parental instinct that was multiplied because of his small size and the fact that if Caiellis wasn't a Lucerna then he probably would be bullied by his classmates in the future. He was concerned that if his slenderness and small height didn't improve over the next few years then he would be unsuited for combat, which was something that was unheard of for a descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna, but right now the king had more pressing issues and if his youngest didn't shoot up and widen eventually like most children did at the end of their teenage years (he himself had been a very skinny youth until he started to develop some of the muscle that now toned him)._

"_Why were you and daddy shouting at each other?" Caiellis asked his mother in a small voice as the woman took him into her arms, lifting him off of the ground in a way that was made significantly easier by his almost weightlessness and gently brushing the tears out of his eyes and smiling comfortingly at the young boy. Caiellis was trembling softly in her arms, speaking volumes of the awfulness of the nightmare that his young and imaginative mind had conjured for himself, and Emili focussed herself on the plight of her youngest son instead of her husband who she was quite annoyed at. The argument was a legitimate one, and Emili still stood by her suggestion of taking the boys to Scientia Mos, but her and her husband were both so stubborn that neither would relent in an argument. For now, because of the fact she knew that Marik was extremely stressed and already beginning his process of self-loathing that the boy with very low self esteem he had once been had often plunged into because of the talk of civil war, Emili was willing to accede to his wishes and stay within the palace with her children. _

_She thought about the words for a while, hoping that Caiellis hadn't heard too much of the conversation that was not at all suitable for his young ears, and ensured that her face was set in an open and motherly smile to make her youngest feel welcome, and answered in a soft voice, "Well, Caiellis, sometimes people who love each other very much disagree on something and if both of them feel very strongly about their own points of view, then they might end up shouting at each other. But it does not mean that mummy and daddy don't love each other, we are just arguing about something. You shouldn't worry, little one."_

_Emili looked up at the brooding Marik for support in the statement, her green eyes twinkling with her love for her children that far surpassed anything she had ever felt before (even her immeasurable love for Marik), hoping that he wasn't too annoyed at her to reply and assure their second son that mummy and daddy did indeed still love one another. Marik returned the gaze of his wife, his eyes cold and austere, and then looked at his youngest son in the woman's arms, peeking up at his dad out of his fringe of brown hair that really needed cutting now despite the fact that Caiellis wouldn't be starting proper combat training for a couple of years, and muttered, "Put him down and stop patronising him, Emili."_

"_Marik!" the woman snapped, her irritation at her husband because of his blatant hypocrisy slipping out through the motherly and comforting visage she had created for the evidently scared Caiellis (as the boy was darting glances to the dark corners of the room as if he expected some form of monster from his dreams to drag itself out of the shadows and attack him), "I'll have you find that we both held Alexander when he was five years old, and that Caiellis is only four now. And I am _not patronising_ him."_

_Marik's flinty gaze instantly softened and became contrite, and he straightened out of shame as his son watched curiously. Emili was right, he had held Alexander when he was older than Caiellis was now, he had just been irritated because of the potential for war and the fact that Caiellis acted very mature for his age often made Marik forget how old he actually was. Marik looked at Emili sorrowfully, his eyes begging for an apology from her, and held out his arms for his youngest son._

_His wife smiled at him, glad that Marik was willing to atone for his rash words in front of their four year old son who might still be under the impression that his parents hated each other, and gently passed Caiellis over, her smallest son looking even tinier when in the arms of his tall and broad father. The boy looked up at the king, his bright and attentive eyes wide and gleaming, although that like was because of the moist tears that had been welling up in them, probably because of the nightmare he had just suffered through, and shifted his small body to get a better position in the king's arms. Marik smiled at the youngster, though his mind was still awhirl with different scenarios and possibilities relating to this supposed rebellion of the three cities that Johnias had the most control over. _

_Caiellis pressed his head against his dad's chest for a moment, feeling safer by the second as he stopped sending frightened glances over to the shadows of the room and trusted his father to protect him from the monsters of his dreams, knowing that his dad would guard him from the imaginary monsters that he knew weren't real but had seemed so convincing in his fitful slumber. Emili grinned at Marik for a second, although her eyes were still darkened by the potentially awful news hanging over them all, she just didn't want her perceptive son to pick up on that otherwise he would worry even more and think that if his mummy thought that something wasn't right then it wasn't just him imagining the nightmarish creations his sleeping mind had probably conjured up to scare him._

_However, Emili was quite concerned about the frequency of her youngest son's nightmares, as this was the third in the past week in which five days had elapsed so far, and while she was aware that children his age did often have overly hyperactive creative powers and couldn't quite distinguish between reality and dream, Caiellis was having far more bad dreams than any boys or girls she had seen before at four years old. Normally it was Alexander who informed her if he had been wandering into the nursery and had seen his little brother tossing and turning within the bed, and even when Emili had tried sleeping with the boy the nightmares still happened._

_She had tried to discuss it with Caiellis, but the boy had flat out refused to talk to her about it every time he had recovered from it, looking at her with a frightened tint to his eyes although Emili knew that the fear in them was not towards her, which at least meant he wasn't dreaming about something horrible like his mother abusing him which he would have no cause to think of whatsoever. Caiellis always thought that he was being stupid and pathetic (his own words, making Emili wonder who had said pathetic in his presence and for their sake hoped that it wasn't directed towards her youngest munchkin, otherwise there would be hell to pay and her motherly wrath was not something anyone would want to invoke) by murmuring in the night or waking up terrified, and was embarrassed about the dreams._

_Emili simply hoped that they would go away and had already tried everything in her power to stop them, but at least they weren't awful enough that Caiellis would wake up screaming or start sleep walking, and he seemed to recover from them fast enough if he was with someone else that he trusted to protect him from whatever had happened in his nightmares. Short from taking him to some sort of psychiatrist or doctor, which Emili ideally wanted to avoid since it would make her intelligent son think that he was a freak (in spite of her protestations that he wasn't) and wouldn't be helpful for his development at all if he believed that there was something wrong with him, the queen had done everything that she could and had to leave Caiellis to deal with them himself while she comforted him and tried to help him through every step of the way._

_However, she hadn't yet told Marik about the nightmares of Caiellis because of the fact that firstly the youngster had made her promise not to tell their dad (which she hadn't, because Emili hated breaking promises (especially to her children) and knew that she would), which wouldn't have stopped her in itself, and secondly even though she knew that her husband wanted to take as much an interest in their sons' lives as possible she didn't want to worry him with that as well as being a king. Added to the fact that the last few days her love had been immensely busy and had toppled into their bed exhausted had made the queen reluctant to inform him, and furthermore she didn't want Marik to have to worry about Caiellis at the moment. _

_Because of that Marik didn't know that the bad dream his youngest son had tonight was not entirely uncommon (thought at least it wasn't every night), but if the previous nightmares were any indication they had been growing steadily worse each time that he had them, and before the young boy had sleepily buried his head in his father's chest Emili had seen the haunted look in his eyes. Caiellis then extricated himself from Marik, rubbing his eyes tiredly with his tiny hands in a way that made Marik remember his youthfulness, and Marik rubbed a soothing circle on his son's back with his own hand to show Caiellis that he was safe and also had nothing to worry about._

"_What was your bad dream about then, little guy?" the king asked affectionately, enjoying the hug with his youngest son, and Caiellis looked up at him with his wide and young eyes that often seemed to be filled with childish wonder and inquisitiveness but also understanding that Marik had come to expect from the insightful boy who had often said things to him that he would never have expected from a four year old but just made Marik love him even more. _

_He loved both of his perceptive sons, though they seemed like they would be counterparts to each other in the future if their personalities turned out like their characteristics would suggest now (with Caiellis being shy but very intelligent and his older brother being easily confident and enthusiastic), even if at the moment Caiellis admired his older brother and father and wanted to be exactly like them and therefore copied a lot of the things that Alexander (whom he saw more of than his dad) did – which was far more often than not a good thing, but occasionally also a negative one if he tried to do something reckless like his mischievous brother (or if Alexander got irritated by his brother acting like he did). They still got on very well at the moment, although because Alexander was eight now he didn't have the same timeless attention span for being with his younger brother which was entirely expected and would prefer to do things with people his age or things that his brother couldn't do (which, although he accepted it with little fuss, seemed to annoy Caiellis to no end that there were things he wasn't permitted to do that Alexander was because of the four year age gap). _

_Marik heard Emili tutting at him quietly in the background, and wondered if asking Caiellis the subject of something that had woken him up out of his sleep and made him want to find his parents, though at least he had stopped trembling with fright and directing scared glances around the room. Caiellis met his dad's gaze again, and took a deep, hitching breath after sniffling slightly, making Marik smile proudly at him as he looked as if he was preparing himself for facing his fears and talking about his nightmare, "I dreamed that a mean monster was going to take me and Alesh (Marik wasn't sure whether Caiellis pronounced his brother's name wrong because of his age of just four (for which he had incredible speech capabilities) or to annoy Alexander, or both) away from you and mummy."_

_Marik opened his mouth to speak, before shutting it again as he sensed that his son was about to continue and was gathering his courage again, and it hit Marik how much Caiellis had been scared by the nightmare. He couldn't really blame the kid because of his tender age, and he had been the same when he had been even older than that, and Marik ensured that he smiled encouragingly at Caiellis to assure him that his words were welcome even as his eyes were narrowed in consternation, as the boy choked back a whimper, knowing that neither his big brother or daddy would act the same as he was doing now. "I dreamed (Marik was sure that he could wait until another time to inform the boy that the past participle of dream was dreamt) that the mean monster had a brother and … and ..." _

_Caiellis blew his nose and violently brushed away the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. Marik decided to rock his son gently as he plunged into the awful memories of this nightmare of his that he could evidently remember quite well, Emili sending her son a sympathetic glance before moving over to his side and tenderly brushing his brown locks of hair. Marik shared a glance with his wife again, though this one was more concerned for their baby boy (who would vehemently deny that he was a baby whenever his brother teased him by calling him his baby brother, amusing Alexander to no end) rather than annoyance at her and fear for his family (though the latter was still present), and adjusted his grip so that the boy could move around easier when he started squirming, although Marik didn't quite want to let him go yet. _

_Caiellis took another deep breath to stop himself from sobbing at the horrible thoughts of the dream that was the worse one he had ever had, not wanting to look like a stupid baby in front of his mummy and daddy (especially the latter), "Sorry … 'm such a baby. The mean m-monster's b-brother w-was ... a d-demon with b-black eyes and it … and it … a-and it k-killed m-mummy … and then the other o-one t-took m-me and A-alesh a-away from d-daddy..."_

_Marik hugged his son close as he broke down in tears for a short moment, wondering what was going on inside of Caiellis's head to make his subconscious think such awful thoughts that had evidently and understandably scared him quite deeply, but something that Caiellis had said had shocked the king and he waited until just after Caiellis stopped himself from crying to gently tilt the youngster's head up and stare into his red-rimmed eyes, asking with a note of firmness, "How did you know that the mean monster's brother was a demon, Caiellis? Tell me why you thought it was a demon."_

"_Marik!" Emili exclaimed in annoyance again, feeling that the man should be more focussed on comforting his still quiet son instead of ascertaining the species of being that had appeared in his dream, and in her opinion Caiellis had probably just said demon because he had heard it before and thought that it meant any form of evil being. _

_She had half a mind to take Caiellis out of his father's arms and comfort him herself, but Marik's love had always been slightly tougher than her own (as she was wont to babying her children sometimes if they were hurt or needed emotional comfort whereas because of his upbringing Marik had always possessed more of a "suck it up" mentality that didn't quite extend to the soft spot of his young family) and the king was clearly concerned by the fact that Caiellis had mentioned demons. Anyway, little Cai looked quite eager to follow his father's orders, so Emili would let Marik take the lead for now, supposing that perhaps giving him commands instead of soothing him might work._

_Marik was disturbed by the fact that Caiellis had mentioned demons, because although his youngest would almost certainly have heard of them by now what with the history books he read (though Marik had always omitted them when reading to his second son, as Alexander was old enough to know about the creatures of the darkness now) he should know, even at his young age of four, that there was a difference between the mean monsters of dreams and demons that were all too real and were the greatest enemies of the Kingdom of Light._

_He knew that Caiellis was still very young and probably didn't understand the difference that well, but his youngest would never have seen a demon before and shouldn't be able to distinguish between a normal horrible creature of nightmares and a demon as the four year old had only moments earlier. Caiellis needed to be taught that there was a very big reason why demons were not on the same scale as beings from his fitful sleeps, but ensured that he didn't look critical of or angry to his snuffling little boy who had been frightened by his awful nightmare and didn't need his daddy annoyed at him as well as that – as he had already seen him and Emili arguing which was bad enough. _

"_It had black eyes," Caiellis began, shutting his eyes so that he could better remember the beast that had made the dream him scream in fear and so that he could help his daddy now that the man wanted to know something, "And really big curly horns. It had really big claws on one hand that … that it used to … that it..."  
The boy started crying again, big fat tears cascading down his cheeks as he pressed his head into his concerned father's shoulder, the man sharing another pitying glance with his wife as his unfounded annoyance with his youngest son dissolved completely – what little Caiellis had described did sound like some form of demon, although it was a wingless one, but although it did worry Marik he believed that it didn't mean that he was possessed (as Teylaisian Illustri had reported that his poor daughter had dreamt of the demon that had manifested itself inside of her and forced her to be killed by the man who loved her more than anything, the Guardian of Vectura's wife killing herself soon after) as there would have been other signs and the man, being the Lucerna king, would have been able to sense corruption._

_No, it was something else, and it was entirely possible that Caiellis had read some obscure history book with references or pictures of a similar demon to the one he had described which had meant that his over-active and child's imagination had turned it into a being to haunt his nightmares, and Marik rubbed his son's back reassuringly as the boy cried into his shoulder, feeling that he knew exactly what to do after eight years of parenting despite never having Caiellis cry when he was in his father's arms before, as his little boy murmured something in a wracking sob of utter sadness that had Marik's heart aching for the youngster and what he his mind had forced him to go through in the middle of the night. _

_In spite of the words' quietness and lack of volume, the king and queen heard what was heard perfectly well, and it made Marik feel immensely sorry for Caiellis if this was what his perceptive and intelligent mind that nevertheless belonged to a four year old that couldn't quite distinguish between dream and reality made him think of, "It u-used t-the c-claws t-to k-kill m-mummy..."_

_Emili placed her hand on Caiellis's head, gently stroking the curly brown hair on top of his young head as he wept some more at the awful images he had seen in his nightmare, and Marik narrowed his eyes in concern as he nonetheless kept up with comforting his son. They stayed silent for a few seconds after Caiellis's words, each of the boys' parents thinking that they should leave him to finish his tears for a few seconds before intervening as the four year old sobbed and hitched in between whimpers, "M-mummy's n-not g-going t-to d-die, i-is she? I d-don't w-want m-mummy t-to d-die. I d-don't w-want d-daddy t-to l-leave us..."_

"_I am right here and fine, Caiellis. And I have no intentions of dying any time soon, sweetie, I promise," Emili soothed, moving in closer to Marik so that they could both embrace their sobbing youngest son at once, worried about the fact that this was the worst dream that Caiellis had had so far because of how much it had made him cry (as while Caiellis had never told her about his dreams he had described some of them to his older brother and confidante Alexander, and this was by far the worst but also the only one to involve some of his family members). Marik then gently plucked Caiellis away from where he had buried himself in the man's broad shoulder so that both he and Emili could hold the boy and assure him that there was nothing one, although Marik dearly hoped that his innocent youngest son hadn't heard anything about the turmoil in the wider kingdom that might whisk their father away from them, "And I am not going to leave you and Alexander, you have my word on it as a father and as the king of Lucael."_

"_P-promise?" Caiellis mumbled, brushing the tears out of his eyes with his small hands and staring up at his father again, his wide green eyes full of a sadness mixed with a hope that Marik could never have the heart to dispel. He looked up at Emili anyway, silently asking for confirmation whether he should inform his son that he might have to be leaving soon and not wanting to promise anything that there was a possibility of him not following up on, especially not to one of his young sons, and the woman nodded sadly to him, though the way that she did it made it obvious to Marik what he should say. Emili backed off slightly, allowing a small smile to work its way onto her motherly and concerned features at the bond that she shared with Marik and how the couple could often communicate without words because of the amount that they loved each other, and Marik placed his youngest son on the ground in front of him, softly removing Caiellis's tight grip on his arm that would have hurt in its intensity had it belonged to an adult. _

_He put his hands on his baby boy's thin shoulders, pondering if it would be beneficial to force him to eat more so that he didn't feel so thin but supposing that Caiellis would grow at his own rate and was only four years old – plenty of time for change – and gently titled the young boy's chin upwards so that his father could look into his welling and doleful green eyes as more tears streamed down his cheeks, Marik wondering how a child that had only lived four years of life could muster up such heart-wrenching sadness that would make even the harshest adult warm to him and feel that they had to take care of him (the king thought that even his cold and dispassionate late father who had ignored his own children's crying would have been broken out of his austere shell by Caiellis's sorrow), and brushed the tears away with one large finger._

"_I promise that I will not leave you and Alexander, Caiellis. While I might be distant, and you might not be able to see me, I will always be with you," Marik softly gripped his son's thin and small arm at the wrist, ensuring that his grip was firm and reassuring but nowhere near hard enough to put the four year old under any discomfort whatsoever, and as Caiellis watched, enraptured by his father's words and motions as he stared into the man's warm blue eyes, his dad placed his son's small hand on his chest with his own much larger palm over it holding it there. Caiellis could feel the soft beating of what he knew was his heart underneath there, and he closed his eyes so that he could better focus upon the vibrations running through his hand that was underneath his father's hand that dispelled all of his fears and made him feel protected and safe, looking to the thirty one year old like his son was in silent repose as the tears stopped falling out of his eyes, and he smiled lovingly at Caiellis as he continued, "I will always be there, in your heart and watching over you no matter how far away I might be, Caiellis. And I will make sure that no nightmares will ever hurt you."_

_Emili thought she was going to cry at how loving and affectionate the statement was, wondering how her superhuman husband could cope with being a king of one of the most powerful but also the most threatened nations in the world, show huge amounts of love to his wife and be a perfect father to their children without snapping, and she wrapped a slender arm around his waist, all of her former annoyance with him utterly gone as she supposed that the palace would be perfectly safe and that she should trust her undying love more instead of arguing with him. Caiellis opened his eyes once again, all traces of the tears and fear that he had felt pushed away, although unbeknownst to his parents Caiellis was aware that the terror of losing the family that loved him was still locked away inside of him and ready to spring out at any moment, but he felt protected for now and knew that his awesome daddy and mummy wouldn't let anything hurt him or themselves and that the nightmare monsters would get completely owned by his parents._

_He smiled up at his father, a small expression that contrasted heavily with Alexander's infectious grins of joy and excitement but nevertheless emphasised his happiness and made Marik grin back and ruffled his curly brown hair that he could excuse the length of because of the four year old's young age. The youngest Lucerna giggled and batted playfully at his father's hand, before another voice made everyone else turn around as it exclaimed, "So this is where you are, Cai! Holy shit, you had me really scared little brother!"_

"_Alexander Ensis Lucerna!" Emili replied, her voice loud and stern at the profanities present in her eight year old's statement as the tall for his age blonde stood in the doorway, his eyes that had been locked on his little brother, who had pulled out of his father's grip and stared at the floor guiltily, now mimicking the boy's actions as he glanced at the ground at his mum's admonishments, "Where did you learn such awful language, young man?!"  
"Tristram said it," the eight year old mumbled, his voice tinged with slight sleepiness because of the fact it was almost midnight as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, making sure he didn't do it in the same way as his baby brother, and Emili shook her head disapprovingly as she scowled, muttering too quiet for Alexander and Caiellis to hear, "I swear, if that kid profanes any more in front of my innocent children then I will slap him so hard that his training up to this point will seem like a walk in the park."_

_Marik gulped nervously despite himself, his hand automatically making its way up to his cheek as knew that his wife would easily be able to make due on that threat as she smiled sweetly at Alexander who had raised his head again and was staring at his younger brother who had begun to slowly make his way behind his father without the man noticing, keeping his eyes glued to the floor all the while. Emili then said, her voice softer and more welcoming, "Just don't say it again, Alex. Sometimes adults (_although I'm not sure that definition applies to Tristram_) say rude words that shouldn't be repeated. Anyway, what are you doing up in the middle of the night, Alexander?"_

"_I was looking for him," Alex replied, pointing an accusing finger at his younger brother who (without looking) made himself look even smaller so that he could escape from his big brother's annoyance as he embarrassedly stared at the ground as the older boy continued, "'Cause I woke up in the middle of the night without my baby brother next to me and I wanted to know where he'd wandered off to."_

"_'M not a baby," Caiellis mumbled quietly, far too quiet for anyone but Marik to hear as the king turned around in confusion because of the direction the voice had seemed to be coming from, smiling when he saw that his son had stepped behind him instead of remaining at his side and patting the boy reassuringly onto the shoulder as if to tell him that he had heard and that he agreed that Caiellis wasn't a baby. Marik stared back at his eldest son who was in the process of glowering at his youngest, before Alexander stared back up at his dad and smiled, "Hey dad."_

"_Hello, Alexander," the man replied, his voice deep yet warm as he himself had been wondering how long it would take for his ever-protective eldest to notice that his little brother had gone (as Alexander seemed to be able to wake himself up or fall asleep at will, a trait that Emili shared in some respects but one that Marik had no familiarity with whatsoever and had often had trouble with insomnia and worry himself) and try to go and find him (as there was no way that Alexander would be content knowing that Caiellis had left without him knowing where the four year old had gone) and the boy grinned at him. Just by looking into the warm blue eyes that his eldest son had inherited from him Marik knew that Alexander had been waiting and watching him comfort the youngest member of their family because of the pride and happiness present in those thoughtful blue orbs, but even so the eight year old turned back to his brother and walked into the room, telling Caiellis, "So, why are you up here then, squirt? Spill the beans. You know that you are way too young to be getting up in the night, and way too small to be going around on your own."_

_Caiellis shot his the floor a glare for a second that looked to Marik as if the four year old hoped that the wooden floor of the medium sized dining room connected to the nursery kitchen had reflective properties so that the glower would bounce up at his four year older sibling without having to meet his gaze, and muttered again, although this time it was loud enough for his older brother to be able to hear his words, "'M not small. Mummy says that I'm a big boy now."  
"Yeah well, you are smaller than a lot of kids at your age," Alexander responded, sticking his tongue out at his little brother although the boy still hadn't gazed up at the second youngest Lucerna, and his voice had a teasing resonance to it that Marik had often seen from his eldest son recently when he was lightly making fun of his younger brother with no intentions to hurt the younger boy's feelings because if he had been, if Alexander had been deeply insulting Caiellis with the intent to make the youngest prince feel bad and hurt him, then the king or his wife would step in to stop it and reprimand Alexander._

_Right now, like it had always been since they were too young to have properly argued yet since Caiellis wasn't the sort of child to throw petulant tantrums or get really angry at his older siblings, Alexander's words were in jest and only a bit of brotherly banter. Marik thought back to the rare times where he and Johnias had light heartedly poked fun at one another, because most of the times if the eldest of the two twins made a joke his brother, still in the midst of his adolescent angst that he hoped that his children wouldn't have to suffer through, would normally have completely ignored him or stared at him without humour until he left and stopped trying to interact with his identical twin brother, and he had never really felt that comfortable in the past with teasing Johnias whereas his brother hadn't done much of the same either. _

_Life had been far too serious for either of them to waste time with that, not that Marik thought that the brotherly banter between his young sons (that Caiellis couldn't really participate in since he was at that age in his life where he almost worshipped the ground that his older brother walked upon) was a waste of time or anything less than absolutely adorable, better than he could have ever hoped for between his little boys (although Alexander was growing up at a frightening rate already, which probably meant that when he hit puberty he would shoot upwards)._

"_So why are you here when you should be in bed, Cai?" Alexander asked, breaking Marik out of his reverie, although he continued to rub his thumb against his youngest son's shoulder which he had started doing automatically and without thinking, and the blonde (who was followed by his mother, shutting the door behind him and muttering about the fact that since she had given birth to him she was aware that he hadn't been born in a farm unless she had been on some heavy drugs, making Marik smile) stepped in front of Caiellis. Marik pulled his hand away, wanting to give the two some space as he moved over to his wife and slung a casual arm around her shoulders, his way of saying sorry for the argument that they had had without spoiling the mood of youthfulness. _

"_I … I got up because I had a bad dream," Caiellis mumbled nervously, making Marik wonder why he was being so reticent to talk to his brother all of a sudden, supposing that Caiellis had been anxious about talking to Emili and the king as well (although perhaps that had something to do with the fact that they were arguing quite loudly), and the way that his baby boy said it made it seem like he was quite embarrassed but also still vaguely scared by the nightmare despite the fact that Marik had been under the presumption that his words had removed that fear. Then again, Caiellis was only four, and a good night's sleep would remove the darkness from his mind._

"_Then why didn't you wake me up and talk to me about it?" Alexander asked him, placing a hand on his brother's thin shoulder that he was sure was way too skinny for a four year old that was supposed to be chubby, but at least Cai had become slightly more pudgier over the past few years instead of being sickly and thin, and not liking the way that Caiellis flinched back from the touch for a moment. Caiellis looked everywhere but his brother's eyes, imagining the blue orbs to be full of disapproval whereas if he had actually gazed into them he would have found them tired but sympathetic and warm instead of judging and harsh like he visualised them in his head. He had wanted to wake up his big brother and speak to him, but he didn't want to deprive the older boy of sleep (which he had ended up doing at any rate) and didn't want Alex to be angry at him because he had woken the boy up with one of his nightmares again. _

_Alex would think he was pathetic and lame, and Caiellis didn't want him to think that because if someone as cool as his brother disliked him then he wouldn't be liked by anyone and he knew that because of his age his brother already didn't really want to hang around with him. Caiellis was very intelligent at four years old, but because of that fact he knew how much he still had to learn instead of being proud of how much he knew, and because he only ever interacted with older people the youngest Lucerna thought that he was stupid and not cool in the slightest. _

_Furthermore, he had been crying despite trying to stop the tears, and Alex had said that only babies cried a few days ago. Caiellis wasn't a baby, and he didn't want his brother (who was admittedly his only friend because he found other children his age extremely annoying and unnecessarily loud) to think that he was either, and had tried to deal with it himself … but it had seemed so _real,_ and Cai had known that sitting awake in the bed all night crying and shaking was not good and that he wanted help so he had gone to find either his mummy or daddy, happening upon them both at once but they had been shouting at each other, probably angry at him for being such a wimp. However, Caiellis wasn't entirely sure how to articulate all that in a way that wouldn't make him seem stupid, so settled on murmuring dejectedly: "'M sorry … didn't want to wake you up... didn't want you to be angry."_

_Apparently further words were unnecessary and Caiellis felt the hand on his shoulder grip it more reassuringly as his brother's voice spoke, "Aww, Cai. I wouldn't have been angry at you. Ok, maybe a little at first, but not when you explained that you had been in a nightmare. Come on, little guy, look at me."  
Alexander jostled his brother's shoulder lightly as Caiellis slowly and apprehensively looked up into his brother's eyes, the boy even taller than him than he had been roughly a year ago even though Caiellis had grown quite a bit, and to his surprise Alexander's eyes weren't full of irritation and anger at his little brother who was such a wimp and had cried over a bad dream, though Alex looked tired even to him (though he was clearly trying to hide it) and also slightly worried about his little brother, but instead the young blue orbs were warm and filled with a brotherly love that made Caiellis feel like Alexander wasn't as annoyed at him as he had perhaps previously thought. The older boy smiled at him patently, something that Marik knew that his eldest had imitated from watching him and Emili do similar, and Caiellis brushed his wet eyes on the sleeve of his adorable nightwear. He then apologised again, because he felt quite awful himself because of the nightmare and the fact that he felt exhausted but didn't want to have to go back to sleep, "Sorry. I should have woken you up. Sorry for being such a baby."_

"_Aww, Cai, you have nothing to be sorry for," Alexander told him, wrapping his arm around the back of his brother's shoulders instead of just having his hand there, and then pulled him round into a light headlock that Tristram had once taught him at the eldest prince's constant insistences that he learn that sort of move, and that he had used on his brother when they had the official photograph taken of them in the short gap between their birthdays where Alex was five years older than his brother, though dad had shouted at him and they had taken another afterwards. He continued, giving his brother a gentle noogie on top of his mop of wavy brown hair, "And you aren't a baby. Just a wimp."  
"Ow-ow! Stop it, Alesh!" the boy yelped, struggling against his brother who shook his head and rolled his eyes, astonished at the fact that Caiellis could find the most gentle actions painful – who was he kidding? He had put a bit of force into it, but not enough to actually hurt just to irritate his brother, but that was what he was allowed to do as a big brother so there. The boy's little hands pulled almost desperately at the arm that was plied loosely around his neck, so Alexander reduced the force on that even more in case it was actually somehow restricting his brother's breathing (which would be close to impossible but the eight year old did not want to hurt his sibling in any way), and Alexander rolled his eyes, adding, "See what I mean?"_

"_Don't be rough with your brother, Alexander," Marik chastised in unison with Emili, the two smiling at one another as their voices rang out at the exact same time, and Alexander put Caiellis down but still kept an arm slung around his brother's shoulders so that he still had contact but the much smaller boy could get away whenever he wanted to, and all four of them stood in companionable and familial silence for a few seconds as Caiellis yawned quietly and moved his hair out of his face, his eyes turning back from outraged at his older brother to slightly frightened or worried. Alexander gripped his sibling's shoulder once again, and asked, "What did you dream about then, squirt?"  
"I dreamed of the black eyed monster again. It was hurting mummy and taking daddy away," Caiellis responded softly after a brief delay of checking the room around him to make sure that he was safe, because in the nightmare he had started off safe and happy then the demon had appeared and ripped his mummy apart in front of his eyes as its brother held Alexander still and dragged daddy away from them as the man shouted. However, he didn't want to say the word "demon" again despite that apparently being what it was, since he didn't want to annoy daddy like he had done when he said it the first time. Marik narrowed his eyes and stifled a gasp when he picked up on the fact that his youngest son had said "again", suggesting that he had dreamt of the demon before. Hopefully that just meant that whatever he had read about it from had made a great impression upon his young mind, because having a demon enter one's nightmares multiple times was extremely awful and did not bode will for the person subjected to it. _

_Marik resolved to ask Caiellis about all of his dreams, but another time, a time when his youngest son wasn't distraught and still recovering from a nightmare, a time when his family wasn't enjoying itself and reminding Marik what he had to protect in this potential civil war and why he would risk his life for the peace any day. Alexander manoeuvred the willing Caiellis round in front of him again so that he could look into his brother's wide green eyes that reminded him so much of their mum again, and crouched down to his height in a way that with others would be extremely patronising but with the four year old's elder brother it was immensely reassuring and made them feel closer. _

"_What did I tell you the last time you had that dream? Do you remember?" Alex asked the smaller boy, who nodded eagerly but not too enthusiastic to dispel his sadness and tiredness. Marik and Emili watched carefully and intently at the two boys, wondering what had been said between them, and Caiellis answered, his voice soft and quiet but full of courage and admiration for his older brother, "I remember. You said that Alesh would never let that happen and that you'd make his black eyes even blacker if it tried to hurt me."_

_Marik snorted despite himself, feeling the tension that had saturated the atmosphere without him noticing draining from the air, and both of the adults in the room felt themselves relaxing and smiling as Alexander ruffled his brother's already messy hair, "Damn straight, little brother. And don't you forget it."_

_Caiellis pushed Alexander's hand away with a giggle and Marik checked the chronometer in his pocket to see what time it was, muffling a gasp when he remembered that he had organised a strategy session that would take place in less than ten minutes within the strategium of the palace to discuss what was to be done about this talk of rebellion – as it couldn't wait until tomorrow and it was why he had stayed up this late in the first place and had gone to see Emili where she had been in the nursery kitchen over an hour ago. With the argument and then the entrance of his stricken youngest son, Marik had completely and uncharacteristically forgotten about the meeting, and while he supposed that it wouldn't be good for his standing to arrive tardy all of the generals and high-standing figures of Capitalia Lux knew him well and would understand his reasoning if he told them._

_He didn't want to suddenly rush off, but he also didn't want to be late either for such an important meeting and he could see his family playing any day as Alexander began gently tickling his little brother, and quietly informed Emili of this new development. The woman nodded silently, still beautiful at thirty one, and Marik kissed her on the forehead before turning to his two playfully squabbling youngsters. "Come on, you two, it's about time you went back to bed and got to sleep, otherwise you will be grumpy in the morning."_

_There was a mutter of dissent from Alexander that Marik didn't quite catch, but he stopped relentlessly assaulting his hysterically giggling brother and turned the younger boy round as his body was wracked with barely suppressed laughter and his eyes shone with a happiness that made Marik feel happy – as there was no better experience as a parent than to see one's children happy, just as there was no better sight for a husband to see their partner happy. He knelt down slightly so that he could better be at their height, though with the rate that Alexander was growing he would only have to wait ten years or so until he was as tall as or even taller than his six foot seven father. He then told the two, "Alright, my sons. I'm going to be frank; I will be busy for the next few days. There are things happening in the kingdom that I have to take care of, nothing either of you should worry about, but I might not be able to see you as often as I would like. However, that doesn't mean that I don't love you, and I will return as soon as I can once I have solved everything."_

"_We know, dad," Alexander spoke first, the more confident out of his two sons taking the lead as usual, backed up by Caiellis's, "We love you too, daddy."_

_Marik swept them, and Emili who had leaned down as well, into a large hug, lifting both of his children off of their feet and embracing them tightly, never wanting to let go of his family and wanting to stay here forever as he felt three more pairs of arms wrapping around him as well as Caiellis's head rested against his shoulder and brushed it with his soft hair. He wished he could hold onto this moment forever, but knew that he was pushing it by even staying this long before keeping his generals waiting, and said, "I'm going to have to go now. I have an important meeting in the palace, and you two youngsters should be in bed and asleep at this time of night."_

_Caiellis's eyes turned to his, the green orbs full of a question that Marik knew would be asked soon, and pre-emptively he assured him, "Yes, I will make sure that everything is safe. I will protect all three of you. I promise. Remember what I told you, Caiellis."_

_The boy placed his hand over his beating heart again almost reverently, feeling indestructible with his family wrapped up around him like this, and to Marik's surprise and happiness Alexander did the same, making him remember that the eldest of his sons was still only eight and needed reassuring just as much as his youngest did. Marik kissed each one of his family on the forehead, and, wishing that he didn't have to, put them back down as Emili placed a hand on each of her sons' shoulders. "You'd best get going then, Marik."_

"_I love you all," the king told them, feeling that he had to make sure that they knew that, and each of them replied with, "Love you too, Marik/dad/daddy."_

_Then he left, knowing that Emili was perfectly capable with putting them to bed despite wanting to stay and be with them until they drifted off back to sleep._

It would be the last time he saw his wife before she died.


	35. Avarice's Cost

The stench of corruption was thick in the air as Tybalt ascended the circular floors of the central and largest Tower of Ecstasy, his bones aching due to his age, though he ignored them and kept up the pace with the bloody Swords of Silence that lead the charge into the most heavily guarded regions of the glittering and opulent Augur's Quarter. It had been hard fighting to get in here, with multiple Sancturia Summonings needing to be deployed and many lives from the stalwart soldiers of the City of Rebirth lost in the push through the street outside.

The atmosphere inside of the building was clammy and hot, and although Tybalt was grateful because it meant that they could be out of the pounding rain of blood outside that prevented healing (although it would still do that as there was no way that the Hierarch could purge it from the soldiers, but it was more the psychological effects of an endless torrent of gore that the aged man of seventy seven was concerned about) the interior of the gigantic edifice was humid and the Hierarch could feel the sweat dripping down the interior of his lightly reinforced robes and across his wrinkled brow that was still stained with crimson fluid despite the fact that he had brushed it several times already.

The building was saturated with such potent corruption that even several warriors that Tybalt had known were veterans of the civil war hadn't been able to stop themselves from throwing up, vomit dripping through the visors of their helmets despite the fact that they stayed quiet and didn't ask for help from their comrades. None of the elite Swords of Silence were perturbed by the hedonistic blight of turpitude that infected the golden Tower of Ecstasy, but the Hierarch supposed that they had all lived through the destruction of the first City of Quiet where reportedly the walls had swelled and become demonic themselves, veins and arteries stretching across buildings that bled torrents of oily blackness as demons ripped themselves out of reality by the thousandfold and feasted upon the banquet of millions of innocent souls presented to them. To those few survivors of that horrific night, this would be like a relaxing walk in a photogenic garden by comparison.

Tybalt could smell a sickly sweet scent that wafted obtrusively into his nostrils, like a mixture of the coppery tang of spilt blood in the floor of the building that they were on, the corpses littering the floor that had been hacked apart by Lucaelian steel or blasted to pieces by his thunderous magic of light, and an aromatic but also overwhelming smell of perfume mixed in with that, the effluvium of debauchery and decadence permeated Tybalt's nose. He had already equipped himself and the quiet Swords of Silence with golden respirators that would help somewhat in purifying the air, deducing that the smell was probably the burning of some sort of drug that the Welkalites used to spur themselves into an intoxicated frenzy.

He followed the heavily armour and silent warrior of Gol in front of him as they ascended one of the many spiral staircases from each floor within the tower, hoping that the magic immunity properties that the Tower possessed – as originally Tybalt had attempted to destroy the huge glittering cylinder that must have required absurd amounts of work to create (although it was nowhere near as impressive as the magisterial yet practical monuments and ancient structures within the Kingdom of Light) from the outside so that they would not have to conform to the young Master of Wealth's obvious and incredibly egotistic plan of them fighting their way up it, but the Tower of Ecstasy and greed had been enchanted with some sort of Black magic that nullified his bombardment of shining light and was reinforced by geomantic Red spells that made its foundations stretch far underground – conferred to its interior as well so that the tower couldn't be collapsed in on itself and make the building a death trap for them all.

However, Tybalt sensed a malignant presence at the pinnacle of the Tower of Ecstasy, a corrupted wielder of dark mana that could only be the Master of Wealth, and it did not fit with the personality type that the Capitalia Lux Hierarch had assessed the youthful and clearly pampered Welkalite to destroy the largest structure in his territory and sacrifice himself to kill the Hierarch and the Guardian of Gol Secondus. Despite the reality that he hadn't spoken or even introduced himself during the negotiations in that fateful meeting located in the neutral assembly hall of the Scholaria Magnus, the Master of Wealth who must have been the pale youth at the back of the representative party of the New Empire of Passion (showing that the Welkalites had made sure to bring all of their most powerful mages in order to ensure that they could abduct the princes with minimal interference – and it still made the seventy seven year old's blood boil to even think of it) seemed to Tybalt to be arrogant and preening, vain and narcissistic, and that reflected in his tactics.

The arrangement of soldiers throughout the Augur's Quarter and the tower that they were now besieging (as other forces were taking care of the minimal resistance within the other two towers while Lelia lead the attack in the central one that Tybalt was now in) was standard, showing that the Master of Wealth had delegated the duty to his generals instead of coming up with some master strategy himself (though Tybalt always kept a figurative eye open for any sudden changes that could mean that there was an alteration of the plan in the Welkalite scheme), and the fact that he had situated himself at the top instead of leading his forces against the righteous Lucaelian crusaders smacked of arrogance. He would wait for the (most likely tired at that point, with their numbers reduced at any rate) soldiers of the Kingdom of Light to come to him and then fight them, which showed that he had an extremely elevated sense of self-importance and would gladly throw away the lives of his troops in a pointless endeavour to delay the implacable and unstoppable Lucaelian advance in the name of meaningless theatrics.

Tybalt flung out his mana into the tip of his oak staff, using the weapon that had served him well against countless enemies (although that was an overstatement and Tybalt could remember every single foe he had faced very well in his comprehensive index of a mind that was kept active by his Blue mana) to channel purifying White mana into it as he lanced a beam of incandescent light at a group of chittering devils covered in vivid red flesh that glowed despite the low light levels within the building (that would make whatever hedonistic acts the rich Welkalites were committing within it more atmospheric), but lit up even more as the White mana crashed into the abominations of Red mana that were heavily influenced by Black as they had been created by demons and gifted to human Summoners to establish greater control.

The beings squealed and screamed as they were ripped apart by the blinding spear of luminescence, and Tybalt slammed the bottom of his staff into the ground, conjuring up a shield of protective White and nullifying Blue around the elite soldier who stood in front of the aged Hierarch and had lead the charge through this stairway into the next floor (which would be the second to last and the resistance had been increasing exponentially at each floor they passed through). The devils exploded in gouts of flame that crashed through the air towards the woman, who raised her large shield instinctively in front of her to protect her from the blast that was absorbed by Tybalt's wall of shimmering White and Blue, the man having predicted such a reaction from the devils' demise after seeing it multiple times with others.

The Summoners of the now banished beasts and perversions of nature then charged at the one in front of Tybalt, both of them wielding large whips that crackled with hellfire as they sped down the staircase, wearing little armour besides masquerade masks that concealed their identities in the shape of inhumanly proportioned rictus grins, though the face-pieces did nothing to hide their bloodshot and wide eyes that suggested heavy narcotic abuse before this battle.

They were both tall and slender men that rippled with tanned and lean muscle foolishly unprotected by but also unencumbered by any forms of armour as they jumped, using their elevation to their advantage. The woman from Gol that was their target who Tybalt dearly wished that he knew the name of flung out her Lucaelian wisp with one hand, the helpful ball of light that blessed so many in the nation, like little candles of illuminescence that when banded together could banish the darkness, enchanted with silencing magic that had been taught to the veteran survivor of the City of Silence as it spun around the first attacker, preventing any attempts that he might try to conjure up magic in his assault unless he dealt with the Sancturia creature.

The second, obviously relatively familiar with those that were invading the Tower of Ecstasy probably due to reports from others who had now died, saw that the silencing wisp was stopping his partner from casting spells and took advantage of that, his free right hand (as the whip was in his left) sparking with unstable light as he conjured his Red mana into in preparation for releasing a flaring bolt of flame. Tybalt weaved countermagic derived from his Blue mana into the air with his free hand, the symbols of aqua that he etched onto the torpid air in front of his fingers snuffing out the Red mana that had been channelled into the Welkalite's hand before he could release it in a delayed explosion of extinguished mana that immolated the man's hand but didn't seem to faze him one bit.

He lashed out with his flaming scourge just as his partner did the same with his own fiery whip, the first blocked on the shield of the Golian warrior as the second arced through the air towards her helmet. The woman crashed her heavy yet one-handed mace into the primary attacker who had already landed, but the man rolled out of the way in the cramped stairway as the Golian's morningstar smashed into the wall in a spray of debris and shards of the volcanic igneous rock that had been used to construct the interior of the Towers of Ecstasy (or at least this one).

The whip wrapped around her helm, about to incinerate the flesh within and cook her inside of her own armour before Tybalt reacted quickly, a swipe of his staff erasing the fiery auras around the coiling weapon and returning it to a much more mundane state as he shot a beam of White magic at the other devil Summoner who had just dodged the attack of the Lucaelian woman. It didn't kill him instantly, but punched a hole in his bare chest and into his lung (barely avoiding the original target of his heart as he tried to fling himself out of the way but had no room for acrobatics in the cramped stairway), and he thrashed. His own whip which was still flaming arced into the air, and the second attacker dragged his weapon back as he tried to dodge the flailing weapon of his downed comrade.

The second Welkalite somersaulted backwards away from the snaking and thrashing weapon of his ally that would have burnt apart his unprotected flesh. He was met by the woman's morningstar halfway into his back flip. It sent him crashing backwards, the spiked ball end of the weapon smashing into his chest and sending him flipping over multiple times as he was launched up the staircase, the muscular Golian's already potent strength augmented by her own auras and Tybalt's many enchantments that he had gifted to the front of their charge through one of the four staircases.

Blood exploded out as the man's chest ruptured, instantly killing him as droplets of his vital fluids sprayed over Tybalt and the man stood behind him who would have originally been in the place the aged Hierarch was but the eldest Capitalia Lux Light-bearer had made sure that he was near to the front so that his magic could have the greatest effect in the ascent. The woman that Tybalt really needed to learn the name of as she was an exemplary warrior then slammed her armoured boot into the other wriggling Welkalite who was still thrashing around and coughing up blood because of the hole burnt through his lung, cracking his skull with her substantial armoured weight before carrying on.

A gout of lava rushed down the spiralling stairs a second before the Hierarch raised his shield to protect the Lucaelian advance, immolating the silent woman who to her credit didn't even break her Vow of Silence in death and died without making a sound, the magma spraying over her with her armour providing no protection as Tybalt finally raised his shield although it was too late now to save her.

Although the Hierarch was still saddened by the death, he had lived through far too many years of bloodshed (with the war with the Grafnica nation, the civil war and now this conflict with the New Empire of Passion) to be shocked by every single death that he witnessed, and instead of focussing on the downed woman who had died honourably but he hadn't had the chance to learn the name of he flicked his gaze upwards, Blue enchantments swirling around his vision and augmenting his aged eyes to the point where they were as sharp as he had been when he had been a youth, although he wore glasses normally as he didn't want to have to use mana constantly when reading (something that he often had to do as mentor to the youngest Lucernas).

He saw one of the Enforcers of the innocent-extorting Order of Wealth clad in golden armour that glinted in the molten orange light of the burst of lava and the Red mana swirling around his gauntleted hand, the other holding a long halberd that shone with the same sort of geothermic glow and assured Tybalt that the ornate commander's weapon would be able to carve through any armour that the Lucaelian legionaries might wear.

The man was definitely a captain of the golden Custodians that Tybalt had read (from the very few Yentarian accounts of such things lent to him by one of his contacts in the Republic city of Orchid Eye) defended the vaults of the richest Order that controlled the taxes of the people so that they could fund their own expensive depravity, and his helm covered his entire face (shaped similarly to a masquerade mask much like the other warriors had worn, although like the other Enforcers it wasn't actually a mask) had two ostentatious and curling horns of gold shaped like that of a ram. _At least the horns aren't coming out of his head_, Tybalt thought to himself, having seen similar when fighting those who had always lived in the corrupt abyss and been mutated by it and, significantly more disturbing, those Fallen who had gained demonic boons from their dark patrons that had given them inhuman growths. Tybalt wondered how many starving Welkalite children on the streets would be given a sustainable source of food from the elaborate armour.

He wore a cloak of deep scarlet and his eyes shone with fire out of his helm, and Tybalt shouted a warning as the man behind him surged past the seventy seven year old to face this new opponent of theirs. The Swords of Silence had acceded to his wishes to be near the front lines of the group, but had (without words) insisted that someone be in front of him at all times because he was too old to be fighting in physical combat against their enemies. It wasn't meant as a sign of disrespect, and Tybalt didn't take it as one because he knew that their concern was not unfounded and that he had never been a particularly big or strong man in the prime of his life and certainly wasn't now that he was more than halfway into his eighth decade of living.

He knew very well how much the survivors of that awful night in the City of Silence respected him deeply, seems as he was a spiritual leader of the people as much as a magistrate and a strategist, but he found it quite ironic that the veterans of one of the worst massacres in Lucaelian history looked up to him and held him in extremely high regard because of the fact he had been a Hierarch twice now after his prized student Mithres was cut down by Johnias as he gave his life to save King Marik and because he had spent nine years travelling through the darkness and in between cities with the two princes so that the Arch-Heretic could not claim them and helped win the war in that matter, just as he admired them for their tenacity in the face of all that the darkness threw at them even millions of their fellow citizens died around them and their selfless vows of silence and remembrance, something that he could never do but something that he afforded them much honour because of in choosing to fight alongside them.

The aged man sensed a relatively large presence of emotional and explosive Red magic coming from above them – a creature that wouldn't have normally been of a massive mana cost or power but was bolstered by the increased amount of energy from the Enforcer Custodian, although obviously the other soldier that had launched his attack on the Welkalite to protect the venerable Hierarch from any potential assault by the tall enemy evidently did not have the sensory capacities conferred to the eldest Light-bearer by his powerful mana. Tybalt raised another shield of orderly White and Blue mana, feeling the strain of the Tempest of Craving's drain on the latter and bolstering his former to make up for it, the sapphire barrier placed above the man melting as another spray of lava was blasted by the nameless Enforcer commander once again.

The Lucaelian man didn't make any sound, bound as he was by his Vow of Silence, as he rushed at the Enforcer, perfectly happy to die to protect the aged Hierarch despite the fact that the seventy seven year old thought that that was foolish – he was old and wouldn't last much longer at any rate, so the Golian who looked to be only about twenty five (meaning that he would have been in his latter teenage years in the massacre at original Gol) should really have gone behind him so that he would have a greater chance of living out his life instead of preserving Tybalt's.

He swung his shining sword at the Enforcer, who blocked the weapon upon his glowing halberd, the ostentatious armament that aptly highlighted how rich the members of the parasitic Order of Wealth were not particularly suited for this small stairway (although it could be used well for defending the top of it and preventing non-magical foes entering), and the Sword of Silence pulse White mana into his blade that would temporarily prevent the Welkalite captain casting any more spells, but Tybalt knew that the real threat was closing in from above them and because his shield had been destroyed it would be a few seconds before he could cast anything else. He would have Summoned Bruna, the Light of Alabaster and one of the greatest Second Sisterhood angels that were Daughters of Hope, but there was nowhere near enough space in this confined area for him to do so – and it would also take too long.

He could only watch, cursing inside at the young veteran of the City of Silence's wilful ignorance of the attack from above and the fact that he was fully willing to sacrifice his life for the aged Hierarch, as a worm like creature covered in chitinous and segmented plates with many large legs like a massively oversized millipede of a photogenic garden crawled down from the ceiling, arcing his large and eyeless head round backwards and reaching round with glinting teeth towards the Lucaelian, who flinched forward instinctively without making a sound or even turning around as his sword ground against the blade of the Enforcer.

The medium sized creature that looked gigantic inside of the claustrophobic staircase that was clearly never built to hold battles within it – a geopede, Tybalt remembered from some obscure Yentarian literature on different Unbound creatures of different locations little Caiellis had once begged him to read to him (as it was one of the only books in the small library on the outskirts of one of the cities they hadn't ascertained the loyalty of yet and the youngest prince was young enough that he still wanted other people to read to him) that would now serve him well – extended its large jaws towards the man who must have known that his death was coming, the heavily armoured chitin of the back of its head presented to Tybalt whereas he knew that its under side exposed to the younger man would be glowing with a molten light from the Red mana in its interior.

Tybalt scowled, blasting a beam of light and dispelling force from Blue mana (that would hopefully deal damage as well as disrupt the being's connection to the Mind Realm of its owner and as such reduce the amount of mana its Summoner gifted it with) into the protected back of the creature without being able to channel the full amount of his magical energy into it that he had wanted to, but the soldier would die extremely quickly otherwise and the Hierarch was loathe to allow that to happen. He used some more of his mana to enchant the man that he could no longer see with a reasonable shield of encasing plates of gold that would hopefully protect him against the plated geopede as his bolt of gold coiled with spiralling words of Blue impacted upon the Sancturia creature of Red mana with little to no effect, barely scratching its heavily armoured back and coming nowhere close to knocking it off balance as its legs wriggled from above, an idea striking Tybalt although he knew that it was too little, too late for the man that was now closed off from him.

He slammed the bottom of his staff into the ground again, gripping the middle of the trusty stave with both hands as he blasted mana upwards through it, ignoring the sounds of hard jaws clamping down on armour and teeth piercing through flesh as the noise of the two weapons grinding against each other stopped and another sound replaced it, that of bones being crushed under an immense force and armour being bent out of shape. Several scintillating particles of light flashed upwards in the dark area (as none of the blaring lights of the lower floors penetrated up here and the candles that had illuminated the darkness were snuffed out by the violence) above the Hierarch, revealing more of the distended geopede that had leaned forwards and upside down to get its meal so that its chitinous plates were presented to the mage priest.

Tybalt moved the twinkling spheres of luminescence with his Blue mana, conferring additional mobility to his magic of light and allowing them to land on the ceiling and moved round to the certainly not weak and tender but less guarded underside of the geopede, infusing his sight with the mana of clarity and perception that allowed him to see through the beast instead of having to simply look at its back and locating the legs that were gripped onto the igneous rock of the underneath of the floor above, concealed by the segmented natural armour of the Summoning that would have been born on the volcanic mountains of Sancturia.

The sounds of crunching metal armour like it was paper were slowly dying down to be exchanged for the sickening noise that Tybalt knew all too well of a body being bisected in half by monstrous jaws, but the man had died an honourable death in combat against the corrupt forces of the New Empire of Passion and the seventy seven year old mentor to the Lucerna princes couldn't mourn the deaths now, he would have to do it later otherwise the amount of Lucaelian lives lost would prevent him from doing anything if he let if affect him. He pulsed more mana out of the top of his staff, beams of light meeting the small orbs of radiance that had nestled next to the comparatively small legs of the geopede and piercing straight through its dark plates like it was a transparent substance (the manipulative Blue mana that was secondary to Tybalt's White allowing him to do this and change the properties of materials) without doing any damage, but they weren't supposed to and only supposed to give Tybalt a connection to the magic that he had sent out.

As the creature swivelled its long head towards him, the last remnants of the bloodied man pulled inside of it as it swallowed, the Hierarch of Capitalia Lux swung his staff to the side and, like strings attached to a puppet, the glimmering strands of mana attached to the balls of luminescence followed the path of the oaken sceptre topped by a crystal of white quartz that shone with the mana it helped to focus (the staff had been a gift from King Garius II himself at his ascension to the post of Hierarch and while it was not as ornate as some of the relic alternatives it still had its own strong power) as he pulled it to the side. The orbs of light followed the path of his sceptre, dislodging the creature from the ceiling as it was yanked to the ground, chittering and screaming as it was pulled down onto the stone floor with a crash, its weak underbelly exposed.

Tybalt cast another spell, detonating the balls of light now that he had no more use for them as he cast a hex that would weaken the mana bonds between Summoner and Summoning with his meddling Blue magic, explosions of powerful incandescence blossoming into life at the revealed weaker areas of the creature that mewled and writhed as the legs across that part of its body were blown off (dissolved by the magic of purifying light) as it tried to twist and snap at the Hierarch, who was well aware of the fact that the other soldiers behind him couldn't get to his aid and were delayed by this battle.

He blasted a beam of radiance at the geopede as it managed to reverse the angling of some of its stubby and wriggling limbs to try to propel forwards at this new threat, forcing it to remain on the ground as his light cut straight through it in the burning of insectoid but pure flesh (as there was nothing tainted about the geopede, although its Summoner was probably just as debauched and depraved as the rest of the Order of Wealth – or even more so considering the amount of gold the man seemed to have covering him which suggested a high ranking within the group) as the being shrieked in pain. Tybalt raised his staff and suffused the wooden handle of it with protective and fortifying White enchantments as the Summoner, unperturbed by what was happening to his Sancturia creature which aptly emphasised how the denizens of the New Empire of Passion saw them only as tools, and blocked the molten halberd that arced down towards him as he leapt into the air over the geopede that was returning to his Mind Realm.

Tybalt ignored the jarring force of the impact that rattled his teeth and "old bones" as he had always put it, muttering inside that he was far too old for this as he blasted a shockwave of reactionary White mana into the assaulting Enforcer to force him back away from the mage who was well aware that he was weak in close quarter combat.

The Custodian whose golden armour glittered in the light of the shining discharge of mana pulled back to avoid the attack so that he didn't get crushed inside of his expensive armour, but only for a second that allowed Tybalt to step one forward before he attacked again, obviously aware that the man fighting him was old and aged and as such wouldn't be as fast as the younger him or as strong. He let go of his halberd with one hand as he sliced it towards the Hierarch, weaving a jagged and impatient pattern that disregarded all spell casting ritual (as disobedient Red mana was wont to) and about to fire a spray of superheated lava at the Lucaelian opponent that would melt the flesh from his ancient bones and show the old bastard that the young would inherit this world.

Tybalt calmly countered the spell, scattering the essence of the conjured mana to the winds as he contemptuously slashed his own free hand to the side, the fingertips of his slender digits lit up blue by the gathered mana of thought within them dispelling the feeble attempts of the undisciplined Enforcer of casting his offensive spell, but was unprepared for the sudden burst of speed the man up on as his armour flashed Red and several enchantments swirled around him that were too fast for him to counter, acceding that he had been outwitted and that the conjuration of mana at first had just been a ruse meant to bait him into countering it.

Adrenaline (that, if one counted the amounts of time that it had poured through him due to being in bloody combat, must have taken years off of his life) coursed through his veins as the Welkalite closed in, hacking a blindingly fast strike at the Hierarch that he was hard pressed to avoid and only did so because of a release of numbing and controlling White and Blue mana that he coated his opponent with and slowed him down to barely evadable levels (instead of completely unavoidable ones), the halberd hacking into his enchanted white robes that were stained with blood and ash (though he wore light armour underneath) as he moved to the side.

He had never been a particularly good duellist, much preferring to launch magical missiles from afar into the combat and augmenting his close combat orientated allies (such as that young whipper-snapper Guardian Tristram) with auras of power, and that was exacerbated in his old age and something that he had been forced to contend with all of the way through the civil war that had started when he was sixty eight years of age. He realised that the strike of the Welkalite had been precisely directed to corral him into a specific area that would prevent his magic working as well, and instead of using his large glaive that would have been awkward in the lack of space the Enforcer lowered his head, the surprisingly sharp tips of the ram horns upon it becoming ensorcelled by Red mana that sparked around them as Tybalt was about to find out that the decorations of the Custodian's helm were not just adornment but had a very practical purpose indeed.

That was until a large broadsword pierced straight through his armoured chest, the shining edge of the Lucaelian steel weapon that had once belonged to the eighteen year old Guardian Lucasse of the City of Quiet but now was wielded by his younger sister in remembrance of the time before the civil war that had ripped apart her only family dripping with blood. The Welkalite coughed, his forward momentum instantly halted as he keeled over, the greatsword that was almost as big as King Marik's ancient weapon keeping him upright as he gripped it weakly with his gauntleted hands. Tybalt dismissed the huge amount of mana that he had been about to release indiscriminately around him, glad that it was able to be conserved as otherwise he may not have been able to Summon Bruna, as the blade was wrenched out of the back of the Custodian general.

The aged Hierarch that was not as tall as he once was (although even then he had only reached a height of five feet and nine inches, which was small by tall Lucaelian standards as the average man reached about 6'2'') looked up to see Guardian Lelia staring down at him, her dark blue eyes full of resolution and determination as well as veneration for the old Hierarch that the modest Tybalt didn't think he quite deserved. She wore a sort of elegant steel helmet that kept her young and beautiful face bare, and while others would have hidden the horrific jagged scar that missed her left eye by inches the Guardian of Gol Secondus kept it visible, although whether it was to highlight the price of treachery or to remember the awful night of the surprise attack on Gol was unknown and the Guardian had little ways of communicating it.

"My thanks, Guardian Lelia," he nodded respectfully and in gratitude to the twenty two year old that had remembered back when he had attended the ascension of her older brother, but then she had only been thirteen and an excitable girl happy for her sibling's success. How war could change someone... The Guardian hadn't saved Tybalt's life, but she had stopped him from having to use up huge amounts of mana and prevented him getting hurt for which he was grateful, and the woman inclined her head deferentially back despite the fact that they were arguably the same rank (although being the Hierarch of the capital city placed him slightly above the other Light-bearers and his age meant that he was afforded respect as all elders should be).

Evidently Guardian Lelia's advance up the second staircase had been much faster than Tybalt's and she had breached to the second to last floor first, as shown by when he followed her out onto the circular room that was covered in dismembered corpses of mostly Welkalite origin. Because of that she had been able to assault the last remnants of defence of the other stairways from behind and allow the rest of the Swords of Silence to make their way here and consolidate briefly before entering the pinnacle of the Tower of Ecstasy. It was extremely melodramatic and theatrical, and if not for the disrupting force of the Tempest of Craving which severely weakened his precision requiring Blue magic he would have eschewed fighting their way up here and paying in blood every step of the way as they slaughtered the opposition but took heavy losses in return he would have Summoned Bruna and initiated a mass teleportation spell to bring them to the top floor instantly and ambush the preening Master of Wealth.

Tybalt fully expected there to be more guards inside of the top floor of the central and largest Tower of Ecstasy, but the presence of the Master of Wealth was like a blot of darkness upon his magical sixth sense and it prevented him from discerning if any other Welkalites were located within the room. The brat had already Summoned, and he communicated as much to the stoic Lelia if in some way she hadn't already noticed, a greater demon of quite a significant magnitude against them when they entered.

The floor outside of the final one extended up to it with two large single and spiral staircases that extended the whole way across the room and were coloured purple, and the floor, like many others, was circular with a hole in the middle whereby the bottom few floors could be observed through it, although this one unlike a few of the others near the top actually had golden railings for safety which suggested that these past few floors were reserved for those important guests of the Augur's Quarter that had enough economic backing to purchase the seats, whereas further below the dressing room nature of other floors indicated that this would be where whole tower acts would take place. There seemed to have been one of them quite recently, perhaps one or two days ago, but all evidence of the revels had been washed away by the massacred defenders of the tower.

At the end of each of the spiral staircases to the last floor was a door of some sort of Welkalite wood etched with golden symbols but also smoking sigils of demonic taint that hurt Tybalt's eyes to look upon them but to the bristling Hierarch seemed to be inviting the Lucaelians in to partake in the celebrations with the Order of Wealth, to give up and let the Festival of Bloodshed (Tybalt wasn't sure how the name had popped into his head, but as he glanced over at Lelia her grave eyes that were full of righteous hatred confirmed that she had been informed of the knowledge by the debased symbols as well) take them, to let their inner desires be free and submit to the rule of the Lord of Riots.

Tybalt would have given an inspiring speech worthy of his position as a Capitalia Lux Hierarch if he had felt that the Swords of Silence needed inspiring and were not exemplary warriors in their own right, and each was quietly mouthing their own hymns without giving voice to the words as the Hierarch made his way over to one of the doors, having decided that it would be far more efficient for them to attack the pinnacle from one of its two entrances and under the cover of his magic, and pressed his staff to the door. The guarding magic placed on it was crude and would only require a tiny bit of Tybalt's mana to dispel, but the point of it had not been to prevent the entry of the crusading Lucaelians – it had been to invite and intimidate them, although the Hierarch knew that the Master of Wealth had only succeeded in the former respect.

The sigils of dark magic snapped and hissed at the presence of his purity, the representation of what they hated, and Tybalt bade them gone as he pulsed a beam of White mana out of the tip of his oaken staff and the quartz crystal embedded within it shone with the cleansing illumination, slowly scouring the taint away from the embellished double door until it became a normal one once again. The Hierarch heard an arrogant, young and vaguely insane laugh from behind the door, the caster of the enchantments evidently realising that it had been destroyed and that the forces from the Kingdom of Light were coming to bring him to justice for the attacks on Lucael, the abuse inflicted upon the innocents of their nation, consorting with foul demons of hedonism and depravity, and most of all the abduction of the precious Lucerna princes without which the nation of Lucael could not exist (and Marik would have been forced to pick another wife and have children with her to continue the holy bloodline).

A rumbling boom of tempestuous thunder that sounded disturbingly like a psychotic laugh resonated across the silent but elevated room of the Tower of Ecstasy, and the few windows in of the second to top floor flashed crimson as a bolt of lightning from the Tempest of Craving crackled past as Tybalt finished removing the last traces of sybaritic blight coupled with the malicious and spiteful tinge of Black mana placed upon the doorway.

"Ave Lux!" Tybalt cried, his voice infused with White mana as he felt the reassuring presence of the Swords of Silence stood resolutely behind him and ready to back him up when they entered, completely quashing any apprehensiveness of this course of action and wondering if he or Lelia should Summon now since the greater demon of the Master of Wealth was already active, but they needed to conserve their mana and the fact that the boy had foolishly pre-Summoned his Sancturia creature he would run out of mana much faster. He blasted a thunderous discharge of White mana at the door, exploding it wide open and smashing the wooden rectangles that were covered in gold etching off of their extravagant but impractical hinges.

The two blocks of wood crashed into a triplet of Enforcers with long spears that had been stood behind the door, waiting for their advance, and knocked the Custodians off of their feet as the wave of shining incandescence slammed into two more behind them and disintegrated them in a blinding flash that didn't leave corpses at all. The blades of two of the Swords of Silence scythed into the Wealth Enforcers that were trapped underneath the heavy remnants of the doors, quickly dispatching them and putting them out of their misery as the Lucaelians charged within the large final floor of the Tower of Ecstasy. It was ridiculously ornate, showing features from both the Old Empire's greed for wealth and to impress others (as the Towers had been constructed in the reign of the old tyrants ruling Welkas) and the New Empire's lust for passionate self indulgence and freedom from any sort of constraints, whether they be the bounds imposed upon them by rulers (_deeply ironic and hypocritical_) or the restrictions of morality and decency.

The ceiling was a flamboyant, gaudy and tasteless plafond of scintillating chandeliers that were emitting the orange and pink light of corrupted flames that did little to pierce the almost overwhelming darkness of the large room caused by the stain of the greater demon in the distance.

Two large pillars entwined with gold like everything else in the ostentatious pinnacle chamber seemed to hold up the circular plafond of ornate gold above them and were situated on a raised dais with more stairs leading to it in the centre, but Tybalt knew just from the structure of the room that they were nowhere near strong enough to support the full weight of the roof and as such it would probably have been held up by the circular walls.

The ceiling was extremely extravagant, fresco paintings of ancient dragons not seen since the disposition of the Last Tyrant combined with images from the history of the New Empire of Passion and revolutionary scenes, but they were all very young and lacked the magisterial splendour of similar Lucaelian architecture and decoration, a poor imitation that the Hierarch paid no heed to. The normal Welkalite artwork was far more about a spontaneous expression of the emotions of the passionate artist, but this was similar to reports that the Hierarch had read about the narcissistic Emperor of Light having many stained glass windows made in his image (as Xarius had reportedly been obsessed by his own reflection up until one point where he had commanded that all mirrors in the palace be destroyed and replaced by images of him, as if he had stopped being able to look at what he had become in his corruption) that were smashed into ruin on the orders of the newly crowned Queen Matrice – far more arrogant Black that chaotic Red, but even so it displayed the impatience that was not present in magnificent an awe-inspiring Lucaelian art.

His gaze landed upon a figure swathed in robes lounging in the large throne atop the raised dais and guarded by two more glittering Custodians, and the shadows behind him that surrounded the massive figure of his demon that smiled down at the Lucaelians, exposing a fanged maw of curved teeth that glinted in the window light from the flashes of crimson lightning outside.

It was tall, with pale white skin similar to that of its master (who Tybalt would gaze at next but for now the demon captured his attention in the split second that it took to analyse the final chamber) that was blackened by corruption and promises of forbidden decadence. It had huge bat like wings covered in leathery flesh and had huge "fingers" (if bat anatomy was to be used to describe the wings) of bone that scraped the painted ceiling as it opened them wide, and a strangely tail that seemed to be made from pure shadow that coiled around below it – although all demons seemed to have unique characteristics and the only things that linked them were their relation to the mana of darkness and horns of bone, of which this demon had two stubby ones coming out of its head.

A mass of shadows swirled round behind its head and in between its huge wings, blocking out the light from the chandeliers around it and mixing with the intoxicating smoke coming from braziers burning with unnaturally coloured flames all across the sides of the room with several other figures laid beside them in a narcotic induced slumber mixed with an orgy and were covered in expensive robes, each of them wearing the masquerade masks that the "nobles" (as such a term was loosely applied to the Welkalites who lacked nobility in its entirety) of the Augur's Quarter seemed to favour heavily.

Tybalt frowned when he saw the Welkalite people out of the corner of his eye, but ignored them as he stared into the pupil-less white pearls of the greater demon that gazed back magnanimously before he pulled his eyes away, knowing not to stare into the eyes of a demon. In the centre of its forehead was a third eye that was more like a jewel of black that pulsated with shadow and seemed to be the source of its power, but such things could be deceiving and it could easily just be a part of the denizen of the forsaken nether's anatomy.

It had two large circular rings of what seemed to be solid gold piercing its pointed ears, but what was more eye catching was the fact that out of its statuesque upper torso and chest extended four large arms, each adorned by a golden bracer that glimmered with glittering green gemstones and crystals that could send even the most temperate person begging the demon to give them it and willing to exchange anything in return for the merest touch of the riches this being could offer.

Its long legs that were not even on the ground as it flew in the air in the cavernous chamber and above the huge and ludicrous throne of the Master of Wealth that the boy lounged upon, but instead of being as muscular and "perfectly" (as the Hierarch was loathe to refer to anything demonic as anything less than vile and repugnant, and knew that the demon's physique was tailored to look flawless) formed as the rest of it they were long, disjointed and blackened by corruption, a clear sign that the bargains of this being were not to be taken lightly as the foolish youth that lead this order and was currently the master of this demon would soon find out when the Light-bearers of Lucael killed the brat.

"I'm so glad that you could join us, my Lucaelian guests," the conceited voice of the Master of Wealth blared across the large throne room from numerous speakers scattered across the walls and in the sections below as Tybalt felt the reverberations from the floors that they had already passed through, allowing anyone with the amplification device to project their voice throughout the central Tower of Ecstasy – and probably the others as well – as he laughed and Tybalt turned towards him, already mustering his magic within himself in preparation for his Summoning as Lelia did the same and the Swords of Silence dutifully surrounded them as ranks of golden Custodians closed in on their location, although the two sides were equally matched in numbers, "I am Eras Stormwind, the Master of Wealth, and I will be your host on the day of the Festival of Bloodshed."  
If Tybalt hadn't already hated the youthful Master of the Augur's Quarter the seventy seven year old now despised the pathetic and self-assured brat that radiated overindulgence and misplaced hubris. Perhaps it was because his youngest student little Caiellis had always been compared to Xarius due to the fact that they were the only two that had ever had access to the Angel of the Black Sun and as such the Hierarch had always had to convince his equals that there was absolutely no way that modest and thoughtful second prince would ever turn out like that, or maybe it was due to the fact that he had always disliked such people because he had never been one to extol his own virtues or revel in them, but for as long as Tybalt could remember he detested these sorts of arrogant figures that believed that they were absolutely perfect and flawless in every aspect.

He switched his gaze to the Master of Wealth who still lounged in his large and comfortable throne which was filled with embroidered cushions of many different soft fabrics (entirely unsuited for a battlefield, or indeed a throne room in which the Master of Wealth should address the rest of his Order) and swathed in a black robe trimmed with gold at the edges that hung off of his slender and pale figure (through only the fact that he was still a teenager instead of any excess exercise that the pampered youth would do). The boy held a sabre made out of pure gold that had clearly never seen battle before in his right hand that was also encased in a golden gauntlet that did little to dispel the thinness of his long fingers. Tybalt could tell that Eras Stormwind was not wearing any heavy armour underneath his own robes, but he still wore a golden mask etched with several lines of rare gemstones that would conceal a conceited smile.

It was like a death mask that an important person in other cultures would wear after they passed away, and it made the Master of Wealth seem more intimidating despite the fact that the only thing the Capitalia Lux Hierarch was concerned about was the huge demon leering at them from behind his master and stretching out its four arms. Two slits in it allowed the boy to see through his ornate disguise and Eras's rare yellow coloured eyes shone with his haughtiness and also madness, dark power lighting them up an opulent but also false and corrupt gold as he glanced at the Hierarch, who glowered stonily back as he prepared his Summoning ritual, stoic Lelia by his side doing the same and neither replying to the Master of Wealth.

Eras watched in amusement as the two completed their Summoning rituals, circles and sigils of magical power surrounding the air around Tybalt as a sphere of golden light collected above him, the symbol of Avacyn's Collar lighting up underneath his feet as well, whereas Lelia chanted silent words and slashed her sword in wide arcs around her as she tossed balls of harsh White light around her that echoed with peace and serenity exposed to the reality of war. He leaned forwards as the White mana in the room increased dramatically, the rest of the Lucaelian soldiers fighting against his Enforcer Custodians that meant little to him in the grand scheme of things in a bloody melee of flashing light and flames and dismembered limbs. His eyes followed the contrails of blood as they arced through the air and spattered on the expensive carpets of the pinnacle of the central Tower of Ecstasy that Eras liked to pretend belonged to him – as if the Archlord Tradax ever found out about the fact that the Master of Wealth was splayed out across his throne then there would be severe consequences.

As Tybalt whispered the wise words of the Alabaster Hymn that had been taught to humans by Bruna, one of the earliest angels to make themselves known to the Lucaelian people (even before her creator Avacyn, Angel of Hope who had been the Summoning of one of Queen Tidisa's daughters that didn't inherit the throne) and the Summoning of the second Hierarch of Capitalia Lux (the first being one of Matalis Ortus Lucerna's close comrades that did not Summon a holy angel), he sensed a vast surge of Black mana combined with a specific facet of Red, ferromancy if he identified it correctly, and with pulse of shock that almost disrupted the concentration and mental discipline required to enact his Summoning ritual he realised that he would not be able to counter this powerful spell.

A wave of avaricious Black and metal manipulating Red mana pulsed across the room from the Master of Wealth's outstretched gauntlet, coils of shadow wrapping round his extended hand and collecting into a sphere of greed that radiated the false light of promised gold above his open palm as the glinting mana swept through the embattled combatants of the Welkalite defenders and the Lucaelian aggressors who were protecting their two Second Sisterhood Angel Summoners, darkness from the twisting blackness behind the greater demon flowing down from the morass of darkness behind it and swirling around the seated form of Eras.

The nineteen year old was smiling inanely behind his expensive metal mask as his magic progressed through friend and foe alike, including the high ranking members of the Order of Wealth that lay, inebriated by powerful intoxicants and hallucinogenics, around the edges of the room, and with a vaguely impatient (which emphasised his upbringing whereby everything he had ever asked for had been presented to him on a golden platter near instantaneously and as such he hadn't developed the patience to wait until quite recently – although all of the other Masters believed he still wasn't capable of it. Well, perhaps apart from Ilentia) and greedy rush he rammed his gold clad fingers into the sphere of mana, crushing it in his desire for violence and adulation from those around him.

The first things that Tybalt held were several undulating screams of pain, but he was too focussed on his precise Summoning ceremony to pay more than a slight modicum of attention to the happenings in the wider chamber as he collected his powerful White mana and infused it with his secondary Blue magic, completing the Summoning ritual as the sphere of light above his head began to be compressed into an angelic figure at the sanctimonious emblem of Avacyn's Collar underneath him shone with a blinding force and gifted illuminescence to the other symbols of divine power swirling around him, and as Tybalt opened his eyes he was presented with a shocking sight that had him widening his eyes (but not otherwise reacting because truth be told in his long years of war he had seen worse – not to say that this wasn't extremely disturbing and potent).

Both the Welkalites and Lucaelians were writhing in pain and grasping at their throats, spasming but still remaining upright as they fought to stay stood up and continue on with their battle, some falling to the ground as the dark magic wielded by Eras and most likely gifted to him by his demon gathered within them, but those that had been rich enough to pay to get into the Augur's Quarter and participate in whatever vile celebrations had been held within the Towers of Ecstasy had no such discipline and were already succumbing to the magic that the brat on the throne had fired indiscriminately out into the room. Bruna materialised in reality as each and every one of the "lesser" people within the circular chamber began to claw at themselves like something was burning within them.

Tybalt winced as some of the writhing Golians accidentally and involuntarily broke their Vow's of Silence, gurgling in pain as they coughed and choked, and Tybalt used the power that came with his Summoning of Bruna to blast a shockwave of formidable purifying magic across the room that was instantly opposed by a mass of shadows that vomited out of a tear in reality that ripped through the walls of the material realm in front of the Hierarch as the Light of Alabaster (so called as she was the most powerful angelic Daughter of Hope in the Flight of Alabaster, one of the three Flights created by Avacyn that exemplified specific characteristics of the Angel of Hope) landed and protected her aged Summoner with a shield of White and Blue mana that bade the shadows back as they rushed towards him, but that didn't protect the soldiers as the Red and Black mana was focussed into them. The demon smiled at the aged man exultantly, its eyes like glittering pearls that coveted worship and wealth, having moved one of its four arms (the upper left limb) and swiped it across its chest, curling its fingers round to a malignant symbol as it had prevented the Hierarch aiding the troops, and the seventy seven year old glared at the vile being.

They clutched at their throats, none of them able to stand any more as the spell rippled through them and the smell of charred flesh rose to Tybalt's nostrils, the shadows pressing against Bruna's magical shield not preventing the Hierarch seeing what he was powerless to stop as he growled in hatred of the boy, wondering how insane one had to be to kill friend and foe alike and giggle as hysterically and arrogantly as Eras Stormwind was now. A strange, molten liquid fountained from the gorget and mouth of one of the Welkalite Enforcers, and it was obviously not blood because it was thick and it was burning through the bare skin of his face as he tried to speak, gurgling imploringly to his master who didn't pay him much attention as he swept his gaze over the rest of the occupants of the room, surveying them like a monarch would observe their subjects and making Tybalt's blood boil with rage at this imposter of anything regal.

A sense of horror made itself known in Tybalt's mind as it finally clicked what was happening to the soldiers – they were vomiting up molten gold from within that was burning and coating both their skin and evidently their insides as they writhed on their knees and on the floor and gasped choked screams of pain. The liquid and immensely hot gold, a mixture of Black's insatiable lust for wealth and unearned admiration and Red's manipulation of the land and heat, poured over them from within as they screamed and threshed, some of the Lucaelians trying to raise feeble shields of White that were swamped by the tide of dark and forbidden gold that washed over them and seared their flesh, melting their armour into their skin and burning them from within as they died, all of the Welkalites screaming in the agony rushing through them while for the most part the Lucaelians remained silent and stoic in the face of their deaths, the occasional Sword of Silence gasping in pain which Tybalt was sure did not count as breaking their holy vow.

He glowered at the Master of Wealth, shocked at the unholy power gifted to him by his greater demon as the soldiers and corrupt civilians began to be turned into golden statues, gilded by the dark magic of Red ferromancy combined with Black greed and amorality as the gold cooled around them and killed them, froze them as monuments of glittering expensive metal – Tybalt was aware from what research he had done upon the four main elemental manipulations of Red mana (electromancy, pyromancy, geomancy and ferromancy) that it was unheard of for any ferromancers, a facet of geomancers that could control molten or solid metal and wield it with their mana, to use metals rarer than iron or bronze in their magic, but it seemed fitting for a spoilt Master of Wealth that had clearly inherited the role from some member of his debased family to use gold with his magic – and it spoke volumes of the rapacious nature of Black mana that influenced his control over metals.

He refused to let the vile murder of the noble soldiers by the giggling brat affect him more than fuel his hatred of the young Master of Wealth who couldn't be much older than eighteen but still wielded a position of power that he was clearly unsuited for as the pinnacle chamber became quiet, all of the soldiers and Welkalites other than Tybalt, Lelia and Eras preserved as golden statues that captured the expressions of horror and pain etched forever more upon the faces of the Master of Wealth's victims.

Tybalt looked over at his furious angel, light surrounding her and instantly forming a multitude of different auras from the blessed luminescence that bled from her intricate armour, plates of white etched and trimmed with golden thread and covered in blue symbols of Avacyn's Collar that left most of her tanned upper body bare, with two large and majestic white and gold wings framing her head and elegant brown hair that spilled from it. Her eyes were the colour of pale and wise sapphires and shone like intelligent jewels, although they were tinted by her hatred of the demons, her want to avenge the wrongs inflicted upon the innocent Lucaelian soldiers, and her shock at the fact that Eras had indiscriminately killed friend and foe alike and turned them into golden sculptures.

She held a long and elegant golden staff topped with the ubiquitous sigil of her divine creator the Angel of Hope, which thrummed with huge magical power that would only get more and more potent the more enchantments the Hierarch augmented his powerful Second Sisterhood angel with. She glanced back at Tybalt, nodding to the man who she had fought alongside for seventy years and knew very well, before turning back and sending a flick of her angelic eyes towards her sister-cousin (as all angels in the Second Sisterhood viewed themselves as sisters whereas in a normal human family they would be known as cousins), the once Daughter of Serenity but with the death of the First Sisterhood angel was now a Daughter of Vengeance that threw themselves into the most dangerous combats to avenge their peaceful and innocent creator who had exemplified tranquillity and calm and was traded away and sacrificed by the Arch-Heretic for an Archdemon of tremendous power.

Lelia's Second Sisterhood angel had taken the Vow of Silence similar to her Summoner, as with all of the Daughters of Vengeance who felt that they needed to repent for what had happened to their perfect creator, and was a darker and more sorrowful being than most angels that Tybalt had seen. She wore armour that would have once gleamed golden but hadn't been polished for years and stained with blood of the all the dark creatures she had slain in service to the Golian Guardian, and a sword that would have once radiated with the light of holiness and serenity but was now dulled with its own duty left – to achieve vengeance and wipe out the stain of darkness from the twinned worlds of mankind and Sancturia.

She was known as Orphia, formerly the Angel of Mercy but now the Angel of Retribution, and was one of the strongest Daughters of Vengeance – bitter revenge had never glowed so bright nor sang so sweet, Tybalt mused at the beautiful angel that glared, full of divine hatred for the greater demon who smiled back at her and exposed its large and sharp teeth dripping with some sort of unholy and probably venomous fluid. Tybalt felt his heart swayed to sadness and the need to avenge the murder of one of the divine benefactors of the Kingdom of Light swirling within his breast at the sight of the Guardian's silent angel that shone with a harsh golden light that spoke of potential cast to dust by the evil advance of the darkness and why it was necessary to fight against such vile corruption so that it could rend no more innocents asunder and break more peace within the world.

Her face was as angelic as Bruna's, but harder, more knife like, thin and pale as opposed to the purity of the other angel's perfect features. That wasn't to say that the Angel of Retribution's face was not infused with the same angelic flawlessness that all holy seraphs from the divine heavens possessed, but it was more drawn and full of grief turned into the need for vengeance instead of the exalted sublimity of the Light of Alabaster. She represented what could happen if the darkness won, whereas Bruna was her opposite and was a manifestation of what the light of the Sanctum Angelica was, both of the seraphim two sides of the same coin that would work in perfect harmony regardless, as all of the hosts of heaven (besides one select member of them that Tybalt's youngest student was well acquainted with) were part of the holy choir that sang of deliverance and salvation.

Bruna made a respectful symbol with her hands to Ophelia, bowing her head deferentially and mournfully at the lost daughter of dead Serenity, but the other angel paid no heed and simply glared at the grinning demon. Eras stopped his constant and high pitched giggling, reclining back in his opulent throne as he regarded his Lucaelian opponents with a mixture of haughtiness and curiosity.

"Severkarkyis, the Archfiend of Depravity," Bruna spat as she beat her wings and remained aloft above her aged Summoner, as if by saying the words of the demon's name she was invoking her right to purge it from the world and assigned it as her new target, and the creature opened its four arms wide and invitingly as it scraped sparkling chandeliers above with its huge wings and smashed some of the glass of the crystals within the intricate decorations, evidently to the disgust of Eras who shook his head at his demon. Her voice was like singing steel, the purity of her angelic wisdom mixed with her exalted and intrinsic detestation of the demon opposing the Lucaelian forces that had wiped out the honourable Swords of Silence, contrasted by the deep but also honeyed whisper mixed with an exultant cry of an atavistic and greedy fallen underworld god that was the reply of the Archfiend of Depravity, "Ah, Bruna, the _Light of Alabaster_! What a pleasure to see you again! Have you come to kneel at the foot of my altar of hedonism and prosperity for a second time? My gifts are welcome for any to take, including you self-righteous angels, and all I ask for in return is your worship!"

"Welcome, angels of the Lucaelians! I am Eras Stormwind, your host for the Festival of Bloodshed that is about to start!" the boy on the throne proclaimed loudly, his amplified voice resounding across the room as Bruna raised her eyebrows incredulously and glared at the extravagantly clothed Welkalite youth, who had obviously become annoyed no longer being the centre of attention of the head of the conversation, making Tybalt dislike him even more and wish for him to find out the folly of giving in to the temptations of the darkness even sooner than he would.

The angel shared a glance with her aged Summoner who she knew extremely well because of all of the years fighting alongside him, sensing his thoughts and fully agreeing with them apart from the fact that she thought it was incredibly bad that this foolish boy had traded away his former Summoner for a demon and participated in an Infernal Bargain at so young an age, that he would never be able to participate in the things that those his age should because of his folly and greed, but supposed that with the manipulation of his order and the taxation upon the people this Eras Stormwind had stopped many from having the childhoods that they deserved. The nineteen year old spoke again, wafting his hand in an imitation of magisteriality towards the still gilded statues of the humans who had once stood in the room, "Don't they just look so pretty? My power really is something to behold, is it not?"

Although it went against his ethos to speak to those who had willingly given up their souls in exchange for dark power from the denizens of the abyss and served the forces of evil, Tybalt still demanded back, his voice hopefully booming intimidatingly across the room like Hierarch Incedian's tones had used to back when the man was still alive and like that boy Marik's did now, "Hold your tongue, you disrespectful brat! Why then, if your power is so mighty, did you spare us?!"

The Master of Wealth flicked his gaze back to the Hierarch, his golden eyes bleeding the malicious light of depravity and the glow of false prosperity from behind his ornate mask that concealed whatever narcissistic expressions he may have been wearing, and he opened his slender arms wide as he declared, "Why would I kill you all? Who then would be left to play with me?"

If he had been expecting a response from his Lucaelian enemies with that extremely bold and insane statement, Eras Stormwind was not going to get one as the Light of Alabaster released a bombardment of holy light from the end of her staff that fulminated across the room towards the seated Welkalite, powerful incandescence that thrummed as it travelled towards its intended target and was blocked upon a shield of gold that the boy raised reinforced by the shadows that the Archfiend of Depravity pulled down to protect its Summoner as clearly Eras's protection that he had conjured was inadequate to guard him from the bolt of Bruna. It crashed into the gold and the darkness, reminding Tybalt heavily of what he had seen from Caiellis's magic of light and darkness combined but with none of the majesty and awe-inspiring qualities of the youngest Lucerna's spells. The gold was simply that, a base metal representing the greed of the caster, whereas the golden colouring of Cai's magic was a manifestation of the imperious heavens and the protection of the divine light.

Orphia and Lelia then attacked, as if Eras thought that he was going to be able to sit on his throne and taunt the Lucaelians for the length of the battle then he was severely mistaken as the Angel of Retribution flew towards him, her large sword carving apart the ornate throne as he leapt up off of it (with Red enchantments augmenting his otherwise lacklustre speed) and splitting the gold in two like it was nothing. The Guardian of Gol Secondus was intercepted by the being named Severkarkyis, two of its arms arching down with darkness encircling the long claws at the ends of each of its fingers that were blocked on the greatsword of the twenty two year old, the silent young woman's inner light blossoming out from within her as it stood against the greater darkness of the demon that pressed in at her from all sides.

The Archfiend of Depravity swung its other arms at the Golian commander who had witnessed all of her personal squadron slaughtered by its dark magic, and Lelia spun away from where her weapon had been straining against two of the claws of the being, directing the brunt of the second attack away from her by blasting a beam of light encircled in silencing runes that would prevent the demon casting spells for a short amount of time as she pulled back, hefting her large greatsword again as she prepared to charge for a second time. Tybalt infused Bruna with an aura that would increase her physical power as she leapt into the air also and dove at the demon, channelling light to the end of her staff and swiping it at Severkarkyis.

"Hmph. You seek to harm me with that pitiful attack?" the demon laughed, blasting a bolt of darkness at Lelia with one hand that she had to leap back away from as it left a smoking crater of endless and completely unnatural black flames in the floor of the last section of the Tower of Ecstasy where she had been stood, and with two other arms (the top left and bottom right) created a shield of screaming black mana that dragged Bruna down with hands of solid murk that reached out from it and gripped onto the handle of her weapon as she strained her muscles against the being's strength. With his last arm, the second limb located on its left side, it created projectiles of swirling gold that glowed with blight and promised eternal wealth if one would _just submit_ and fired then at the Angel of Retribution who was relentlessly and vengefully pursuing the Master of Wealth across the circular and large room, smashing her blade into golden statues of fallen Welkalite Custodians that Eras himself had killed in his dramatic display of dark magic.

Ophelia hacked apart the shards of false promise with the unyielding steel of her resolute blade, her blue eyes glinting with the hatred of demons that all of those who followed the divine path of the light felt as she flung a crashing bolt of avenging light at the Welkalite youth. Eras stood his ground, holding his sword with two golden gauntleted hands as he wielded his Black and Red mana around him to defend himself, a wall of glittering gold interposing itself in between him and the Angel of Retribution that smashed apart into thousands of coins that scattered across the floor as the seraph flew at it, her strike of magic only ever meant to be a distraction.

Bruna meanwhile managed to manipulate her sceptre topped with a representation of Avacyn's Collar round to release a discharge of White mana in very close proximity to the Archfiend of Depravity, who spun round away from a lashing sword strike from Lelia (who had been recently augmented by an aura from Tybalt that would improve the damage her strikes dealt to demonic flesh and as such making Severkarkyis unwilling to get hit by such a blow) that left lines of light in the almost solid sickly sweet darkness that permeated the entire damned structure, and grabbed hold of the bolt of close range luminescence with all four hands. Corruption instantly fountained forth from the demon, with all four hands emitting a deep taint that smelt like thousands of souls indulging in the most vile hedonism with the demon revelling in it all the while as they pledged their entire existences to it, and the crystal inlaid into the centre of the blighted skin of its forehead grew darker still as shadowy tendrils reached round from behind it and added more ethereal arms to the four demonic ones already grabbing the light.

Bruna gasped, but not in surprise as she had heard of this demon's foul technique but perhaps thought that her powerful light would have been made immune by the auras surrounding her – increasing in potency every second as Tybalt heaped more upon her instead of casting offensive magic, figuring that the three combatants could hold off the two Welkalite-aligned beings well enough whilst he blessed them from a distance until their force became overwhelming enough to overrun their foes – as her magic slowly became infected by flecks of tenebrosity that increased in number every second, streaks of wriggling blackness rushing through the blinding light like pulsing veins that carried a cargo of taint and evil as the noble purpose of the seraphim's spells was turned against them by the Archfiend of Depravity as even it seemed to give into the temptation to throw itself at the demon's feet and beg for the pleasure that it promised.

The spell backfired, turning it on itself as the pure White mana became corrupted and infused with the contamination of Black as it turned on its wielder, rushing the opposite way through the radiant staff of the Light of Alabaster and coursing into the flesh of Bruna as she was blasted back by the darkness that ran through her holy veins. Tybalt cried out in empathetic pain, the corruption afflicting his angel far more potent than he had ever seen it affect Bruna before as he raised his staff to the ceiling and cast a very high power dispelling spell that required large amounts of concentration to complete in the hope that he could protect his angel. Ophelia kept up her attack on Eras as he conjured several small elementals that were not bound to a specific Summoner and made from alloy compounds of gold that attacked the Angel of Retribution as she cut them apart one by one and got closer and closer to the haughty and egotistic teenager, whereas her silent Summoner leapt to the defence of the stricken Daughter of Hope, her deep blue eyes alight with anger at the damage done to the holy messenger of the heavens.

She blocked a two overhead strikes of two clawed hands on her blade as she held it sideways, placing her left palm on the flat of her large and gleaming blade stained deep crimson with the blood of those that she had slain in this massive battle for the City of Pleasure that still in her experience paled in comparison to the massacre at Gol despite the fact that the power levels of those within this city were higher as she took the brunt of the attacks directed at the downed Bruna on her broadsword, sliding across the floor with her armoured shoes carving deep gouges into the carpets that bedecked this final chamber as Lelia was shoved backwards, but for now she was holding off the Archfiend of Depravity that was smiling sadistically at the pain in had caused the stricken angel.

Tybalt blasted his cleansing mana at his corrupted Summoning, the black lines that had streaked across her tanned skin and made it significantly more sickly and pale – similar to that of an ill human's which did not speak well for the state of the Light of Alabaster at all – pulsating and throbbing in time with a beat that Tybalt knew wasn't the pounding of the angel's divine heart. The signs of defilement on the angel's pure flesh were slowly erased by the outraged magic that he was pouring into her, reminded heavily of the last vampire's curse upon the seventeen year old middle Lucerna that had almost killed him when the angel coughed up a black and tar like liquid, and Lelia held off the greater demon while this happened.

That was until she was hit by a hail of incredibly hot metal that crashed into her armour and carved sparking lines down it as they sliced straight through her metal platemail and drew blood underneath, knocking her sideways with the force of the bombardment of shards of shining gold fired from the outstretched hand of the Master of Wealth. The Red mana blasted into Lelia from the pieces of metal that impacted upon her, knocking her off of her balance and forcing her to drag her blade away from the Archfiend of Depravity before she was ripped apart by the demon. She raised a shield to try and protect herself from the rain of metal coming from the Welkalite youth, but the pieces pierced straight through it and cut into her in an even greater frenzy with Tybalt unable to help as he was focussing all of his efforts onto his angel – as he was not able to simply Unsummon her and then call Bruna into the world of man again as the corruption would take hold in an even greater amount, and even worse get inside of his Mind Realm as well and potentially turn him to the darkness also.

Severkarkyis sprung into the air, crashing his one large fist into the Guardian of Gol and sending her flying across the room, where she smashed into one of the golden statues of the rich Welkalites who had been writhing in an apparently intoxicating combination of pain and ecstasy as the agony caused by the Master of Wealth had been heightened and turned into a form of perverse bliss by the powerful hallucinogenics they had ingested. She shattered the statue apart underneath her armoured bulk, not even making a sound as Lelia was rammed into the wall by the force of the impact and probably fractured some of her bones, and the demon dove down towards her with dark curses spilling out of its long talons and suffusing them with venomous spite.

Ophelia abandoned her attempts to corner and murder the Master of Wealth and rushed to her twenty two year old Summoner's aid, opening her wings wide and shooting towards the stricken form of Lelia who raised her sword in defiance of the demon that was diving in for the kill, enticed by the possibility of ending one of the Second Sisterhood angels' Summoners, and the Angel of Retribution just managed to get her blade in front of the swiping talons of the demon as she rammed another dagger of light into its stomach. Severkarkyis snarled at her, ignoring the wounds and straining against her sword with two lower hands while it plunged the two upper arms into the morass of shadows that followed it like a malevolent aura exuding dark malice and spite, drawing two large shadow whips itself that it quickly wrapped around the sword of Ophelia and yanked the seraph forwards.

A bolt of light crashed into it from behind, more powerful than had been conjured so far and with the power of surprise on its side as the straight beam of radiance pierced straight through its chest and dissipated just as it would have hit the trapped Angel of Vengeance and Lelia behind her. Bruna stood up, spitting the black tar that had been filling her lungs and wiping the disgusting remnants of it from her face, her eyes alight with hatred and righteous fury at what the demon had dared to do to her, attempting to turn her against the Lucaelians through its dark magic of enslavement, and the Light of Alabaster showed why she had been titled that by her First Sisterhood creator as she increased the intensity of the beam.

The Archfiend of Depravity shrieked in pain, its flesh melting under the divine light, the antitheses of demons, that had penetrated through one of its pectorals, and dragged a large amount of mana from within its Summoner in its anger that almost caused Eras to topple over in shock as a feeling of dizziness rushed through him and made the world spin like he had just taken a healthy dose of Serpent Nectar. Severkarkyis crashed all four of its arms together, channelling a huge amount of purely Black mana into its intertwining fingers and releasing it almost instantly, a massive blast of hatred ripping into what was in front of it and corroding the essence of whatever it touched as it was discharged in the direction of Lelia and Ophelia. It took out the wall behind them, and a large chunk of the floor and ceiling that was eaten away by the magic of enhanced decay and the death of all things, revealing the roiling sky of the Tempest of Craving around them that was far closer to them then it had been when Tybalt had been on the ground in the streets of the Augur's Quarter below.

Lelia and her angel both nodded their thanks to the Hierarch and the Light of Alabaster as they stood next to them, Blue displacement mana mixed with the protective qualities of White that sought to aid and save allies and innocents in danger spiralling around Bruna as she weaved her staff in a circle that was now vanishing behind the two silent and stoic warriors of very different origins but very similar goals, and the angel returned her sceptre to its ready position once again. There was a snarl of pure hatred mixed in with copious amounts of dark and violent irritation as the Archfiend of Depravity realised that its prey had been teleported away and rescued by the meddling Blue magic of the Daughter of Hope that had been combined with the salvation offering properties of the energy of light that the demon abhorred more than anything else in the two worlds.

Eras beckoned magnanimously over to his demon, the sweeping gesture imbued with a subtle infernal imperative that nonetheless still forced his Summoning to acquiesce to the one who controlled it's wishes for now, and Severkarkyis, growling and scowling all the while, flew over to the side of his young and supercilious Summoner and stayed aloft by the slender nineteen year old's side, glaring all the while at its current foes and one of the angels that he detested most besides those out of the First Sisterhood.

The maelstrom of tenebrosity that leaked out of the demon's very essence behind its head and conjured by the glittering onyx pearl set within its forehead reached out from the back of the spawn of the abyss and pooled within its awful wounds that had been leaking a black substance similar to that which had temporarily infected the now recovered Bruna and which must have been the corrupted blood of the demon. The huge hole in the upper chest of the demon slowly began to reknit itself as the shadows formed another black lung like the one that had been incinerated by the purging magic of the Light of Alabaster, strands of pure darkness becoming the demon's flesh as it paid no heed to the regeneration.

"Are you enjoying the gifts of Severkarkyis ... Lucaelians?" the ever-insufferable Eras asked them, still within his pantomime fantasy of this being anything more or less than a battle within a war, and with the pause that he had left (and was now leaving) the pampered fool had clearly expected Tybalt and Lelia (and perhaps their respective angels) to introduce themselves like they were in some form of nursery and they were still children, but the Guardian certainly wasn't going to break her Vow of Silence because of this wretch of a nineteen year old and Tybalt was less than inclined to communicate with him. His golden eyes periodically flashed between complete lucidity and focus that Tybalt would expect from a high ranking official and then insane exultation similar to that of a demon but less malicious and more simply mad.

The silence drew on as the demon repaired itself and Bruna gathered up more mana from within her to fortify the auras that her Hierarch Summoner had originally cast upon her, and Eras's eyes twitched impatiently, obviously not used to being kept waiting nor being ignored by those that he talked to; Tybalt was sure that underneath his mask that hid his face he would have been wearing a sullen and bratty pout similar to that that the two young students of the eldest Light-bearer had sometimes adopted after their arguments when they had been a lot younger, but far more spoilt than the ones that Alexander or Caiellis would ever have worn.

The Master of Wealth without all of the robes that he had been swathed (_or some would say drowned_) in looked vastly more fit for combat, although he wasn't quite there yet. He still had a drape of expensive fabric over his chest like a tunic, and wore extremely opulent golden armour that seemed far more ceremonial than practical apart from the fact that Eras's ferromancy would allow him to manipulate it, although it still didn't make his slender form seem any more muscular or less insubstantial.

Eras waited for a few seconds, not failing to notice how his demon glowered at him begrudgingly out of the corner of its gleaming eyes and occasionally its shadowy tail would flick round next to him and curl around the armour around his throat before he pulled it away, executing the actions almost casually whilst inside he was amused at the threat of the demon – as if everything went according to plan he would be trading away Severkarkyis soon for an even greater power. The Archfiend was not strong enough to disobey the restrictions of the diabolical contract that bound it to the nineteen year old, and so as such couldn't put any pressure on the boy's neck despite wanting to and wanting to rip this child to shreds or make him worship the demon forever more. He rolled his eyes at the two defiantly silent Lucaelians, and his voice was a false lament as he moaned, "Of all of the Lucaelian leaders and important figures that stormed my Towers of Ecstasy, why did I have to be landed with you two? An old man, and a mute! How boring!"

He went on, stepping round in front of his demon as the eyes of the forces of light followed his every move and planned to attack him when he was at his weakest, complaining, "Where are the two Lucerna princes? I never got to see young Alex or Cai when they were in the city because Tradax swept them away the second we abducted them, and I certainly never got to play with them either. I am sure that they would have made fantastic playmates for me, but-"  
"The exalted princes are fighting much more important foes than you," Tybalt cut in, his voice harsh and adamant, dripping with his scorn of those who would choose the side of the darkness, and he interrupted the Master of Wealth's monologuing that was getting tiring now which highlighted his insanity. Though he wouldn't normally have spoken to his foes he enjoyed the way that the boy's eyes widened as if in shock that the enemy had dared to break in on his speech. He was getting tired of this brat who had clearly obtained his post without having to put any work in to it whatsoever – as while the Lucerna family were given their roles since birth, it was a responsibility just as much as it was a privilege from them and Tybalt certainly did not envy the rulers of the Kingdom of Light, especially when they were young and the natural feeling of teenagers and adolescents that the whole world was resting on their shoulders and everything was out to ruin their lives was massively exacerbated by the pressure placed upon them because of their exalted heritage and the expectation that they should be far more than humans when that was what they were – the Lucerna family was still human, but many of Lucael worshipped them like they were gods incapable of making mistakes.

They had been able to avoid that in the most part with Alexander, who still had been and was still (as he was only seventeen and very young) affected by his hormones and felt that he was under large amounts of stress due to his role and not wanting to fail and disappoint the people, his elders and most prominently his younger brother, as the eldest prince had been a desire for action and rebelliousness in dating with numerous girls and throwing himself into the battles they fought against the many enemies that attempted to endanger the two heirs to the throne, and Tybalt knew that Alexander had been very difficult at times, sometimes cocky, loose and incredibly reckless in his want to impress his younger brother and pushing himself far more than he should have, launching himself into very dangerous situations to protect others and for the adrenaline rush that came with fighting.

Although sometimes Alexander had taken out his teenage anger on his younger brother during the civil war, saying things that he shouldn't have to the smaller boy that had still been a prepubescent and took all of his brother's words and actions to heart, because of the fact that he dearly loved his sibling he had never really hurt Caiellis in a way that would have ruined their relationship. Yes, the brothers had often shouted at each other and their guardians had to break up heated arguments more regularly nearer to the end of the civil war as Alexander went through puberty and was affected by his hormones, especially when Caiellis started to go through the early stages of the same that would have ended in violence without their intervention, but that was completely normal between brothers and for the most part the eldest prince had avoided depression and sorrow.

However, it seemed that the Lucerna family would not get off so easy with little Caiellis (who was admittedly Tybalt's favourite ever student that he had been given the privilege of teaching – that didn't mean that he preferred him to any of the other royals, as he liked all three of them equally, just from a purely educational standpoint Caiellis was possessed of the greatest desire to learn through books and to listen to Tybalt's lessons, his endless curiosity for more knowledge (which the Hierarch knew full well had not left the youngster, but the fact that he was more reticent to speak to others meant that he was less vocal about it and his greater independence meant that he would rather choose his own reading material instead of asking the aged Light-bearer for advice) always making the Hierarch feel younger).

His sudden rush into teenage angst coupled with the events of the past month combined with his very unfortunate short life so far meant that Caiellis had become withdrawn, barely speaking to anyone apart from his brother (and presumably Orzhova) unless he was arguing with his father – and the fact that Marik had only been able to have an extremely limited amount of influence on the boy's life and the impression that Caiellis had got from the king had been extremely negative from the first talk they had had after the war and the argument they must have had after Alexander's near death experience meant that Caiellis was even less inclined to listen to the Lucerna patriarch.

It was very sad, Tybalt knew, because in spite of not speaking to Caiellis very often recently because he didn't want to break the isolation that Caiellis had put upon himself and not wanting to put him in an even worse mood, the eldest Hierarch knew that the core personality of the boy had not changed at all, and while if none of these bad events had occurred and the relationship between father and youngest son was perfect the littlest Lucerna would still be shy, quiet and unwilling to talk to others very often because that was the sort of person that the adolescent him was he would have helped Marik much more and they would have built up a fantastic relationship matching the one that Alexander was beginning to develop with his father.

Caiellis was very much like Marik had been when Tybalt had been the mentor of the current king when he had been a teenager as well, and the Hierarch wished that Marik would remember that and use the knowledge of that to try and do to his youngest son what he would have wanted from his own father in the past, although he had to wary because despite all their similarities they were still very different people and Marik couldn't just assume that the same things would work on his son. If there had not been a war that they were now fighting within that had divided father and son even more and widened the rift between them, Tybalt would like to have said that they would have repaired their relationship in no time whatsoever, but he wasn't entirely sure that would have occurred and the seventy seven year old could aptly empathise with Alexander in being concerned over the interactions between the eldest and youngest Lucerna that almost always turned to bitter arguments feeding upon all of the sadness within each of their lives.

At any rate, what this train of thought that Tybalt's mind, augmented by Blue mana that made it much faster, processed within less than a second of thought as the Master of Wealth reacted to his words, lead to was the fact that ruling was a duty to help the subjects of the sovereign just as much as it was an honour and entitlement to be treated differently and afforded great respect, however Eras Stormwind and indeed any of the Masters of Passion did not show this quality – they were cruel and dictatorial tyrants that paid little heed to the well being of their citizens instead of caring for them and giving them safety, spoilt and overindulged brats playing at being leaders that lorded their supposed superiority over those that they ruled and took advantage of those that looked up to them for help.

Added to the fact that this Master of Wealth referred to the Lucerna princes and Tybalt's prized students as "play mates", suggesting a very nefarious purpose that he had in mind for them and making him seem like a pampered child, made the Hierarch want to defeat their current opponent even more and tear down the Orders of Passion that utterly controlled Welkalite society and consorted with hedonistic demons of the most foul variety judging by the blot of Red and Black mana at the centre of Usnaan which had eclipsed the White and Black magic of young Caiellis that could only be what was known as an Archdemon.

Eras glared at him for a moment, his golden orbs emphasising how irritated he was at the idea that there were any more important enemies in the City of Pleasure than him, until a sudden changed overcame the Master of Wealth like a spontaneous change of season (not that the seasons made much difference in Lucael apart from there being heavy snow in winter and heavy rain and thunderstorms in summer – although it was still very cold no matter what time of year it was) and his eyes reflected the smile he must have worn. Eras grabbed his ornate and heavy mask that he wore, and ripped it off, tossing the expensive disguise to the floor where it clattered and bounced until it landed at Lelia's feet, the Guardian taking a precautionary step back in case the Master of Wealth had infused the death mask with magic or decided to use it as a weapon in his ferromancy.

"Oh, I am fully aware of that," the boy laughed, the sibilant noise full of feigned mirth as well as genuine and disturbingly enthusiastic amusement as his pale features felt the wind from the massive chunk of the wall (and floor and ceiling) that his demon had destroyed with its vindictive magic that had been opened up to the elements, the violent breeze from the Tempest of Craving sending the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling swinging back and forth dangerously. Eras closed his eyes, savouring the tingling sensation of the draught from the storm brushed across the bare skin of his soft face, and feeling the mana saturating the air blown into the middle Tower of Ecstasy touching his flesh.

Strangely enough, the fact that what should have been fresh air was being blown into the pinnacle chamber of the gigantic cylindrical edifice of greed and corruption didn't make the room feel any less stuffy nor reduce the intensity of the sweetly scented narcotics diffused into the room by large censers tainting the air was disturbing to the Capitalia Lux Hierarch, and it spoke volumes of the greater corruption outside of the building that permeated the entirety of Usnaan. The Hierarch was quite worried about the state of the soldiers outside of the city, although he refused to let his eyes be drawn to the large gap in the wall to observe some of the occurrences in the lower city because he knew that any distractions could be fatal.

Instead he stared at the Master of Wealth who had just taken off his mask, the smile he was wearing exactly what venerable Tybalt had imagined solely from seeing the brat's eyes. He was pale, almost as much as a Lucaelian would be but sickly and ill looking instead of light coloured and still healthy, which was very strange for a Welkalite as they lived underneath a baleful sun and that tanned every other resident of the New Empire of Passion Tybalt had seen so far. It indicated that Eras spent significant amounts of time inside, and it made him look boyish and quite young. His skin was flawless however, evidence of many vain beauty treatments evident on his pale features, and he had a thin head of medium length blonde hair that was buffeted around by the wind that had sprung up.

"I was merely saying that I would have liked to be able to speak to your exalted young princes, for a sense a common soul between them and me," he smiled, and Tybalt bristled at the insult but did not rise to his incredibly obvious baiting as he stood up taller, stepping round to the side of his demon, grinning even wider all the while as he stared at the two Light-bearers, "It seems that I will have to deal with you and any other Lucaelians that try to destroy my precious Towers of Ecstasy until the princes or their scary daddy come to deal with me."

He opened his arms wide once again, like he was addressing a large audience of enraptured subjects showering him with cries of adulation and worship instead of four silent enemies that wanted him dead, and Red and Black mana swirled around his outstretched and thin limbs that were only that way because of his metabolism (as to all intents and purposes they should have been pudgy and fat) and played around his long fingertips, becoming a pattern of shadows and false gold that also spiralled around the long sabre he held loosely in his right hand.

"Do not let the Master of Wealth touch you," Bruna cautioned quietly to her allies, her intuitive Blue mana allowing her to perceive the effects of the aura that Eras had cast upon himself, "Any contact with his fingers or blade will end with you being subjected to the same magic that the poor Swords of Silence died to."

Tybalt and Lelia nodded at the angel's advice as a spray of dark tendrils was shot at them by the Archfiend of Depravity, Ophelia instantly leaping forward and carving the attack of darkness apart with her blade, not allowing the corruption to take any hold upon her sword as she blasted purifying and cleansing mana down its length to keep the weapon pure and untainted at all times – the silent Angel of Retribution did not want to suffer the same fate that respected Bruna had almost succumbed to and would have without the aid of her aged Summoner.

If Tybalt had thought that Eras Stormwind enchanting himself with auras that only worked at close range would have made him want to challenge the Lucaelians in close combat and charge at them he would have been sorely mistaken – the Master of Wealth was arrogant, but he certainly wasn't stupid, and it seemed that the gold curse aura was simply a precautionary action to give the warriors of the Kingdom of Light pause if they sought to engage him in melee proximity. The Hierarch was fully prepared to accede to those wishes, his own speciality long range combat whereby he would bombard his enemies with holy magic out of the range of retaliation, and a glance at Lelia (who was clearly trying to make her semi-enigmatic blue eyes as open as possible whenever she looked over at Tybalt so that the older Lucaelian would be able to infer what her plans were) showed that she was willing to engage the demon and its master in close quarters while Tybalt and Bruna provided support from behind.

Severkarkyis roared at the approaching Angel of Retribution, drawing bloody patterns into the air with each of the fingers on its four different hands that oozed vile temptations that whispered unrestrained depravity and excess on the winds of the unholy Tempest of Craving outside into Tybalt's ears before he pushed them aside and ignored them, focussing upon enhancing Bruna with one last aura that would aid in protecting her from Red and Black mana and was in the form of an iridescent sphere surrounding her that split apart the light touching her into the different colours of the spectra (although as the light was holy these scintillating colours were different to what a Yentarian scientist would discover when doing the same) and formed intricate defensive patterns around the Light of Alabaster, who nodded her thanks to her august Summoner.

In Tybalt's mind, Eras had waited far too long playing games with his opponents instead of ending them as soon as possible, as while they had been fighting the capital's Hierarch had been casting numerous subtle auras upon Bruna that were only now blooming and empowering her already formidable strength – if the Master of Wealth had capitalised on his earlier advantage and killed the Hierarch when his angel was nowhere near as powerful as she was now (and there was a very good reason why the Light of Alabaster was considered one of the strongest Second Sisterhood angels) then he probably would have achieved victory already, but now it would be significantly harder for him as Bruna's power was multiplying further.

Ophelia blocked two consecutive strikes of the greater demon's claws that left bloody contrails of shadow in the air that festered instead of dissipating precisely as the ones that he had created earlier were, and it hit Tybalt that now Severkarkyis was creating some sort of pattern into the air that would probably have diabolical implications should it be allowed to come to fruition and be finished. Lelia shot a beam of light from her sword at the Master of Wealth, a standard attack of Lucaelian battle mages that was blocked easily enough by a spray of molten gold the nineteen year old conjured into the air with an upwards slash of his sword, wielding the weapon like he was the conductor of an orchestra of dark symphonies as the liquid metal absorbed the bolt of light and solidified.

The Guardian assumed that, while the enchantment he had cast would turn enemies that he touched with his gauntlets or elegant sabre (that was now gold whereas before it had been steel) it would also improve the insufferable Master of Wealth's ferromancy also and grant him a greater manipulation of metal, but without any way to communicate this information to her aged comrade she could only hope that the intelligent and wise Tybalt had come to this conclusion as well – who was she kidding? The man had probably realised it the second he cast the aura was already coming up with several strategies for using it to their advantage.

Lelia was perfectly happy simply following orders, as while she knew that she was a reasonably good leader her strategy wasn't the best – it was apparently her devotion to the cause of Lucael and her utter determination never to give up in the face of the darkness, her leadership in times of great tragedy despite her young age that set her apart from most Lucaelians according to King Marik, who had appointed her as the Guardian of Gol Secondus when the rebuilding process began and after nine years of her fight alongside him after the refugees of the City of Silence met up with the supreme monarch's army. She supposed that it was quite remarkable that she had rallied the survivors of the slaughter in the city to fight their way out of it at the age of thirteen, but liked to think that if she hadn't done it then someone else would have taken up the role and lead the Golians that still lived.

She leapt at the Master of Wealth, knowing from the way that he held the sword that while he may have participated in some brief combat training with weapons (showed by the way that he gripped the sabre in a similar way to a fresh-faced recruit who had been given a few months of practice but not been in any real combat against enemies out for their blood) he was still inexperienced overall and not used to the movements one would have to make within combat. He held himself like a magistrate or some form of ruler instead of a fighter, standing up straight and putting all of his weight on his legs instead of the balls of his feet which would hinder his manoeuvrability and prevent him moving as fast as Lelia would. The silent Guardian was confident that if she could force Eras into playing a reactionary game or perhaps panicking because of her aggression that he thought he would have prevented with the threat of his transitional conversion magic, then she would be able to avoid any attempts that he would make to make contact with her.

Besides, she wasn't sure yet whether her own defensive spells of light would nullify the boy's magic or not, and her role was to simply distract the Master of Wealth by being in his face all the time and stopping him from contributing his magic to the engagement while her vengeful and dependable seraph did the same to the Archfiend of Depravity. It was a technique that had been taught to her twice, first by her older brother back when she could still use her voice and the two had trained together in the art of swordplay, and more significantly and recently by King Marik himself who had taken the time to school the thirteen year old her personally in the more powerful spells of White mana and in combat methods.

The king had informed the younger her (who still desperately wanted to fight in the war to avenge the destruction and defilement wreaked upon her once magnificent and tranquil city which had been established long ago by the first princess to have wielded the Angel of Serenity who had also been slain by Johnias's treasonous crimes) that he wanted to assess whether or not she would be suitable to fight alongside him and the other militant survivors of the Silencing, as he was loathe to send a thirteen year old to war even in one as desperate as this one and in spite of the fact that she had proved herself in the evacuation.

Evidently she had been satisfactory to the king, and one thing that the glorious man had taught her (expanding upon her brother's preliminary lessons that in another life without the betrayal of the Arch-Heretic he would have continued with) was that when fighting enemies that depended upon their magic or when one gained an advantage within combat relentless but planned and not reckless (as that would end in the aggressor throwing away their life) attacks were key to victory to prevent them from getting a hold of their magic.

To that end she leapt at the Master of Wealth, intending to use silencing mana on him that would also hinder his ability to wield his ferromancy or his dark magic gifted to him by the Infernal Bargain he must have undertaken, her large sword darting round towards him. Eras laughed at her seemingly brazen but in actuality methodically planned assault, sweeping his own blade round in order to intercept hers as he conjured up Red mana with his other hand.

As opposed to countermagic, which could dismiss an opponent's attempt to cast a spell once the idea for that spell had been formed, silencing prevented the formation and expression of the spell before the mana had been gathered up – in essence it delayed better than countermagic did, nullifying all attempts to use magic, but it did not drain the target's mana like countering their spells or Summonings did – this meant that silencing was powerful against mages who cast many spells at once but not as useful against those that relied upon one single overpowering spell to achieve victory, whereas if said spell could be countered and nullified then foiling spells would be far more useful (although some of the more powerful magical energies could only be prevented by huge amounts of Blue mana wielded by master of countermagic).

While Lelia sealed the boy's lips with censuring White mana that drowned out all sound coming out (and had the added quality of life benefit of shutting the boy up) she could not prevent this first quick spell of his being cast.

The chaotic and creatively destructive Black and Red mana pulsed into the ground as the Guardian leapt to the side instinctively, her physical and magical senses honed by nine years of almost constant warfare to the point where she could often anticipate an opponent's move just by hearing it, knowing that she needed to keep up with her constant attacks before her silencing spell wore off and Eras started releasing more and more spells at her – as a disadvantage of silencing was that the necessary state for casting magic built up while they were unable to use it, meaning that the second it wore off the spell could be cast and making chaining spell-prevention magic together difficult.

A large spike of gold rammed up out of the floor, crashing up out of the igneous rock and sending rubble cascading everywhere around it as Lelia dodged, about to turn to attack the Master of Wealth again before she sensed that the mana he had released hadn't been fully used up yet as more claws of gold reached up violently out of the floor, smashing apart golden sculptures of people as they extended towards the Guardian of the City of Rebirth, arcing through the air and already solidified to increase the amount of impact damage that they would deal as Lelia juddered side to side and evaded, her armour and broadsword not weighing her down much because she had always trained with weapons and protection far more encumbering and heavy.

Additionally, respected Hierarch Tybalt had heightened her speed through the blessings of Alabaster which made the evasive manoeuvres easy enough to execute, though the only spell that the Master of Wealth he had cast before he had been forced to focus his mental energy on breaking free from the restraints placed upon his magic (as, like countermagic, silencing for any length of time required the caster and the target's magic power to be of a similar level at least for it to work) was distracting her from getting to him a drastic amount.

More spikes of expensive metal thrust themselves at Lelia, forcing her to blast one of them apart with a bolt of light which therefore lessened the amount of mana she could focus on stopping Eras casting his spells of Red and Black as she diverted her magic to prevent the attack of metal impaling her through the stomach – as her armour would be no defence.

She leapt into the air, using the newly grown spire to propel herself upwards as Lelia enchanted herself with wings that made no sound as she glided through the air towards the Welkalite brat, who opened his eyes again and relaxed his face after screwing it closed and concentrating hard, capitalising on the quiet Guardian's distraction caused by the semi-sentient mana he had released to remove the restraints she had placed upon him that he had never seen before – although to be fair Eras had never before fought against powerful wielders of White magic due to their extreme rarity within Welkas. He smiled, the facial gesture full of smugness at breaking free from her magic, bringing his sword round and reaching into the place where his soul that had been tainted by the presence of a demon was and dragging out homicidal Black mana that screamed with the lust for killing Eras had become familiar with recently.

As the woman charged at him through the air, her ghostly and mournful wings that the Master of Wealth didn't see the significance of allowing her to fly and dive towards him, he ran the Black mana through his ornate blade that had been a gift from his now dead aunt Gretia (who had been assassinated by Tradax in the Archlord of Rapture's ascent to power and dominance over the Orders of Passion, one of the many reasons why Eras would usurp him and schemed against him) who had spoiled her only nephew and taught him what he knew of ruling now, replicating a technique that he had seen his greater demon use that Severkarkyis had never taken the liberty of teaching his Summoner, which meant that Stormwind's own version of the spell would be different.

He drew up blight from within, swirling corruption around his hand and glad that it was gauntleted and not touching his flesh because such a thing was repulsive – which was exactly why he would use it against the Guardian. Eras channelled his mana into his sword, Black mana whirling around it in small flecks like a swarm of carrion flies circling a freshly murdered corpse, although instead of the buzzing of insects the sound that it made was the shrieking of those that had been subjected to the Archfiend of Depravity's magic before combined with the insane and malicious laughter of the demon as it revelled in the murders.

The magic that would pollute and contaminate the target with a vile sickness that would eat them away from the outside and corrupt them from within was pulled into the tip of the blade with Eras's natural ability to control the manipulation of metal allowing the mana to flow more freely through the gold of the sword, and he prepared to blast it out in a twister of death directed at the incoming Guardian of Gol Secondus (a city that Eras had never heard of, made irrelevant by the fact that he didn't know the rank or even the name of the woman that he now fought – nor did he really care), before opening his eyes wide in confusion and almost childish stupefaction as the magic died and spluttered out before his eyes, the flecks of deep Black that had been increasing in concentration and power every second he used up his internal mana by pouring it into the spell now disappearing peacefully.

He stamped his foot and cursed profusely in a petty tantrum of irritation when out of the corner of his eye he saw the damned old man holding his staff aloft and with the crystal within it that didn't look very valuable at all to Eras's judging eye (nor was it pretty in any way like some of the rich Lucaelian things that they seemed to reserve for their royals that the eternally fickle Master of Wealth wanted, although his wants changed as quickly as his moods) shining with a shimmering aquamarine with coils of luminescent White mana that represented order in all things and shut down Eras's chaotic magic. The adolescent in the last year of his teenage experience did not have long to focus on that, nor did he even glance at the image of his greater demon beset on both sides by two Second Sisterhood angels (with Bruna taking care not to expose herself to corruption again and augmented by the many auras cast upon her) as Lelia flew towards him.

The Lucaelian woman slashed her sword round, avoiding a hail of shrapnel that the Master of Wealth desperately blasted at her in a frantic attempt to get the armour bulk of the Guardian away from him as his demon ignored his commands to come and help, forcing her to get close to his aura that would gild her much like he had killed all of the lesser humans in the room if contact was made with his gauntlets or his sword. His eyes opened wide in shock and panic as she fell for his ploy intentionally, clearly willing to risk being turned into gold by touching him, and he blocked the longsword arcing towards him on his own slender sabre, his mind working in overdrive to try and think why she would do this and if she was more suicidal than he had anticipated.

The Guardian had honed her ability to perceive what people were thinking from their body language alone, remembering one of her aged teacher's wise words of many years ago, that if one watched more than participated then one will get the chance to spot things that many others may miss. The words that she had taken to heart after being reprimanded after a lesson because of her constant chattering and had always been at the back of her mind rose to the fore when she took her Vow of Silence, and being unable to enter into conversations had allowed Lelia to discern things that many others, especially the ones involved in the talk, would never notice. She had translated this ability to the battlefield, able to see things that others didn't whilst they focussed on talking as the Master of Wealth had done, noting that one of the Welkalite soldiers nearby had dropped his jewelled glaive weapon in an attempt to somehow rip his armour off and escape from the doom his own master had caused. That meant that the armament had remained unafflicted by the curse of gilding running through the Welkalite and was still usable.

This was when she had been avoiding the attacks from the ground, and moved in a specific pattern to force the clearly inexperienced Master of Wealth who did not realise the importance of positioning within a battle nearer to the fallen soldier of his who had been gripping his helmet with his hands before they had been turned into gold. Her large longsword that she could wield with apparently superlative skill for a weapon so heavy – although her personal tutor throughout the war who had schooled her in the usage of such an armament had been the king of the entire nation and as such she was confident in her skill with the blade that had killed many heretics in her time and would help her in slaying one more, and although it would pain her to part with such a weapon it had served her well throughout the years and could be replaced – as it was not a relic greatsword nor was it enchanted by ancient magic that could no longer be replicated.

Lelia's large blade smashed into the slender sabre wielded by the Master of Wealth with a loud clang of metal on metal and with an extremely jarring impact on the nineteen year old who was sent skidding backwards and almost broke his arm by absorbing the brunt of the blow upon his sword instead of deflecting the large force behind it away from him like a more trained warrior would do so jolted his arm back violently and probably almost broke some of his weak bones, putting them under immense strain at the very least.

The sword instantly began to turn into gold, the solid and dependable Lucaelian steel of the blade gilded by the magic of Eras that ran along it like a virulent curse or plague spreading with very high speed, and Lelia immediately dropped the heavy weapon after forcing it forwards with only her right hand gripping the handle to ensure that her target was off balance. The sword scraped against Eras's own as it was flung away from the twenty two year old, Lelia knowing that she needed to get her armament away from her as fast as possible now that it was infected by the curse of cold that Eras seemed to have the power of manipulating, a combination of his Red ferromancy and his greed which was powered by his covetous Black energy that the nineteen year old had most likely obtained when he had initiated his own Infernal Bargain and gained the power of the Archfiend of Depravity.

The boy staggered backwards, unable to take the strength of the Guardian that was pressed against him, and quick as a flash of moonlight from the rarely seen lunar orb of Lucael the silent Guardian swept up the discarded Welkalite blade from the floor with her free left hand and swung it round it a wide arc, enchanting the blade with quietening White mana to aid in preventing any spells interfering with her and having the side effect of making the glaive's progress hushed and silent as it quietly cut through the air and hacked into Eras – the aura surrounding the edge of the Welkalite weapon would also allow it to carve through the armour and bone of the unrighteous, wielding their faith against them and making the sudden attack strike true.

To his credit, the Master of Wealth's instincts must have been honed enough and enough adrenaline must have been coursing through his corrupt veins to allow him to react in the split second before the blade cleanly took off his head, leaping backwards in an attempt to avoid the arcing glaive from one of his own warriors as the weapon shot towards him.

It lopped off his left hand, hacking effortlessly through the golden forearm vambrace (and as such avoiding having this weapon affected by the foul magic of the Master of Wealth like the last one had) and carved a line down his chest, splitting apart his robes and the armour underneath as a spray of vivid crimson blood jetted out from the wound and exploded into the air. Eras would have found the contrails of gore that whipped out of his chest and burst forth from the stump of his elbow artistically pleasing had the attack not been executed upon him, and as it was the first time that he had ever sustained a wound caused by another person before he shrieked in pain as he fell backwards. Panic surged through his mind, combining with the need to wreak his potent vengeance upon the silent _bitch _who had hurt him, dared to defile his perfect flesh with her weaponry and damned self-righteousness that prevented her from acknowledging his superiority.

A gigantic blast of Black mana that Eras didn't care would significantly reduce his lifespan as he engaged in extremely fast demonic pacts with Severkarkyis that provided him with a large amount of dark energy erupted from his chest as well, knocking Lelia back as the magic instantly broke past the barriers of silencing she had placed upon the boy. A shield of White mana that must have come from Tybalt helped to block some of the screaming wave of outraged magic that twisted to form gnashing skulls filled to the brim with impossibly sharp teeth and hacked at the Guardian with blades of malignant and corrupted shadow as it crashed into her, the sound unlike anything she had ever heard before as it distorted the shriek of pain from Eras into something demonic and immensely loud as it shuddered into her ear drums.

Lelia was reminded of some of the foul demonic magic that she had seen used by the Fallen in the Silencing of the first Gol, and most prominently the powerful wave of blackness and diseased murk vomited at her by the traitorous Teylaisian Illustri that had prevented the thirteen year old her coming to the aid of her brother and had held her still as the Guardian of Vectura hacked the young Guardian of the City of Quiet apart and had slowed her down when she had finally broken out and allowed the bastard to inflict the scars that were still prominent on her face before she had fled, running screaming and crying out of the Gola Atria as it burned with the dark fire of night. While that tide of magic had been nauseating, slowing her down as it eroded her resolve and ate at her immune system as it tried to infect her with a loathsome plague which had afflicted many of the reanimated dead of the City of Quiet, this one was formless and drank sustenance from the Master of Wealth's arrogance and hatred to fling her across the room as it grew thousands of spikes to try and rip her to shreds, to spread her internal organs across the walls and make her pay for daring to harm the controller of this magic.

She crossed the bracers of her arms over one another, invoking the silent defensive magic within them as her ears began to bleed and all sense of perception and where she was within the room faded as the magic that Tybalt had conjured to aid her cracked and fractured into a million shards of alabaster light under the strain of the howling wave of Black mana that send pounding reverberations through her skull and blood pouring from every orifice on her face. Even though it trickled down her mouth, she kept it resolutely clamped shut, smothering the scream of agony which had rose up unbidden within her as she felt the plates of her armour corroding and splitting apart – not that anyone would but her would know if she broke her Vow of Silence, any noise that she would make drowned out and muffled by the shrieking din of the dark magic surging around her, but she would not break her holy vow unless the time came for the Arch-Heretic to be slain. The shield of mana enveloped her, shushing the screaming of the demonic magic roiling around her like she was in the dark heart of the Tempest of Craving, although because of the ringing of her skull Lelia wasn't entirely sure whether it had been her tranquil last resort defence silencing the air around her or she had been deafened by the howl of Eras's emission of mana.

The shield prevented her being killed and ripped apart by the blast of shrieking shadows, but only just, and Lelia could feel several blood vessels rupturing within her forearms at the strain of holding back the magic that would ram into her and scour her soul from existence by devouring it the instant it touched her in the full and overwhelmed her final defence. However, it did not stop the physical implications of being hit by the shockwave of darkness and hatred, and Lelia was pretty sure that she sailed across the circular room and landed with a loud crash on an uncarpeted and hard region of the floor.

Lelia knew that she needed to get up, that she was a prime target for assault laying her in the floor, but was pretty sure that with the angle she had fallen at one of her legs was broken, twisted in an unnatural direction that no human limbs were designed to move at and aware that the rain of blood she had been stained by outside would stop Tybalt healing her and reducing the damage. She pushed up with her hands, her vision blurry with blood and the hallucinogenic narcotics sprayed into her face by a nearby censer that diffused potent drugs into the air around it that wouldn't have normally affected the Guardian but with her wounding and removal of all auras it could. She was almost shearing off her tongue with the effort of keeping her mouth closed to ensure that she could not make any groaning sounds and inadvertently sunder her vow, and could taste the coppery tang of her blood as it flowed around her mouth, every sensation that she felt heightened to unparalleled levels by the adrenalized blood rushing through her vessels and the miasmic effluvium coming from those damn Welkalite drug censers.

That unfortunately also included the pain that she felt, and at the back of her mind she wondered how powerful some of the other Welkalite opiates were if these were the effects of those that she hadn't even ingested in a great amount – Lelia already knew the answer to that, as in different rooms of the Tower of Ecstasy that she had crashed into expecting enemies on the other sides had been filled with individuals she had at first thought were dead but had were instead in an induced and inebriated slumber with colourful drool salivating out of their gaping mouths and running down their faces. A few had had their eyes open, bloodshot with the pupils completely eclipsing their irises, and the expression of utter bliss on their faces had shocked Lelia before she put them out of their misery.

_Damn it! Stop getting distracted! _Lelia harshly admonished herself, sensing that the perception-altering qualities of the drug combined with the concussion she must have sustained in her fall making the idle and needless pathways of thought within her mind that the mental discipline she had attained by not giving into the temptation to speak like any normal teenager would have would normally have allowed her to ignore come to the fore and push aside her essential thought processes.

Tybalt cried out Lelia's name as he saw her flung across the room by the twisting vortex of shadow that had consumed her after it had burst forth from the heavily wounded Master of Wealth, the Guardian crashing into the ground in a painful impact and almost certainly breaking her leg with a loud snap of bone that the Capitalia Lux Hierarch could do nothing about. Instead of being diminished by its Summoner's injuries and the massive release of mana from the boy, Severkarkyis seemed to revel in the torment inflicted upon Eras and stood up taller, beating its wings in a frenzy as it raised its head, exultation glittering in the malicious pearls of its eyes as the shadows condensed and coalesced with a much greater intensity around his sculptural but heavily impure body of darkness.

A resurgence of Black mana from within the Archfiend of Depravity took them all off guard, its power levels rising to absurd levels within a split second as it shot forwards, trails of writhing tenebrosity surrounding its limbs as it slammed into the Angel of Retribution. Ophelia, already weakened by her Summoner's pain that reduced the amount of mana that was coming to her, hacked her sword into the demon that flung itself at her, tearing into her lower abdomen with one hand as it grabbed her around the neck with one more. Severkarkyis gripped her sword with one of its palms surrounded by protective shadow that burnt underneath the purifying mana of the holy weapon, and lifted the angel off of her feet.

With such a speed that Bruna's countermagic that she laced into the air with by spinning her staff in her certain pattern was not ready, the Archfiend of Depravity entwined its two free hands together, the bony joints of its fingers dislocating, snapping and elongating in a way that was utterly inhuman but reminiscent of some sort of serpent or reptile as it left a space in between the two hands, the fingers of each wrapped over the thumb of another that would have produced a square if done by a human but instead formed an unnatural heptagon. A sigil of forbidden wickedness that Tybalt pulled his eyes away from before it consumed him and transfixed his eyes to it until he was overwhelmed with the temptation to tear them out of his skull formed in between the extended fingers and thumbs, and Black mana concentrated into that specific spot into an orb of the purest darkness and corruption.

He rammed it into the angel, who was paralysed by the debilitating and nauseating curses Severkarkyis had already afflicted the seraph with through the claws that were piercing into her throat and chin and polluting her blessed blood with the reviled toxins of the forsaken nether realm that crossed borders with the material plane primarily in the abyss outside of Lucael. It detonated, releasing a spray of venom and roiling and corroding shadow into her chest, ripping apart the angel's flesh and tearing the feathers from her wings as it dissolved her skin, melting piles of her once pure epidermis sloughing away as she stayed resolutely silent, closing her eyes and accepting her fate as she was forcefully returned to the Mind Realm of her Summoner, causing Lelia even more pain as the rush of mana that had come from Summoning dissipated and left her feeling even more exhausted.

The greater demon laughed and howled its dominance at the same time, and then blurred into a mass of shadowy serpents that slithered at a frightening speed across the room towards Lelia, overwhelming her in a mass of dark snakes as the demon formed up out of them again. Severkarkyis laughed once more, a deep and malevolent sound that sent tremors through Tybalt's body, although if what he felt was fear (and he was too old and experienced to know that it wasn't) he would not let it affect him as he blasted a gigantic ray of light out of the tip of his staff, the luminescence flaring forth from his weapon combining with the one shot forth by the Light of Alabaster, the twinned lances of incandescence spiralling through the air at the Archfiend of Depravity who had now picked up the semi-conscious Lelia who weakly batted the hand gripping her waist.

Severkarkyis chuckled again, the demon's power levels rising every second as the Tempest of Craving screamed outside and gifted each of the demons that were the servants of Rakdos (not that any would ever admit it, especially not Severkarkyis who was one of the very few demons left that had been created by Malfegor and not consumed by the Lord of Riots as his original creator had been) with huge amounts of energy formed from the tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of souls slain underneath the hedonistic storm. The Archfiend used this to corrupt and taint the magic of pure light coming towards him at a much faster rate than he had done to Bruna originally.

Tybalt had to break off from the magic extremely quickly as the darkness spread through it in an immensely and frighteningly fast manner, ignoring and pushing aside his countermagic, and he could only watch with growing horror as the demon glanced over at him, smiled sadistically, and tossed the heavily armoured Guardian out of the gaping hole in the side of the pinnacle chamber.

Tybalt didn't waste words shouting the Guardian's name or let the mounting sense of horror that he felt creeping up his aged spine which was really too old for this type of combat influence him in any way, instantly whipping his staff round in an arc of Blue runes that imprinted themselves onto the air, and attempting to use his sensory mana to located the small presence of Lelia – no mean feat with the disruptive energy of the Tempest of Craving percolating throughout the air and preventing him getting an accurate sense of the location of the silent Lucaelian. He felt Bruna gifting him with her mana of clarity that he was grateful for, though he did not waste time communicating that much to the Light of Alabaster who would already be aware of that, and managed to pick up on where the swiftly falling Lelia was. The Hierarch hopefully surrounded her in Blue mana, knowing that teleportation with the effects of the storm above distorting it would be a very risky procedure but also aware that a fall from such a height would definitely kill Lelia because she was too weak to create her own shield.

A bolt of Blue mana shot out of his outstretched palm, bouncing over to Bruna's hands so that should could further manipulate the magic of salvation and infuse it with numerous blessings before letting go of it herself. It shot past the Archfiend of Depravity, who glared at it as if aware of its purpose but was too late to intervene and stop it as it turned and exited the gaping hole in the wall which the Guardian of Gol had just been thrown out of, and Tybalt dearly hoped that it would teleport Lelia back into the lower floors of the Tower of Ecstasy where she would probably be safe and not be damaged, but could pay no more heed to the fate of his comrade as he sensed a build up of mana from the Master of Wealth. He swivelled his aged head back to the youthful Welkalite who had been heavily wounded by Lelia before emitting the shockwave of vengeance and hatred which had ended with her hurled out of the top of the tower (although perhaps not dead, though Tybalt could no longer sense anything below this room so had no way of discerning her status), supply the Light of Alabaster with extra mana as she began to pre-emptively lay down magic in the space between the Lucaelians and the demon worshipper which would reduce the potency of their offensive magic and slow it down.

Eras howled in pain again, clutching his side and chest as the blood poured out of it and the upper arm of his left side flailed around as if trying to re-attach itself to the amputated forearm, and staggered towards the centre of the room, holding out his hand and grasping onto the golden statue of the Welkalite troop who had abandoned the weapon which had wounded his vindictive and uncaring master who had killed him. Severkarkyis intercepted an opportunistic bolt of light that Tybalt shot at the Master of Wealth, smiling sickly all the while and clearly entertaining the idea of letting it hit before he clamped down and destroyed the magic as his young Summoner staggered and swayed.

Eras coughed up thick streams of blood that frothed forth from his mouth, extending his left arm to try and wipe them away as if not yet coming to terms with the fact that it had been hacked off by his foes, and hissed in agony. He turned at the sculpture of the Welkalite attempting to remove his helmet, the golden eyes of the man open wide in fear behind his helmet and depicted exactly as they had been in the instant of his death, and rage filled the boy's mind at finding the _traitorous _soldier who had provided the weapon which had wounded him so. He punched the golden and dead man with his last remaining arm, gurgling and screeching in his tantrum-esque and incredibly petty fury, before it bounced off the hard gold and he was almost sent flying backwards.

**Much as I enjoy watching you like this, **a sharp voice, tinted with sadistic amusement and indulgent exultation, pierced into Eras's mind like a precise surgical instrument that had been rammed into his brain, and the boy cried out, blood-flecked spittle splattering over his chin as he clutched at his head, almost falling to his knees as the torment surged through his body which had never sustained more pain than having a servant "accidentally" cut him when manicuring his nails (said servant had been slowly and agonisingly dumped in a vat of molten gold made from the latest taxes from the Welkalite people and the funds from the parents of those sent to the Scholaria Magnus), before realising that he would toppled over if that happened and grabbing hold of the statue again. **I would again like to remind you of the finer points of Black mana usage, which as usual you seemed to ignore when I informed you about the Inaurogos Maledictum. Get up and help me, you foolish brat, otherwise you will die and for all that I would like to see that I also wouldn't be able to remain in the world of man if that I happened.**

The youngest remaining heir of the Stormwind noble family but the most powerful shot a glance that was twisted by the pain he was in a blurred with the tears of agony pouring out of his eyes directed at his greater demon, Severkarkyis not even looking back as he raised shadowy shields of corruption and debauchery to block the increasingly intense rain of light from the Lucaelian old man and his pompous bitch of an angel. "Mutual hatred" would be the best words to describe the relationship between the Master of Wealth and his new Summoning, but they both knew that Severkarkyis needed Eras to be his conduit to the material plane as otherwise he would be stuck within Sancturia and unable to influence reality much.

He smiled maliciously as he remembered the words of the demon (who had only ever been a tool to Eras just as he knew that the demon saw him as a human slave to project his will through), and ran malevolent and narcissistic Black mana through his last remaining hand. Severkarkyis had informed the nineteen year old that while the Inaurogos Maledictum sundered the bodies of the victims, and sent their souls into the nether realm, it left much of the essence of the person's soul within the statues they became – not enough to ever return the victim to life, but enough for what Eras was intending to do now. He was too above thanking his demon mentally for the information, but not above capitalising upon it and using it to his advantage.

While the Archfiend of Depravity held off the bombardment of incandescence mixed with countermagic that nullified many of the demonic creature's attempts to use mana in defence of its only link to the material plane, Eras plunged his right hand which was surrounded by selfish and parasitic dark energy mixed with rage of Red that powered his ferromancy (although now that the Master of Wealth could access Black mana his power levels had rose from almost nothing (as he had lacked the necessary passionate emotions to sustain much Red mana) to huge now that had was able to use magic that aptly reflected his internal personality). The gold that had subsumed the Custodian melted and rippled aside from his gauntlet due to his manipulation of the metal, and he sunk his hand deeper into what was once a living and breathing person but was now a life size figure of valuable metal.

The gilded Enforcer began to to melt, the solid form of the man turning molten because of Eras's magic but instead of flowing to the ground it was sucked in on itself, wrapping around the hand of the Master of Wealth as a glittering dark energy that twinkled dark purple mixed with avaricious gold sparkled across the metal. Eras knew that this was the life essence of the foolish man who had allowed him to be hurt, and greedily pulled it from the circulating coils of molten gold, ramming it into the stump of his elbow as his demon guarded him from attack. A sensation of lavish bliss sent shudders of ecstasy through the nineteen year old's body, and his golden eyes reflected his rapture at the feeling of the soul being used to repair his body – if this was what it felt like to drain the spirit and life essence of a person away, this utterly addictive and revitalising sensation that sent tremors of pleasure cascading up and down the Master of Wealth's spine, then he would have started doing it much earlier.

The gold particles began to shine with a dark and malicious light as they swirled around the stump of his forearm, and he couldn't resist the urge to laugh delightedly and triumphantly as his arm began to be repaired, the soul essence of his loyal warrior converted into a much better cause as a new arm began to be reconstructed – this one blossoming with darkness and inflected with twinkling and opulent glow and much better than the first, although it felt lacking in some unknown way that Eras simply put off to it not being finished yet. He greedily devoured the rest of the soul, his eyes roving and instantly alighting upon the closest statue of a Lucaelian who defiantly stared at the location the Master of Wealth's throne had once been in, but smothered the desire to begin consuming all of the gilded in his lust for more soul essence, knowing that he needed to fight before his demon was overwhelmed and that the spirit he had already absorbed would be more than enough to restore him for now.

Tybalt muttered a curse that he would have never let young Caiellis or Alexander hear from their mentor as the boy (who was technically an adult) began laughing insanely, blood still dripping from his open mouth and crimson-stained teeth from where he had coughed it up as his arm began to be regenerated by the darkness which had been fuelled by the consumption of one of the golden statues, a malignant purpose which Tybalt should have guessed – although in his folly he had assumed that the Master of Wealth had simply done it to expand his prosperity and make an impression on the Lucaelians. Although his eyes still highlighted his arrogance, there was a deeper insanity now nestled within the golden irises mixed with his desire to kill the invaders who had hurt him that Tybalt knew made him far more dangerous.

However, it was still shocking that the Welkalite was able to heal with the rain of blood- _damn it! I should have thought of that,_ Tybalt harshly admonished himself, wondering where he got this reputation for being an intellectual giant from and hoping that his lack of foresight hadn't passed on to any of his students (apart from Johnias), as he realised that Eras had not been touched by the torrent of gore from the unnatural storm above, and as such would be able to revel in the full gourmet of draining powers afforded to him by amoral Black mana, not that he had used any yet.

Nevertheless, Tybalt could still change that, as the repairing process seemed to be taking quite an extended period of time because of the fact that the reconstruction of an entire arm that couldn't be even be achieved by White mana unless the wielder had immense healing power and mana was a length procedure – one that the Hierarch would disrupt. He sent a glance up at Bruna, who nodded, evidently having thought the same as him, but her eyes remained fixed on the greater demon who was still smirking perniciously at them, the four arms of the Archfiend of Depravity prepared to summon up masses of darkness that would drown out their light.

Tybalt levelled his staff, holding it with both hands and lowering it so that its tip was pointing at the demon, and blasted another scorching spear of radiance at the beast which was empowered by his hatred of all things born in the darkness of the world combined with the enchantments that made his mana usage more efficient and as such less draining that he had been given time to cast while the Master of Wealth had been screaming in pain. Severkarkyis smiled, reversing two of its touching hands and vomiting out a spray of solid murk from them that muffled the power of the light and drowned the sacred incandescence with its repulsive stench which was strangely appetising to the senses until Tybalt blocked it out by re-conjuring the ethereal respirator and purifier he had worn earlier which had been destroyed by the demon's magic.

Bruna shot her own shaft of luminescence circled with runes of Blue that would improve its accuracy at the demon, who absorbed it with another cast portal into the void that gluttonously drank the light before closing off. Severkarkyis laughed this time, the sound at once malicious, sibilant and tempting, and bellowed, "Why do you keep trying, Bruna? You have already established the futility of such an action, so why bother? Is it just the stubbornness of angels and those who blindly follow them and suckle the sacred milk of the sanctimonious teets that you feed them with preventing you from giving in? Or something else?"

Tybalt knew full well that without expending all of his mana in a single blast that would leave him wide open to the Master of Wealth (even then it might not work) he wouldn't be able to banish the admittedly very formidable demon back into the cantankerous Mind Realm of Eras, but he was not aiming for the spawn of the forsaken abyss – merely carefully manipulating the Archfiend of Depravity out of the way of his real target. Tybalt wasn't possessed of Blue mana that would allow him to catch glimpses of the future like some oracles of different cultures (or the Sightless Sibyls of the Grafnica Dominion which had been used to predict the movement of Lucaelian forces during the war with them), but his magic of foresight and perception coupled with his cognizance enhancing enchantments still allowed him to see the perfect areas to strike that would move the demon exactly where he wanted him.

"I'm getting tired of you now, old bastard," the voice of the Welkalite boy floated from across the room and into Tybalt's ears, though he paid the words no heed as he launched another sphere of brilliance at Severkarkyis in time with Bruna's frequent blasts of light, forcing the being to swat it aside as it slammed into the floor and expanded, exploding in a release of blinding illumination which lit up the dark chamber as the demon protected itself from the relentless barrage of flashing rays from the Light of Alabaster. Eras continued as if they weren't in the middle of violent battle, "If you give up quickly I promise to give you a quick death so that I can see the princes soon."

There was a slight modicum of hope inflecting the child's (as that was what he was, irrespective of his age, although it insulted children that Tybalt knew/had known to be compared to the Master of Wealth) voice that almost had the Capitalia Lux Hierarch laughing scornfully at the absurd notion that he would simply surrender and the even more ridiculous possibility that the Welkalite would make his death quick even if he did, and he kept up his assault on the Archfiend of Depravity made possible by his Blue mana that allowed him to form the spells within his mind much faster. Eras sighed, though their was nothing genuine about it, and growled, "As I thought. I'm going to make your death painful, old man. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll keep you alive and force you to watch as the rest of you damn Lucaelians are ripped apart by the Lord of Riots with me at his side. Actually, that sounds much more fun than simply killing you. I can always do that afterwards, after I have made you see the Kingdom of Light that you loved so much laid to ruin and plundered of all of its riches by the burning fire of the New Empire and every person you hold dear agonisingly tortured by our artisans of pain and killed right in front of your eyes. Oh yes, that sounds much more satisfying."

If Eras thought that this was going to intimidate Tybalt, who had heard much greater and more meaningful threats as he stared down greater demons, his hopes would be dashed, although he was correct in thinking that any pain inflicted upon those that the Hierarch cared about was infinitely worse than anything done to the seventy seven year old himself. He directed a glance over to the bloodied Master of Wealth who looked far less pampered now that he had blood pouring from the wounds in his chest (as the repairing of his arm was currently using the soul he had devoured), his wrist beginning to be formed by the dark and depraved magic he was utilising.

The boy was gazing at him and his angel, and Tybalt switched his vision back to the much more important Archfiend of Depravity. Blue mana swirled around his sight of the demon, his mind informing him where to strike next to make sure that the beast moved even further away from his target and knowing that because of the build up of offensive mana he sensed from the lord of this tower and his Summoning knew that he would have to enact his plan soon.

"Perhaps I will start with your beloved princes first, just to prove that the Lucerna line that you love so much is just as mortal and insignificant as the rest of us, and that under immense amounts of pain they too will submit. I think I will begin with the small one, precious little Caiellis who is really too young to be going to war, and do unto him what that silent bitch did to me a thousand times more painfully, of course," Eras taunted, probably having seen by now how protective the Lucaelians were over their Lucernas – especially the youngest prince, as the Master of Wealth had seen him when he had been abducted. The adolescent knew that he was saying things that would fill the Hierarch with rage, but instead of provoking a furious response and disrupting Tybalt's concentration the seventy seven year old simply used it to nourish his hatred of those who had given in to the honeyed temptations of the abyssm, and Eras continued, a hint of frustration at no response being drawn out from his dour opponent creeping into his voice, "He was absolutely _adorable_ when he was in pain, and the looks on all your faces – especially his daddy's and big brother's expressions – when Arendus brought him back into the Scholaria hall were priceless. I'd love to watch him writhe again while they watch, powerless to help. Yes, I will _definitely_ start with him."

_He may be very young and small, even for his age, but Caiellis would kill you before you could even try. If Alexander hadn't already ripped you apart for stepping within a hundred metres of his brother with the intent to hurt him. Or Marik hadn't yet hacked your worthless hide to pieces for even daring to mention causing pain to his sons, _Tybalt thought, though he did not let those metal musings show on his face as an expression of utter concentration despite the insulting words of the Master of Wealth that sounded like they were being whispered vehemently into his ear, a technique that would scare those inexperienced with the ways of demons or those who used their dark power to further themselves.

Eras wiped blood from his face, before gathering Red and Black mana into an orb at the end of his free hand as it reacted to the presence of his own life fluids, combining his rage at what had been done to his arm and chest (that was still bleeding heavily, making him feel incredibly faint but accentuating the effects of the narcotics and stimulants effused into the clammy air of the pinnacle room and making every sensation sing to him, heightening the pleasure that he felt).

He noticed how Severkarkyis was defending him from each of the enemies' attacks, knowing that while the demon would never give up anything for him that Eras was the only way that the Archfiend of Depravity could enact its own personal plan in the world with the advent of the Lord of Riots – which would allow all of his servants to enter the material plane from Sancturia, as some were doing through the Tempest of Craving even now, but would be too late for his demon's own agenda. The nineteen year old smirked. He didn't know what the plan of Severkarkyis was, nor did he care because his use for the demon was coming to an end (a new, more enticing Summoning had recently entered Usnaan and the Master of Wealth could sense that dear Archlord Tradax had been slain by Prince Caiellis already, meaning that this … _opportunity _was free for the taking), but it must have been very important for the Archfiend of Depravity if it was risking its well-being (regardless of the fact that it would heal within Eras's Mind Realm should it be hurt or slain) for the teenager who he very clearly hated.

Eras let his ambition that had been brought to the fore with the information that Tradax had been murdered and leadership of the New Empire of Passion was up for grabs but subsumed by his panic and pain caused by that Lucaelian whore who had dared to wound him run through him, strengthening his Black mana with his longing (or perhaps lust) for even greater power and influence and most of all adulation as the orb that was like a physical representation of the Welkalite sun apart from the fact that it had a core of molten gold and emitted streaks of deep darkness instead of solar flares. He giggled, almost hysterically, as he visualised the amount of pain this would cause to the old bastard who was in his way now and attempting to stop his ascension, imagining his aged body crushed to a pulp and immolated beyond recognition by his magic that absorbed his venerable but still strong soul.

The Master of Wealth hurled the miniature sun at the Lucaelian and his angel, knowing that they could not use their pesky countermagic to prevent it because of the amount of mana he had poured into the huge fireball of superheated liquid gold and tenebrosity. Tybalt placed his trust (and some extra mana) within Bruna as she shot towards the huge release of mana, the haft of her staff luminescing with Blue mana as the tip was still shining with pure light. She span it in a circle, etching the symbol of Avacyn's collar into the air interposed by a triangle that could have represented the three daughters of Avacyn who led the three Flights of the rest of the Angel of Hope's angels, and closing her eyes as a hymn of words spilled from her angelic lips and took physical form as they collected around the impressive sigil she had created in front of the rushing projectile of the Welkalite youth.

Tybalt launched another incandescent array of light at the Archfiend of Depravity to keep his attention distracted from Bruna as she prepared to deal with Eras's attack, to which Severkarkyis battered each one aside with his hands coated in shadow, the reflected rays carving deep grooves into the ground and burning apart the opulent carpet which had mostly been destroyed because of the fighting upon it. The demon was still gazing at the Light of Alabaster in spite of Tybalt's relentless assault of blinding flashes and beams of radiance that nevertheless manipulated the nether beast into almost the exact position he wanted it, close to the ground and its master that it evidently detested but was willing to protect for now.

Bruna gathered Blue mana to the bottom of her staff, a tip of sapphire that was supplemented by blinding light from the White part of the magic forming upon the Sancturia metal as the emblem of Avacyn's Collar gleamed with holy light as the burning assault of molten (or even gaseous and boiled it was that hot) metal and darkness approached the Light of Alabaster. She knelt down, furling her majestic and bright wings which had been covered in soot and darkness because of the battle the had been fighting but had lost none of their exalted grandeur, and slammed the bottom of her staff into the ground, wrapping her hands around it as if in prayer or repose.

The triangle symbol combined with the emblem of the Angel of Hope flashed brightly with both protective and avenging White mana and altering Blue magic, and as the gigantic spell that left contrails of sickly sweet darkness in its wake impacted upon the sigil which was growing in size every second, the light of Bruna's magic eclipsed the darkness and fire of the Master of Wealth's magical assault and repelled it. The ideogram etched into the air in front of the Light of Alabaster stayed resolutely still in the face of the corruption and rage blasted against it, and had Tybalt been on the other side he would have seen that the triangle now reflected a mirror image of what was occurring on the other side of it. Reflective Blue and White mana shot out of each of the three corners of the symbol, arcing in coiling trails around the fireball and suddenly flashing with incandescence.

The Hierarch did not watch, knowing from many long years of fighting alongside his intelligent and wise angel what she had been planning to do to the assault of the impudent and arrogant Eras (perhaps it would teach the brat a lesson in patience and that hubris never paid off). The flames turned back on themselves, and the trajectory of the missile of fiery taint and gold switched entirely. The inferno changed direction with none of its energy lost, shooting through the air towards Eras who raised a wall of gold quickly as he cried out in utter panic and shock, his mask of self confidence and superiority dissolving in the face of this spontaneous reversal, and Severkarkyis placed barriers of twisting shadow in front of the shield that his Summoner had created before realising the intended target of the redirected unnatural conflagration.

"Don't protect yourself, you foolish brat! Guard the ceiling!" the demon roared as the roiling fiery explosion of shadow, ambition, greed and hatred rushed towards the ornate plafond which was covered in numerous portraits and murals depicting the Orders of Passion as saviours that had helped free the Welkalite people from the yoke of their oppressors and aided Jarred Redhand in slaying the Last Tyrant and establishing the culture of freedom and independence that now apparently filled the liberated New Empire of Passion – though in the Capitalia Lux Light-bearer's mind, the Welkalites had simply swapped one set of dictators (the ancient and inbred line of despotic tyrants who had ruled with the dragons inherent and exclusive to their bloodline in a savage parody of the Lucerna monarchs of the Kingdom of Light) for another (the Masters of Passion, ravenous, avaricious and extremely ambitious individuals who acted in their own interests and consorted with foul demons of hedonism and destruction in the furthering of their personal goals).

Eras ignored his demon's words, ensuring that his wall of roiling molten gold was centred firmly around himself in case any attacks from the two servants of light were directed towards him, and Severkarkyis snarled in frustrated fury as it beat its wings and launched its demonic form into the air. It destroyed the fireball with a slash of noxious gloaming which split the inferno in two before it could crash into the ceiling, the two halves of it smashing into the ground in bursts of flame and liquid metal that sloshed around and solidified – to Eras's horror and anger two of the statues infected with the curse of the Inaurogos Maledictum were destroyed by the careless deflection of his attack.

The Archfiend of Depravity paid no attention to the boy's protestations, dislocating and snapping the twenty totals digits of its four hands in sickening and inhuman extensions of bone as it spoke with a forbidden tongue that Tybalt had to focus on mentally blocking out unless he wanted the deepest recesses of his mind to be forever stained by the rancid touch of the darkness. Shields of shadow were conjured into the air as Tybalt stepped up his luminescent assault, increasing the amount of power he was pouring into his attacks as the amount of obstruction from his target of the plafond was increased by the demon.

Severkarkyis roared at him, the sound splitting the air and vomiting out a spray of dark shadows that formed claws from the glittering jewel inlaid into the centre of the demon's pallid forehead. The arms of darkness cut through the air towards Tybalt, swiftly followed by the demon himself, Severkarkyis evidently deciding that a combination of offence and defence would be necessary for him to prevent the strategy of the Hierarch as he flew towards the aged old man who stood defiantly in the face of the snarling greater demon that descended upon him. More shadowy tendrils ripped themselves out of the miasma of absolute and degenerate darkness that wriggled behind the spawn of the infernal realm, adding themselves to their brethren that already lashed towards the aged Tybalt, and each one of the grasping claws of the shadow split off from each other, dividing in two and then into four equal sized tendrils like some sort of malicious and debased hydra or the roots of a corrupted tree, massively increasing the amount of protection covering the ceiling as several of the talons of blackness carved smoking glyphs of corruption into the air that formed their own shields of void energy.

Tybalt made no moves to avoid the rush of the demon, Bruna already countering some of the spells that the Master of Wealth was attempting to cast and fortifying the shields around herself and her old Summoner, but mostly channelling mana into the venerable seventy seven year old so that he could use his own magic to its fullest effect. A sphere of light sprung up around Tybalt as a wave of weaker darkness washed over him, scratching at the inviolate protection he had conjured around himself by crashing the bottom of his staff into the ground, several other spheres spinning around the first as arcing lines of runes etched themselves around the orb encapsulating the form of the old man, grand characters spinning in orbiting circles throughout the interior of the sphere of safety that burnt the shadows scrabbling against it and spilling forth from the ancient quartz topping Tybalt's oaken sceptre.

Severkarkyis growled at him and raised its two upper hands above its head, gripping onto the shadow as bolts of light from Tybalt began to puncture some of his dark miasma before being consumed by the tempestuous and frenzied tenebrosity. The hands gripped more of the shadow essence, increasing the power of the rest of it with the demon's foul hatred of all things that derived their source from the holy wellspring of light that was the Sanctum Angelica in Sancturia, and gigantic mouths of darkness began to be formed out of the darkness, glowing and poisonous saliva dripping from their gaping maws as they gnashed their ravenous teeth together in expectation of the meal presented towards them as they rushed towards the Capitalia Lux Hierarch, designed to prevent him penetrating past the demon's magic to the plafond that was his target above.

However, there was a reason why Tybalt Litria was once of the most renowned mage priests to have ever lived within the Kingdom of Light. If one thought that the Lucerna family had powerful usage of the magic of light, they would be shocked to find out that he had taught each living Lucerna what they knew now of the spells of incandescence – even though each had developed their own conjurations of radiance that matched their respective types of mana and inner personalities, each one had started out with the basics that Tybalt had taught them to allow them to wield and manipulate the light with their emotions, thoughts and mana.

Blue and White mana surged through the man, who felt younger than he had done ever since he had last cast a spell of this potency during the civil war (as it had annihilated the greater demon possessing old and stubborn Hierarch Incedian which had almost killed the young princes and their Guardian and corrupted the armies of Civitas Sol into fighting against the loyal legions of King Marik), the intensity of the magical energy flowing through him revitalising his aged limbs and infusing him with a sense of purpose that filled his mind with solace knowing that he still had power to wield in defence of Lucael and the children that would inherit the kingdom from the old. He lifted his staff up above his head, orderly White and Blue mana coursing through the handle and making it thrum with lawful and righteous power as the energy of the mind and of devotion to the light coalesced in front of his palms.

The shadows buffeting the shield around the Hierarch were burnt away by a pulse of cleansing mana carried on winds of pure force that sprung up around Tybalt, the movement of the air in opposition to that of the violent and tainted squall from the Tempest of Craving, the circulation of air around the Lucaelian forming an orderly zephyr of light as the intensity of the luminescence puling from every atom of the crystal topping Tybalt's staff rose to levels that would have been compared to a Lucerna's had any been there. Tybalt was apprehensive of the possibility of finishing the entire fight with the Master of Wealth through this single spell, but he knew that if it was uninterrupted then it would turn the tide to him and bring him even closer to ending the narcissistic brat who did not in any way deserve his position of power.

Tybalt raised his staff, Severkarkyis swooping low in an attempt to snatch him up with his claws or devour him with his summoned mouths of darkness, but the light pulsating from the Hierarch's position was moulded by the Light of Alabaster into alabastrine restraints that wrapped around the Archfiend of Depravity as it shrieked in frustration and was dragged to the ground, thrashing and screaming every second and almost breaking free within less than a second before being hit by several bolts of light and meddling Blue mana that disrupted its magical power for short moments. It would not be imprisoned for long, that much was certain, but Tybalt only needed a few seconds to complete his spell.

Golden circles of holy words in the revered language of the angels which had been passed down in fragments to their fervent devotees of the Kingdom of Light shone into being around the floor of Tybalt, reflecting the Summoning ritual of Alexander Ensis Lucerna in that respect but not shining upwards with overwhelming force, instead conjuring winds of holy power that far surpassed any gales of mundane origin that zephyr mages of other factions could call into existence, each of the winds carrying hymns of Hope that sang within the highest room of the largest Tower of Ecstasy and drowned out the depraved screaming of the darkness.

"Suprema Iudicium!" Tybalt proclaimed, his voice coloured only with righteousness and detestation of the darkness, but no emotions other than that as it split through the din of the battle and finished his massive spell. A beam of light shot upwards from the Hierarch, a single shaft of incandescence that far outclassed any of the Archfiend of Depravity's pitiful attempts to deflect or absorb it as it smashed into the ornate ceiling, the air in the room saturated with thrumming energy as Tybalt raised his staff to the sky. The plafond exploded, massive chunks of rocks sent crashing into the room below it, splattering statues of men and women which had once been living and breathing people into pools of gold and smashing apart priceless riches as the entire roof of the Tower of Ecstasy was destroyed.

Eras shrieked in pain when he realised too late why Severkarkyis had been so intent on protecting the ceiling instead of his master, as the torrential rain of blood outside of the tower that indiscriminately affected and drowned both friend and foe splattered onto him and the interior of his precious pinnacle room. Tapestries were soaked through with the contents of the perpetual and endless Rain of Gore, masterpieces of art and passion ruined by the downpour of lifeblood that stained them forever crimson and turned them sodden and unusable, but Eras cared nothing for that when the rain touched him. A spiking pain thrust its way through the Master of Wealth's entire body, but mostly in his new arm, the hand that was in the process of being formed spasming uncontrollably and sending pulses of agony throughout the nervous system of his slender form. The golden arm instantly started to corrode and burn under the effects of the Rain of Gore that prevented healing, and if Eras had been in less torment he would have cursed his cunning opponent who would wield the demonic blessings of their dark patrons against him and prevent him regenerating his limbs.

More agony rushed through him, making him fall too his knees as white hot reverberations of sheer pain spread through his limbs. The dark purple and forbidden gold glow of his healing magic which used souls instantly exploded in a spray of sadistic and vindictive darkness combined with black and red flames of hellfire which punished his healing and fluoresced obtrusively with a violent and vibrant scarlet core that caused him even more burning pain on that side of his body and started to melt his new limb, choking smoke of the most malicious origin rushing into the boy's face and making it seem like every sense receptor on his body was on fire, a sensation that wouldn't have been unwelcomed had it been planned and combined with the ecstasy of proper and rapturous torture.

The Master of Wealth coughed, placing his other and still natural hand in front of his face as the dripping remnants of the other began to slough away from it, the gold melting off of the new bones and exposing the fleshy and ugly corruption beneath which had been hidden under the pretence of the false grandeur of the expensive metal once coating his new arm, the original of which had been amputated by the other Lucaelian warrior that Severkarkyis had killed. That was until his last remaining golden gauntlet began to melt into the skin of his organic hand because of the sheer heat of the suffocating and malignant soot which reminded him of a darker and much more powerful version of his own magic. He coughed again, a hacking and wheezing sound that had him vomiting up blood from his chest wounds that had not been repaired as his robes were stained by the Rain of Gore that the cursed Tradax had allowed to pour down upon the city of Usnaan, the expensive fabrics ruined by the downpour of blood that Eras had until this point been immune to.

His blood was extremely sticky and flecked with droplets of tar from the smoke which had lodged within the boy's lungs, almost stopping him from breathing completely and making him extremely light-headed, which was not an entirely unpleasant sensation as the Master of Wealth was well used to the feeling, but it amplified his pain. And this was not the good type of pain, not at all. Then it stopped, the agony related to the healing punishing impact of the Rain of Gore which would normally not have affected the Welkalite warriors coursing through every single molecule of the nineteen year old ceased, but with it the healing that his new arm growing where that Lucaelian wench had dared to desecrate his noble flesh stopped repairing itself.

Eras brought the last dripping remnants of the once perfect limb in front of him, the gold that he knew now was a cheap fake already melted off and leaving a structure of unnaturally fused unnatural bones resembling some sort of savage claw in its place. The bones were blackened by the fire of hell which had raged through them, leaving them charred parodies of human anatomy that still hurt a huge amount, but more than the pain was the horror that Eras felt at having this as one of his arms, like he was some sort of filthy celebrant from the other inferior Orders of Passion which modified their own (admittedly impure) bodies to further their experiences of lesser and vulgar pain or begged for mutations from the demons wielded by their respective Masters. No, Eras was of pure Stormwind blood that had been untainted by mating with those of other bloodlines, and this was a defilement of that. However, he knew that he could heal it if he erased the stain of the Rain of Gore upon him and kept the statues of soldiers infused with their soul essences until after this battle.

Nonetheless, Tybalt was not yet done, and this was the only the start of his spell in his plan to end the Master of Wealth and remove his arrogant taint from the world of mankind and to banish his foul demon into the depths of the abyss like the animal it was. He spoke a few more holy words in the language used in Matalis Ortus Lucerna's time as more mana flowed through him – as the first pillar of light which had shattered the protection the ceiling offered and annihilated Eras's shelter from the Rain of Gore which would stop his foul form of healing – but these were drowned out by the glorious and heavenly sound of the spell he was casting. Severkarkyis launched himself at the Hierarch, intending to batter through his shield now that the old man's mana was diverted to casting the Suprema Iudicium instead of protecting himself, but was intercepted mid-air by the Light of Alabaster.

The angel and the demon tangled viscously, the maws of shadow around the Archfiend of Depravity snapping at the seraph as she warded them off with blasts of White mana. The two flew across the room as the demon pushed against the angel, Bruna holding him off with swipes of her shining staff as the spawn of the nether realm tore at her with its claws. Neither remained unscathed, Severkarkyis sustaining heavy burn wounds from purifying light shone onto its corrupted flesh, and Bruna was raked with malicious claws that tore through her intricate armour which was now blemished with the Rain of Gore and her own crimson blood leaking out through her wounds as she smashed the demon away and erased the noxious toxins already running through her angelic blood vessels with a pulse of dispelling energy which ripped into some of the murky shadows encompassing the demon.

Another holy pillar of golden light, this one from above the Tower of Ecstasy and with much more power within its incandescent structure than the first which had obliterated the ostentatious ceiling, crashed down from the roiling heavens, and although it had originated from just below the dark mass of the Tempest of Craving it appeared as such that it seemed to penetrate through the unholy storm of chaos and blasphemous pleasure. The celestial column slammed into the ground, blasting blinding and orderly light everywhere across the room and eradicating each and every one of the Welkalites and Lucaelians who had been turned into golden effigies of their former selves so that the Master of Wealth, who was screaming in indignation, greed and pain, could not use them for any more debased purposes like consuming them to heal himself.

The sickly sweet scent of the massive amount of gaseous drugs effused into the clammy atmosphere inside of the Tempest of Craving was destroyed by the huge ray of light that crashed into the building, the only weakness of the Suprema Iudicium the fact that the caster could not aim it precisely at a specific foe and that it was supposed to be utilised against swarms of weaker enemies, but this one of Bruna's ultimate spells was extremely powerful no matter in which circumstance it was called upon to purge the heretics from the world. The light blinded the occupants in the room apart from Tybalt and the Light of Alabaster who channelled more mana into her Summoner so that this second part of the spell could be completed fully – as if he lost control of the mana or it was somehow disrupted the consequences could be potentially catastrophic.

The winds blew Tybalt's robes which had been blessed ten times by the previous Hierarch Mereditha, one for each of the First Sisterhood angels (including Orzhova, which at the time much younger Tybalt had been slightly shocked about that as the Angel of the Black Sun (whom he did not know the true name of until Caiellis unlocked her as his Summoning) had been removed from presumably all other rituals in the church of Lucael), the golden lettering etched upon them from all of those years ago glimmering with a dazzling luminosity as they rose upwards with the magic that he was casting, the golden circles around him revolving at an implacable and inexorable speed which represented the endless determination and faith of those from the Kingdom of Light against the darkness and in their Lucerna leaders who had been their saviours from the predations of the abyss and the powerful civilisations which had chosen the path of evil and preyed on the humans loyal to White mana until they had all been crushed under the might of Lucael.

The light was all consuming, ripping apart the furniture inside of the pinnacle chamber into its constituent elements and scattering them on the winds of order and devotion, and Eras was assaulted by it on all sides as it reacted to the corruption of his dark heart and aimed itself towards him. The boy shrieked in sheer panic and tried to scramble away, falling over backwards with his mangled claw of an arm raised in front of his face like it could do anything to protect him, Red and Black mana flowing around him and forming shields of darkness and liquid gold in the face of the wrath of this extremely formidable old man who had never even given the Master of Wealth his name.

_Severkarkyis! DO SOMETHING! _The boy's mind howled desperately, a frantic plea for assistance from his demon that he had no idea if it reached or not – he could barely hear it himself over the deep and booming rumbling of the spell that his opponent was in the midst of casting, random beams of light flashing out from the main incandescent pillar and crashing into objects in the room, dissolving them into flecks of dust which were carried away by the tempestuous but not chaotic hurricane which had sprung up through the man's mana and that was strangely reminiscent of the beating of angel wings, just on a vast scale and multiplied to an immense magnitude of power.

Eras was sure that he could feel his very soul, condemned for its crimes against the Welkalite which was his birthright as a noble blooded scion of the Stormwind house, being ripped out of his body by the scouring winds that accompanied the blinding light which he would have been thankful hadn't touched him yet and continued to destroy the middle of the chamber if he could manage any thought other than fright. White and Blue mana combined was starting to become something that the young Master of Wealth hated more than anything else, as it was controlling, dominating and restricted all forms of passion in a way that White did but amalgamated with manipulating and peaceful Blue which made it even worse to Eras. It was the fact that it was sanctimoniously condescending, like it saw the nineteen year old as only a small child that had thrown away its chance of a life before it had even started it, like a foolish youth that knew nothing of the world and that he had caused himself to die by choosing the darkness over the light like he had had a choice in the matter and like the light would have ever given him the power that he deserved.

However, it saw him only as something to be killed, not forgiven for his apparent crimes which was only him exploiting his position to its fullest extent, but as it attempted to erase his individualistic existence it also pitied him for what he was, that he had never been allowed to experience the blessings of the "divine" Lucaelian angels that the people of that zealous, hypocritical and judging nation practically worshipped from what he had seen, like Sancturia creatures were anything more than tools to be wielded as their Summoners saw fit before they died and their Summonings were returned to the other realm.

That in turned sparked Eras's defiance, but also reinforced his panic rushing around the small flame that was his opposition to this magic which made him feel immensely stupid for dismissing his enemy as a senile old man and wanting to fight the Lucerna princes – as this aged bastard was clearly almost, if not more powerful than the rulers of the invading Kingdom of Light (although to be fair to the Lucaelians the Welkalites had provoked them in and had wanted a war with them at one point – just not now, as the princes were never supposed to have escaped and they should have been delivered to the one who had only been known as the Fallen when they contacted him).

The magic pulsed throughout the entire Tower of Ecstasy, destroying corruption and purging taint wherever it touched the blight of forbidden pleasure, but its effects were most focussed upon the top floor where it was searing itself into Eras's closed retinas and extirpating the room around it, the ceiling utterly destroyed with the walls that had been holding it up crashing to the ground as everything was covered in blood which was subsequently evaporated by the Suprema Iudicium before the pouring Rain of Gore stained everything with its crimson vitae once again. Eras was still pleading in his mind for the Archfiend of Depravity to help him, to save his life like it as his Summoning was supposed to, although he had no clue as to whether Severkarkyis could hear his mind voice (or if the mental communications even worked both ways) or had any intentions of aiding him even if he had.

Tybalt finished whispering the words of his spell, and as he did so a bolt of light slammed into the Master of Wealth, pushing him up against one of the walls which was crumbling precariously and almost placing him in the same position as the silent bitch who had hurt him. It destroyed his shield of corrupt shadows that he traded away portions of his life for as well as his ferromantic protection of gold which should have guarded the nineteen year old from the magical light, and a burning sensation without any form of heat powering it swept through the boy's already ravaged (in his opinion, at any rate) nervous system and would have made him fall spasming to his knees if he hadn't been held up by the luminescence. Instead, his limbs settling of thrashing uselessly, his clawed hand of fused bones opening and closing in a futile display of defiance as he cursed the stupidity of his demon in not saving his life.

Tybalt located the Master of Wealth, and tried to focus his mana on him so that the Archfiend of Depravity which Bruna was fighting with in a bloody and brutal display of savagery which had them both bleeding from numerous wounds could be banished back to Sancturia where it belonged, but it was a very ponderous process getting the central beam of light to move or be concentrated upon anything but the floor that it destroyed in front of it, the second to last tier of the Tower of Ecstasy visible through the annihilation of the middle of the pinnacle's flooring.

Then, something out of the corner of his eye caught his gaze, flashing towards the Tower of Ecstasy from the Tempest of Craving (disgusting names if he had ever heard them) with a blood red glow mixed with fire and ash. Instead of letting it break his concentration when he was so close to finishing and having expected aid to come from the damned storm for the Master of Wealth earlier since it had been depositing horrors that were mad creations of an atavistic and savage mind all across the battlefield, he simply poured more mana into the spell of judgement that he was casting, hoping that it would destroy the interlopers before they could even get close and make them regret their choice (or perhaps it was random and chaotic) of attacking the forces near the Tower of Ecstasy.

The whole building shook, rubble from its obliterated ceiling cascading down one side and pitching towards the battlefield below, a massive fall which would kill anyone easily, although the Towers of Ecstasy were not the tallest buildings that Tybalt had ever been in – the Cathedral of Salvation back in Capitalia Lux held that position. The aged Hierarch tried to keep as steady as he could without breaking off his spell that was very close to finishing, but at the back of his mind he was already calculating the speed at which the enemies from the Tempest would reach and how long it would take him to complete the Suprema Iudicium, coming up with strategies on what to do next instead of simply concentrating on his spell in lieu of all else.

He could take a massive risk and finish it, although that meant that if he misjudged the amount of time it would take for him to complete his spell and the speed at which the new enemies were approaching as they streaked out of the storm he could easily be killed or forced to close off the Suprema Iudicium too quickly without the proper ritual, a potentially volatile cause of action as the amount of mana coursing through his aged and non-Lucerna form could easily explode out of him and destroy everything in the vicinity without his controlling and guiding will regulating it.

Or he could slowly allow his mana to dissipate and lose the advantage he had gained, turning to face these new foes as they allied with the already undeservedly formidable Master of Wealth and reclaiming the energy he had spent with his Blue spells, but that would allow the Welkalites to regain the initiative and he probably wouldn't get another chance to enact the Supreme Verdict again. This was the much safer option, and while Tybalt had always been conservative and thoughtful in his fighting much like his youngest student was, less inclined to take risks and preferring longer but less dangerous battles (which is often why his and Alexander's personalities had clashed when the elder of the two was teaching the middle Lucerna), that did not mean that he was above taking heavy risks in his service to the kingdom – as if his sacrifice was to be worth something then he would have to, and if he wanted to die in battle like a Lucaelian should instead of withering away back in the kingdom then he had to be at the forefront of every battle.

It was the youngsters with their entire lives ahead of them that shouldn't be taking many risks, Tybalt personally thought, though he knew that it was precisely because they were young, naïve and slightly foolish that they endangered themselves and took unfavourable gambles (in his eyes, at any rate, which he knew were old and no longer in touch with the youth of the kingdom as much as he liked to try), because they didn't quite understand the value of their lives and how much longer they had to live for. However, this was precisely why the older generations had to throw themselves into hazardous situations – so that the younger members of the kingdom didn't have to and could live happy lives until it came to the point where they had to make that sacrifice for the next generation.

The Tower of Ecstasy shook again, the whole building swaying dangerously in a manner that it had clearly not been designed for as some of the fiery spawn of the Tempest of Craving impacted into the floors below, hopefully not near young Guardian Lelia if she still survived, and Tybalt made his choice. In spite of his mental speech to himself about the fact that the elders of the kingdom should be the ones that took the risks necessary to ensure the survival of Lucael in the unkind world, finishing his spell with the closeness of the new attackers would have been impossible even for one of Tybalt's power. It had nothing to do with being cowardly – as he was still in massive danger – but carrying on with the Suprema Iudicium would have ended in his death.

Nonetheless, the Capitalia Lux Hierarch still increased the intensity of the magic crashing into Eras Stormwind and sending waves of cleansing mana periodically washing over him and tearing apart his robes and armour as their dissolved molecules were blown away by the wind, and instead of instantly stopping his output of magical energy he converted the huge beam of light destroying the tower from within into several scintillating bolts of luminosity that scattered into the air when the man swept his shining staff to the side. Now that he no longer had to be utterly focussed on the ritual of the spell which he had decided not to follow through with because ending it in the time period he had would have been unrealistic (although he still devoted lots of mind power to ensuring that the mana he had emitted was returned to him safely instead of becoming hazardous and rushing back into him), he could see what was approaching the huge edifice to greed located on the crossroads between the Augur's Quarter and the Hedonist's Quarter, not that there was much to distinguish the two by.

There were several flaming imps trailing clouds of soot that flickered in the fiery embrace of vibrantly pulsating embers which had a strangely organic quality to them, but more concerning than the minor foes were the meteorites streaking past them towards the city that had been spat out by the rumbling storm which drank upon the violence in the City of Pleasure below it, huge masses of flame and volcanic rock that left contrails of smoky fire behind them as they seemed to target themselves at the exposed pinnacle of the tower Tybalt and Eras had been battling in.

The Tempest of Craving was also growing in size and proximity to the ground, no longer just an unnatural storm but glowing with a hellish light as the dark and angry clouds spat crimson lightning at an even greater frequency, making the Hierarch glad that it had not yet hit the Tower of Ecstasy considering that the gold plated cylinder was like a gigantic lightning rod which would easily conduct the atavistic and bloodthirsty electricity through its length.

Along with the lightning, numerous meteors like the ones which would be depositing fresh enemies and slaves of the dark to attack Tybalt were vomited out of its furious roiling depths, along with jets of angry fire that licked the air and made Usnaan into even more of a hellscape than it already was. The Hierarch felt sorry for little Caiellis and his father (and perhaps the middle Lucerna, as Tybalt had long since stopped being able to sense anything in the wider city past a gigantic influx of pandemonium inducing Black and Red mana that hurt the seventy seven year old's head and caused a headache in the background that he paid no attention to blotting out everything else, so Alexander could have made his way to the rest of his family without the Hierarch being able to know or not), as the land warping power of whatever was causing this would be heavily magnified at the origin point of the Tempest which drank upon the battle beneath it.

He could sense Red and Black mana not belonging to the Master of Wealth closing in on his position from the abused sky, and instead of quaking in his boots and doing nothing about it he split off the mana which was saturating the air without direction that had been part of his spell, instead aiming it at these new foes from Sancturia that were about to land and ruin his advantage over the almost broken Welkalite youth, though he supposed that the fact that they were attacking here meant that they weren't reinforcing the Welkalite troops as much elsewhere (as many were) and directing themselves at an old man who wasn't even a Lucerna.

The light split off into different beams of incandescence as Tybalt moulded them, using a form of a technique that he had seem Guardian Tristram used and asked the much younger man to teach him should they ever need to use it without the tallest of the civil war party being able to (the man had obliged politely, because this was at the time when the two had formed a bond over caring for the youngest Lucernas).

The White mana began to form a shimmering barrier of sparkling golden light under Tybalt's expert ministrations, though he fortified the energy of righteousness and community with Blue mana that would weaken the connection of the beings starting to attack him to the material world and thus allow his Lightmine Field to wreak more damage upon their insubstantial forms despite the fact that the city of Usnaan was permeated with power and currently a very strong link with Sancturia as the two worlds overlapped due to the power of what could only be an Archdemon which Caiellis and Marik were hopefully dealing with.

The field shone with mana, and the first of the screeching imps dove at the top of the Tower of Ecstasy, heedless of the danger. It charged through a shimmering but infinitesimally thin ray of magical energy which was an anathema to its abyssal form, and let out a strangled scream as it was cut in half by the enchantment, the two halves of the being shredded by more of the Lightmine Field as the imp was silently hacked into thousands of pieces by the incredibly sharp yet not brutal light that it passed through. The burning flesh of the desiccated Sancturia resident landed with a wet _splat _at Tybalt's feet, which normally the man would not have paid attention to but as it didn't dissipate it emphasised how much the foul domain of the Archdemon was overlaying over the material City of Pleasure whose masters had invited this corruption upon themselves and those who they were supposed to protect.

He didn't solely use his mana for defensive purposes, however, and Tybalt levelled his staff as he felt a surge of defiance of the darkness run through him and invigorate his venerable limbs most likely coming from Bruna, the canny seraph able to focus on aiding her old Summoner as well as fighting in very close and vicious quarters with a daunting greater demon. He wielded his thoughts and his emotions with a skill born of seventy years of using magic as he turned the desire for the youth of the kingdom to be able to live safe lives and his want of the Welkalite people to be safe from their oppressors as well so that their young (as even the old empire wasn't over three hundred years old yet) empire could develop and bloom into a peaceful civilisation into powerful weapons that swirled around the quartz of his old and modest but very strong sceptre.

He held the oaken staff with two hands as he aimed it at one of the closest imps of chaos the shrieked in a frenzy of pleasure in the ascent of their dark master and hunger for bloodshed which had passed through the Lightmine Field unscathed (partly because Tybalt's usage of the technique wasn't as good as Tristram's as the Guardian was a warrior heavily associated with defence and his Summoning was a daughter of Iona, the Angel of Protection). A pillar of light shot out from it, golden phosphorescence lancing out from the tip of the staff and splitting through the centre of the beast, but instead of stopping there Tybalt swept it around, cutting through several other imps and meteorites that when broke open ejected their cargo of howling devils that were also eradicated by the Hierarch's magic.

There were far too many of them for him to stop alone, although he reaped a formidable tally amongst the enemies that tried to get to the Tower of Ecstasy with his lances of incandescence that destroyed their tainted forms and ripped apart their corrupt essence, killing hundreds of enemies while the Archfiend of Depravity and the Light of Alabaster fought. Eras had scurried away, probably behind some pillar somewhere to nurse his wounds and recover now that he had been delivered from certain doom by the reinforcements which had luckily decided to aid him.

The nineteen year old hid behind one of the broken walls as he saw the flaming meteorites disgorging their foul cargo of devils onto the plaza, the beings ignoring or not seeing him as they flung themselves at the aged Lucaelian who had tried to kill the Master of Wealth. Eras was breathing heavily, clutching the wounds on his chest with his last remaining hand as he spat blood from the injuries he had sustained at the hands of the invaders who were more powerful than he had anticipated. However, he would not accomplish anything by hiding away here, and the need for vengeance burned bright within his breast, more mana pouring out of him than ever before and infusing him with a dark vitality that made his wounds all the more pleasurable. He needed more power. This sensation was intoxicating, and Eras was knew that he was on the cusp of something very special and needed to live long enough to see it through to the end – and that meant killing the old bastard who had delayed him this long already in the battle for Usnaan.

He placed his claw hand over his heart, pulling up more Black mana from within it that wrapped around the mutated and degraded limb that nevertheless was more adept at channelling the magic of darkness than his original hand, and winced at the glorious pain of sections of his spirit and life being given to the denizens of the dark for more mana, but it was necessary for him to achieve victory and Eras intended to gain immortality or at least a massively empowered longevity through his plans for the Lord of Riots. And anyway, what was a silver of one's soul compared to unimaginable wealth and power?

Tybalt erased a screeching devil that threw itself over in his direction from one of the projectiles of rock and hellfire which had landed on the exposed top floor, punching through one of the walls and destroying the igneous masonry, banishing it from the world in a release of controlled White mana. He then blasted a wave of Blue at another four that had been trying to sneak up on him, the force of the pulse knocking them backwards as their strength was sapped. The Blue mana took advantage of their lack of intellect to confuse and distract their primitive brains, manipulating their instinctual and simple though against them as their hunger for blood was turned towards one another. One devil started attacking its comrade, ripping chunks of flesh from the other creature of a psychopath's nightmares before it was impaled by a brutally spiked spear wielded by its victim.

By that time, Tybalt had generated enough White mana to annihilate them all in an explosion of blinding light, but now he was beginning to feel the strain of the battle on his old limbs. A sixth devil loped across the ground, its blood red flesh slick with more gore from the unholy tempest it had emerged from, and the Hierarch spun around, smashing his staff through its head and augmenting his unimpressive physical strength with White auras and magic that caused the head of the being the explode with little resistance as the man caved it it. His instincts that were not as honed as some warriors' but heightened by his perception augmenting Blue mana screamed at him to move, and the seventy seven year old dove forwards, ignoring his aching bones.

A savage and barbaric axe missed him by millimetres but was instead embedded within his enchanted robe, the fabric that was suffused with mana only tearing slightly in the face of the weapon, though the fact that Tybalt was caught on the weapon sent him lunging forwards and whipping backwards instead of executing the roll perfectly. A snapping face plunged in front of his own as he was dragged backwards by his robes, spittle infused with unnatural blood and making bile rise within Tybalt's stomach dripping down his face as the devil stared down at him, its small, piggy eyes alight with a hunger to cause this new victim pain and devour his flesh in an orgy of gluttony.

Tybalt instantly activated one of the many spells woven into his Hierarch outfit that did not require much of his own mana nor for him to think about it much. It only affected those that were touching the robe and those that were incredibly stupid, but the devil came under both of those categories and blinked in surprise when the Hierarch faded from vision. It squinted, cocking its head to one side with an expression of utter bemusement forming similar to that a young child would wear forming on its cruel features as it stared at the place that its prey had been in. Then, dark frustration began to work its way into the being's glowing eyes, and it hissed, sending its foul saliva flying all over Tybalt's face as a forked tongue cut itself on unnaturally sharp teeth that couldn't fit in the devil's medium sized mouth.

The Hierarch scowled contemptuously of the idiotic foe and touched it on the forehead with the three middle fingers of his free hand. A pulse of dispelling and cleansing White mana erupted from it, sending the devil sprawling back, and while Tybalt had never been invisible in the first placed it seemed to the spawn of the storm that he had materialised out of nothing, before the man put the being out of its misery with a jab of the bottom of his staff which was coated in White mana.

Then a massive impact sent the seventy seven year old sprawling as hot air washed over him and seared his skin, shards of rock embedding in his robes as some pierced to the wrinkled flesh underneath and drew blood as the man was sent flying. The world passed by him in a blur as he landed, cracking his head against a rocky piece of debris as he scraped his hands on pieces of destroyed masonry, a ringing sound exacerbated by the rumbling of the storm combined with the shaking of the earth which he had realised was not strictly from the cataclysmic impacts of the meteors but more tectonic.

Blearily, Tybalt blinked the blood out of his old eyes before erasing it fully with White and Blue mana as the world kept vibrating and shuddering like the entire central Tower of Ecstasy was in the midst of some sort of convulsive fit, and cursed his ageing body for suffering more from these wounds than a normal Lucaelian soldier would – especially with the healing gifted to him by White mana denied by the bloody torrent. His vision was blurry until his magic cleared it, and the man stifled a gulp of fear as on the ground where he had been stood a cavernous tunnel had now been cleared, and out of it rose a gigantic wurm that stared down at him with small and blind eyes indicating that it lived most of its life in an underground Sancturia habitat.

The wurm's mouth opened as more of its vast snaky body emerged from the hole it had burrowed, its skin like the rock of a desolate wasteland as its entire being was suffused with a hunger for violence and food that told Tybalt that this was no Summoning from the Order of Wealth. The mouth of the huge creature was gaping and cavernous, and out of the gaping maw of the wurm emerged a woman that walked on her Summoning's gravely tongue and paid no attention to the being's massive teeth that dripped with its saliva. If Tybalt had been observing the creature from a distance, he would have recalled that wurms were usually beings of Green mana, not that much was known about the Erian Conclave and the creatures that lived within their Deep Forest or its corresponding location within Sancturia, but right now he was only concerned by thoughts of survival.

The woman was wearing a gladiator's mask that concealed half of her face, and dirty orange hair fell down the other, almost hiding her eyes that were violet spheres. She was wearing the garb of a fighter from the Order of Violence, but somehow more refined than the other gladiator outfits that Tybalt had seen the rangy and lean members of that order which lived for the thrill of bloody combat clad themselves in, and while she was lean with muscle she gave off the impression that she fed very well.

She looked exactly like one would envision if they combined the Order of Gluttony with the Order of Violence, and Tybalt postulated that she may have been a member of the former before joining (or defecting to because the Hierarch didn't pretend to remember how the Orders of Passion worked) the latter, before removing the irrelevant trains of mental musing from his mind. Who she was did not matter, and why she was here also did not matter, all that did matter was that she was attacking Tybalt and trying to kill him which went against the seventy seven year old's current modus operandi of slaying the Master of Wealth who had probably recovered by now.

She jumped out of her wurm's mouth, giving it an affectionate pat on the nose (if that was what those two holes were) before drawing a large cleaver and advancing on the Hierarch, who noticed that the rocks around him were moving through the usage of geomancy and encircling round his wiry limbs as her wurm rose up and stared down at the trapped man as its tongue licked its huge and circular lips.

Tybalt gasped in shock as a familiar angelic figure lanced down from the sky, her face set in grim determination as her silver armour reflected her hated of all things associated with evil. The blade of steely retribution in the angel's hands sang as she plunged down from the sky, and rammed straight into the wurm's head as she landed atop it in an explosion of White mana that punched through the being's brain and had it thrashing before dissipating from the world. As if unconcerned by the death of her Summoning, the woman charged towards Tybalt with more haste and urgency than before as her rocky magic clamped down hard on his arms and legs with enough strength to leave painful bruises.

Another angel flashed into vision, this one far more familiar to the seventy seven year old as she shot towards the newly arrived Welkalite. Her staff was extended outwards, and Bruna flung it at the woman. It hit her around the waste, lifting her off her feet with the force of the impact as Tybalt's angel performed a short range and flickering teleportation to her sceptre, the Avacyn's Collar symbol topping the elegant and distinctive weapon holding the woman still as Bruna transported herself through the aether to it. She lifted the Welkalite off of the ground even further, and blasted a large beam of White through her staff that killed the almost random woman instantaneously as the cleansing mana eliminated her life force.

Bruna turned to Tybalt, the Light of Alabaster's face dripping with blood that almost made her seem haunting and terrifying (and reminding him very much of Caiellis when he had seen the boy after his most recent migraine) but instead emphasised her purity in the face of evil as well as making her look more grim. The angel hauled him out of the rubble, the touch forceful and firm but gentle and not causing Tybalt any pain as he silently thanked his angel, before turning to his other saviour who had killed the wurm.

Ophelia stared back, emotionless apart from her detestation of demons, though there was a glimmer of respect for Tybalt in her perfect and almond eyes that the man thought was entirely undeserved, though the fact that the Angel of Retribution was here confirmed that Lelia still lived and had recovered enough from her ordeal to Summon. The Guardian of Gol ascended the tunnel that the wurm had just emerged from as it burrowed through the tower, bowed her head towards Tybalt and holding two Lucaelian swords that she must have taken from one of her dead men in her hands that were slick with devil blood, suggesting that she had been attacked wherever she had been delivered to by the Hierarch's magic.

Tybalt returned the wordless thanks, before a voice that dripped with contempt and conceit which he had hoped to erase completely broke into his mind, "So you're still alive, mute? No matter. I'll enjoy killing you much more with my own bare hands this time around."  
Tybalt turned to Eras again, noting that Lelia was exhausted despite the fact she had saved him and knowing that the Angel of Retribution would not be able to last much longer with her Summoner's declining mana, and saw the Master of Wealth stood in the centre of the crumbling room next to a heavily breathing Severkarkyis, though all of the demon's wounds were reciprocated onto Tybalt's own heavily injured angel. Black mana surged around the boy, giving his golden eyes an exultant tint of deep darkness that made the Hierarch wary of him, and the boy extended his new claw towards the four loyal warriors of light as devils surged around him, more meteorites landing behind him and emptying its foul cargo of foes onto the pinnacle chamber.

"I am going to make you both pay so much for what you have done to me. I wonder how much pain it will take to break you and make you scream!" the boy shrieked, insanity suffusing every syllable of his sybaritic voice as he howled in pain and hatred at the Lucaelians and laughed at the roiling sky. Tybalt shook his head disapprovingly, knowing that Eras had completely lost all semblance of sanity but that it made him more powerful and that he must have bargained away significant portions of his life for more mana as it would not regenerate this fast otherwise. This was going to be a hard battle, but the Hierarch was determined to win it and rid the world of the blight of the Master of Wealth.

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Eras Stormwind: Archfiend of Depravity

Welkalites: Plated Geopede, Pitchburn Devils, Reckless Wurm

Tybalt Litria: Bruna, Light of Alabaster.


	36. A Hero's Death (Part II)

_As usual, I've managed to grossly underestimate the amount that I want to write with each chapter. This is the first part of what I planned to be Chapter 36, though I made the decision to split it into two (well technically three since it is part of A Hero's Death) since it was approaching 84,000 words in a single chapter and that was way too much even for me. So yeah, the conclusion to this one should be coming soon since I'm already nearly done with it. _

* * *

Marik's eyes snapped open once again, and before he even came to terms with the thoughts revolving round in his mind like a chaotic and disorderly hurricane of many different mental pathways he analysed his surroundings so that he could assess whether or not making a break for somewhere where there was a greater possibility of escaping. He was not disappointed at all when he found that he was sat on one of the wooden benches in the entrance hall to the Mind Realm that had become the bane of his existence for however long he had been trapped here. It seemed that escape was not a likely way for this to end, but the king knew that he should cause as much disruption as possible before being thrust into his memories once again because it might have some sort of effect if he was being controlled in reality – an awful prospect which would not bode well for Caiellis at all.

_Speaking of Caiellis, _Marik thought as the sudden realisation that he had made whilst reliving his recollection of the night before the murder of Emili hit him fully, revealing something that in his grief and sheer emotional pain he had missed and never thought about since.

_Caiellis … he predicted the death of Emili – his nightmare happened! How?! It cannot have just been a coincidence, because he described what would happen afterwards almost perfectly – his mother did die, and his father was whisked away from him by war and the need to avenge the loss of his wife. The demon that murdered my wife did have black eyes as he had said, and there were two of them with one much lesser than the other, also what happened in my youngest's nightmare. _

_How did … how did he know? How did he have a nightmare relating to almost exactly what was going to happen afterwards? _Marik was shocked, wishing that he had paid more attention to his youngest son instead of dismissing the _vision _he had had as nothing more than a child's bad dream, something to be soothed and comforted and subsequently forgotten about afterwards, but all that meant was that he should have stayed by his family as his children slept and Emili watched over them instead of going and planning for the civil war – as that could have waited. He should have kept his family close, but then, Marik knew that already, had told himself that a million times over in sleepless nights thinking about what he had lost when Emili had died and his brother had betrayed the kingdom.

What was more concerning however were Caiellis's powers of foresight which he had been told about now by his most recent flashback. Come to think of it, the had seen the signs of something like this before, and he already knew that his son had the ability to sense guilt through his power that turned his left eye into an orb of inky darkness. Before the negotiations at the Scholaria Magnus that had ended with the Lucerna princes abducted by the Welkalites and was the catalyst for the war that they were now fighting, Marik's youngest son had warned against going into the hall for reasons that the boy had been unable to describe to his father. This meant that the king had disregarded his son's concerns and put them off as simply being doubts about the diplomacy and the fact that he had been clearly exhausted from whatever lessons in magical and physical sparring had been taking place that Marik had whisked his youngest son out of and thrown him into a tenuous political situation instead.

Caiellis had brought that up in their first argument as well, which had made it all the harder to stomach that he had been right for the king who was furious over the wounding of his eldest son and the fact that his second child had been trapped in a dream realm and relatively unharmed whilst his brother was being drained dry of his blood and corrupted. However, now that Marik was actively looking for the signs of it, he vaguely remembered Drax Gloria of the Lucerna Guard telling Marik that before the monorail train with Caiellis and four of the praetorians on it had been attacked Caiellis had started acting strange and ordering the door to be opened so that he could look out with the magic that Marik had described earlier.

That meant that his son must have had some sort of premonition that had allowed him to predict the attack, but it did not tell Marik anything at all about his abilities, nor how powerful they were. More than likely they were a strange by product of his White and Black mana combined that allowed him to sense negative intent or the presence before it happened due to having the magic of darkness inside of him, not something that he could control to predict the future like some form of oracle.

He doubted that even Caiellis knew what his abilities in that respect were or how to manipulate them, his son probably simply feeling a familiar feeling that he could not articulate that warned him of impending violence. If only it had worked for when Marik attacked his son and had warned Caiellis about that so that he could have left – or perhaps it had, and perhaps Caiellis had simply not believed it to be true because of the fact that he was with someone that he should have been safe around. Or maybe it only worked against those that wielded demons as their Summonings or had chosen the darkness over the light, which the king had certainly not, so hadn't applied to the boy's father.

Nonetheless, it was still shocking, and after this battle if – _**when** – _they all survived and recovered from the horror of the war, Marik would make sure to ask his son about it in a way that would not make Caiellis feel uncomfortable or seem like some sort of pariah due to abilities given to him by his Black mana. It could be quite an asset in the future, that was for certain, as it had allowed him to ambush and flawlessly defeat the army of Garod Morr when the Fallen had been intending to surprise attack the train and would not have been noticed due to the Cover of Night without Caiellis's set of skills. However, Marik would have to ensure that he did not make Caiellis think he was some sort of freak or inadequate because of it, something that he had done very well at not succeeding at the past month.

"I'm glad to see that you have stopped trying to resist the progress of our tour into your psyche, Mariky-boy," the damned horror spoke, its sibilant voice a mixture of a purr of pleasure seeing the king in emotional pain and coming to term with his dire predicament and a hiss that told the man that any more attempts to escape would not be taken lightly, and the king turned to it as it sat on the same row as him, though too far out of range for him to attack. He glared at it, and it smiled, revealing the bleached white teeth of earlier that was set in a wide and incredibly smug grin that Marik sorely wished he could wipe off and return to consciousness to stop whatever the horror was doing to him.

Then it hit him. The "tour", this forced excursion into the forty year old's memories that was obviously implemented to distract him from what was truly happening and weaken his mind with thoughts of happiness as well as cause him pain as he came to terms again with what he had lost, was not finished. Panic suddenly surged through Marik's mind as he realised what was next, what was the logical destination of this journey into his remembrances, the next time he had seen Caiellis. The horror knew it too, judging by the way that it extended its head towards him and smiled in sadistic amusement, and Marik started to breathe heavily.

He knew that it would be much worse than his nightmares, because the fact that his dreams and unconscious psyche distorted the memories could have been said to make it worse but actually made it slightly better, as although it was terrifying and still showed him the same scenes and made him experience the emotions of utter powerlessness that he felt now and horror at the fate of his perfect wife, Marik somehow knew that plunging into a flashback of the events exactly as they had happened would be worse. There would be no distortions that made the events seem unrealistic; it would be presented to him in the cold truth of it that made Marik's broken heart scream in agony and emotional pain at the night that had ruined his life, ripped away safety and happiness and exposed the harsh and uncaring reality of the world.

"Don't look so down, Mariky-boy! This is just a natural development of our delving into your mind! You shouldn't be so scared of it!" the horror laughed, giggling wildly at the man's torment as it rush through his mind that was controlled by the being of the nether realm, meaning that Aksua's Summoning (which had not dissipated back into Sancturia as its Summoner was killed) could taste the pain that the king was feeling at the mere realisation of the next flashback they would enter. If this was how delicious his fear of the events was now, the horror definitely wanted to sample the absolute terror and sadness the man would experience as he was forced to re-enact his memories for a purpose that was currently unknown to the king.

"Please, no! Not that!" Marik didn't even realise he had shouted, his breaths becoming shorter and faster to the point where he was hyperventilating, the utter fright running through him at seeing the images which had remained with him through nine years of unrelenting war and ruined the lives of him and his children in gruesome and brutal detail once again. The horror grinned even wider at the king's pleading, which was a very pleasant surprise considering he had not once done that in the time that it had been inhabiting the man's mind and seeing through his eyes, not pleading for his youngest son to forgive him over strangling the whining brat and certainly not begging the horror to free him from the prison of his mind.

This was uncharacteristic of Marik, but it was expected of him considering the amount of self-loathing and sheer despair that the man felt over the fatal events of the fated night, especially considering the amount of nightmares that he had over it that had nothing to do with the horror, though the being enjoyed them anyway. It widened its mouth again, the smile splitting across its entire shadowy face as its black pits of eyes glinting with malevolence and sadism, and asked, "Why not, Mariky-boy? Surely you want to continue on with the progress of our expedition so that you can see what is happening to little Caiellis sooner?"

Marik growled at the being for a moment in pure anger and hatred at the mention of Caiellis, but even so he didn't want to experience those memories again. He also didn't want to have to see whatever was happening to his youngest son – he wanted to stop it, and the best way to do that would be to prevent his will to escape being trapped inside of the cage of his memories again, so to that end he leapt up from his seat, his mind filled with the desperate need to avoid what he knew was coming should he land himself in the horror's noxious clutches once again. The wood of the bench clattered down loudly as he pushed up off of it, about to sprint out of the hallway again, before the horror laughed.

It chuckled, mirthlessly and full of spite for Marik's pathetic family, and sent crashing and stabbing pains through the king's skull that had him falling to his knees and coughing up blood they were that full of destructive intent and that painful, before telling the king: "But Mariky-boy, you are already in my clutches! And I am sick and tired of your resistance!"  
A tendril of darkness possessing huge amounts of strength slammed into the side of Marik's head, sending him crashing across the room and smashing his head into the hard stone wall of the cathedral hall, though he knew that any damage inflicted to his mental representation would not carry over into reality and would not truly harm him. His vision began to fade, and he began to scream in terror, clawing at his face and surroundings and thrashing violently in the cold but humid and clammy embrace of the horror to try and escape.

_No … please not this … not again … please … I can't … I can't go through this again … _Marik's mental voice was growing progressively weaker and more and more like a child's, like his son's choked pleading as his father held him down on his bed and throttled the oxygen from his lungs, like Marik was a young boy once again pathetically begging his own father not to hurt him any more – though those pleas for mercy had always gone unheard and even earned him more punishment as Garius had disapproved of his Lucerna son asking him to stop. The analogies were not lost on Marik, who was deeply sorry for what he had done to his second son and wished that he had somehow located and banished the horror from his mind earlier, found more fault with his own uncharacteristically violent behaviour instead of blaming Caiellis's constant prodding and grating defiance combined with the stress of the war and the middle Lucerna's brush with death at the hands of the last vampire.

But now it was too late, too late for all of that, and all Marik had to do was ensure that his two sons survived to grow into Lucernas that would aid the Kingdom of Light and have their own families that would last much longer than the one that Marik and Emili had tried to create – though the king was going to make sure that the shadow of that perfect family that he had always pushed aside during the civil war and left mostly untended after it would be resurrected into something where at the very least his two sons would be happy. Right now, however, all he could think of was being forced into his most painful memory, and he battered at the clouds of darkness obscuring every sense that he had with all of his frantic might.

_Stop! I can't go through this again! I can't relive this! I can't! Please! _If the horror heard the desperate mental messages imploring it to stop that rose unbidden within Marik's mind, it gave no sign, though if the king had been able to think or use his mind which had frozen up in fear for his family, he would have known that the pleas would have fallen on deaf ears – no, not deaf ears, ears that enjoyed the pain that he was in, ears that found his emotional agony as delectable as the finest symphonies.

"Of course you can go through it again, Mariky-boy! You're a king! A Lucerna! You're supposed to be able to do anything! So why not make the most of this experience and enjoy the opportunity I am giving you!" the horror taunted, though its malicious voice was growing quieter to the king every second as his limbs began to be suffused with a numb feeling which signalled his descent into the past in spite of all of his desperate resistance. "Surely you want to see your wife again, Mariky-boy?!"

.*.*.*.

_The king nodded, his brow furrowed thoughtfully in a way that his sons had seemed to inherit only in a small amount, Alexander and Caiellis instead pulling the same deep thought expression that their intelligent and beautiful mother did. Marik regretted arguing with Emili before this, but the two had left each other on good terms as his wife put their little boys to bed once again, as the two had got up because the youngest Lucerna had had a nightmare and wandered into his parents shouting at each other._

_Nevertheless, a fond smile almost played over the king's serious features before he repressed it as he remembered what he had said to his smallest son and how the boy had reacted to it. It had been less than an hour ago, but it still felt to the thirty one year old that significantly more time had passed because of the extremely tense discussion that was taking place in the night, this unprecedented war council that was not formulating strategies for dealing with enemies outside of Lucael. There was still not enough information to ascertain the loyalties of different metropolises throughout the kingdom, or indeed if any of them had rebelled at all and the messengers had been giving false information, if they had somehow been corrupted by the abyss without any of the prominent mages in Capitalia Lux noticing to spread discord and damage the unity of the nation, but Marik would make do with what he had so that he could restore peace and order and put down any of those who had sided with the darkness._

_Around the table sat several important figures – there was the albino Guardian Axeclion and his apprentice Tristram to the right of king, and the twenty one year old had matured a significant amount (as well as developing a large amount of muscle that combined with his height which was an inch taller than the king's own impressive six foot seven frame made him look more suited for the role of Guardian if he did inherit it) in the past couple of years, and although he was ten years younger than Marik the man considered the apprentice of Axeclion a friend. He and the Guardian often spent time training the eight year old eldest son of the king and queen, and would make excellent combat mentors for Caiellis when he became old enough in two years or so to start as well. _

_It seemed like Tristram had undergone a complete transformation from a moody teenager (in his final teenage year) who resented authority and had a rebellious streak to a loyal but sometimes disobedient (one of the reasons why Marik liked him so much was the fact that he did not instantly accede to the wishes of a Lucerna simply because of their heritage) young man who would be a great asset to the Kingdom of Light in the future. Tristram met the king's gaze, sensing his scrutiny, and Marik inclined his head before turning to look at the others situated around the large wooden table in the large Lucerna palace strategium. _

_Dependable and loyal Carlis Montlea was sat on the other side of Tristram next to some of his captains who were not currently leading patrolling soldiers throughout the city, and Marik saw himself reflected in the slightly older man through the way that the general's eyes were tinted with parental concern for his own two children and fear for them should the rumours of a civil war prove to be true. _

_Venerable and wise Tybalt Litria sat on one of the wooden chairs emblazoned with the heraldry of the prestigious Lucerna family and the Kingdom of Light, insisting that he join the council session and that the age of sixty eight was not old. Marik wouldn't rather have anyone else here giving him advice on what to do than his mentor, one of the few people who had seen Marik for who he was when he had been a young prince instead of comparing him unfavourably to his twin brother, encouraging the slightly younger son of Garius II to develop his own skills such as reading and researching instead of just conforming to what his father wanted of him. The former Hierarch sat next to the current, Mithres wearing a sad smile as his eyes traced imaginary pathways across the map of Lucael in front of them._

_The twenty three year old was analytical and very intuitive as well as a great spiritual leader (in spite of Hierarch Incedian's doubts about the fact that a young man could be a Hierarch), and although he did not teach Marik's sons as much as Tybalt did due to the fact that his role made him much busier, he knew that the young man had built up a relatively strong bond with the boys – well, at least Caiellis, though his youngest was only four. _

_Marik opened his mouth to speak, about to explain the next part of his plan for bringing order and unity back to the Kingdom of Light, before a sudden and sick sense of horror wormed its way through his gut and he frowned. His eyes widened in surprise but also fear for his family when his sixth sense detected the fact that his wife was using her mana and that there was a suddenly large saturation of Black coming from the nursery. He didn't speak as he jumped up from his seat, urgency filling every molecule of his being as his mind began to process the implications of what he had just perceived. Words were unnecessary, they would only waste precious time, time that his family may not be able to afford. Shivers of genuine fear cascaded up and down Marik's spine as he picked up on the fact that his wife's mana was desperate and using the full extent of her power – and he only knew that because of how intimate he was with her, meaning that none of the others would realise - and his mind was alight with different, horrible possibilities of what could be happening in the nursery._

_Marik sprinted out of the room, his large strides pounding on the floor in tandem with the pounding of his heartbeat in his head, adrenaline prematurely rushing throughout his veins as his long legs carried him out of the strategium. Adrenalized blood mixed with anxiety and a determination to be there and protect his family pumped its way at a vastly increased rate through his bloodstream, and Marik paid no attention to his surroundings or what anyone else was doing as a certainty of purpose filled him. _

_He had just promised little Caiellis that he would protect his family, that he would not let his nightmare come to life and that they would be safe, and he would be _damned _if he let anything happen to them now. The relatively short journey from the strategium seemed to take aeons as every step somehow didn't decrease the distance between the king and the place where his young family was, where his wife and two sons could be in danger. Marik knew that there were two Lucerna praetorians stationed outside that he had selected for the task of guarding his family, but that did nothing to assuage him as he sprinted through the palace. An exhausted servant most probably at the end of his night shift wandered absently into Marik's path and the king shoved him hard out of the way, his desperation to ensure that his family was safe making the motion automatic as he rushed through the palace._

Emili … Alexander … Caiellis … hold on! I am coming! I will protect you, so just hold on! _Marik repeated the litany over and over in his head as with a mounting sensation of fear he sensed that the power of the Black mana was rising and the White belonging to Emili was being overwhelmed by it. He drew his sword, the massive Lucerna greatsword that he had barely used in combat reacting to the presence of enemies as Marik's protective mana ran through it, and the massive blade did not slow him down at all as he kept running through the corridors, cursing whoever had decided to make the palace so large and his own stupidity in abandoning his family and not listening to his wife protestations about going to Scientia Mos._

_If anything happened to them now, it would be his fault, there were no two ways about it, but Marik was determined to stop what was going on and brutally murder the danger to his infinite and immeasurably precious and perfect family that he would not let anything happen to for as long as he was alive. He rounded the corridor, his lungs on fire from the spring across the entirety of the palace though his mind did not let him rest or even take a breath as he crossed the short threshold to the door to the nursery._

Please do not be too late, please do not be too late, please do not be too late, please do not be too late, _were the endless words of worry and fear for his wife and two young sons who should have been safe within the protected Lucerna citadel as he got closer to the wooden door which was closed, and with the two guards that he had stationed outside of it gone. _

_Marik could stay silent no longer._

_He heard a scream of pain, a blood-curdling howl of agony and sorrow that could only have come from one person resounding through the hall and through Marik's mind, although it seemed to have been attempted to be suppressed by the owner, as if she didn't want to frighten anyone with it and simply wanted to be ignored._

"_EMILI!" he roared, the breathlessness that he felt not affecting him in any manner as every second seemed to stretch into days or even months as he rammed his body against the door, splintering it open and smashing it off of its hinges with his considerable bulk and strength as he charged into the room, hefting his sword. Time slowed to a crawl as he entered and took in the horrific scene presented to him, his heart leaping into his mouth as more horror and fear that he had ever felt before rushed out of his mind and infused his body with paralysis._

_Alexander was on the side of the room next to the beds which had been pushed together, the eight year old boy held still in the loathsome grip of some sort of foul monster with its hand over his mouth and nose, shadows pulsing into the boy's only places to access air as he laid still, his body slack in the clutches of the vile being with his eyes closed, though __clear__ tears still ran out of them and dripped over the leathery flesh of the one suffocating him. __Alexander was in very clear danger, and the angel-forsaken thing that was holding him was whispering words that Marik couldn't hear into his eldest son's ear, but time had stopped completely for the thirty one year old as he saw the worst things he ever had in his entire life. _

_The part of the boy's face that Marik could see was suffused with childhood __purity now that he was unconscious, __and although he was quite a large youth for his age of eight years he seemed incredibly small and fragile in the grip of the creature, but nowhere near as tiny or frail as his brother._

_Marik's gaze, which took in the entire scene but was only focussing on one thing at a time in a way that seemed to take years, though only milliseconds elapsed, swept across the room to his next child, Caiellis __swaying__ on his __thin__and small legs__ with his mouth open in a silent scream of pain as tears of a much larger quantity than the ones trickling out of his brother's closed eyes cascaded out of his wide and fearful green orbs._

_He had a large bruise on his cheek and a cut on his forehead that leaked blood down his face, the crimson liquid stark against the pale purity of his son's youthful and innocent features that should never have had to be contorted in such sadness and scarily enough, hatred, hatred that Marik had never seen from any of his family before. Caiellis was terrified, trembling with fear and with his little arms clutching his chest the large slice on his head, the blood running down his small fingers and coating them sticky and red as shadows pulsated around the room, distorting the light emitted by the niveous wisps into something far more sinister and malevolent. _

_The boy was choking out painful sobs __that encapsulated the sadness and utter terror he was feeling that no four year old should ever have to experience__, and the ominous Black Sun birthmark on his right cheek that was even more obvious with how ashen the four year old had become because of his fear and the loss of blood __pulsed with a riotous display __of __dark and malevolent__ purple light, __more than Marik had ever seen it before apart from his Angelic Descent, and the dark luminosity was reflected in his wide and terrified green orbs that were not looking over at Marik or Alexander but something across the room, and something that inspired such complete terror from Caiellis was something to be wary of._

_Marik looked over at the other side of the room, feeling like he had lived in this moment for years of his life whereas in reality less than a single second had past since he had burst open the door and entered. _

_And his heart died. _

"_Emili..." he gasped out, a pathetic, pleading and wheezing sound which carried none of the earlier determination of his shout of her name and that sounded strange to Marik. It was raw, broken, and full of emotion, and the king did not knew what it was until he realised it was the sound of his heart irreversibly shattering into a million pieces within his chest. _

_Tears sprung to his austere blue eyes which had not cried in years (apart from in happiness and joy) and then cascaded out much like what was happening to his youngest son as he beheld the awful sight of his wife that would be burned into his memory for as long as he lived. Grief froze Marik's mind, afflicted him with an unbreakable paralysis that ate at him from the inside, mingling with the guilt that drowned out his mind and forming a potent brew of negative emotions that held him still, though he knew at the back of his mind that he was too late._

Oh angels … Emili … Emili … Emili … why her … why? Emili … no ...

**EMILI!**

_His mind was swamped with a tsunami of sadness worse than he had ever experienced as he felt a physical part of him being torn to shreds by the sight he was presented with, and he felt so utterly helpless, so pathetic and useless as he gazed upon his stricken wife as his mind screamed at him to move, though those desperate urgings to help his sons who still needed his age were completely eclipsed and overpowered by the grief-stricken wailing inside of his skull that Marik had no idea whether he was screaming in real life or not, nor did he care._

_His wife was in the air, though her feet had stopped kicking back against the being that held her, the _demon _who had killed her. Emili was as beautiful and alluring as she had ever been, although that beauty was tainted by the trickle of crimson blood from the corner of her red lips dripping down her perfect face and the sadness and fear in her eyes. Her eyes were still alive, though only just and glazed over, as well as bloodshot, filled with none of the sharp intellect and wit that Marik had grown used to over the years and had always made Emili attractive to him and instead of twinkling with happiness and joy at life they only contained a faint glimmer of life left in them._

_Instead, those flawless and dazzling green orbs which the king could lose himself within for eternity were filled to the brim with sorrow and tears, as well as fear, though it was not any concern for herself. The king realised, in spite of the overwhelming surge of emotions running through him and tearing apart any semblance of logical thought that he could attempt to start, Emili was not scared for herself, but for her family. She was worried for her children who were in this situation with her, and terrified with the knowledge that the fact they were being attacked meant that young Alexander and Caiellis, her sons which were the most precious things in the entire universe to her, were definitely targets in the war and that Johnias (or whoever was commanding these beings, but Marik could clearly sense his brother's intent within them, albeit twisted by a corruption that he had never seen or predicted that it could have been within his twin before) had indeed sided with the darkness and wanted the throne from her husband._

_Her emerald orbs were filled with despair, not at her personal fate but at the fate of her family, as if she knew how much her death was going to tear apart the Lucerna family just as much as it was tearing apart and fracturing Marik's dying heart. She was sad that she would never be able to see her children grow up and help them through their lives as Lucerna princes, never be able to see them foster their own families and never be able to grow old with Marik. She would never see her grandchildren, or daughters in law, and the king could see that it hurt Emili far more than the horrendous and frightening wounds in her stomach did. Most of all, she was terrified for her sons and what her death would do to them or what would happen after she was cast out of the way, and her green eyes were welling with tears that Emili had clearly tried and admirably succeeded to keep from dripping out of them so that Caiellis would not be as worried, not that the boy was anything less than terrified and was having his own heart broken as well as the woman who he had formed a connection with ever since his premature birth died in front of his young eyes._

_Marik's eyes took in the slender form of his wife, and he felt bitter and acidic bile rising up from his stomach and making its way up his throat, spilling out of his lips and joining the tears rushing out of his eyes, as with a mounting sense of grief and despair he looked down and saw the wound that was killing Emili._

_Bone white claws stained with blood and virulent toxins that would be coursing through his wife's blood vessels were piercing through her dress and stomach and lifting her off her feet, dripping with Emili's blood as it _plinked_ onto the carpeted floor and forever stained the fabric crimson. The scarlet blood covered his wife, Caiellis's face as it mixed with his own (suggesting that it must have exploded out of Emili, though Marik's mind would not be able to process that), the floor, and the demon beast that was killing the queen in front of Marik's eyes. _

_The demon was a foul creature over seven and a half feet tall, with glinting and malicious pearls of midnight obsidian that were tinted by its enjoyment of the acts it was committing for eyes, and had large curling horns that arced back from its head, made from bones that was splattered with Emili's blood and exuded threatening intent. It had skin the colour of the deathly pallor of corpses, brown like the dead earth of the graves once dug within the kingdom before burning all but the Lucerna dead (or those that were noble enough to be buried in crypts or mausoleums that were warded) became customary in the reign of Queen Matrice so that necromancers could not reanimate her armies against her – prompted by the arrogant Emperor of Light who would turn her dead and his dead into more fuel for the "loyalist" armies._

_On one hand it had large claws that were rammed agonisingly through the queen's stomach, and with the other it stroked Emili's hair even as he killed her, though Marik's wife had long since stopped resisting anything that the demon was doing to her, her eyes showing that. However, the worst thing about the demon, the thing that made cold fury and grief begin to fill Marik's body as he gazed horrified upon it, was the inane predatory grin that the being of darkness which was about to ruin the king's unimprovable family, a wide smile of absolute sadistic and sick joy at the killing of the loving mother who had obviously tried to protect her young children that made more hatred than Marik had ever felt before begin to pour out of his mind, though it was quickly stopped by the implacable barrier of pure distress that was killing him on the inside and froze his body._

_The king felt more powerless than he had ever done before in his life – here he was, the king of fucking Lucael, and he couldn't even help the person that he had pledged to help in the time of her direst need, he couldn't do anything to stop the life from leaving his beautiful, loving, caring, considerate, intelligent, compassionate, enthusiastic, kind, perceptive, wife, his _perfect _wife, the woman who had entered his life and made it worth living, revitalised his entire existence and delivered two fantastic sons, all the while with that alluring and brilliant smile on her features and the thoughtful and happy twinkling to her emerald eyes._

"_Emili …" he gasped out again, choking on his misery and agony as he felt every single wound that was inflicted upon his undeserving and innocent wife multiplied a thousand times over within his head as he saw his perfect family shattering in front of his eyes, broken apart by his pathetic _traitor _of a twin brother who was obviously jealous of what his younger identical twin had achieved. Marik wished that it was him in the position that his wife was now; he would suffer that fate endlessly as long as it meant that his wife and sons could be safe and live happy lives and he would exchange places with Emili and embrace and eternity of torment without a moment's hesitation should it save her, Alexander and Caiellis. _

_It was his fault this was happening to her, if he had just listened, done what she had suggested and sent her and their two little boys to Scientia Mos on the newly constructed monorail line between the capital city and the City of Books, she wouldn't be here, lifted off of her feet by venomous talons piercing through her stomach and tearing apart her internal organs as one of her sons was held by another monster and the other one, too young to do anything to help her, cried uncontrollably in a flood of tears that cascaded out of his worthless father's eyes as well. _

_Emili had been reaching towards her youngest son, the boy heavily bleeding from a wound to his skull that must have been inflicted by one of the fiends dreamt up from the foulest nightmares and sobbing as the Black Sun emitted a light paradoxically darker than Marik had ever seen before. The slender hand of the queen almost reached her son, almost brushing against his cheek, and Marik knew that his wife would have been telling the convulsively whimpering Caiellis that everything would be alright, that he had nothing to worry about and that he shouldn't be concerned about her, until she had stopped speaking which could only have been moments ago._

I should have been there for them.

I should have been there to save her. I am her husband, these boys are my children, and together they are my family, and I failed them. I should have been there. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE TO SAVE EMILI'S LIFE! WHY WAS I NOT THERE?! WHY?! WHY?! Why … Why … Why did it have to be her …? Why couldn't it have been me? She doesn't deserve this … Emili didn't do anything wrong … Why did it have to be my family? It was perfect … everything was perfect … I'm sorry, Emili … Angels I'm so sorry … this is all my fault … It seems I was too worthless and pathetic and _stupid_ to stop anything from happening to her after all, Caiellis …

_Marik was in the grip of an unbreakable paralysis, immobilized by the emotions crashing through his whole body and wracking it with painful sobs similar to the ones that affected his youngest son twenty seven years his junior, and unable to move or do anything other than watch his wife die in front of his eyes, and though the moments took a perpetuity of torment and sorrow to end for Marik, only seconds passed in reality – three seconds since he had smashed the door off of its hinges and burst into the room. _

_The shadows of the room were becoming substantial, solidifying on the walls and wriggling, pulsating and throbbing like the veins of some sort of malignant being borne of the inner darkness, but the king could pay no attention to that, nor the plight of his sons, his eyes transfixed with the image of his wife bleeding to death and succumbing to the toxins that were travelling through her blood vessels, her flawless face full of melancholy and appearing extremely familiar to the statue of a mournful angel that Marik had once seen in one of the many rooms of the gigantic palace; within the vault in fact, the reliquary of powerful artefacts whereby the sword of Garius I had been stored until he took it as his weapon in his ascension to the throne as tradition dictated._

_Not that the powerful and ancient armament once wielded by his grandfather in his short few years on the throne and many Lucernas before that who did not favour a different weapon had stopped his wife from entering the plight that she was now in, not that the relic weapon said to bestow the user with immense strength, divine fortitude and an adamantine will had prevented Johnias allying with demons and turning on his younger brother in his apparent lust for power that Marik would not have believed was true only a few minutes ago but now knew was plainly obvious because he could sense his brother's malicious intent within the demon that was ripping Emili Noctis apart._

_Marik was frozen, and may have stayed like that forever as his mind simply failed to process what was going on, until Emili's outstretched hand fell limply and lifelessly by her side, only four seconds after Marik had entered the room, and she took her last breath. Her last act, even as she was in agony dying to the poison of the darkness and the claws impaling her through the lower abdomen, was to be attempting to comfort her sons, to assure them (though one wasn't conscious and couldn't hear her words) that they would be fine, and it belatedly occurred to Marik that the reason why it was Emili that was being killed was because she had been trying to protect her baby boys, giving her life for them as the demons had probably targeted the two Lucerna heirs in the first place because of their orders, and that as she was not of Lucerna heritage she wasn't important to Johnias's plans._

Emili … _Marik was snapped out of the immobility stricken state that he had been in ever since entering the nursery which had been the location of some of his happiest memories and would now be the place for the worse of them to be burned into his mind by a cackling laugh of hysterical enjoyment and bestial intent from the demon as the woman stabbed through the chest by its huge claws died. It giggled insanely, exposing its massively oversized teeth as it laughed, looking at Caiellis and __cackling with completely insane amusement at the death of the king's wife._

_Rage, and pure hatred, exploded out of Marik's mind at the fact that this bastard demon _dared _to laugh after what it had just done, and the man was suffused with a longing to rip apart this being of the deceitful shadows and agonisingly massacre every single piece of scum who had sided with Johnias, have them executed in the most painful manner and make them feel the pain that Emili had felt, that he was feeling now, the exterminate the darkness for what it had done to his family. _

_In the past, he could never understand what had made his father annihilate the entire Grafnican capital, as there must have been countless innocent civilians there who had not chosen to be born in that nation and had done nothing to wrong Lucael, but now he could fully empathise with the man, he could fully empathise with his coldness after the love of his life died and the need for revenge on those who had taken away Marik's grandfather and placed Garius junior on the throne at the young age of sixteen, because Marik wanted to murder every single person who had ever even been tempted to choose the side of the darkness, to raze to the ground every single city that dared to oppose the light of Lucael and took the blessings of the angels and the sacrifices of the soldiers for granted._

_He wanted nothing more than to march up to Johnias and kill him a billion times over in the most painful and brutal ways possible until he could understand what his fucking stupidity and petty envy had done to Marik's perfect wife, what his foolish ambition had caused, but even then that would not heal the hole that was forming within Marik's chest, the endless need for vengeance against the darkness for desecrating Emili and ripping apart his family that would never be satiated, not even when every inch of the stain of Black mana had been erased from the world, forming in the place where his heart had exploded into an endless number of unrepairable fragments._

_Garius II had once told him and Johnias, after beating them both to within an inch of their lives in spite of the fact that they had only been around ten years old, following Marik asking him why he did that to them, and why he never showed them any love like a father should, why all he cared about was war and not his sons, that he hoped neither of his sons would ever understand why he was like he was now. It had one been one of the rare displays of emotion from their austere and stony father, and in the back of his mind Marik had always thought that he was just trying to make excuses. Now he knew that long held belief of his that even persisted after the previous king's death was false. Now he understood. Now he _definitely _understood._

_The king was glad that in his paraplegia and inability to move he had not let go of his sword or let it clatter to the ground, instead holding onto the handle with a grip that would have broken bones had a human been subjected to it, the force of his fingers holding the blade tearing the skin from them he was holding the handle that hard in his despair, though now his mind was drowned __in anguish mixed with his hatred of everything that had conspired to hurt his family and had made his wife die, self-loathing directed at himself for being too weak, short-sighted and trusting of his brother to protect Emili, and the need for vengeance which he would begin indulging now._

"_Mummy … mummy … no … mummy …" Caiellis's broken and tormented voice broke into Marik's thoughts, only reaching Marik because of the amount of emotion infused into every anguished syllable that his youngest son who had just watched his amazing mother die before his eyes __as otherwise the cackling of the sick demon would have drowned it out due to its lack of volume. The words were sad, sadder than anything that Marik had ever heard before, and Marik would have had to fight to stop himself breaking down in tears because of his son's misery if they weren't already streaming out of his eyes, would have felt the need to comfort his son if Emili wasn't dying in front of them, would have been afflicted with severe heartache at any of his children being that sad if his heart hadn't already been destroyed._

"_Yes, you worthless Lucerna brat, your mummy is dead! And you couldn't do anything to stop it from happening!" the grinning demon taunted even as it shook Emili and stroked her pale face, a perfect face that could have been said to have been in some sort of meditative repose if not for the lines of blood trickling down from her blue-tinged lips and the sorrow for her family in her eyes tainting the image. _

_It was as if she knew that her death confirmed the worst: that Johnias had allied with the foulest of beings, and that the kingdom would now be plunged into a brutal civil war as her husband led their armies against those of his brother in his need for revenge because of what was happening to her now. She knew that her sons would have their father ripped away because of the war, just as their childhoods would be torn away from them as well because of the fact that they were valuable targets. She knew that Alexander and Caiellis would have to grow up even at their immensely young and tender ages, that they would be thrust unready into an uncaring reality as the darkness and those who chose evil besieged the creations of the light and the good, and that their lives within peace were over until Marik ended the threat._

_Marik was about to rush forwards and hack apart the demon who held his wife and had defiled her perfect form, __taunting his youngest son and seemingly obvious of the king's presence,__with his sword. However, his son was faster._

"_No … mummy … no … why mummy …?" he cried, the tears increasing in frequency as they surged down his cheeks, reacting with the ominous birthmark on his cheek in a blinding scintillation of incandescent darkness that rushed out of it and filled the room with the light of tenebrosity, and as Marik stepped forwards to end the foul being who was killing his wife (as he could still not accept that his Emili who was perfect in every shape and way was dead), the boy began to scream, "NO! MUMMY! MUMMY! MUMMY!"  
A gigantic surge of Black mana more potent than Marik had felt before even fighting against those who had traded their power for the gifts of the shadow rushed through the tiny and fragile form of his youngest son, the darkness surrounding him and bleeding out of the Black Sun on his pale and soft cheek. Caiellis's voice was suffused with shattered and raw emotion augmented to deafening proportions by the deep and otherworldly resonance running through the howl of emotional pain that no four year old should ever have to go through, that no _person _should ever have to go through, __and it resounded throughout the room as he kept screaming in anguish that Marik knew came from his heart. _

_It was a shout of pure and unadulterated hatred similar to what the king himself was feeling but somehow much darker and given form by his youngest's Black mana that he had been born with instead of choosing to obtain it through some sort of demonic bargain like Johnias must have done, and magnified by his magic, and the demon's black eyes opened wide in a mixture of shock and awe as the four year old who was small for his age flung out his short arm towards the one holding the body of his mum aloft._

_An explosion of purple and black flames that were overflowing with unrelenting hatred of the things that had stolen Caiellis's mummy from him and threatened his big brother erupted out of the boy's outstretched hand, the mana ridiculously powerful as the naturally huge mana pool of one with Lucerna blood was combined with the four year old's unstoppable emotions of pure and absolute loathing of the being that had murdered Emili in front of him as well as the one that threatened to do the same to Alexander but was currently not harming him._

_The black flames, pulsing with an inner purple light of haunting sadness that mixed with the hatred in a manifestation of the youngster's powerful feelings which gave him a much higher release of mana than most likely any four year old in the history of the kingdom since Matalis Ortus Lucerna __had ever been able to use, roared in a mournful song mixed with Caiellis's screams of despair and hatred as they rushed across the room, __bursting through the nursery and annihilating everything in its path towards the demon holding Emili. Some of the inferno of hatred split off from the rest of it, turning round and blossoming towards the monster holding Alexander, the beast raising the blissfully unconscious eight year old up by his shoulders and holding him like some sort of shield to protect itself from the purple-black fire. _

_Marik would liked to look over at his eldest son, to focus his eyes upon him so that he could ensure that the boy would be alright in the massive discharge of __ruinous__Black energy from his younger brother that was spreading all across the room where the two had been sleeping (and with Emili watching over them as she often did, sleeping in the chair that was across the room from them so that she could make sure that they were safe on the nights that she didn't desperately need sleep), but the thirty one year old could not tear his gaze away from the imaged of his wife held in the air on claws slick with her scarlet vitae._

_The flames started to consume everything, crashing over the demon that held Emili at a vast rate __and utterly destroying the being as it shrieked in agony that Marik would never have expected from a demonic being borne of the darkness, but the dark inferno of his son's hatred __was__ not of the same origin __as__ that __foul creature, as it came from inside the four year old instead of being a product of the accursed abyss. _

_The man didn't let that stop him. Nothing, _nothing,_ would stop him from getting to Emili, and the king marched straight into the fire with his sword held high and with no thoughts for his own safety in his mind.__ Marik instinctively raised his hands to protect himself from the sudden blaze of loathing that washed over everything in the room and drowned it all in malevolent black and haunting and mournful purple, __and he could vaguely hear his loyal soldiers and advisers who had been following him after he took off from the strategium without any words entering the room behind him._

_The demon's shrieks echoed throughout the room, blending with Caiellis's screams of anger, hatred and sadness and forming an evocative cacophony that would have stirred several emotions within Marik if he wasn't already under the sway of those feelings in a much greater intensity than anything but the death of one of his perfect family members could subject him to. The king lowered his hands but kept his sword hefted as the flames of his youngest son who had never even hurt a fly before in his short life because he was that gentle pulsed over his father and didn't harm him at all, covering him in darkness that restricted his sight and simply making him hear the sound of his baby boy crying in his ears that would have made him want to help if he didn't know that there was nothing to be done._

_He couldn't do anything to salvage Caiellis's emotional state, because he couldn't do anything to repair his own and __he wouldn't be able to interact with his child because it would remind him of Emili – and that was assuming that he would ever be able to recover from his wife's nearness to death enough that he would be able to talk. The thoughts fell away from Marik's mind as the demon who had rammed its claws through his wife's stomach screeched in agony that, despite its obvious potency, was nowhere near as painful as the heart-wrenching torment that Marik was being devoured by. _

_There was no heat from the fire, just hatred, and sadness mixed in with that, raw emotion that seethed through the air as it destroyed everything of the abyss that had stolen Caiellis's compassionate and understanding mother from him, __but there was no increase in temperature as Marik waded through the blaze of black flames._

Emili … Emili … _The flames faded, slowly, painfully, but when they receded there was no trace of either of the creatures of the darkness who had caused the thing that had murdered Marik's heart, though he was not yet ready to give up on his wife because she would do the same for him. All he could think of was the beautiful and selfless woman who had risked her life to protect her young sons and made Marik's existence worth living, elevated his life from the gutter it had been in __and lifted it into being something sublime and perfect, where every moment with her and his family became one that he would treasure forever within his mind, which was still reeling from the possibility that the creation of happy memories would be cut short, that no more happiness would ever come upon the world, that he would never see his wife smile at him again and bat her eyelids in a mixture of playful flirtation and dazzling beauty._

_The destructive inferno of sorrow and unadulterated hatred that Marik would have been immensely concerned about had it come from his son only minutes ago (as for one he couldn't think about Caiellis and secondly he understood very well where the four year old's grief was coming from), and though he hadn't even stopped as the fire had been roiling around him he picked up his pace now that he could see and sense anything past the pure emotional energy which had been released by his four year old son. _

_He knew that he should have helped Caiellis and Alexander, as with the death of the demons and the release of mana from his youngest son, both of the young boys were in the process of toppling over out of the corner of Marik's vision. But he couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't focus on anything other than the slender and petite form of his wife dumped unceremoniously on the ground. __He vaguely noticed two figures shooting towards his sons and catching them before they could fall and hit their heads on the ground, but the shapes were just a blur to the king's teary eyes, the only thing that was clear to him the centre of his vision as he half-sprinted, half-staggered towards the location where his wife had been before the explosion of Black._

Emili! _He saw his wife, laid on the ground with her glazed eyes looking up at the ceiling and her arms hanging limply by her sides, the dress she had been wearing stained crimson by her blood, and the king rushed towards her. __Her face was as perfect and beautiful as it always had been, untouched by the flames of dark annihilation __that her son had inadvertently used, though Marik knew that no matter how accidental Caiellis's release of power was and no matter how full of hatred that he didn't understand and grief that he shouldn't have to feel he was, the four year old would never hurt his family. _

I need to help her! I need to help her! I need to help her! _Marik dragged his slender wife, who seemed even more weightless than ever and even more fragile than he had ever seen her, into his arms, the tears streaming out of his eyes dripping onto the woman's face as Marik knelt down beside her, paying no attention to the clear liquid trickling down his ashen cheeks as he took Emili into his arms. The wound in her stomach was stark, bleeding, although the blood pouring out of it seemed to be leaking instead of pumped out of the _hole in my wife _by the beating of her gentle and caring heart that was stronger than any person that Marik had ever met before._

_She wasn't breathing! _SHE ISN'T BREATHING! _There was no pulse coming from his wife as the king held her, one of his bare hands gripping her waist whilst the other gently stroked the back of her neck, the king's face pressed close to that of his __faultless__ wife's, __close enough that the tears pouring out of his eyes __splashed onto her ashen cheeks and ran down them like they were her own. The king was distraught, he couldn't think, and when the world started going blurry, he knew that he couldn't breathe. His breaths came in short, sharp hitches that barely replenished his lung's screaming for air, and the world span around him as he clutched the unmoving form of his wife close._

Why … why did it have to be her?

Why Emili?

Why couldn't it have been me?

WHY?

_Marik started weeping, uncontrollable whimpers escaping his lips as his large body was wracked with painful sobs that sent trembling shudders through the sylphlike body of his wife. He scrunched his eyes closed, desperately wishing that this was all just as dream, that he would wake up soon to the concerned but brilliant smile of his soul mate and the excited happiness of his young children bouncing on the bed with him, but after a few seconds he reopened them, knowing that despite all that he wanted this was real. _

_And it was his fault. _

_It was his fault that Emili had been in the palace in spite of all of her intelligent warnings, it was his fault that his family had been attacked without the worthless and good-for-nothing eldest and physically strongest of them was out trying to solve a rebellion that he should have seen coming instead of being with his wife and sons, and it was his fault that she was dying now because he hadn't been fast enough; he hadn't been trusting enough; he hadn't been strong enough. And instead of him lying here, with a massive hole in his stomach and bleeding to death, it was his wife who had suffered for her husband's mistakes._

All I had to do was listen to her … but I couldn't even do that … my father was always right … I am a failure … I could never do anything. Emili showed me life and love to the fullest, gave birth to our two amazing sons, and in return, to repay the affection and devotion she showed me and them I failed her in every conceivable way …

"_NO! EMILI! EMILI! NO! NO! NO!" Marik howled, gasping and screaming out the words as he swallowed the bitter truth of the matter, swallowed the realisation of his wife's death, just as he felt White mana surging through him. An angelic presence that didn't do anything to assuage Marik or help his wife Summoned itself unbidden to the king's side, and while at every other point in his life the king had been awed by the Angel of Wrath he could think of nothing else but his heavenly partner who was unrivalled in beauty or kindness. Life without the sharp wit, joyful intellect, enthusiastic happiness and the utter love of his wife would be cold and dull, monotonous and sad, and Marik didn't want to have to live like that._

_He didn't want to have to live without Emili, he couldn't live without Emili. She was a part of him just as much as his arms and legs were, if not infinitely moreso. She was his heart, and it couldn't keep beating on without her._

No … I can't give up on her! She can't die like this! She can't! I won't let her die! I can do that much for her, at least! Please don't let her die! _Marik frantically scrabbled for some mana within his mind, but unlike his son's Black magic which reacted to his hatred his sadness did nothing for the magic of light, until his mind began to be filled with a protective instinct that he had always felt as a partner and as a husband to this beautiful woman who he couldn't fail now. _

_Golden light bloomed from his fingertips, bouncing around as it sparkled with the magic of healing that Marik was not adept with at all being a Lucerna trained for war, not in the art of repairing others, but all White mana users could at least learn some healing spells and the king's mana pool was that vast (especially with Akroma Summoning herself beside him as if in reaction to his emotions) that it must do something. The king __charged his wife with huge amounts of mana that would surely save her life, surely repair the hole in her chest just as doing so would repair the hole in Marik's chest where his heart had once been, and his tears began to turn shining with the amount of mana that he was outputting as he dragged all of it up from within him and placed it inside of his wife, leaving no drop of magic unused as the air around him began to be saturated with desperate White mana and a golden aura surrounded the king, but not Emili in his arms._

"_NO! YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME! PLEASE, EMILI! WAKE UP! __I NEED YOU!__ PLEASE! I'm so … I'm so sorry I sh-should have listened to you … please …" Marik released more healing mana into his wife, but she remained still, resting in his arms like some of the nights where he had carried an exhausted Emili to bed after she fell asleep at her work desk, but instead of the woman murmuring softly in her sleep and tossing in Marik's arms, her warm breath on his cheek as he held her to his chest, there was no movement, no sound, no breathing, and the only thing coming out of his wife was more blood._

_The king turned his gaze towards Akroma, the light surrounding the angel scintillating upon the tears in his eyes and distorting the sight of the large seraph, and frustration borne from his sheer grief burst through his mind. _

"_HELP ME! HELP ME WITH HER! WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE! HELP ME!" Marik screamed at the unflinching and emotionless Angel of Wrath, though the thirty one year old could not see her expression or eyes due to the tears pouring out of his own, and he howled in misery and anguish at his useless Summoning, his voice becoming broken and raw with unrestrained distress that reflected his inner desolation, "Please … Akroma … help me … help _her _… please … you can't let her die … __You have to help me …__ PLEASE! DO SOMETHING!" _

_H__is words rose to a desperate __cry, a plea for aid, even though Marik knew at the back of his mind that his First Sisterhood angel was just as much of a healer as he was and that she could not bring back the dead. __He was simply targeting his frustration, his utter helplessness, at the personification of angelic __divinity__ and __salvation stood next to him who could do no more to help Emili than he could. Marik knew it was because he couldn't countenance the light of his life being dead, that he couldn't process not ever seeing her again because he knew that it was his fault that this had happened. He had promised his family that he would make sure that no harm ever came to them, but he had failed them and now the mother of his children was dead._

No … she can't be dead … she has to be alive … I can't live without her … Emili … Emili … Live, please!

"_EMILI! COME BACK! PLEASE! I'M SORRY! PLEASE, EMILI!" the man screamed at the corpse of his wife, hugging her close and pressing his face into hers, trying to breath for her and hoping that she would start again as the tears streamed down his pale cheeks, but it was a hopeless endeavour. He could feel the shadows twisting around him, and he could feel the stares of those who had entered the room with him as they gave the monarch a wide and respectful berth, but he didn't care. All he could care about was his wife, who wasn't breathing, whose heart wasn't beating as she laid, still as a fallen goddess, in his arms, the lustre of her green eyes which were as deep as the Yentarian oceans faded and dim as she stared up at the ceiling,_

"_EMILI! NOOOO! EMILI! DON'T DIE! YOU CAN'T GO! YOU CAN'T LEAVE US! YOU CAN'T US!" Marik howled at the uncaring world, raising his head up and letting his anguished voice out in a mixture of a vengeful roar and a desperate, imploring plea to the heavens above to spare his wife from the cold embrace of death. He would do anything, _anything,_ just to hear her talk again, just to feel her slender and comforting but strong hands on his once more and to be able to have her rest on him as they talked and showed each other affection. He wanted to see her interacting with their children as the perfect mum, he wanted her to smile alluringly at him as she once again beat him at a game of cards, and he wanted to feel her lips on his as they shared moments of the most passionate and affectionate intimacy. _

_He couldn't bear to live in a world without her, but no matter how much mana he poured into his wife, she wouldn't come back to him, her heart wouldn't start beating again and her stomach wouldn't repair itself, the damage to her internal organs too great and the healing started too late. Marik screamed his hatred of the world where Emili would be taken away from him, howling at the cold reality of her death and the fact that he could never be whole again without her, not concerned one bit by the fact that this was exactly how a Lucerna king wasn't supposed to act, and that he should be organising parties to hunt down Johnias now and bring the perpetrators of this awful act to justice._

_He screamed and screamed and screamed until his voice died and his throat was raw, but even then he choked out sobs and howled his sore defiance of his wife's fate at the roof of the nursery. He didn't stop, even when all that was coming out were rasping whimpers of pure emotion._

Emili … I need you … please forgive me … I need you in my life … I can't … I can't go on without you … I'm so sorry … I'm so sorry … I should have been there for you … like you always have been for me … _If Akroma wasn't already stood by the king's side (although she wasn't offering any comfort, nor was she actually doing anything), Marik wasn't sure whether not he would consider partaking in some sort of infernal exchange so that his wife could remain in the world while he died and his delicious Lucerna soul was picked apart by demons, as while he was supposed to be the king and supposed to be a paragon of noble virtue that spat in the face of the darkness, he was above nothing to bring his wife back. Even if they couldn't be together, even if he died through the bargain, he wouldn't care, simply knowing that Emili would be alive to be with their children was enough._

_No. It was the darkness that had ripped his beloved wife away from him, which meant that no matter how hard he tried the darkness would never let him have his wife back. Marik knew that, and knew that that meant there was only one other option that would allow him to be with her – to join Emili in death._

_It was incredibly tempting. All Marik would have to do would be to plunge onto the large sword he had dropped in favour of holding the unbreathing form of the queen, and there was a possibility that he would join Emili in her ascent to the highest heavens, the most perfect of paradises, where her soul belonged. There was a chance that he would be able to spend an eternity with her by taking his own life, and he didn't care at all that suicide was heavily frowned by all for being a coward's way out and that most thought that those who ended their own lives would be giving up on the salvation given to them by the angels, __giving up on their celestial idyll._

_However, he knew that he could not do that, no matter how much he wanted to do now. It was strange, because even after all his words of what he and his wife wanted coming before his duty as a Lucerna, it was that which bound him to this life. That, and his two young sons, who needed a father to help them through this crisis, although Marik knew without a shadow of a doubt that without Emili he would be a completely inadequate parent. Additionally, selfishly ending himself now would mean that one of his two sons would inherit the throne and become king at the ages of four or eight, which would be disastrous for the Kingdom of Light and his little boys. No child needed that amount of pressure at such a tender age. _

_Besides, if he killed himself now then he wouldn't ever be able to avenge Emili, he wouldn't be able to obtain vengeance for her brutal member and exact payment from the forces of the traitors for what they had done. The fact that Marik came to the realisation that he needed to keep living, for the good of the kingdom and his sons if not for himself, didn't reinforce his emotional state, in fact it hurt it even more, because he knew that he would have to wait to see his beautiful wife again and that she would be lonely in afterlife._

_Marik sobbed, holding the unmoving woman who had given him everything and died protecting the sons that she loved more than anything else in the world close, and he stopped screaming – although what had been coming out of his raw throat could no longer be considered as howl. He wished that he could turn back time, listen to his wife and take them to Scientia Mos, or stayed with his family and let others do the strategizing, but it was too late now, and it was his fault that his sons would grow up without their loving, supportive, __doting and understanding mother._

"_Please, Emili. Don't leave. Don't leave me. I love you, so, so much. I can't," his voice broke, and the king was once again wracked with violent sobs that made him feel like his entire body was being ripped inside out and that all of his undiluted emotion was being pulled to the fore. He could barely string a sentence together in his grief and misery, __the words lost within the endless crying that he thought he had stopped when he had stopped being younger than three years old. "I can't go on without you."_

_He whispered to his wife like she was sleeping and he didn't want to disturb her, and stared down at the pale face of Emili. Marik gently brushed the hair from out of her eyes like he had done so many times before; at first it had irritated his then girlfriend, who had told him that the next time he did it she would chop off his hand and that she was quite capable of dealing with her hair herself, but she had grown to love it and sometimes before their children had been born Marik had been certain that Emili had deliberately managed to get it into her eyes so that her partner would have the temptation to move it out._

_The king shuddered, his trembling passed on to Emili and making it seem like she was moving, and cried, cried at his utter failure to protect her. He didn't deserve to be the one living now out of the two, he didn't _want _to be the one living any more in a world without Emili Noctis, but his tears would change nothing. Marik rocked the still body of his wife in his arms, feeling like the whole world was going to collapse inwards of him as the woman who had made him feel wanted and loved lay silently, the life that had been filling her with energy gone. _

_Despite the fact that his maddened screaming had stopped, Marik was no better, and he blubbered apologies to his wife, though they were made without any coherent words __as he couldn't force his lips to move in the right way._

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! This can't be happening … I can't give up on her … she wouldn't give up on me … I'm so sorry Emili … please, please forgive me and come back … you have so much more life to live …

_In spite of Marik's wailing mind voice, the king fell silent in reality and gently rocked his wife, _

_Eventually, as he felt the malicious Black mana of the perpetual night increasing in intensity in the air around him and suffusing the nursery in its malevolent darkness, the man slowly started to fall still. He simply knelt, holding his wife in his arms and to his chest as the others watched out for potential enemies whilst some could not tear their gaze from the king and his dead queen. __No one disturbed him as he gazed upon the pale face of Emili, wiping the blood away from her lips so that she could be perfect in his embrace once again, and shutting her __eyes so that he would no longer have to gaze upon their faded lustre __and so that her soul could be at peace._

_He didn't say anything, didn't say goodbye or say a prayer for her soul because right now he couldn't imagine life without her, and praying for her spirit would mean that he had simply accepted her death and hadn't fought enough for her, no matter that his healing was not strong enough to bring her back from the dead. Marik would later, if this wasn't just a horrible, horrible nightmare, when he could force the words out of his mouth and stem the tears that cascaded down his face, because it was his duty as a widowed husband to __bless her soul and help it into the afterlife through his prayers and love. But right now he could not do that, could do nothing more than stare at his beautiful wife and hope beyond any logical hope, hope more than he had hoped for anything in the world, that she would open her arms and he could do something for her._

_It was the sheer worthlessness and helplessness that he felt that was killing him (as well as Emili not breathing), the fact that he had been able to nothing for the one who had done so much for him and could do nothing for her now. Marik knew that when he had entered the room Emili had already been almost dead and that nothing he could have done would have saved her, but it didn't stop him from hating himself because he hadn't reacted instantly. __However, that wasn't the greatest cause of self-loathing within the man at this moment in time, the fact that he had abandoned his family was._

"_Emili …" he whispered to his wife, as if afraid that increasing the volume of his wounds would cause the hole in his chest to open up and swallow him within its grief filled depths, __or that speaking loudly would confirm that this was real. He imagined his wife sleeping, tossing and mumbling adorably in a way that little Caiellis had picked up on, but instead of the steady and comforting rhythm of his wife's breathing there was nothing, and instead of occasional movements she laid perfectly still, only shaking slightly because of her husband's trembling._

_She was so, so beautiful, perfect in every conceivable manner, and the ones who had taken her away from Marik and the children she had risked her life to give birth to (as the non-Lucerna mothers of Lucerna children often had a greater risk of dying after the births after their mana was drained (whereas a Lucerna mother would be exhausted for a few days and then recover completely)) were going to pay in blood. They were going to pay for what they had done to her, Marik would make sure of that, and when he was finished with the scum who had betrayed the kingdom the loyalty to the Lucerna cause and Lucael would be much greater because the people would learn exactly what the king could do to those who wronged him and his family._

_The king could hear the hushed tones of his advisers, none of them willing to break the mournful silence that had descended in the room that would be forever remembered as the location of Emili Noctis's death but needing to because of the intensification of the darkness that meant more enemies would be coming into the room. Marik couldn't hear the words past the screaming in his skull, nor did he really care what they had been saying. All he needed now was to hold his wife close, to have her next to him. Well, he needed her to start breathing and come back to life so that he could help her and have her live, but no matter how much Marik wanted to deny it that wasn't going to happen._

Emili … she's dead … what am I going to do without her? How am I supposed to live without her? _Marik realised then what he had to do. He had to wipe the stain of the traitors off the face of the Kingdom of Light, restore order to the kingdom, and ensure that his sons would be suitable heirs to the throne. Then, he could claim his rest and be with his wife again, once he solved the problems that he should have seen so that his and Emili's descendants could take over from where he had failed them and lead the Kingdom of Light into a glorious future._

_Marik's tears began to dry up, and a change overcame the king. No more was sadness flowing freely through his limbs, it was channelled into a weapon, his grief moulded into a sword that he would pierce into the heart of his murderous twin brother, __and given power by his hatred of those who had killed the most kind and caring woman on the planet. He sat still, and though he could not stop his frightened trembling because of what had happened to Emili and the fact that he was extremely scared for her sake, the intensity of the shaking decreased. He shut his eyes, and leaned down towards his wife, the smell of her copper blood mixed with the aromatic fragrance of the perfume that the king had bought his wife recently because he knew that it was her favourite type; it was the one that Emili had habitually worn and would still wear if not for the stupidity and folly of her good for nothing husband. _

_Thirty one was too young, she would miss out on too much, and it was all Marik's fault, and the fault of the ones who would rather have themselves ruling the kingdom despite not been chosen by the divine Death Vision of the last king. He would make them regret that, and he would hate himself for the rest of his life over what he could not do for Emili, the woman who had given everything for him and her two sons._

_Marik's lips met Emili's for the last time. They were cold, and dead, but the king didn't care. It was strange, kissing her lips without the recipient reacting, although Marik still wanted to hold onto the moment as long as possible, infusing mana into the kiss in the vain hope that it would help, because he knew that the second he let go of his wife and left the kiss he would be finally admitting that she was dead and that there was nothing he could do. Time seemed to stop, and the king couldn't prevent several tears slipping from his eyes and running down the peaceful face of Emili. He left the kiss on the lips, not wanting to force himself into his wife's mouth because of habit and the fact that she was dead._

_The words of the other Lucaelians were louder now, more panicked, but Marik couldn't hear them and to him everything was silent. Everything apart from the two voices in his head, two voices that he welcomed – __one spitting condemnations and damnations at the king that he embraced with opens arms because he deserved them, and the other spoke of his vengeance against Johnias, the need to avenge his wife which would in some small manner atone for his crimes against her (his failure to protect her), though it would never absolve him. _

"_Emili. I am sorry," he broke off the kiss, murmuring the words softly and infusing them with all of the despair and sorrow he felt at this member of his life and family leaving him, and though he did not say the next words they were no less heartfelt._

And you will be avenged.

_Slowly, the king stood, shaking with rage and grief, and carrying his wife in his arms. He did not want to let go, did not want to leave her, but the eldest loyal Lucerna knew that he would not be able to fight with her in his arms, and that the muted cries he could hear from other places in the palace and the loud clanging of bells outside meant that the citadel, and by extension Capitalia Lux, was besieged. Marik gently placed her on the ground where she had been laid, almost reverently smoothing out the creases and folds in the dress that matched her perfectly, and kissed her on the forehead like he was only placing her into her bed after he had carried her there. If only she was just asleep … _

_He shut his eyes again, forcing the tears to return back into their cage, and focussed on combining his grief with the need for vengeance that was taking the empty space where his heart had once been. It was running through his veins like blood now, renewing the purpose within him, and providing sustenance for his emotionally ravaged form. The primal desire to murder those who had caused this to happen to his wife coursed through his body, and he fed upon it, using it to augment his mana to the point where it was bleeding out of him._

_The king opened his eyes, and heard a muted gasp from to the side of him. Tristram gazed in horror and fear upon the king, feeling more scared than he ever had in his twenty one years of life as he instinctively held the unconscious and weightless form of the youngest prince closer, (his master Guardian Axeclion holding Alexander in his arms by his side) a protective instinct for the two Lucerna brothers rising up within him, though he could not sensed it as it was drowned underneath his terror and sadness. _

_He had not known Emili too well, but he had always admired her (and secretly been attracted to her when he had been younger and less mature than he was now) as the queen and the strong supporter of Marik that she was. She had radiated life, beauty, and a motherly resonance for her two sons (though that did not make her seem any older or less attractive), and Tristram knew instinctually that she would have been the perfect wife and the perfect mother to the princes just by looking at her. _

_It had hit him extremely hard to see what he had done when he had entered the room after Marik, and he was shocked by the sheer release of power from little Caiellis whom he now held protectively but carefully in his burly embrace, but what was more terrifying than anything he had ever seen was the look in the king's eyes now. The fire, the utter _hatred,_ in those piercing blue orbs that the Guardian in training could not tear his eyes away from, would remain for him the rest of his life, and the fact that such potent emotions were being conducted through a Lucerna monarch who had Summoned meant that they were amplified to absurd levels and had the young man quaking in his boots._

_It was awe inspiring, but also terrifying as it told Tristram that the Lucerna family and the king would not let this tragedy and betrayal go unanswered, though it also spoke of how the friendly, loving and kind father that Marik had been had been ripped apart like the body of his wife and replaced with a vengeful king that would stop at nothing to bring those responsible for this heinous crime to justice at the end of his massive sword._

_The Guardian in training held the exhausted and unconscious body of the youngest prince in his left arm, making sure that he would be safe and with his axe held loosely in his right, glad that the boy was so small and young so that he could keep a hold on his weapon. The king did not turn around, and hefted his sword as the shadows began roiling and wriggling in a much greater vigour than before like the darkened walls were coming to life and they were inside of the pulsating organs of a gigantic monster. _

_Tristram, stifled a gasp as several holes were beginning to be ripped from the reality located within the burning nursery, the flickering wisps which had been controlling the small fire that had been lit destroyed by a combination of Caiellis's release of annihilating flames and the Black magic of the new invaders of the capital city (judging by the warning bells ringing all across the city which signalled an attack), sending normal flames that collected shadows from the roiling mass of raw mana (instead of dispelling the darkness) scattering across the whole room and setting everything on fire. He automatically held Caiellis, closer, hoping that the smoke that was rising up out of the burning room that no one was concerned by wouldn't get into the youngster's lungs, although the boy already had a large bleeding scrape on the side of his head that the twenty one year old couldn't deal with with only one arm that was already occupied with holding the lad. _

_However, for all that he wanted to whisk the tiny four year old away from the horror that had happened within the room that had supposed to be a peaceful sleeping location and a place to have fun, the young Lucaelian didn't dare to leave the king's side in this time of immense peril (having had it ingrained into him through his training and upbringing that the Lucerna family was the most important thing in the Kingdom of Light and that he should protect it above all else, which included the king), he didn't want to be seen running from enemies no matter that it would be in the intentions to help the unconscious Lucerna heir easily held with one arm, and finally he didn't have the courage to take one of Marik's sons away from him right now in the state that he was in, because it was entirely possible that after eliminating the foes that threatened them in close proximity the monarch would want to see his sons and ensure that they were safe._

_Ripping away two other members (as Tristram would have to ask his mentor and master Guardian Axeclion whether or not to leave, since he knew at the core of his being that Caiellis and Alexander needed to stay with each other) of the man's family under the pretence of keeping them self could end him or drive him into massive panic, and if either of the two boys woke up there would be confusion and fear because of their memories and not being with their father. No, for now Tristram would keep little Caiellis safe and ward off enemies with his axe without launching himself into the fray, and kept a wary and watchful eye on the enemies that were just now ripping themselves out of the unnatural holes in the walls._

_The loathsome stink of the forbidden and evil abyss was everywhere, permeating the room and overwhelming the smell of family that infused this nursery in particular and the reassuring and encouraging background aura of the Lucerna palace that instilled the minds of everyone within it with respect and solemn admiration for the ancestors of the courageous and revered Lucerna family which had obtained the blessings of the most powerful of the benevolent angels of the heavens, and inspiring feeling that motivated all who stood within it to serve the bloodline who had elevated their kingdom to the safe place that it was now and had ruled it with their brilliant minds and determination to protect the people._

_The stench of the darkness which resonated much more in the king's metaphysical sixth sense simply reminded him of the deep rooted hatred of all things that were formed from Black mana (well, all things apart from one that he loved more than anything else apart from the rest of his family, but that was not the same – that was darkness, but not corruption like this) which had risen to the surface with his wife's death. He would see to Emili's body later and ensure that it was in the perfect condition, but right now he had enemies to slay and his entire being ached with the need to remove their stain from this place, to expunge the desecration that they had caused by entering the room in which his wife had died._

_Large talons pierced through the walls of physical substance, widening the holes that tore apart the barriers between the mortal and physical world and the abyss of Sancturia, and writhing tendrils of solid blackness pushed themselves out of the intensifying darkness of the walls of the room. The gloom shrouded everything until each Lucaelian activated their mana and let it swirl around them, creating pinpricks of light in the almost overwhelming dark that threatened to be snuffed out at any moment. Chittering whispers of dark desires mingled with atavistic howls of pure hatred of the light combined with deep and threatening growls and echoed across the room, sounding unnervingly close to each of the ears of the occupants, although those who had fought against the forces of the shadow before were accustomed to the technique designed to dishearten and demoralise those subjected to it, though there was little chance of that happening to the elite warriors here._

_While even those with powerful mana pools within them were only like flickering candles in the eternal night, the king and his exalted Angel and Wrath were like a blazing beacon of light that repelled the darkness. Marik glowered, his eyes shining with a wrathful light that almost matched that coming from the Angel of Wrath stood next to him, at the demonic denizens of the nether realm that dragged themselves out of the tears in the physical substance of the room, snarling and snapping at the king with distended jaws as they were goaded out by several smaller but no less terrifying demons that wielded huge chain whips which they used to goad the other beings of the darkness into the room._

_The nursery swelled, the amount of enemies pressing against the thin walls between the material plane and the dark realms of Sancturia causing the entire substance of the room to become bloated, far more creatures dragging themselves into the room which had been the location of Emili's death than it should have been able to fit, the hellish warping abilities of the abyss which seemed to make it massive and endless and had always made travelling outside of the protection of the cities extremely dangerous now deforming and contorting the dimensions of the nursery so that the sheer volume of creatures formed from malicious Black mana could enter and attack the soldiers._

_They smiled at the king malevolently, fully aware of the pain that their brethren who had somehow infiltrated the palace without anyone noticing (although the fact that there was nothing to be seen of the two bodyguards that Marik had assigned to protect his family suggested some form of shape-shifting magic) had caused the hated Lucerna king and his children, and their eyes glinted with the same sadistic gleam that the demon who had ripped a hole in Emili's stomach and killed the most beautiful and kind woman on the planet had been filled by._

_The fact that these demons had arrived after the others suggested to the king that the ones who had murdered his wife in cold blood had been providing some sort of pernicious beacon that would allow their foul brethren to erode the barriers between their foul residence and the inviolate and holy palace which would normally be anathema to their presence. They seemed to have been released to complete what their two fallen comrades had started in the attack on Marik's family orchestrated by that bastard who dared to call himself the king's brother must have planned out for quite a while, as his victorious arrogance at killing Emili was carried over in these demonic servants of his. Emili had never truly been a target, and it reminded the king of what his wife had said before he had done the most stupid thing in his entire life and left her – that Alexander and Caiellis would be targets of Johnias and the rebels if they sought to obtain the holy throne and rule over the Kingdom of Light, as merely killing the current reigning monarch would cause one of his young sons to inherit the throne instead, although before this night Marik would never have thought that his older twin brother would ever target his sons and would simply take the throne by force or use the one who gained the crown to further his own agendas._

_However, that was irrelevant, and so was however the creatures of the pit had got here. The fact was that the spawn of the darkness was here, that the demons wanted his sons, and Marik would not allow that to happen – not would he allow Emili's death to go unavenged, and these foul beings would be the first in a long line of those who would atone for the murder of the queen and the defilement of the sanctity of the palace and Marik's family. The king had already almost died from seeing his wife death, and would grieve for her as long as he lived, but he would not let the woman's legacy, their treasured sons, be taken from him by the envy of his brother as well._

_Reality buckled and thrashed around the king, although the area around him and his First Sisterhood angel remained unaffected and solid, like the holy power of Akroma mixed with Marik's Lucerna gifts kept the stability of the palace around him. Marik sighted the enemies, his warriors taking their places up beside him as the ones holding his sons were surrounded by their other comrades in a protective cordon guarding the two unconscious princes, though all of the Lucaelians in the room stayed silent and continued to give their exalted king a wide berth. There was a huge amount of them, though no one else in the room Summoned yet, all trusting in the divine power of the Angel of Wrath who was just as terrifying as the king at the moment because of something none of them yet knew but Akroma had sensed._

_Their numbers were vast, but Marik did not care. With a primal and raw battle cry on his lips that howled out of his sore throat, the king leapt into the fray, an explosion of holy light obliterating enemies left and right as they screeched in pain and dissolved, the fact that Sancturia was so close to the real world meaning that the spawn of the shadows would die permanent deaths if killed instead of simply returning into the other realm, banished from whence they came. Akroma launched herself into some form of horror creature made up of gloom and murk and with several huge claws that pierced out through its flesh._

_The physical Blade of Wrath, shining with the same celestial intensity of blinding incandescence as the birthmark on Marik's bare neck, crashed into the monstrosity borne from psychotic nightmares, and the horror was torn apart by the angel as she turned to smash apart a new foe with the flat of her gigantic sword, the marble blade covered in noxious black blood from the invaders of the citadel. Marik crashed through the enemies, tearing them apart with his blade, ripping them to shreds with holy swords conjured from his desire for retribution for the fate of his wife, incinerating them with bolts of holy and harsh luminescence that cleansed their taint from the world. Claws scraped against the king, but the magical and spherical shield borne of his hatred surrounded him and made him immune to most of the attacks._

_The king roared his defiance of the darkness which had taken away his wife all the while. He knew that what he was doing was extremely ill advised, as his soldiers could not keep up with him as he plunged like a blinding spear into the heart of the amount of enemies that made the room expand to bursting point, but he didn't care. The king threw himself at the nightmarish creatures and their demonic taskmasters with reckless abandon, his sword rising and falling as he waded into their ranks. He no longer cared what happened to himself, nothing that these beings could do to him would eclipse the torment that he felt at the death of his beloved soul-mate. If the demons and their foul servants harmed him, then it would do nothing, because he deserved the pain for what he had allowed to happen to Emili, and as such the king did not pay any heed to defensive tactics as he rammed his way through the enemy lines._

_The sheer amount of enemies from the macabre phantasmagoria of horror and nightmares packed densely into a small space would have made progress difficult for any other warrior, but the king simply ripped through their ranks. He fought without the superlative skill which he had attained with swords through years of arduous and gruelling training, using his brute force and huge mana pool to force his way through the tightly packed mass of foes, the dimensions of reality changing as horrors reached up from above to attack the king and beings on the right attacked from below as all space and normal properties of the world were warped and corrupted by the darkness, though it did not affect Marik as he charged unstoppably through. _

_Beings with teeth for faces screamed at the king and launched themselves at him, but were split apart by his sword, the shockwave from the blow that was given huge amounts of power from his need for vengeance sending other enemies sprawling to be trampled by their brethren who lusted for the death of the Lucerna in their midst. The battle began to blur into one single haze of brutality and slaughter for the thirty one year old, the enemies distorted and moulded together as he slew multiple of them at once with a cleaving blow that sent unnatural green-black blood spraying in every direction and splattering on the king, though it was quickly evaporated by the purifying White mana exuding out of his whole being. _

_Marik killed and killed and killed and killed, all the while screaming his hatred of the things that had taken Emili from him and cut her time with her beloved children short. One of the demonic overseers snarled threateningly at the king and flapped its wings, covering its viciously spiked scourge which it had used to whip its servants into a frenzy with spiteful Black mana and flinging it towards the Lucerna monarch. The father of two simply grabbed the weapon, the energy of vengeful and judgement-seeking light bleeding of his hand preventing the curses enchanting the whip from harming him and healing the cuts caused by closing his hand over the serrated edge of the cruel implement of war. He yanked it backwards before the demon could let go, snarling at the being with a fury that far eclipsed that felt by the lesser demon as the being tumbled at the king's feet. He slammed his booted foot into its skull, crushing the unholy bone to pieces as he rammed his sword into the face of another screeching horror that flung its distended form at the man._

_The battle lost all sense of time and meaning as the grieving man cut his way through the hordes of enemies that threatened the safety of the last two members of his once perfect family, the last two parts of Emili's legacy that he would be damned if he let any harm come to. The enemies were just splodges of darkness to Marik, who hacked his way through them nonetheless as their pathetic attempts to harm him were nullified by the sphere of incandescence that surrounded him. The king released his fury at what had happened to Emili mixed with his eternal desire for repentance for leaving his family unprotected as he ripped his way through the hordes, his large and ancient Lucerna greatsword covered in unnatural gore and the mutated internal organs of the foul creatures he eviscerated. The sword hacked left and right, killing enemies with every blow as the man gave into his desire to brutally murder those who had conspired to end the life of his compassionate wife, and Marik howled, not caring if the warriors who fought behind him could hear him over the din of the battle or not. _

_He murdered more, and he cared not for the resistance of the foul creatures that he killed. The violence intensified, becoming a whirlwind of blood, claws, darkness and pulses of holy light, though Marik sustained no damage as he cut his way through the attack of intruder beings which had violated the holy sacredness of the Lucerna palace with their foul presence. Akroma was at his side all the while, the angel a constant and solid presence next to Marik as she tore apart creatures of the most disturbing shadows with her sword and blasted them with bursts and shockwaves of bright mana. Though the Angel of Wrath was usually quite an independent warrior, preferring to fight slightly apart from her Summoner and to take on different opponents to him, she remained by Marik's side due to the lack of space and the fact that she was feeling the same emotions that he was._

_Marik paid little attention to the seraphim of the highest order, though he was aware of her by his side and murdering enemies at a massive rate which aptly exemplified how powerful she was and how suited for war Akroma was. It was a storm of unnatural gore and steel mixed with blinding flashes of light that dispelled the hungry darkness. More demonic taskmasters leapt at him, hoping to claim the glory of killing a hated Lucerna king for themselves and to devour his potent essence so that they could claim more power, but Marik conjured up an orb of light in his free hand as he savagely dismembered a fleshy monster which had attacked him from the side. _

_He poured huge amounts of mana into the sphere, knowing that although the palace was under attack and the whole city was being assaulted, which meant that he should conserve his magical energy, he would easily be able to generate more mana because of the power of the emotions that sought justice, holy vengeance and repentance coursing through his muscular and tall form. The king released it, tossing the orb that shook with the power channelled into it at the demons, and swept his hand down, his fingers leaving trails of light on the air as he freed his controlling hold on the mana. It exploded, detonating in a large discharge of thrumming White energy that blinded the beings of the darkness as their forms were consumed by the light, and leaving those that were untouched dazed and sightless as their unholy eyes were seared by the blast of harsh luminescence._

_Marik swept forwards, hacking his large sword which hummed with the force of his mana augmented by the crown on his forehead (which on a whim he had decided to wear for the council session that he dearly regretted going to) into the forms of the demonic overseers. His blade cleaved though them, inflicting a trifecta of damage upon them – there was the cutting edge of the ancient steel which split the denizens of the nether realm open, the sheer size and weight of the sword which smashed apart their unnatural bones and splintered their bodies like a hammer blow, and finally the magic of vengeance and light which cleansed their taint and destroyed the Black mana that formed them. _

_One of the last remaining lesser demons hissed and shrieked in panic as the king turned to it, fixing the pathetic creature with his hate-filled gaze and vengefully stalking towards it. It snarled at him in a way that was not common to demons – one that showed its fear of the Lucerna, something that would have perhaps brought satisfaction to Marik had he been able to feel anything other than the cold grief and the self-loathing and sadness within him. _

_It was strangely fitting, how this taskmaster of the malignant pit which had caused innocents in the kingdom to live their lives in fear of attack from demons and the forces of the perpetual darkness, was now instilled with terror at the sight of the avenging and unforgiving king. It screeched in alarm and dread, turning back around to the glistening and pulsating abyss behind it which had forced its way into the nursery and intending to leave, but a bolt of light hit it through the chest and stopped the lesser demon moving away._

_Illuminated by the wan light of the flames that were beginning to consume everything in the place that Marik had cherished as a site for his sons to grow up within and had been the scene of many of his most loved memories but now his most hated and covered in brackish and oily blood that despite the best efforts of his spherical shield stained his clothes and skin, the king was a terrifying figure indeed. The fire was roaring, though it was natural and could be put out soon, and Marik resisted the temptation to keep this fleeing demon alive so that he could torture it and make it feel even a modicum of the emotional agony that he was subjected to, make it undergo the pain that Emili had gone through in her final moments of life which had been devoted to protecting and comforting her sons, instead increasing the power of his purifying magic and immolating the demon in the cold fire of vengeance._

_The thirty one year old looked around himself coldly, sensing at the back of his mind that there were no more enemies left as the dimensions of the nursery began to return to normal. He could not lie, he felt disappointed that there were no more left to kill, no more left to vent his rage at the mistreatment of his beloved wife upon, and stood stock still in front of the cabinet stood next to the wall which had been concealed by the holes ripped in the fabric of reality that bled blackness upon the room. He stared at the photographs taken quite recently by the newly invented mana cameras that showed his family, their smiles bringing tears to Marik's eyes as he looked upon the version of his wife captured within the picture forever. _

_The cabinet was also covered in pictures that had been drawn by the king's sons, childish scrawls that he couldn't help but have a fondness for but were now tainted by the loss of the woman who had given birth to their creators. Orange flames licked at the edge of the wooden furniture, some of the teddy bears that Caiellis and his mother must have placed there in a way that they often did (putting them in random places around the palace) catching fire and falling to the floor. The soft toys were soon consumed by the fire, reflecting the fact that the rest of the family of bears and teddies would be burning to death in the blaze that had swept across the whole room and would be incinerating the boys' beds. _

_Marik wasn't ready to give up on his family yet. While Emili may have died, and he would never get over that, his sons were still alive, and Marik knew that he would be leaving soon to prosecute war with his army against his traitorous twin brother. He wasn't yet ready to cast out the thoughts of his sons from his mind, but he couldn't take everything with him, and for some reason he didn't want to stop the fire. The king picked up the photograph of him and his family, gazing at his wife with tears in his eyes, and stuffed it inside of his jacket, where it nestled next to his pounding heart of vengeance. The father was reminded of what he had told his youngest son after his nightmare which seemed ridiculous now since reality had become much worse than any bad dream the four year old may have had, that he would always be within the boy's heart, and hoped that Caiellis would know those words would extend for Emili as well – that she would always be watching over her beloved sons from her place in paradise until the day many years into the future where it was their turn to join her._

_He couldn't carry it all, and while it would have been child's play for him to stop the fire and leave the nursery relatively unharmed until he had the time to return to it, he instead walked towards the form of his unbreathing wife. Marik let the room burn behind him as he sheathed his sword, kneeling down beside Emili as he brushed her hair, unaffected by the smoke rising up from his sons' bedroom which would have had a lesser person choking and spluttering for breath. He lifted her light body up in his arms again, knowing that eventually someone else would extinguish the fire so that it could not spread to the wider palace or that the wisps which inhabited the building would douse the flames, and was tempted to stay within it and let it take him and his wife's corpse. _

_No, even if he knew that he had to survive so that he could put down this rebellion, the king was aware that his loyal Summoning would prevent him dying in such a mundane blaze. He let it burn down the memories and the possessions within the room, the frame within his jacket digging into his chest. It was symbolic, showing that with the death of Emili his family and happiness had been ended, and that his mistakes had ended any chance he had at joy and comfort. It represented the starting of his new life; no longer would he be content with the safety that he perceived within the kingdom, he would take the fight to the darkness until either he died and his sons could continue his legacy or the abyss was crushed out of existence and every single demon or follower of the shadows was slain._

_Akroma stayed by his side as he stood still with his wife in his arms, the flames lapping at the shield of safety that encapsulated his human form (the Angel of Wrath unaffected by anything as weak as normal fire), though everyone else had vacated the nursery and waited outside for their king. Marik strode out, holding onto Emili and trying not to let his pure grief at her death consume him to the point where he would be unable to act, instead forging it into a weapon that lived for vengeance and ached with the need to bring holy and unflinching justice upon the betrayers. He still needed to lead the defence of Capitalia Lux against those who attacked it, and the king could sense the taint of many abyssal breaches much like the one within the palace but at a much greater strength since the demons did not have to tear through the barrier between worlds into such a sacred and holy place which was abhorrent to them._

_As Marik exited the burning room, Akroma pacing slowly behind him, the king handed his wife to the waiting general Carlis Montlea, the man's face solemn and filled with sober sadness at the death of one of his closest friends (as he had been the king's champion at the same time Emili had been taken in as his advisor) and the grief that Marik was filled by, his brown eyes highlighting his worry for his own children and wife who would be at the Montlea residence further into the palace. Carlis would ensure that she would be kept safe and given to one of the solitary custodians of the palace mausoleum which was the burial place for Lucernas and their families which the young woman would be interred within. _

_He marched to the head of the party with Akroma at one side and Carlis on the other still holding onto his wife and not yet willing to let go, all of them ready to follow his commands as he walked towards the window of the corridor that showed the outer city below them (as the nursery was located in one of the floors in the top half of the huge palace), the rest of Capitalia Lux burning just like the bedroom of his children had been. Marik could see an angel fighting against a large demon in the distance, recognising the familiar mana signature of the two creatures despite not being able to pick them out with his eyes due to the distance. _

_The citadel was still under attack, and Marik could hear the screams of the palace warriors battling against demonic creatures and warriors of shadow further below them, so that would need to be cleared first. _

_The man's soul had been torn asunder by the death of his wife, and his heart had exploded into a million pieces which could never been brought back together, but because he was a Lucerna king he still had to fight, still had to push aside his own worries and heartache in the service to the kingdom which depended upon and revered him. He stroked his wife's hair in the arms of Carlis, the man's eyes burning with the want to avenge the death of his best friend's wife, and the king would give anything to see her alive again. Marik shuddered in rage and sadness, his new found hatred for himself only matched by his hatred his brother and those who had sided with the demons, until a small voice broke his reverie of drowning in his emotion._

"_Dad?" the voice of his eldest son, young, scared, innocent, entered Marik's ears, and his hand on his wife's head fell still as he continued to stare out of the window at the besieged city below, wondering how blind he must have been to miss this blatant treachery right under his nose. Everyone was silent, perhaps waiting for Marik to answer his little boy, perhaps not knowing what to say themselves, and that left enough time for Alexander to cough painfully, though from the smoke of the burning nursery that he had ingested while in there or from what the monster holding him had been doing was unknown to his father. The boy sounded exhausted and extremely frightened as he asked, "Dad … what's happening? Where is Caiellis? (he was shown the unconscious four year old by a quiet Tristram) Is mum ok? What's wrong with mum? Why … why isn't she moving? Dad? Mum? MUM?"  
Marik gulped nervously, feeling the bitter saliva burning the inside of his already raw throat, and though he knew that he should be turning around and comforting the eight year old, ensuring that he knew that his mum had gone to a better place and that his dad was going to make sure that him and his little brother were safe, he couldn't. He couldn't meet his eldest son's gaze, he didn't want to have to explain to his son that his mum was dead and that there was nothing they could do about it, and most of all he didn't want to see the boy crying because of what had happened to Emili that Marik _should have stopped!

_It would break him, the look of despair and sadness son his innocent eight year old's face, and he couldn't deal with his sorrow knowing that the king could have prevented the death of the heart of their family. Instead he trembled with fear and anger and continued to gaze upon the city below him which was alight with battle, as Alexander continued, "Dad, why isn't mum moving? Dad? DAD! MUMMY! MUMMY!"_

_He hadn't called her that for a few years now, ever since Caiellis had begun using the title for Emili, not wanting to be seen as a baby, but now that obviously didn't matter to him. The king heard a scuffle of feet and a high pitched grunt of effort, indicating that Alexander had tried to run towards the still form of his mother and that someone who Marik was immensely grateful for was holding the boy back, though he winced when Alexander screamed, "LET ME GO! WE HAVE TO HELP MUM!"_

_The king knew that he was being immeasurably selfish by not comforting and assuring his son himself, but he wouldn't be able to, and the boy's words were already killing his father more than he was already dying inside. To be honest he could barely think straight himself, his thoughts a roiling tsunami of sorrow and hatred directed at himself and the traitors, and in no way was that suitable for a child. He heard someone saying things to his son, somehow calming him down, but he couldn't make out the words as he stared resolutely and stubbornly at the burning city. His sixth sense informed him that a gigantic army with huge amounts of mana was attacking the city, a force that would take monumental effort to defeat especially with the disarray the soldiers of Capitalia Lux would be in because of the attacks from without and within and any agents that Johnias had employed who would be sowing discord and confusion. _

_The king needed to fight, he needed to be able to kill those who up until this fateful night he would have known as subjects and brothers in the war against the darkness, not soothe the woes of little children. Besides, Marik wasn't sure whether he would be able to comfort Alexander when he felt little of that himself, as assuring his son that everything would be alright would be a lie and they would both know it. At the moment, he didn't want to think of his two emotionally distraught and innocent sons who would have their childhoods cut short and be forced to grow up by the events of this midnight attack, he wanted to think about the battle and wiping out the enemies who threatened the precious capital. _

_He knew at the back of his mind that they would have to be taken away from the war and the fighting, most likely transported to Scientia Mos or one of the safer cities so that they were not in danger and stay incognito so that Johnias could not target them again, and when he heard the distressed voice of his beloved eldest son fading into the background along with the stern and adult voices of Guardian Axeclion and Tybalt Litria coupled with the younger words of Hierarch Mithres and Tristram, Marik knew that the evacuation process of his sons had already begun and that Tybalt and Tristram had been chosen as their protectors. _

_He would miss his sons in the time periods between being able to see them, that was for certain, but right now he wanted neither of his impressionable youngsters to see him this broken and vengeful, especially not with them having to already contend with the death of their beloved and fantastic mother who had loved them more than anything and had made their lives and childhoods up to this point fantastic. At the moment, Marik didn't think that he would ever recover from the death of his wife, but right now he was broken, shattered in two, and would be unable to provide sufficient love or even tolerance for his two little boys. _

_Marik had to resist the temptation to smash his fist through the intricate and elegant glass of the window that he stared out of at the dark city below him lit up by flames and pulses of White mana that beat back the shadows. He trembled with the effort of holding his rage in, only just managing to push it back inside of his shell so that he could quickly release it upon the foes and not on his soldiers._

_A hand gripped his shoulder, the strength within the slender fingers stronger than Marik had ever felt before apart from the times she had touched him before, but even firmer this time, and the king brushed the burning tears from his eyes as he gazed up at the vindictive face of Akroma, her grey eyes alight with the flames from the battlefield and the room behind them and shining with the holy desire for retribution and judgement._

"_We will avenge them, Marik," she told the king, her words not shouted but no less powerful, suffused with an awe inspiring resonance that stirred Marik's broken heart and made him want to slay the traitors not just for murdering Emili in cold blood, but for daring to align themselves with the demons of Sancturia and to oppose the divine will of the Lucerna throne. Had the king been able to concentrate properly and think, he would have wondered why his First Sisterhood angel had said "them" instead of simply "her", or why Akroma had what looked like faded tear tracks etched onto the pale skin of her porcelain cheeks, but right at this moment all the king could think of was bringing the bastards who had revolted in this foolish play for power which had divided the kingdom to justice._

_Marik turned back round to his generals and advisers, glad that each and every one of their eyes were filled with rage at the mistreatment and murder of the queen and the siege of the majestic capital city which was the first city Matalis Ortus Lucerna ever established. _

I am going to make you pay for what you have done, Johnias. This treachery will not go unpunished, and Emili will not go unavenged; no matter what it takes you and the scum who you call allies who have turned their back on the light of the kingdom will be brought to justice at the end of my sword!

Emili … I am going to kill them all for you!

.*.*.*.

The king woke up once again to the grinning face of the damned horror who had trapped him inside of his own mind, although this time instead of trying to instantly battle his way out to create as much disruption as possible he simply slumped backwards in the bench that he was sat upon and snarled, though it was much quieter than before.

Seeing his wife die again … it just reminded Marik of how much he had lost, especially after all these flashbacks and memories of the perfect family – _his _perfect family – that he had been forcefully subjected to. He could still feel the hole in his heart which had not reduced in size, only the amount that he let it affect him, aching for the presence of his wife even after nine years without her and without any love. He had spent nine years sustained only by the promise of vengeance upon those who had harmed his family, and used that to win the civil war against Johnias – although he had no idea what his brother had being doing in the forsaken abyss whilst Marik focussed on the rebuilding of his kingdom and then the war with the upstart New Empire of Passion.

He knew that his need to avenge during the civil conflict and the violent bloodshed had been instrumental in achieving victory for the loyalist forces of the Kingdom of Light, but now he knew that unless he was fighting against his brother or those who had wronged Lucael he would eventually burn out and turn out exactly like his father had – brutal, cold, unfeeling and bereft of any form of love.

The king realised then that he had been making a mistake now, and cursed himself for not seeing it sooner. While in the midst of the war with his brother the memories of his family and the thoughts of his children, the sheer love he felt for Emili's legacy, had distracted him from achieving victory – he had only starting winning battles once he had cast off all remnants of the father – the _daddy__ – _he had been and became the ultimate personification of the kingdom's wrath at the traitors (on the night where he had pushed all thoughts of the two emotionally distraught sons he would have to return to after the war into the cage in his mind that was only now beginning to break, he had burnt the photograph that he had rescued from the smouldering nursery), now that they were already breaking out of their imprisonment within the deepest recesses of his psyche and his love for his children that could never be denied they were his greatest strengths – and greatest weaknesses.

Alexander and Caiellis, despite only really talking to them both limited amounts after the civil war and with most of the conversations between him and his youngest son involving some form of heated argument or dispute, had become everything that he lived for. Ever since his eldest son's desperate plea for him to notice the youngest member of their family's plight, the king's fondness for his young sons had become something that was worth living for. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed being around them, how much he cared about the two little boys who had grown up into wonderful young adults (no matter how much Caiellis argued or yelled at him, especially because the arguments were both of their faults).

They now meant the entire world to him, and Marik knew now that instead of pushing them away and not wanting to face his parenting duties alone and without Emili, aware that he would never be as good on his own than he would have been with her at his side and that the family he had envisioned within his mind would never come to fruition and had died with his wife, he should have embraced them and held them close. While the hole where his heart had once resided that had once been filled with Emili Noctis's love was now empty and cold, instead of leaving it bare and desolate he should have started to try and repair it with the love from his sons.

Though he would never quite be able to create the family which he and his beloved wife had always wanted because she was no longer in this world, he knew that it was insulting her memory not to try harder with his sons and embrace them fully now that they were by his side once again, and maybe at the end of it all he would be able to form a family that was strong, healthy, and full of love and happiness for his children to grow up within instead of the barren thing that it was now.  
If only Marik had realised this before now, if only it hadn't taken remembering the good times before the war and seeing his wife die once again for his mind to undergo this obvious revelation. Now it was almost too late; he was trapped inside of his own mind whilst his fragile youngest son who had been exhausted as Marik arrived fought alone against the gigantic power of an Archdemon. If the king had accepted Caiellis's arguments instead of fighting against them and simply shown his son love instead of censure, they might not have been in this desperate situation now where the fate of one of his children was unknown and the position that his other was in was the most dangerous that he ever had been in before.

Caiellis might have trusted his father enough to inform him about his plan to bypass the Welkalite force and kill Tradax as soon as possible to try and end the Tempest of Craving (although that was unlikely since he hadn't told Alexander – most likely because the seventeen year old would have stopped his brother no matter what), they may have been able to come up with better tactics than this. His youngest son might not have felt that he needed to potentially sacrifice his life because he thought that it was that worthless, and would have felt more comfortable fighting at his father's side instead of terrified of his disappointment and further violence.

Now that Marik knew the cause for the violence, he could put a stop to it, although if he had suppressed his rage it was possible that the horror would never have been able to affect him in the first place. That of course didn't excuse what he had done to his thirteen year old son, and in Caiellis's position he wasn't sure if he would ever forgive his father for it no matter if he had been controlled and manipulated by evil forces or not, but after this battle _when they all survived because Marik broke out of the prison in his mind_ he would set that to right and ensure that the boy knew he was loved.

Now that his family meant so much to him once again, he could not let himself lose another member of it again. It would destroy him even more than the death of his precious wife had done. He wouldn't lose them. He couldn't. Marik already knew what it was like to lose something extremely close to themselves, and he would not allow either of his sons to die before they were adults and had lived the long and fulfilling lives that they deserved, that they had worked for through their selflessness and courage.

If the horror had thought that using the awful memories of the death of Emili would weaken Marik's resolve or break his defiant spirit, it had made a fatal mistake in that assumption. Instead of cowing Marik into submission, make him feel the same powerlessness that he had when watching the last vestiges of life leave his wife and not being able to do anything to stop it, instead of preventing him from acting because of the influx of powerful emotions like sorrow and grief that were rising up within his mind, seeing the death of his perfect soul-mate once again reminded Marik that Emili had loved her children above all else and that by preserving them not only was he helping to protect the two boys who were descended from him and whom he loved deeply he was conserving the last remnants of what his wife had wanted, what the woman who he had been married to had lived for – and what Marik lived for as well.

"It is a shame that you didn't come to that conclusion when you have your hands wrapped around Caiellis's poor little throat, isn't it Mariky-boy?" the horror of Aksua jeered, although the malicious voice of the invader within the monarch's mind was spat out at him spitefully, like it was irritated by the fact that showing the king the worst flashback yet hadn't had much of an affect on his desire to oppose the shadow being's malign machinations. Marik did not let it affect him, once again trying to force himself out of the cage of his thoughts and Mind Realm because while he did not know how much disruption it was causing, there had to be a reason why the horror continually forced him into recalling his memories past its own sadistic and perverse enjoyment of feeding upon his emotions.

He didn't know what he was doing in the real world, whether he was simply unconscious on the ground or something worse, and every bit of a delay to the plans of the darkness that he could cause in these intervals between the flashbacks was a delay that he would take. Besides, that was the last memory that he had of the time before the civil war, the last memory of Caiellis that he possessed although it had been mostly concerned with poor Emili due to the fate that she had met that had been his fault, and while Marik knew that there were recent memories of him and his youngest son together he wasn't sure whether or not the horror, who had been within most of them, would put him through them or not.

The voice of the vile being split into his thoughts again, and with it the same nauseating sensation that heralded being forced into one of his recollections of the past that he was powerless to change or even think differently within, "And don't you worry at all, Mariky-boy. Be patient, and soon you will certainly have the chance to feel useless and worthless once again!"

.*.*.*.

_Marik stared at his eldest son with a mixture of surprise, disbelief etched onto his austere features, and cold disappointment not directed at the seventeen year old in front of him, as he processed the words that Alexander had just said. Silence descended for a brief moment as Marik's mind sprang into action, and the man wasn't sure whether or not he had been able to prevent a scowl from forming on his harsh face, or annoyance becoming prevalent in his piercing blue eyes._

_The two were stood in one of the many training halls of the Lucerna palace, and sweat still glistened on the younger male's brow after the intense, exhaustive and extremely difficult exercise regime that the eldest son of the king had completed only a few minutes or so ago. Marik had watched him do it silently, pride that he hadn't felt in a long time mixing with a slight bit of apprehension at interacting with one of his sons for the first time after the civil war and then frustration at the back of his mind at having to deal with children without Emili, frustration which was now rising with the words of his first born son._

_Nevertheless, thoughts of Caiellis could wait for now. Alexander had clearly grown up into a mature young man, and it would be a crime for Marik to not acknowledge that he was seemingly turning into what he would consider the perfect son – respectful, honourable, strong, determined, definitely handsome (which made the king wonder if the boy had broken his ban on having a partner until he was eighteen or not since it would be laughably easy for his eldest to have several members of the fairer sex fawning over him) and intelligent._

_Alexander, especially now that he would be able to eat properly due to the end of the war that Marik had prosecuted to the best of his ability (though he still felt that it was a failure because he hadn't been able to kill his traitor of a twin brother Johnias), was becoming a very muscular and toned lad, and he was quite clearly very strong from what Marik had seen so far. Given a few years time of working out like he did now, the boy would one day be as burly as his father was – that wasn't to say that he didn't already have a very impressive physique for someone his age._

_The boy's eyes, the same colour as his father's but much less cold and harsh than Marik's knew, instead reflecting his inner youthfulness and reminding the man heavily of what he had looked like when he had been happy in the past – although what it made him think of more were the eyes of Emili herself, just the colour of Marik's orbs - were currently filled with a combination of different emotions, and although Marik was inept at picking them out having not had to do it for over nine years, he was confident that he could identify several within the warm eyes. _

_He could certainly see happiness at the seventeen year old seeing his dad again, happiness that Marik wasn't sure he could reciprocate entirely. Instead of seeing his sons, he should be leading the kingdom – his advisers had only barely managed to restrain him from leading his elite warriors into the abyss to follow a heavily wounded and fleeing Arch-Heretic, and the only reason that he was intending to talk to his sons now was because they would be his heirs and it was the duty of a Lucerna to ensure that those who would potentially inherit the throne were ready for that immense duty._

_This was particularly relevant with his own children – whilst Tybalt had been a superlative teacher to Marik, and he had absolutely no doubts about the quality of the education that his sons would have been receiving, because of the civil war which had prevented him from seeing them he had been unable to personally assess their suitability to the throne like any Lucerna parent should. He needed to make sure, like his father had done with him no matter how harsh the man had been about it, that his sons would be ready at any point to take the throne from him should the terrible (for the kingdom, at any rate) and he died._

_The king was also sure that the happiness in his son's eyes was guarded, like it had been at the beginning of this conversation, the childish excitement of seeing his father again tempered by the knowledge that Marik would have almost certainly been changed irrevocably during the war, and suppressed enough so that any potential disappointment would not affect him much. Marik was aware that he would probably be immensely disappointing to his son's vision of him, and briefly wondered what Alexander thought now, before realising that so long as the seventeen year old respected his rules and continued to excel as much as he had been doing, was happy enough and safe, he didn't really care at all._

_Finally, there was concern and apprehension in Alexander's warm blue irises, although that worry was no directed towards the youth himself and was inflected with a slight bit of guilt, though Marik thought that it was silly that Alexander felt guilty about something he would have found out about within a day at least._

_Marik's eyes narrowed, and Alexander diverted his gaze so that he would not have to stare into the transfixing glare of his dad that wasn't even directed towards him. The two had been having a pleasant but awkward conversation before this particular topic had come up right at the end when the king had been asking about the whereabouts of his youngest son. He – and the kingdom, which made it even better – was very happy with how the eldest prince was turning out, and one day he would make a fantastic king or leader that commanded with the strength and strategic skill of his father mixed with the empathy, leadership and charisma of his mother._

"_I see," the man responded simply, his brow furrowing in consternation as he processed the news that his firstborn son had just delivered to him. Alexander's face fell, as although Marik had tried to keep his tone even he must have let some of the anger and pure frustration he felt inside drip into the words. He should not have to deal with this from one of his and Emili's sons. "And has Caiellis given any indication as to how close he is to completing the Summoning trial?"  
Alexander pondered the words for a second, almost opening his mouth to say something in response to the question from his king but then closing it as he actually considered what the request had been. Every time he had asked his little brother something similar, the boy had always replied cryptically or managed to deflect his attention from it, which was something that Alexander was only just realising. During the civil war which had only ended four days ago on his baby brother's thirteenth birthday, the boy had devoted some time to it but since they were always on the move Cai had only been able to attempt it on safe locations as it had exhausted him._

_They had only been in the palace and the capital city a day or so more than their father had (which meant that they had been here for two days), and it was with some reluctance Alex admitted that he hadn't actually spoken to the squirt in all of that time now that they could actually have some freedom – sure, he loved his little brother more than anything in the world and was certain that that fondness was appreciated, but they were both teenage boys now (_angels above … I'm still not used to the fact that Cai is thirteen_) and needed personal space, something that his younger brother hadn't quite understood when they had been younger but was perfectly amiable towards now._

_Alexander had been out seeing his friends and training, and Caiellis had been presumably attempting his Summoning trial and making friends of his own (or "wasting" the day with his head in a book and reading on some obscure knowledge to expand that ridiculously sized brain of his), but apart from a few "pleasantries" (if exchanging brotherly insults could be called that) neither of the two had held a conversation with one another as they settled into a stable and safe location once again – only this time it would be permanent, and there would be plenty of time to talk to one another now that the war was over._

_The relationship between Alexander and his brother had become slightly tense and strained near to the end of the war which had haunted almost (and even more so for Cai) their entire lives, as, because they were brothers, they had become sick of each other's presence even though for the most part Caiellis hadn't yet been thirteen at that time. Alex had been getting irritated at his brother's obstinacy and the fact that the younger boy had mostly had to tag along with him (whether either of them wanted him to or not), whereas Cai had started to get annoyed with Alexander as well and tired of the seventeen year old for reasons that he hadn't communicated – though Alex was sure that they would have been precisely as petty his own causes were._

_Anyway, that meant that they hadn't spoken much recently as each of them embraced the fact that, while they were brothers, they were still individuals and entitled to alone time. Alex replied to his dad, wary that he was stepping on dangerous territory that could potentially land Caiellis in even more trouble than he was already, "I don't really know, to be honest. He doesn't talk about it much."_

_Marik's eyes flashed with vexation and infuriation for a second before he consciously repressing it, knowing that no matter how close he was sure that Alexander and his younger brother were that it wasn't his eldest son's responsibility to know everything about Caiellis's state. Technically, if he hadn't been a king, it would have been his duty as the boy's father to know what was going on with his son, but since he had the kingdom to look after which was far more important he did not have the time to chase up lagging youths. Nevertheless, Marik was still intending to go and see Caiellis to ensure he knew exactly how close the boy was getting to completing the trial (he must have been almost there in his attempts by now). _

_Alexander slumped slightly, his posture slouching dejectedly as his dad's eyes clearly communicated that he had decided to link Caiellis's lack of speaking about his trial with the youngest Lucerna being ashamed of the progress that he was making and not wanting to tell his family. However, even if he was struggling extremely hard, it was unlike Caiellis not to inform his older brother or one of his "Uncles" of his plight even if he was embarrassed of it, which had almost stopped him in the past. Alex knew that the runt tried to work things out for himself before informing others of his problems, and wondered if the fact that he hadn't yet spoken to Caiellis nicely since his birthday (though before that they had been at each others' throats (almost literally, though luckily Tristram had managed to restrain Alex then)) meant that the boy thought that his brother no longer wanted to hear his issues or help him with them._

_That of course wouldn't true, while Alex enjoyed finally spending time away from his little brother the boy was one of the most precious things in the world to him and he would always help Caiellis with anything that he wanted (well, unless it was incredibly inconvenient or they had been arguing). Alex didn't know why his brother hadn't told him much about the Summoning trial, but concealing information like that never boded well. Besides, he, Tybalt and Tristram had always been supportive and reassuring of him whenever he attempted it, constantly telling him that one day he would be able to pass it and that it was natural that a First Sisterhood angel's test was extremely punishing and difficult to complete (to which Cai would always despondently murmur that Alex had unlocked Aurelia at the age of ten). _

_Now Alexander couldn't help but feel that he had landed his brother in serious trouble, not that their dad – who hadn't objected to being called that – wouldn't have ever found out without Alex's words. Marik tried hard and failed to stop a severe scowl creeping onto his features which looked remarkably older than they had done when his son had last seen him, the war and what he had been forced to do to achieve victory ageing him more than the passage of time had and making him fit all of his forty years of life._

"_In that case I should go and see him now," Marik replied, his voice tinted by a minute slice of volcanic anger that Alex couldn't help but think was going to be released upon his innocent baby brother, something that he couldn't let happen but could do little to stop. Marik invoked a sense of awe and obedience from his eldest son, who could no more disobey his commands than he could change the colour of the eternal night to fluorescent pink, and Alexander had idolised the man all his life, something that wasn't going to stop now despite the change which his dad had suffered because of the war and the death of Alex's mum._

_Marik turned away, his posture straight and confident and his bearing kingly, but before he left Alex broke into the tense silence which had descended with a "Dad?"_

_The man instantly stopped, combat honed reflexes identifying the sound the second it had left Alexander's mouth and processing it as something which was not a threat, and turned back around to his eldest son. _

_Alex couldn't just let him leave like this without saying something, he couldn't just let Caiellis be the recipient of a stern reprimanding that he didn't really deserve from the man he had spent nine years creating a perfect representation of within his mind and who he hadn't seen since he was four years old. His eyes met Marik's glacial blue orbs once again, hoping that his own were filled with determination to help out his little brother. Alexander wasn't willing to let Caiellis meet his dad after nine years and instantly be chastised and scolded by him for something that he already put a lot of pressure onto himself because of._

_It would crush the younger boy's hope, destroy one of the very few reasons including Alexander himself that the little dude had managed to get through the war without being broken by the violence and forlornness of the situation they had been in. It would tarnish the fact that Cai had never had the chance to have a childhood even more now, and Alex wasn't about to see his brother's already lacking self-esteem crushed by their dad._

_However, as he looked into those austere blue eyes, he felt that he couldn't voice any of these objections, nor did he want to any more. He understood then that perhaps Caiellis did need a bit of fire instilled within him, and that his little brother wasn't as weak as he thought he was and more likely than not would be motivated by the scolding and the criticism if it was done properly by their father. He found that he trusted and respected his dad, and that he was willing to let the older of them handle it because he had precious little chance to do so before now. Besides, it wasn't as if he could speak out against his dad now even if he had wanted to, the sharp gaze of Marik informing him that he would tolerate absolutely no dissent from his sons and that his word was law in their young lives._

"_It's nice to see you again, dad," Alex gave up on trying to force the other words out of his mind, although he hoped that their meaning was implied after his sentence. _Go easy on him, please.

_Marik's gaze softened slightly, although it wasn't anything yet past a cold and stony stare directed at his son a vague bit of pride in his thoughtful eldest son made its way into Marik's mind, who was glad that he had at least one boy descended from him that was progressing perfectly well within his ascent into adulthood and was the pride of the kingdom. The king allowed himself to feel proud of his seventeen year old son and favoured Alexander a small smile that he was sure didn't quite reach his eyes but hoped conveyed that the boy should continue on as he was._

"_It is nice to see you as well, Alexander," Marik replied politely, making no moves to embrace his son like Alexander might have thought that he would. Instead, he reached out and patted his son on the shoulder, not quite comforting and reassuring but still a familial gesture that he used to show that he did indeed feel pride in his son and how he had grown up (and he had listened to a few of the boy's exploits during the civil war from the new Guardian and Hierarch)._

_If he was so inclined, he could still remember Alexander as a young boy that had been full of infinite and unlimited enthusiasm for life and everything apart from vegetables and reading (or anything that was forced upon him like going to bed at a decent time), but Marik preferred not to think of that time unless he had nothing to do and was laid awake in bed reminiscing of the years before his wife's death and the civil war which had ruined his family and dragged his children's parents away from them._

_Alexander smiled back, though it was a tiny grin instead of the infectious and large one that he would usually wear in happiness. He was glad to see his dad again, though he understood that the man had been changed forever by the war – like they all had (well, maybe apart from Cai, who hadn't had much chance to be anything before the war). He was only ever so slightly disappointed by his dad not being as perfect as he had once envisioned him to be, but knew that no matter how changed Marik had become he would always love the man who was his father and would always seek to please and make him proud of his eldest son. He only hoped that Caiellis wouldn't have all of his dreams crushed by their dad and that his father could act as he had done with Alex himself – pleasant, but still cold, though the boy knew that his dad would be finding it troublesome to interact with his children once again._

_Marik left, shooting a backwards glance over his shoulder and smirking despite himself at the fact that his eldest was instantly returning to his rigorous training exercises, the boy obviously wanting to expand upon his lean muscle even more than he was already now that the war had ended. That smirk soon faded as he remembered the task that he had ahead of him, slowly being exchanged for a brooding scowl of displeasure at the fact that his youngest son hadn't yet passed his Summoning trial. _

_While some in the kingdom would be happy about the fact that the Angel of the Black Sun had not yet gained a method to access the material world through the youngest Lucerna, Marik was not, and he knew that his son was dangerously close to being the eldest any Lucerna child had been before obtaining their First Sisterhood angel and signing the Summoning contract within the Mind Realm. He had argued all he could against Caiellis's detractors that he hoped had been kept a secret from the boy (though that was unlikely because of the travelling he had done during the civil war, as he couldn't be kept clueless in the palace like he had been as a young child), and now he needed the youngest prince to actually start to prove that it was Xarius who had been evil, not his angel, for the sake of himself and the kingdom that he may one day rule._

_As Marik walked through the familiar hallways and corridors of the palace that he hadn't set foot in for several years now, breathing in the scent of ancient awe that stretched back to the time of the first Lucerna king which he had grown up with as a child, he thought of his youngest son. _

_He had realised, paradoxically as he watched Alexander execute a multitude of push ups that would leave anyone exhausted, that he looked forward to seeing his second child yet. Alexander was seventeen now, mature, independent, and he would realise (and had realised) what Marik had gone through, know that his father was not the same man as he was before the war and the death of Emili, and would rely upon his father less since he had already gone through puberty and grown up without his dad. Marik's firstborn son would be able to get through things on his own and without minimal help, whereas he had always known at the back of his mind in these few days of travelling back to Capitalia Lux to begin the rebuilding process that simply because of Caiellis's age he would be different._

_The youngest of his two sons was only now going through puberty and his ascent into adulthood whilst his older brother had almost finished, and Caiellis would be in that hybrid phase of no longer being a cute and innocent little boy but not yet an adult that could stand on his own two feet without help from others. Because he was younger, and had been ripped away from his family at a much younger age than his older brother and as such probably wouldn't remember much of Marik or Emili, Caiellis would want his father to create a new relationship with him whereas Alexander understood that the king had little time for that. _

_Marik's youngest son would be going through the tumultuous and often ungraceful growth into adulthood, although apparently he was still quite small and hadn't yet hit any substantial growth spurt, which, if his own childhood and adolescent rebellion had been anything to go by, would make him simultaneously reserved, quiet and wanting to be alone but craving comfort and attention so that the feeling of hopelessness building up within him wouldn't overwhelm him. Caiellis would require more attention and effort from Marik to get him to know him and understand his rules because the two barely knew one another, and Caiellis had been too young before the war to truly begin to come to terms with who his father was, despite his perceptiveness, whilst at eight Alexander was starting to comprehend the scale of his dad's role and duty to the Kingdom of Light._

_The king's second son would, due to no fault of his own, no doubt want to spend more time with the dad that he had never been able to truly have, the dad who had been ripped away from him at four years of age and replaced with the substitutes of Tybalt and Tristram, and have a chance to do things with his old man that he had never had the opportunity to do, something that Marik didn't have the time (nor the inclination, although that was another matter entirely) to do so. Caiellis would understand that eventually, and besides, they had more important matters to be discussing than the interactions between father and son, one that was pressing at the forefront of Marik's mind now as he strode quickly and efficiently through the palace._

_He walked through one final corridor, and, remembering his eldest son's words and not wanting to disrupt anything if Caiellis was still in the midst of attempting his Summoning trial, quietly opened the door to the large Hall of Reflection (a name coined by some king of ages past who had used the room for exactly that, although at least it hadn't been one of the many rooms that the self-styled Emperor of Light had stacked up mirrors within so that he could gaze into his reflection, as that would have made the name extremely ironic). _

_The room was cylindrical, tall, and vast, with glittering stained glass windows showing scenes of Lucerna monarchs in meditative positions as they thought about their rule and how best to help the kingdom, or channelling mana as they expanded upon their non-combative magical arsenals (as there were plenty of other rooms for practising combat magic), and it exuded and air of peaceful and introspective privacy – as this was one of the many locations within the palace that was restricted to all but the Lucerna family. Marik could see why his son had chosen here to attempt his Summoning trial, under the watchful and thoughtful gazes of his ancestors, as the room was private and he would not be interrupted by anyone but his father or brother if they were inclined to do so._

_Marik stood in the doorway, his eyes roving across the room and taking in the stained glass panels showing past Lucerna queens and kings but not really paying them any heed as he found his youngest son. Caiellis was sat, cross-legged and seemingly serene, although Marik could see from here the strain that the boy was going through, in the exact centre of the room, with some of the light that was emitted by the top of the Lucerna palace shining through the circular stained glass of the ceiling illuminating him and bathing him within holy luminescence._

_The king stayed silent and didn't move, unwilling to break his son's concentration and perceiving his evident mental struggle even from this distance away by the way that the boy's eyes fluttered beneath his pupils and he was breathing through his teeth as he ground them together, luckily not biting his tongue off. Instead Marik simply examined Caiellis as he attempted the trial once again in a series of failures that only the angels knew how many constituted it. _

_He had listened when Tristram had told him that his youngest son was still small, but it was still slightly shocking to see him there, slender and thin like Emili had been but even more lightweight than his late mother, reminding Marik distinctly of how fragile he had been after his premature birth, so delicate that no one could touch him as he lived out the first month of his life within a neonatal support incubator._

_Caiellis had gaunt cheeks which had developed the same high cheekbones as Marik had, obviously inheriting that trait from his father, and the skin of the boy's face was pale, smooth and innocent, contrasted sharply with the large Lucerna birthmark of the ominous Black Sun that tainted his son's right cheek – _no, not _tainted. _I know that you haven't seen him for nine years now Marik, and that your hatred of Black mana has grown even more than it was before Emili was murdered, but Caiellis's Black mana is different to the evil magic of darkness used by the traitors and heretics. It is Black mana given to him by an angel, which means that it _has _to be a different form to the type that unholy demons are made from.

_The youth had a slightly curly and wavy mop of brown hair on his head that was too long for Marik's liking, as the fringe almost covered his eyes and the king was sure that if Caiellis had been stood up and slumping his shoulders then his hair would obscure his eyes fully as it was already partly doing so now, which was unacceptable for a warrior of a calibre that Caiellis was going to become – although he was not his own father and would allow it for now as long as it didn't grow much more than it was now because the boy was still a child and Marik wanted to avoid having him fight for as long as possible until necessity called for it, especially if he hadn't passed his Summoning trial yet._

_Eventually, after a few minutes of silence which Marik knew better than to disturb, his son's eyes snapped open, and the king felt a twinge of regret and deep sadness that permeated to the core of his being and occasionally leaked out of the cage surrounding his broken heart as he saw the green orbs that reminded him so much of Emili's dazzling eyes focus onto the wall across from the boy. They were soulful, and enigmatic, but thoughtful and Marik could remember well how Caiellis's green eyes had looked before the civil war – they seemed infused with the exact same worldliness and gave off the impression that he knew more than he should at that age, although the childish and young wonder at the world which had often suffused them as he lapped up any and all information available was tempered by the horrors that he must have seen and become much more mournful and even slightly haunting. Marik recalled the annihilating black and purple fire which had blazed in Caiellis's wide orbs when he had only been four and destroyed the demons who had murdered his mother and threatened his brother, and it seemed like that inferno of hatred had left its mark on the boy's eyes just like the night had clawed its way into Marik's soul and tore apart his heart._

_To say that Caiellis was a good looking kid would be an absolute understatement, as while the boy was possessed of the natural handsomeness and charisma of the Lucerna family he was striking in his own right. In fact he was just as good looking as his older brother was but still had a baby face, a lost little boy look that would most likely never fail to earn him a pinched cheek or ruffled hair from some motherly figure or the protection of those that were older than him – Marik himself already felt that he wanted to protect his youngest son, particularly because of his frail and slender physicality that would be near useless in combat, which clashed slightly with what he would be doing – although ultimately it did not, as successfully completing the Summoning trial would provide Caiellis with more protection than he had ever had before in the form of his own personal First Sisterhood angel to direct._

_Caiellis would grow out of it eventually, and his innocent and young face would become as attractive as his older brother's was to girls, but those soulful puppy dog eyes would always serve him well. Marik was aware that he would be soon subjected to them in full force because of what he was planning to say, but quite frankly he didn't care and failure was not accepted with the Lucerna family – because it could have serious consequences for the rest of the kingdom which had entrusted them with the duty and privilege of ruling. _

_Caiellis seemed lost in thought, staring blankly at the wall opposite as he clenched and unclenched his fists like he was in anger or in frustration, and though Marik already knew the answer to the question that was brewing in his mind he thought he should give his son a chance and ask it any way. He was about to speak, but first cleared his throat because of the dust in the ancient room that servants hadn't been allowed access to for nine years, and the boy spun around in surprise. He evidently hadn't noticed that his father had entered the room, and while he was instantly combat ready (something that Marik would have been proud of if he wasn't seriously disappointed with the boy) he responded with confusion and almost toppled over._

_Caiellis stared at his father as if in shock for a second, the man meeting his son's gaze with the inscrutable and frosty blue eyes set into his head, and then a smile almost creased Caiellis's features. A guarded happiness similar to that which the king had seen exhibited within the warm orbs of his eldest but noticeably different made its way into Caiellis's bright and intelligent green eyes as he rose to his feet, the king failing to notice how shaky his son was standing up or how he was still breathing quite heavily after the trial of the Angel of the Black Sun and putting off any signs of discomfort as the boy simply being pathetic and having been coddled too much by his elders instead of exposed to any real hardship._

_This type of joy in his youngest son was very real delight in seeing his dad for the first time after the civil war (delight that unfortunately was not mutual), only guarded because of the fact that he was no longer a little boy (debatable) and wouldn't explode in a bundle of excitement and cheerfulness at finally looking upon the man that he had looked forward to meeting every single day of the civil war, only just suppressed within him because he was older and more mature now – as if the meeting had happened a few years ago he would have either ran over and hugged his father or bounded around the man, though he knew that he had never been as energetic as his older brother had been at his ages in the past._

_Instead, Caiellis shyly looked up at his father as the man took a few steps towards him in the room, though not close enough to touch, the king towering over a foot and a half above his 4'11'' son, and his eyes reflected that he wasn't yet willing to let his joy at seeing his dad overwhelm him nor affect him too much, like he was unready yet to believe that it was true and in some way realised that it would never be as good as he imagined it, though not as obviously as his older brother._

"_Did you succeed?" Marik asked the boy as he looked down at him, eschewing any pleasantries, his voice unflinching and steely as his emotionless and frosty blue eyes examined his youngest son and took in his unimpressive form. Caiellis instantly became downcast, his eyes flicking to the floor for a second before he almost met his father's gaze again. The fact that he hadn't yet passed his Summoning trial was evidently a cause of great embarrassment and shame for the youth, but clearly not enough otherwise he would have completed it already. Caiellis shook his head slowly, wondering if he could have tried anything else whilst in there, but there had seemed to be nothing he could have done – he hadn't had access to mana, and the walls of the room had been pressing in on him from all sides at a terrifying rate. _

_He had stayed until he began to be crushed and smothered by the pressure, and then left the Mind Realm, and the fact that he couldn't prepare for these trials beforehand made it even harder for him as he was someone that liked to come up with a strategy for something before rushing blindly into it. His father and king was right to be annoyed at him for it, but he was still happy to see the man and hoped that with encouragement from his_ dad_ himself then Cai might be able to complete it and unlock the forbidding First Sisterhood angel who had stained his right cheek with her Black Sun symbol and who had only been Summoned before by the insane King Xarius._

_Instead of staying silent and sullen, his excitement at looking upon the man who he had last seen at a tender age of four made him want to speak and he replied, "No. I didn't. I'm sorry." He didn't want to feel like he was making excuses, because there was no excuse for his failure and he really didn't want to make a negative impression upon his father and king, so didn't expand any more upon his points than that, but the fact remained that he had lasted as long as he could have against the walls pressing in on him from all sides and about to snap his bones and crush him into a pulp. _

_There was nothing more he could have done, and he only hoped that dad understood that from the dejected expression he was almost certainly wearing, one that he had grown accustomed to because of his abysmal failure to Summon that only wasn't swamping him with shame and pressure because of the reassurance and inspiration from his brother and two Uncles. He gazed into his father's eyes, though they were as inscrutable as a sheet of ice and only showed his reflection within it, and as he looked into the mirrored version of his own green orbs within the eyes of his dad he faltered._

"_That is unacceptable," Marik said harshly, and Caiellis took an involuntary step backwards because of the sheer disappointment and dissatisfaction with his youngest son that the boy would never have predicted, although now that he was seeing his real dad instead of the imagined and perfect version of him he could clearly discern that his father had changed significantly during the war, and reminded himself that his vision of the man would have been distorted anyway because he had only been four years old at the time that his parents had been ripped away from him so he would have seen them as the best things in the world besides his brother. _

_Cai's mouth twitched somewhere in between a smile and a frown as he was hit by the harsh words, the force within them more potent than the content of the short statement. He felt the tendrils of hope which had wrapped around him at the entrance of his father begin to slither away, and the dream of being reunited with the man who he could remember loving more than anything but his mother and brother which he had chased all the way through the war seemed further away than ever before, almost impossible now. _

_Marik's tone, and his mind, held no sympathy for his youngest son, and he narrowed his frigid eyes as the boy took a step back, seemingly not of his own volition, glaring at his youngest son who gulped nervously in conjunction with his parent's statement. The fact that Caiellis had stepped back meant that he apparently saw some form of threat in his dad's intimidating posture, although Marik was not about to correct that and wanted his son to understand the cost of failure. He wasn't going to go and hit the boy or hurt him in any way, that would be far out of line and after his own childhood Marik severely disapproved of the beating of children – especially since Emili would curse him from heaven for it – but Caiellis had quite plainly had the consequences of not passing the trial yet soothed by the Guardian and Hierarch. _

_It was very clear that his youngest boy had been smothered by his protective elders and lacked independence, shown by how he now stood anxiously in front of the Lucerna monarch, and while Marik had been exactly the same when he had been a youngster like Caiellis he hadn't had anyone to rely upon whereas it was evident that his more confident son would take the pressure off of the back of his second born child. Marik was very irritated and disappointed with the boy's failure, because this was the exact thing that he did not need as the king of a nation which had just endured the worst civil war of its lifetime, and he wanted both of his sons to be performing at the apex of their capabilities so that he could call upon them when necessary and so that their First Sisterhood angels would be an asset to the kingdom. _

_He had neither the time nor the patience for this, and so if his youngest son found him threatening then good because maybe it would give him an incentive to succeed instead of being coddled and told that his failures were good enough so that he could avoid his dad and sovereign's displeasure. Marik didn't want to have to and shouldn't have to deal with children who couldn't even pass a simple test around the age that Caiellis was, and simply stared down at his little boy who averted his gaze instead of looking into the man's simultaneously fiery but icy blue eyes. The floor was preferable to that, the manifestation of the crushing of his dreams to have a perfect family as his fantasy of it shattered within his mind, although it was possible that his dad was just going to start of chastising him but change and become loving after he understood the severity of the scolding._

"_How old are you now? Twelve?" the king questioned as if he was an interrogator, his scowl burning into the boy who thought that he might shrivel up underneath it, and when he replied there was a tinge of annoyance in his young voice that surprised even him, "I'm thirteen."  
"Thirteen," Marik repeated, and underneath his anger there was a hint of sadness and regret at having missed out so much of his sons' lives to the point where his youngest, his baby, was now already a teenager, but instead of making him feel sympathetic for the boy it simply incensed him further. Of course he was thirteen, his birthday would have only been a few days ago, which meant that he was edging perilously close to being the eldest a Lucerna ever had been when passing their Summoning trial – if he kept at this failure for another month, he would be the Lucerna child to gain access to their First Sisterhood angel the latest, something which Marik was not going to accept. Marik was _not _going to have one of his sons remembered as the one that passed their trial later than any who had come before him, for his own sake and for the king's reputation which had been damaged somewhat by the civil war in his own opinion._

"_And do you think that not completing your Summoning trial by the age of thirteen is perfectly satisfactory?" Marik demanded, his tone coloured by his frustration in his son but not angry – yes, there was anger at the boy's newly discovered failure within it, but he wasn't furious or fuming, just cold and heavily disappointed with his youngest son. The boy shook his head sadly, dropping his eyes once again after meeting his father's again for a moment as if checking to see whether they had changed or not, and Marik's scowl deepened even more. "I can't hear you, Caiellis."  
"No. No it's not," Caiellis replied, his voice meek and ashamed, tinged with sadness at his own failure to unlock his divine angel and to speak to his father, face his failure and overcome it like any other but him would, and he couldn't look back up at his dad because he knew that those furious eyes would sear his soul and rip apart his dream of a father that would understand and love him, one that he had been waiting for through all the dark nine years of the civil war, and one that apparently he wasn't going to get. Marik nodded in agreement, tempted to forcefully tilt the boy's head up so that he was looking at him but unwilling to potentially hurt the fragile teenager, and he knew that his words would be enough. _

"_No. It isn't. What is it about your Summoning trial that makes it any harder than any other Lucerna's?" the man asked his dejected son, noting that the childish and naive light which had been present in the boy's eyes when he had first made his presence known to his youngest son was fading and becoming replaced by despondency and sadness. The man could have snorted. It was extremely transparent that Caiellis had thought that his lack of ability to Summon so far would simply be overlooked by his dad, which was utterly ridiculous, and it was also obvious that the thirteen year old wasn't quite aware of what not passing his Summoning trial yet meant. Right now it was his own personal failure, something to be annoyed at but not something to take over his life, and he needed to comprehend that this was not just something that affected him, but could potentially have dire consequences for the entire kingdom._

_Caiellis, knowing that the question was more than likely rhetorical, didn't reply, wanting more than anything to be away from here so that he could bawl his eyes out at his dad not turning out like he had always wished, which in hindsight he now knew what been incredibly stupid – especially for someone with an apparently extremely intelligent and analytical brain like his. Marik's son's brown hair concealed his green eyes, so the king had no way of knowing whether or not his words were having their intended effect or not, and to correct that he firmly told the boy, "Look at me when I am talking to you, Caiellis."_

_The thirteen year old swallowed anxiously again, wanting to do anything but that although he knew that the words had not been a mere suggestion and that he would be expected to follow them instantaneously. Brushing his brown hair out of his eyes, Caiellis resolved to suck it up and take this verbal beating like a man instead of the pathetic child he had been acting as, and stared resolutely up at his father, though the instant that his glanced into the man's eyes that were so similar to Alexander's yet completely different his courage faltered and broke. _

"_I asked you a question," the man informed him, his brow furrowed in annoyance directed at his son who hadn't deigned to answer his stern inquiry, and Caiellis opened his eyes wide in shock for a second before returning to the guilty expression he had adopted in this conversation between father and son. He opened his mouth to speak, and though he wanted to communicate that the had found each and every one of the different trials so far utterly impossible no matter what he did, forced to retreat at the last second so that he did not die in the Mind Realm, so instead settled upon a muted, "I just can't do it-"  
"And do you think that that is good enough for a Lucerna prince who may one day inherit the throne and rule over the whole of Lucael? Do you think that our blessed ancestor Matalis Ortus Lucerna simply gave up when the goings got tough and decided that he "just couldn't do it"?" Marik replied seriously, his voice cutting into his son like the cold blade of a large sword, and Caiellis shook his head dejectedly again. Nothing his father was saying or had said so far was new to the boy, but normally these reprimands and rebukes came from within Caiellis and were refuted by his Uncles or more commonly his big brother who refused to let him think badly of himself and gave him hope that he would be able to succeed if he kept trying hard, so the words having their origin as someone (particularly his father who was supposed to encourage and support him) other than Caiellis was an unpleasant experience for him._

"_I tried as hard as I could-" Caiellis offered, the words sounding hollow and weak to him despite the fact that they were true, before he was interrupted by his dad. Marik snapped, cutting him off so hard as to make him flinch, "Evidently not, otherwise you would have passed the trial. I refuse to believe that you are too weak to unlock your First Sisterhood angel, because you are my son and a Lucerna, which means that you aren't trying hard enough. You don't have enough of an incentive to succeed, which means that you are bound for failure. I will not accept this from you, Caiellis. This is not happening, and as a Lucerna you should have gained access to the Angel of the Black Sun earlier."_

_But Caiellis had tried harder than he had ever tried for anything in each of the trials, and it was never enough. Maybe his dad was right, maybe he didn't have the right incentive to succeed and that was why he was failing, but he wanted this more than he had wanted almost anything in his life apart from safety for those who he loved, for the civil war to end and to be reunited with his loving father once again and for his mum to come back. Now that all of those had already occurred or there was no chance of them happening, perhaps this last thing would be one that he would focus upon above all else, but deep down no matter what he thought to himself Cai knew that it would not be enough._

"_It's just impossible no matter what I do..." the boy murmured sadly, the words the most pitiful he had spoken so far, and the plea for sympathy within them went unheard by his father. He felt his throat tightening like someone had closed a vice around it, his chest felt heavy and constricted like it had been during the most recent endeavour to triumph over the difficulties his angel set for him, and his eyes start to water slightly until he brushed them violently, determined not to cry in front of his father who was telling him off. _

"_Damn it, Caiellis. This isn't about the trial. This is about _you_," Marik growled at him, annoyance thrusting itself to the forefront of his mind at the sight of his youngest son's wide and young eyes beginning to well up and become wet at the chastising from his father. "This is why you are trained. This is what you will have been helped with ever since you first learnt to cast spells. No excuses. You will tell me no excuses, Caiellis."_

_The boy nodded once more, his face a mask of shame and despair as he blinked to clear the blurriness out of his eyes. Marik scowled again at him, as the fact that Caiellis had almost started crying cemented the fact that he had been coddled – because of his fragility, innocence and age during the war no doubt, which he couldn't blame his carers or brother for – far too much by his elders. He would receive no sympathy from Marik, although had the man been able to watch the seen from the outside he would instantly notice the fact that he sounded almost exactly like the late King Garius II in addressing his son. "You will have to work harder if you are to pass this trial, harder than you already are, and you need to focus on this instead of anything else. The war is over now, you have no excuse not to pass it – even so, your brother still obtained Aurelia at the age of ten during the war. Perhaps you would like to think of that before telling me that your trial is too hard. Perhaps you would like to tell the citizens of the kingdom who need the Lucerna family to protect them against the darkness that you can't summon the angel given to you by your birthright so that you can protect the people because you find it too hard."_

_Caiellis took the criticism stoically, although Marik thought that his son was going to burst into tears any second now, entirely unbefitting of a Lucerna scion and they both knew it. He pressed on, not willing to give Caiellis any time to come up with any form of distraction that would prevent him thinking about his failures, and though he would not admit it he used haste because he didn't want to let his youngest son's sadness or his current condition affect him in any way and reduce the potency of the message. Caiellis was trembling with the effort of holding his tears in, and it physically hurt to do so as his father continued, "How can you be any use to the kingdom as a Lucerna prince – or even worse, a king – if you cannot even complete the simplest of tasks?"_

_This one was definitely rhetorical, as there was absolutely no answer to that other than "I can't" and both of them were aware of that already. Caiellis tried to keep a straight face and keep his father's gaze because he knew that it would only anger the rightly disappointed and angry man further if he looked away, even though the intensity of the glare coupled with the fact that it represented the destruction of something which he had hoped for every single day of the worst time of his life – the _only _time of his life. _

"_I'm sorry," he mumbled nervously into the gap in which his father had obviously left for him to respond, almost desperately needing to look away from Marik but not wanting to make him even more disappointed than he already was in his pathetic failure of his youngest son – besides, with the way that the king's posture was tensing, he wouldn't put it past him to force him to look into the man's eyes if he so much as glanced away. No, that was ridiculous. He knew full well that his father would never physically hurt him, because even though he was fully aware that Marik was not the same man that he "remembered" from his very young days he also knew that the man wouldn't ever hit him or Alexander, even though he was had screwed up extremely badly. _

"_Sorry isn't good enough Caiellis. Sorry is nowhere near good enough. Would you simply say sorry to those who might die because you were too weak to protect them?" Marik asked, once again favouring the tactic of asking him a question and forcing the boy himself to realise that his failure was unacceptable instead of repeatedly jamming that information into his head without letting him consider it on his own and find himself lacking without much input from his king and father. _

_Caiellis was taking it better than he had expected, "better" in this case being worse for the lad himself as he looked about ready to cry in shame and put all of his effort into the next attempt of the trial (which would probably occur tomorrow), as he had anticipated some form of defiance from the teenage boy in front of him (which was how he would have reacted had he been in the same circumstance as a youth up to the point where he actually passed the test of Akroma). Instead, Caiellis was taking the criticism to heart and listening to his father's points, condemning himself alongside the man, which made Marik certain that he was doing the right thing by making him think about his lack of success instead of just shouting at the boy like he might have done. He was positive that this was the correct course of action for both himself and his son, and that he was giving the boy the right incentive to succeed so that he would not be forced to deal with Caiellis's mistakes again and could focus on the undoubtedly long and arduous rebuilding process of the Kingdom of Light which had been rent asunder by his brother's treachery._

"_Caiellis," he said sternly for one last time so that he would get the boy's undivided attention, as his eyes were becoming filled with a form of young hurt and rejection that threatened to overwhelm Marik's defences and make him start to question this course of action or want to pull his fragile youngest son into a hug and take him away from all of the pain and hardship of the world. He could well empathise with how other people found it hard to chastise him unless they were incredibly annoyed with him, as Caiellis's wide green eyes clearly showed how he was punishing himself for his failure just as much as Marik was now that he actually knew that it was completely unacceptable. _

_Those doleful puppy dog eyes which were so reminiscent of the few times that he had seen Emili sad or crying made Marik himself want to start crying at the harsh world because of the family he had lost, wishing that his sons didn't have to go through such sadness and pain because of their dad's twin brother and the threat from the darkness._

_Marik removed the ridiculous thoughts from his mind, his ire roused even more because of his boy's eyes making him think of such things instead of verbally punishing his son for his lack of any form of success – because there was absolutely no doubt as to how useful a boy of Caiellis's height and weight would be without access to a powerful First Sisterhood angel. If the youngest Lucerna thought that he was going to get any sympathy from his father by trying to look cute or deeply hurt, he would be sorely disappointed and when Caiellis's eyes refocussed upon the one who had created him and given him love when he had been younger, Marik knew that once again he had his son's total attention and focus._

"_Because you haven't yet passed your Summoning trial, you are a failure to me as far as I am concerned," Marik told him, his voice bereft of the anger which had been in it when he had first started talking to little Caiellis, but the words were no less serious or cold. The youth rocked back as if his father had physically shoved him, a single tear of absolute sadness almost trickling down his cheek before he brutally swiped it away with his small fist. Caiellis's expression became one of utter rejection and despondency, something so incredibly sad and regretful but something which also told Marik that that had definitely been the right thing to say to spur Caiellis to pass the difficulty of his Summoning trial now. _

_He looked deep into those wide and welling green eyes until he sensed a change begin to overcome them, the sorrow in the mournful and haunting green orbs slowly leaving them and becoming replaced with an utter lack of emotion, the feeling that had been clear in those expressive emerald orbs locked away within the boy's heart as Caiellis pushed passed his sadness and suppressed his emotion. However, the rejection that the thirteen year old felt because of Marik's words was still plainly evident even through the fortifications of blankness which had crashed down in front of the youngest Lucerna's eyes, and when the king ensured that his words had had the intended effect he quickly and efficiently turned around and began to walk out of the room, not even offering his son a goodbye nor saying anything positive towards him._

_He hoped for both of their personal sakes that Caiellis would pass his Summoning trial soon, because he didn't think he could do that again. It was stupid and utterly illogical that he had started getting emotional behind his visage of a stony and disappointed mixture of a father and a monarch which he had been presented to the world, but the sheer sadness present within his youngest son had encouraged a similar emotion to make itself known within Marik. It had hurt him more than he had anticipated to say such things to one of his children, but he hadn't been doing it for himself – he had been doing it for Caiellis and ultimately for the kingdom of Lucael itself._

_Marik knew that he was being ridiculous – he had watched his perfect and kind wife who he loved more than anyone else in the world apart from his sons at the time, so seeing Caiellis a little bit sad because of something that was the boy's fault in the first place should not have rattled him, a Lucerna king who had survived battles in which hundreds of thousands of soldiers had died and walked through school buildings full of dead children, slain by rapacious demons enticed by the possibility of a banquet of innocent souls. His youngest son being downcast and ashamed should not have affected him as much as it had, almost enough to make him start to even consider going against his duty and spending more time with the boy so that he could ensure that he passed it – which would have failed, as the whole point of his speech had been to make Caiellis know that he needed to do this on his own and he couldn't blame anything other than his own weakness or lack of determination for the failure to Summon._

_It was good that Caiellis felt dejected and sad so long as he used those feelings to improve and gain a greater drive to succeed to avoid his dad's disappointment again, because they were the emotions that were usually associated with failure. So why had Marik felt so awful doing that to his son? It was necessary for him to succeed, and Marik would do it any day of the week if it meant that the kingdom would be safer – and it wasn't like he was being unfair to his youngest son either, as if his eldest had been in the same situation he would have said the same – or been even more severe, harsh and furious, as Alexander would have been older. _

_Marik smothered the thoughts, knowing that they would not help in the many duties he had yet to complete which had been forestalled and delayed by seeing his two sons. If this was what talking to his children was going to do to him, distract him and open up wounds that were still raw despite being inflicted nine years ago, then he was going to have to avoid and shun them until he could get his emotional state under control enough where he could interact with his sons – his protégés and heirs – and rule the kingdom without being distracted by them. The whole of Lucael was far more important than two teenagers so long as those two teenagers were perfectly alright, and if Marik was distracted by Alexander and Caiellis then they had to be out of his sight because distractions would not be tolerated by the king – especially the king of a nation recovering from a tumultuous civil war with enemies still out there in the abyssal realm._

As soon as the king left the room, Marik felt an extremely disconcerting and sickening sensation of being torn out of his body as a sense of detachment and disembodiment overcame him and made him want to vomit up the contents of the hearty breakfast he had eaten before this battle which had been large enough to give him suitable energy to fight. His perspective was ripped out of where he would have been looking in the memory, although the surroundings of the hall did not change nor did he leave his forced flashback.

_What is happening? This is not what I remember! _Marik thought, curiosity warring with anger at the mistreatment of his mind and both of them clashing with shame in the king's mind, who regretted very dearly what he had said to his youngest son. His vision was forcefully yanked throughout the large room, laid to rest by his second child who was still stood in the same position in which he had been before his admonishing father had left.

"Don't worry, Mariky-boy. We're just going to watch and see the effects of your words to poor little _pathetic_ baby Caiellis," the voice of the horror snickered in Marik's ear, who turned to try and lash out and smite it out of his memories before realising with a sinking sensation that he had no control of his limbs and that the being was everywhere around him but nowhere. It sniggered, and although the king could feel its foetid presence sinking its cold and shadowy tendrils further into his mind he could no longer sense it in the vicinity and was no longer willing to focus upon it. It was obvious that the invader of his psyche wished for him to watch his son now, probably for its own sick sense of enjoyment, so he would entertain it for now because there was little else he could do and was vaguely interested to see how the being of darkness had managed this, to distort one of his memories – although it was no longer that, it was simply the past – and allow him to watch.

Then a thought clicked in the king's mind, and Marik remembered that this horror had been inside of Caiellis as well, although not as overtly as what was happening to the king Aksua's monster had still trapped the youngest Lucerna in some sort of induced paralytic state in which he could not fight back, which meant that it might have access to Caiellis's recollections of the past as well. With a jolt Marik also remembered that he had never asked his son what had occurred within his mind that had prevented him escaping and coming to the aid of his injured brother because he had been too furious and shocked at what had happened to Alexander – so instead of comforting his more emotionally fragile son (apart from a brief moment of father/son intimacy that they had shared when watching Alexander undergo painful surgery) he had directed his worry and anger at him and shouted at him.

Had he asked Caiellis what had happened within his mind which had stopped him from helping the brother who he clearly loved more than anything else, he might have known how to combat this better (although his son hadn't succeeded in leaving either) but now Marik was stuck and the irony of it all was that he was doing no better than his youngest son in leaving his family members to be ravaged alone by the forces of the darkness, the thing that he had severely berated and yelled at Caiellis for.

Marik's mind snapped back into focus when he looked at the past representation of his youngest son once again, this Caiellis little different to the current one apart from slightly shorter hair and a different look in his wide green eyes that reminded the king so much of Emili that gazing at his youngest son was something that brought a lump to Marik's throat and caused him pain inside, sometimes to the point where he couldn't stand to be in the boy's presence for no fault of his own.

He realised now that what he had said to his youngest son was far too harsh, and that he had been wrong, so, so _wrong _in his assessment of the situation with the boy. The king, in his annoyance, prideful incredulity and irritation and finding out that one of _his _sons hadn't yet passed his Summoning trial at the age of twelve (or thirteen as it had transpired), had decided that Caiellis must obviously have been slacking and had been coddled by his older brother and the Light-bearers of the capital – as why else would he have thought that not having access to a First Sisterhood angel at that age would be acceptable?

However, it was plain as transparent glass that Caiellis had not been thinking that at all, and that he had not been smothered and spoilt by his elders – in fact, their reassurances and encouragements had probably been the only things that had kept Caiellis thinking that he was acceptable and that he wasn't a complete failure, because Marik knew well now how badly his son thought of himself – inheriting that awful trait from him. Caiellis had most likely already thought he was a worthless failure like his father had implied not so subtly, but with the backing and supporting of his brother and carers he had been able to still keep some of his self-esteem and a bit of confidence.

That had been destroyed by the brash and insensitive words of a man who had only thought about himself and his duty to the kingdom, not how his sons were feeling, and had never considered looking further into his youngest son's difficulty in Summoning, instead passing it off as a simple lack of incentive to succeed because he was unaware and had been kept hidden from the ramifications of failure. His declaration that his son was a failure and not suited at all to being a king had shattered the last remaining walls between Caiellis hating himself and being able to cope with his lack of success so far which his "Uncles" (Marik thought that it was absolutely adorable that his youngest referred to Tybalt and Tristram like that, although to be fair they were more like family to him than anyone in his actual family apart from Alexander and his poor mother) and older brother had tried to hard to fortify.

He could see now how blind he had been, how horrible the things that he had said to his youngest son were solely because he had not wanted to have to deal with a son that was struggling and simply wanted children that could excel on their own and with absolutely no help from their father at all, and although it would not be the worst thing he had ever said to Caiellis it had been the catalyst for his spiral into self-harming and quite severe depression. He had told the boy that no matter what others said, his failure was unacceptable and that his father would no longer terrible – he had not asked why his son had found it so difficult to succeed apart from in a degrading way, and he hadn't even said that it was good to see him again after all these years.

He had assumed that it was a lack of determination which was afflicting his son, but Caiellis had already been extremely determined to succeed and his father's words had, instead of motivating him, pushed him into dangerous obsession because he had thought that no one would love him and that he would remain worthless if he didn't unlock his angel – whereas Marik thought now that his son was worth far more to him than his First Sisterhood angel was. The king should have of course informed him that he was expected to pass it soon, but been more like he had acted when giving the boy the Sword of Glass – which had been motivated by the anger and desperation of his eldest son for his youngest's sake.

Because of his compassionless and harsh dad the littlest Lucerna had thought that he was not worth anything, that he was useless to his family and the kingdom and had no place within the vaunted Lucerna line, so instead of helping his son in his selfishness he had only made it worse for the kid. He hadn't thought to think that perhaps because Caiellis had been given a First Sisterhood angel which only one other of the Lucerna family had been blessed by before that the trial was perhaps in some way different or harder than normal tests, oh no, he had taken the easy route and blamed his physically weak but mentally strong second son for it because that had meant that he hadn't had to dedicate any time to helping or aiding Caiellis.

His thoughtless words had pushed his son over the edge into deep sadness, and the boy had isolated himself away from everyone – not that Marik would have known without the eldest son of his loudly informing him of it – he had even pushed away his older brother, the one person who he could trust above all others, and devoted his life to passing the test of the Angel of the Black Sun because he couldn't bear the weight of the pressure pressing down on his young shoulders, couldn't bear to see his father's displeasure again due to what it had done to him.

Caiellis had evidently been looking forward to seeing him, Marik could see that now without being blinded by his pride and frustration at having to embrace his parental duties (without Emili) again, and the forty year old had crushed the hope of him being able to meet one of the perfect family that Caiellis had only been able to have until the age of four after nine years of war and peril, crushed the possibility of him having an actual parent that would look after him and make him feel safe and happy again. He should have held the boy – both of his boys – close from the beginning instead of ignoring them, but it was too late for now and Marik deserved all the pain he might yet receive for failing them.

The small youngster had pledged every iota of his existence to completing the test of Orzhova without any aid from his family because he had shoved them away, not wanting them to see him like that or for them to hurt him like Marik had done, and spent every minute of his life either relentlessly attempting the trial, sleeping because of the exhaustion and fatigue heaped upon his frail and young body by the constant mental strain and pressure to succeed. Because of that, he had lost even more weight due to not being able to eat very often as he was either too tired to go and get food or too afraid to confront any of the members of his family, and had no one to tell him that he was still loved and that they believed in him.

Marik should have told his son that he loved him no matter what happened in lieu of ignoring that parental feeling which had stirred beneath his visage of an imposing monarch, Marik the Father rousing after being chained and imprisoned after nine years of brutality to be instantly suppressed and stamped out, labelled a distraction and inconvenience. Instead, he had berated and ranted at the youth who was already close to loathing himself for his failure, and that had sent Caiellis into a deep sorrow where he believed that his dad hated him and wanted nothing to do with him.

It did not matter at all that this desperation and lack of self-worth was exactly what Orzhova had required from her Summoner so that he could pass her trial, and try as he might Marik could not bring himself to blame the dark seraph and hate her for what she had made his son go through to earn the limited acceptance and pride of his father. The Angel of the Black Sun had not wanted a repeat of the Xarius incident and would rather that her second Summoner did not have access to her than abuse her powers for their own gain, though Marik knew that Caiellis would never turn out like the narcissistic and egotistical Emperor of Light.

It was completely irrelevant that the state of mind that Marik had forced Caiellis into with his inconsiderate and cruel words had been needed for him to ever unlock Orzhova, because now Marik (as a father at any rate, because as a king he couldn't think like this) would rather that his son had never passed his Summoning trial than thought that his life was worth so little that he could throw it away simply because of a possibility that he could succeed in something which had hung over his head for the past month. The Lucerna patriarch was abhorred at the thought that either of his young sons who had everything to live for would want to cut themselves because they thought that a brief sting of pain would alleviate the crushing pressure of expectation or would think that little of themselves to be unconcerned by the thought of death.

As he gazed at the face of his smallest son, the one month younger Caiellis unaware that his father was watching him in the past, Marik truly came to grips with the severity of his numerous mistakes, and it scared him more than anything but the death of Emili had ever done that he was capable of doing such harm to the ones who were more precious to him than anything in this cruel world. Now that he had been gifted the chance to experience his memories once again and could analyse them afterwards with a mind that was free of what he had thought at the time, he could see that when he had entered the room and his son had looked upon him for the first time, underneath the exhaustion and bitter disappointment in his expressive emerald eyes (which could switch to being enigmatic and emotionless like his father's were often within a few seconds), there had been an excited and beaming light within them at meeting his dad once again, a light that Marik had wished that he had paid attention to and acknowledged at the time before launching straight into admonishing and downright insulting the boy.

Now that he could see Caiellis again, he could see clearly that that light had gone from his son's eyes. They were blank, but Caiellis was trembling as he stood up from a mixture of exhaustion and despair at what his dad had just said to him. The emerald orbs of his youngest son were lacking any form of emotion, his feelings pushed deep inside of him so that they could not be hurt any more, but Marik could tell that within those expressive eyes there was a deep misery which hurt the king to the core of his being, a misery which was rising every second as his son stood still.

Caiellis sat down once again, his motions tired yet efficient, and he sank to the floor gratefully. Marik hadn't known how much the Summoning trial took out of his son, which meant that he must have pushed himself to the brink of death in trying hard to triumph before being forced to leave because he believed that death would kill him in both the physical world and the Mind Realm. Had he realised how much effort Caiellis had already put into it without his "motivation", Marik might have acted differently and been more sensitise about it, but it was too late now and all the man could do at the present moment was watch the consequences of his actions and ill words. He knew at the back of his mind what was coming, what he would be forced to observe, but he was not willing to consider that yet.

With the horror's laughter in his mind, Marik watched as his little boy slumped, drained by his mental endeavour and with the walls which had been brought in front of his eyes cracking every second. Caiellis sat there for a few seconds, staring blankly at the floor as he processed what had been said to him and what had happened. Marik wished that he knew what was going on in his youngest son's mind, but at the moment his emerald eyes were still empty – _no, not empty … more like blank or with his emotions concealed by his mental shell –_ enough that he could not tell or perceive what mental processes were occurring in the boy's brilliant mind that he did not praise Caiellis upon nearly enough.

Both of his sons were very intelligent boys, but when he was older it was very probable that Caiellis would overtake his brother since he was already at his heels because of his insatiable thirst for knowledge (although not the bad kind that lead to forbidden pacts with demons for more), curiosity for learning and analytical mind, whereas Alexander preferred to focus on his physicality and was much more of an instinctive thinker than his brother. His sons were different, which was something to be celebrated instead of begrudged, and that reflected in their approaches to warfare and their conversations with the other member of their small family.

The light in his son's eyes gone, Caiellis's head hung low on his thin neck and his skinny shoulders dropped. Like a sudden tidal wave had washed through his mind and began to smash apart the cage around the boy's emotions, tears began to trickle out of those wide green eyes, and unlike when Marik had been there severely reprimanding his son for something which was which not his fault he made no moves to stop the flood of clear liquid which began to pour out of his eyes.

The youngest Lucerna burst into tears, wracking out choked sobs worse than Marik had ever seen from him before (apart from when he had been an infant, but even then he had not been this sad unless the night of Emili's death was counted) excluding the day when Alexander had almost died as he cried, huge fat tears cascading down his pale and innocent cheeks as the Black Sun marking one of them shone with a melancholy and haunting purple light. Caiellis cried, choking out whimpers that were so sad, and the king wished that he could gather his delicate and sensitive youngest son in his arms, lift up the insubstantial weight of the small boy with his large physical strength and let him bawl his eyes out into his father's chest, but there was nothing he could do as this was only a memory, albeit not one of his own.

That didn't stop the king from trying, reaching out ethereal arms to his son as he found that he actually had limbs now, though no matter how hard he tried and despite being easily close enough for him to touch the boy his hands never reached Caiellis, the boy always too far away. Caiellis kept crying, despite trying to stop, bringing up his undoubtedly unhealthily thin legs and wrapping his similarly slim arms around his bony knees, pressing his head into them and obscuring Marik's vision of the mournful dejection in his son's eyes that brought tears to the king's eyes like little else did, though in spite of that it did not block out the heart-wrenching sounds of his baby boy crying.

Despite his efforts to stem the flood of sadness and blockade the flood of tears, rubbing at the skin of his cheeks and his eyes until they were red-rimmed, raw and puffy, Caiellis couldn't seem to be able to control the emotions which Marik had created – or rather caused to grow, since they had already been there and only the comforts of his "Uncles" and supportive older brother had staved them off.

Caiellis pressed his head into his knees, probably thinking he was pathetic for letting out these emotions and desperately hoping that his father hadn't for some reason decided to turn around and come talk to him more or his sibling had come looking for him. He removed his hands from his face, knowing that they were doing nothing and that the tears were simply dripping through the gaps in his thin (but reasonably long for his height – which made them even more slender, as if they had been short at least they would have been thicker) fingers anyway, allowing Marik to see his eyes once again.

The hands dropped despondently to his side, gripping the fabric of his trousers as he cried his heart out, each dejected sob like a shard of ice ramming into Marik's own heart which had been hurt so much over the years. Then, one of them must have brushed against something in Caiellis's trembling, and the hand on his right side tightly gripped the solid handle of his self-defence dagger which he always carried around with him out of habit ever since he had been four years old (unbeknownst to Marik, of course, and emulating his brother's unconscious need to always have a weapon nearby just in case).

_No no no no no,_ Marik's mind silently pleaded, although the past version of his smallest son could not hear him as his eyes, still streaming with sad tears, fixed upon the hilt of his knife and a kind of shameful revelation came over him. Caiellis kept looking at the dagger, though he did not move his head, and in spite of Marik's mental begging of him not to touch it because he did not want to watch this happen to his own son Caiellis eventually slipped the elegant Lucaelian steel definitely given to him during the civil war where he had been forced to grow up far too fast out of its holster. He played with it for a few seconds as he kept crying, flicking it round in his hand in some sort of rhythm that Marik could not discern and, as his hand was still shaking and his body was still wracked with extremely despairing sobs, getting dangerously close to cutting himself with the sharp edge of the blade.

Caiellis stared at it for a few seconds, and slid it back into its sheath in the belt on his waist, before gasping out another sorrowful whimper and pulling it back out, staring at the weapon once again as the tears flowed freely out of his eyes, the clear metal of the blade reflecting the haunting purple light of Caiellis's birthmark's reaction to his tears onto the rest of his pale face. Caiellis looked immensely ashamed, filled to the brim with sorrow and self-loathing that Marik wished that he could erase, embarrassed of what he was about to do as he used his other hand to slowly pull off his jacket and pull up the thin fabric of his shirt.

_Caiellis, don't do this, please. Please, baby boy, don't do this to yourself. I didn't mean what I said, _Marik couldn't speak, so he had to resort to thinking the words which he knew would have no effect on the past version of his second but no less loved son. As he expected, he couldn't touch Caiellis and drag him into a loving and reassuring hug either, and couldn't close his eyes so that he would not have to watch the culmination of his son's lack of self-esteem and his father's horrible words and accusations. He couldn't encircle his son's thin wrist with his hand and stop him from doing the thing that he knew was going to happen, something which he hadn't paid much attention to even when it had been thrown in his face.

Caiellis's eyes were alight with sadness and shame, as if loath to do this to himself, although it was with no small amount of guilt that Marik realised his son's trepidation had nothing to do with the fact that he was frightened of hurting himself – he was embarrassed and didn't want anyone to see him like this for the simple reason that this wasn't accepted in Lucael for teenagers, particularly not for one of the Lucerna family who was supposed to be perfect in every single thing that he did and if he was caught cutting himself he would never know the end of the humiliation. Caiellis wasn't bothered about the hurt that would be dealt to himself, he was only concerned with the shame that self-harming would bring to himself and his family should any find out – as doing something like that was frowned upon by the rest of Lucael and something that teenagers who entertained such thoughts couldn't talk about with other people.

Marik himself had found it immensely hard – or, more precisely, downright impossible unless he was able to converse with Tybalt – during his youth to speak to others about his problems, especially since he was a Lucerna heir that was expected to be an exemplar of justice and nobility even at that young age when going through puberty, and so he should have known that his son would not have been in the best emotional state even with everything going right, which it certainly had not been. As a youngster himself, Marik had had no idea how to ask for help, no idea how to communicate that with his family (although his father probably wouldn't have listened anyway) or anyone else, and had felt ashamed even thinking about it, which was probably exactly what his youngest son had been going through which had been heavily exacerbated by his dad's return and instant scolding.

_Caiellis no, stop it now, don't hurt yourself – it's not worth it. Please, Caiellis, don't do this to yourself, you are loved too much. _

Now he could only watch in horror and disgust directed at himself as Caiellis hefted the light but reliable and elegant knife, twirling it in his hand as yet more desperate tears dripped out of his eyes, and shut his eyes as he almost gently and tenderly nicked his bare skin with the steel blade. Marik mentally cried out, frantically trying to stop his son in spite of the reality that he knew that this had already happened and that he had been too late to stop it then. Caiellis bit his lip at the stinging pain, tears running down out of his closed eyelids as a thin trickle of crimson blood ran from the wound, stark against the pale skin of his youngest son. The cut in itself was superficial, only just breaching the surface of the skin and only just managing to draw blood, but it was the symbolism of the action that mattered, what Caiellis self-harming represented.

The tears of Marik's baby boy began to slowly dry up, the cascade of transparent liquid out of his eyes starting to lessen in intensity and become more of an occasional drizzle than a tidal wave of sadness. Caiellis pulled the blade away quickly, opening his eyes again and darting them back and forth across the room to see if anyone had come in or not, and it deeply saddened Marik that his son was more frightened of being seen and found out than he was about hurting himself, even more so because he knew that that fear was well-founded. Had the king turned around and decided to re-enter the room only to see Caiellis inflicting a small cut on his lower abdomen, he would have shouted at the youngster even more harshly, yell at him to suck it up instead of being weak and pathetic and resorting to cutting himself just because he couldn't deal with a bit of criticism and censure for his failures.

Caiellis blew out a dejected breath, emotionlessly cleaning his blade with a pulse of purifying mana and then running that same mana over the wound – the boy was fully aware that one of the main tenets of healing was that one could not heal wounds that one had inflicted, but the thirteen year old was clearly preparing and fortifying it against any potential infection. That aptly showed how intelligent Caiellis was and how he was able to think logically even in the direst of situations, but also how he only wanted the brief but all encompassing sting of pain to distract him from the crushing feeling of the burdens weighing down his life and pressing down on his thin shoulders, wanting to avoid any long term implications that would damage his chances of completing his Summoning's difficult trial.

It also spoke volumes to Marik of how much (or rather, how little) his youngest son valued himself, not seeing the self-inflicted injuries as anything that should concern him in the slightest and only something to be ashamed of. The barriers that stopped others from seeing his emotions unless they knew him extremely well and were given the chance to stare deep into his eyes clanged down in front of his emerald green orbs once again, and Caiellis brushed the stark tear tracks from his face, his expression blank and hollow once again as he pushed away his feelings so that they would affect him no longer. Marik felt tears brimming at the corner of his own eyes after watching the ordeal, the only sensation he could feel in this strange world of distorted memories and the past, and after a few seconds he was wrenched out of this perspective and roughly deposited in another vision.

The king would have gasped as the sudden nauseating sensation that sparked queasiness in every one of his nerves coursed throughout his body, but with that came the same detached feeling that he had become somewhat used to after watching his youngest son's awful ordeal. It took a few seconds for the king to get his bearings, the room unfamiliar to him for the moment before he belatedly recognised it as Caiellis's personal sanctum, the boy sat in the centre of the small but private room which only he had access to.

Caiellis was crying again, and it was with a mounting sense of dismay and alarm that he realised what was going to happen, what he would be forced to watch once again. The sobs sending shuddering pulses throughout his son's slender form were somehow even worse than they were before, and Caiellis had scrunched his hands up into frustrated and hopeless fists as he cried tears of anger, shame and dejection. He was more sad then he had been at what Marik somehow knew as the day before when he had spoken to the boy and destroyed the last semblances of confidence within the adolescent and gave him the final push needed to send him on an ever-downwards spiral of despair.

Caiellis clutched the hilt of the dagger once again, though he had not drawn it yet, and the king briefly wondered that had his son been as strong as he was now whether or not he would be crushing the handle of the short blade with the white-knuckled intensity of his simultaneously frustrated and distressed grip. It was evident that Caiellis was angry and furious with himself, probably blaming his weakness and lack of strength on not passing the trial which he had evidently attempted, and dark rings of exhaustion were distinct and striking around his wide and tender green eyes.

Marik knew from experience that it was incredibly unhealthy for one to attempt the Summoning trial relentlessly every single day in a row without breaks, but of course he had not been there to tell his son that – or even been there to know at all, to be aware of his youngest child's predicament so that he could help with it. It was very clear that Caiellis had barely been able to sleep at all, the thoughts of failure and worthlessness keeping him awake throughout the night, and it was also likely that had he drifted off into a restless slumber he would have been faced with one of the many nightmares that Marik was sharply aware of now.

After the siege of Fort Egetau that had led to the two butting heads once again and Caiellis being caught in an explosion after disobeying his father's orders, during the healing which had prevented his rather painful burns from being accentuated and compromising his combat ability and after it Marik had watched as the thirteen year old had been gripped by an obviously very traumatic nightmare. He had assumed that it had been because of the brutal battle and war that no thirteen year old should ever have to have been involved in, but asked Tristram anyway if his youngest suffered from bad dreams very often.

He had been surprised and shocked to find out that his smallest son had been afflicted by horrible and regular nightmares ever since the night of his mother's death that thankfully his older brother had been mostly spared from (though of course he still had to deal with the aftermath of losing his mother and being thrown into a civil war at the vulnerable age of eight), but it made sense and would also be something that Caiellis would not have felt comfortable talking about with his elders.

Right now, the Caiellis in front of him raised the dagger in front of his face, watching with a gaze blurred with cascades of tears (it hurt Marik to see how despondent his son became after failing an attempt at accessing Summoning, because it showed how much of Caiellis's life and desire to be happy revolved around it to the point where he believed that it was more important than his well-being and ultimately his life itself) as the light from the mana-charged illumination in the room reflected off of the blade of the weapon. He shuddered, trembling in a mixture of exhaustion and sorrow, as he brought the blade inwards, lifting up his shirt once again since he wasn't wearing his jacket now.

The cut which he had inflicted the day before had been healing reasonably well because of his advanced and natural rejuvenation due to his Lucerna heritage (although his fragile form meant that damage was worse than it normally was), looking more like a scratch picked up accidentally from a nail or something equally as mundane, and Caiellis only hesitated for a brief moment before inflicting another shallow incision into his soft skin. He bled again, the blood trickling out of the wound and down his skin before he brushed it away with his other hand, the fingertips already coated with White mana. His hand holding the blade shook, making the wound worse than he had intended, but as he sat, shuddering and trying to breath deeply in and out instead of hyperventilating in a combination of frustrated despair and fear from whatever had happened in his trial, the pain eventually allowed him to stop crying.

The instant he did Caiellis pulled the blade away, completing the same shaky but efficient moments as the day before, although this cut would not heal as easily as it was slightly larger and deeper. Again Marik felt tears welling up in his eyes at the sight of his son so broken, though Caiellis managed to hide his shattered emotional state back in the cage within his young mind, concealing them with the shell of emptiness and blank-eyed stares. Marik was ashamed that in the few times he had walked past his son in the days to come he hadn't seen anything wrong with his youngest boy, which was a crime in itself, but he had been unwilling to favour his son with his presence until he completed the trial and Summoned the Angel of the Black Sun.

Then Marik was whisked away once again, spirited away from the non-memory of his son cutting his fragile flesh and placing the barriers of coldness and hollowness back upon his eyes so that no one would try and help or bother him or see how much emotional pain he was in. Once again he was presented with his son in the sanctum next to his room, and if Marik thought that seeing his son crying so many times would ever desensitise him to the sight he would be sorely mistaken because every single time he saw or hurt it it stirred his own heart to sympathetic sadness.

Caiellis was getting increasingly worse, and despite this only being the second day after meeting his father after the war for the first time the boy looked significantly paler and more tired then he had done on that first day.

Instead of twirling the dagger around in his hands after pulling it out, as if trying to stop his tears through sheer force of will before resorting to causing himself pain, he slowly brought the blade of the knife round and placed it by the front of his neck, right next to the pulsing arterial vessel on it. Marik's heart leapt into his mouth when he saw his son in that position, wracking his mind to recall whether or not Caiellis had seemed wounded in that area and deciding that he hadn't.

He kept crying, a testimony to how much he cared about this Summoning trial and earning his father's pride, making the king wonder when it had changed so that Caiellis no longer cared what his dad thought of him. Marik, despite knowing that his son wouldn't do it or hurt himself in that area, couldn't help himself thinking horrified thoughts of what if and encouragements to his son who couldn't hear him that he should never think of killing himself because he was loved far too much and he had so much more to live for in this world, that his stupid father's declaration that he was a failure meant absolutely nothing and that deep down the king truly loved him more than anything apart from Alexander.

Caiellis opened his ages again, and within them was the disappointed sting of failure as well as shame, and it hit the king that his son was ashamed of the fact that he wasn't confident or brave enough to end his own life. The look in his baby boy's eyes was sending Marik over the edge and he was sure that had the physical representation of himself been there he would have broken down and probably become extremely angry that his son was seriously entertaining thoughts of suicide, angry at himself and the world for putting his fragile just-teenager in that situation.

Instead of slitting his own throat and bleeding to death right there and then, Caiellis yanked the knife away from his thin neck, his eyes screwing up in sadness and anger as he rammed the blade with much more force into his abdomen this time, viciously stabbing it into him so that the sting of the pain would distract him from his burning failure that was what he believed his life and the love from his family hinged upon. Marik gasped – or rather, he would have done – at how brutal his son was being with himself, and the forty year old knew how turbulent a time that puberty was, so with the double burden of being a Lucerna that was failing to access the thing that made him part of the royal bloodline pressing down on a boy who was already suffering from an intense swing of different hormones Caiellis was having a very hard time coping.

_Stop please, stop hurting yourself Caiellis. You are too precious to all of us to do this … _Marik was being broken by the very sight of his son doing something which he had known had happened but had given little thought to, and every cut that Caiellis made into himself felt like a dagger of ice and guilt ramming into Marik, hacking apart his emotional stability and ripping through his mind. There was more blood this time, and the boy gasped in pain, evidently regretting his choice to be more violent this time, before repressing it and forcing any form of his emotions back down within him where they could no longer be seen by anyone else.

As the last few tears trickled down his face, the boy laughed, the sound mirthless, sad, and more than a little haunting. He rested his head on the knee which he had brought up and huddled to his chest, and murmured, "_I'm not even strong enough to kill myself. How pathetic, huh?_"  
_Aww, Caiellis. That isn't weakness. That is strength. You are one of the strongest people that I know, young man, one of the most passionate, strategic, defiant and determined Lucaelians that I have ever had the honour of meeting, and you are only just thirteen years old! _Marik thought, though inside his stomach was churning at the wounds self-inflicted upon his youngest son and the fact that he had actually considered suicide as a way of getting out and freeing himself from the constant burden. It was obviously thoughts of the Light-bearers, his older brother, and sadly the shame that he would bring upon his family which had stayed his hand, and Marik dreaded to think if Caiellis had been exactly the same and been an only child.

_Caiellis … why didn't you say anything, to anyone? Fair play not talking to me, because I probably wouldn't have listened at that time anyway because my obsession with preparing Lucael for the event of another war and my need to protect the people, but I'm sure that Alexander could have helped – heck, even if you didn't want to talk to your brother because you were embarrassed – no, _ashamed,_ and knew how rightly angry he would be, why didn't you seek help from Tybalt or Tristram? They would have known how to help you! Why did you just keep it inside and bottle it up within? _

Marik knew why already.

It was because he had convinced his son that he was a waste of time, that this failure of his was down to him and nothing else and that it was a way of him gaining attention, and that instead of delegating his parental duties to others he should have thrown himself into them for the sake of the kingdom and his children. He was just angry, seeing the independent and defiant son that he had grown used to over the past few days, reduced to _this, _although he knew that technically it had been the other way round and that the Caiellis he had come to tear his hair out about had risen from the ashes of this form of him.

Eventually, Caiellis got up, too tired to even take off his clothes as he slid into the bed within his sanctum as opposed to going into his room, and for the third time Marik was yanked out of this perspective and launched into another.

_How many times did he do this to himself? _Marik thought, outraged with himself and others for allowing his son to get this low and fall down this spiral of self-destruction, though he knew that mostly it was his own fault. He had caused this, and he had not taken responsibility for it at the time. That was just another reason why he had to come to the aid of his son in the present because he had failed him so many times in the past and hurt him, another thing to apologise and make up for because he knew for certain that these petty arguments between them would stop after this battle.

The others had been exactly as busy as he had – Tristram and Tybalt embracing their new roles, the former learning it for the first time whereas the latter got back into the swing of things, and Alexander had trained intensely and spent time making friends and ensuring that he was still learning how to be a good prince and king if the time came. Besides, the second oldest member of Marik's family had mentioned that Caiellis had isolated himself from everyone so that they could not help and could not know the secret shame that was eating him from within just as his lack of success and the pressure of expectation bearing down on his young form was crushing him from without.

Every time that he saw Caiellis, the boy placed the knife to his throat, hovering around his carotid artery as he tried to get himself under control or end his life there and then, and every time he was chained to the world of the living and took out of frustration at constantly failing on his fragile body. Marik didn't know how much more of his son hurting himself he could watch, considering that he was already almost broken by the despair that he had caused within his baby boy – he had known that it had been bad, he had seen the wounds for himself and he saw some of the more deep ones that he recognised being cut by the boy himself in front of Marik's vision into the past, and he knew that his son had killed himself within his Summoning trial because he predicted that that was what was necessary to unlock Orzhova, but to see it like this … it made him certain that he was an utter failure of a father and that he did not deserve this brilliant sons which Emili had given to him and died protecting him.

If his beloved wife had seen him now … had seen _Caiellis _as Marik was watching him, the king wasn't sure that she would ever forgive him for what he had made their youngest son do to himself, or more precisely ever forgive him for wrapping his hands around the boy's throat despite the fact that something was inside of his mind and manipulating his thoughts and actions. That didn't change the reality that it was inexcusable, and that Emili would never have done such a thing even if it had meant that her life would be saved.

_Please, stop this, Caiellis … you are worth more to me, your brother and a lot of people than you will ever realise, and not because you are a Lucerna. I can't watch this anymore … I can't watch you hurt yourself any more … _Marik tried to close his eyes, but again the emetic sensation of disembodiment and not being able to feel his limbs overcame him and no matter how hard he tried he wasn't able to tear away his gaze from the boy crying his soul out and hurting himself because if brought a brief, if stinging, respite from the crushing weight of failure until he could get it back under control and restrained within his mind so that he could keep up the semblance of being perfectly fine and then attempt the trial more.

Marik felt like he was going to be sick, seeing his son in one of the most vulnerable positions that he ever had been in, but more than that he was angry, enraged and seething that he had let this happen under his nose and that Caiellis had not only considered but enacted his actions.

Some part of him was glad that the Marik at the time who had not yet rediscovered how much he loved his two young sons, the last living, breathing pieces of Emili Noctis, had not found out about this self-harming, because his protective instinct would have been roused for the first time and it would have awoken in an incandescent blaze of fury at the fact that his son was intentionally hurting himself. He would have thought that Caiellis was pathetic, but worse than that would have been immensely angry with the youngster because he knew at the back of his mind that any pain inflicted upon his sons was inflicted upon himself and doubly fuming because it was no demon or creature of the foul darkness that he could vent his wrath upon which had harmed his youngest.

Every time he saw his son in the exact same fragile and vulnerable position it became gradually worse, taking longer for him to take the knife away from his throat and subsequently being much more violent with his fragile body afterwards, the tears taking much more effort to be crushed back inside of him so that no one could see his pain or know his shame. Now that Marik was able to see a timeline of his youngest son falling further and further into despair, he could clearly pick out that Caiellis's mental condition was degrading every day, every Summoning trial that he failed making him hate himself even more. It was stupid, the situation, that the boy thought that hurting himself was worth it because of his failing and lack of success to obtain a Summoning, but it just went to show how much pressure was placed upon a young Lucerna to succeed and make the kingdom proud of them. Marik disagreed with how the teenage Lucernas were treated, especially his sons, but there was nothing much that he could do about it apart from supporting them and trying to make their lives as bearable and as enjoyable as possible.

It was true that obtaining Caiellis's First Sisterhood angel was very important, and the safety of the people of Lucael depended upon it and if there was a Lucerna without access to their own angelic protector they would be easy prey for the ever opportunistic forces of the darkness – as the soul of a descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna was a delicacy banquet to the denizens of the abyss, and the shadows would know of it and use that information to further their own malicious objectives. But to see the boy so worked up about it to the point where his entire life hinged upon it and he felt that causing himself large amounts of pain just so he could get through it and keep trying, not give into his despair and allow himself to simply fail, was perfectly reasonable and not something to bother anyone else about, was wrong in so many ways and it made Marik's heart ache for his little boy.

If Marik had known the extent of the pain his son had been going through – and there were no excuses not to, as all the signs had been there, he had seen Caiellis's wounds first hand and had been told by the boy himself that he had killed himself within his Summoning trial to complete it; it was a damn good thing that Alexander was attuned to his second son's needs and helped to make him feel welcome and loved after those two revelations when Marik reeled from them and pushed them to the back of his mind so that he could focus – then he would have talked to Caiellis a lot more, he would have taken the time to ensure that both of his sons were alright instead of just one after Alexander's wounding, and he might not have ever sent them to the Scholaria Magnus in the first place.

After one particularly brutal bout of causing himself to bleed, Caiellis looked down at his abdomen in horror, as if suddenly realising what he was doing to himself. His expressive and crystal emerald eyes opened wide and he brushed cleansing and soothing White mana over the wounds, his breath hitching because of the fact that he hadn't yet managed to control his sobbing with his cutting before he had stopped. He put his head in his hands, and Marik could tell that he was silently wishing for this all to be a dream, for someone to come in and help him and take him away from the pain that he was going through, and clear tears spilled down his slender fingers.

Marik wasn't sure if he had ever felt more angry after the death of Emili, although when he had found Alexander at the mercy of the vampire bitch who had Summoned the horror that now trapped him in his own mind he had also been furious, but he knew that there was nothing he could do now as this had occurred in the past and that could not be changed. All that he could do was admit that he had horribly failed both his sons and not let his sometimes blinding pride get the better of him in that.

Perhaps if he wasn't watching his fragile youngest cry tears of innocent sadness and slice apart his own flesh he might have been able to summon counterarguments, assert that he had done all that he could and that if Caiellis's despair had helped him to unlock his First Sisterhood angel then it was fine, that juggling being a father and a king to the nation arguably in the most danger (apart from the New Empire of Passion now when Marik was finished with it) was impossible and that Lucael was more important than the emotional well-being of two young teenagers, but with evidence of his failure right in front of him he couldn't so much as entertain any of the other thoughts. Yes, the kingdom had been in need of strong leadership more than ever during and after the civil war, and there had been little that he could do in the war to check on his sons or make sure that they were as happy as possible in such a dire situation, but that didn't justify Marik ignoring his sons utterly when the war had finished because he didn't want any so-called "distractions" to rebuilding the Kingdom of Light and that he didn't want to have to embrace his parental duties without Emili.

That would have signalled to him that he had truly given up on his wife, though Marik knew now how far off the mark that was – drawing his sons was close and making them safe and happy was not letting go of Emili, it was in fact the exact opposite. It was nurturing the things that Emili had given everything up for and that she had loved more than any other thing in this world, her little boys who took after her so much, and by doing that he was helping to preserve Emili in this world.

It was strange, seeing his wife die again hadn't broken him, simply strengthened his love for his young sons and reinforced his determination to escape the prison of his own psychosis, but watching his youngest son like this was getting close to smash him apart. Seeing Caiellis in so much pain – just as he was presented with the next image of his son waking up, crying uncontrollably and quickly drawing the self-defence blade from its elegant scabbard – it hurt him, hurt him just as much as seeing Emili again because he knew that his son was still alive, that the boy still needed him in this world, whereas Emili was gone and there was no longer anything he could do for her apart from save her sons.

He had never before seen Caiellis in so much agony, not at the time in which he had been wounded after the battle of Fort Egetau, and even when his beloved mother had died right in front of his young four year old eyes. The many occurrences of his son cutting himself began to blur into one yet remaining distinctly separate, turning into a sojourn of sadness that began to gnaw away at Marik's insides when he remembered that the boy – both of his boys – were still in huge amounts of danger within Usnaan whilst he took this journey into the past that could not be changed, only learnt from.

_Caiellis, stop right now! Stop doing this to yourself! I'm sorry! I was stupid, I didn't mean what I said to you, and this Summoning of yours is not worth this much pain! Ask for help! I can't watch this much longer! _Marik tried to wrench his gaze away from the images of his son in agony of both a physical and emotional origin, but it was if his eyes were fixed to the spot of the boy in pain. He could hear the horror's laughter once again in his mind, the sadistic being enjoying watching his youngest son in pain and revelling in Marik's desperate need to escape from it or somehow stop it. Even though the hysterical cackling was deafening, screeching into Marik's ears like some of the loudest things that he had ever heard, it still didn't drown out the sound of Caiellis's anguished crying.

Eventually, after one especially heart-wrenching scene of the thirteen year old huddling on his bed proceeding him slicing an agonising pattern of incision up his lower abdomen, by far the most horrible wound he had inflicted onto himself so far, Marik's vision darkened and shadows swirled obtrusively at the edges of his sight as he watched his youngest child eventually drift of into a fitful slumber. He was dragged out of the personal sanctum of his youngest son which he wished was not exclusive to the boy simply because sometimes youngsters would abuse that advantage so that their family couldn't see them, even though Marik was pretty sure he could enter if he had ever wanted to being the Lucerna king so even then there was no excuses.

"Boy, doesn't that little kid whine?" the horror howled with malignant laughter, guffawing loudly and rubbing wriggling tendrils of gloom matter up and down its shadowy body as it laughed. Marik glared at it, though his resistance was faltering. The sight of Caiellis so vulnerable and fragile had taken a lot out of him, because now he was truly coming to terms with how much he had messed up and how low his youngest son's self-esteem truly was – most likely because of constant comparisons to his older brother.

Alexander wasn't at all at fault for that, because he was taller, stronger, faster, _older,_ and was still growing as well and eager to earn the pride of his last surviving parent, his king, and the people of Lucael who it was his duty to protect, whilst Caiellis had barely – or rather, not – even started his own teenage development and maturation and was still trying to find his own strengths, strengths which weren't overshadowed by his older brother and the praise given solely to him by their father.

Marik knew that had to change, but there was little time to ruminate upon the many revelations that the horror's visions had inadvertently given him because no matter how weak he felt now, his son's agony having drained him beyond belief because it reminded him how useless he was as a father, especially without Emili here to make up for his mistakes, he needed to fight so that there could be time for him to make reparations for his wrongs and makes amends to his sons.

"Hmm, Mariky-boy? You look a little pale," Aksua's free spawn of the shadows gloated, taunting the king into reacting as it extended its distended body round the seats of Akroma's war cathedral, twisting shadowy limbs round and round as it circled the monarch like a snake, "Was the sight of your youngest son slicing himself up a bit shocking for you?! I swear that boy could make a perfect Welkalite, what with his predilection towards self-harm and-"  
"SHUT UP!" the king howled, stunning the being into silence with his sudden explosion of rage, and the whole building shook with the resounding echoes of the man's furious shout. The expression of almost innocent and childish surprise tainted by being held by three eyes of pure blackness soon turned to one of barbarous and fiendish amusement, the creature of the foulest darkness deriving large amounts of pleasure from seeing its victim in so much emotional pain, and although it tried to for some reason pretend that it was Marik's chum it clearly enjoyed the sight of him in anguish – though not as much as it yearned for Caiellis's pain.

Whether or not that was because the thing already had a taste of the boy's mind back when Aksua was controlling it, because Caiellis was only an innocent child and the souls of the pure were even more delectable for those within the nether realm, because he was young and fragile and an easier victim than the other members of the royal family, or due to the littlest Lucerna's unique combination of White and Black mana which meant that he had light from the loftiest spires of heaven and darkness from the deepest pits of the hellish underworld within was unknown to the king, and right now he didn't care. All that mattered was that this disgusting bastard of a creature wanted to see his youngest son in pain, something that would not be tolerated.

"Ooh, did I hit a nerve there, Mariky-boy? It certainly seems like you wanted to shout the whole building down, but that isn't going to happen, and you already know that all resistance is futile whilst I have control of your mind. And I am not intending to relinquish that just yet, oh know, not when we are so close to the grand finale," the being giggled excitedly, exposing gnashing and bleached white teeth as several tongues of arterial murk throbbing to the silent sound of the horror's malevolent heartbeat pushed out of its mouths and licked the shadow skin around it in a disgusting display that the king paid no attention to.

His gaze was fixed upon the horror's eyes, looking deep into those dark pits in an unnerving and furious way that would have forced any human to look away and hide from the piercing glare. The being laughed again, a tiny titter of vile amusement as it met the king's stare with a jeering leer of its own, and it leaned closer, knowing that the man would not waste time smashing it apart unless it came too close.

"_What_," Marik spat and snarled in the same instant, his voice gruff, dripping with venom, filled to the brim with fury and overflowing with hatred of the darkness which had caused him and his family so much torment that it didn't deserve and had threatened the people of Lucael for longer than the Kingdom of Light itself had existed, "_Are you doing to my son?!_"

"I think I've delayed long enough, don't you think so too, Mariky-boy?" the horror asked nonchalantly. It was as if it had not heard at all what had just been said, instead preferring to carry on with its own exultant and inhuman monologuing. "I can see that you are just itching to see him again, to look upon precious little baby Caiellis to make sure that he is ok with your own eyes, aren't you?"

Marik didn't answer him, locked, as it were, in the dark prison of his own psyche. He refused to let the being derive even the most minute portion of enjoyment from him.

The eldest loyal Lucerna knew that he would be shown soon, and he was horrified and more than a little anxious to see what was going on back in the real world. Because of the foray into his memories, several of which had lasted hours, Marik felt like he had spent what amounted to days trapped within his head, which couldn't have been true – even so, against an Archdemon with a magnitude of power unmatched by almost all beings in the world, even a second of unconsciousness might have been enough for Caiellis to be hurt, or even – _NO!_

"Brooding silence is going to get you nowhere, Mariky-boy. I expected better from you, tut tut. But then, we both know that I can't hide this from you any more, and that I would enjoy it too much to stop you from seeing it forever," the horror giggled, the most perversely exhilarated Marik had seen it so far. The more thrilled the being got the worse Marik feared for his son, and the forty year old knew that this was the culmination of its plans, the apotheosis of everything that it had made him do to the smallest member of his tiny family, the completion of all that had led to this point.

He railed against it with all of his mind, refusing to favour the invader of his most personal space with responses as he focussed every inch of his willpower into disrupting whatever was happening in reality and fighting the control of this nefarious spawn of evil, and the horror's teeth glinted in the light of the flickering devotional candles arranged in orderly and symmetrical rows down the sides of the cathedral sanctuary as its smile widened.

"Don't you want to see your son? Don't you want to see where you left your little boy? Don't you want to see where this takes young Caiellis?"

* * *

New Summonings or Sancturia creatures in this chapter:

Night of the murder: Grinning Demon, Demonic Taskmaster and Nether Horror.


	37. A Hero's Death (Part III)

_You know when I said that the next chapter would be the final one in this war? I lied. I'm almost finished with the last chapter of it, literally on the last short scene, but instead of giving you a chapter of 100000+ words (which is ridiculous even by my standards) I'm going to split it up into three parts. It makes it easier to read, easier to review, and easier for me to proof read and change if necessary. Anyway, Part IV is coming out on the same day as this, and Part V should be tomorrow. Thank you for reading my story, and please review._

* * *

"Don't you want to see your son? Don't you want to see where you left your little boy? Don't you want to see where this takes young Caiellis?" the creature asked, its grin broadening and enlarging to ludicrous levels as it stretched across its face, some of its black eyes moving to accommodate this new expansion of its mouths. It stayed like that for a few seconds, clearly waiting for some sort of reply from the man in front of it, before snarling petulantly when there wasn't one.

"Very well. You don't have to reply. I'm going to enjoy watching you squirm, no-fun-Marik!" the being screamed at the man sat silently, and the king could feel himself being pulled into another form of vision – even though this one was different, as he could ascertain that instead of being dragged into the past he was being forcefully thrust into the present. A glimmer of light in the darkness, the ever expanding eye of an incandescent star that consumed all light around it and used to it fuel its own harsh luminescence, was shoved towards Marik, though this time he felt the horror going with him, following the Lucerna monarch on his kaleidoscopic journey of light and sound. The king could taste ash, and blood, on his tongue, although the latter of those was tainted and heavily unnatural whereas the former was perfectly mundane but still carried the foul stench and flavour of corruption.

Before he could open his eyes, the man was assaulted by a menagerie of different sensations. He could feel the blood that was infusing his taste buds with the coppery tang of somehow vibrant vitae, running down his face and cheeks, and even though it felt like aeons since he had felt anything in the real world his mind instantaneously identified it as the Rain of Gore. Then, he felt pain, a stinging and aching sensation coming from his lower abdomen, and he briefly recalled being stabbed in the gut several times by Enforcer-general Fraetus Etin on his rampage through the City of Pleasure and its Welkalite defenders to get to this point.

The king could smell the ash that had fallen onto the battlefield, and his nostrils curled at the foetid reek of corruption that permeated and stained everything within the city. He could feel the presence of the Archdemon Rakdos in his sixth sense, and with a bit of focussing past the immense blot of the demon he could pick out his own angel, Akroma, stood not too far from him, next to the strange White and Black combination of the twilight Orzhova that the king could only just pick up on.

He could hear the muted sounds of violence in the background, the roar of clashing armies and the screams of the dying all blending into one cacophonous din of noise that howled in the king's ears, although for now he was powerless to move or block it out. Above it all, the Tempest of Craving blocking out the baleful red orb of the Welkalite sun rumbled and laughed tempestuously, drowning out the war cries and shouting of those battling underneath it. Every one of his senses seemed working apart from sight, although the king could not move of his own accord as his body staggered forwards.

"_Are you able to fight now, dad?_"

The voice pierced into Marik's paralysis, its youthful tones flooding his mind with pure relief as the king's heart skipped a beat.

_Caiellis! He's alright! _

The king tried to turn, to open his eyes and respond to his son, but found that he couldn't, found that there was nothing he could do at the current moment in time. Caiellis was fine for now, but he might not stay like that for long, not was the Archdemon here to terrorize him and subject him to immense amounts of agony. He wanted to turn, to call out to his son and hold him in his arms, although he knew that the last would not be practical within this savage battle and could be delayed until after he saved the Lucaelian force and his children from the threat of this demon.

Caiellis's voice was full of a selection of different emotions: there was fear, for himself and for his father who had evidently fallen unconscious in some way even though he could feel himself moving now without his own mental orders to do so, and there was exhaustion and pain and numerous other things that didn't bear thinking about, things that Marik could solve now that he was conscious even though he was sharply aware of the presence of the horror by his side – or at least that was what it felt, though clearly the creature was invisible to Caiellis otherwise he would have reacted differently and helped his father.

The king's eyes suddenly snapped open, attacked by light and darkness from all sides as the piercing blue orbs took in the scene around him, though for some reason Marik was staggering like a drunkard and he was powerless to stop it. His roving pupils instantly found his youngest son, and the man's reassurance was palpable.

Caiellis was not fine, not in the slightest, but he wasn't hurt very much apart from a few scrapes and burns, and seeing his son in a condition that was not life-threatening made Marik want to thank every god that humans had ever conjured up to satisfy their needs to feel a part of something greater. He instead mentally praised the angels, two of which were right here, for ensuring that his youngest son was kept safe. However, he was still fatally cognizant of the horror's words, and knew that there was still something he needed to watch out for.

Caiellis was covered in blood, some of it his own but most of it the vivid crimson gore from the Tempest of Craving, and the thick liquid matted his medium length and wavy brown hair down on his head. His gaunt and innocent cheeks were pale where the scarlet rain wasn't staining them, although he had a small cut that bled underneath his lip which probably wasn't causing him much pain but still made his father wince – or would have made him wince, if any of the mental impulses from his own mind were actually stimulating movements.

His green eyes were filled to the brim with the same emotions that his voice had carried, acutely reminding his dad that the boy was far too young for this type of brutal warfare – or any type of violence, for that matter, irrelevant that Caiellis with his angel excelled at it. He was exhausted, that much was evident, and terrified, though Marik knew fully well why – being left to fight an Archdemon alone was one of the worst experiences in the world. His son should have waited for him or his brother before rushing off, although he had clearly only been wanting to help and Marik was only angry with him at that because of the fact that he had almost got himself killed.

It seemed that Caiellis regretted that uncharacteristically rash but incredibly selfless course of action now, and the relief was stark in his eyes, mixing with the hope that his dad would help him now and that he would not have to be alone any longer. It made Marik think that Caiellis was much younger than his thirteen years when he looked at his father like this, eyes full of hope and trust in his dad that the man was sure he hadn't seen since he was thirty one years old. It made him regret that this trust had been lost, although he had seen the same anxious hope within Caiellis the first time he had seen the boy after the war, and Caiellis had clearly and sadly thought that favouring his father with that again would be a sure fire way to have it shoved back in his face.

It was sad that only in the most desperate situations was it brought out, but the king was honestly very surprised that the kid still showed him that confidence and faith that Mark would fix everything like he always had done when Caiellis had been much younger after all that he had done to the boy. It showed that, deep down, Caiellis still loved his father just as Marik loved him, and it told Marik that after this battle should he try to repair their relationship he would be welcomed, though not quite with open arms. This savage battle that was one of the worst Marik had ever been in (which made it definitely the worst which Caiellis had been actively involved in) simply put their arguments into perspective and showed that in the grand scheme of things that ultimately they were pointless. He would make reparations with his son when they were all safe and the impudent Welkalite threat had been put down, and Marik's mind lit up with anger when he heard the horror snickering by his side and muttering something to itself under its breath.

All that mattered was that Caiellis was safe enough now, as while Marik would give anything to whisk his sons away from this hellscape of forbidden pleasure the fact that he wasn't severely hurt or damaged meant the world to Marik, though he wished that he knew where his eldest son was now and whether or not Alexander was alright – as while he couldn't be fighting the most dangerous foe, the boy was still alone and battling against the Welkalite army which had many powerful leaders that could easily match his firstborn.

"_Be quiet, Caiellis!_" A voice thundered, and Marik was utterly confused until he suddenly realised that the words had been shouted out of his own open mouth. Caiellis rocked back as if physically pushed by the words, taking a step backwards from his furious sounding father as fear sprang back up in his eyes, already starting to eclipse the hope that the boy had tentatively allowed to grow when his dad had arrived.

_What? I did not want to say that! I didn't even think of those words! _Aghast, Marik watched as his son blinked in stunned bemusement mixed with fear as he took another step back from his father, this one more than intentional, although to his credit it seemed that the boy had not yet given up on his dad and there was still a faint glimmer of hope within his emerald orbs.

The sniggering of the horror seemed to get louder and louder until the abyssal denizen of the darkness could no longer hold it in and exploded into full on laughter that didn't quite drown out Caiellis asking for clarification upon what Marik meant.

_I didn't mean to say that, Caiellis! I didn't – angels damn it, _speak_! _Do something_! _Marik shouted in his head, trying to raise his fists and bash some sense into himself or stop himself from moving, but the horror's hysterics were growing ever higher in volume and his evil amusement was starting to make terrible, terrible sense to Marik as he failed to move a muscle of his own accord as he hefted his broadsword with one strong arm.

"_You know full well what I mean, you pathetic excuse for a Lucerna! __I never want to hear your whining voice again, you worthless brat! And now I'm going to make sure that I will never have to!_" boomed from Marik's mouth, the words snapping and accusatory, and the king felt everything around him grow cold. Now he understood what the demonic horror in his head, stood next to him but at the same time not, had meant by this being the grand finale. He couldn't do anything to stop the words spilling out of his lips, couldn't do anything to stop his face from twisting into a snarling sneer of disappointment and violent hatred in spite of being able to feel the contortion of his cold features.

Caiellis flinched back again, his eyes becoming wide and hurt like they sometimes had done during their arguments, during the times that Marik hadn't been paying attention to him, but in most other instances the emerald orbs would blaze again and burn with defiance of his father. Not this time. This time, Caiellis was too scared, too affected by the traumatic experience of fighting the Archdemon alone and wanting too much for his dad to come and help him to be angry at him. Somehow, despite the distance between them, Marik was able to see himself in his son's frightened eyes, and what he saw froze him to the bone.

He was terrifying, even to himself, which meant that he must have been extremely frightening to his young son whom he towered above, with blood-slick white/blonde hair and with that same blood pouring down the ornate armour that made him even bigger and more threatening to the boy who looked up at him in fear that should never be. But what was worse was that he was wearing the exact same expression he had been when strangling his smallest son and he had looked at himself in Caiellis's mirror, the same murderous yet cold and calculated contortion of his austere features making his poor son even more scared as the boy instinctively backed away from the imposing figure of his king and father.

_Stop this now! Stop moving towards him! STOP!_

None of his shouted thought yells were having any effect as he spewed another line, condemning and damning his baby boy who looked as if he was about to burst into tears and run from this horrible place but stayed. Marik's heart ached more than it had ever done excluding Emili's death and Alexander's closeness to it when he heard what was said to Caiellis, and his blood boiled when he realised that this was something he, in an argument with his youngest, would say, albeit twisted and distorted by the intent to do violence.

That made it all the more believable, and while Marik would love to say that Caiellis would see through this ruse of possession and work out that his dad was under the malevolent influence of another, the truth was that this was a realistic way in which he might act in his son's vision of him, and what his baby boy saw of him fitted with how he was acting now like a horrible jigsaw puzzle of interlocking misery and pain.

The stream of spewed invectives made his son flinch with each one, the unconditional hope that his father would somehow make everything alright in the boy's eyes that Marik barely ever saw in his son and wished he could deliver upon slowly fading and being replaced by not just fear, which was bad enough as it was a father's nightmare to see their children scared and know that there was little they could do about it, but a kind of sad acceptance that scared Marik to his core. It scared him because it symbolised how bad the relationship between him and his son had got if Caiellis was simply accepting that the expected thing for his dad to do was insult and damn him.

"_I know you hate me dad, but we need to kill the Archdemon Rakdos so that we can save our Lucaelian force-"_

Caiellis's protests were interrupted by another blast of rage from his father, and at the back of his mind Marik could feel the anger coursing through him and infusing his limbs with dark and violent strength before he pushed it out, refusing to give in. What his son had said had been a representation of his current thoughts, and it sickened Marik to think that his youngest son thought that his father hated him because nothing was further from the truth – yes, his constant defiance had been extremely grating on Marik's nerves and the boy had sometimes wanted to make him mash his face against the wall, but his sons were the most precious things to him on the planet and they were what made living warm and bearable.

During the civil war, his existence had been nothing more than that; it was not a life, he had merely been there, and apart from the time of bliss and pleasure which he had shared with the flirtatious Lucaelian captain which beguiling Aksua had masqueraded as there had been nothing to make his life worth living apart from bringing traitors to righteous justice at the end of his sword and banishing foul creatures from the kingdom. Even that had only ever brought limited positivity into his life, and would never fix the hole in his heart which had needed love and for someone to want him, Marik, not the king of the nation, a hole which was now beginning to be filled once again by the love of his children if he didn't screw it up like he was doing now.

_Caiellis … I'm so sorry … I don't mean anything of these things, please, you have to know that I would never say this, come on, you have to know! This isn't me! _

His son was shrinking away from him now, thought not yet outright fleeing because they all knew that there was nowhere he could go, and out of the corner of his eye Marik could see Akroma launching herself at Orzhova in another part of the ruined hellscape the courtyard they were in was becoming. Marik wished he knew what was going on with the Angel of Wrath and why she was assaulting her dark sister, that either he was somehow controlling his seraphim or she was being influenced by dark forces just as he was.

Or, even worse, perhaps Akroma was attacking Orzhova out of her own free will, and that, seeing Marik rounded upon his own son, the emotionless angel had decided that this was a perfect time to be getting rid of her disgraced sister as well while her Summoner insulted and distracted his own son.

This was awful, worse than Marik could imagine, and he winced as he said: "_Oh, did you think that I had simply failed to notice that it was your failures that led to the Summoning of Rakdos in the first place?! How damn unexpected of you Caiellis, hoping that I wouldn't see your mistakes! If you were going to place your family and __the__ army in massive amounts of danger by fleeing from them, you could at least achieve your objective with a modicum of success_!"

_No … it was not Caiellis's fault that Rakdos was Summoned, so stop saying that now! Yes, maybe the boy did fail to stop the Summoning of an Archdemon, but that is because a thirteen year old should never be expected to stop the Summoning of an Archdemon in the first place! And besides, he killed Tradax, who would still be alive with his own greater demon at this time if not for Caiellis! _

Marik could sense his own anger at his youngest son taking off in the middle of the battle without any explanation within the words that he had just shouted at the boy, which made him even more incensed that the horror was twisting them to suit its own needs and hurt Caiellis. His rage had been borne from his protective instinct, his anger at the boy flaring due to the fact that he could not protect him with the lad in another part of the city and the reality that deep down he knew that if his son had trusted him more then he wouldn't have done that.

"_When are you going to take responsibility for your mistakes, instead of blaming them on everyone else?! Huh?!_"

Marik knew now that that wasn't true, only he had been blinded by pride and anger at the time and had failed to realise it. Caiellis – and Alexander, it seemed, though both of them did the same as their father up until this point where he started making mistakes with his sons and paid little attention to them – punished himself far more for his mistakes than anyone else did. The king had seen far too much of his baby boy doing that to himself in the past hour or so to ever think differently, and now that the mental block on his mind had been removed he could recall numerous occasions in which Caiellis had taken out his failure upon himself.

It was strange. Marik could feel himself moving towards his son, feel the gruff and horrible words rumbling in his throat, feel the hot Rain of Gore trickling down his skin and the pain in his stomach where he had been stabbed. But at the same time, part of him was still in the Mind Realm, part of him could perceive the hard wood of the harsh cathedral pews that he was sat upon, could discern the presence of the foul horror which had instigated this madness next to him and sense the feeling of being trapped within a place which he had once felt was somewhere he could find solace and peace if only for a brief moment but had become somewhere that he desperately needed to get out of.

_I have to keep trying, I can't let this go on, and I can't – I will not – let Caiellis be hurt by me again. It will ruin our family even more than it has already been destroyed, and I cannot let that happen. _Marik roared his defiance of the bounds on his psyche and the control of his body in his head, although once again nothing happened and he continued to pace towards his son, hefting his sword with the intention to use it in the bloody work of violence and spewing insults and condemnations at the poor Caiellis who looked as sad as Marik had ever seen him.

It seemed like instead of the anger that the king would usually be greeted with should he start one of his argumentative rants with the boy, the defiance and will to oppose his father had left the youngest Lucerna, replaced by fear. Marik knew that obviously his son had no longer cared about their arguments and had only been extremely glad and relieved that his father had arrived, and now that he was being damned and verbally abused by a person that was supposed to support him and give him strength through his words he couldn't bring himself to defy or rail against him.

Marik desperately hoped that his son would, that the boy would be filled with the obstinate strength that he had tried so hard to crush out of him the past few days, but it seemed like as usual Caiellis would defy his expectations and the horrors he had witnessed before his dad had arrived had drained the resistance and strength from him. He couldn't blame the lad for assuming that the friction between them meant nothing in times of peril like this, because that was true and all Marik had been thinking about was how to save his sons and help the army by doing so.

Perhaps at the back of his mind there were thoughts as to how to punish the thirteen year old for this, but only because Marik and Alexander had been so damn scared by the admittedly heroic stunt that Caiellis had pulled and it had chilled him to the core to realise that his fragile baby boy had gone into this city of debauchery alone to face the greatest threat whilst he and the others had to battle their way through hordes of enemies to get to him.

"_I told you, dad. I was trying to make up for my mistakes by coming here and facing Tradax alone so that no one else needed to go through the pain of doing so__._"

_Son, you didn't need to feel that you had to atone for your mistakes. Everyone makes them, and while the fact that you are a prince means that any that you make will be heavily exacerbated and probably affect people around you, you are only thirteen years old. All you had to do was to learn that defiance in the middle of a battle is wrong and that you should also be frank with your condition instead of trying to hide that you aren't suited for battle at the moment (this applies to you as well, Alexander). You shouldn't have thought that you had to come here to atone for some sort of crime. _I _shouldn't have made you feel that way, and I'm sorry._

_But, angels damn it, what is the point of thinking that when Caiellis can't hear you? Wake up, damn it all, wake up and be there for your sons! Do not let this bastard horror get the better of you!_

"This is so fun!" came an excited whisper next to him, the every syllable of the malicious voice oozing with spiteful and nasty elation, and though Marik couldn't see the horror he nevertheless bristled against the words. How dare this being enjoy his son's torment, how dare it manipulate him against Caiellis! How _dare _it!

Marik grimaced – whether he actually did or not was irrelevant – as he heard the next few words that the real but possessed him directed at his son, the words full of hatred that he would never feel towards any of his family which sliced barbs of loathing and resentment into the boy, loathing that was not real but a manifestation of his hatred towards demons and his dislike of the arguments that had become the bane of his existence and had made him angry irrespective of the horror's presence or not.

"_You've had your chance to make amends for your failures, and now, before I kill the Archdemon and lead the Kingdom of Light's army to victory over the Welkalites, I'm going to make sure that you never have chance to make mistakes that will cost the lives of loyal Lucaelians any more!_"

_No, I am not! I AM NOT! _

Marik strained against the bonds preventing him from controlling his own body and making it act as he wanted to, but as the horrible events unfolded out in front of him it was like he was he was merely an observer and that nothing could be changed. He was imprisoned in the suite of his own meat, able to feel everything that his body could but unable to change its actions, and with a resounding burst of horror the king leapt towards his son, his broadsword held in a two-handed grip as he launched himself at the small boy.

Marik shouted and cried out within his head, barely aware of the sensation of his fists pounding on the cathedral pews within his Mind Realm and smashing the wood into splinters. Time seemed to slow to an agonising crawl as he leapt through the air, his movements enhanced by the powerful White mana flowing around him which responded to his wrath and his desire to slay the demon after this battle, augmented by his want to punish the crimes of the guilty – whether or not that was the actual intention of the true Marik or those crimes were real or not.

Caiellis was frozen up in fear, that much was evident from the silent fright etched into his young features, the disbelief that even after all that had happened to them while fighting to end the control of the demons on the City of Pleasure, his father, the man supposed to be his salvation and his protector against the forces of the darkness, would attack him. He was terrified, and Marik wished that he could gather up his young son in his arms. Instead, he was hurtling across the courtyard towards his paralysed and scared little boy, and inside he was screaming, shouting frantically at Caiellis to move out of his way and avoid this attack.

For a moment that stretched out across aeons of time, the forty year old king thought that his son was just going to stand still and let his father's greatsword carve him apart. He tried desperately to translate the feeling of the handle of the blade gripped tightly in his gauntlets into motion away from his precious son to stop the sword from hacking into him, and though his grip tightened even more to the point where it would break bones had they been subjected to it and there was a slight movement of his hands nothing came about because of it. It was not enough.

A surge of golden mana washed through his youngest son, and Marik gasped in relief as Caiellis, suddenly broken free from his immobility, darted backwards, the boy using every advantage gifted to him by his lack of weight and powerful magical energy coursing through him in spite of his exhaustion. He sensed that the magic had not come from the youngest Lucerna himself, but that the Angel of the Black Sun had given it to her youthful Summoner even whilst embroiled in battle against Akroma who stopped Orzhova from coming to Caiellis's aid and swatting aside the king. While he was still not convinced of her allegiance or motives, it was very clear that Orzhova cared deeply about her Summoner, though he had barely ever seen the two together every time that he had he had discerned that she protected him with all of her might.

That certainly wasn't unique to her, as all angels did the same for their own Summoners and, for example, Aurelia was no different, but because of the dark seraph's stained reputation the king found it surprising, which was odd come to think of it. Not that there was any time to think of it, and Marik felt his huge sword cutting through the air where Caiellis had been stood. It made him feel sick to think that, had it just been him and his son, it was quite possible that instead of hacking apart empty space his blade would have ripped apart his fragile youngest, and that sickening nausea turned to boiling and volcanic anger and wrath which the king wished he could make surge out of him and free him from the control of Aksua's beast of murk.

"_Dad, please! Stop this! We can fight together against the demon, and once we have one I can pay the price of my errors!_"

Caiellis was desperate now, and Marik didn't blame him. His son's pleading was panicked and agitated now, the distress tangible and thick now as Marik turned to glower threateningly at him again. Now that he was actually looking at his son instead of being relieved that he was alright, Caiellis's wounds looked worse than he had originally thought, though perhaps that was because of the Rain of Gore perpetually splattering the boy with crimson vitae as the constant torrent of blood from the heavens poured over them both.

Marik winced when he recalled that his fragile son's fighting style depended almost entirely upon being able to access all of his healing because of the fact that he was more frail than most and still a young child. However, that obviously hadn't stopped him from ending the Master of Rapture and resisting the power of an Archdemon until his father got here, and Caiellis was holding on through his wounds and pain like a champion. He had so much to be proud of in both of his children, although he barely ever showed it and when he did it was not nearly enough. He spent far too much time reprimanding and chastising Caiellis instead of praising him, and it showed in what his son thought of him.

Angels above, Caiellis should have been told by now by his father that he had no errors to be paying the price for, but instead of informing his son of that and absolving him of the guilt over the death of the soldiers he had been sent to aid in Fort Egetau, he shouted more obscenities that must have been believable for Caiellis, a boy who had barely seen his father happy or proud of him in this past month or so.

"_And risk having you stab me in the back as I risked my life for you fighting against the Archdemon?! Not a chance!_" Marik was well aware that his son would never think of doing that, and the horror was too if he had been in the king's mind and paid attention to reality, but it knew the perfect things to say that would rattle his youngest boy and make him believe that his father truly wanted him dead.

Marik could feel himself begin to charge up mana into a destructive bolt of wrath which would be flung at his son, and so tried to do everything in his power to disrupt the channelling process with rogue emotions and thoughts of peace instead of divine fury. He could sense that he was having a little effect, so, emboldened, tried to stop the mana build up completely until a fleshy tendril made from shadow stuff wrapped around the representation of him still in his Mind Realm and inhibited this response. Marik could only watch in horror as the bolt of light, its power only reduced ever so slightly, blasted at Caiellis.

The boy blinked in shock and hesitation for a second as if not expecting the attack, but still managed to raise a shield of imperious incandescence mixed with dark but not malicious shadows that wrapped around him. His father's holy light pierced through it, though it was weakened by the defensive abilities of his son, and Caiellis was sent tumbling on the other side, scraping his body on the shards of rock and debris scattered on the floor of the Redhand mansion courtyard as he bounced, his weightless form making the impact more painful.

The thirteen year old quickly and admirably pushed himself to his feet again, wiping blood and what suspiciously looked like tears from his expressive emerald eyes. Marik wished that he could go back and teach his son what he knew about mana, as while he had spent time with both of his boys watching them spar in both magical and mundane ways he had never taught them anything to do with it. He had noticed that sometimes Caiellis would emulate a technique that he had seen from his dad, but had paid no heed to it apart from feeling a little irritated – petty, he knew, since he should have been proud that his son was learning from him, but at the time he had been annoyed because he thought that if Caiellis had wanted to use his magic he should have asked how instead of doing it himself, despite the hypocrisy that he knew he would have probably turned the boy's request down.

His son was an exemplary warrior, which was something that Marik wished he didn't have to be proud of but was because that was something valued in the martial culture of Lucael, but instead of congratulating him on that and praising him because of it his annoyance with the boy had made him pick apart and dissect his techniques to find weaknesses, to focus on the things that needed improving instead of commending him on the things that he did well, bringing forward every one of the boy's mistakes instead of applauding his myriad and exceptional talents.

"_Dad, you know I wouldn't do that! Please, dad, stop! When have I ever hurt you before?!_" Marik was aware that the only times that Caiellis had ever hurt him it had been verbally and because he had already been thinking the same things himself, the only very few times where Caiellis had insulted him being in their arguments where he had been just as bad and when he brought up his mother, the mother that he had never had and barely been given the chance to know before his life had been ripped away from him and he had been tossed into the centre of a brutal war that had nothing to do with him at the age of four.

_I know that you wouldn't ever intentionally hurt me, and I wish that I could say the same for you – but I know that I have hurt you. That is inexcusable, whether or not I am possessed, and I need to stop this now! Angels damn everything! Why can I not fight this?! Am I not supposed to be a Lucerna king, one of the most powerful individuals on the planet?! Why can I not stop my family being hurt then?!_

Marik shouted some more of his son, horrible, horrible things that had a hint of a terrible truth within them that the king did not blame his son for at all. However, he felt immensely guilty for it, and knew that he had thought similar thought – he had been worried for both Caiellis and Alexander, as the older of the two had took off within the city without his father being able to watch over him as well. The eldest prince was still only seventeen, and that was very young in the grand scheme of things, and Caiellis teleporting to the centre of Usnaan without anyone with him to aid him had meant that Alexander had become extremely agitated and distressed, even moreso than Marik who had to face the fact that both of his sons were now in huge amounts of danger.

And, deep down, even with the horror that Aksua had Summoned controlling him now and forcing him to do things that he knew his son would never forgive him for, worse things than Caiellis had done, he still resented his youngest son for leaving his brother alone to face the last vampire whilst he remained relatively unharmed. He was well aware that Caiellis hated himself for it, even though it was not really his fault, and Marik's fear for his eldest son had latched onto his anger at his youngest and fuelled it into starting their endless arguments and their first shouting match. That was where the youngest Lucerna had become sick of just taking his father's insults and accusations without saying a word back, and his worry for his brother had allowed him to speak out as well.

"_You left your older brother,__my__eldest son, to die while you pranced around in happy fantasy land! __And now, because of your idiotic fool's errand, you have forced me to abandon Alexander to try and help you! Your brother, who has only just recovered from life-threatening wounds could be anywhere in the city and fighting for his life against thousands of Welkalites without me at his side and able to protect him, all because of you stupidly abandoning the rest of the force disobeying my orders and causing an immensely powerful demon to be Summoned!_"

Caiellis's eyes showed that he had come to the same realisation before his wrathful father snarled the words, and guilt flooded through those green orbs that were so much like Emili's. Marik leapt at the boy again, swinging his sword in a wide arc that left contrails of thrumming mana in the air as it cut through it. Caiellis blocked this time, deflecting the tremendous force behind the huge blade away from him instead of fatally attempting to block all of it, and golden spirals of White mana encircled the left side of the boy's body and pulsed into his crystalline blade as the two relic weapons ground against one another in a flurry of divine sparks.

Marik could feel the strength behind his son's blade slacking as the boy tried to somehow get away from his father and stop the much stronger man hurting him, even though Caiellis's eyes highlighted that he felt he deserved any pain that was coming. The king felt himself bringing his huge strength to bear on the sword of his son, pushing the boy backwards as he stumbled across the ground and tried to keep a steady footing – as otherwise his father's sword would crash into him and that would be the end of it all. He had driven his son into a corner, and Marik pressed in on his sword as the boy scraped against the last remnants of some sort of wall or pillar from Jarred Redhand's private family residence which had all but been destroyed in the ascent of Rakdos.

Marik saw the pain in the thirteen year old's eyes as he was shoved further back into the rock pillar, and his breathing was strained because of the pressure on his chest. He tried to pull back, visualising the motions in his head and not letting the presence of the horror next to him distract him in any way, focussing on his baby boy's pain so that he knew that he needed to help him and not let any of his family be hurt, but his body would not relent and the next thing he knew he was growling at Caiellis again, his hot breath ghosting over the terrified boy who was trembling with fear and strain as he tried to stop his Sword of Glass being thrust into him by the force of his father's sword.

"_You don't pay attention, you never listen, and I'm fed up with all of your questions! You're incapable of obeying orders and that puts other people at risk! I fucking __warned__you … I told you that someday you were going to get one of us killed!_"

Caiellis slid out from underneath the blade, twisting his slender body away from his large father and using his lack of height well as he managed to extricated himself from being pressed into the hard stone which had grazed his back. Marik's blade sliced into the pillar, hacking apart some of the hard rock but getting stuck within it as his eyes instantly turned to his son. Adrenaline flowed through the king's bloodstream, and he automatically raised mana that would allow him defend himself from attack now that he was wide open and vulnerable to assault as he wrestled with his blade.

Then it hit Marik. Caiellis wasn't fighting back at all, he was barely even defending himself from his dad – if not, this would have been a perfect time to strike him. He knew that his son was a conservative fighter, preferring to attack only at the most opportune moments instead of rushing blindly in with constant aggression, but even then it was clear that Caiellis had chosen not to attack. One look into the wide and scared orbs of his son told the single parent that there was no way that Caiellis would ever attack him, because he didn't want his father to be hurt even with all that the man had done to him and was in the middle of doing now.

That made the king feel even more love for his gentle youngest, who, even after all that had happened and all that had been said, still wished to give his father another chance. Or perhaps Marik had already had all of his chances, and Caiellis simply wanted a non-violent way of subduing him because of the fact that he couldn't bear to cause harm to someone who he was related to and whom the kingdom loved. Maybe he was only doing this for Alexander's sake, because he knew that his older brother was getting on well with his father and loved to receive his praise and attention, or maybe it was because deep down Caiellis still loved his father as well in spite of what the king had done and said.

It didn't matter right now, and Marik wished that there was nothing stopping his son from killing him at the current moment. He would gladly die if it meant that his sons would be out of danger, though he knew that Caiellis was not going to do it no matter how much he wanted him to. His son was far too kind and compassionate, just like Emili, to do that. He wrenched the blade free, turning back to the boy as the king pounded on the walls separating him from control of his powerful body and magic. The horror kept giggling, though the king could barely hear it over the sounds of the battle (if it could be called that) between father and son.

"_Dad, why do you think that Rakdos is just letting you do this?_"

The king was sure that he would have blinked in surprise had he had power over his motor functions. Somehow, with all the emotional trauma of seeing his son in pain caused by his father and powerless to stop it, and being overwhelmed by his parental instinct to protect the boy from any harm that would come to him, he had forgotten completely about what the Archdemon was doing through all of this. He instinctively tried to crane his neck and look over at where he sensed the atavistic and primal blot of the demon Rakdos, but the horror controlling his movements kept his gaze sternly fixed on his youngest son, who's green eyes were occasionally flicking over to the demon while he protected himself from his mad father.

It was the most infuriating experience in the world, not being able to move of his own accord and being forced unwillingly into enacting actions that he never would have done had he been able to impose control on his body, but that frustration was eclipsed by the mounting sense of fear for his family that he felt. Trust Caiellis to be thinking of the greater threat as well as surviving the onslaught from his dad that his dad was doing everything to try and stop, and while Marik was extremely concerned about the presence of the Archdemon at the current moment his main objective was re-establishing his control of his own body so he had to be utterly focussed upon that task. This was something that he could not fail at, because if he did then his son could be scarred forever or even killed by the hands of the one who had been essential in creating him.

He knew that with every insult - "_little brat!_" -, every damnation - "_pathetic burden of a Lucerna!_" he was driving Caiellis further and further away from him, not that the boy was anywhere close to begin with, especially after Marik had wrapped his hands around the youngster's slender throat and probably made him endure one of the most upsetting experiences of his poor life.

He was slowly but surely breaking the little bit of resolve that his desperate and exhausted son had left, and it hurt Marik to see that the hollowness which he had become intimately familiar with over the past month after reliving his first conversation with the boy had resurfaced in his green eyes.

Caiellis looked ready to cry, to start sobbing and give up completely on life, just let his father take his life so that he could get away from all the misery and pain that constituted his sad existence, and Marik wished he could tell his son that everything would be alright, that daddy would fix everything instead of ruin it and put the boy in even more danger. He leapt forwards again, attacking with a mixture of physical and verbal attacks, and Marik wasn't sure which of them hurt his son more. He could see that the hope had been dashed in his son again, which was so, so sad, because after being forced into watching himself break his son's hope for the first time he had wanted to be able to appeal to that and deliver upon his duty to protect him.

_Keep fighting, Caiellis. Show your old man what you are worth, defeat him and then defeat the demon. I know this is so much to expect of you, too much to expect of you, but right now I know that you are also not safe with me and that I am in a much better condition than you. I know also that you can't beat me without my help, and I will try as hard as a can to break this control. Just hold on, and don't give up, and I promise I will save you, Caiellis Noctis Lucerna, my youngest son. _

Marik whipped another sword strike with his large blade in the direction of the kid, who predictably dodged backwards again and made no moves to retaliate or even dissuade his father from moving towards him without hurting the man. The king knew what was coming next, had anticipated Caiellis dodging like that so that he would not have to bear the brunt of the blade, so pre-emptively tried to get a hold on his powerful White mana so that the physical him manipulated by the horror could not use it. He succeeded in delaying it for a second, hopefully enough for his son to do something about it although he could tell that Caiellis was not expecting this form of attack, and screamed out in pain and hatred of the darkness when the magical assault was cast.

Blades of wrathful luminescence descended from the sky and launched themselves at the boy, who, aided by the modicum of time given to him by the efforts of his father, blocked a few on his sword as swept more aside with a shield of shadowy light. One hacked into his back, drawing blood before the boy managed to deflect it and destroy it, and Marik could feel his heart in the Mind Realm begin to pound faster as he caused his son pain. He wanted desperately to cry out a warning to the boy as he shot forwards again, the horror obviously realising that the king was able to counteract the effects of any mana generation much more easily than the movement of his body, but instead settled on trying to restrain his actions as much as possible.

Caiellis almost dropped his sword on the first strike, though his dad soon pulled it away and scythed another at him. He dodged this one, ducking wildly as it cut off strands of his brown hair that Marik was only thankful wasn't his skin. The king was glad when his son fired bolts of light around him, delaying him only slightly because of his reluctance to direct them straight at the imposing and furious form of his father.

_I can't give in … I have to keep trying, for Caiellis and for the Lucaelians who depend upon me! I can not give up now! Keep going, my son! I will break out! You have my word on it! I _will not stop_!_

The king smashed apart his son's first attempt to stop him, the boy's lack of mana because of the amount that he had used so far and the fact that he was utterly bereft of conviction that would empower it showing in the weakness of the golden chains flung at his dad. Despite the fact that Marik could feel little apart from what was happening in reality, the king kept trying, refused to give up on his son and let the horror have total control to do whatever it wanted to his baby boy.

The second try succeeded only in wrapping chains around the king's sword, though Caiellis lacked the strength to pull it away. Before Marik had a chance to notice the generation of wrathful White energy his son was afflicted with a silencing aura, stopping him from preventing what was next.

A massive shockwave of divine force that Marik felt shouldn't be able to be directed at someone as pure and innocent as his youngest son crashed into Caiellis. It sent him flying, his slender fingers accidentally letting go of his blade, but the boy smartly used to opportunity to wrench his father's own massive greatsword out of his grip. Marik couldn't fault him for making the most out of a grim situation there, but he knew that without their weapons his son was at an even greater disadvantage due to his lack of physical strength and the fact that he was small and thin.

Marik's foot smashed into his boy's side as he tumbled with an audible _crunch _that had the king even more horrified. He knew the sound of ribs breaking quite well, and his armoured foot had been driven into his youngest son with considerable force.

_Why are you doing this?! _He thought, furious at the pain which had just been inflicted upon the boy but also deeply scared for his sake. Now that Caiellis had broken bones and no way to repair them this fight would be even more one sided, and Marik would be lying if he didn't say that the pain his son had been given had hurt and rattled his father a significant amount.

"I'm sorry, Mariky-boy, but I distinctly remember you saying that you wanted your son to stop arguing with you. This is simply me helping you with that!" the horror cackled, and rage flooded through Marik. This sick being enjoyed seeing him powerless, revelled in seeing his son in pain, and although Marik hated it with every iota of his being he couldn't blame it because it was a creature of the darkness that feasted upon the despair and pain of those on the side of the good. "And besides, this is my way of getting back at you for destroying the greater part of me, meanie, and stopping me from feasting on baby Caiellis's dreams as much as a wanted to!"  
Marik directed his mind to stop his arm reaching towards his son, though it did not. He could feel the gauntlets closing around his son's upper left arm, and although he was not touching the skin through his metal gauntlets and then the boy's light armour that did nothing to protect him, the connection was a horrible one and the king could sense his son's fear through it. Then, now free hand which had been holding his sword squeezed, weakened just enough not to break the bones. In frustration, the horror laughed vindictively as it instead made the meat suite of the king hurl his son bodily into some more ruins of the mansion once belonging to the apparent Protector.

_No! _

Marik saw the boy bounce off of the unyielding rock, his head bursting on the stone in an explosion of crimson blood that had the king filled with despair, though at least the fact that Caiellis's eyes instantly flicked up to where his father was striding purposefully closer meant that he wasn't incapacitated by the violent landing.

_You will not hurt my son! _

The horror was perfectly happy with taking its time instead of charging towards the boy, and laughed gleefully at the pain in the youngster's wide eyes as he stared, terrified, up at his dad, unaware of the mental battle going on within him and only able to perceive the sadistic hatred shown towards him by the supreme monarch. Marik tried to stop each and every footfall, mustering up his determination and shouting that he was the master of his mind and body, though his defiant words fell on deaf ears and he continued to stride menacingly towards his stricken son.

The invader of the king, instead of allowing the slowness of the man to reflect the indecision that he felt because of the two conflicting wills within him, twisted it so that it looked like Marik was savouring this time and the pain that he was causing to his son – which, in essence, the predominant force within his head was. Once again, Marik saw himself reflected in his son's concussed eyes, and he appeared unstoppable, implacable, with no hint that this was exactly what his father did not want to do. Caiellis couldn't see him clearly through the haze of pain that was probably clouding his vision, and the king hoped that the concussion was only minor and would not inflict any long term damage to the boy.

Marik saw the magical tether attached to his son's Sword of Glass before the horror did, and was then filled with despair as the being moved him towards it, snapping it by standing on it with a boot infused with mana.

"Thank you for that, Mariky-boy! I wouldn't have noticed that without you!" the horror loudly giggled in cruel hysteria, and Marik cursed himself as his son's expression became even more hopeless and terrified.

It was horrible that the thing that would be his baby boy's undoing was the fact that he had dared to hope, dared to allow himself to build up a belief that when his father arrived that he would be safer than before, and dared to let out his emotions because of the terror he had been consumed by at fighting the Archdemon alone. And then, because of that, he had been cruelly rejected by the one masquerading as and controlling his dad, which had hit him incredibly hard. Marik wasn't sure that the expression of loss and despair and terror on his son's face would ever leave it, but it was his duty as a parent to aid him and ensure that it did.

_I'm so sorry, Caiellis … Angels I'm so sorry … I would never do this to you, you have to believe me … I don't want this … I don't want you to be hurt. Keep fighting, my son, keep on going no matter what my failure to protect does to you. I know that you can do it, and I'm going to make sure that you don't have to._

Marik reached down and grabbed the front of his son's leather armour, easily lifting him off of his feet with one hand and pressing him back into the wall as he did so, scraping him along it to maximise the pain that he was in.

The inadvertent shriek of pain that emerged from Caiellis as his broken ribs were ground against one another sent icy claws stabbing into Marik's soul, though he could not give up now. His sons, and the Lucaelian army, were counting on him, and, up in the heavens of the afterlife, Emili was as well. His wife would be disappointed if he failed his sons now, especially after all that they had done for him in showing him unconditional love and making him feel human again instead of a divine extension of wrath and the will of the loyal Lucaelians, but, even more importantly, his sons would be hurt, which was something he would do everything he could to stop.

_GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HIM! _Marik roared in his mind, met with the malicious laughter of the spawn of the nether realms next to him. He wished that he could destroy it, though imagining its eradication from his mind in his head did nothing no matter how hard he tried or how much he wanted it obliterated.

"_You worthless little shit,_" Marik hated the words that came unbidden from his lips, hated the way that they filled him with acrid bile as his tongue made the motions of them in his mouth. His son gasped in pain and in sadness, his endeavours to pull away achieving nothing and only causing him more pain as the king felt himself increase the pressure on him. Then, the king heard the next words that he spoke, and his heart went cold once more with sorrow.

"_To think that Emili, your __mother___, _my _p_erfect wife__, died to save you..._" The king punctuated the words by shaking his head in disgust for his son, pulling him back and relenting the pressure on him for a second before slamming the thin and helpless adolescent back into the wall. The man knew that while that was true, she had died because of his mistakes, not Caiellis's. The boy had been four years old at the time, for angels' sake!

"_I should have just left you there to die along with her._"

The words hit both Caiellis and the mental Marik, the last true piece of the king in his mind, like a powerful blow. _No … no … I can't believe that I let myself say that to him … no … that is the worst thing a father could ever say to their child! I'm killing him, emotionally and physically, and I can't do anything about it! Why?! WHY?! I need to fight, damn it, I _need _to save him before this goes any further._

However, Marik's mind was frozen up as his son, mortified, started gasping in pain once again and finally let out the tears that had been slowly building up in his eyes. The king had seen his son crying too much, and had he been able to perceive the horror in the Mind Realm next to him he would have seen the foul creature extend several fleshy tongues out of its many mouths and lap the air in front of it as if it could taste Caiellis's anguish.

"_Dad … no … you don't mean that ..._"

Caiellis's distressed pleas were met only with malicious and spiteful disdain, and Marik agreed with his son. What a failure of a father he was, letting his children get into situations like these. He didn't care if they were Lucerna heirs or not with access to their own First Sisterhood angels, he didn't care that they were masterful warriors and strategists even at their young ages, he didn't care that they needed to learn to fight so that they could protect the kingdom, and ultimately he didn't care that the loss of life would be reduced because they were here leading the soldiers and taking down the most formidable foes. They were only children, they were _his _children, and as a parent he should have protected them, both from the physical demons of the world and the emotional demons of the mind that preyed on young teenagers still finding their way in the world.

Caiellis should not be in this position, and he should not be angry at the boy because of the fact that his brother was in danger as well. Alexander should not be virtually alone and battling against scores of enemies. Neither of them should be in this war, but that was the Lucerna way and Marik should have protected them more than this. He was a failure, but there was still time to redeem himself, and that meant saving both of his sons now and slaying the Archdemon that tainted the world with its noxious and corrupt presence.

"_Do you really think that? __Let's see then. I had to leave my eldest boy, my only __true__son... __All alone in the capital city of Welkas with the largest army he has ever fought against just because I had to come fix your mistakes."_

_No. It is not Caiellis's fault for that. It is not Caiellis's fault for any of this, do you hear me! How dare you blame my son for this! How dare you make it seem like I hate him and want him dead, how dare you hurt him and how dare you make him cry! _

"Aww, but Mariky-boy, his tears are delicious morsels of pathetic sadness, don't 'cha think?"

_Go to fucking hell! _

The king battled against the malevolent and evil directive of the intruder to his most private space, his determination to aid his sons inviolate and strong despite the fact that it couldn't do much, and had Caiellis been able to focus through the agony he would have seen one of his father's eyes twitch and baulk at the pain inflicted to him as he placed his free hand on the boy's shoulder and squeezed painfully hard.

_No … Caiellis … don't give up! Please, baby boy, don't give in! I'm doing everything that I can! Please!_

Caiellis was drifting away, locking himself up inside of his mind and hoping that it would take him away from the pain of living. It saddened Marik deeply to see his son like this, to see that Caiellis would rather die that continue on in this way, that instead of trying to hopelessly fight back he wanted to hide himself away in the sanctuary of his thoughts where no one could harm him ever again. A vicious backhand brought his son back to semi-awareness, and the king shouted in rage at the damage inflicted upon him, the abuse wreaked upon his youngest son that the innocent and young boy didn't deserve in the slightest.

What upset him even more was that Caiellis clearly thought that he was worthy of this pain because of what he had been unable to stop happening to his brother and the soldiers that had died protecting him. That sorrow turned to even more wrath and rage, even more of a desire to break out of the hold the darkness had upon him and tell his son that these mistakes were not his fault, that his father should never have let him be abducted and not listen to his warnings about the negotiations in the first place, and that he should never have been expected to lead those soldiers in their desperate situation in the first place – if Marik had truly listened to his concerns about his lack of mana and paid attention to the obvious fact that he was barely able to fight to the capacity required in that situation then he wouldn't have ordered it.

And Alexander was not his only true son, he had two wonderful, handsome and determined youngsters to call his own. He only wished that he had noticed that sooner, and instead of becoming bogged down in the arguments with his youngest – inadvertently giving the horror in his mind a conflict to latch onto and negative emotions to feast upon – and becoming nasty due to this new novelty of having his authority challenged, he should have told his son that while he didn't accept dissent and that there would be clear punishments set in place for it he loved him no matter what mistakes he had made and that he would always do so. He had tried and failed to communicate that, and now it was almost too late.

_Focus! Focus, angels damn it, Marik! If you let your son be hurt or even, angels forbid, die, there will not be a spot in the vilest hell of hells worthy of a useless man like you!_

Marik jolted back into paying attention to what was happening in reality instead of being lost within wistful thoughts, remembering why he tried not to think of his sons during battle because they were his greatest weakness but also his greatest strengths. He noted that his mind had consciously taken him away from the scene – not that he stopped his resistance to the horror's control – because he couldn't stand to see his son in that much pain knowing that the pain was coming from him and that he didn't mean it, didn't want it to happen.

He pressed his face closer to his son's virtually touching the boy, and, if he concentrated hard, he could hear the vulnerable teenager's pained breathing as he tried to force air into his lungs with the pressure on them, and he could feel the warm breath on his face.

One part of Marik detachedly commented that at least the fact that his son's breaths were not flecked with blood meant that he wasn't internally bleeding, and that same emotionless and clinical part of his psyche also informed the rest of the king that his own breath was indeed infused with tiny droplets of blood that indicated as to the seriousness of the wound he had suffered which he had given absolutely no thought to after waking up and finding out that he no longer had control of himself.

"_Your brother, my precious Alexander who will one day make a great king, could die at any moment just because __you__thought that it was acceptable to disobey my orders and rush into the city on your own! You could have at least got yourself killed without allowing this to happen! Alexander could be murdered at any second because of the fact that you made me have to run after you! He is the best thing that has ever happened to you, you worthless, useless, disgusting little brat! And what is worse, your mother who almost died giving birth to a son we never wanted, died to save your pathetic, miserable existence! The most perfect woman on the planet gave her life for __you__!_"

_Stop this! Please! Caiellis doesn't deserve this! Please, I will give you anything, just stop this..._

Marik wouldn't usually resort to bargaining with the creatures of the abyssal blackness because he knew that any infernal contract made would damn his soul forever and corrupt him, something that could not happen to a Lucerna. But the pain in his son's eyes was convincing him, begging him for it to stop, and Marik would given anything to make it stop and give his children safety.

"I don't think you understand the point of bargaining, Mariky-boy," the horror admonished, almost softly chastising the king, the pleasure in its voice palpable enough to touch, "You see, they are usually made when both sides have something to gain from the other, but right now, I have everything that I want from you! There is nothing that you can give me that I don't already have, and there is nothing that I want more than to see you betray your own son!"

Although its rasping sibilance started off quiet and almost thoughtful, almost human apart from the orgiastic enjoyment it was deriving from the pain caused to the two Lucernas, it soon became a shrieking scream of exultance and rose to an extremely high pitch that cut at Marik's ears when he was back in the mind realm.

The bastard horror had seen how much Caiellis had been affected when Marik had brought up that he had been a happy surprise to his parents, and had decided to add this into the mix to cause Caiellis even more emotional distress and make him think that his father had never loved him or wanted him in the first place, and now he was going to kill him. The boy was giving up, and Marik hated himself more than anything because of it, allowing Caiellis to believe that this was the truth and having not acted better in the past to let his son know that he thought nothing like this, that Caiellis was precious to him and he would stop any harm coming to his son if it was possible.

"_SO YOU COULD WHAT?! WASTE HER SACRIFICE ARGUING WITH ME AND PUTTING THE KINGDOM AND THE ONLY SON THAT I EVER WANTED IN DANGER?! YOU CAN'T BE MY SON! NO SON OF MINE WOULD BE THIS PATHETIC, THIS PITIFUL, THIS SELFISH OR USELESS! EMILI WAS THE PERFECT WIFE, AND ALEXANDER IS THE PERFECT SON, AND YOU HAVE CAUSED THE DEATH OF THE FORMER AND ENDANGERED THE LATTER! TELL ME NOW THAT I DON'T MEAN IT!" _

Marik roared that in his son's face as he punched him, the horror measuring the strength behind the blow perfectly to cause a bruise to form and inflict large amounts of pain upon Caiellis but ensure that he was still fully conscious so that he could revel in the boy's torment. Marik was still screaming inside of his own head, bashing his fists on everything around him as he flailed within the Mind Realm, thrashing in a desperate attempt to escape and come to the aid of his son who thought that his father was killing him and who could be emotionally and physically scarred forever if he didn't help fast enough. The more pain his son was in, the more desperate he became, the more he tried to force himself out and the more his adamant concentration was replaced by panic and desperation.

"_Dad … please stop … please … I'm sorry … I didn't... __d__ad … please … I'm sorry … I just … wanted to_-"

Marik could hear the horror laughing in sadistic hysteria as he forced Marik to move his hand round and place it on his youngest son's thin throat, the bruise that he had caused with his violent actions yesterday a lingering purple contusion that was still stark on his pale flesh despite the blood from the Rain of Gore and his baby boy mingling together as they stained it scarlet. Caiellis had snapped his eyes shut, as if hoping that this was all a terrible nightmare and that he would wake up at the end next to his father, brother and mother and everything would be alright. Or perhaps he was so traumatised by the events of yesterday and the occurrences of his violent abduction that he couldn't bear to face them again, couldn't bear to have his father's simultaneously cold and furious sneer of disgust the last thing that he would see.

_NO! YOU WILL NOT DO THIS! YOU WILL NOT HURT HIM!_

The hand on the boy's throat tensed, as if it was trying to crush the life from him but was met with some unexpected resistance, and the intruder to the king's mind scowled and snarled in annoyance as the man's body refused to enact the savage actions that it had in mind. Marik howled in rage and fury, his will becoming a burning spear of hatred for the darkness that would try to make him hurt his own children that stopped the horror making its host begin to choke his son.

_NO! YOU WILL NOT HURT HIM! STOP! I WILL NOT ALLOW THIS! NO! NO! NO! NO! MY SON WILL NOT BE HURT! _

"You are a persistent bastard, aren't you?! Can't you just sit still and enjoy the show?!" the horror hissed, and Marik felt shadowy tendrils of gloom wrapping round his body in the Mind Realm. He thrashed, unable to control himself in either realm but refusing to let his youngest son be subjected to the awful actions of the day before which had almost ruined their relationship beyond repair and had scared the boy, placing him under huge amounts of trauma and sadness.

"_Dad … stop … I only … wanted to help._"

Caiellis's terrified begging, imploring his father to stop hurting him, sent a surge of rage throughout the man. He refused to be frozen up in fear and concern for his family like he had so many times when they had been hurt, he refused to allow his youngest son to die or be hurt thinking that his father hated him. The king ripped apart the horror's fleshy tentacles, the Mind Realm shaking around him as the force of his defiance of this possession flooded through his limbs and mind.

The creature shrieked in fury, and the king was vaguely aware of a disconcerting and painful sensation of being slammed forcefully into a stone wall hard enough to crack it, yet the pain did not register and all he could see was his son's face, the eyes screwed shut as tears of pain slipped out of them and his mouth whispered pleas for mercy, pleas for an end to the pain.

Instead of letting the king simply stand still as the two inhabitants of the man's mind battled for supremacy, the horror screamed its irritation of the forty year old and, remembering that it still had overall control and the only thing that Marik was preventing was his son being strangled, placed the Lucaelian's large hand on his son's mouth and chin, forcing the jaw shut so that no more of his pitiful imploring could be heard by his true father.

"_Shut the hell up, Caiellis! Just shut up!_"

_I WILL NOT LET YOU HURT HIM, YOU BASTARD CREATURE! LET GO OF HIM! GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HIM!_

The king could feel himself being smashed repeatedly into hard stone that should have shattered with the force of the impacts but were part of the sanctified walls of Akroma's cathedral and thus were impervious to such mundane attack, yet at the same time what was far more prevalent was the sensation of his son's tiny and delicate hands, so young and fragile, pawing at the hand and arm forcing his jaw shut. He wished that Caiellis was strong enough to pull him away, but the king knew how strong he was and how weak the boy was without his magic in comparison.

"I'm going to make you pay for disrupting this, Mariky-boy! I had a grand show in store for you, but you had to go and delay it, didn't you, _my king_?!" the spawn of psychotic nightmares half hissed and half insanely shrieked at him. Marik was still resisting all his might as he felt his body straining against itself, trying to move his hand downwards so that it would be placed upon Caiellis's neck. Then he felt pure darkness encircle him, and flood into his ears, mouth, nose, suffocating and drowning, a tide of murk and sticky ooze that slowly overwhelmed his defiance as he thrashed, trying so damned hard for his youngest son as his body was subsumed in the dark.

The Marik in the Mind Realm was swallowed up in blackness, unable to act, see, or help stricken Caiellis, and that left the rest of him only able to watch in horror as control was slowly, inexorably, but surely returned to the creature possessing him. He couldn't move, and he couldn't help his son, but that didn't stop him from trying, expending all of his energy to desperately aid his youngest who was in one of the most perilous and painful situations of his entire life of just thirteen years.

The horror laughed as the king wrenched his hand away from the boy's chin, Caiellis still whispering hauntingly and sadly and sobbing silently, and then slammed him back up against the wall by his throat.

_STOP! STOP! PLEASE! STOP!_

Marik's howls of anguish accomplished nothing, and his son's saddened whimpers were cut off in a violent gasp for air that was pushed out of him by the impact. Even through the gauntlets of metal, Marik could _feel _his son's pounding heartbeat, exactly like it had been the previous day's morning, although this time he was fully conscious of his actions. He simply could not change them, and was forced to watch as his son's air was cut off by the hand of the one whom he called father and had trusted to solve his misery and danger, but had only placed him in more of it.

Marik screamed incoherently as he saw his son's eyes snap open again, the sudden prevention of his breathing causing Caiellis to look upon his father again. If the king's heart wasn't already broken by what he had seen, what horrible things he had witnessed, it was shattered even more by the fear in his son's eyes. This was even worse than the night that Emili had been murdered, because then, even though it had been his fault and had been the most awful thing he had experienced, there had been nothing he could do to stop the demon killing her in that one moment.

Now, with his son's throat in his large and seemingly gigantic hands in comparison to Caiellis's own, he was here, there were no excuses for allowing this to happen, but he could not stop it. The betrayal in his son's eyes was evident, and Marik wanted to apologise more than anything, wanting to stop this any way he could even if it meant that he would suffer for an eternity, but the horror was perfectly happy with how this was turning out and that meant there was no one Marik could turn to in that respect.

_STOP IT! STOP CHOKING HIM! PLEASE! HE CAN'T BREATH! LET GO! LET GO OF MY SON! _

Marik was able to feel the vicious and sadistic smile on his face, could see it in his son's wide and increasingly bloodshot eyes as the boy coughed desperately, his small and slender fingers scrabbling on his father's gauntlets, but even when they found purchase on the slick metal-clad and painfully constricting fingers and thumbs of his dad's hands they could not even move them an inch, let alone force them off of his neck. He could feel the sensation of his son's throat moving beneath his thumbs and fingers, and he could feel how he was forced to increase the strength and pressure of his grip, squeezing the life from the boy whom he now loved with all of his heart. He wished for his eldest son to arrive and hack him apart for daring to touch his younger brother in anger, or for Orzhova to beat back her sister and smash the king away from his youngest son, but no one came and Marik knew it was up to him to help his son, a task that seemed impossible but one that he would never give up on as long as he drew breath.

_STOP! YOU'RE KILLING HIM! STOP! HE CAN'T BREATH; HE'S DYING! _

Caiellis's cheeks were quickly becoming tinged blue as he let out another choked sob, the king pressing his thumbs in even harder to choke off all noise, eliciting a strangled yelp of pain from the boy as Marik screamed inside of his head. He was drowning in blackness and could not breath himself, though whether that shortness was the shadow pouring down his throat and nose or the effect of seeing his son in pain was irrelevant to the king.

_PLEASE LET GO OF HIM! TAKE ME INSTEAD! STOP HURTING HIM! STOP _KILLING _HIM!_

The weak impacts of Caiellis kicking against his father's chest that had gone virtually unnoticed by the forty year old until they stopped ceased, and eventually, when he couldn't even force a desperate cough to obtain life giving air into his lungs, his fingers that had been pulling without any success against his dad's strangling hands fell still.

_NO! NO! NOOO! STOP! STOP! Stop … stop it … stop killing him … let go of my son … I can't lose him as well … I can't let him die like this … I'm killing him … why can't I move my hands? He can't breath … Caiellis can't breath … and I keep squeezing harder … I can't stop it … I can't stop it …_

A thin trickle of blood dripped down from the corner of Caiellis's lips that were tinged unnaturally blue by the lack of oxygen getting into his body, mixing with his pained tears of distress and forlornness. His eyes became even more bloodshot and began to glaze over; Caiellis's vision must have been fading and greying out because of the utter absence of air, and Marik tried harder to pull his hands away as he began to succumb to his own despair.

He was killing his youngest son, his precious and fragile and intelligent and innocent and _young _baby boy, and he couldn't do anything. He, the king of a huge nation with gigantic reserves of powerful mana to call upon, the blessings of the Sanctum Angelica and the devotion of the people of Lucael, could not stop his hands from wrapping round his second son's neck and crushing with a killing strength.

Caiellis's arms slowly fell numb by his side, his eyelids beginning to flutter as he juddered for a second in his father's grip, the fact that the man was lifting him easily off the ground contributing even more to the strangulation. Marik screamed and screamed and howled and shouted and cried and thrashed, but not one of those things removed his hands from the boy's neck. Caiellis was dying, and it was with a sickening sensation worming through his stomach mixed with a terrified trembling of his spine that the king had never felt unless in situations where his family members were close to death that he realised that the horror, instead of snapping the fragile boy's throat and being done with it, was slowly killing the littlest Lucerna.

He was making sure that the boy felt every bit of his forced descent into unconsciousness, putting as little pressure as possible on his carotid arteries so that the restriction of blood flow would not cause him to go blissfully comatose within only a few seconds of an unfolding loss of sensation like the blood choke that Alexander had administered when the king had forced the two to spar yesterday evening that seemed to the man like years ago. The evil being was letting him slowly choke to death by limiting – well, completely cutting off – his oxygen, causing the boy huge amounts of pain as he slowly drifted off into numbness and could not take in any breath.

_He's … he's dying … please stop this … I can't watch this … I can't watch another member of my family die … this is all my fault … WHY CAN'T I STOP IT?!_

Marik met his son's eyes one last time as they struggled desperately to stay conscious and awake, Caiellis still instinctively clinging onto his life even though it was clear to all intents and purposes he had mentally given up and accepted his fate, accepted his apparent punishment for mistakes that Marik had convinced the boy that he had made. They were still filled with fear and pain, fear and pain that the king wanted to erase almost more than he had wanted anything in this world, though the darkness was surrounding the king and stopping him resisting in any way.

His son was dying in front of his eyes and his emerald green orbs were beginning to become faded, losing their crystalline lustre in a way that was so familiar to the king as the image of his son choking to death and trying to eke in one last breath was interspersed with that of Emili dying in the arms of the demon, although this was somehow worse because it was him that was stopping his son taking in essential air. Caiellis's eyes began to slowly close, but before they did so the king leaned forwards again, Marik disturbed to the extreme that he could not feel the little puffs of his son's pained breathing like he had before.

"_Why don't you do us all a favour, and just die?_"

The words were infused with Marik's own real malice and hatred of the forces of the darkness that enshrouded and threatened the Kingdom of Lucael, and the king could feel the horror inside of his mind leeching off of the emotions of disgust and aversion he felt towards the being right now, which made the words that he would never have dreamed of saying to one of his young sons, controlled or not, sound even more true.

It did not matter that Caiellis was probably too far gone to hear the words, that most likely his son would not be able to perceive what had been said over the pounding in his skull caused by the lack of oxygen. They had been said, and, deep down, Marik knew that his son had heard and that that would be the last thing that he heard before he gave out.

More tears dripped down his ghostly pale cheeks, the last wracking but choked whimper of the boy showing that he had indeed heard the words cut off by increasing the pressure of his hands even more.

_Caiellis … my baby … I'm so sorry … _

The Black Sun on the youngest prince's cheek, glowing with a melancholy purple light which had gone ignored by all because of its familiarity, suddenly pulsed. It was scintillating, brilliant, and haunting and dark and bright all in one moment, and Marik could have cried out in joy to see the face of Orzhova materialising out of the golden shadow of purple stained glass. He was vaguely aware of the horror in his head screeching in frustration and irritation, pain flooding through his entire being internally and externally as the angel in front of him, formed from the blinding light of the darkness, smashed the king away with an explosion of light and the horror within his Mind Realm did _something_ that caused him huge amounts of agony that did not touch the relief that he felt.

Orzhova glared at him, snarling something spiteful and full of protective malevolence, and her glittering onyx eyes were full of hatred directed at him. He knew that he deserved her hatred, her loathing, for what he had allowed to happen to his son, but it still filled him with fear to see such an awe-inspiring and terrifying being glaring down at him and spinning her scythe. Marik spat something condescending and angry back that the real him paid no attention to over the frightened pounding in his head as he truly came to terms with how close his son had come to dying in his hands.

_I'm so so sorry, Caiellis, I'm so sorry. _

He was still desperate, but to see and hear the boy breathing again – even if that breathing was ragged, panting and pained, full of anguish and sorrow – was one of the best experiences of his life. Caiellis fell to the floor without his father's hands lifting him up off of the floor, and Orzhova stood protectively in front of him, her scythe glinting in the flames of the burning city. The king was dimly aware of the Angel of Wrath making her way to his side as the Angel of the Black Sun retorted angrily and full of malice, to what he had said to the dark seraphim.

He couldn't concentrate, filled with equal amounts of relief knowing that his son was alive for now and dread in being completely cognizant of the massive danger that he was still in. He processed that the horror in his head would still want to harm Caiellis, even more so now that he had been thwarted on two occasions by the forces of the light, and the king could feel the foul being's itch for vengeance from here.

However, it was not nearly as powerful as his, not nearly as strong as his need to atone for his crimes and mete out retribution for what had happened to poor Caiellis. The Angel of the Black Sun didn't block out the view of the small and fragile boy completely, and the creature of blackness dominating the king's body kept his gaze fixed upon his youngest son, as if taunting the man whom it controlled that it could easily get close to murdering the boy again should it choose. And the sad thing was that it was right, Caiellis would have been drained and exhausted and almost broken by the traumatic experience of having his own father almost choke him to death, and that meant that Akroma and Marik who had expended as much mana as his youngest son and was in better condition would be fighting against Orzhova alone.

No matter how powerful the Angel of the Black Sun was she could not hold off the combined arms of the supreme king of Lucael and the daunting Angel of Wrath, but Marik was going to make sure that she didn't have to. It was irrelevant that he had accomplished almost nothing so far by being in his mind, because in combat even a slight delay or hesitation could be fatal and he intended to ensure that it would be. It was his duty as a father to cause as much disruption to the horror's – or Johnias's, as he recalled that the being had mentioned his traitorous twin brother – plans as possible, and he had already failed Caiellis once.

Orzhova had given him another chance to make up for his failures and save the life of his baby boy, his little youngest son who was filled with innocence and teenage defiance that didn't quite eclipse the former, and he would be failing both of his children if he let the smallest and most fragile member of their tiny family die now. Besides, although Marik did not want to think of it, there was still an Archdemon to kill after this, and if he gave up now, accepted that he could do no more to aid his son despite all the evidence pointing towards that inevitability, then Rakdos would be free to rampage throughout the city and poor Alexander would be left without a father and a little brother to torment.

His son's face was ashen, streaked with blood and tears and tinged heavily blue and purple by his traumatic experience in his father's hands, and the thirteen year old was shaking, in a state of shock from almost dying. He tried to stand up but only succeeded in hurting himself further, and Marik was reminded of the time in the midnight siege of Fort Egetau where his son had tried so hard to get back up and impress his father, though all that came about because of it was causing himself more pain because of his wounds. Also, according to Choirmaster Esmelde who Marik had no reason to distrust and reminded him of what Emili would be like if she was a doctor, apparently the first thing that the smallest Lucerna had done when Iridis, Seraph of the Sword, had deposited him in the camp, was to conjure up a weak version of his wings and attempt to fly back. He had crash landed after a few seconds and heavily exacerbated his injuries.

That, and the painful nightmare he had been in which was made all the more agonising by his wounds, was what had prompted Marik to delegate the moving of the army to someone else and sit by his youngest son like he should and comfort him through the night, not that Caiellis would ever know and probably never would as Marik didn't want to take credit for it because he blamed himself for the boy being caught in the explosion in the first place.

His worry for his son had stopped him being able to think clearly and lead the soldiers to victory, mixing with his anger at the boy blatantly disobeying his direct orders and causing the soldiers to die. He had been stern and harsh because he knew that if he had been comforting, soft and sympathetic then for one Caiellis wouldn't learn the errors of his mistakes and obvious insubordination and secondly he would not have been able to concentrate at all unless he pushed his parental instinct to the back of his mind and focussed on the battle at hand.

However, he wished that he had been less cold and stern with the boy, making him attempt to stand on his own – something that, to his credit although Marik had refused to realise it at the time with his harsh fury at his son (that was well deserved, he didn't dispute that at all and Caiellis knew that he had messed up badly – he just shouldn't have been allowed to participate in the battle at all because of his lack of mana), he had tried to complete with all of his determination not to show himself up and to be the perfect prince that his father wanted. This reminded Marik of that, his youngest ignoring his fragile body and the fact that it had only been a few seconds since he had almost been pushed into unconsciousness because of the lack of air and trying to surge to his feet.

Caiellis was coughing and gasping for breath, his head bleeding heavily and his eyes wide open and bloodshot even though the air was returning him, and Marik shuddered at the thought of what had happened, that he had reduced his youngest son to this and that he had almost strangled the boy to death. He had only had to hold on for around a minute after he slipped in unconsciousness – or maybe even less than that because his son was so fragile – and his baby would have died in his hands. The thought horrified him now that he could think clearly about it, although he couldn't hear the words that were being spoken between him and his son's dark angelic protector over the pounding in his skull because of his son getting so close to death in the hands of the person who was supposed to protect him from the evils of the world, not subject him to them.

Marik forced himself to calm down and think objectively about what had happened, an impossible feat in itself with equal amounts of anger and horror surging through his body. But he would be no use to his son in this anguished and distressed state. There were some slight positives to the situation – Caiellis's tongue was not swollen, or if it was it was only ever so slightly enough so that the king could not see it, which was good if anything could be considered good in this horrible event. Furthermore, although Caiellis had sustained numerous wounds which were heavily accentuated by his small and delicate body, he was still evidently able to move and push himself through the pain.

Marik hated to compare his sons' situations, knowing that this one was just as awful because Caiellis had almost been strangled to death by his father and had been assaulted emotionally a huge amount to the point where he had given up, not that there was anything he could have done to remove his dad's hands from around his throat with his magical powers silenced and also distracted by his distress and emotional agony enough so that they could not break through the barriers that his father placed upon his mana, but at least the fact that Caiellis could move and stay conscious despite the pain meant that he was in a much better condition than Alexander had been when he had been torn apart by that bitch of a vampire Aksua.

Golden mana wrapped around his son, the Angel of the Black Sun taking the opportunity that this lull in the battle presented to bless the king's youngest son with numerous enchantments and auras that would make it easier for him to bear the pain and stand even with his concussion and light-headedness due to being deprived of oxygen for so long and then suddenly being gifted with an unlimited amount of it, if not heal it because of the malicious Rain of Gore which completely countered the youngest Lucerna's fighting style.

He got back to his feet, and Marik sneered something awful at him, something that right now Marik in the Mind Realm couldn't hear over his own thoughts or process it at all, though it was something that when it came to remember this awful battle he would be able to recall. It was something about his son being a disappointment, a pathetic Lucerna, but the only pathetic one here was Marik, the father who couldn't protect his own children and was even hurting one of them right now.

Marik refused to pay attention to the battle, even though he knew that after it he would remember every single detail through his eyes. He knew that focussing on Caiellis's pain froze him up and drowned him in anguish, prevented him from acting to save his baby boy and stopped him from doing anything to save him. Instead, he placed his efforts within his own mind, knowing that by disrupting the horror as much as possible that Orzhova may be able to triumph over the king of Lucael and protect his son from the one who had possessed him.

Furthermore, he was clearly a better human warrior than this horror could ever be, and although the being had the full selection of his fighting memories to draw upon and enact in the combat the being was not him, could never be him, and as such would never be able to fight in his skin as well as the one who owned it was. In addition, he could still remember watching the fight and instinctively noticing something before the denizen of the shadow that was commandeering his every movement had, which had been extremely detrimental to his son as it prevented him bringing his weapon to bear and having the ability to fend off his father at close quarters since his magic wasn't focussed enough for him to use.

Marik realised that once again he had been played for a fool and that it had worked – since he was a father, he had been unable to look away from his son's distress and danger and become agitated and horrified by the sight of it himself, and the horror had used that to its advantage in wielding his gaze so that he would predict his son's actions and see it before the being controlling him did. If he concentrated all of his mental power into harming its control and paid as little attention to the battle as possible then the horror would have to divert its power to stopping him and fighting his son's angel – although it seemed like Caiellis wanted to continue fighting once he had recovered enough to do so and deal with his hate-filled father – without his inadvertent aid.

Then, something caught Marik's eye out of the corner of his vision, and it sent another shuddering rhythm of cold trembling up and down his spine. The Angel of Wrath was stood next to him, but she had been changed – her emotionless grey eyes were glinting red and not just because of the hellfire they were reflecting, and her expression was contorted in anger and hatred directed at her disgraced sister. Marik had never barely ever seen anything slightly resembling emotion from his angel, something which as a young boy had unnerved him but now he knew that it was because she was ageless and so far elevated above humans that all she needed was to fight against the darkness, but the only two times he had was when Orzhova had chosen Caiellis to be her next Summoner and on the night where Emili had died, which had also been the night that Johnias traded away Akroma's peaceful sister Serenity for an Archdemon of his own, sacrificing the youngest angel of the First Sisterhood to gain more power and help his own selfish goals.

Now, she was more angry and frenzied than Marik had ever seen her before, the halo that was normally unable to be viewed by humans above her head spinning and emitting a bloody red light that lusted for violence and revenge. Marik knew that Akroma hated his son's angel, but to see that hatred displayed like this was awe-inspiring. He did not know if it made the Angel of Wrath stronger or weaker, as her hatred of the forces of the abyss normally increased her power but it might have been tainted by the anger that was consuming her heavenly and flawless form, or if this was something that Akroma had done to herself or had been caused by the Lord of Riots or even the horror of Aksua saturating the Mind Realm with its corrupting presence.

However, one thing was for certain that he realised with a sinking feeling – Orzhova, who currently had less mana than the Angel of Wrath due to the fact Marik sensed she had been Summoned twice after being destroyed once already somehow and Caiellis had less mana overall than his father because of his age and relative inexperience (as the mana pool of a child that could use it expanded and increased in capacity as they grew and matured and reached its optimum capacity at around the age of twenty three (though it differed for different youngsters), though it could still be augmented further it could never get larger naturally) with magic and certainly Summoning compared to his dad, would definitely have to hold off Akroma on her own. The Angel of the Black Sun would be utterly distracted by the fuming and fanatical Angel of Wrath, which meant that Caiellis would be alone against his human but still very powerful father once again.

Marik wasn't sure that his youngest son would be able to deal with that again, though as he looked into Caiellis's green eyes (which were still bloodshot from the violent strangulation which had made him completely helpless against his dad), he could see the pain of hurt, rejection, and the fear of the man who wanted to kill him instead of love him and protect him, emotional turmoil and sorrow at being told that he had never been wanted in the first place and blamed for the death of his beloved mother, the injuries of his brother, and the entire predicament the Lucaelian army was in now. However, even with this whirlpool of emotions that Marik could get lost within forever and that could reduce even the harshest grown men to blubbering infants, there was the construction of powerful fortifications that the king had grown all too used to seeing from his second son, the barriers that would prevent the emotions leaking out of them in the form of tears or distracting the boy too much.

He wondered how long Caiellis would be able to keep that up, and what scared him the most was the sheer hollowness in his son's eyes. It was blank dejection, a sad realisation of the fact that he was no longer wanted – or never had been, if the horror's words were to be believed – by his father who had tried to choke the life from him and clearly would not hesitate to do so again, but also a kind of resignation to all of this, like he didn't deserve more because of these apparent failures that he had made over the course of his young life that he now took to heart and blamed himself for, like he was worthy of this violence and hatred because of what he had done. That terrified Marik in the extreme, because his son looked like exactly how he had done after the first meeting with the king after the nine years of the twin Lucerna brothers' war, and even worse than that – which was immensely bad because at that time Caiellis had brutally cut himself, so if he felt even worse or even more suicidal who knew what he might do because of how much he hated himself.

Even in those cold eyes that desperately tried to hide emotion from the piercing gaze of his father that Marik knew was close to destroying Caiellis's new shell, the king could see a grim determination to "atone for his crimes" within them, a hatred of the Archdemon and the boy's adamant will to set that right by eliminating Rakdos after he dealt with his father, and even through it all it made the king feel slightly proud, though more horrified. Horrified because it showed how little Caiellis valued his life due to what had been said and done to him, a young and vulnerable teenager that was going through an extremely hard stage even without the pressure of being the son of a king, the stress of a war that he should never have been allowed to be in due to his age and innocence, the fact that his beloved older brother had almost died only a week ago after a traumatic abduction which had almost had him strangled then as well, and it showed that Caiellis thought absolutely nothing of himself.

There was a million things that Marik wished he could say and do with his son, say and do with both of his sons, but it was too late for that now and it was his fault that Caiellis was like this now. He wished he could escape from his prison, because he didn't think that Caiellis would be able to fight against an Archdemon alone in his current condition at all, but he had to believe that he could because otherwise that was countenancing the death of his youngest son, something that he refused to consider despite the severity of the situation – and if he was being honest the boy might even die in the next fight against his father if he couldn't keep up this act of accepting everything. Even if he could, the king was more than a foot and a half taller than the boy, definitely over twice his weight and had far more strength and muscle and mana to spare.

That just meant even more that Marik had to be able to help from within. He had never felt so powerless, so useless, so pathetic, even in the night that Emili had been taken away from him and her sons, but that didn't mean that he had any excuse to do nothing and leave Caiellis to this fate. As a father, Marik had done nothing at all for his youngest son, or his eldest either for that matter, but from now that was going to change. He could feel himself lifting his broadsword again, but as he knelt down to pick up the weapon a strange sort of relief and satisfaction encompassed Marik.

The pain that wracked his body when he moved it was utterly ignored by the brutal taskmaster overseeing the movement of his limbs, but it did not go unnoticed by the king who was peculiarly glad that his wounds in his stomach that had gone without any form of treatment or healing were this bad. It would given Caiellis more of an advantage, something that the youngster who should never have been expected to fight and kill at such a young age desperately needed in this dire circumstance.

"I'm going to make that bitch of an angel regret saving poor baby Caiellis from his fate. But really, I'm surprised that you haven't given into the temptation to do that to your son already without my coaching, because honestly that other brat of yours is much more suitable for leading your pathetic armies against the forces of darkness and is also much less irritating and whiny," the horror commented, almost idly, though its voice was full of violent frustration at being thwarted at the last second by something that Marik had never seen from his son's angel before. He had had the boy in the perfect situation, and now he was going to have to start it all again – and what was worse was that his wench of a seraphim was furious now and the kid seemed to be able to control his delicious crying,

"Oh well. It seems that I will have to do it again. The look on both of your faces when your son was in your hands, desperately trying to pull daddy's squeezing fingers off of his neck and draw in a breath as he fell into unconsciousness was something that I will savour for a long time, and something that I want to happen again. Only this time I will make sure that your useless Akroma will stop the Angel of Black Sun from saving your son's_ pathetic_ life. How does that sound, Mariky-boy?"  
The king ignored the horror, knowing that it was taunting him to try and affect the concentration that he had created, although it was still swirling around him and cascading into his ears, nose and mouth, something which would have drowned him in the vile murk had it occurred in the material plane but did not affect the mental him in the Mind Realm now that he had managed to create a sanctuary of adamant determination around himself.

"Oh, I forgot that you couldn't talk when I have you like this. But you can still think, and I'm getting a bit annoyed that you are ignoring me, Mariky-boy. You know that I will just take it out on your son, since Caiellis is such an _easy_ target for a Lucerna," the dark being hissed at him, the words on all sides of the king though he did not hear them in reality as he took a step forward ready for battle. The father of two could not hear the words, refused to hear the words, and they blended together into one constant sibilant snarl that threatened to break down the walls of the haven within his head that he had created from his desire to protect his young sons. Marik didn't let himself be fooled by the fact that the horror was taunting him and baiting him into responding, because although his first thought was that it was doing so because it was worried by his new surge of resolution that had come about due to the trauma of his smallest child, the being had been jeering and provoking him ever since he first woke up in the Mind Realm only a few minutes that felt like hours, or even days, ago.

He refused to pay attention to the battle, though he did not do so because he wanted to hide from his son's pain. He felt himself and his baby boy clashing again, the youth having retrieved his weapon as Orzhova held off the frenzied Angel of Wrath, and every impulse that he felt the horror sending from his brain to his nerves and limbs he opposed. If the horror wanted to step forwards, he would send an imperative to step backwards, if the being wanted to carve his sword into his son, he would urge his body to step away and drop his sword, and if the spawn of the infernal nether tried to use him to conjure up his White mana he would gather up as many conflicting emotions as he could which would disrupt it.

Pain surged all around the king, some of the worst physical torment that his mind had ever been subjected to, but it was nothing in comparison to what he had seen or what other members of his precious but small family had suffered.

When measured against Caiellis's own abuse at the hands of his father the pain that the man was going through paled. He would not allow his son to be placed in the same position again, not after seeing the fear and terror in the boy's eyes as his air was cut off by his own dad, and something inside of Marik which he wished he had had access to earlier when his baby was being choked to death pushed itself to the forefront of his mind, some deep inner determination not to lose and allow his son to be abused and hurt because of the nefarious and evil plans of those who were jealous of his power and envious of Marik's family.

Marik could hear his son, and he could see the boy as the two fought, Caiellis still pleading with his father's sensibilities and telling him that even if he hated his son then he should be focussing on the Archdemon, and it saddened the man to think that his youngest son thought he was not just disliked or resented but hated by the man who loved him and his older brother more than anything but had found it almost impossible to show that love and truly express it in a way that it was obvious and undeniable. He should have made Caiellis certain that he was loved and wanted no matter what, and now that he had failed to do that it made his betrayal seem all the more believable for his self-loathing son.

He could see the boy, but that was all that he concentrated upon, denying his mind the chance to see what he was doing and predict his strategy, listening to his little boy and blocking out the sound and the pain from the horror inside of his head, the mental parasite of his austere Mind Realm that had caused all of this and put his son in so much pain, though the creature borne of dark nightmares was not solely to blame for that. He was trying to help in any way that he could, not allowing himself to give in with the feeling of hopelessness that gnawed away at him from within.

Perhaps if he wasn't a king with responsibilities to aid the people of Lucael, and more importantly right now perhaps if he wasn't a father with the duty to ensure his children were safe and happy, if he had no family and no one that relied upon his help, then he would have given up, accepted that there was nothing that he could do in this circumstance and surrender the last vestiges of control to the being that already had virtual domination of every part of him. But because he was a king, a dad of two young sons, he had a desire to oppose any harm that would come towards the innocents of the world, he had a need to stop injustice and evil wherever it reared its ugly head.

"_Dad, we can work this all out, please, I don't want this and neither do you..._"

Had this happened a few hours ago, had Marik not seen what he had and realised that his son somehow still loved him and thought that he could help even after all that he had done to the boy and all that he had failed his sons, he would have wondered why Caiellis kept trying to reach out for him. He had throttled the boy to within an inch of his life and would have kept going until he died if not for his angelic protector of Orzhova, had kicked him, punched him, thrown him around and smashed his head open, but even through all of that Caiellis did not give up on him.

It touched Marik's heart, and he wanted nothing more than to reach out to his son and drag him into his arms, Archdemon and the hellish environment around them be damned, but he could not and had to satisfy himself helping in any way that he could. The horror was getting more and more frustrated, especially since Marik's wounds were beginning to have an active effect upon his body and were weakening his movements as he ground his relic blade against the Sword of Glass which he had given to Caiellis only twelve days ago yet had seen so much violence and shed the blood of so many enemies, once again wishing that the boy would lash out at him and use the full array of powers against his father that Marik knew the youth had at his disposal.

The horror wasn't even bothering to have Marik use any of his own, because with the state that Akroma was in and the fact that the king had used up quite a bit of mana already with having her Summoned for so long (although he still did have enough for almost an apocalypse level spell) combined with the man's defiance meant that he would never get the chance to cast more powerful spells. Besides, the king had a feeling that the being could never muster enough White mana out of him for that either, because those spells required the correct emotions and targets to enact them upon and his innocent second son certainly didn't come under the latter category.

Caiellis shouldn't be here, fighting for his life against his own possessed father as one of the most powerful demons is existence watched and waited until he had finished. Caiellis shouldn't have to kill at all, not with his gentle and kind heart that he had inherited from his mother, and though Marik was normally filled with the martial pride of his nation and wanted his sons to be good warriors in the deepest recesses of his mind he knew that he would prefer it if neither of his sons had to fight for their lives or for the lives of others at all. He had never particularly hated violence, knowing that it was a necessary and sometimes glorious part of Lucaelian life and it was what had allowed them to survive for so long, and he took pride in how adept his sons were at prosecuting the twin arts of war and battle, but now that he was a father that actually saw his children he knew that he would do anything to get them away from violence and wished that they didn't have to have similar lives to him.

However, right now that was quite irrelevant and the king banished the thoughts from his mind as the intensity of the simultaneously stabbing and burning, freezing and corroding pain that melted the flesh of his mental self and cut apart his nerves increased to the point where he could barely ignore it and push it away. He resolved to grit his teeth and get through it, his son needed him and he had been given this chance by the Angel of the Black Sun to ensure that Caiellis lived through this ordeal against his father who should have been helping him against the probably very amused Rakdos. He _would not _allow his hands to go anywhere near Caiellis's throat, not let his blade or any part of him touch the boy with the intent to hurt.

"Oh, so you don't want any part of you to "touch him with the intent to hurt"? That is perfectly fine by me," the horror laughed and chittered, giggling vindictively as it gradually became more and more insane as the fight went on, the king's defiance reducing its will to keep up the semblance of being at least similar to humans. The only reason Marik could actually understand what it was saying was because it was inside of his mind and controlling his body, as otherwise the horror's words would have been a mixture of strange sounds like the grinding of teeth combined with the wet slapping of raw meat and a keening wail that would have split apart any human's ear drums had it been in reality.

Marik snarled in hatred as he felt himself channelling wrathful White mana, his personal mental intruder sapping away his own emotional strength so that it could fuel the casting of a spell. The eldest Lucerna tried to fill his mind with thoughts that this was wrong, self-doubt in the righteousness and rightness of one's actions one of the greatest ways of counteracting White mana, but the splitting pain that was the culmination of every single headache he had suffered in the hands of the horror and enemy mages who had tried to access his mind and turn him against his soldiers stopped from interfering with the generation of mana, though he had already caused enough of a delay that it was rendered much weaker.

Caiellis screamed out in pain as the magical bolts pierced into his back, ripping through the parts of his clothes that weren't already torn or scraped open by the amount that he had been attacked and abused and drawing blood where they stabbed into the skin. The king had intelligently chosen to target places on his youngest son that aided in the generation and wielding of mana apart from the head (as that was arguably Caiellis's most protected section apart from his broken ribs and his throat, which had an awful bruise on it that threatened to send Marik insensible if he looked at it too long and imagined his hands squeezing around it like they had done only minutes ago – making his son's determined recovery even more commendable), because that was currently Caiellis's most valuable asset as he had demonstrated earlier when Marik had been refusing to concentrate.

The scream split through Marik's head, the man sensing that it had been entirely involuntary, and as the horror smiled sadistically right in front of Marik's face as it surged around him and tried to crush the resistance from him, gnashing and tearing and stabbing and biting which barely had any affect on the Mind Realm Marik. It simply bolstered his resolve, his burning desire to never let his sons be in pain ever again after this awful day shining around him as he tried to do everything he could to help his son or even restore control to himself.

"How d'ya like that, Mariky-boy?" the horror questioned, somehow using the colloquial dialect that Johnias had often used in an attempt to make himself seem more down to earth and boosting his natural Lucerna charisma even more even while it spoke a completely different language to anything ever spoken by humans not contacting the darkness or invoking rituals of Black mana, words and sounds that would split apart the lips of those speaking them and sear themselves into the minds of those listening not penetrating to the shield of thoughts that the king had created around himself. It was a little bubble of defiance and resistance in a sea of darkness, but even a small bit of opposition for Caiellis's sake would help the boy.

Although it was cracking under the strain and Marik knew that it was only a matter of time before he was forced under completely and would only be able to watch him battle with his youngest son, he simply refused to acknowledge that fact because it would do neither the eldest nor the youngest (or even the middle for that matter) Lucerna no good.

"Hmm?! How do you like that?!" the horror was getting insistent, pressing down on Marik despite the fact that the man could not see it. All he could see was his youngest son beginning to break down after weathering the pain and the words from his father that had barely stopped and had not become any less horrible. Caiellis coughed once more, a wracking and wheezing sound that had Marik wondering in horror whether or not his son's throat had been damaged by the monumental strain and pressure he had put it under, and saliva that was flecked with blood dripped down his chin before it became masked by the bloody torrent of the Rain of Gore, the Tempest of Craving above still rumbling its approval of the slaughter in the City of Pleasure as crimson lighting flashed.

The cough that afflicted Caiellis's mistreated and injured body almost had him dropping his sword and clutching onto his broken ribs, ribs that Marik had smashed apart through his involuntary violent actions. It was clear that Caiellis wanted to wipe it away from his face even though it could no longer be seen, but that would require letting go of his weapon with one hand and he was already being pushed back across the blood-slick courtyard to where he had been lifted off of his feet and choked against one of the last remaining walls.

The boy's pale where it was not stained crimson and young face that radiated innocence and despair far beyond his thirteen years which had been packed full of sadness, hardship and huge amounts of emotional and physical pain, began to contort in pain. Then, like a floodgate had been opened and the boy couldn't stop it any more, couldn't hold back the tide any longer, Caiellis began crying again, clear tears spilling out of his wide, bloodshot (though less then when he had been trying to pry Marik's tightening hands off of his neck) and terrified eyes and sharply reminding the king once again of his young age.

_Caiellis … I'm so sorry that this is happening to you … please just hold on and keep fighting against me … I believe in you, my son, I know it doesn't count for much after all that I've done to you … but I believe in you and I am truly sorry for this._

"_Stop it! Please! Dad, just help me … I'm scared … why … why are you doing this?_"

_Angels above, Caiellis, I know you are scared – heck, I am terrified – and you have every right to be. The man who is supposed to protect you from this sort of violence is subjecting you to it, and no matter how many times I mentally (or physically after this battle) apologise for it it will never be enough. Please just keep going though, for all of us. I couldn't bear to see you die … I couldn't bear to see you in pain either, but I had to watch it. I wish I wasn't doing this, I truly do kiddo, just don't give up. Keep going strong Caiellis, I know that you can do it. I don't want you to die so young, you have so much to live for, and you need to keep fighting and not let my horrible words get to you at all baby boy. You need to live, for me, your brother, "Uncles" Tristram and Tybalt, for your mother in heaven, for all of the people who look up to you and are friends with you, and most of all for yourself. You are so young, and have been through so much, and there are so many opportunities that you haven't yet had the chance to take. Keep going, stay strong. You can do it, my son._

The boy took in a deep, shuddering breath, clearly fighting to get himself back under control as Marik could feel his face twisting into a malicious and horrible leer as he smiled mirthlessly back at his crying son, though Caiellis refused to let the tears get the better of him right now. He kept having to take painful steps back as Marik forced him into a corner again, and the king pondered desperately whether or not the horror wanted to choke Caiellis again or simply remind him of that traumatic experience and weaken him by doing so, not take the risk of having someone else interrupt him and finish the boy off as soon as possible, though the reasons behind it apart from its own evil lust for the pain of innocents escaped the Lucerna patriarch – or perhaps that was it.

Either way, the why was irrelevant, and the king put everything he had into slowing himself down and distracting his body from the battle at hand. The boy took a deep, shuddering breath that probably hurt him quite a bit, though the torment in his wide green eyes was constant and unrelenting, and he was forced back further into the wall which had been the site of the closest (to Marik's knowledge at any rate) the thirteen year old had ever got to death.

"_Dad … I love you..._"

The words were heartfelt and true, drenched in mournful sadness that Marik knew might not ever be erased from his son, and it provoked on final surge from the king against the control of the one that was making him do this to his own son. It was not lost on him that this was one of the very few times that his son had said that to him after the civil war, and an even rarer one where he truly meant it, although something was itching at the back of Marik's mind that his son had said it the day before when he had been in the throes of a horrible headache caused by this bastard horror that had been the bane of all three Lucernas and had done more damage to them than some demons.

_I love you too, Caiellis. I just wish that you knew that. I just wish that I had given you the chance to know that, through everything, through all of our arguments and fights, I love you, and I only ever did anything in the best interests of you and your brother or the Kingdom of Light. _

The king, over the horrifying sounds that the horror was making to punctuate the agony that he was in (having seemingly not yet realised that the pain was nothing in comparison to the emotional hurt that the being of the shadows had made him go through, but then again it was not human (not even close) and could never understand that), heard the malicious being giggled slightly, though whether it could hear Marik's thoughts from within the small but as of yet inviolate shelter inside his mind that he had created for himself or was laughing at Caiellis's declaration of love for his father was unknown.

"_That feeling is not mutual._"

The untrue words were growled out of Marik's mouth, full of a grave finality as all of the participants of the fight could sense that it was ending and that its climax was about to be reached. The king was sure that his son would have nodded or sighed sadly in despairing resignation if he hadn't been sobbing and crying, but instead Caiellis shook his head, so softly that Marik wasn't certain whether he had done the actions on purpose or not.

_That feeling is mutual, my son, no matter what bile is spewing out of my mouth now. And I am going to make sure that you will survive this fight with the possessed me, and that I will break out and help you against Rakdos like any father worthy of the title (not that I am anywhere near that) should. I promise you that I will do everything that I can for you, Caiellis, because you are my son and I _do _love you, it only took me far too long to see and admit that._

Caiellis shot forwards, unexpectedly aggressive when he had seemed that he was resigned to being backed into a corner, though Marik knew instantly that it was because the boy would rather die fast at the hands of his father's blade rather than being slowly (in comparison) and painfully strangled to death. It was a desperate attack, and incredibly reckless though his son certainly wasn't able to rely upon his usual patient tactics to win this battle. It was horrible that his son even had to consider such a thing, and one of the main goals within Marik's reign was to make sure that no children had to think about their own deaths – one that was lofty, especially with the civil war and the abyss surrounding Lucael, but the king had always maintained that if one did not have ambitious objectives then there was little point in having them at all.

A gigantic pillar of radiance, one that the boy must have been charging up for quite a while now unbeknownst to his opponent, blasted out of Caiellis, though the horror was not caught off guard by it and neither of Marik. His son must have been very desperate to – _no, really? Caiellis is fucking desperate? Well fucking done!_

Marik tried to lower the defensive mana that surged around his imposing yet wounded form, but it was like trying to stop a tidal wave of light or douse an inferno of hellfire with a single cup half full of water and it was effortless for the physical king to absorb the force of his youngest son's admittedly powerful blast of mana that was nowhere near the power level of the Lucerna king in front of him with his own magic augmented by the holy crown sat atop his bloody brow on his Lucerna greatsword that thrummed with the White mana that it had just soaked up, Caiellis's so similar yet so different to his father's own wrathful magic.

_GET AWAY, CAIELLIS! GET BACK FROM ME!_ Marik screamed into his head, although none of that translated to his physical form as he hefted his sword and prepared to launch an eviscerating strike at his youngest son that would disembowel his baby boy and send his internal organs spilling onto the floor. He wrestled for control with the horror for a moment, who in response sent several pulses of white-hot pain ricocheting throughout Marik's skull, but it was no contest and soon Marik was powerless to help his son. The rogue Summoning of Aksua's noxious tendrils were dug too deep into Marik's mind, its malevolent influence spread unchecked too far along his body as he was about to strike.

Then, as if adding insult to the injury, as if it wanted to cement its position as the true commander of Marik's body and to ruin Caiellis's emotional state even further, the horror sent one more spiteful pulse of words throughout Marik's nervous system, coloured with more than a hint of finality.

"_And it never has been._"

The sword flashed forwards, and Marik howled in anguish as he saw it rushing towards his crying son, Caiellis too far out of position and too slow to react in any way to the oncoming blade.

_CAIELLIS!_

The Lucerna greatsword that had been the cause of so many enemies' deaths hit his son in the upper chest, carving easily through the thin enchantment that he had been given barely enough chance to create and ripping his son's skin open. Caiellis screamed in pain, and Marik did so as well as his sword sliced his baby boy open.

Blood jetted out from the wound, and in the haze of adrenaline and emotional agony Marik realised that his son had leapt backwards to avoid the blade ripping him apart. The horror had discerned this before him and was already priming another attack as his own son's blood sprayed over him, splattering in his eyes, on his face and dripping down his body, somehow distinct from the perpetual Rain of Gore and the blood that was already trickling from Marik's own wounds.

A huge influx of White and Black mana infused Caiellis, coming from Orzhova who still had mana to spare for her plucky young Summoner, and Caiellis wasted no time in efficiently splitting apart the two types of mana. He conjured up a rotating sphere of blinding and imperious luminescence in front of his small left palm, and dropped the Sword of Glass as an orb of pulsing tenebrosity and the blackest despair formed in front of his right, a huge amount of mana given life by Caiellis's emotions and his pain.

The boy then slammed the two spheres of light and darkness together, his eyes locked in determination as the tears pouring out of them began to shine with darklight that made the image of the bloodied and crying youngster fighting desperately for his life as crimson vitae poured out of the quite dramatic wound on his chest, a horrible bruise already forming over the one that his father had already caused as he pushed the opposite forces together into his droplets of blood. Instead of there being a massive explosion as the two collided, there was a release of mournful purple light that started to vitrify the blood of his son, turning the many scarlet droplets into crystals of glass as they pulsed with illumination and formed up around the king, pressing in on him from all sides.

It was a cage formed of bloody glass, the vital fluids of his youngest son trapped within the droplets of crystal that refracted darkness and light all around them until Marik was completely surrounded. He shouted in rage, the king forced to drop his sword as he beat at the fragments, shattering some as they released their payload of Caiellis's blood onto the man, but yet more were appearing and the Lucerna patriarch dared to hope that his son's powerful magic was trapping him in.

He felt his limbs becoming number and number as all energy was sapped from them by the droplets, and then they started singing to the king that was trapped within the cage of them. Marik in the Mind Realm froze, although the physical him dominated by Aksua's rogue Summoning (which was now technically Unbound) did not see the significance of it and kept at destroying the cage. The crystalline glass of his son's blood was humming a mournful but slightly soothing tune, one that Marik remembered from many years ago and one that he would gladly sleep to. It was the one that Emili had used to sing to baby Caiellis as he screamed out in the night and was unable to get to sleep because of the pain his premature body was in, and with his wife unable to hold her son and comfort him in that matter she had taking to singing or gently humming a soothing and soft tune to him until he fell asleep.

Even in the years where she had been able to rock and hug her baby close if he had trouble sleeping, she had kept up with the kind singing that had always brought a tear to Marik's eye. It was something that Caiellis would have been far too young to remember, and his eyes were full of so many emotions that Marik couldn't tell – and he could barely see them because of the spell pressing down on him and restricting his movements, the light obscuring the vision of his son. There was no way that Caiellis would know what the song was, that his mother had used to sing it to him in the past in times of pain, but it seemed that some part of him deep down knew the tune and it had translated into his magic,

It reminded Marik so heavily of his wife, although this was more like a haunting hymn than a soothing song, and the king knew that if he had been in full control of his body he might have broken down and started crying. Even when she was gone, even though she had died when Caiellis was only four years old, Emili had had such a massive impact on her beloved sons' lives, much more than Marik had ever had – in the positive manner, at any rate.

"_What are you doing, you damn brat?!_"

"What are you doing, you little bastard of a Lucerna?!"

The outraged cries of both Marik and the horror of Aksua infecting Marik's body mingled as one as the king threw his body at the cage, destroying a large amount of the bloody crystals in spite of the man's attempts to heighten the process of his body shutting down which had already begun thanks to his son's powerful magic.

"_You'll get us all killed, you foolish brat! Let me out of here, you worthless little shit, so that I can finish with you and then kill Rakdos! Release me now, or we will both die and Alexander will as well!_"

The king almost though that his son was going to give up with the mention of his older brother, intending to end his spell prematurely so that his father could murder him and then kill the Archdemon as he said (although Marik knew that there was no way that would happen if Caiellis surrendered to his words now), but to his immense credit and bravery Caiellis steeled himself and increased the potency of his magic. Marik was astounded at how gentle his son was being with his father, though it was possible that if any of the magic was converting into being harmful the intensity of the incapacitating spell would be reduced enough so that Marik could break out. The king was not sure that if the roles had been reversed he would have not killed his father, or at least hurt him somewhat in his anguish and rage at what had been said, but Caiellis had not harmed him in any way, probably because he couldn't countenance hurting his family in any way in spite of whatever they might do to him.

"_Is that what you really want?! For your brother to die, all alone, just because you had the foolish conception that you can defeat a demon of Archdemonic magnitude alone?! __Why are you wasting time trying to restrain me?! Why don't you just finish me off now, eh, Caiellis?!__What, are you a coward?! I suppose I already know the answer to that, my boy! You were never cut out for honourable Lucaelian life, ever since you first developed Black mana within you!_"

The horror's taunts through Marik's mouth bombarded the boy, who shut his eyes tightly so that he would not have to face them, before opening them wide again and staring straight into his father's furious blue orbs. Marik hated the words, knowing that even though everything that he had said so far had cut very deep that last one was particularly brutal and was something that had haunted Caiellis all of his life and stigmatised him, removing him from his peers because of something that he could never have changed and that wasn't his fault. Not looking away from his dad, the boy drew several elegant sigils in the air that the king had never seen before, and it then hit Marik that he could sense his son casting several spells that traded away his life essence for more power so that he could complete the spell.

_He's killing himself … for us all … and I'm here shouting invectives and insults at my youngest son?! I can only hope that Caiellis's mana regeneration and natural Lucerna vitality will allow him to reclaim this life that he is trading for more mana when he spends time recovering from his wounds. It also means that I have to keep trying so that my son does not have to use up much of his life force to subdue me peacefully as he wants to._

"Stop interfering, Mariky-boy! I want you to hurt your son! I want to kill Caiellis so that I never have to listen to his whining voice ever again, and I want to see your pain! You can break out of this! You are strong enough, so do it now!"

Th horror screamed at the king, slamming his Mind Realm body repeatedly into the wall in a pathetic attempt to make him capitulate to its malign will, but the king was filled with solidarity knowing that his son was defeating him and that he would not have to cause the boy any more pain, as well as a worry that he would only give into once his youngest child's spell suppressed him fully that now Caiellis would be left truly alone against the watching Archdemon who would have no cause not to cause him huge amounts of pain.

"Break out, Mariky-boy, or I swear I will cause you more pain than you have ever experienced in your pitiful life!" the being screeched, pressing in against the king and slicing at him with malicious blades of darkness, shredding the mental representation of him apart again and again and again as it showed him numerous images of his beloved wife calling out to him as she was torn apart by demons, Alexander desperately screaming for his father's help as he was abused and fed upon by Aksua, Caiellis struggling to breath in his hands as he snapped the boy's neck. But the creature had already made a fatal mistake, and that was allowing him to see his son. He knew what was happening, that these horrifying displays of violence were fake (apart from the one which concerned Emili, but that had already happened), and so instead of succumbing to the awful visions and images Marik instead focussed upon the sight of his quietly determined youngest son as he kept up at casting his imprisonment spell.

The anguished screams of his family members could not drown the sound of the bloody crystals singing to the king and lulling his body to a forced slumber, and the pain did nothing to affect the forty year old because of his duty to protect his smallest son, his eldest boy and the rest of the army that had travelled from Lucael to here so that they could wipe out the Welkalite threat which consorted with foul demons, preyed upon the innocent who could not defend themselves and had abducted and threatened the Lucerna heirs of the kingdom. The screams of Marik's personal intruder began to blend together and devolve into something that was far less than human, keening wails of frustration and anger at being denied the chance to inflict pain and feast upon sorrow splitting apart the fabric of the Mind Realm as the horror howled and bawled, like a small child having a tantrum because it had to go to bed early and could not do what it wanted.

Marik managed to ignore it, ignore the images filling his mind as he listened only to the lullaby tune of the cage surrounding him, until a soft voice broke into his thoughts when Caiellis spoke to him for the final time.

"_I'm sorry, dad._"

The words were so simply, but so heartfelt and suffused with gigantic amounts of emotion and sadness that they found their way into Marik's heart. The king would have shook his head if one he had control of his limbs and two he could move them with the effects of the spell pressing down on him and lulling him to a peaceful rest.

_You have nothing to be sorry for, Caiellis Noctis Lucerna. It is I that needs to apologise, not you, because you have shown yourself to be an exemplary, brave and selfless young man with a kind and gentle heart and intelligent and brilliant mind. I could not be a prouder father, my little son, and you have shown me that even in these dark times and dire situations that you can keep calm and do go above and beyond your duty._

"_You're not my son_."

The statement was spat out of Marik's lips, slurred slightly because the effects of his untreated wounds were beginning to have an impact upon the king and his nerves were shutting down to a peaceful rest in the magic of his youngest son. The king winced mentally as he saw his youngest boy instinctively flinch back, his eyes coloured with hurt at the words that were spoken like they were the truth and that Marik wanted nothing more to do with his second son, like he was disowning Caiellis and telling him that he was no longer his responsibility. His son deserved praise and encouragement, especially now when Rakdos was smiling in the corner of Marik's vision in expectation of fighting the youngest Lucerna.

Then blackness unfolded, the king's sight dimming and becoming dark as he looked into his youngest son's green eyes that he had inherited from his loving mother. He woke up in the Mind Realm, surprised to find that the horror of Aksua was no longer doing everything in its power to disrupt his concentration and cause him tremendous amounts of agony, although the entire fabric of his psyche ached because of the mental conflict that had gone on within it.

"You know, Mariky-boy," the being began, sat on the same row of pews from the king, fiddling almost absently with one of its dark tendrils as it assumed a more humanoid form, the one that the eldest Lucerna had found it in when it first made its existence known to him. The horror's voice was almost introspective, almost thoughtful, almost _human, _although still enough from that that it engendered disgust within the king. It turned to look at the man, who stared back, unflinchingly defiant of its foul presence, into the gleaming black pits it had for eyes that were somehow even darker than its main body of pure gloom.

"You could have saved him. If you had just let me end his life, squeeze the last pieces of breath from his little body, then he would not have to fight Rakdos any more. I could see the terror in his eyes, Mariky-boy, a terror that far outweighed that fear that he felt of you. If you had only let me end him there, then he would be freed from a much worse fate at the hands of the Lord of Riots. He would have died, while not peacefully or without pain, nicely in comparison than what the Defiler will do to your precious little baby. But no, you had to go and ruin everything for me, and Caiellis is going to pay the price now."  
The king didn't reply, his lip curling in anger and revulsion for the inhuman being inside of his head, and it smile mirthlessly at him, though it was not a triumphant and sadistic grin like he had expected from it.

"But don't worry about not knowing what is going to happen. I will let you peer into the world and watch as Caiellis is subjected to the ultimate tortures by the Lord of Riots, watch as you come to terms with how much better a fate being strangled to death by his father's hands would have been compared to what will happen. There is nothing better for you to do at any rate. How does it feel, Mariky-boy? For you to be trapped inside of a cage of your own son's blood, powerless to intervene as he is abused and tortured by one of the most powerful demons to ever set foot in the material world?"

The king did not answer. He remained resolutely and furious silent, wondering what it would take so that he could drive this horror from the sanctity of his and Akroma's Mind Realm once and for all.

"I thought you might stay quiet and determined like that, no-fun-Marik. Oh well. This is when I depart, _my lord, _and I am very grateful at you letting me take control of you so easily. Goodbye, Mariky-boy, and enjoy watching your son die in the most painful way possible. If Rakdos somehow doesn't kill him, then he'll finish himself off soon enough. You'll be next, and then it will be that other brat of yours until the entire army of Lucael is crushed by the Defiler. See ya!"

The horror simply disappeared from the Mind Realm of the king, who was left to wonder for a few seconds where it was going and who it was going to, until he looked out of the circle of vision that suddenly appeared in front of him that showed him the courtyard which had almost been the site youngest son's death and still could very well be. The horror had been right and the powerlessness was eating away at him, especially since he knew now that the being had left and if Caiellis removed his spell then he would be able to help the boy against the demon.

That wasn't going to happen, as there was no chance that the thirteen year old would want to see his father again even if he offered help after what he had made the poor boy go through. He could not blame his youngest son at all, not in any way, and he had to believe that Caiellis could triumph over the forces of evil alone against the Archdemon Rakdos. Marik briefly saw the horror, a tiny little trickle of pure shadow that had almost made him choke his son to death on two occasions, drip out of the ear that it had entered his mind through, plinking to the floor until it was lost to his sight in the blood and the ash.

He turned his gaze back upon Caiellis, who had turned around with the free Orzhova coming to his side and standing in front of him as to protect him from the demon. What scared Marik almost as much as the thought of his fragile little boy fighting all alone against one of the most powerful foes that Marik had ever seen (only equalled by Johnias and his Archdemon that the king and Akroma had only just managed to overcome before he fled, but that was because the demon had been constrained slightly by his twin brother and this one was not restricted by a Summoner) was the sheer hollowness in his son's eyes, the most prevalent emotion in those wide green orbs.

Caiellis thought absolutely nothing of himself, _hated _himself in fact, more than anything else, and blamed himself for everything that had happened. Carrying around such a huge amount of guilt on his immensely young and thin shoulders would be doing his youngest son no favour, Marik knew that for sure, and it hurt him to see the boy so broken, even though he was trying to appear resolute so that he could fight the demon and not let his emotions control him or allow him to surrender.

The king had to believe in his son, because it was the only thing that he could do, but deep down even if he refused to give form to the thoughts this was by far the hardest battle that Caiellis had ever fought, one that would end with him dead in a second if he was not careful.

_You can do this, Caiellis. Trust in yourself, trust in the angels, and you will emerge triumphant over the Lord of Riots. I believe in you, my son._


	38. A Hero's Death (Part IV)

_And here is part four. I'll apologise in advance if anything isn't bolded where it is supposed to be, as the site decided that it wanted to make the entire document bold so I had to go through and re-bold everything that should have been bold. If I've missed anything then that is why._

.*.*.*.

"**Ha ha ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA! That was truly entertaining! Now do you see, young** **Caiellis?! ****Now do you see how futile your resistance is? Subduing your poor daddy has taken everything out of you, and you didn't even kill him! HA! If he, a pathetic mortal, almost killed you, then what possible hope do you have of defeating me?!**"

The Archdemon roared at the boy, its voice a tempestuous and atavistic howl of pure pleasure in the act of ultimate destruction, the ecstasy of death and the screaming of millions of souls as they were sacrificed to this primal and dark god of hedonism and indulgence. Caiellis would have been knocked over and sent flying backwards by the sheer force of the intense and capricious laughter if not for Orzhova's reassuring hand, the angel gripping onto one of his shoulders tightly as if afraid that if she held on with any less force then her precious Summoner would be torn away from her. It would leave a bruise, but that was the least of the thirteen year old's concerns, and the world span around him and nausea flooded through his body as the volume of the words washed over him.

Caiellis knew that he was in no condition for fighting, not after barely recovering from being choked to death and still panting desperately because of that, still suffering from an awful concussion that sent ringing through his ears and pain exploding within his fragile skull with even the slightest movement or sound, and broken ribs that made every ragged and painful breath that he took agonising. It was a good job that he had ceased to care about his own well-being after this battle (as he needed to be in a good fighting condition so that he could take down the Archdemon), though he couldn't quite the occasional tear of _pain_ (_that's what it is. Not a tear of sadness. I'm _not_ crying because I'm sad_) from dripping down his cheeks and sending the Black Sun into a frenzy of purple light that hadn't yet dimmed ever since Orzhova was called to that position.

He briefly pondered replying to the terrifying demon that was eyeing him hungrily, but knew that his voice would come out too soft and shaky and scared for his liking and that the being would probably barely hear him anyway. He felt so small, so fragile and vulnerable against the gigantic beast that was the Lord of Riots, and knew that if the demon wanted to it could most likely crush him to death with one huge red finger.

_Calm down, Caiellis. You need to do this. You can't let your mistakes go unaccounted for, and you can't let the demon that you failed to stop go on a rampage throughout the city and hurt the Lucaelians whom you have already failed multiple times already. Everyone is counting on you to succeed, even your dad who hates you with a passion and has never loved you now that you have sent him to sleep and no one else is here to kill the demon, so you can't be getting scared now._

Easier thought than done. The boy resisted to send a mournful glance over at his father, knowing already that nothing he would see would improve his situation or make him feel any differently, and also aware that the cage of his own blood (the wound that had been caused by Marik's sword covered in a crystalline sheen that stemmed the bleeding but did not reduce the pain nor heal the large and quite deep cut) was the safest place on the battlefield. He hoped that the Defiler would have to go through him before attacking their father, although if the demon did target the king and it did have an affect then he could undo the enchantments and free his dad. The thirteen year old tried not to imagine large and tough hands clad in metal gauntlets that had scraped his neck wrapped around his throat and squeezing harder every second, imperceptibly shaking his head to clear his head of the images without hurting himself.

Rakdos grinned exultantly down at the Lucerna boy, who raised the Sword of Glass which was shining with equal amounts of light and darkness, though the illumination emitted from the relic blade was like a tiny and ineffectual candle next to the dark presence of the Archdemon. Cai endeavoured not to stare back into the demon's flaming eyes that promised agonising oblivion in fire and death through excess, tearing his his own green eyes away from the sight of its malicious visage when they began to be drawn into the endless inferno of sadistic passion that was Rakdos's eyes.

Orzhova gripped the boy's shoulder tighter for a second, squeezing in what she hoped was a comforting and reassuring manner for her young Summoner in spite of the direness of their situation, and then let go, launching herself into the air. She flew lazily, the beats of her stunning black wings covered in sticky blood and choking, tainted ash (the respirator around Caiellis's mouth saving him from the effects of that) languid and slow, which allowed her to stay aloft near to her Summoner in preparation for some form of attack or to respond to the Lord of Riots.

Rakdos grinned even wider, his horrifying visage that would haunt Caiellis's nightmares splitting as he exposed his gigantic teeth, each bone covered in demonic blood and thicker than Cai's waist, or at least that was what it looked like to the boy. He let go of his flaming hellfire scythe with one hand, raising the other as destructive Black and Red mana instantly began to swirl around above the massive and meaty palm. The rocky spires and spikes surrounding the hellscape that was the courtyard began to shake, dislodging obsidian rubble which fell to the ground with a series of resounding crashes as the entire hill that the Redhand mansion had been situated upon began to tremble with the force of the spell.

Caiellis adjusted his footing, tempted to try and flee from courtyard and drag the demon into the wider battle, before dismissing the foolish, selfish and incredibly childish thoughts. He had caused this demon to be Summoned into the world of man, and he had to take responsibility for it – even if that ended in him dying, his form obliterate by the Lord of Riots and his soul kept as a personal keepsake of the demon before it tired of him.

_Not that that would bother anyone apart from Alexander, _Caiellis thought, but not bitterly, just resignedly. His father had put everything into perspective for him, and although he dearly wished that it would be otherwise, what the man had said had been right and Cai couldn't really fault him for it. The youngest Lucerna cast out the thoughts, aware that he would have to be utterly focussed on this battle and only have the emotions required for his magic to work to its optimum extent, but they kept coming back, niggling and itching at the back of his despairing mind and constantly making sure that he knew he was a good-for-nothing, worthless, failure of a Lucerna.

Cai ensured that his posture was as such that he could easily respond to the spell that was being channelled by the Lord of Riots, pre-emptively casting numerous enchantments in front of him that would absorb some of the monumental raw power that was being gathered. He conjured up the Gift of Orzhova as well, not wanting to have to utilise the wings while still suffering from the light-headedness caused by his concussion and head wounds as well as being affected by broken bones, but the power of flight was one which he couldn't simply just not use and he would rather be put under severe discomfort than die – until he had dealt with the Archdemon and cast it out from this world at any rate.

Orzhova positioned herself in front of the boy, not caring if he would disagree with that or not, and added her own defensive White and Black mana to the mix as she prepared for the Defiler to release his strike.

It was taking the being no effort at all to summon up such powerful magic, gathering up mana effortlessly above its hand as it smiled down at Cai, clearly wanting him to know that it was no trouble at all for it to do this to him. The boy simply stared back up at the orb – if it could be called that – or mana that was being formed, the magical energy of pure destruction raw and formless, making the youngest Lucerna hate to think about what would happen if the deranged mind of Rakdos put thought into forming his magic right now.

The air was crackling, saturated with pure mana as the Lord of Riots brought it to the fore, and Caiellis could feel his hairs standing on air and tingling with the sensation, the horrible images of awful deprivation and mindless slaughter that hadn't left him even when he had been fighting against his murderous and furious father pulsing behind his eyes like they were enhanced by the spell being cast. Cai forced himself not to gulp nervously, knowing that it would only hurt his abused throat and distract him, and he raised the Sword of Glass in front of him as more defensive shields interlocked around Orzhova and, more prominently, her Summoner.

Rakdos slammed the orb into the ground, the shaking of the earth becoming a rumbling frenzy of tectonic activity as cracks split across the last remaining pieces of stone on the courtyard. Caiellis resisted the urge to shut his eyes as flaming light and darkness blasted out from the earth, hellish lava spurting up from the wounds of the land as an explosion of gigantic force swept through the entire area. Cai shook and juddered, grinding his broken ribs together as he spat out saliva flecked with blood, and he brought his own mana to the fore as the shockwave of chaotic force rushed quickly towards him, gathering more power every single second. Even though the Red and Black mana of the Archdemon had not been given definition, had simply been a formless mass of magical energy, there was such a huge amount of it that the second Rakdos let go of it it detonated.

Rock and rubble pattered against Caiellis and Orzhova's shields, though the boy paid it no heed as yet more adrenaline flooded through his young and wounded body, seeming to slow down time as the mindless force of the explosion rushed towards him. It was immensely powerful and destructive, but only a fraction of the true strength that the Defiler had to offer, Rakdos had made that blatantly clear without even needing to use words. For a moment, Cai wondered whether or not the Archdemon was still playing or toying with him, if it was still wanting to break the Lucerna spirit within him before devouring it or if it had become bored of his presence and wanted to wipe him out as soon as possible after watching him be abused by his own father and the most powerful Lucerna alive.

The thirteen year old was swaying slightly towards the former, as having his dad arrive and try to kill him, remind him of his cause in his mother's death, his brother's wounding and the danger that they were all in – especially Alexander being all alone and worried for his family – now, his courage (_like I have any of that_) had been tested to the limit and he had almost been broken. Well, he was broken, and could never be fixed no matter how hard anyone tried, but not to the extent that the Lord of Riots would want it – where he was unable to move and act because of the terror and hopelessness, where he was reduced to sobbing and crying like he had been before Orzhova had saved him from his dad.

He took a deep breath, stopping himself hyperventilating because it would do him absolutely no good, and felt the familiar rush of alternating but strangely complementary White and Black mana through his young limbs as he used up more of it, aptly aware of how little he had left and cutting off more of his overall lifespan so that he could have more.

Although he had always known about the pacts one could take with Black mana to obtain more of it in exchange for life, pacts that needn't be demonic or done with any type of being at all, and been aware that he had the magic of darkness inside of him despite not ever using it (consciously) until a few days ago Cai had always found them abhorrent and had thought that he had never use them. He still did, and always would, but their usefulness in desperate situations like these could not be denied and normally they could be blended well with healing White mana and draining Black, and the fact that they were shortening his life meant nothing to him now.

Orzhova shouted something, probably some form of warning in case he wasn't already started preparing for the force of the blast, and although the angel's voice was low and her divine tones would normally split through any other noise they were drowned out by the rumbling fury of the earthquake shockwave of fire and darkness that was rushing towards him. Again Cai wished that he could contact his angel mentally using the link present between Summoner and Summoning, but the presence of Rakdos was disrupting all forms of mental communication.

The boy braced himself, yearning for larger or stronger limbs so that he could withstand this attack without having to utterly rely upon magic. The shockwave hit, blasting apart shields of glass and burning down waves of delaying shadow that Orzhova had placed down in front of her youthful Summoner, and Cai was pretty sure that he heard a thundering laugh as the waves of destruction crashed into his magical defences. Caiellis could feel his mana straining against the raw force of the demon, the mental struggle hurting his mind as the distracting and horrifying images that wouldn't get the chance to haunt his nightmares made themselves known again, bloody orgies of ecstatic murder and indulgence pulsating behind the boy's eyelids as he tried to remove them and concentrate on protecting himself from the blast.

More spires of rock were ramming themselves out of the earth in response to the release of mana, and Caiellis gasped as he felt the ground shaking even more below him, but he could not move right now because if he did the magic that was extremely close to breaking his and his angel's shields would do so and crash into him, probably breaking every single bone in his fragile body and crushing his internal organs to a pulp. Orzhova's hand shot out of the numerous shattering spheres of glass and the pure Red and Black mana of the Lord of Riots's discharge, grabbing onto his slender wrist and yanking him forwards with a surge of queasiness that almost had the boy retching and gagging if he had not been so focussed.

A gigantic spike burst out of the ground, curling towards Cai like he had been its intended target and it was still trying to reach him, and the boy mentally whispered a silent word of thanks to the Angel of the Black Sun, as he would have been impaled or at the very least knocked off balance by the curved spire of some sort of hellish obsidian. Destruction surged around them, annihilating more of the ground and the defensive enchantments that the two warriors of the light had conjured up. Caiellis was dropped behind his angel as she stood in front of him, holding her scythe horizontally as a sphere of safety that was personally maintained by the dark seraph flared into existence around them, the demon's formless magic already crashing against it as the explosion rocked the courtyard, obliterating the last pieces of masonry belonging to Jarred's former mansion.

Cai added his own mana to his angel's shield, fortifying the light with a crystal barrier of purple emitting _stained_ glass and further augmenting that with shadows that would slow down any rogue projectiles and absorb mana that managed the break through the first shields. All of the other protective enchantments that had been cast had been destroyed by the blast, and that left only the one surrounding Caiellis and Orzhova remaining as the fire and the violent darkness smashed against it.

The boy could feel his small heart thudding in his chest, and he could hear the pounding of his blood in his concussed skull that still bled all over his hair (which was already thick and matted by the Rain of Gore) over the rumbling of the destruction and the laughter of the demon. Light and darkness played over the boy's small and cut hands as he thrust them outwards, the blood on them from the minor scratches on his palms and the torrential downpour of vitae from the storm above Usnaan dripping down as a golden orb of defence and protection was formed into the centre of them.

He poured mana into it, stood back to back to his angel as obliteration swirled around them, quashing the rogue thought that was concerned about the fate of his father (he could not fight if he constantly kept thinking about him, and the only two reasons that he was concerned for a person who had tried to crush the life from his weak form was because the kingdom would be weakened if he died and his big brother would be left without a father that he got on with well, _not_ because he cared personally about Marik's safety – _I mean, how could I care?_) in this tempest of unfocussed mana crashing around their shield.

The intensity of the shaking increased, cracks appearing in the tile of rock that the two were stood upon (the Angel of the Black Sun electing to remain on the ground to help her Summoner better), and Cai felt more of his own warm blood trickling out of his mouth as he coughed it up, although whether that was because of the abuse to his throat or that the extra strain on his ribs was causing internal bleeding was unknown. A single shard of rocky debris smashed through the sphere of safety, luckily only piercing the shield instead of shattering it, and the boy automatically turned to avoid it before it hurt him. Instead of ramming through his upper chest, something that would have upset his ribs even more and caused drastic injuries because of the sheer velocity of the heavy and sharp projectile, it cut a line down one of his sleeves and only drew a bit of blood, the sharp end of the rock biting into his skin in a stinging pain that flared for a second but was soon lost underneath all of his other torment.

The strain on his magic slowly dissipated, but instead of wasting the defensive sphere that Caiellis had created he let it orbit around him, ready for use should he need it. He turned around quickly, ignoring his pain and the way that the world span around him as he did so, and blasted a small beam of light in the direction of the Lord of Riots.

It was mostly done to destroy the ever-present dust which had been kicked up into the air by the blast, mingling with the ash and the blood and reducing normal visibility to less than a metre – and the Lenses had already been established as useless underneath the Tempest of Craving and now even more because of the entrance of the Defiler, as Guilt sent unbearable pain through him and threatened to blind him whereas Innocence showed him nothing apart from the location of Orzhova which he already knew. To make matters worse, instead of being able to sense the approximate location of the Archdemon through his perceptive sixth sense (made easier by the amount of mana that it had) the power of Rakdos was so immense that all he could detect was it and Orzhova – meaning he couldn't sense the rest of the battle – and it was all around him instead of concentrated into on distinct area.

The youngest Lucerna was not disappointed when the bolt of luminescence impacted straight onto the face of the demon, scouring a line down one of its horns but doing no damage whatsoever and causing the Defiler absolutely no discomfort in any way. Orzhova flew into the air, the beating of her wings clearing the dust around her, and Rakdos slammed his free fist into the ground again. It was done not to hurt Cai, although the juddering of the abused earth certainly didn't aid him and jarred his broken ribs, but to help him in a perverse way, as it sent the rest of the sand particles billowing into the air around them and allowing him to see as clearly as he had before the attack.

It was obvious that Rakdos wanted to be seen, and saw no threat from the littlest Lucerna, something that Caiellis was inclined to agree with at the current moment. Before the Lord of Riots could assault them again, Cai ran across the ground quickly to get into a different position as Orzhova attacked from the side. She let go of her scythe, the golden weapon spinning around her as the Black mana infused into its large blade cut into the fabric of existence, and held her hands together for a second, coating them in golden light. As Cai shot a bolt of darklight out of the Sword of Glass, the protective orb orbiting languidly around him humming almost peacefully, the Angel of the Black Sun placed her hands inside of the symmetrical cuts her scythe had created, dragging out the non-substance of the void and moulding it with her mana.

Rakdos batted aside the beam of White and Black that Caiellis had fired at him, spitting an almost casual fireball of hellish and psychotically screaming flame at the youth that he was forced to deploy the concentrated sphere of protection to ward off, and as he was distracted with that Orzhova used the pure flesh of the abyss to create a circle of doom that she flung at the demon like a circular shuriken (_a chakram_, some recess of Cai's mind told him, not that it really mattered) used by some of the Isakian disciplines in the Yentarian Republic. The chakram of doom, like a more advanced and powerful version of the voidal blades Orzhova had conjured to slice through enemies before, span through the air, the matter of the void that was full to the brim of Black mana crashing into the Lord of Riots.

"**Ha! You seek to hurt me with the unreal substance of the abyss?! Have you forgotten that I was created within the darkness?!**" the demon laughed contemptuously, the sound a booming death scream of sybaritic nations succumbing to their desire for bloodshed and pleasure and turning on one another and themselves, ripping through men, women and children in their quest for even greater violent bliss. The circle of darkness moulded into a weapon bounced off of the demon's monstrously muscular arms, and Orzhova only just managed to grasp onto the shadowy haft of her scythe as the demon, moving with a speed that should not have been possible for a being of that size, swung its own crude and flaming scythe that was lit with the pyre of self-destructive carnage in the act of self-gratification.

Every time the demon spoke, Caiellis found himself wanting to be violently and excessively sick, to vomit as if that would purge the corruption of being such a vile being's presence from his body, and he gifted his angel with some more of her Summoner's mana in the hope that she could withstand the blow. He had not forgotten what had happened the last time that the Lord of Riots had swung its barbaric weapon at his personal dark seraphim, Orzhova having been destroyed by the blow which had only been swung a few tens of minutes ago, though after all that had happened between him and his father it seemed like much longer than that. Cai did not have enough mana to Summon her for a third time – something that he had never done before in the first place (and come to think he had never Summoned her twice in one day either if he was not mistaken, as she has Summoned herself this time) – there was no question about it.

The Archdemon seemed much less concerned about toying with or breaking the spirit of his angel, probably because although she was one of his most hated enemies he didn't want to play games with her and simply wanted her out of the way so that she would stop protecting Caiellis from it – also, the Lord of Riots was probably aware of how much Orzhova valued her young Summoner despite having had less than two weeks to actually talk to him, and knew that while the Angel of the Black Sun would never succumb to pain or torture the worst thing he could do to her was kill the youngest Lucerna and force her to return back to Sancturia.

Orzhova was slammed into the ground by the force of the blow, her golden heels carving swathes into the rock as she was pushed back, her whole body tensing as mana flowed around her and increased her strength to far beyond that of a human. That was nowhere near enough and she knew it, and could remember well the trauma she had forced Cai to go through as she Summoned herself again as there was no way that he would have been able to endure the Summoning ritual of a First Sisterhood angel again. Circles of power etched themselves into the air around her, providing her with brief surges of strength before they were destroyed by the spreading fire aura of the Lord of Riot's brutish but undoubtedly effective scythe that pressed into her own.

Her angelic muscles strained, put under pressure that would easily break a normal human or even a Second Sisterhood angel in half, and the demon's gigantic muscles also tensed as they forced her scythe downwards, the ground breaking beneath the Angel of the Black Sun as she glared up at the Archdemon, Rakdos grinning back at her open display of hatred. Orzhova knew that her Black mana was being heavily augmented by her detestation of the demon, as well as her White mana affected by that as well and her desire to purge the evil from the two worlds that was encoded into the being of every angel even if her perception of the world was not as black and white as some of her sisters'.

"_I am going to enjoy tearing you to shreds as I banish you from this world_," she spat, the words infused with venom that had not dripped from another angel's divine lips, and the Lord of Riots simply smiled down at her, grabbing onto the large handle of his barbarous armament with his other massive hand and increasing the pressure on it. Orzhova gripped her weapon tightly as well, feeling the influx of mana from Caiellis infusing her with more strength that would not be enough, even though she was already very concerned about the amount of life that little Cai was expending to help his angel and provide himself with more mana.

"**See, this is why I like you, Orzhova,**" the Defiler smirked with the spiteful delight of psychopaths ripping the limbs off of animals purely for their own pleasure, Orzhova having to resort to leaning further backwards to avoid being ripped apart by his scythe that she had blocked on the shadowy haft of her own, "**You are never afraid to give in to your own inner darkness, and that makes you unique amongst your puritanical sisters. If only you truly cast of your duty to the pathetic Lucerna family and your own angelic kin and walked the path of pleasure, you would always be welcome within my Festivals of Bloodshed. However, I'm going to revel in destroying you and breaking your precious Summoner's spirit before I use his young soul as a plaything more than I ever would that!**"

Orzhova would have retorted sarcastically had this been anything less than an Archdemon and had her own personal situation been less dire, but she only had hatred to show to the most powerful demons. Her sarcasm was reserved for others. The demon was breaking her defence, slowly but surely, and hadn't even began to use its full strength as it was not utilising mana, just mammoth strength, to crush her into submission.

Caiellis, who had enough mana inspired by his powerful emotions – more powerful than he had ever felt before, the hatred visibly coursing through him as he watched his angel fighting the Archdemon, the representation of all that he hated – and the amount of life that he had traded away to do something to stop the demon, ran forwards to get closer to the massive being, ignoring the lump in his throat (and not the one caused by his father's hands) and the trembling of his spine in sheer terror at approaching such a creature.

He knew that Orzhova did not have long left, although the angel must have been planning something because she knew that as well, and held his artefact sword sideways, placing the soft but bloody palm of his free left hand to the elegant and scintillating crystalline blade of the weapon that shone with equal amounts of imperious as well as righteous radiance and tenebrosity, the sword flashing purple for a second as it touched its wielder's blood on his skin.

He channelled his hatred of the demon, mixing it with his desire to protect the angel who had chosen him to be her Summoner in spite of the risk and who had protected him a large amount over the past two weeks, and combining the two types of mana that sprung up from these emotions and thoughts together. He had a plan of attack for at least distracting the gigantic and terrifying demon from Orzhova, although its leathery and gore-slick hide had seemed impervious to most attacks so far. At any rate, there was no point in not trying, and Caiellis was anything if not diligent, so he carried on with his spell and suffused the blade of his sword with White and Black mana combined, though the true usefulness of his magic could not be accessed with the Rain of Gore ruining his healing.

Caiellis had always used healing for as long as he could remember, being the only thing that he could contribute to the group that he had been with during the civil war, his four year old body far too fragile and young for violence and his innocent mind not powerful enough to be able top utilising offensive magic. Even in the more recent years of the war before it had ended and he had obtain his Summoning, when he had become reasonably adept at long range spells that would scour their enemies from existence like Tybalt and sometimes his brother (who had learnt from Tybalt but developed his own unique take on the magic) had taught him, healing had been a skill that he had mastered up to a point where it would require total devotion to progress any further, something which being a Lucerna had completely put a stop to.

Taking away that skill put the boy at a severe disadvantage, as he could no longer use the life force that he took from enemies (who, if he was being truly honest, did not deserve it anyway – and neither did he, but that was a moot point now) and repair his own wounds, nor did his natural Lucerna regeneration work much as well – although the resilience of his bloodline was conferred to him, otherwise even the smallest flick from someone would probably kill him. However, it also meant that he didn't have to put any mana at all into draining or healing himself, and he could gather it all into an attack directed at the demon pressing down on his angel.

Cai shut his eyes, taking another deep breath that was supposed to fill his limbs with solidarity but only succeeded in hurting his ribs and the inside of his neck, and the boy would have rolled his eyes sardonically in a less serious circumstance at that. He reopened them, the palm of his hand still bleeding into his blade although not very much and certainly enough to give it much more power as he turned the weapon so that its point was facing towards the demon but his left hand was still on its blade. The thirteen year old sent a scattering beam of erratic light at the Lord of Riots, the golden illuminescence sparkling and twinkling as it impacted onto the demon's left forearm, the massively muscled limb unaffected by the light playing over it that the Archdemon did nothing to counteract and in fact completely ignored it.

However, that wasn't the main part of the spell, only the beginning, and as the flashing light began to spread up the massive being Caiellis ran even closer, wary of any form of attack from the Lord of Riots and crushing the sheer terror in his mind that begged him not to do this, pleading with him to turn around a run. No matter how hard he tried, Cai could not completely quash the feeling at the back of his mind, and knew that it was simply the aura of fear that the demon exuded that made all humans bar none scared of it in the end – or perhaps it was simply because Caiellis was pathetic and not worthy to be a Lucerna, as maybe his father wasn't scared of the demon like he was, simply wary of its titanic power levels.

He let go of his sword with his left hand, curling his slender fingers round an imaginary object as he clenched and unclenched them, golden light coloured with imperiousness and prosperity spilling from the small hand. Spinning contrails of shining radiance began to be matched by twisting chains of darkness that were birthed from the right side of his body, wrapping round the crystalline Sword of Glass and empowered by the Black Sun staining his gaunt cheek. It was very likely that he wouldn't be able to do much damage to the Defiler – but if he could disarm or restrain it, even for a brief moment, Orzhova would be able to escape her fate and attack whilst the boy was distracting their enemy.

A lacuna of void darkness began to form within Caiellis twisting and twirling fingers, pulled into his existence by his hatred of all things demonic for what they had done and what they represented, and the glittering particles of light brightening the demon's lower arm as the hand attached to it gripped his flaming scythe tighter began to spread out even more over the being's bracers and bare red skin that dripped with unholy blood from the sky. Cai pressed his fingers into the orb of blackness and dark magic that he had created, the tendrils of shadow roving around him focussed into that one point as they began to pour into it, darklight enshrouding the boy in its gloomy brilliance and he squeezed his hand into a tiny fist.

The darkness burst out from it, etching smoking sigils into the air all around it that Caiellis couldn't read but were of a similar style to the ones that he had seen before when executing the Merciless Eviction for a few seconds before the curved emblems faded, and the light illuminating the Lord of Riots started to be infused with Black mana as the being was only a few seconds from crushing Orzhova's commendable resistance as their scythes ground against one another in a flurry of blinding sparks made from holy light and passionate fire. The small particles of luminescence that had been sparkling up and down the Defiler's left forearm and the spiked bracers that it was clad in as well as the two horny protrusions extending out from the curve of it and stopping just past the demon's massive elbow became black and seared into the beast's skin, collecting together and turning into baleful sigils of malevolent intent that marked the demon.

The darkness blasted through the air towards them, each shadowy tendril infused with hatred and large amounts of Black mana as they reached for the Archdemon, and as they wrapped around the demon's arm they plunged into the circular glyphs excoriated into the demon's flesh. Instead of doing what would have been obvious and attempting to use that to unbalance or restrain the Lord of Riots, Caiellis relaxed his breathing and thought of all those in the city below that it was his duty to protect and the fact that he needed to repent or atone in some way for what he had failed to do, White mana blossoming forth within his relic sword's glass blade as he continued to tightly squeeze the ball of darkness which the chains of tenebrosity had burst forth from. It was slightly unnerving that the Defiler was completely ignoring him even though its strength was being reduced and sapped by the Black mana wrapping around its gigantic left arm, still pressing down on Orzhova as she gifted her young Summoner with more mana, the medallion of the Black Sun symbol attached to her elegant and ornate golden armour glowing with light as it transferred her angelic power to the boy who was her Summoner.

Light coiled around the left side of his body, interacting with the darkness held in his left hand and coating it in golden radiance as it twisted round his think body and made its way round his right arm towards the shining beacon of incandescence that was now the Sword of Glass, making the blade of mana channelling glass light up even brighter. Instead of being separated at two sides and only mingling together in the Lenses of Guilt and Innocence (as the one associated with darkness had always appeared in his left eye, which was on the side of the body that lit up with White mana normally, and vice versa for Innocence), the light and darkness swirling around him began to become a familiar maelstrom of shining blackness and dark radiance that he focussed into the blade of his sword.

The lacuna of pure shadow in his left hand that was spilling twisting darkness all around him began to shine with holy light, and he ran it along the length of his relic sword, the chains of night attached to it now connected to the Sword of Glass as he poured mana out of it. Cai could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he cast the spell, light discharged from the blade in a thundering flash that reminded him of his father's wrathful magic but coloured gold instead of pure white. The chains of shadow lit up, the darkness turning into the powerful light that would cleanse the demon of corruption and hopefully allow him to restrain it and pull Rakdos away from Orzhova even more, but Cai wasn't going to stop there and instead of just letting the darkness be turned into light and relying solely upon the conversion of the Black mana into his much preferred White he slid the Sword of Glass into the ground and began to channel both types of mana in his free hands.

He pushed his slender palms out in front of him as if he was physically pushing the demon that they were facing towards, swirling light and darkness playing around his young and small form that surged with the mana he was using, the black luminescence of unlight that he had grown accustomed to blending with the golden-coated shadows and the purple light like the haunting glow of a funeral procession and the regrets of long dead ghosts mixed with the oppressive and blinding radiance of a sun that demanded worship, all of them crackling with coruscating arcs of purple lightning which was not related to the elemental electricity that was borne from Red mana at all. The chains of darkness turned into lucent incandescence began to be infused with all of these qualities of White and Black mixed, the powers of darkness and light combined suffusing the spell with draining properties that would tear any lesser foe's essence apart and annihilate their entire being.

Rakdos roared in annoyance, the ground beneath Orzhova instantly bathed in hellfire as the demon stamped its massive foot, plumes of hissing lava shooting up into the air because of the action as the earth rumbled again, but instead of capitalising upon that the Archdemon was forced to pull away from the Angel of the Black Sun. Cai leapt back as he saw the demon suddenly turning towards him, the spiked chains of bloody metal crashing around into the ground around him and almost slamming into the boy because of his proximity to the denizen of the hellish regions of the abyss, and had to instantly end his magic as the Lord of Riots pulled effortlessly out of the fetters of White and Black draining its substance into themselves.

A massive arm swung towards the youngest Lucerna at such as speed that Caiellis knew he would be hard pressed to get away from, the marks scoured into the red skin of the demon fading, the fact that the wickedly spiked bracer on its arm had been ruined little consolation. He yanked the Sword of Glass back to him on the magical tether which he had attached to it ever since first losing the weapon (and in spite of his dad breaking earlier the fact that it was made from constant mana energy given form by an enchantment he had cast upon the weapon meant that it could never be truly broken), grasping onto the handle of the artefact armament from the Lucerna citadel vaults tightly as he leapt into the air, disregarding the rush of nausea and sickness that pounded through his skull.

Again a defensive shield of light and darkness formed around him, a sphere of golden mana conjured by the mixing of the two magics overlaying and interlocking with a globe of stained glass much like the aura allowing him to fly now, and the boy saw the back of the demon's fist that was probably bigger than him and certainly thicker crashing through the air towards him.

It hit him mid air, slamming into his shield and cracking it to pieces as the force of the explosion (which was designed to work in this mana, Cai's quick-thinking mind thinking of a shield that when destroyed would knock him backwards) sent him flying back, just out of reach of the Archdemon's first swing that had shattered his shields. He released mana, and the fragments of the stained glass which had formed his defensive spheres launched themselves at the demon's fist, imbued with a mournful purple glow of White and Black mana combined. He added more shards of glass into the mix, blades of crystal that mimicked his dad's technique of creating a projectile armoury of lucent sword slashing through the air and crashing into the Lord of Riots's hand.

Most of them simply shattered into even more pieces as they impacted onto the incredibly tough and mana saturated skin of the Archdemon, the fingers of the most powerful demon in the City of Pleasure that were thicker than Caiellis's waist and probably his upper body including his shoulders unaffected by the sharp shards colliding into them, but some, the ones that Cai had created himself and saturated with the excess mana from the spell that he had been forced to drop, drew the blood of the demon, a vibrant yet dark and malicious red liquid dripping out of them, but they were only flesh wounds.

Despite Caiellis's shield taking the brunt of the retaliatory blow and knocking him out of reach in that first backhand strike, the almost weightless youth was still sent flying by the sheer force of the hit, twisting and turning over and over and over in the air and sending revulsion pounding in sickening waves through his skull, the images in his mind caused by the insanity-inducing aura of the Defiler deciding that this was the perfect time to show the boy an utterly disgusting scene of a mass orgy of blood and excess and things that innocent thirteen year olds – or adults for that matter – should never have had to seen, things that should not have been ever done by humans.

Black spots appeared in front of Cai's vision because of being flipped repeatedly head over heels in the air like when his older brother had been messing with him in the past and almost made him throw up, although this was many times worse than that and the boy couldn't stop a thin trickle of vomit mixed with blood from dripping down his mouth before it was flung into the air. He thought he might black out, which would be extremely dangerous not least because of the speed that he was flying chaotically through the air, and tried to get his stained glass wings to control the spiralling fall/flight before his spinning trajectory led him to be splattered against one of the many spires of rock surrounding and curving over the Redhand hill.

The beating of the Gift of Orzhova seemed to do nothing to slow his descent nor control it, and Cai could barely breathe because of the air knocking the breath from him and the strain that his broken ribs were placed under. He conjured up another pair of wings, and with that he could stop himself from spinning violently through the air, stifling a gasp of relief and shock as he managed to stop himself just before he was slammed into a massive claw of obsidian curling over the plaza, something which would probably have killed him. His head hurt even more now, the effects of the concussion caused by having it split open on the last remnants of the once-pleasant mansion which had now been utterly destroyed exacerbated by his violent trip through the air, but now with his four wings of shining stained glass he could stay aloft and stared back at the demon, now on the same level as its horrifying visage of a face.

He could see his father still trapped and unconscious in the prison of crystals made from his youngest son's (biologically his son, though Marik had professed that he didn't think of Caiellis as one) own blood, and the Lord of Riots seemed to pay no heed to him, preferring to fight a conscious and reacting opponent. Caiellis felt extremely dizzy and wanted to throw his guts up, but managed to cast a short spell of purely beneficial White mana which Uncle Tybalt had taught him long ago upon himself that cleared his vision and removed the vertigo and some of the sensation of faintness from his mind to the point where it was the same as before, though slightly worse as his concussion was accentuated while in the air.

He glared at the Lord of Riots, trying to muster up his courage once again as it fixed him in its petrifying and fiery gaze that Cai refused to look into just as he refused to look at the flickering inferno between the demon's two upper horns, as out of the corner of his eyes he had seen the flames twisting into the form of figures that murdered one another and embraced orgiastic acts of passionate coupling together as they killed. That meant he had to concentrate mostly on the Defiler's terrifying and huge teeth, each of the individual fangs easily the size of a Lucaelian greatsword and stained with the blood of the Sire of Insanity which it had eaten at the start of this battle between a Lucerna, his First Sisterhood angel and an Archdemon.

The demon smiled at him, full of the dark mirth of one who had orchestrated a million different and unique deaths and had thoroughly revelled in each one of them, hefting its flaming scythe once again. Cai knew that it that weapon got anywhere near him then he would have no chance as he was not an angel, just a mere mortal, and that he also could not rely on his small size and relative speed because in spite of the fact that a huge scythe of that weight should have been ponderous and lumbering the dark frenzy of the Lord of Riots made it able to reach absurd speeds.

Orzhova, free of the demon's scythe bearing down on her and threatening to send her to the Mind Realm once again, beat her magnificent black wings stained with blood and launched herself into the air. Several balls of smoking fire spontaneously combusted into existence around the Defiler in an almost casual and nonchalant manner, as if the spells that would drain the mana of a human mage were nothing to Rakdos (which was true), and they trailed ash and thick smoke as they were fired at both the flying Cai and his now aloft seraph. There was a huge number of them, more bursting into flaming life every second as the Lord of Riots spread its arms out wide, the flames on its head dancing wildly as the demon invoked large amounts of passionate and feverish Red mana, launching it at its two foes and smiling and laughing maliciously all the while.

Cai dove out of the way of one of the blasts, having access to four wings increasing the manoeuvrability the aura granted him despite using more of his mana to create (although normally just the usual pair of wings sufficed and the boy had no inclination to change that and normally conjure four wings – not that he would have any need in the future to do that anyway). A slash of black sunlight bisected another one of the oily fireballs that reminded Cai of the bituminous blast that the Defiler had used to remove the enchantment which had allowed the youngest Lucerna – and the youngest Lucaelian warrior in the army - and his guardian angel to remain unaffected by the Rain of Gore.

The boy arced the Sword of Glass through the air, drawing himself a shield with the celestial golden light mixed with flecks of somehow solemn tenebrosity that bled from the crystal blade that instantly blocked a powerful gout of flames, the Red mana surrounding Caiellis for a second as his shield absorbed the power, turning it into healing mana that scattered away instead of helping the boy's wounds. He dove and twisted, dodging past the screaming storm of flames that seemed simultaneously indiscriminate and chaotic but also targeted at him and moving with a sadistic desire to do pain to the boy opposing their master, all the while keeping an eye on Rakdos to ensure that he did not do anything else – although the amount of mana that the Archdemon had meant that it did not have to move to cast spells.

Cai instantly sensed a build up of destructive Red and Black magic which he had detected before from those who wielded those chaotic and individualistic colours of mana together. His mind working in overdrive despite the numerous distractions and the pain he was in, the thirteen year old immediately dropped as far as he could in the act of evading the closest fireballs (and all of those that didn't hit and weren't nullified by any of his magic twisted round and arced towards him again) as the Lord of Riots raised his two hands, his scythe clasped in the meaty fist of his right, and crashed the two together.

The force of the shockwave sent a rippling wave of destruction all around the demon, and Cai instinctively raised his hands in front of his face as it washed over him. That was a mistake, as while the wave of obliteration did shatter his shield and his wing it sent a screaming peal of sheer noise into his ears. Instead of just being a loud ringing, Caiellis could hear the sounds of vile deprivation, hedonism taken to the extreme mixed in with the screeching ring of the sound that reverberated and echoed inside of his head, blocking out all other sound.

The thirteen year old was pretty sure that he had yelped in surprise and pain as he started to fall, though he had expected this and pulsed out Black mana from his sword and luminosity from his left hand. Shadows slowed down the speed of his descent, tendrils of shadow that were not corrupt or noxious grabbing hold of him and steadying him as he fell, and he hit the ground with a loud crack that he couldn't hear over the screaming in his head. He still felt the force of the impact shuddering through his abused and thin form, but bent his knees into the landing like he had been taught long ago. The White mana had formed a place for him to land safely underneath it, though it did shatter like a pane of glass when his feet touched it and it nullified most of the energy of the sudden halt. For once Cai was glad that he wasn't heavy, as it would have required much more of his mana that was being used up every second in maintaining Orzhova out of the lonely cathedral of his Mind Realm.

That wasn't to say that it didn't hurt, and the youngster wouldn't be surprised if his already broken ribs had been damaged to the point of beyond repair because of the strain that he was putting them through. He gasped in pain, holding the cracked bones in one arm as he pulled himself back to his feet, knowing that he needed to get moving especially because he couldn't hear anything over the wailing in his ears, like when he had just had his head burst open on that wall of Jarred's mansion. Caiellis could feel a trickle of warm blood coming from his ears, and hope that that didn't mean that he had been permanently deafened because he didn't want that and it would be very dangerous in the middle of this battle, though slowly but surely some sounds were making it through.

That included a rumbling growl of ferocious thunder from the Tempest of Craving that heralded more lighting flashes of crimson coruscation. Cai looked back up at the demon, its gargantuan bulk illuminated by the bursts of scarlet and corrupt electricity as the blood poured onto its leathery skin reflected the random bursts of light spat out by the roiling storm above which darkened the entire city and blocked out the harsh but warm light of the Welkalite sun. Orzhova was also lit up by the red fulmination, the Angel of the Black Sun hating the fact that her fragile Summoner whom it was her responsibility to protect after all that she had put him through in choosing him to carry her and be her host in the material plane was once again confined to the ground and at the capricious mercy of Rakdos.

She launched herself into the air, her own purple coruscation of haunting lightning crackling around her golden scythe and mixing with the shadowy handle of the weapon, and intended to attack the demon from the side.

The littlest Lucerna looked back up at the Archdemon, mana flowing around him and through his limbs as he automatically began to start casting some form of guarding enchantment that would allow him to resist more damage; he felt bare without them when in the middle of a battle as he knew that if his weakling body was hurt than the damage would be large without any form of protection or magical shielding, especially since he was not strong enough to be able to wear even medium armour tailored towards his exact size and fight at his full capabilities.

But, as he stared up at the massive Lord of Riots, truly hit for the first time by how large that it was as it towered above him and glowered bloodthirstily down, his mind stopped processing the thoughts necessary for the defensive auras and shielding. Rakdos was _huge, _and it seemed that Cai had somehow not figured that the demon could easily kill him with just one of its smallest fingers without even using the sharp talons on each digit. Terror flooded through the boy's mind, oblivious to the fear-inducing Red and Black mana that the demon was using to augment its already normally terrifying aura of fright, and Cai could feel unnatural dread creeping up his spine as he made the mistake of looking into the Defiler's seemingly huge and all-encompassing eyes of fire.

Caiellis's hearing returned, but the screaming inside of his skull did not stop, the same images in his head those that he saw within the eyes of the most powerful demon he had ever seen, and as such he paid no attention to Orzhova's shouted warning to him as he stared back up at the Lord of Riots. This was all hopeless. There was absolutely no point to this defiance of his, and that was not the demon making him think that because the demon wanted to break him. But as Cai stared up, transfixed by the flickering gaze of a being who had trampled over the corpses of thousands of civilisations and ripped apart angels and other demons alike, mesmerised into paralysis because of the pure fear inside of him, he realised that there was nothing he could do to damage Rakdos.

Every time he had tried, his attacks had been ineffectual and barely scratched the Archdemon, and each time the retaliation from the Defiler had almost killed him until it pulled back and let him live on for a bit longer. Cai was so scared, so damn _scared, _and he couldn't move, he couldn't think as the demon leaned down over him, blocking out the light from the Tempest of Craving as it reached down towards the boy. Cai was barely aware that he had started shaking and hyperventilating in pure fear, almost cancelling the spell that he had cast on his father as his frightened mind decided that fighting his maddened and furious father who had tried to crush his neck and choke him unconscious was better than this, better than battling with all he had against a demon that was toying with him and could crush him to a pulp by merely batting an eyelid.

He knew that he had to atone for his mistakes, that the Lord of Riots was his burden to bear and that it was his responsibility to kill it, but he was only thirteen, and he was so scared, and _angels_ _dammit I just want my big brother to help me_ _and save me from the pain and the fear._ Alex would know what to do, Alex _always_ knew what to do, but Alexander wasn't here and his little brother was all alone in the darkness. Cai was powerless to move as the demon, savouring his fear, closed in on him, though one part of him insisted that he had to fight back, that all of this defiance and agony that he had gone through could not be for nothing.

He wished that he was strong enough to fight, brave enough to oppose the demon any more, but as Rakdos leaned further down towards the shuddering form of the youngest prince who felt smaller than ever, he knew that nothing he did would be enough.

Orzhova scowled and tried shouting Caiellis's name again. The boy had a habit of falling for the fear-inducing spells of their foes – _no, that isn't fair at all. Cai is barely affected by them, as other, lesser humans would simply give up there and then and have their minds permanently broken, but my Summoner is only a tender thirteen years of age and, irrespective of the fact that he is a Lucerna, Cai can't be expected to fight against an Archdemon alone. I'm only surprised that he hasn't succumbed to its aura of terror and dread already. It is my duty to help him and protect him from that._

The Angel of the Black Sun hated being separated from her small and unassuming Summoner in the midst of a deadly battle, particularly since because of the demon in the abyss that had talked to them and frightened Caiellis (though that fright was quickly replaced by the panic incited by the presence of the Defiler), as then she couldn't protect him as well from any of their foes' attacks. Also, unsurprisingly enough, most of them targeted him anyway because he was more fragile and much more susceptible to mental attack, as well as the reality that he was a human and a Lucerna, and his pure soul would be coveted by all demons and all other infernal denizens of the nether realm.

She abandoned her spell that had been targeted at the demon, firing the radiant darklight which she had not had time to mould properly into a spell that might hurt such a strong being, and flew towards the position of her frozen and trembling Summoner. The fact that their mental link had also been disrupted and stopped was even worse, and Orzhova had little clue of what was running through the boy's mind besides fear and desperation as well as sadness and sorrow at the violent betrayal of his father. His adorable green eyes were open wide in shock, the pupils large and reflecting the flames that were within them, and the Angel of the Black Sun realised that he had inadvertently started staring into the eyes of the demon when he had looked up.

Red and Black mana was not particularly known for mentally freezing or enthralling their foes, but the panic inducing power of the chaotic mana was amplified and heightened to obscene levels by the Archdemon that exemplified it. Furthermore, the magic of emotion mixed with the magic of darkness could cause a person to become extremely violent and turn on their allies (though not in the way that Marik had done, as that had been full of intention and he wouldn't have been able to speak properly had he been affected in that matter) or to be filled with fright and unable to act.

Cai was in the grip of fear, and his young mind would be filled with it to the point where he could not think of anything else, a concept that was at the same time alien but very familiar to the dark seraphim.

As an angel, she did not feel fear, not in the human sense of the word, merely the dreadful aura of the demons which she knew well would incite the former emotion in humans, but being an avatar of Black mana as well as White she was well accustomed to the emotion of terror – having inspired it many times in Xarius's accursed reign, turning soldiers and Sancturia creatures alike into paralysed children like Caiellis was at the moment, although her own brand of that was borne of equal amounts of terror and awe because of her White mana, not just the former. However, she could feel apprehension, nervousness, concern and worry, for herself when her sisters came close to capturing her in her escape into the abyss and for her precious young Summoner whom she wanted to protect with all of her divine heart.

That concern was at the forefront of her mind as she dove towards Caiellis's location, the fortifying White mana that she tried to conjure up within the youth rendered useless by the presence of Rakdos and the surprisingly subtle wall of blackness that had been created around the boy by the formation and solidification of the demon's unnaturally dark shadow that danced around the slender youth and reached towards him with claws of darkness that weren't yet close at him to rake at his magical essence and soul, as there was no doubt that this form of magic would target that.

She could see just by looking into Caiellis's eyes, something that her enhanced and post-human vision allowed her to do, that his sanity was close to breaking point, and some of the images that she saw reflected in those wide green orbs worried her a significant amount because they would only be the tip of the iceberg of what was happening inside of his head. There was no way that she could surprise the demon, as it had to know that she was coming to save her precious Summoner, and despite the fact that its predatory gaze was fixed firmly upon Cai Rakdos could most likely sense her White mana and know exactly when she would approach.

The angel's hate-filled scowl deepened as her mind analysed the situation, aware that the Archdemon was baiting her in as there was no way that she could let Caiellis be slain but powerless to do anything about that. That sad truth of the matter was that Cai was limiting her power, though not inhibiting it intentionally and she was sure that in time with the rate of growth and progression that he displayed he would be able to access nearly if not all of her strength and have enough mana to cast her most powerful spells – or even go beyond that and craft some of his own – but the fact remained and her young Summoner's exhaustion at the moment as well as his young age meant that she was unable to cast some of her most powerful magic.

Nevertheless, Orzhova had never felt so protective over another being before, even her sisters whom she had been created with and had been her only company back before the birth of Xarius (whoever chose to name their child that was a fool, although it did have a nice ring to it) and matching how she had been when she had first met the youth that would define her and her second and current Summoner's life even over a hundred years after his death. That strengthened her White mana, and she grasped the medallion representation of the Black Sun sigil in her left hand as circles of pulsating light began to pulse outwards from it.

She spun her ornate scythe round, gathering mana in the blade of that as she flew towards her Summoner, a blast of White mana from her destroying some random fireballs which arced towards her. Orzhova placed the sigil of her symbol and her Summoner's birthmark in the middle of the sun shaped heel of her weapon which was connected to the large golden blade, the purple darkness shrouding the weapon and pooling in the centre of the larger symbol coalescing around the light of the medal in her left hand and hanging on a chain of large golden circles. The Angel of the Black Sun let go of the chain, and instead of falling to her side once again or being consumed by the midnight blackness of her scythe it hovered, the chain extending as Orzhova grasped the shadowy handle of her weapon with both hands, the whole blade infused with White and Black mana.

She narrowed her onyx black eyes that were filled with coruscating purple energy that looked like lightning at the sight of her Summoner now, as Cai had fallen to his knees, destitute, the Sword of Glass slipping from his grasp as he stared unblinkingly and fearfully up at the Lord of Riots. _Hmph. So that is true then. _

The shadows that had been forming up around the boy, the shade created by the demon tainted and corrupted as it made shapes around small Caiellis, were given shape and definition by the psychotic and crazed mind of the Defiler. She had heard rumours – mostly from the time she had once invaded Rakdos's realm to put a stop to the expansion of his territory within Sancturia, not that any of her sisters would ever give her credit for that – that such was the power of Rakdos that even he shadow took on a cruel life of its own.

This seemed to be happening around Caiellis as the demon leaned towards him, reaching out its massive hand that would wrap around Cai and crush the life out of his young form or lift him up into the air, ready to be devoured by the demon or taken as a plaything or pet back into Sancturia or wherever the Archdemon would go next now that it was in the material realm. The shadow of the demon was fusing together and converging on three distinct points around Caiellis, the substance of the shadow knitting together the unholy flesh of dark creations that Orzhova had never seen before.

They were tall, almost monstrously so though not as nearly as tall as the Archdemon whose shadow had created them, and were clothed in black leather made from the darkness that wrapped around their supple and vaguely feminine forms, though they would be considered androgynous without the sight of breasts covered by white and gold plates shaped like grinning cherubs in a mocking parody of the decorations of the Sanctum Angelica and the territories of the light that left much of the beings' flesh bare above it. They were clad in black leather armour that formed surprisingly elegant and fluted shoulder pads and extended downwards from them into the shadows. The avatars of Rakdos's power had no legs as far as the angel could see, simply distending off into the malignant darkness of the Defiler's shade, but that was not the most disturbing part of them.

Wickedly curved and thick sabres that looked more like brutal butcher's cleavers were held in the humanoid but spindly left hands of the creations, but the other arm was like a mutated and corrupted growth that was fused into some sort of horrific weapon of metal and spikes which the angel had no doubt in her mind would be employed with savage purpose. All semblance of humanity was also erased by the strange helms that the beings wore, although Orzhova had a feeling that they were actually part of the creatures' heads. They were a mixture between the beaked heads of birds and the sucker proboscises of insects that extracted the vital fluids of their prey, and coloured bright red – the colour of vivid blood that was the exact same shade as the Rain of Gore. They had the whirling tongue of the feeder insects that Orzhova had mentally described, but modified and changed to become nightmarish and disturbing, and had massive horns of bone extending out from their heads.

To complete the creatures, the avatars of discord birthed from Rakdos's malevolent shadow, they had two large black wings similar to that of Orzhova's but nowhere near as majestic or imperial as the angel's, more like the mottled black pinions of a scavenger crow that feasted upon the dead at the end of violent conflicts. Orzhova would have shouted a warning to her Summoner as the three avatars swirled around him, cackling insanely and shrieking at the boy which would do no good for his concussion nor help his already frightened mental state, but she knew that Cai would not hear it. He hadn't seen these new foes that were nowhere near as dangerous as their progenitor but still formidable in their own right, especially with three of them, as he hadn't yet been able to tear his gaze away from that of Rakdos's.

Inside, Caiellis's head was screaming at him, parts of him telling him that he was pathetic for giving in so easily like this, that he was giving up on his big brother and all those people who had sacrificed their lives for him, but he didn't really care. This Lord of Riots was a god, an atavistic and cruel false deity of the most infernal and deepest hells, but still a god, and he was just a mere mortal – and a child at that. There was nothing he could do, and he wanted someone to come and help him because he knew that he couldn't do it alone. His damn father had been supposed to aid him, but had just made his son more scared and called him a failure (amongst other things), though he couldn't really blame Marik.

If there was any point, he might have screamed, might have ran as far away from this horrible hell-hole as his skinny but small legs would take him, but since there was none all he could do was kneel down and watch as the demon reached down to snuff his life out. This was what his life had amounted to, he realised, this was it and all of them knew it.

A flash of light broke away part of the panic in his mind, and he saw Rakdos's grin widening. Was the demon still playing with him? Couldn't he just end it all already and free him from this terror and pain? Or was the demon just smiling because Orzhova was-

_Orzhova!_

Caiellis blinked once, and tore his gaze away from the demon's flaming pits of eyes, the flickering yet simultaneously indescribably bright and claustrophobically inferno of pleasure and vice leaving disgusting after images in his retinas that matched the ones occurring in his mind. He spat a mental curse at himself, damning himself for how easily he had been caught off guard, and the rumbling laugh of the demon assured him that he was still in significant danger.

_Of course I'm in danger, you stupid fucking idiot! What the hell was I thinking? I almost died and all this effort to atone for my crimes of getting other people hurt and killed and allowing an Archdemon to enter the world, would have been for nothing if I had done. Get up, you worthless, useless child. Get up, you don't deserve to die yet. Your older brother and your father who loves him are in so much danger because of you, and you were just going to throw your life away without even damaging the Lord of Riots a little bit? How pathetic. _

Despite the self-damning and very cynical and pessimistic tone of his main mental voice that viewed his own life as nothing and saw the Archdemon as his fault, something that needed to be erased by him alone, the rest of him, the bit that he tried to ignore and not let affect him, was still terrified, wanting to huddle up on the ground, bring his knees to his chest like he had done so many times in the past and curl up into a foetal ball, as if that would ever solve anything or make his problems go away. The only thing that that had ever done was to motivate his elders who took pity on him to help him and try to help him with whatever was concerning him, but the only one that was here on his side was Orzhova and she was already doing everything in her power to aid her young Summoner – and she did not have time to play into the motherly role which he had never had while she was fighting to save his life.

It was clear that Cai had recovered from whatever had afflicted him for the most part, but the boy still stayed where he was, cultivating the appearance that he was trying to overcome his fear – which was not far from the truth at all, in fact it was the truth but unlike some others the youngest Lucerna could fight with terror in his mind, because he had been forced to ever since he was four years of age.

Rakdos laughed again, chilling Cai to the core but also sending hot breath wafting up and down his body. The sound sent ringing pains through the boy's head as he almost fell to the ground and gave into the temptation to clutch his agonised skull, before suddenly slamming its hand into the ground.

Cai was faster, reacting extremely fast and glad of the illusion of being more afflicted by the aftermath of being paralysed by fear, leaping backwards ever so slightly before turning to attempt to carve into the demon with the Sword of Glass. Then he found that the relic weapon which had served him so well recently had been dropped on the ground, though at least it was still connected to him by the magical tether he had created and as such could be accessed later, but the fact that he had no sword made him hesitate for a split second.

Caiellis cursed inside at his own laxity, knowing that he should never drop his weapon within a battle and that he was going to suffer for it now, and as he leapt back on conjured stained glass wings that he knew would not last long and had no intentions of maintaining past stabilising himself and getting away from the Lord of Riots he raised both of his hands. Many scintillating blasts of light shot out from the boy's palms, dazzling streaks of golden brilliance that lit up the space between him and the Archdemon with its celestial lustre. The multitudinous beams of illuminescence sent scattering impacts of White mana up and down the Defiler's lowered arm as it crashed into the space that Caiellis had been in, the reactionary blasts of the prince scouring thin lines of purification across the demon's flesh which only blackened it ever so slightly as it laughed, seemingly fully enjoying this fight.

It sprang forwards, scythe arcing towards the retreating prince, until the unlight rays of a dark sun crashed into it, illuminating the being in its deathly glow as the Angel of the Black Sun twirled her scythe above her head, the golden medallion shining with glorious light in the middle of the dark heel of her weapon, contrails of radiance and tenebrosity spinning out from the rotating scythe and sending spiralling bolts of darklight impacting into the Lord of Riots, who merely smiled as the rush of unique ecstatic pain from the magic of light and darkness shuddered through him. He had spent too long in the abyss cementing his position as an Archdemon, and it had been too long since he had been Summoned into the material realm – as the last time he had entered this plane he had merely been a greater demon, a lieutenant in his supposed creator Malfegor's armies, and that had been because as he did not have as much power as he did now and as such had not been constrained to Sancturia without a conduit.

"**IT HAS BEEN TOO MANY YEARS SINCE I LAST FOUGHT A LUCERNA!**" Rakdos roared in delight, revelling in some semblance of a real challenge despite the fact that he was nowhere near using his full power, but the Archdemon supposed that he could be a lot less soft on little Caiellis and Orzhova. He beat his massive wings, sending air tainted by corrupt ash and blood buffeting across the plaza as the Tempest of Craving, one of his most prized creations, crackled overhead and sparked with more thunderous lightning as yet more of his minions were spat out at the City of Pleasure, the human monument to hedonism and excess that entertained Rakdos immensely, below.

Cai was forced to abandon his attack and hold his arms crossed over in front of his face, light collecting around them as it formed a shield of glass and luminescence that would protect him from any potential damage in the squall of corrupt air blown around the courtyard. The demon's voice instilled him with equal amounts of terror and hatred that vied for dominance within his head, one part of him cursing himself for what he had let be Summoned into Usnaan when the task of taking the huge capital city of Welkas whilst the other insisted that he should run and that there was nothing he could do.

It sent waves of white-hot pain through his skull, but after he heard the words Cai frowned in consternation when he heard more screaming from underneath him – well, rapidly approaching him since the atavistic howl of Rakdos had predictably broken his glass wings – and detected several mana signatures that were very similar to the demon's but noticeably distinct and unique, three of them if he could perceive it properly over the pounding inside of his head exacerbated by the noise and visions inside of his mind and the huge presence of the Archdemon that disrupted all of his senses, made him feel every sensation in the extreme yet also confused and distracted his magical sense.

He yanked on the chain to bring his sword to him as he looked down whilst falling, though he had not gone far enough up in the air to do anything but jar his ribs when he landed, subconsciously providing mana to his angel who was evidently planning to start some form of powerful ritual which would hopefully damage the Lord of Riots but also aware that he had to be by her side and add his own magic to it to complete it fully. Three nightmarish and ghastly figures that were made from the fevered dreams of demons rose up to meet him, each of them wielding a brutal sword that was dripping with some sort of poison or liquid, though what was more disturbing were the strange claw-esque appendages in place of their right arms that clicked and whirred in an insanity-inducing tune as they reached towards him.

Orzhova's magic gave the youngest Lucerna a brief respite from their Archdemon foe who turned to deal with her and battle against the First Sisterhood angel, and Cai knew that he had to deal with these weird and macabre avatars quickly so that he could help her against Rakdos. He landed, efficiently rolling and pushing down the surge of nausea that threatened to rise up and swallow him completely in the action, and he suddenly felt hugely claustrophobic as the clammy shadows pressed in at him from all sides, the cloying darkness that reminded him of the abyss back home and the horror that the vampire Aksua had once used but had been destroyed completely by Akroma (who was also fine, kneeling next to Marik but making no moves other than that, though she looked to be unconscious and unable to move and help – not that she would anyway) slowing down his movements as the discordant yet rapturous wailing of the avatars closed in on him.

He knew that he needed to pay attention to what was happening between his angel and the Lord of Riots, but he could only focus on the current enemies and could not see through the solid black shadow of the demon that hung over him like a cloud of darkness. Caiellis pulsed mana into his sword, a blinding sphere of incandescence pushing back the shadows around him and burning the questing of murk that reached towards him, but it did not dispel the shade and he still couldn't see his angel. Cai instantly knew what he should do, but it would be very risky and he wanted to assess the capabilities of these new foes formed from the shade of Rakdos before he took the gamble and did what he was planning – as if he defeated them very quickly and managed to get out of the darkness and aid his seraph then it would be unnecessary,

They descended on him like scavenger vultures in Welkas and crows and larger ravens in Lucael would swoop down on their immobile and dead prey, shrieking and whispering maddening words all the while. Caiellis could feel the pull of their malevolent speech encouraging him to give into the rage at the heart of being and submit to the Festival of Bloodshed, to shrug off the constraints of morality and let the anger and thirst for blood consume him. Cai had never been a violent person, even play-wrestling with his older brother and accidentally hurting the older boy (even though it was much rarer than the other way round it still happened) was too much for him sometimes, though he suppressed his naturally gentle nature underneath the disguise of the determined prince that he wore during war or battle. It helped that he hated those who gave in to the darkness and preyed upon the innocent, but he wasn't about to be driven into a bloodthirsty frenzy by the screaming of some incarnations created by the Lord of Riots.

He saw that they had no legs, and were simply connected to the blackness underneath and extending from the Lord of Riots, and an idea that wouldn't cause him harm to try sprang into his mind. Caiellis ran, darting as fast as he could away from the creatures, but instead of running out of the admittedly massive shadow of the Archdemon the shade of Rakdos simply followed him, making it seem like he was sprinting in an endless void of darkness like when he had initiated the Voidwalk that had led him here. It wasn't unexpected, but Cai would have preferred to get away from these avatars of discord without having to expend any mana at all.

He swiftly turned around as the shadow solidified in front of him, evidently tired of his fleeing, and was met with the disturbing visage of the three phantasmagorian creatures chasing him again. The golden and white faces covering their unnatural breasts in a corrupt imitation of some Lucaelian iconography laughed and giggled at his antics, whispering to each other in exaggeratedly hushed yet still loud and high pitched voices, like the overblown mutters of two children making their voices more hissing in an attempt to not be heard by other people nearby yet not actually decreasing the volume in words that Caiellis could not understand – although the sheer variety of strange noises that was almost on the cusp of human speech that accompanied the whirred shrieking of the main heads of the creatures and were made by the lower faces made the boy reticent to think that it was an actual language at all.

He removed the noises from his mind, aware that they were just distracting him from what was actually important which was slaying these enemies. The small thirteen year old raised the shining beacon of the Sword of Glass up, his eyes flicking between the three avatars as they spread out around him, one heading towards him at a straight angle whilst the other two made their way round to attack from the side and the back, the shadows behind him returning to their previous state and allowing the beings to surround him now that there was no chance of escape.

A flashing blade almost caught the boy off guard, and he twisted his skinny body round as the sword arced towards him from a strange angle, though he hypothesised that the shifting and ever-changing nature of the demon's shadow meant that the normal laws of physics did not apply here. He managed to just evade the gleaming weapon, though it was closer than he would have liked as the metal still cut into the fabric of his already brutalised and torn light armour, only not reaching to the fragile and bruised skin underneath. The scrawny teenager whipped the Sword of Glass around, holding his left palm to the flat of the blade as one of the incarnations pressed in on him against it. He grunted at the strength of the strange minion of debauchery as its sword scraped against his and its claw pushed his blade down against him, snapping violently and frenetically as it got closer to his face.

He blasted a wave of White mana through the crystalline blade of his artefact weapon and into it that sent the avatar reeling back, the vaguely female creature knocked away by the discharge of golden light that was soon swallowed up by the darkness. Cai turned and deflected the strike of another vile creation with his sword, unwilling to take the brunt of the powerful blow on himself again, and launched a pulsing flare of luminosity into the being, the spinning orb emitting light all around it and forcing the avatar of discord back. The third life within Rakdos's cruel shadow reached towards him, its slashing sword blocked on a shield of glass that Cai created without even looking round, the blade smashing the protection which let the shards of the magical crystal slice into it. It ignored the pain and grasped at the boy with its pincer arm, who was forced to leap forwards to avoid being grabbed by the appendage.

That left him coming to his feet face to face with another one of the beings, and while he blocked its sword on his own and blasted a bolt of radiance at its disturbing right arm its vicious and strange proboscis-like tongue thrust towards him, the end of it sharp and maliciously barbed. Caiellis yelped as it fired at him, and he withdrew quickly before another avatar rammed into him, scraping and clawing at him with its taloned arm as he was too close for its scimitar cleaver – which was arcing round to be rammed into him – to be used quickly enough.

Caiellis cried as the blade claws of the avatar cut into him and lacerated his flesh, and in response to the pain that the Welkalites would find exquisite but Cai could only think of as horrible yet extremely precise, like he was being attacked by some sort of insane surgeon intimately familiar with the human and how to cause the most pain as possible, a blast of White and Black mana discharged out of him, the purifying magic of light mixing with the destructive and ruinous force of the darkness and blasting the avatar away from him. The White mana explosion also had the added benefit of removing the neurological and hallucinogenic substances that had been injected into his bloodstream by the claw, though as it could not heal him cleansing his body of the effects and the foreign toxins was extremely painful.

He bit his lip on a part of it that he had already gnawed to pieces and was bloody and red because of this battle and the amount of pain he had gone through as the venomous and perception-altering narcotics that had been rushing throughout his veins was systematically purged, and quickly jumped to the side to avoid a screaming blade that hacked into where he had been stood. The shadow of the demon was slowing him down, and these incarnations of death were far more formidable than he had anticipated. They were also terrifying as they snaked around the interior of the darkness towards him, and Cai would probably have been quite horrified and frightened by them had he not been fighting a being as powerful and spine chilling as an Archdemon only moments before.

These avatars of discord and strife, while strong, were nothing compared to the one whose shadow had given them form and dark life, and Caiellis needed to deal with them quickly so that he could aid his angel against the greatest threat. He ignored the stinging of his new wounds, the back of his shirt shredded completely by the blades and covered in warm and sticky blood (as the jacket which had been covering the softer and thinner fabric of the shirt had already been destroyed by having it scraped along the jagged, rubble-strewn floor and a wall and burnt), and turned round to where his chittering and hissing enemies had consolidated.

It was with no small piece of satisfaction that he noticed that the one who had stabbed him only had one arm, the other destroyed at the elbow by his mortifying magic. Cai took a deep breath, knowing that he was about to do something that could be extremely risky and end with him unfocussed and in pain, but it was that or not know his angel's position or activities for when he finished off these twisting creatures of nightmares and insanity. He closed his right eye, keeping his left firmly open and fixed on the enemies that were closing in on him once again, preparing to attack the small boy in their midst from different sides like they had done before, and steadied his breathing which had become hitching and irregular because of the pain.

He had never before used one of the Lenses of Guilt or Innocence on their own but mixed with his normal vision, having either focussed solely upon one or combining the two together when using his more powerful magic (though, as he had proved now underneath the storm that punished the usage of the Lens of Guilt, he could use his strong spells without the Lenses), but now he was going to try it so that he could track the Angel of the Black Sun whilst defeating the enemies that detained him here – as that would allow him to destroy them and then add his power to Orzhova's magic by reaching her side.

His right eye above the shining purple birthmark of the ominous Black Sun on the otherwise pale (in the bits not covered with blood) and thin yet still extremely babyish and young cheek became suffused in milky golden light, and Cai paid no heed to the way that his head pounded as the vision of Innocence interspersed with his normal sight until the two were overlapping, though the only thing that he could see in the yellow sight of Innocence was part of his angel – as roughly half of her being showed up in each of the Lenses as he had found out before. He could see Orzhova through the shadow and the body of the demon that was blocking her, and could see her generating White mana – which meant that she must have been channelling Black as well. However, the fact that he had sacrificed half of his physical vision to be able to locate his guardian angel meant that he could only use his left eye for now in fighting these enemies.

Nonetheless, the Lens of Innocence empowered his White mana while it was active, which would be perfect in eradicating these disturbing foes from existence. One avatar launched it/herself at him, and opened its claw wide as it reached to strike at his face. Caiellis pulsed mana through himself, seeing through the Lens of Innocence that his angel needed help, and he ducked underneath the strike of the claw before rolling forwards, evading the rapidly descending sword that would have cut him in two. A tendril of shadow reached towards him from the ground, but instead of annihilating it with his mana he reached out to it himself with Black magic, his own mana of darkness interacting with that of the shadow and subverting it to his will after a mental battle of a few seconds.

The arm of darkness wrapped around the incarnation missing half of its arm, tying it down as it shrieked and hacked at the chains of shadow wrapping round itself with its sword until Caiellis fulminated a coruscation of purple lightning that was a combination of mostly Black but also some White mana through it. The magic seared into it, ripping apart the fabric of its entire being and destroying it as Caiellis leapt upwards, slashing his shining blade through the avatar in front of him. He heard an ear splitting scream of agonised ecstasy from his current target, and was grabbed around the neck by the claw appendage of the avatar and shoved backwards. Adrenaline rushed through the boy when the being touched his already heavily bruise throat, and he tried to stop the shaking of his limbs as he sailed through the unnaturally gloomy shade created by the Archdemon that darkened the shadow of the Tempest of Craving above even more.

After almost being choked to death by his father and having a primal fear of being strangled that eclipsed most others, that was definitely one of his greatest weaknesses in this conflict. He fought to get his frightened mind under control, telling himself that the incarnation had barely squeezed his abused throat, but the pressure that had been placed upon his severe bruising made his head spin and made him feel extremely faint. Dizziness washed over him and sent him reeling to find his balance as he landed on the ground, blinking his left eye rapidly as he tried to get his normal sight under control again and erase the tears of fright and pain that had welled up within both of his eyes but didn't distract the Lens of Innocence.

He mentally snarled in annoyance at his father for bruising his neck and making it so that even the pressure that the avatar had placed upon it had almost knocked him unconcious as it threw him away, and, his annoyance at his father replaced by an instinctive fear as he threw his body sideways. A bolt of fire that had been launched by the last monster's claw sent waves of heat over Cai that scorched him but didn't outright damage him as he dodged it. He wanted to conserve his mana whilst fighting these foes, but time was of the essence if he was going to get to Orzhova before she was sent back to the Mind Realm. The boy silenced a wailing and childish part of him that begged him to drag on the fight with these creatures longer so that he didn't have to face the Archdemon again, reminding it that Rakdos would come for him after his angel was finished anyway.

The two remaining incarnations circled around him, snapping their pincer claws threateningly as fire sparked over them, as it taunting the boy by telling him that they could launch waves of flame at him whenever they chose. Cai could feel his blood pounding in his skull, and his frantic desperation to end this fight was rising, his desire to get back to his angel and battle against the Lord of Riots who was already out of control and overcoming his Summoning suffusing his mind and refusing to let him think of anything else. He raised his sword to the sky, the crystal blade shining with bright yet cataclysmic White mana with an edge of midnight tenebrosity as he mustered his desire to help his angel and made it into something tangible and powerful.

The monsters of nightmares shrieked and howled at the boy as they sensed what he was doing, and they unanimously agreed to attack him as soon as possible. One of them headed round the front, flapping its feathered wings in an erratic and irregular pattern of beats that was incredibly discordant and distracting to anyone who heard it, whilst the other blended back into the tainted shadows like the corpse of its companion had when it had been killed. Caiellis kept on channelling his mana into his blade, an orb of light surrounding him and pressing back the shadow and his left eye roving around, looking for the enemies.

His back and neck hurt more than it did before, but it was just another thing for the youngest Lucerna to push to the back of his mind and ignore, something else that did not bother him because he wouldn't have to deal with it after he banished by the Archdemon or it turn killed by it, the second possibility infinitely more likely considering his condition and the sheer power of the demon.

_Although if you let it kill you before you remove it from this world or at least heavily wound it so that your father can deal with it when he is freed from your spell, you will die a coward and a disgrace, you will die without __making amendments for your many mistakes which have put everyone who has ever wasted their time trying to protect you and loving you in danger. _

Cai let out a cry that was tinted with a divine and mana infused resonance as it pillar of light shot out from his sword, this one pure white, which was rarer for his mana ever since he had obtained Orzhova and started to truly use Black magic but still very possible for him, the cleansing column of blinding illumination piercing through the cloying shadows that were almost as thick as tar and were beginning to make breathing difficult even with the helpful aura around his mouth that purified the air he was breathing in (_or maybe the pressure put on my neck and the additional strain on my ribs has made it harder to breathe?_).

The ground started shaking around him as the air was saturated with surprisingly wrathful mana that exuded the need to dispense judgement upon the evil and the corrupt, the pure White mana flowing out of his sword taking quite a toll on the reserves of magic that he had left, although if he wanted to he could have made this spell even more powerful and destructive (which would have been incredibly pointless considering this would be powerful enough to destroy the avatars). There was the thrumming sound of a powerful mana discharge as some of the light began to be coloured slightly more golden, and he could faintly perceive the hymns of a haunting yet stirring choir as the pillar of light blasted towards the sky began to be answered by two more lucent beams as he had planned.

Instead of allowing the avatars rushing towards him to attack him in the brief moment before the spell was completed, he gathered up his hatred of the darkness which had ripped his mother away from him and made his life like it was now into his free left hand, pointing his bleeding palm (which would have sealed up by now even without healing and just having access to his Lucerna regeneration – or if he wasn't as fragile as he was now and his body scabbed faster) towards the ground and the shifting darkness underneath him.

He pulsed Black mana out of his hand as the avatar charging straight at him was about to reach him, and the other one concealed by the murk of the demon's shade was starting to breach it and reach towards his head with its claw, and he bent the shadows towards his will with the hate-filled darkness of his own that was not corrupt, simply haunting and full of hatred. The coils of his own Black mana which was distinctly different from the Archdemon's sadistic and malevolent shadow and could be seen within it wrapped around and restrained the discordantly shrieking avatars, and it pulled them to the ground just as they were about to strike him and tear through his soft flesh.

The two columns of light chose that moment to breach the darkness which had followed Caiellis here, smashing into the two incarnations given cruel life by the sheer power of the demon that meant that even its shadow could gain a form of its own. It shredded their malicious essence made from Red and Black mana, cleansing their taint form existence and appearing to Caiellis in both his normal vision and the Lens of Innocence suffusing his right eye that he would be able to deactivate soon. They shrieked at the prince, clawing impotently at the ground as they tried to move until their forms were utterly annihilated by the purifying light, the substance of shadow that made them ripped into its constituent particles of darkness and destroyed by the White mana.

Cai ended the spell as the incarnations died, unwilling to waste any more mana than necessary, and carved a path out of the shadow with his shining sword as he headed towards the location of his embattled Angel of the Black Sun. It was still dark outside of the intensification of the Lord of Riots's shade, but the second he left it he allowed his vision to turn back to normal as he saw his angel engaged with the demon in a magical duel of huge quantities of mana, though Cai had already been able to feel that and had supplied his angel with as much magic as he could while he had been fighting the avatars. He ran to her side, though at first since he was near to the side of the massive demon he had been tempted to attack it from there – but that would have only ended in him being assaulted by the Lord of Riots, as while it was blasting bolts of hellish flame and lightning at the First Sisterhood angel it could easily turn around and crush him into a pulp.

An explosion of destruction and fire shook the ground next to him, raining debris and shrapnel down on a shield that he quickly created as he disregarded the numbness in his limbs and traded more live for magical power, knowing that if he had not done so many of them so far he would have already succumbed to the exhaustion. The rock fragments pattered against his glassy protection as he avoided a bursting eruption of frothing magma and lava that was stimulated by the mana that the Archdemon was outputting, and even though Rakdos seemed to be enjoying the exchange he also appeared slightly bored as he blasted wave after wave after wave of fire at the Angel of the Black Sun.

Caiellis didn't make the mistake of looking into its flaming pits of eyes or the fire in between its horns this time round, but as he reached the point roughly below where his angel was flying, panting because of the fact that he had been forced to sprint around around the entire courtyard, the demon smiled at him sadistically again.

"**I'm glad that you managed to deal with my avatars of discord without being too hurt, little Lucerna,**" the demon chuckled at him, the sense of boredom vanishing now that the boy had returned to the main fight, raising its fist with the scythe within it and slashing it down through the air, a screaming wave of fire blasting out from the swipe towards the dark angel and her recently arrived Summoner. Cai sent a brief glance at Orzhova, who was not wielding her own scythe as the weapon, infused with huge amounts of mana, span above her head. The angel glanced down at him, the pale perfection of her face streaked with bloody droplets that joined the golden tears already etched there, and her onyx black eyes that shone with power and crackled with purple coruscation were filled with unflinching determination and hatred. She was scorched, burnt and covered in ash and blood (most of which was not her own) but other than that she seemed fine, and Caiellis silently whispered an apology to her for leaving her so long.

Then he span his head around again as the tide of flame rushed towards them, the fire taking up the shape of souls that screamed their hatred of order and restraint at them as they surged through the air, howling their exultation at being used as a weapon by the unholy manifestation of destruction and depraved pleasure behind them. Cai could feel the heat of the inferno from here, the torrent of flaming souls combusting in an unnatural crimson flame that rapidly closed in on the two soldiers of the light. He could also feel the power of the mostly raging and blazing Red but also malefic Black mana in that savage but no doubt effective spell that Rakdos had cast, and the demon leaned towards them as if in eager expectation of their response.

It scorched the already abused ground as it passed over it, and the smallest prince gulped involuntarily as he saw it burn through one of the many curling talons of obsidian and other volcanic rock that he didn't quite know that had smashed through the ground with the catastrophic entrance of the Defiler, drowning the rock underneath the superheated flames that ate at it and utterly incinerated the spire, which was a grim reminder of how quickly yet agonisingly it would kill Cai if it touched him, even though he had a gnawing suspicion that the Lord of Riots would let it destroy his guardian Summoning and cause him as much agony as possible as it immolated his young limbs and set his clothes alight but didn't kill him and left him scorched but still alive.

He tried to ignore the disturbing thoughts of being burnt to within an inch of death and left without his dark angel that his mind helpfully provided vivid and gruesomely detailed images of, telling himself that he didn't mind how he died so long as he could do it in a way that would either banish the demon back to Sancturia or make it easier for others to do so, but he couldn't help but feel scared as the flames surged over the ground towards them. Orzhova dropped to the ground in front of him, unfurling her black wings which had none of their awe-inspiring majesty diminished by the ash or blood sticking to them, and pulled down her scythe from where it was spinning and being charged with more and more mana every second, slamming the bottom of it into the ground as he gripped its handle with the fingerless gloves worn on each of her angelic hands, the fingers delicate and feminine and yet stronger than even the most gargantuan and monstrously muscles human being.

Circles of light and darkness flashed out from Orzhova as she wordlessly conjured up a shield in front of them, the fact that despite the reality he had only known the angel for a week yet they were better at working as a team than some people and their Sancturia creatures who had known each other for years meaning that she did not have to speak, physically or mentally, to know that her Summoner knew what he had to do to help. Caiellis knelt down behind the angel, quashing the brief feeling of security that being behind and protected by the member of the First Sisterhood engendered within his mind because he knew that it wouldn't help him in the slightest, and also ignored the sharp stab of pain from his ribs as he completed the motions.

He pressed the slender fingers of his left hand into the ground, some unnecessary part of his psyche commenting that he looked like some form of nature mage, and rammed the Sword of Glass in his right into the earth. It was covered in gore from the torrent of blood ejected perpetually by the roaring Tempest of Craving above, and it was hot, sticky and wet, but that didn't stop the boy running his mana through it. This was one of the most powerful spells that the Archdemon had released as of yet, but Caiellis was sick of being on the defensive.

He was intimately familiar with that style of fighting of course, and usually it didn't bother him as he protected himself from attack and slowly drained his opponent of energy and life as he waited for the right time strike and emerge victorious, but with his healing prevented and his mana pool being expended more and more every second fighting a conservative battle was not going to allow him to win. The Archdemon had more strength, more power and much more dark vitality than him, and being reactionary all of the time was meaning that while he survived he wasn't achieving anything and was just delaying the demon. That would have been all well and good if reinforcements were arriving, but Caiellis had no guarantee of that and knew that even if they did more likely than not they would be swept aside by the Lord of Riots before they could help – unless they were extremely powerful members of the army, but Cai couldn't rely upon anyone else any more and he wasn't intending to.

However, constantly being on the back foot and defending himself from attack after attack from the demon was wearing him down quite fast and ensuring that he did nothing in response, which was what the Lord of Riots wanted as it would make it much easier to break him, especially since every one of his own assaults of radiance and darkness had been repelled with effortless ease. The hopeless pit of hollowness and despair that he had given in to many times over the course of this battle but managed to pull himself out of each time at the bottom of his stomach was getting larger and larger, and he knew that the next time he was drown in its depths of sorrow and sadness it was very likely that he would not escape.

He dragged himself closer to Orzhova as a transparent shield of some sort of crystalline material made from lines of light and darkness that flowed over one another and drew characters in a language that Caiellis could vaguely understand but not read, keeping his hand placed firmly on the ground and the Sword of Glass still stuck into the earth where he was saturating the ground with mana for the Angel of the Black Sun to build up their aerial defences with by providing her with a foundation – as this needed to be one of their most powerful shields. However, Cai was concerned that apart from some limited magic the Lord of Riots hadn't used anything yet that was extremely powerful or something that the young adolescent would classify as being utterly demonic, and had not expended much Black mana at all, preferring to use Red in these explosive conflicts with its two opponents.

"Orzhova," he said, hating how weak and shaky his sounded, how his voice was raw and shuddering from the whole ordeal of this fight and still drenched in sadness from the betrayal of his dad. The angel didn't answer him, but he hadn't been expecting one and was mostly focussed on his spell as she was as well, the flames devouring the ground that they rushed over as they filled his vision with fire, "We can't keep doing this. We can't keep just defending against his constant attacks, but at the same time any small strikes that we do don't achieve anything. We need to be able to use some sort of very powerful spell, but we don't have enough time to do so."

"I am generating White and Black mana in my scythe with the medallion in the centre of it, Cai, so hopefully that will allow us to cut out most of the ritual in casting a spell that could hope to damage the Lord of Riots," Orzhova responded, though Caiellis barely heard her spell over the roar – _more like _scream – of the flaming wave that was turning from a bloody crimson to a black fire of ash and embers as it approached quickly. The angel mentally winced at the usage of her language, as while she hadn't been focussing on her reply too much since they had to guard against this attack (which was concerning her as it seemed to be gaining power as it came towards them), she didn't have to use the word "hope" so much. It was clear that little Cai, who was staying remarkably calm and able to act in this situation even for a Lucerna teenager, was looking for guidance from his angel, since he had been right and this endless defence was accomplishing nothing for them, so she should have been more confident and gave off an aura of certainty in their victory that she, despite being an angel, didn't quite feel.

In spite of what she would like to think, that was what any of her loyalist sisters would do, make their Lucerna Summoners feel like they had a real chance of succeeding and banishing the Archdemon from this plane of existence, and she had to believe that the spell they would cast after this flaming attack subsided through the plan that she had for it. So she added after a brief delay of weaving sigils of light and shadow into the air around her, words and symbols of power that would aid her in her magic as circles of mana similar to those conjured by young Alexander and all the Lucernas before him in the Summoning ritual of her sibling Aurelia, "We will be able to go on the offensive soon, Caiellis. You should let me take the lead, however, because of your wounds and your fragility without healing magic."

The boy nodded, and although one part of him said that he should be at the forefront of the fight because of the fact that this was his crime, his atonement, another reminded him that Orzhova had a lot to atone for as well as he did, and that she would last much longer facing the Defiler up close. His angel's voice broke into his anxious trepidation, the words harsh yet still gentle, as if Orzhova was trying to comfort him in the middle of this fight, "Even though you have progressed a large amount in your capabilities to use Black mana over the course of this battle, when I tell you I want you to invoke the feelings that you felt when your mother died. I don't have enough time to explain the full plan right now, but be ready for sudden movements and just do as I say. Also, stand up. We are going to turn the tide of battle, mark my words."

Caiellis nodded again at the angel's words, feeling slightly more emboldened by them even though that was just the effect of being talked to by a seraphim of the exalted First Sisterhood. He rose to his feet unsteadily, trying to stop his pathetic and weak body from trembling as he stood behind the angel and watched the massive wave of fire rushing towards them. Orzhova primed the shield, a design of protection that Caiellis had never seen before opening up in front of them like some sort of inverted flower of glass and shadow with its nectar the celestial golden illumination that spilled out from within it.

He studied the shield for a moment, wondering how its purpose would differ from the other ones that they had employed in the past and the usual form, before repressing his natural curiosity which had decided to reach past his shell of determination to slay the Archdemon which currently had a tenuous hold on suppressing his emotions. Cai trusted Orzhova utterly and completely, which was strange when one considered that the only people he had ever done that to before were those who he had met when he had only been very young and his family, and assured himself knowing that she had lived far longer than he had and knew what she was doing.

He couldn't see the Lord of Riots through the flames of darkness and crimson light that incited terror and panic simply by looking upon them, but whenever the black flames that reminded him of a night he remembered in perfectly agonising detail in spite of his age flickered and turned bloody he could perceive the gigantic and dark silhouette of the Archdemon stood behind it. If he was concentrating so hard on being ready for his angel's signal to turn the tide, he would have snorted when he realised belatedly that they hadn't even managed to move Rakdos from the pit of lava that he had originated from in the titanic Summoning ritual which had allowed him to enter the world. That sparked another thought within Cai, though he filed it away for later as the tidal wave of black and red fire approach.

A kind of nervous excitement warred with sheer terror that ate away at the boy from within and did everything it could to dislodge his grim resolve to end the existence of this demon in the material plane if it was the last thing that he did as the first lot of the flames began to impact upon the shield, rushing along the ground like eager hunting hounds rushing ahead of the stampede of their handles, the outlying vanguard fire that first began to brush against the protection but not overwhelm it nor get anywhere as high as the rest of the wave of fire would.

Caiellis readied his mind to delve into his horrifyingly accurate recollection of the night that had ruined his young life, and the youngest Lucaelian in Usnaan looked up at his angel as she finished writing the elegant and eerie symbols and hieroglyphs into the air with her nimble and slender fingers.

"Now!"

The angel shouted at him, her heavenly voice suffused with an otherworldly resonance borne of her mana that was enhanced by her protective instinct over this young and fragile boy who was her first true Summoner and her instinctive hatred for all spawn of the darkness that opposed the light despite the fact that she was half formed from Black mana and the darkness that came from the core of her angelic being. Caiellis felt her hand grasp onto his slender wrist and pull him upwards as she launched herself into the air, the sudden flight augmented by twin contrails of radiance and darkness that followed each of her wings as she beat them and rose into the air, dragging her Summoner with her by his wrist as more magic flowed around him.

The angel rose higher and higher to the point where Caiellis was worried that they might be struck by a rogue bolt of lightning from the Tempest of Craving, and even though the angel's strong grip should have hurt his wrist as she pulled him upwards, it only caused minor discomfort which was nothing to him after all that he had gone through so far in this battle. The wave of fire slammed down upon where they were, and Cai gasped in pain as some of the sparks of blackness touched his legs, burning and searing the skin even with the shielding protection upon it before Orzhova roughly yanked him away from it.

The Angel of the Black Sun threw her scythe up into the air after having grabbed hold of it, each of her fingertips lighting up with a combination of darklight and imperious radiance as coruscating purple lightning crackled all around her, and instead of glancing down (or across at considering how tall and titanic it was) the Lord of Riots Caiellis focussed only upon generating mana for this spell, feeling that in spite of not wasting any energy conjuring up wings for himself he wasn't falling, letting go of the Sword of Glass and placing his two small hands together as if in prayer. Consecrated light and abyssal darkness separated into their constituent elements around him, taking up their usual positions at the left and right of his body as they seeped out of his skin.

This was all or nothing, and the boy was going to put everything he had into this spell in the hopes of damaging or destroying the Defiler. The strange shield that Orzhova had made far below flared with light, and as the angel swept her hands around in two symmetrical arcs from in front of her to behind (and it Cai hadn't been so centred on his generation of mana he would have realised that his angel was no longer holding him). A massive thrumming and burning noise could be heard from the ocean of fire beneath them as the inverted flower shield with petals of crystal and stained glass which they had left behind exploded into light, the magic flipping over so that the nectar of divine celestiance within it was pointing upwards, and within that began to be birthed a star of dark light much like the one that was conjured in Orzhova's Summoning ritual and for other powerful spells.

The Angel of the Black Sun that rumbled beneath clapped her hands together, a loud booming sound of the alternate energies of malevolent tenebrosity and sanctified luminescence colliding together and combining into a ball of golden imperiousness that scattered beams of celestial darkness all around it. The star of unlight in the middle of the shield that was being consumed by the inferno of hellfire surging all around it shone with its deathly light, absorbing power from the Black mana within the flames all around it as the magic of light nullified the fire that passed through or near it as it rose in size. The young teenager could vaguely perceive the sounds of a humming choir in the background over the passage of the flames as he combined light with darkness within his two hands over and over again, the coils of gold that had been wrapping round his left side passing over to his right and meeting tendrils of tenebrous midnight that they coated in light.

Orzhova's hands and arms were like the conductors of an orchestra of light and darkness, White and Black mana playing around them and saturating the air with words and symbols that the boy could vaguely recognise as the characters of luminosity were overlapped by those of smoking gloom and vice versa. The angel drew a circle of light and dark with her hands in front of her as the sun conjured within the flames below by the powerful shield that she had created rose in size even more, floating off the ground as the flames were attracted into it and absorbed into its shining sphere of darkness as it emitted equal amounts of golden light and rays of black luminescence that barely penetrated the surging hellfire that washed over it and was dragged back into it.

Orzhova placed her hands together in the middle of the elegant and embossed circle that she had drawn, glyphs of mana attracted towards it like moths to a flickering flame as they connected to its edges. The circle of golden light expanded, and in its place it left one of darkness that was at the same time identical but different, like the words that had attached themselves onto the first ring of imperious light were given a different meaning by the smoking darkness of night. She pulled her hands apart once again as that second circle began to expand also, pulsing outwards in a ring of shadow that left behind one of a haunting purple luminescence that lit up the angel in a mournful glow of sadness and loss that Cai could feel even from his position.

The light collecting round the fingers of the angel's right hand turned purple, as did the darkness flowing round the slender digits of her left, and Caiellis felt the angel move behind him with this new circle as the others kept expanding and releasing more of the same time of light in a concentric display of alternating exalted golden and malevolent black radiance. Cai knew that while he had already started to collect the emotions of hatred and despair that he had felt on the night of his mother's death, he shouldn't start delving into them fully until the main portion of the spell began where he would be able to release all of his power, hopefully being enough to overwhelm the retaliatory spell that he could already sense the Archdemon casting as rapturous and primal Red and Black mana swirled around its gargantuan form, though Cai didn't look over at it as he focussed upon his mana production.

Caiellis felt his guardian angel run her hands down near to his sides, a tingling sensation rushing through his nerves there as mana was pulled out of him and he felt the power in Orzhova's hands, and then the circle of purple and haunting light pulled itself in around him. It was still large enough to completely surround him, but smaller than it had been before and smaller than the Angel of the Black Sun who still had her own alternating concentric rings of dark light and bright darkness that pulsed out from around her that were much larger but not more powerful than the one orbiting vertically around Cai.

The flames above them were pulled towards the circulating and rotating star of darkness in their midst, the hellfire caught by its malevolent gravity and sucked closer as it expanded with the mana absorbed into it and placed within it by the seraphim as it rose up from within its shattered cocoon of glass petals that still shone with a dying light, a ghostly glow that the boy could barely perceive and knew that it was one of his less common colours when casting his spells. The circle rotated around him as his angel was aloft behind him, and as the representation of the Black Sun underneath them that was more unstable and not as overtly powerful as the one that birthed his angel in the Summoning ritual and allowed him to channel his more formidable sorceries swelled even more with the flames that it consumed.

Orzhova raised her palms to the sky as darkness and light spilled from them, opening her majestic and terrifying black wings wide in tandem with another pulsation of a new circle of both of the old ones combined. The boy's mana rose every second, though there was absolutely no hint of the sensation of being close to the divine or the uncharacteristically egotistical thoughts that sometimes sprung up in this time, probably because Cai thought even less of himself than he did then and that whatever heights of mana he might reach he was certain that the Lord of Riots would be able to match them.

Instead of stopping the two in their powerful ritual of White and Black mana, Rakdos seemed perfectly content to let them cast it and match it with a spell of his own, but as opposed to staring in hatred at the demon the boy who was levitating in the air with the mana that was flowing through his young form shut his eyes, ready to plunge fully into one of the worst experiences of his short lifetime that were only slightly challenged by others, such as when his beloved big brother had almost died because of his little sibling's weakness and when his dad had wrapped his hands around his neck only minutes ago, though that last one paled in comparison to what he would be going in to, the event that ruined his entire life and had defined it every since it happened.

"Novae Tenebra," the angel said, and while she did not shout the words, merely spoke them over the rush of flames and mana, the syllables were intoned extremely loudly and over all else. Caiellis couldn't help but open his eyes so that he could see what was going on as he sensed the mana underneath him swelling to a breaking point, and as he looked down (ignoring the very brief sense of nausea that came from realising he was simply floating in the air and held aloft only by the magical energy) he saw that the sphere of black radiance underneath him was intumescing with the amount of mana from the flaming wave of Red and Black that it had absorbed.

Orzhova coated her palms with White and Black mana in different amounts of golden coloured light and twisting gloaming, whipping them through the centre of the circle that was around Caiellis as her Summoner watched and readied himself, having a vague idea of what was about to happen and what the purpose of the shield which had created the greedy sun of darkness underneath them in the flames was for. It swelled even more, becoming massive and unstable, and exploded.

Instead of a detonation of darklight that would spray across the entire courtyard, the imperfect replica of the Black Sun below them imploded in on itself, ripping its fabric of unlight in two as rays of deathly luminosity spilled out of its cracked core of crystal that it was exposing that was still absorbing power from the tsunami of infernal fire burning everything as the star around it collapsed in on itself. The force of its malignant gravity increased; it started consuming everything around it as the rest of the excess mana in the area was dragged into it, swirling around the exposed heart of shining glass before plunging into it until there were no flames left.

Orzhova cut across the circle vertically from the bottom to the top, this time with her scythe that had been spinning in the air above the two, and Cai felt the rush of air and power from the golden blade of his angel as it bisected the ring of haunting and sorrowful power behind him. The medallion now held in the heel of the scythe that was shaped into the sigil of the disgraced angel pulsed with a blinding yet dark glow as she reversed her grip on the weapon so that the blade and the symbol within it was pointing darkness, the light held in a lacuna vortex of darkness that turned the rays of radiance into more darklight that fired down into the crystalline core of the imperfect sun below.

It detonated in time with the true emergence of the choir without mouths that sang haunting hymnals of words that the boy had never been able to understand but had always been on the cusp of doing so, like he was a young baby again that knew vaguely what others were saying to him but could not make the words himself or ascertain the specific meaning of each one when there were so many of them. The chanting chorus of voices drowned out all other sound around the youth, enveloping the word in the sonorous yet judgemental hymns of deep voices as well as the singing of children that was out of tune with the rest of the words but brought with it an undertone of innocence broken by the cruel reality of life and dreams that had been ripped apart by the advance of evil and those who abused power.

The melancholy song of devotion and pledging everything to the cause of sanctity rose in volume, though Caiellis knew that this was only the first verse and that the crescendo of this haunting melody that was to the same tune and beat as the one within his Mind Realm would come when he fully thrust himself into his darkness, despair, hatred, and desire for holy retribution – as while his White mana was still more powerful than his Black a significant amount of the latter had been unlocked over the course of this battle and he couldn't solely focus on generating the mana of darkness to balance it out with his White magic this time. He had certainly come a long way since he had unlocked Orzhova and his first Summoning of her against his champion (who was probably blaming himself for not being at Caiellis's side right now) Mysos, as back then the Angel of the Black Sun hadn't even trusted him to conjure up Black mana on his own in their more powerful spells and only relied upon him to supply the light when they cast the Culling Sun – a spell that would be far more powerful if they chose to cast it now.

The explosion of the core of the sun created by the shield was channelled upwards by Orzhova, a massive pillar of ruthless dark light and prosperous golden luminescence and emotive purple radiance rising upwards and engulfing Caiellis and his angel who was stood behind him. The boy felt the sheer amount of mana that had been absorbed from the Lord of Riots's attack and repurposed into energy that he could use flowing through him, making him feel more powerful than he had ever done before as this was the culmination of all that had got him to this point, the pain he had gone through and that others had gone through to give him one final chance at slaying the blight on this world that was the Archdemon the lustful Orders of Passion had sacrificed their New Empire of passion to that was the Defiler rushing through him and invigorating his mana stores.

He siphoned off parts of his own life that he didn't have much left of at all to obtain more mana even as the huge beam of darkness and light illuminated his skinny body that was covered in numerous wounds, lacerations, cuts, tears and bled crimson liquid all around him, the amount of mana that he had rising tremendously as he was infused with the new energy from the erupting supernova of darkness from below. The boy could feel his brown hair which had been matted down by the sticky blood from the Rain of Gore buffeting across his face and head, and he could feel each part of his body being filled with huge amounts of magic, more than he had ever channelled before.

He pushed down the sudden and unwanted thoughts of panic that rose up from within, wailing that perhaps he couldn't take this much mana inside of him, and the parts of his psyche that were calmer and more focussed on the task at hand rather than his safety counteracted that by saying firstly Orzhova wouldn't use him as the conduit of this spell unless she was confident that he could channel this much White and Black, and secondly it was his duty and responsibility to do so and if he couldn't he would die the death that he deserved for being so weak and pathetic.

Like when he and his Summoning had cast the Merciless Eviction on the steppes outside of the small city of Jeksaan, his first battle in the Lucael/Welkas war between the two kingdoms, he would be the main focus and caster of the spell. That was most likely because he was the Summoner, and that meant that it was his mana, his mind and his weaknesses that were the limiting factors upon the magic, not his angel's, and that Orzhova probably would have preferred to cast it herself if she had been able to. That put even more responsibility and pressure upon him to get this right and finally remove the stain of one of his many mistakes from the world.

He shut his eyes once again, though he could see circles of white and black and all of the greys in between the two extremes pulsing behind his closed eyelids, causing pain in his head that he ignored because he knew that it was caused by the huge quantities of mana rushing throughout his thin body and mind, and he knew that behind him Orzhova would be reading the ritual and going through the spell-casting motions that would allow him to take control when he was ready and see this through to the end.

The littlest Lucerna, held aloft by the light and the darkness seeping out of his skin and crashing through his wounded and abused form which had very clear battle damage upon it, was not wrong. The Angel of the Black Sun forced her face to become calm and impassive, as it had been twisted in sheer loathing of the demon that was making her and young Cai do this and that was favouring one part of her spell – more than ever she needed a balance so that the huge quantities of mana she and her Summoner were wielding could interact in the ways that she wanted them to.

She traced a symmetrical arc with each arm over the circle aura of evocative and emotional purple that, unbeknownst to her Summoner, came from the thirteen year old himself instead of his angel (and Xarius had never been able to conjure this type of light, though because Orzhova had been able to he could manipulate her coruscations of purple lightning), the words of a language that Caiellis couldn't understand (not that he was looking) more prominently imprinting themselves onto the tainted air with either smoking gloaming or dazzling phosphorescence depending on what they said, as though the boy could not outright read them she was sure that her favourite human could remember the six essential tenets of White and Black mana combined which she had wielded before.

She sliced her shining hands through the circle once again, connecting the four brightest and darkest sigils that she had created so far in preparation for the addition of the final two, and a larger spinning character that was similar to the one of Judgement that she had used in the Merciless Eviction but distinctly different formed in the middle of the violet circle of emotion and pure mana.

"I require more Black mana," the angel spoke, her voice soft and whispering as if she didn't want to disrupt the ritual by speaking words that were not included in the spell. Cai nodded again with his eyes clamped resolutely shut, feeling the chaotic and demonic power that the tempestuously laughing epitome of vile turpitude was conjuring up, digging into the reserves of courage that he still had left so that he could face his memories again and go even deeper into them.

Orzhova knew that her Summoner was about to do as she asked, mostly because this had been his greatest weakness in mana ever since he had unlocked her, but his desire for the banishment of the demon so that he could protect others and atone for the mistakes that he perceived himself to have caused (as that was what the angel sensed within his mana) was almost equalled by his hatred of this being and the sadness inside of him that he would increase by going into his memories.

Cai took a deep breath, knowing that he should focus on what he wanted to achieve as well as the memories like last time so that the mana that he generated was given focus and direction, and as the energy already created surged around him from the nova explosion of the sun that had eaten the wave of hellfire he plunged into the greatest source of pain within him for what could well be the very last time.

_I want to achieve victory over the Lord of Riots so that the Lucaelian army can be freed from the city of Usnaan._

_-Caiellis turned from the sight of his older brother to his mum, gazing up at her face as the comforting and loving expression that adorned it quickly changed, morphing into one of motherly concern, and she held up her hand-_

_I want to give the Welkalite citizens freedom from the despotic Orders of Passion who have sold their souls to demons of forbidden pleasure and excess so that no more innocent lives are abused and exploited by demons and those who follow them._

Mana flooded out of the youngest Lucerna heir, tears of shining light spilling out of his closed eyes as he relived the memories, and Orzhova used that opportunity to start creating the last two glyphs that would orbit the centre one, pulling the medallion which had snapped the magical chain of coins attached to her waist when connected to her scythe out of the heel of her weapon, where the bindings that chained it to her armour sprung to life again, and she infused the already shining sigil with more of the mana of her enemies converted to her cause as she pressed it against the spinning symbol in the centre of the circle.

_\- "__Mum, what's wrong?" Alex asked, instinctively grabbing hold of his little brother as he sensed the change overcome his mother; even at the age of eight he was very protective of his younger sibling and pulled him closer when Cai tried to squirm away and go stand next to Emili-_

_I want to prove that I can actually do something, that all of the time and effort and love that other people have put into me wasn't a waste._

_\- "Haldren? Jack? Is there a problem?" __the queen asked, standing up off of the nursery floor and moving in front of her children, as the two bodyguards that had been dutifully stood in the doorway were pacing slowly towards them with a menacing stride__. Cai knew that something was wrong, he could feel it in the way that the men was scarily walking inside the room from where they had been stationed outside. Before the four year old had gone to bed tonight (and subsequently woken up because of his awful nightmare that had scared him from going to sleep even after daddy left, meaning that mummy and Alex had got up with him and tried to comfort him), the two guards had ruffled his and Alexander's hair and been nice and friendly, but now they were completely different-_

Orzhova added the two final symbols to the rotating circle around her young Summoner as power blossomed to life within his slender limbs, knowing that he must have been causing himself an immense apart of emotional pain to produce this much dark energy and hating the fact that her Summoner and friend (though it was a strange friendship between a millennia-old angel and a thirteen year old prince, Orzhova still considered their relationship as one of friendship) had to endure this much strain and anguish because of his duty as a prince and what had happened to him with the death of his mother and the outright betrayal of his uncle and the more subtle disloyalty of his father.

_I want to erase the stain of my mistakes from this world and for people not to be hurt any more because of me and my weakness._

_\- "__Yes, there is," the muscular giant of a man named Haldren who Cai had never thought was so scary before sneered down at Emili as he came closer, his companion who was not quite as tall but still a brawny and large man of at least six feet in height going round the other side of the __room as the mother of two made sure that she was covering her children at all angles, __sensing the threat exuding from the normally boisterous but kind young brothers who had been chosen and recommended for the Lucerna Guard by __none other than her husband himself. He then adding mockingly, "My queen. There has been a slight change of plans." -_

Caiellis could feel the power rushing through him as he was bathed in light and darkness from the detonating sun below him and the potency of the Angel of the Black Sun's magic that shone all around him, and as he went further and further into the memory that haunted his nightmares ever since it had happened the level of mana suffusing him increased exponential in tandem with the choir of sadness and judgement increasing in volume even more. Orzhova placed her hands at the head of the circle which stopped rotating in time for her to add the last two emblems of power, clasping them together as the light overwhelmed the darkness and they shone with incandescent brilliance, etching one symbol into the air at the top of the ring of power and then slicing her hands downwards.

_And I want to kill this demon so that no one else has to suffer because of it._

_\- "What sort of a change of plans?" Emili questioned, her bright green eyes narrowing in concern for her sons as she tracked the movements of the two guards, placing herself in front of her children as she tried to make sure that they were behind her. Haldren grinned sadistically at her as his older brother did the same, and the darkness in the room intensified. Cai tugged on his big brother's sleeve as the older boy held him even closer, his own blue eyes doing the same as his mother's but occasionally looking to the woman's for guidance. Alex had been stepping up his training a lot more recently, and even though he was only eight years old Caiellis could feel the power in his older brother's grip and the way that he reacted to the situation._

_He would like to say that, with his mummy stood in front of him and his big brother who could use some amazing magic like both of their parents and the other grown ups holding on to him, that he felt safe and protected, but as the faces of the two bodyguards began to contort and twist in on themselves, the skin rippling in a disgusting __manner like the two men's faces were puddles of water and little Cai had just stepped in it, he couldn't suppress a whimper of fear and couldn't stop himself pushing his face into Alexander's side-_

Caiellis wrenched himself out of the memory as he felt his mana levels raising to breaking point and detected a massive surge of power from the Archdemon on the other side of the hellscape the once pleasant but neglected private Redhand mansion. He knew that if he continued he would be overwhelmed completely by the amount of magic power coursing through his fragile form, and while he didn't care about being hurt it would destabilise the entire spell and stop it doing anything. Besides, the Lord of Riots was preparing its own strike of corrupt mana – finally showing what dark feats it was truly capable instead of utilising a perversion of elemental Red magic – and the boy needed to be ready to repel it with his own instead of wallowing in his horrible experiences and self-pity.

The light surrounding Orzhova's joined palms became dark and malevolent as she pulled them downwards through the circle and the power of her Summoner increased, the Black mana that he was supplying to the ritual meeting and almost surpassing his White before he opened his eyes, green irises welling full of shining tears, and saw the demon again, his righteous hatred of it strengthening his magical power of light.

"With the final addition of Light and Darkness," Orzhova's otherworldly and heavenly voice which was imbued with a divine sonority spoke, breaking into the funerary and sombre song but in perfect time with the singing and chanting of the haunting melody, her words far more like those of a hymn than those of a proclamation and in flawless synchronisation with the tune that was drowning out all other sound but was being met by an equally loud cacophony from where the Lord of Riots was stood. It was an angelic language that she spoke in, but once again her Summoner could understand the words perfectly as he unclasped his hands and spread them out in tandem with the Angel of the Black Sun's words, knowing despite never having cast this particular sorcery before exactly what to do and how to manipulate the mana that was rushing through him.

Orzhova continued, her words becoming more steely as she pushed the emotion back inside of them, but instead of turning blank and judgemental as it had done during the Merciless Eviction the timbre of her voice became filled with raw emotion that was desperately clawing out from the cage of emotionless detachment from around it, hatred intermingling with immortal sadness that the youngest Lucerna knew far eclipsed any emotion that he could ever feel, as well as a desire for vengeance upon this demon that echoed Cai's own, "The Circle is complete. Ambition. Prosperity. Hatred. Justice. And now Light and Darkness. All will combine. All will become one, and become expressed in the needs of the Summoner."

The central sigil at the heart of the ring began to spin as the entire circle of haunting power passed over Caiellis, placing itself in front of him so that he could see the completion of the preliminary ritual as the six sigils of the tenets of White and Black combined in Orzhova and her Summoner began to be drawn into the centre, forming into the central hieroglyph of power that pulsated with the energy of dying stars, holy darkness and midnight light. It was an elegant and consecrated symbol of curve lines and magisterial excellence, but within its meandering and coiled structure there were jagged and harsh lines that shone with dark power infuse with the light of death. It was similar to the first combined sigil that Cai had ever laid his young eyes upon, Judgement, but different in form and purpose, like they were two siblings to the same parents made up of the same parts but uniquely different in personality and function.

"Retribution," Caiellis proclaimed, his voice strong and imbued with a resonance borne of the powerful mana filling his young body and the young tone of his words pervaded with the loss of innocence and the vengeance that would be wreaked upon those who sought to inflict pain and suffering upon others, and it was at the same time as Orzhova's whisper of the same, her angelic voice suffused with an expressive tonality that was filled to the brim with solemn sorrow and the burden that had been placed upon her young Summoner, as well as a fateful strength that came with a promise to subject those who had caused this to happen to the Retribution that would come.

Had Caiellis had enough time to ruminate upon the past, he would have remembered that the last time they had cast an apocalypse level spell the roles of him and his angel had reversed, that it had been him whispering in muted awe of the destructive power that he commanded, whereas now the dark seraph's fateful pronouncement was one of misery instead of a desire to dispense justice and aid her Summoner in doing so, and instead of a childish and young murmur of wonder and veneration mixed with dread his own powerful voice was suffused with an adamant tenacity to make those who had wronged him and thousands of others pay for their crimes, to make them feel the pain that they had caused and to be punished because of it – in that respect it was very similar to its sister Judgement, but Retribution was channelled from the magic of the enemy that was flowing through Caiellis in a desire to avenge the wrongs of the Archdemon and evoke justice by doing so, whereas Judgement had been more about wiping out all of the guilty instead of vengeance directed against one specific being.

The melody of light and darkness, good and evil, in the background sang out of the large central sigil that had absorbed the smaller ones which were simply ideals to be combined into one goal, like the many cogs of a great machine that worked together in perfect unity to produce the desired outcome of their creator but much more potent and meaningful than any simply machinery. Orzhova added her own angelic voice to the chorus, directing the words but ultimately becoming a part of the choir instead of leading it, and her lyrical and enigmatic words stirred Caiellis's broken heart to a deep sadness that punctuated his every action.

Light spilled out from his hands, brilliant and powerful as it spoke of glory and peace as well as the sacrifices that would have to be undertaken so that a world of compassion and love could be created, and globules of midnight darkness formed up around the sigil of Retribution that sang in its desire to inflict vengeance upon the Lord of Riots for what it had done to the two worlds and that the debaucheries and slaughters that it had committed, creating vile sins and giving them to mankind under the guise of forbidden pleasures, had to be punished. The illuminescence danced atop the black shadows, overturning the gloom and exposing it to the melodious words of the choir without a mouth, and the boy could feel the Black Sun birthmark which had been imprinted onto his cheek ever since Orzhova first entered him in his tumultuous Angelic Descent which had caused many others to want him dead so that the darkness of a Lucerna could never be seen again, ironic considering that there was a corrupted heart in their midst that played them for fools and was far more evil than Caiellis would ever be in his life.

Cai reached his small and thin hands towards the glyph imprinted into the air that was shining with darklight, ignoring the pain that blossomed within his fingers and knowing that it was testing him to see whether or not he would be worthy of its divine power. Orzhova had led the ritual of the Merciless Eviction, merely leaving him to dispense the justice of Judgement at the end once she had almost effortlessly tamed the sigil which already knew that she was ready for such dominance over the combined forces of light and dark. Retribution did not yet trust Caiellis, did not think he was deserving of such monumental strength because of his age and as such causing immense pain in his hands as he reached towards it to see if his desire to wield its power was greater than his desire to preserve himself.

He easily pushed past the pain that was designed to test whether or not whatever he had suffered up to this point was worthy enough to unlock this power, the emotional agony that he was in allowing him to overcome the pain that felt like his entire soul was being put to the test to see if it could withstand this agony. Retribution quickly acquiesced to his power and his desire to see it in action, flowing around his outstretched fingertips as it began to shine with even greater power, circling around him as it sang in its words of mysterious origin but unequivocal meaning. The ideogram span around him up to where it reached his face, where, as he had expected, it imprinted itself onto his stinging cheek, the Black Sun birthmark there increasing in diameter and therefore size as it accommodate this new sigil, the second that had been imprinted upon it in Cai's history.

Mana swirled around his birthmark, the conformation of his royalty that he did not deserve but would use to do something right and protect the people and his loved ones by eliminating this Archdemon and banishing it back to the hells of Sancturia shining with darkness as Caiellis placed his hands over the enlarged Black Sun that began to form the physical representation of itself above it. It was stamped with the Hieroglyph that depicted Retribution, and as it expanded and was pulled into life from the orb now growing in size above his cheek Caiellis pulled it in front of himself, the rumbling of the dark star to the same tempo of the singing and haunting opera that was drowning out most other noise as it reached a crescendo of power and volume. He infused it with more mana every second as he placed it in front of him, walking forwards on steps of light and crystal as he increased the distance between him and his angel, not needing the Lens of Guilt this time to identify his foes.

"**Ha ha ha! HAHAHAHA! THIS IS ENJOYABLE! THROW EVERYTHING THAT YOU HAVE AT ME, YOUNG LUCERNA! USE ALL OF YOUR POWER IN DESTROYING ME, OR I WILL BREAK YOU AND ANNIHILATE THE ARMY OF PITIFUL LUCAELIANS THAT YOU AND YOUR ACCURSED FAMILY BROUGHT WITH YOU!**" The Lord of Riots's voice was a tempestuous scream, an atavistic howl of pleasure and the culmination of the realisation of all wanton desire and lust for violence and bloodshed made manifest in the roar of the Archdemon that made Cai hate him even more, hate it even more than he had thought was possible, his hatred of this being rising to the point where it met the levels of detestation and loathing that he reserved for one another, but unlike the hatred that he showed for Johnias which was weakened slightly by not ever seeing the traitorous scum of a Lucerna after he betrayed this execration was not held back or limited by having no memories of the one that it was directed at being a corrupt avatar of evil and degeneracy.

The whole courtyard began to be illuminated with the deathly rays of the star of darkness stamped with the sigil of Retribution that floated in front of Cai and began to swell in size, this true Black Sun much more impressive than the imperfect one underneath which had taken in the unholy mana from the Defiler and given the ritual a taste of its vile foe that the vengeance would be wreaked upon. The Lucerna who looked incredibly small and fragile next to such power that was being generated by the two sides of the battle but did not feel it continued on his slow and measured walk forwards through the air, each of his footsteps like splashes of light and golden incandescence against a glittering vista of sparkling darkness as the Black Sun in front of him and compressed by his hands that were not actually touching the star of unlight moved in synchronisation with the one who had created it.

Orzhova flew into the air above him, still singing her haunting melody of words that the boy could no longer understand they were so sublime, incomprehensible to mortal ears and unknowable by all those who had not walked paths through the brightest and highest heavens and the darkest and lowest hells. The Angel of the Black Sun that spun beneath her and began to drag in all of the mana saturating the air around it in preparation for its arrival twirled her scythe, the golden edge of the blade suffused with a midnight gloom that was the product of the shadows of the veil of the sky that concealed the holy light of the angels from the Kingdom of Light as she span it in the air. Each beat of her black wings that were now surrounded in golden light caused spiralling coils of incandescence to be launched out of them and play around her Summoner's young and innocent form, infusing him with more power that he could then pour into the Black Sun.

She let go of her scythe once more, the weapon renaming orbiting around in the air and releasing glorious dark power all around it, and charged her hands with the combined power of White and Black, vitrifying crystals of mixed light and darkness all around her and creating powerful stained glass sculptures of crystal to either side of her angelic form. She released them with a swipe of her left hand, the beautiful, delicate and exquisite crystals humming with the song of mournful Retribution as they travelled and orbited all around Caiellis, all six of them taking up the same positions that they had during the creation of the Circle and the formation of Retribution that now gave this star of darkness that her Summoner had created even more vengeful power.

Rakdos laughed once more, raw mana surging out of him as he began his own occult and demonic ritual that would match Caiellis's own and allow him to combat the magical power of the small Lucerna and his guardian dark angel, the Rain of Gore increasing its intensity and power as massive droplets of blood began to pour down from the Tempest of Craving. All who were on the battlefield below and had enough time to stare up at the roiling heavens would definitely see two hellish gates shaped like a gaping maw of darkness and lava opening even wider, but even those that didn't would hear the rumble of thunder shaking the earth and feel the strikes of vivid crimson lightning heightening in frequency and dark power.

The six crystals of purple glass formed up around the Black Sun of Retribution, spinning around it like ships pulled into a whirlpool within the ever-changing Yentarian oceans (as Lucael had no particularly large bodies of water within it apart from lakes and treacherous rivers) but instead of being sucked into its shining dark mass – which is what would have happened if even the slightest imbalance of emotions, actions and mana within the spell was formed – they remained hovering around it, affected by its tenebrous gravity but not consumed by it. The Black Sun began to shine with an even greater intensity of light, illumine beams of darkness coiled with incandescent gold bursting out of it from all angles, and as the second – and final – verse of the melody began the rough yet flawless crystalline spheres that Orzhova had created began to shine as well, but the light from the sun of Retribution began to be focussed into them.

As Cai had expected, as he felt a sense of awe in the power he commanded rush through his young veins that he suppressed so that he could focus utterly on the battle at hand, the crystals began to reflect and refract the light, connecting each of them with beams of darklight that created a matrix of shining darkness around the originator of the shining darkness, malevolent tenebrosity mixing with holy radiance as the light emitted by the Black Sun was reflected back into the sun itself, causing it to expand even more as it swelled with the power entering it and rumbled to the beat of the haunting song of Black and White mana.

Orzhova created one final crystal, holding it in her hands as the mana that she wielded formed into it and drew the lattice structure of the stained glass into existence, then when it was finished she beat her magnificent wings and launched herself into the air above her Summoner who was far too small to hold the terrifying manifestation of his birthmark any more her own amethyst creation emitting rays of darkness and light that crossed over each other and infused Caiellis with yet more mana, the sonorous hymn rising in volume as the innocent singing of the children within it turned to sobbing and crying that the boy was intimately familiar with.

"Caiellis. I think it is time that we truly began the Twilight Reprisal, and wipe out the taint of the Lord of Riots from this city," Orzhova cut in smoothly, her voice more powerful and forceful than before as her words reached her Summoner's ears over the rest of the mournful song that was rising to a deafening level and drowning out all else, though at the back of his mind the youth could hear the noises of depravity and chaos coming from the Defiler's side of the plaza.

Rakdos grinned widely once more, ripping his scythe and his left fist through the fabric of reality as the mana levels of his opponents kept rising. Blood, crimson and wet, exploded from the wounds in the fabric of the world, spilling out onto the hellscape of the Redhand mansion plaza in gallons of bubbling scarlet vitae that was combined with the Rain of Gore from the roiling storm above and flooding over the courtyard, surging against the sides of the massive obsidian spires that newly wrenched themselves out of the earth, far larger than the ones before it had been.

Seven of the volcanic spikes thrust out of the sides of the hill and reached over as the floor was drowned in an endless sea of blood and souls that screamed as they were continuously plunged into the ocean of gore that they were swept around in, the naked and vulnerable bodies of the human spirits trying desperately to claw their way out of the sticky blood that thrust them under and had them gasping out choked screams of pain and begging for mercy at the uncaring Lord of Riots, who simply grinned even wider as he exposed his glinting teeth.

Caiellis tried not to look down into the mass of poor souls which had been claimed by the Defiler in this battle and in many others, knowing that if his concentration was distracted then he would fall into it and be consumed by the whirlpool tides of vitae that gyrated around the bottom of the courtyard that seemed much larger than it had been when the boy had first entered it and fought Tradax, the reality warping powers of the Archdemon twisting the laws of physics and extending the size of the plaza on top of the hill to the point where it became more like a hellish slaughterhouse arena, or an open topped throne room for the king of forbidden pleasure.

The images in his mind that had been pressed back by his surging mana of righteousness and Retribution seethed to the fore, pressing themselves in behind his eyelids as if they were trying to take physical form and burst out of his eye sockets, and Cai pushed them back down as he was shown one that he had seen before, one that was being enacted underneath him – he was drowning in a wave of blood and body parts and screaming souls that washed over his mind and burnt his skin with their searing heat. He couldn't get out, and every time that his head broke the surface, gasping for breath and coughing up lungfuls of the hot blood, he was plunged under again.

Cai ignored the feeling of being out of breath that he had become so intimately familiar with recently and the tightening of his throat as it tried to stimulate his gag reflex for the blood that wasn't pouring through it – as he had his mouth resolutely clamped shut to combat the increased intensity of the Rain of Gore – and instead focussed on another rush of pure hatred and pity that shuddered through his body, bringing out more of his White mana as he ruthlessly traded parts of his life essence for more Black that could match it and maintain the balance that was so key within a spell of this power.

All of the other souls that Tradax, Carramoshk or Rakdos had used in their spells so far had been the spirits of the devotees of the pursuit of rapturous bliss at the expense of others, crazed Welkalites and those from long lost sybaritic civilisations that had howled their lust for ever increasing pleasure and their hatred of restraints and morality at the youngest Lucerna as they were launched at him in power torrents of soulfire and darkness.

However, this time the poor souls that were swept round by the tide of blood underneath them that would have carried Cai away were the innocents, those who had been killed and abused by the debauched servants of the Lord of Riots, those who had been exploited by the Orders of Passion, who had died fighting against them and trying to free the Welkalite people, or those who had been sacrificed upon the altar of hedonism to fuel the degenerate passions of their oppressors. The boy knew that within the endless tide of souls that were endlessly drowned and swept round by the blood of all those who had been slain in war and slaughtered to feed the thirst for blood of others, there would be those nameless soldiers who had sacrificed their lives to protect him in the siege of Fort Egetau after he had been knocked unconscious by the explosion trying to save them, and it was about time that he atoned for that and laid them to rest.

Nevertheless, there were not just innocent spirits within there, as those of the damned, the Welkalites who had fought in the name of passion and freedom from any constraints on their frenzied debaucheries, those who had served the Orders of Passion willingly and devoted their lives to reaching the ultimate heights of orgiastic and corrupt bliss and those who had sold their souls to foul demons for more power screamed for pity as they were swept along by the infernal whirlpool of gore and the blood of humans. It seemed that the Defiler made no distinctions – each person, whether they were innocent children or vile murderers, who had died as a result of this war or many others connected with this Archdemon, was subjected to the same torments and were drowned by the ocean of blood.

He spread his fingers wide as he pointed his palms towards the slowly spinning Black Sun that was absorbing the refracted and reflected light of itself all around it in twirling displays of black light, and out of his left hand he shot a pure ray of undiluted White mana into the rumbling sphere of unlight, connecting the magic of light to the sigil of Retribution stamped on the centre of the dark star as out of his free right (the Sword of Glass levitating by his side, ready for him to pick it up and wield it should he choose) he blasted a bolt of unadulterated and absolute Black mana into the symbol which had been created.

He slowly moved his palms so that they were next to each other but remained separate even though the light and the darkness was perversely attracted to each other at this small distance, and as more of the light from Orzhova's crystal which was now shattered into many fragments which surrounded the medallion of the ominous emblem associated with her that pulsed with alternating blasts of darklight and incandescence reached him he slowly combined his White and his Black into one single beam of golden darkness and dark radiance that was channelled into the now massive sun of Retribution.

Rakdos ripped more holes in the fabric of the world, tearing the barriers between the physical plane and Sancturia asunder as they bled a hellish red light onto the courtyard that illuminated everything not next to Caiellis in its bloodthirsty glow that enhanced the rage of every single being within it and made every desire within their heads one of bloodthirst and murder. Caiellis's haunting light of judgement and reprisal battled for supremacy in the more middling regions with this new blazing glow of violent intent which would turn even the most calm and kind pacifist into a brutal and sadistic murderer with a wanton lust for blood and savagery.

The boy could hear maddened screaming of thousands of souls conflicting against his own emotive and vengeful melody as he felt his desire for the banishment of this foul demon and the destruction of everything that it had ever tried to do rising even more. The Twilight Reprisal, as Orzhova had called it, was close to completion, and as the mana within him and the Black Sun of Retribution rose, sending rays of deathly illumination spreading across the plaza and overwhelming the Defiler's malicious red light and becoming simultaneously brighter and darker every second. It was blinding, and the only reason that Cai could see without having access to his Lenses was the fact that he was casting the spell, concentrating his desire for the destruction of this being that had wronged so many into the massive black orb in front of him that pulsated with golden and dark light and dragged luminosity from around it into its large but not bloated bulk.

Rakdos torn more rents in the flesh of the physical world, gobbets of steaming viscera streaking down from the heavens and turned into purified dust by the proximity of Caiellis's magic whenever they threatened to land on the slender teenager. The soul bodies in the water of their own vital fluids shrieked in a discordant chorus of destruction, depravity and death, turning on each other above and below water as they tore one another apart and cavorted in a maddening dance to the dark and chaotic melody of unrestrained and brutal pleasure.

There was more horrisonant howling, a blaring noise of the mixture of hedonistic screams from all kinds of human and inhuman creatures and obtrusively and violently loud music from instruments made out of bone, sinew and the essence of ecstatic and frenzied pain, a discordant cacophony of vile carnivals of debauchery and sin that all were invited to but amplified to such horrifying levels that would have murdered Caiellis instantly and sucked him inside of his own insane mind forever as the sanity was ripped form him had he not been in the midst of his own powerful ritual. It was like the scream of excess and decadence and bloodshed and passionate murder that had heralded the birth of the Lord of Riots in this world, but instead of a howling cry that beckoned the Defiler into the material realm this was the sensual apotheosis of rapture and psychotic delight.

It crashed against Cai's own song, threatening to overwhelm it before the boy pushed it back as he channelled even more mana, the alternate energies rushing though him enough to erase his entire soul in a single heartbeat should a balance not be maintained, and the two tunes – one melodious and sombre, the other wild and fervent – battled for auditory dominance in the courtyard. One thing that could be heard above all else, above all of the sounds that would deafen one without huge amounts of mana rushing through them, was the bellowing and diabolically fanatical laughter of the Archdemon that cut through Orzhova's song and the frenzied screaming of his victims.

Seven rents in the fabric of reality were opened, a number that had significance not lost upon Cai who shut his eyes against the darkness of the demon and refused to let anything distract him at this pivotal moment which could – _would –_ decide the entire outcome of this massive and brutal war. Rakdos laughed, howling its atavistic craving of the death of order and the fevered worship of all those who partook in this Festival of Worship, and those writhing souls drowned in unholy yet fully human blood in the surging tides of viscera underneath him who weren't afflicted with a desire to murder and claw and bite at one another engaged in acts of passionate and unconsensual coupling, an orgy of souls and the unprotected bodies of the dead as limbs entwined and bodies wrapped around one another, some killing and tearing at one another whilst others shrieked in lust and orgiastic bliss as they were forever drowned in blood.

The crystal spheres that reflected the light of the dark star of Retribution rose to a shining intensity of darkness, a blinding fierceness of glorious and imperial incandescence that nearly eclipsed the light of the sun and sent flashing beams behind Caiellis's eyelids as he reopened them, his green eyes suffused with light a power despite not being able to truly use the Lenses of Guilt and innocence. Had Cai been able to look at his reflection, he would have noticed how similar he looked now to when his big brother Summoned Aurelia or used any of her more powerful spells (and just because the youngest Lucerna hadn't yet seen Alexander utilise any of the magnitude that he was now didn't mean at all that he couldn't, and Cai knew that his sibling preferred to dispatch his foes quickly with a mixture of magical and physical attacks instead of relying upon the overwhelming but relatively ponderous force of spells like these to do so), but instead of an ardent fire suffusing his irises with its passionate zeal there was a shining and blinding glow of purple emitted from within his emerald orbs that wouldn't be looking cute now.

Caiellis mentally commanded the Sword of Glass to bring itself around and in front of him, and, only breaking off from infusing the physical manifestation of his birthmark which had only been held by one other Lucerna for a moment, gripped the handle of his crystalline relic weapon tightly as the mana that he commanded rushed through the upwards pointing blade. Orzhova was ready for the beam of purple light that rushed through the sword which matched her young Summoner perfectly and had been the best thing that King Marik had done for his youngest, holding her slender hands either side of the golden sigil of her Black Sun which was surrounded by the fragments of glass from the final amethyst she had constructed as the bolt of luminescence rose up to meet it.

Orzhova whispered the words of the Twilight Reprisal that she had barely used within her exile and before, her voice still loud and cutting through the words of the choir as it reached a zenith of haunting and mournful noise but remained distinctly different from a funeral dirge as she manipulated the light of her second Summoner round, refracting the light and the powerful mana it contained back down towards the crystals around the Black Sun in bolts of pure White and Black.

The spheres of glass, each representing one of the points of the Circle that Cai still hadn't found out the official name of (_circle of what? Not that it really matters right now_), detonated in fragmented sprays of iridescence that exploded all around from them, though each of the infinitesimal shards were imbued with the shimmering power of the Twilight Reprisal as yet more refracted light from above impacted into them and illumination from the unlight orb in their centre infused them with power.

Instead of falling away from the sun and landing in the sea of blood and writhing souls underneath them that made acidic bile rise within Caiellis's throat and sent the repugnant scent of stinking lifeblood and debased pleasure clogging up his nostrils, a disgusting aroma that would have had him retching if he hadn't been in the middle of channelling his own potent mana, contenting itself on making his stomach churn revoltingly, the shards of crystal were attracted once again by the malevolent gravity of the Black Sun near them, spinning around the sphere of Retribution as the sigil upon it expanded in size and glowed with a scintillating phosphorescence that promised to deliver vindication upon the target of this spell.

The Lord of Riots raised his free hand, the demonic fist coated and surrounded by blood and black fire that spat embers of corruption, pointing it at his Tempest of Craving above as a crackling storm of insane lighting rose up from within the unnatural clouds, a single but massive bolt of demonic electricity fulminating down from the ruptured heavens, far larger than anything that had ever been spat out of the Tempest of Craving so far. The gigantic coruscation wrapped around Rakdos's fist, the huge hand of the demon that was wrapped in leather made from human skin that was forever stained red sparking with the lightning rushing through it, and he then smashed it into the centre of the roiling sea of blood underneath him which had been vomited up from the sundering rent in the walls of reality below it.

He laughed again, and roared as the lighting was conducted throughout the sticky tides of viscera and stinking gore, flowing through the bodies still engaged in sadistic acts of violent bloodthirst or passionate coupling as they entwined within one another and setting them alight and screaming as it crackled throughout their forms. The demon ripped open another tear in the world, this one with his flaming scythe that was lit by the pyres of endless hedonistic revels of pleasure and pain, but it did not last long as he used it to etch a malicious rune on the air that Cai did not look at despite his eyes being dragged towards it by the unnatural compulsion within his head; it would distract him and probably sear itself into his vision forever. He could barely see jagged lines, pulsing with unholy darkness and fire, a baleful sigil that represented rage and war in all of its vile forms written onto the tainted air of the hellish courtyard.

As the iridescent shards of dark yet not evil incandescence orbited around the Black Sun and came closer to plunging within it every second as they constructed a lattice of crystalline darklight around it, the lightning that was coruscating through the ocean of blood (that Cai was for a second concerned would be drowning his father and the Angel of Wrath, but his cage did not let anything in or out and the king would be in an invulnerable cocoon of safety and protected until either he died or chose to release his dad, whereas as Akroma was a Sancturia creature she would simply retreat to his Mind Realm) started to become darker, black energy coursing through the blood-slick ground that was drenched in the blood from the lake of vitae above it.

Rakdos clacked his teeth together, his face contorting into a leering sneer directed from the boy across from him, and Caiellis glared back at the Archdemon, the focus of his desire for retribution and the being that had caused this entire war, exacerbated the friction between him and his father, taken him and his precious older brother from safety and almost killed the seventeen year old, and been the reason for thousands of death from each side. The Black Sun in front of him began to move higher up above him, shining down on the blood beneath them that crackled with the black lightning of corruption and turpitude, as the star of darkness absorbed the last remnants of the shattered crystal orbs that had been orbiting around it.

The Lord of Riots roared in exultation, sensing that Caiellis was about to begin his attack as the Black Sun rose even higher than them both, above the boy before he closed his eyes and floated further above it, coming to the side of his angel who kept her gaze firmly fixed upon the actions of the Defiler railed against them. Rakdos raised up its free right hand, squeezing the massive fingers into the centre of his palm as a bloody morass of darkness and fire that exuded lust and craving for all things that should not be, the tear in reality and into the demon lord's realm of flame and brutal hedonism flaring out within his massive palm as he closed his fingers over it. There was a bursting expulsion of blood, and the strange vibrating thing in the demon's hand of sinew and flesh throbbed to the sound of a malignant heartbeat – until Cai realised that the thing in its hand was a heart, albeit and impure heart corrupted by millennia of decadence and evil, red and fleshy and soaked in the same malicious gore as everything else.

The courtyard and the sky above it was shaking around the two, Caiellis's Black Sun of Retribution rising higher into the air as the boy stepped up on pillars of incandescence that rippled in the air like he was stepping into a pool of invisible and sublime light, staying close to the star of darkness as it rose higher and higher and the choir reached its ultimate climax.

The haunting singing began to reach a fever pitch, causing the whole world to tremble in a mixture of fear and awe as the lyrical and deep voices got louder and louder, Caiellis becoming filled with a rush of energy and emotion that coursed through his young form as he stood diagonally above the sun of unlight he had created that flashed and scintillated with many different combinations of White and Black mana, incandescent rays of darkness dissolving everything not of the side of the Kingdom of Light that they touched and burning deep and scouring scars into the ocean of blood beneath them, although as of yet the black radiance coiled with shadowy yet imperious gold could not penetrate the foul corruption blighting the air around the Lord of Riots, taint more powerful than Cai had ever encountered before shielding the Defiler from his spell as the demon squeezed the heart of corruption and sin in its left hand harder, raising it up above its head as seven streams of black blood began to cascade into the whirlpool of roiling souls and viscera below.

Caiellis could hear the otherworldly and atavistic screaming of ancient beings that craved blood and violence from the brutal portals into the nether realm, into the domain of the Lord of Riots, and even though he tried not to look within the rents in the fabric of reality itself he could see through to the other side, a vast and cavernous dungeon palace of depravity and such vile scenes that were the physical version of what the boy had already been mentally assaulted by, enough debauchery and sadism to make even the most insane and psychotic Welkalite reveller want to vomit up their internal organs (though they would probably enjoy the sensation), and the boy tore his gaze away before he was forever locked within them, looking again at the Lord of Riots and focussing all of his hatred and his desire for the Retribution that the aptly named sigil on his dark star would bring upon the Archdemon that he would destroy with the Twilight Reprisal of him and Orzhova.

As the walls between Sancturia and reality swelled even more, filling with the tainted power of the demon that warped everything around it, the cacophonous and discordant rapturous and pained screaming heightened in volume to match the boy's song also getting louder and more powerful, the two melodies of a dark heaven and tempestuous hell battling out in tandem with the enemy colours of White and Red both combining with Black and smashing into each other in random explosions of colliding energy that none of the combatants paid any heed to. Caiellis felt more powerful than he ever had done before, wielding strength that he wouldn't have thought was possible for a person of his age or fragility, but then again he was a Lucerna prince and the line of rulers unbroken since the times of Matalis Ortus was famed for being able to use apocalyptic magic, and many of his ancestors – including the most recent, his own father, and then his grandfather – had used spells which were even more powerful than this one.

The seven rents of the skin of the material plane in front of the seven massive spires of brimstone that twisted like talons into the courtyard shone with an even more passionate and malicious blazing light than before, howling shrieks intermingling with sadistic squeals and the eternal hunger for pleasure that would never be satiated no matter what dark deeds were done in its name. Caiellis felt the sudden urge to cover his ears as his emotive melody of judgement and vengeance rose in volume even more, becoming deafeningly loud even to its caster as the Black Sun rumbled and swelled in front of him, and Orzhova's slender hand entwined with his even smaller and thinner one as she took it and placed it upon the star of malevolent yet awe-inspiring unlight, the boy's tiny palm touching the symbol of Retribution as light and darkness exploded from all sides of the sun.

Orzhova let go, her guiding influence gone as Cai knew to place his other palm (sheathing his relic weapon as he did so) in the centre of the symbol that was larger than both of them, silently telling the youngster that the spell would truly be his to command now as energy rushed through him from the contact, draining him dry of mana that was used to fuel the expansion and emission of the Black Sun. There was no going back now. There were no countermeasures, no alternate plans, no strategies to fall back on should this one fail. It was all or nothing, something that Caiellis wasn't particularly fond of, but as he stared into the flaming eyes of the demon with his own green orbs that were alight with power, he knew that it had to be.

Pain ran through him, but it was not a distracting pain, merely a reminder of how much mana he was using and how much life he was giving away to do so, a reminder of the fact that he was only thirteen years of age and as such was not old enough to be using spells like these yet, though Cai ignored the pain, knowing that whether he succeeded or failed that it would be gone soon. With his hands touching the surface of the sun that did not emit any heat at all, instead radiating emotion, light and darkness, and the sigil of Retribution thrumming beneath his slender fingers and spread palms, the song of vengeance and justice reached a haunting scream of those that were wronged by this demon, overwhelming the shrieks of depravity and madness from all around the boy and his aloft angel.

Rakdos squeezed his hand tighter, the thick fingers of his huge hand crushing the still throbbing heart of malignancy and hedonism within it to a pulp as the large talons upon each digit sliced into the demon's own crimson skin, drawing his own black blood as it mingled with the cascades of corruption already falling into the sea of black lightning and souls. Each of the pillars of obsidian that had tears in reality opened up in front of them began to rumble, and chains of black iron and bronze that had veins of humans that pulsed with a pink and lascivious light and alternated with that obtrusive glow with a dark red blood running through the fleshy veins of the brass and iron that all shot across the whirlpool or gore and screaming tormented souls to the centre.

The youngest Lucerna focussed all of his energy into the sun, and it acquiesced to his wishes, moving forward and consuming power all around it as it ponderously but still quickly because of its sheer size floated in the direction of Rakdos. It would impact into the demon, tearing apart his essence and scattering his corpse back to the unholy hells from whence it had been Summoned and consuming the mana that constituted his physical form within the Material World.

As the shuddering and thrumming reached a point where Caiellis's eardrums would have exploded irrespective of how much protection he had, the melody of death, light and darkness suddenly fell silent, the voices of the innocent dead lost within it, before a single sound sprang up. It was like the childish crying and singing of the other innocent children within the song, but even more sad, and with a jolt of recognition Caiellis found that it was his own voice, the voice of his four year old self, that was making the noises, the haunting song that he could barely remember singing at the same time as crying, the lullaby tune interlaced with a loss of innocence and love that no four year old should have to go through and coloured with a deep sadness that reminded the youth of the loss he had suffered through.

As sorrow rose up inside of him, it stimulated a surge of determination, his adamant will to make sure that no one else had to go through the same as him and to protect the people who had helped him and others through dark times, which in turn brought on a burst of powerful hatred directed at those who would force people to go through that, the dark beings that tore apart families and tempted others with bribes of power to subvert them under their control, the most disgusting and foul beings to ever exist, the demons, one of whom he would stop now. Despite having the same colour of magic that made demonic beings inside of him, Cai hated them more than anything else, and he hated himself for sharing a quality with them even though his Black mana was so different to theirs that it may as well be a completely different form of magic.

The Black Sun of Retribution rumbled in time to its wielder's crying of the past, Caiellis's young and otherworldly voice matching that of his four year old self as he sang the song of justice and punishments for crimes against the human race, Orzhova not adding her own angelic words to the tune and allowing her young Summoner to sing it on his own, each of the syllables that he formed empowering the Twilight Reprisal as the star of darkness drew in mana and energy from everything around it, a fate that the demon would meet when it reached him, and the many symbols of Retribution upon it shone with a blinding incandescence as it crashed through the air, down towards the Lord of Riots.

Caiellis followed it on its path, letting go of the massive orb of darklight and drawing the Sword of Glass that instantly lit up with light and darkness, as the Black Sun began to drag everything into it with its malevolent gravity, pulsing with alternating waves of purple, incandescent filigree gold, and blinding darkness that erased all traces of the crimson light of violence and hedonism which had covered the courtyard only moments earlier.

Rakdos's own vile blood that surged in rivers of taint down his hand and into the centre of the tides of crimson pulled the pulsating chains out of each of the scars in the skin of the world of man into the middle, where an occult circle of hell was beginning to be formed as the boy's magic headed towards the Lord of Riots. Huge bursts of raw mana were coming from both combatants, but whilst Caiellis's was tempered to a specific purpose and empowered by his emotions the dark energy of the Defiler was formless yet defined and utterly chaos, discordantly ordered with a complete lack of order as the true power of the Archdemon began to be shown. The demon laughed at the show of power from the Lucerna opposing him, the seven pointed star of corruption and chaos within the vortex of swirling blood and lightning chained by fleshy metal to the other world beginning to spin violently as a tide of noise poured out of it, rising to meet the Black Sun bearing down upon its master as destructive power flooded from it.

The oceans of blood became a surging ring of gore around it, occult imagery and the power of a dark god of blood and pleasure screaming out its defiance of order and its insatiable hunger for depravity and rapture and bloodshed as it rose up, the massive ritual circle of spikes and flames and death spinning in a psychotic frenzy, an empyreal abyss of gore and hedonism ripping itself into reality around the seven pointed spinning circle.

Rakdos raised his scythe, roaring at the sky and his Tempest of Craving, and the unholy storm responded, flinging out more bolts of crimson lighting across the battlefield as if it was clearing its throat of detritus before disgorging a gigantic meteorite of hell-fire and black soul flames that fell at a massive pace towards the courtyard, matching or even eclipsing the Black Sun of Retribution in size and power. Caiellis would not give in, and he poured all of the power that he had into the Sword of Glass, pointing it at the star of unlight that was swelling with the unholy mana of the demon that it absorbed and turned towards its cause of Retribution as a beam of iridescent purple fired into it. Orzhova pointed her own scythe at the gigantic orb of midnight as the meteorite of tainted flesh and brimstone that left trails of blood and ash in the air fell down from the sky in the opposite direction to the Black Sun, a beam of light that was coiled with swirling shadows launched out of the heel of her long weapon as she added her own power to her Summoner's spell.

_I cannot give up now! _

_I will __achieve victory over the Lord of Riots so that the Lucaelian army can be freed from the city of Usnaan!_

_I will __give the Welkalite citizens freedom from the despotic Orders of Passion who have sold their souls to demons of forbidden pleasure and excess so that no more innocent lives are abused and exploited by demons and those who follow them!_

_I will__ prove that I can actually do something, that all of the time and effort and love that other people have put into me wasn't a waste!_

_I will__ erase the stain of my mistakes from this world and __I will make sure__ people __can no longer__ be hurt any more because of me and my weakness!_

_And, __most of all,__ I __will__ to kill this demon so that no one else has to suffer because of it!_

Caiellis mind was filled with these thoughts that were borne of his mana, the emotions giving life to the magic as the energy in turn strengthened and empowered his feelings in a cycle of enhancement that had the boy saturated with power and the most pure forms of emotion that he had ever felt before, though that did not include the time when he his mum had died in front of his eyes and he had exploded in annihilating black fire. Those emotions had been just as unadulterated and absolute as these, and as Cai repeated the mantra over and over in his head the relatively thin beam of purple iridescence coming out of his sword was wrapped in coils of purple light that snaked round its sides and increased its power even more. He flew in the air next to his angel as Orzhova combined her own heavenly and divine bolt of light and darkness with that of her Summoner's ray of mortal emotions empowered to the highest level.

The Black Sun started to rip through the counterattack of the demon, and Cai did not let up with his power, pouring every drop of mana that he had left into the assault, into the star of Retribution, into the Twilight Reprisal that would banish Rakdos back into the hell that it belonged in and free the city of Usnaan from the darkness at the heart of the Welkalite rulers. Hatred, a desire to protect, a desire to avenge, a desire to finally prove himself, and a desire to destroy the Archdemon that had caused this brutal war, all took physical form, combining together in a glorious and awe inspiring mix of White and Black mana that shone with a blinding darkness in the combined magic of the youngest Lucerna and the exile of the First Sisterhood and infusing his spell with more power than Cai had ever felt before.

And yet, it was not enough.

It was nowhere near enough.

Rakdos howled and boomed with laughter, slamming his demonic hands together as brutal and primal sigils of bloodshed and hedonism that flashed with a murderous crimson light of their own weaved themselves into the air like bloody lacerations upon the tainted air of the City of Pleasure itself, the demon's roar echoed by that of the Tempest of Craving above and the gigantic meteor of ash, hellfire and blood that was drawn towards the seven pointed circle which caused the world around it to warp into a vortex of empyreal flesh and matter, chaotic Red and Black mana present in such an intensity as to bend the physical plane inside out and easily break the fragile walls between the realm of humans and the realm of magic.

Wisps of blighted blood and contaminated viscera that were joined by the very real human version of such things, the vital fluids of innocents and the guilty alike, burst out of the air around the demon's hands, everything roiling around in the power of the Archdemon as the bloody ocean of gore rose up with the flesh of the carnal realms of the abyss tha the Defiler made its home within like a massive object had been dropped within a sea of blood. It showered Cai in gore that instantly burnt off with the mana flowing through him as he kept pouring more into the Twilight Reprisal.

And then the meteorite hit.

It slammed into the front of the Black Sun, a descending star of insanity and degenerate passion that crashed into the massive orb of hatred and Retribution. There was an explosion, a gigantic detonation that would wipe out the entire city if left unchecked as the mana of the two sides in the eternal conflict of good and evil collided violently. Caiellis's emotive melody was snuffed out by the sounds of millions of voices, demonic and human, howling in a frenzied rapture of destruction that sent pain instantly surging throughout the boy, blood spurting out from his nose, ears and mouth in spite of the shield of golden glass that Orzhova had created out of his head. It was the power of a god, a dark, vindictive, capricious and utterly evil god, but a god nonetheless, and the boy wept tears of blood as the sheer sound washed over him.

The meteorite, augmented by the power of the empyreal vortex conjured by the smoking occult circle burnt onto the air and enhanced by the massive mana potency of the Lord of Riots, smashed into the Black Sun of Retribution, growing larger every second as it and the thing that it had collided with both destroyed one another, ripping through the fabric of reality and the combined White and Black mana that the boy had spent so long generating and perfecting with his balance of power and emotion that had been the most powerful thing he had ever conjured in this short life of his.

Caiellis screamed in pain as the backlash of the power he had wielded rippled through him, sheer agony overloading his nervous system and making him drop the Sword of Glass which had still been supplying energy to the Black Sun of darklight, but he could not hear his own pain and agonised howls over the unadulterated shrieking of thousands of voices as they pledged their allegiance to the Lord of Riots, the Defiler, the Prince of Pleasure, the Monarch of Sin, the Archdemon Rakdos, in return for forbidden bliss and the destruction of morality and society. The sounds of frenzied exultance overwhelmed Cai as he whimpered and screamed out at the torment flowing through him in spite of the fact that his angel, who had abandoned the Twilight Reprisal, was putting all of her mana into protecting him.

The Black Sun was smashed into the ground by the fallen star of blood and infernal hellfire, a cataclysmic eruption annihilating both of the two epic manifestations of their masters' different mana types and objectives, and Cai barely felt the sensation of beginning to fall the pain that was flowing through his nerves that the boy was pretty sure was incinerating every single sensory device in his body. It was exquisite, amplified to the extreme by the presence of the Lord of Riots, making every single sensation that he felt register within his young mind and ensuring that he could identify every single different type of pain that he suffered – including the numerous wounds that had been inflicted before this.

"**MY REBIRTH IS AT HAND! LET THE FESTIVAL OF BLOODSHED TRAMPLE OVER THE OLD ORDERS, AND LET THE MALICIOUS PASSIONS OF ALL WHO WOULD REVEL IN THE DARK GLORY OF MY PRESENCE EMBRACE MY GIFTS OF CARNALITY AND BLOODSHED!**"

Despite the fact that there was already tremendous noise echoing throughout the courtyard and above it as Caiellis fell towards the ground, the bellowed words of the Lord of Riots still cut through the din, the demon's roar reaching every corner of the City of Pleasure and imbuing its defenders with dark power and encouragement knowing that their malevolent patron was watching over them, spurring them into an even greater frenzy of bloodshed and murder as they assaulted the Lucaelian crusaders trying to save them from the deprivation of their masters. The emotions that had been empowering Caiellis suddenly fled from the small thirteen year old as he fell, leaving his mind an empty void to be quickly filled by fear and terror at the fact that his most powerful spell had not even touched the Lord of Riots. The Twilight Reprisal had done nothing.

As the detonation of mostly Black mana blasted across the courtyard, Orzhova surrounded herself in a shield of mana that would allow her to resist the damage and swooped downwards, diving through the air and the spontaneous explosions ripping through the area and grabbing hold of her falling Summoner, the boy's face highlighting that he was in absolutely no condition for conjuring or using his wings of stained glass and stabilising his own position. The Angel of the Black Sun held the limp body of her Summoner close, hoping that he was conscious and still able to fight, as while normally if the boy lost consciousness for a protracted period his mana would be drawn inwards and his guardian seraph would be pulled back into their shared Mind Realm the fact that she had Summoned himself and was using up his mana to do so meant that he could still be asleep or unconscious and she would remain in the physical realm.

Caiellis started thrashing in her grip, convulsing as he tried to get his bearings and resist the pain that was crashing through him, and Orzhova turned him so that he could be upright instead of sideways so that he wouldn't choke on the blood coming out of his mouth and nose, which would help him in recovering as she landed on the ground, instantly raising an extremely powerful shield from the mana that she had reserved within her to ensure that a balance was kept and to have a plan for after the spell if it failed.

She cradled the thrashing form of the boy next to her chest, running White mana over him that would hopefully shield him from the corrupt power of the demon that was afflicted him and causing him to throw up blood and have it streaming out of his nose and eyes. The Angel of the Black Sun refused to give up, for as long as her young Summoner was still alive there was still hope, hope that she would not let go of for as long as Caiellis still drew breath – whether that breath was painful or choked or not, he was still living, and it was the angel's duty to protect him from this magic.

All Caiellis could hear was screaming, white-hot noise that stabbed into his ears and brain as he saw himself enacting the awful actions shown in the debauched displays, or having them enacted upon him by those who he loved and trusted to protect him, disgusting and vile imagery that was far darker than anything a mere human could ever muster up blazing in a frenzy of hedonism within his head. He could only vaguely feel the strong and firm grip of a being holding him close, and could only just see the Angel of the Black Sun's wings shielding him as Orzhova used her own body to protect her mortal Summoner from harm. Consciousness – well, awareness, since throughout his ordeal Cai had not slipped into blessed unconsciousness and had been awake throughout all of the pain that was still rushing through him, pain that he knew he deserved for failing but pain that he would desperately try to get away from if he could move.

It felt like someone had wrapped sharpened and barbed wires of metal that were covered in the most toxic and agonising poisons around his whole body and tightened them to the point where they were digging into his bones and ripping through his flesh. He felt as if he was being plunged into a fiery pit of agony that dug into him with spikes of infernal metal and burnt his fragile flesh with blazing plumes of hellfire as he was eaten alive by a ravenous mix of demons and humans. He tried to bat them away, escape from the fire and get the people eating him away, but the venom-dripping barbed wire that was constricting around his naked form held him down, choking and strangling him as it stabbed into his bruised neck and punctured his lungs.

The thirteen year old shrieked out, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't think over the pain, and he wanted anyone that would listen to save him from the agony of death at the hands of the Archdemon. Then, the pain that was preventing him from being aware of his surroundings abated to the point that he retained cognizance of what was happening around him, and he cried tears of blood and the normal variety into the person that held him to their chest, slowly stopping his convulsive thrashing as he pressed himself closer to them, instinctively knowing that this person – or angel – could protect him from the wave of death from the colliding meteor of blood and infernos and the Black Sun of Retribution that had failed to do anything but expose some of the Archdemon's true power and drain him dry of most, if not all, of his mana.

If the situation had been any less dire, Orzhova would have had no diea what to do to comfort a crying Caiellis within her arms, but since she had to focus on the spell she couldn't spare any thought or effort to his emotional and physical crisis right now apart from infusing him with protective mana that would hopefully help. The boy looked up at the face of his angel, her twinkling onyx eyes shut in concentration, and he wiped the tears of blood and the normal variety away from his face. He knew that it was the endless determination of angels to succeed that was making her do this, but the boy almost choked out "what's the point?" at the Angel of the Black Sun.

He stayed silent, knowing that his pathetic voice would not be heard over the rush of mana that smashed into their shield, sending more waves of crushing and stabbing and burning and paralysing and slicing and ripping and tearing and immolating and dying pain through his already abused form. His angel tightened her grip on him, bringing him closer as she pulled her black wings round, her back to the direction of the Archdemon and the waves of blood and fire smashing into them, allowing her to focus their shield on a smaller area and as such concentrate her mana.

It was agonising, and even she almost screamed out at one point, but she knew how awful and despairing her Summoner understandably was, suffering through pain that no mortal child should have ever had to go through, as if Orzhova, an angel of the highest and most exalted echelons, was at the point of shrieking in torment then it must have been ten times worse for the boy, and if she gave into her pain now then there would be no one to be strong for Cai, something that he desperately needed.

She bit into her tongue at the roiling mana crashing into her shield, breaking through it and burning her back and wings, covering them in tides of steaming blood as malicious souls tore at her with their hands and broken nails, biting her with their teeth in their unnatural hunger for flesh and blood, tearing off feathers and scrabbling at her armour as she focussed on protecting Caiellis, her innocent Summoner and her first true friend, one of the only people – mortal or otherwise – that could come anywhere close to understanding her, especially now because Serenity had been sacrificed. Her objective was to protect the boy and keep him as safe as possible through the demon's unholy magic and the explosion of the meteor and Black Sun crashing into the ground together, and it was clear that the frail youngster was afflicted by the backlash of using up so much of his mana and not accomplishing anything with the multitude of pacts with Black magic that he had used to stabilise the balance and ignore his exhaustion.

Orzhova did not mind Caiellis using pacts with the substance of darkness itself to gain more mana, as that was something that she did herself, but she had warned him that he always needed to be able to heal himself with the mana that he gained. There was little to no risk using the pacts when the healing and draining magic of light and darkness combined was available, but when it was not they were very hazardous and she had cautioned him numerous times only to use them when they were necessary. They definitely had been, but it didn't stop Orzhova being angry about the fact that her precious Summoner who was three times the Lucerna his brutal and traitorous father could ever hope to be thought so little of himself that he did not mind sacrificing parts of his life essence to gain more power in doing what he thought was his duty.

Caiellis screamed into Orzhova's chest, his head resting on her armour that was covered with blood and ash that leaked into the cuts on his cheek and the split in his head, that sensation of pain one of numerous different ones amplified and accentuated by the foul magic of the Archdemon that he could pick out individually but which all combined into one endless and discordant symphony of torment that screamed into the boy's mind.

His throat was in agony, both within his head as the poisoned and burning barbed wire coiled around him was choking and stabbing into it, and within reality where he had only just recovered from a violent strangulation and the bruises on his neck flared into life with each of his whimpered screams. That didn't stop him however, as while usually even when screaming one part of him would be telling him that it was utterly pathetic and that he should be acting like a Lucerna, not a spoilt brat that couldn't handle a little bit of pain, right now there was no point in stopping.

There was no point in fighting any more, there was no point in resisting any longer, even though Cai knew tha the demon was his problem and that he had let it be Summoned into the material realm by being too weak to stop it, and a part of him wished that Orzhova would just drop the shield so that the Archdemon's mana could wash over him and kill him, free him from the pain going through him even though he knew that death in the Lord of Riots's clutches would be far more agonising than what was happening now. He also knew that there was no way that the Angel of the Black Sun, the First Sisterhood angel assigned to him from birth who had watched him all of his life, would allow him to die now, not after how much she thought of him and how precious she found him, so for now he pressed himself closer to the angel, still sobbing and crying and yelping helplessly in the pain rushing through his fragile form, taking only a tiny bit of solace in the fact that the angel was protecting him and that he still had access to someone from the exalted First Sisterhood to help him in this fight, a tiny and cracked wall against the tide of hopelessness that surged within his mind.

He was in so much pain, it was hard to do anything, colours and sensations and images exploding behind his eyes to the point where he was no longer sure whether he had them clamped shut or resolutely wedged open, and it felt like every inch of his body was being subjected to at least five different types of murderous pain at once, all of them blending together in some cacophonous harmony of torment that screamed as it surged through him.

_Stop, please! Stop! Stop … stop … stop … the pain … I can't … pain, can't move … can't breathe … can't _think _… help!_

_Want … want my big brother … want help … want pain to go away … go away … go away … can't …_

_SCREAM-_

The pain and the wave of destruction that had almost sent the Angel of the Black Sun back to the realm of Cai's lonely mind suddenly abated, and although the boy wanted to cry in the relief that flooded through him he knew that it was because the Archdemon had chosen to stop his mana there and then, pulling back his attack that had already had cuts and lacerations springing up on Caiellis's fragile body from the malicious mana of the Lord of Riots permeating the air and causing the wounds without anything physical touching him, and he was aware that he was being spared because he still had some tiny hope left, some tiny inch of determination not to be defeated by the evil Defiler, and as long as he had that the Lord of Riots still wanted to toy with him and crush his defiance out of him.

The youngest Lucerna hated the fact that he was utterly at the Lord of Riots's mercy and that the demon had chosen to spare him because of the fact that he still had agonies to test upon his royal opponent and still wanted to play games of torture with him, especially after feeling like he could actually destroy the physical form of the Archdemon and banish it from Usnaan. It was as if the Defiler was reminding him who was in control here, and that Caiellis was simply a toy to be abused and broken at will until Rakdos tired of him and moved on to fresh prey in the form of the rest of the Lucaelian army.

Orzhova let go of her Summoner, wanting to help him and nurse maid over him but knowing that she needed to protect him from the demon on the other side of the courtyard, unholy Rakdos who was probably already preparing an attack on her downed and whimpering charge, holding her scythe in torn fingerless gloves that leaked her angelic blood all over the shadowy haft of her weapon.

Cai slumped, still feeling the pain of all of his physical and mental wounds in perfect detail on his frail and weak body, closing his eyes and wishing more than anything else for an end to this all, and end that he had not earned at all yet as Rakdos still existed in the City of Pleasure, but an end that he craved for because it would stop all of the pain, stop all of the emotional agony that had defined his piteous life. The Sword of Glass was by his side, after having landed there, and he let his tears flow freely down his cheeks in the same way that the torrential Rain of Gore did now that all of the powerful spell-casting had ceased. The courtyard was much like it had been before the warping of it by the demon's most recent spells, and apart from the larger spires rising up and curling over it at either side and the many cracks in the obsidian which had replaced the old rock of the mansion patio that spewed lava and blood it was otherwise unaffected by the tremendous magic that had the potential to destroy entire cities which had taken place here.

Out of the corner of his eye, Caiellis could see his father still inside of the crystalline cage of his own blood that lulled the man into a peaceful sleep, with Akroma covered in blood but still at his side, and he was more tempted than ever to rouse him from his slumber – even being strangled in the hands of his father was preferable to the fate that the Defiler no doubt had in store for him. He was exhausted, wounded, and suffused with hopelessness, but as long as his First Sisterhood angel remained in the world with him there was always a chance, no matter how small, that they would prevail over the hedonistic darkness conjured into the city of Usnaan.

Cai stayed on the ground, not moving in any way as he stared at the back of his angel stood in front of him, Orzhova having sustained numerous brutal wounds that she paid absolutely no heed to as she guarded him from attack, and he knew that he should be moving – he should be fighting for as long as he kept breathing (and otherwise in the case of being choked almost to death), but there seemed to be little point and the youngest Lucerna knew that he had to control his emotions before he could be of any use to the Angel of the Black Sun or have any hope of damaging the Lord of Riots.

_But … what is the point? The Twilight Reprisal was my most powerful spell! I have nothing left … it didn't even touch Rakdos … what am I supposed to do against it? What am I supposed to do against that power? I can't do anything! I have no mana left, and even if I did my most powerful spells wouldn't even scratch the Lord of Riots … we need all three Lucernas and their First Sisterhood angels here, on the same side … and even then we might not prevail … but instead I'm all alone, with a big brother who I led into the city and is still trying to fight me if he isn't dead already, and a father who rightly hates me and wants to kill me for what I have done. _

_I'm useless … I can't do anything right … why was I born as a Lucerna prince? Why did mum and dad even bother keeping me alive when I was born instead of just ending the life of the little weakling son that they never even wanted in the first place? There is no point to my existence … and I can't do anything … I can't be a prince … I can't protect my older brother like he has done so many times in our past … I can't follow my father's orders and I can't protect the Lucaelian army as is my duty … I can't make anyone proud … and I can't restore Orzhova's tarnished reputation … and I can't kill this Archdemon. I can't. There is no possible way, as if the Twilight Reprisal didn't do any damage at all, then nothing I have left with either. _

Keeping her malevolent and hatred filled onyx gaze upon the Lord of Riots who gazed down at the boy and his angel at the other side of the hellscape the courtyard had become, looking no different than he had before apart from the fact that he was even more threatening after conjuring up some of his more occult and demonic magic, the dark seraphim of the First Sisterhood stepped backwards and towards her Summoner who was simply sat up on the ground and looking with a haunting gaze at the floor. She cast a quick glance at him, satisfied that at least his physical wounds were too bad (although they were still awful and it horrified her to see what had been done to him), and placed a hand on his shoulder.

When the boy whimpered in pain at the contact, gasping out a choked sob as the mana rushed through his abused body and nestled in his internal pool of magical energy which had been damaged and would need hours of rest and recuperation to repair, Orzhova tried to make her voice as soothing as possible when she said, "I know it hurts, Caiellis, but trust me when I say that you need the mana."

The boy looked up at her, a question in his welling green eyes which had seen so much death and pain in the cruel world of man and yet still managed to remain innocent and pure, and she elaborated, "I held some of my own internal White and Black mana back whilst we were casting the Twilight Reprisal in case something like this happened, so I'm glad that I did. It is painful, as you have exhausted your mana, but you need it to continue fighting."  
One part of Caiellis's psyche screamed at the angel in fury at the fact that she had held back, conserved some of her power during the spell of Retribution that Cai had put everything into and expected her to do the same, blaming her lack of certainty for the failure of the spell, but the thirteen year old couldn't bring himself to be angry at his angel, not now, not after how he felt and everything that he had gone through.

Orzhova had been right to hold back some power, and the boy harshly berated himself for blaming the angel when it was his fault for not being strong enough, as he was sure that without him holding her back and placing limitations on her strength because of his own detestable weakness the Angel of the Black Sun would have at least been able to damage the Defiler. He accepted the mana from her, though it sank to the bottom of his exhausted and completely empty mana pool and didn't erase the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach that only had something to do with his lack of magical power, and then placed his cut and sliced palms on the steaming ground as he tried to push himself up.

The world spun, like it had when his Summoning had forced his dear father off of his windpipe and he had tried to surge to his feet after that, and he pushed harder, scraping his palms on the brimstone debris from the destruction that had happened here but ignoring the brief sensation of stinging pain as the remaining skin on them was torn off, rising up to one knee before he took a break, panting heavily in the exertion but refusing to let his weakness get the better of him. Orzhova kept flicking between the main threat within the capital city of the New Empire of Passion and her young Summoner who was still pushing himself to the limit despite the hollowness in his green eyes.

She wished that she still had a mental link to him so that she could know more of what was going on inside of that young head of his, and she also wished that she could say something to inspire him and fill him with motivation again, but after all that he had been through in this battle and before it with the degradation of the relationship between the king and his youngest son and when Alexander had almost died there was little Orzhova could do to sugar coat the direness of their situation. Instead of wasting time on words that weren't coming to her as she watched Cai struggle, wanting nothing more than to help him to his feet (as strange feeling since before that she had barely felt protective over anything before and had always maintained that everyone should look after themselves), she turned back to the Lord of Riots, who seemed perfectly content to watch the two interact and obtain all the recovery that they could.

He winked sadistically at her, unable to stop a bloodthirsty and vindictive grin from splitting across his hellish features, as if realising something that the Angel of the Black Sun had known at the back of her mind for some time now but refused to give conscious thought to, as if even merely thinking of it would bring it to malicious life and that by not paying any heed to it she could believe that it wasn't true (a tactic that many of her self-righteous sisters had seemed to perfect, at least going from from her interactions with them). She snarled back, cursing under her breath in words that she was glad that her innocent Summoner couldn't understand, words that she was grateful he couldn't hear being spat out of angelic lips and gracing the world in the voice of a seraph from the highest order.

Orzhova knew that no matter that she didn't want to even consider it, Cai had to know, no matter what that would do to the boy's emotional state. If she didn't tell him then it would happen within a matter of less than two minutes anyway, and though it made the Angel of the Black Sun feel worse than she had ever done – including when she had been prosecuting Xarius's orders and condemned by her sisters and even her usually forgiving Mother – it could not be ignored any longer.

She turned back to the small boy, who had managed to get up to one knee, not understanding how King Marik could not simply feel huge amounts of love for his youngest son who was as determined as he was compassionate and reminded her a huge amount of poor Serenity who had been killed by the Arch-Heretic Johnias in the same way that Caiellis's mother had, and placed a steadying hand on his shoulder as he threatened to fall back onto to ground. The angel hated to do this, hated it almost as much as she hated the Archdemon that was endangering the life of her Summoner and those who he loved and felt the need to protect, but it had to be done.

"Caiellis," her voice, clear and full of an adamant determination that Orzhova hoped to convey onto her Summoner that she didn't truly feel, broke through the silence that had descended, the thundering rumble of the Tempest of Craving and the screaming of the battle seemingly incredibly distant and far away, like this was one conflict that was separate from the climax of the war raging around them. The youngest Lucaelian to ever have set foot within the City of Pleasure (as children weren't much use to the Welkalites as slaves or even torture experiments and were simply killed or left behind in the raids) snapped his gaze towards the eyes of the angel, tearing his eyes away from the grinning Archdemon which he had been staring at and pondering the futility of his obstinacy.

Her pale face was grim, sad, and the golden tears etched on her cheeks were joined by streaks of blood and ash painted onto her angelic and flawless features. She was sorrowful, Cai could see that, but also making great pains to hide it from him, and he gulped nervously before regretting doing so. Anything that could give a First Sisterhood pause was definitely something to be worried about, especially with the state that he was in, although perhaps it had something to do with that because for some reason Orzhova actually cared about him.

Orzhova repressed a sigh of melancholy sadness that would make this situation even worse, knowing that she had to stay strong for her Summoner's sake so that he was not worried even more than he already was after the failure of the Twilight Reprisal, and she almost gave into the temptation to lie to him – which would almost certainly kill him – when she stared deep into his mournful green eyes which were already full of despair and hopelessness, but that would be a great injustice to him and he needed to know whether she wanted to tell him or not. She felt like she was failing him, and wished that there was something she could do, and in her moment of hesitation she glanced over at the Defiler who had leaned forwards to watch like he was simply observing some form of theatre show and they weren't in the middle of a brutal battle which had just seen Caiellis throwing his most powerful spell at the demon.

A determination to protect her Summoner rushed through her alongside another surge of hatred, and she turned back to the boy, squeezing his shoulder firmly enough to be reassuring (she hoped, as it was often something that Alexander did to salve the emotional state of his little brother when he was in distress so it should have a similar effect) but not tightly enough to exacerbate any of the wounds that he was suffering. She tried to keep her midnight eyes resolute and focussed instead of as mournful as she felt inside, and Orzhova continued, "You do not have enough mana to sustain me for more than a minute longer, and if you do then you will fall into unconsciousness and easy prey for the demon. That is why I am going to return to the Mind Realm now, so that you have enough mana to fight against it instead of only having one less minute."

The words hit the boy like a physical blow, and he had to grip the ground tightly to prevent himself from toppling over because of the awful statement, even more dejection and despair rushing through him and making him want to cry even more than before. He stared back up at Orzhova, his vision blurring with the droplets of viscera from the Rain of Gore that stung them as well as the tears that were beginning to mist up within his large green eyes, and protested, "No, you can't leave! You can't leave me alone! I can't fight without you!"

Orzhova tried to hide her grimace, knowing that this was tantamount to signing to boy's death sentence, but the cold, harsh truth of reality was that the young and vulnerable teenager had an infinitely greater chance of emerging triumphant at the end of this battle if she left now instead of draining any more of his lacking mana. To that end, she endeavoured to keep her voice as neutral and encouraging as possible as she said, "Yes, you can, Caiellis. Believe in yourself, and victory over the Lord of Riots will be possible."

"No it won't! No matter how hard I believe, I can't win against him without you! I can barely stand on my own, Orzhova, and I … I don't want to be alone against him! I need you by my side! Please, stay with me!" Caiellis begged, unable to stop the tears of sadness and terror from pouring out of his eyes as he couldn't resist sending a glance over at the Archdemon, who simply smiled balefully back and licked its gore-stained lips in anticipation, sending a shudder of pure horror through the youngest Lucerna as he turned back to his angel. The boy's voice made him sound every bit of his thirteen years instead of much older, and Orzhova felt like she was abandoning him to his fate – which she was, and there was no alternative.

"Caiellis, listen to me. You cannot sustain me for much longer, and when I disappear you will be knocked unconscious and easy prey for the Lord of Riots. If I go now, you will have enough mana to fight him, and have enough mana to banish him from this plane. You _can _do this, my young Summoner, I am certain of it," Orzhova told him, staring straight into his bright green eyes that were filled with sadness and fear as he hitched out another painful sob and hoping that she was impressing her trust in him upon the boy, who pleaded, "I can't! Not alone! I need you with me, Orzhova! I don't care that I can only keep you out of the Mind Realm for a minute, because I … I don't want to be left alone against _that. _I would … rather die with someone... that I can trust by my side … instead of being all alone … you … you can't leave me, please."

_I wish that I didn't have to. I wish that I could pull you into the Mind Realm with me and take you away from all of this violence and pain, but I can't and I will not let you give up on any chance of victory – not now, and not ever. _"And I, and a lot of other people, want you to live instead of only having another single minute of me! This is hard for me as well, Caiellis, and trust me when I say that I don't want to leave you, but I have to if you are going to have any chance at surviving!"

The Angel of the Black Sun hadn't meant to shout, and her Summoner's face contorted in fear not directed at her and hollow despair at the possibility of being left alone, but her powerful emotion would not be repressed any longer and she couldn't hold it inside of her. She wasn't angry at Caiellis, just at the situation, and wished that it would be different, but there was only one course of action that they could take which would end in the Archdemon gone and Orzhova was not going to countenance her Summoner sacrificing his life just so he could not die alone – he was far too young to die, and Orzhova had barely known him, barely had a chance to interact with him.

She knew that it was selfish, but that was because of her Black mana (in two ways – as firstly the magic of darkness was about and almost exclusively focussed upon the self and as such it was very self-centred, and secondly because it heavily restricted the amount of Summoners which she had been able to have and made every one of them immensely precious to her whereas some of her sisters had had more than ten times the number that she had) and her protective instinct for her fragile Summoner and friend (as angels had a lot to learn from humans just as the Lucaelians could and had learnt much from their heavenly benefactors and guardians, and one of the few tenets of her Mother's that Orzhova agreed with now was that humans were in no way inferior to the angels that aided them, even though in her mind it was only the certain few that this rule applied to) was from her White magic.

She turned away, unable to look into his beseeching emerald orbs that pleaded with her to stay, and turned her face away under the pretence of staring over at the demon and the storm, but truly it was to hide the fact that she was crying from Caiellis. Golden tears much like the ones already etched on her pale features streamed down her cheeks before she brushed them away, unwilling to let Cai see her like this because she knew that it would break him even more and completely destroy whatever limited effects her words were having on the distressed boy. The littlest Lucerna had too much to worry about without seeing his First Sisterhood angel in tears, and the Angel of the Black Sun violently brushed them away, refusing to give into her own personal weakness because there were much more pressing issues at stake and she was supposed to be an angel of the First Sisterhood.

She did not want Caiellis to be even more disheartened than he was, and she could feel the boy reaching up to the hand that she still had laid on his bony shoulder and grasping at her wrist, the black leather armour there already burnt and ripped by the battle that they had gone through, squeezing it tight like that would stop Orzhova from having to leave him to fight against the Archdemon Rakdos alone. The Angel of the Black Sun wished that she could stay by Caiellis, but she could not, and she had already wasted enough of his mana being here and talking to him, trying to soothe his distraught emotional state as much as possible before her inevitable departure.

"I'm sorry, Caiellis. But I have to go now. You can win this fight against Rakdos, and I believe in you," Orzhova told him firmly as he started shaking his head frantically, holding onto her tighter like his life depended upon it, and the angel refused to use up any more of Cai's mana – she had said all she could, and now was not the time for sentimentality. She returned in a flash of spiralling purple that had an extremely melancholy colouring to it, just as Caiellis cried, "No! You can't go! Don't leave me! Please! Please..."

His thin fingers swiped at empty air as he tried to keep holding on to the Angel of the Black Sun, the only thing that could keep him safe within this hellish courtyard that contained the Defiler within it. The youngest Lucerna started breathing faster as it truly dawned upon him that, for the first time in fighting the Lord of Riots, he was truly alone against the Archdemon, and with that realisation came a rush of despair and dejection. "No! No! _Nonononononono_! Come back! Please, Orzhova! Please don't leave me … please …."

Caiellis screwed up his tiny hands into fists, curling over and tempted to punch the ground in frustration at the sheer hopelessness of the situation, but he knew that more than anything it would probably just hurt him so let his hands fall despondently by his side instead, his face millimetres from the ground as he bent over like he was kneeling in supplication of some divine being. Wracking sobs that were some of the worst he had felt so far in this emotionally agonising battle afflicted his scrawny frame, and he could feel the demon's gaze burning into him as he cried because of how hopeless and desperate the situation was. He thought he had been ready to die. He had been wrong, but it wasn't death that scared him – it was the thought of spending an eternity in the Archdemon's clutches, forced to endure countless tortures and watch the people that he loved die over and over and over again in myriad different ways until Rakdos was bored of him.

He was all alone, all alone against one of the most powerful and evil beings known to mankind, and there was nothing that he could do to stop it from doing whatever it wanted, stop it from committing whatever nefarious deeds it chose to because he had barely any mana left.

Caiellis cried, tears stinging his eyes as they fell out of them and mingled with the blood cascading down him, the torrential Rain of Gore pounding into his back with steaming gobbets of crimson viscera that exacerbated all of his pain and his despair. He sobbed, whimpered and let the tears fall, not caring what anyone would think if they saw him, before harshly telling himself to get up, berating himself for this weakness and telling himself that because Orzhova had believed in him and he still had mana left he could still fight. He looked up at Rakdos, the demon's horrifying visage twisted into something even more disturbing by the tears blurring his vision and the blood-slick hair that went into his eyes before he brushed it away. The demon smiled back, full of a predatory hunger for his broken soul, and Cai shuddered involuntarily, having no angel to hide behind this time.

The Lord of Riots almost casually raised its free hand, occult sigils that birthed crimson fire of screaming souls into the air around it as it effortlessly conjured large quantities of Black and Red mana through its demonic skin. It grinned at Caiellis, flicking its wrist in the direction of the boy as a superheated gout of soulfire was launched through the air towards him. Aware that he did not have enough mana to waste by conjuring the Gift of Orzhova and that the Lord of Riots would probably destroy it instantly, the boy quickly and shakily rose to his feet, conjuring up a shield of White mana and aware that the attack wasn't particularly powerful – well, it was, but not to the standard of assault one would expect from an Archdemon.

The adolescent prince knew that he was being toyed with, that the demon was just playing with him and making him realise the true hopelessness of the situation, and as he raised his protection of shining, glass-esque light around him, he tried to use that brain of his that was the pride of Uncle Tybalt and his older brother to figure out something that he could do. It was slightly infuriating, but much moreso terrifying, that he couldn't think of anything, every idea that he had either requiring more mana than he had available – as there were no more pacts he could take without dying instantly and having his soul claimed by Rakdos anyway – or something that he knew already wasn't going to work against the being that had resisted the Twilight Reprisal without even sustaining a scratch from it.

The shield began to absorb the fire that crashed into it, souls of flame clawing and scratching at the protection in their hunger to get at the one within, and Caiellis took a step backwards as the intensity began to increase, hating the fact that he had to use up the mana that Orzhova had gifted to him so that he could fight against the demon for as long as possible. He wasn't really even sure anymore why he was still resisting, why he was battling against it when he knew that either he would be forced to use all of his mana in defence and accomplish nothing or go on an all out offence with the exact same result. However, some deep, primal part of him still clung to the thought of having peace, of escaping the clutches of the Lord of Riots and finally getting away from the pain, and he grasped onto that thought, holding the precious emotions in his mind as he also created a picture of Alexander, Uncle Tristram and Uncle Tybalt together like when they were in the civil war, all of the happy times that he had had with them in spite of the bleak reality of the war raging around them, and nestled it next to the wish that he would escape from the pain in his life.

These were the people who had protected him who were still in the city and being attacked by the forces of the Defiler and the Welkalite army, these were the three people who had risked their lives over and over again for him and others and made his life bearable up to this point. These were the people who he loved above all others, and although he would have given almost anything to have his father amongst them the man hated him after all that he had done and Caiellis couldn't show love to hatred and forgive him for what he had done to his youngest son, so Marik didn't show up in his mind.

Cai imagined his big brother's smile as he teased his younger sibling and ruffled his hair in the way that the youngest Lucerna had always found annoying (especially if he did it really rough) but also endearing. He imaged Uncle Tybalt beaming proudly at his youngest student's academic success, talking to the aged man about books and myths and legends and anything that concerned him personally that he couldn't share with others. He imaged Uncle Tristram grinning at him, him and Alex telling Caiellis that he really should eat more and the man always knowing when to provide support or comfort should he need it.

He held those images in his mind, close to the desire for an end to the pain and anguish that had afflicted him all the way through his life but heightened to the extreme in these last few moments in the Welkalite capital, as he defended against the attack. Caiellis's shield glowed red where the fire impacted upon it and was absorbed, and he sweated in the sweltering heat that had already expanded across the entire courtyard but was exacerbated by this infernal attack. He felt the intensity of the fire increasing, and bit his lip where it was already red and bleeding as he felt his whole body aching with the amount of mana that he had released so far, too much for even a Lucerna because of the fact that he was only thirteen years old and not fully developed yet.

The boy yelped, his pain crashing through the hold that he had managed to build up upon it which allowed him to actually act and protect himself as talons of hellfire clawed through his shield, the stained glass protection of interlocking shards formed from White mana smashing apart as the claws of flame sliced through them. They raked at Caiellis as he shut his eyes against the simultaneously burning and slicing pain, tearing his shirt (as his leather armour jacket had already been ruined beyond repair and only a few scraps of it stuck to his armour) in a massive slash down the front. The glass that had been crystallised upon his lower abdomen, preventing the wound that had been caused by his father's greatsword from bleeding uncontrollably and making him even more faint than he already was, shattered in the impact as he was flung backwards off of his feet by the flaming strike.

Souls, but distorted, phantasmagorian perversions of human ones, reached out towards him with blades rammed into their arms, the fire of spirits claimed by the Lord of Riots hungering for Cai's blood and pain as they sliced at him, a wound torn down his front from just below his collar bones down across his chest, crimson blood jetting out from the slash that was deep but not penetrating to his deeper organs. Instead of evaporating when it touched the flame, the boy's vitae swirled around it as he was knocked backwards, tongues of fire from the souls driven insane and angry by endless torment trapped within it reaching out to lap at it before it was pulled away, though Cai did not see that it was dragged back to the Archdemon on the other side of the courtyard as he was sent tumbling and sprawling backwards, rolling instinctively in the air to prevent his head being smashed against the rock as he fell and instead scraping another tear in his shirt in his front as he collapsed to a halt.

Breathing heavily, Cai cursed himself for the brief arrogance he had allowed himself – since the attack hadn't seemed all that threatening compared to what he had faced so far, he had attempted to be conservative with the mana that he used in the shield, only using as much as was necessary to prevent him from being harmed instead of putting all that he had into it. The pain of the large rent down his chest was agonising as he pulled himself up to one knee, warm blood trickling down him and joining the claret liquid spilling out of the rest of his nasty gashes and other wounds which mixed with the corrupt gore of the torrential and bloody rain.

However, the fact remained that at this point his mana and capacity to inflict damage upon the demon was far more important than his life and safety, as if he had wasted all of his magical energy in resisting the fiery attack he would be able to do nothing else – and Rakdos probably would have just increased the power behind his unholy assault and easily overwhelm any resistance he might be able to mount with the amount of mana he had left.

The boy barely managed to stifle the cry that raced up his bruised throat, almost bypassing his ability to maintain control of his pain receptors. He wasn't exactly sure why he even did it, but he supposed that one part of him still clung to the small shreds of Lucerna and Lucaelian pride within him that had already been torn to tatters in not giving the Lord of Riots the satisfaction of seeing him in too much pain – one scream was enough for what had happened, one scream for this wound was the only one that he was going to get. He tried to remember what he knew of demons from the admittedly lacking material he had absorbed detailing them and his own experiences, but even if he could have thought clearly over the ringing within his head nothing so far even compared to the sacrilegious power of an Archdemon.

He tried to drag up some semblance of information from the vaults within his mind, knowing that he needed at least a little bit of a plan more than "survive and attack whenever you get the chance" if he was ever going to even wound the demon and prove that Orzhova's seemingly groundless belief in him was not unfounded, but he couldn't think with any form of clarity. His brain was oddly but understandably absent of anything redolent of coherent thought, and the only thing that was running through his distraught and befuddled mind was that this defence was entirely hopeless and that he wished that Orzhova had stayed with him instead of leaving him alone. In fact, it was increasingly difficult to focus on anything else but the sadness eating away at him from both the inside and from without, the despair that he felt at being alone with the most terrifying being in existence, and the fact that that being wanted him to suffer through an eternity of agony inflicted by it.

"**Exquisite**," the demon murmured to itself, licking its lips as Caiellis shuddered in horror at the sight of the Lord of Riots tasting his child opponent's blood despite the fact that by now he should have built up an immunity to seeing that from the creatures of the darkness, especially since he was a Lucerna with coveted vitae running through his young veins and the fact that he was still a child made it even more desirable and easy to acquire. He felt sick to his stomach with the things that the Lord of Riots had forced him to see, and clamped his left arm around his stomach and chest at the reopened wound and the newly torn one. His slender right hand ghosted over the handle of the Sword of Glass, and he grabbed onto the relic weapon, using the downwards pointed blade to keep himself at least on one knee as he stared back at the manifestation of all depraved sin.

At thirteen, he was too scrawny and short for even his young age, and as he knew that he couldn't keep moving for much longer before his wounds overwhelmed him, he grasped at anything even vaguely resembling a modicum of hope or protection, within his mind and in the real world, with grim hopefulness. He thought of the endless combat lessons that he had been forced to go through, one part of him knowing that they would be useless here, especially against this sort of opponent who was not a human or anything close, and he wished that anything would offer him the life saving driftwood that he desperately needed to stop himself from drowning in the river of defeat.

The demon's wings opened wide, scraping at the edges of the massive spires of obsidian that curled over the courtyard like talons of black, volcanic rock, pulsing with spider-web blotches of crimson mana made from the Rain of Gore pouring down them that formed into symbols with meanings too terrible to behold around the Lord of Riots. It seemed ever more massive as it leaned over the entire plaza, flaming eyes fixed upon the shivering (in spite of the heat, though it was shudders of pain that wracked Cai's fragile body, not because of any non-existent cold in the burning temperatures) teen on the other side who was leaning against one of the rock spikes for stability, and although this one was not one of the newer and more massive ones it still towered above him and made him look even smaller to anyone that would be watching.

The kid wanted nothing more than to curl up into a foetal ball and block the inhuman sounds of the Defiler whispering to itself and licking its lips stained with the boy's own blood, as while the words of Rakdos were only spoken as a whisper of ecstasy they carried across the entire plateau, the malicious words distorted as they cut into the Lucerna's soul and spoke to him out of the shadows curling around him. However, holding his head in his arms and nestling into a ball would not achieve anything, and it would not protect him at all - not that anything he could do would protect him otherwise.

He wanted Orzhova here; the angel had made him truly believe that they could win or at least do _something _to the unholy yet divine avatar of carnage and carnal pleasures, even if such a possibility was unlikely, but she wasn't here and he was all on his own now. Cai blinked tears out of his eyes as he stared back at the demon who had orchestrated this entire war and corrupted the entire New Empire of Passion so that they would serve under his destructive whims, and tried to stop himself from hyperventilating or bursting into more tears of hopelessness.

"**How does it feel, Caiellis, to be abandoned by all who have professed that they were going to protect you?**" the demon Rakdos asked him, its voice full of a dark but genuine mirth, and to Cai's ringing ears it seemed like the denizen of the abyss was trying to stifle howling laughter of malicious hysteria. The boy could have laughed himself, almost falling into hysterics at the though that he, a mortal boy who couldn't even save a few soldiers or stop his older brother getting hurt and almost killed, had ever thought that he could challenge the Lord of Riots, and while he sensed that some of the dire amusement in his mind was caused by the malevolent and insanity-inducing aura oozing out from the Defiler, the rest of the mania was from him and him alone.

He didn't answer, not that the demon would be expecting him to, and the wingspan of the being seemed to increase even more; Rakdos seemed to pull himself higher up and stand straighter so that he was leaning over the youth even more, too far away even with its massive reach to touch him but never far away from it to escape from its psychotic and nightmarish magic.

He felt more scared than he had ever done in his life, even the night when his mother had died and he and Alexander had been forced to run out of the burning and besieged Capitalia Lux alone as Tybalt, Tristram and other loyal soldiers who were nearby covered their retreat as they were pursued by horrors and demons, even more scared than he had been when Alex had been almost killed by the last vampire and he had – and could – do absolutely nothing to help him. He knew that it was selfish, that he was more scared for his own eternal soul than that of his brother's at the time, but the Archdemon accentuated all fear around it so that even the most minute concerns developed into full blown terror that could freeze a person's limbs and prevent them from thinking about anything else – as Caiellis knew.

"**How does it feel, knowing that you are all alone and that nothing you can do can affect me? How does it feel to know that I am going to break your soul, Lucerna child, and feast upon it for all eternity once I have done?**" the words were horrifying, especially spat out of the demon's mouth, and Caiellis launched an almost blind bolt of desperate incandescence out of his crystalline blade. The shimmering and blinding beam crashed into the demon's face, but did not even char the unholy skin before he brushed it away with his hand. The Lord of Riots flicked his fingers once the light ran over them, and it was instantly corrupted, becoming dark and bloody like the occult sigils that were cut into the air and obsidian spires. Caiellis down on his tongue hard as the corrupted light was launched back into him, the spray of coppery blood in his mouth nothing compared to the agony that erupted through him as he was lifted off of his feet and crushed against the base of the spire that he had leaned on for support by the Red and Black mana.

He gasped out a silent whimper of pain, his lungs feeling like they were being crushed and compressed hard, and as the intensity of the torment increased his back arched against the pressure of the unholy mana, his mouth opened in a wordless scream as he bucked against the suffocating weight that made him feel like the pain magic was blasting a huge hole through not just his body, but his almost shattered soul as well. The agony abated, and he slumped, his chest bleeding from the wounds already inflicted and steaming from this new magic, some of his skin blackened like he had just been burnt by a massive bonfire of the damned, heaving out one pitiful breath after another as he tried to muster up some sort of resistance.

The boy conjured a shield of iridescent stained glass shards around him, but the second he did so Rakdos snapped his massive fingers together and it broke, smashing apart into millions of tiny yet incredibly sharp fragments as a rough sphere of empyreal symbols and unholy characters the colour of pulsing blood that alternated between deep crimson and burning scarlet and evil coal-black formed up. Cai raised his arms in a pathetic defence as his own corrupted magic rained down on him, the fragments of his shield slicing into him and tearing his clothes and bare flesh to shreds as he picked up numerous lacerations, blood spurting out from him all around him as the glass cut into him as he cried and tried to do something against the pain, trying to summon up shadows around him that would protect his fragile and vulnerable form from the magic of the Lord of Riots.

The substantial darkness formed up around him, clothing him and the shredded clothing that he still wore (though he was nowhere near naked and a lot of the fabric was painfully stuck into his open wounds that were probably being infected, especially because he was in the presence of the taint of an Archdemon) in a shroud of solid ebony that prevented the rain of glass from cutting him even more, before Rakdos cackled again, his booming voice the herald of more agony as tears of pain streamed unbidden down the boy's cheeks.

_Orzhova, come back! Please, I need you here! I can't … I can't fight this alone..._

A pulsation of unholy blood throbbed through the shadows surrounding him, and while the betrayal of his own glassy shield abated the Black mana that he had employed to protect himself from that was now turning against him. They turned red and malicious, and the smallest Lucaelian within Usnaan tried to duck and weave away before realising that because his shield of darkness had been so perfect, so all-encompassing, that there was no escape.

Tendrils of tainted blackness wrapped around him, snaking round his arms, his legs, his chest, his _neck, _and squeezing tight as it yanked the Sword of Glass out of his hands, the grip of the shadows burning into him with agonising Red and Black mana as he was held, struggling to breathe and thrashing against his own magic that had been, once again, turned against its conjurer by the dark power of the Lord of Riots which had overwhelmed and corrupted it without the mana of a First Sisterhood angel to reinforce its sanctity. He put all of his strength in trying to pull away from the bonds restraining him, but the hold that the darkness had on him was unyielding and incredibly strong and he felt like he was trying to tear himself out of chains of steel that cut into his skin.

He could see the Lord of Riots laughing sadistically at his predicament, and he tried to get a hold of the few drops of mana still left in his mind that Orzhova had given him before she departed, but found that in his panic it kept fleeing from him. He pulled against the grasping arms of darkness wrapped around him and constricting him, but even without his numerous painful wounds draining his energy and strength physically he was too weak to managed to break out of the shadowy ropes and bounds without any mana. Alexander would have been able to do it, that was something that he was sure about, because even though there was only a four year (and a month) age gap between them it seemed like the older boy was infinitely stronger than he was.

He tried to remember the many non-magical and hand to hand training lessons that he had taken, grappling against Alex and more rarely Tristram (with the latter more likely teaching him something instead of sparring against him), desperately wishing that he had paid more attention to the lessons which had seemed so pointless at the time – that wasn't to say that he hadn't, but it always seemed to him that no matter how hard he tried and how dirty the tactics were that he sometimes resorted to even get one victory, trying to win against his much stronger brother – or even Tristram who was even stronger than Alex – was an exercise in futility, just as this was.

_Think, dammit! What did Uncle Tristram and Alex tell you about facing a physically stronger opponent? How did you break their holds? What had they said about fighting someone bigger than you? Come on! I don't want to die like this ... I can't give in now …_

He knew that wrestling and fighting against other humans was barely similar to being held and restrained by tendrils of incredibly strong shadow, but it was the only thing that he had reference on and since his mana refused to come to him through the pain and panic (increased even more by having his breathing restricted by the shadow hooked round his throat and the arm of darkness squeezed around his broken ribs). Though all he could think of was that the only times he had ever managed to escape from Alexander's serious submission holds (as he could do it when they were playing if the older boy wasn't putting strength into it) was before his brother had initiated them properly and he had managed to wrench out of them before he got a good hold on him. This was different; the shadows were already wrapped around him and the demon's predatory laughter in combination with his pain and terror was making it even harder to think clearly.

The youngest Lucerna's breaths became faster and shorter as a figure began to materialise out of the shade of the Lord of Riots leaning over him and obscuring the light of the Tempest of Craving's crackling discharges. An avatar of discord, hissing threateningly and excitedly at him, began to pull itself up out of the tainted darkness, moving towards him with a menacing gait as the claw appendage of its right arm began to whirr and spin in a terrifying manner. Cai flailed and jerked within the bonds that held him still and squeezing him tightly, burning into his pale skin with painful marks as he pulled desperately against them, the incarnation of the demon's cruel shadow and fear itself moving ever closer and chittering to itself in ecstatic glee at what it was about to do to him.

"Angels, no! Please! Get away from me! Please, let me go!" Caiellis screamed, his voice raw and strained as with his hyperventilation and the tendrils of Black mana tightening around him in response to his increasingly desperate threshing he found it hard to get air into his lungs. The claw of the nightmare, looking even bigger than he had first seen on the three which he had already dealt with, whirred as it reached towards him, and the numerous cut which had been dealt by the avatar's sadistic sisters' talons flared up in sympathetic agony (and had the boy been in any less of a desperate circumstance he would have wondered how his body knew which wounds had been inflicted by them).

He tried to pull away, drag his vulnerable form backwards and away from the blades that inched closer, glinting scarily in a red flash of crimson lighting from above that was accompanied by a boom of thunder, but the shadows held him still even as he pulled against them. All of his wounds hurt, and as the boy tried to pull himself away he saw the full extent of what had been done to him when the shadows yanked him closer. In the panic and the adrenaline, he hadn't realised that he had been hurt _this _badly, but one part of him harshly told himself to suck it up because of the fact that he told himself that his injuries were nowhere near as bad as Alexander's the night roughly a week ago when Aksua had almost killed him, and even then the seventeen year old had had a vampire's curse to contend with as well.

The avatar of discord reached towards him as he tried to turn away from it, protect his tender and soft form from the gleaming talons of its right limb, tipping his head back away from it as they reached towards his face, the two faces on the creature's body armour whispering maliciously and laughing at his plight and resistance. The darkness tightened even more, the shadow curling around his neck that he was stretching painfully backwards to try and get away hardening and constricting, pulling him back forwards so that he could not escape and making him feel his father's hand around his neck again.

The glinting talons of the being borne of the Defiler's shadow reached for his face as Cai tried to turn away, unable to shut his eyes because of the terror that he was in despite wanting to, his survival instinct overriding his fear and forcing him to watch as the being's torture device of a right arm got closer and closer.

"No! No no no! Please! Stop! Get away! Stop! No!" he pleaded, though his begging fell on deaf ears as he tried to twist and thrash out of the iron grip of the darkness, feeling like he was within one of Alex's wrestling holds on him and that the older boy was angry with him, as such not holding back too much and being far too hard on his little brother. Terror overwhelmed one part of his mind's desire to see what was happening so that he could avoid it and potentially capitalise upon any chance of an escape, and he clamped his eyes shut as a hand of pure gloom held his chin up towards the avatar, preventing him from turning his head away.

He struggled endlessly in fear, the sensation of his tears spilling out of his closed eyes very familiar despite the fact that he really did try not to cry, until his eyes were wrenched open by little fingers of darkness that evidently wanted him to see what would happen to him. He thrashed some more, all of his pained and exhausted muscles tensing and straining against his bonds as his eyes were forced open and he was made to watch as the two blades of the avatar of discord went towards them.

_No! Not my eyes! Please! Stop! Anyone, help me! _

It took the thirteen year old a moment to realise that he had screamed the imploring plea for mercy, not just thought it, as he tried to reflexively clamp his eyelids shut as the long and sharp blades reached towards them. He kept shaking, hoping that at least that would make the being's torture of him difficult, wrenching his head up in spite of the shadows surrounding him as they plunged towards his emerald green eyes, adrenaline giving him strength and allowing him to avoid the strike towards his eyes.

His vision was blurred by the tears and the pain as he earned a tightening of the tendrils of darkness for his trouble, his sight beginning to grey out as the one round his throat pressed in on his bruises. The blades of the being's horrible weapon arm cut open his already gashed and pale cheeks, scoring lines of blood on them that began to trickle out because of his dodge of its first attack. A cut was ripped through the Black Sun birthmark, and as if in response to the desecration of the Lucerna symbol or because of the pain of the blades touching him and slicing open the flesh of his cheeks Caiellis suddenly found that he could access his mana.

He grasped hold of it, flinging it out of him in a formless and desperate blast as the avatar snarled and him in response to his movements which had prevented it stabbing into his eyes and the shadows began to choke him. A blinding blast of light exploded out of the boy, ripping apart the malicious shallows around him and destroying the incarnation of Rakdos's shade, and he fell to his knees after the detonation, panting heavily again as he pushed his hands onto the floor to stop himself toppling over from exhaustion and terror.

The demon's laughter pulsed into his brain, the booming malignancy of the sound crashing around within his skull as he coughed violently. The places where the shadow had been wrapped around his skin were red and raw, like rope burns but much more painful and awful looking than that as they were seared by infernal fire. It had taken almost everything out of him in trying to resist his own mana that had been corrupted and turned against the Lucaelian youth, and as usual he hadn't accomplished anything of note and was only trying to preserve himself instead of dealing damage to the Lord of Riots. He wanted to scream, to shout at the injustice of the world and the hopelessness that flooded through him, to sob and cry because of the pain he was in and how horrible his life had been, and he would have done so if he thought that it would have achieved anything at all.

"**Did you not enjoy the treatment of my avatar of discord?**" the Lord of Riots barked, chuckling with black humour at the boy who was trying to get himself together again, but every time that he was injured again or hurt and subjected to torture and pain he was finding it harder to do so, and not just because of the increased amount of wounds building up on his frail body. It was because every time he was pulled underneath the tide of anguish and distress building up inside of him, drowning underneath his sorrow and trying to claw his way to the surface once again, and managed to raise his head above the fear again, he came out short of breath and more submerged than he was before. It was getting harder and harder to keep up with this composure of trying to fight back when he knew that there was no point and nothing he could do, no matter how much he hated this demon and no matter how much he wanted to help other people.

Caiellis didn't favour the sovereign of sadistic passion with a response, although a voice in his mind insisted that he should shake his head so that the Archdemon would stop hurting him and leave him alone, a voice that he quickly silenced even though the words of sadness and despair wouldn't leave his mind. Exhaustion, something which had began to grow ever since he escaped his father's choking grasp because of the temporary salvation given to him by the Angel of the Black Sun, was rising up within him, and now that the adrenaline which had started flowing through him back when he was in the Voidwalk and being threatened by the lord of that realm of nothingness was starting to fade its grip on him was getting stronger.

His instincts and reaction speeds were slowing down because of the pain and tiredness due to the amount of exertion his body had suffered through, and now that he had no one else to guard him whilst he recovered he wasn't even afforded a brief respite from the endless crushing assaults. On his knees and breathing heavily, Cai didn't move when he felt a flare of mana from the Defiler until his mind screamed at his body to do so, the boy feeling incredibly sluggish like he was trying to wade through tar that was pouring into his nose and mouth and clogging up his mental passageways. He managed to break out of his sudden and shocking narcolepsy in the short stint between trying to fight for his life against tortuous attacks, and flung his wounded body to the side as a pillar of volcanic rock slammed up where he had been stood.

The thin boy had dodged too late, and the spike of rock smashed him in the side as he leapt away, gouging a deep cut within the calf of his left leg and sending him spinning round with the impact force, dizziness and disorientation making it hard to stay upright as he tumbled to the right. He pushed himself quickly to his feet, almost falling over as he did so, and was about to launch a blast of combined light and darkness at the Archdemon Rakdos before before hesitating, remembering what had happened last time he did so.

The Lord of Riots spread his massive arms wide, as it baiting Caiellis into attacking him so that he could make the boy's manifestation of mana treacherous once again, turning the emotions within it to rage and making the magical energy lust for violence and the blood of its conjurer. He waited like that for a few seconds as the boy glared at him like a kicked puppy, pulling on the magical tether connecting him to his discarded Sword of Glass and yanking the blade back into his grip, holding it tight like the ancient weapon would be able to protect him from a being that powerful. Cai tried to feel the reverence that came from seeing the glorious deeds of his ancestors within the blade, trying to think of what Queen Arie, who had wielded the weapon last in warding off a large siege from the forces of the abyss, would do, but he couldn't. He knew that she would fight until her dying breath, as was her duty as a Lucerna to the Lucaelian people, but she hadn't fought against Rakdos … she had never known …

"**What is wrong, little Caiellis? Are you scared? I'm wide open for your attacks. Aren't you going to banish me so that you can become a hero and save your precious Lucaelian force from my wrath? Well?!**" Rakdos growled at him, his voice seeping with the desire to do violence and break the will of this Lucerna child, the first Lucerna that he had the opportunity to fight in too many years and the first ever child of the hated family that he had ever fought. The Archdemon thought that it was incredibly stupid that the two Lucerna children, the precious heirs to the throne of the Kingdom of Light currently held by a man who he would easily be able to finish off once he had broken Caiellis, had been taken into this city to fight – at least one of them should have been kept within the "safe" Lucael, but now the hated Lucerna family which had thwarted the advances of the demons and beings of darkness like Rakdos's Archdemonic "brothers" for over a thousand years could be eliminated in one fell swoop.

The Defiler thought that it was deliciously ironic that he, the newest Archdemon who was resented by the others of that rank because of the fact that he was not one of the original seven and had killed Malfegor, would wipe out the Lucerna family that his brothers had spent millennia trying to kill and claim for their own. Well, apart from the traitor one who was taken by one of the Lord of Riots's siblings, but he was already a pawn of the darkness and would allow them to finally destroy the hated Kingdom of Light established by the angels in the mortal realm. Had he been capable of feeling empathy or sympathy in any form, Rakdos might have felt sorry for Caiellis, who was clearly a boy not big enough nor old enough to be fighting against him, and he should have been kept within the kingdom in the event of the two other Lucernas being killed.

But now Caiellis was at his mercy, and he was going to fully enjoy this experience. The fact that his victim was a child bothered him not one bit; he was a demon, and almost all humans were the same to him irrespective of their age – the only thing that distinguished them to him was their differing power levels, and the boy stood shakily and trembling on the other side of the courtyard to him was powerful indeed. He might have had cause for concern had Caiellis been an adult and been able to access the full power of light and darkness Orzhova provided, but since he was not he was the perfect target. He was so close to breaking the Lucerna spirit of the child it sent shivers of feverish excitement through his demonic spine.

Caiellis took an involuntary step back at the words which pealed through the air towards him, hurting his ears and sending ringing pains through his head again, and blinked back more tears. He needed to be able to see clearly, something which was almost impossible with the Rain of Gore splattering into his eyes every few seconds after the bloody droplets dripped down from his hair, and even harder when he was crying because of the pain and despair, which meant that he had to stop it. Rakdos clicked his fingers, and the air around Cai ignited into roaring flames that the boy managed to ward off with a shield of pure light, something that he made sure had no resemblance to glass whatsoever and something that he could pull back inside of him the second he saw any motion from the demon that would suggest him taking control of it.

He stumbled and almost fell over forwards when his back bashed against something solid, and he directed a quick glance over his shoulder to see one of the massive spires at the edge of this battlefield looming over him, and knew that there was no further he could get away from the Lord of Riots. Rakdos smiled maliciously at him, taking a massive step forward that had the ground shuddering and booming as he did so, and a sudden surge of fear rushed through the boy as he realised that he was cornered. However, before he could do anything to rectify that situation, the Defiler had already raised his hands and several smoking fireballs began to launch themselves at him from all angles, making sure that he had to defend in a stationary manner instead of running to one side and escaping from his predicament.

Caiellis let golden mana wrap in coils of radiance around the blade of his Sword of Glass as it lit up with holy light, channelling the mana through the relic weapon in the hope that that would stop it from being corrupted, keeping it close to him and his ideals so that there was less of a chance of it turning on him as he absorbed some of the first few orbs of hellfire that impacted onto the shield around him. Cai was wary for any extra attack, feeling his body beginning to give out on him because of the strain of all of this fighting, and as he was driven back into the spire by a storm of burning magic the boy kept flicking his eyes up to the approaching Lord of Riots – the demon was too large to fit where he was now, but that wouldn't stop him from killing Cai or subjecting him to torture too horrible to imagine or think of if he was allowed to get close.

He crossed his arms over his face, holding the Sword of Glass in his right as his protective White mana reinforced by only a tiny bit of Black magic defended him from the endless attack of fiery missiles that combusted into existence and instantly arced through the tainted air towards him. The shuddering impacts of them upon his shield were shaking his entire body, and he knew that it wouldn't be long until they broke it open and started to burn him alive, something he would rather like to avoid. There was nothing he could do right now, however, and he had to grit his teeth and bear it as the inferno washed against his shielding mana, the mere act of using his magic sending shuddering pain through his hollow and exhausted form.

The Lord of Riots took another step forwards, the increasing proximity of the Archdemon sending shivers of sheer terror up and down Caiellis's spine as he focussed on blocking the fireballs. He gathered up White and Black mana within him, dragging up all of his reserves of mana that were left for the next few spells, and deactivated his shield, swinging his sword in a wide arc. From the crystal blade of the weapon, a wave of shining darklight phosphoresced out of it, the dark illumination destroying the mana essence of the balls of flame rushing towards him, and he instantly pulled Black mana into his free hand, focussing his hatred of the demon into it.

He blasted a bolt of pure darkness at the creature out of that hatred. Rakdos didn't even bother to bat the Black mana away with his hand or corrupt its intent to kill him, simply let the magic of the shadows smash into his face. Caiellis increased the intensity of it, golden coils of holy radiance wrapping around the beam of darkness and hatred that should have been ripping apart the demon's essence but was doing nothing to it. The light did not solve that, and the boy almost took a step back before being painfully reminded by a jab of hurt as the bruising on his back from being scraped along the floor and pressed into a wall flaring into life that he was still next to the massive and thick spire of curling brimstone behind him and that there was nowhere he could go.

The Archdemon was looming above him, and Cai, with a snarl of annoyance and hatred that came out more like another whimper of pain and anguish, redirected his mana to the tip of his sword. If Black mana augmented by White didn't work against the Lord of Riots when they were this close, then he would switch it round and use White mana enhanced by the murderous effects of Black. A shining beam of incandescence shot out of his Sword of Glass, impacting into the burning eye of the demon that Caiellis had aimed it at, but instead of doing any damage the demon simply kept moving forwards and the flaming orb glinted as it stared down at Caiellis with a predatory hunger.

The boy tore his gaze away when he felt his eyes being pulled with a dark compulsion to stare into the eyes of the Archdemon and become forever lost within the maddening temptation within, flicking his free left hand as his slender fingers drew sigils into the air around it. A scattering detonation of darklight exploded up and down the demon's bare chest, the unnaturally huge muscles of the demon unaffected by the magic that Caiellis was flinging at it. The boy began to become frantic, sending bolt after beam after slice of combined White and Black mana that was fuelled by his desperation at the Lord of Riots, each of the magical attacks enough to reave the soul from a human being and annihilate it essence, but each one did not even hinder Rakdos in any way as he strode towards Cai, the Archdemon's booming footfalls like the pounding of an ancient religion's beliefs of a funeral god that beat a drum whenever one was about to die.

He pressed himself further back into the spire, not caring that it hurt his back as he launched attack after attack after attack at the Lord of Riots, each one not hurting the demon or even tearing apart its unholy flesh as it got closer to him, unnatural dread mixing with the perfectly natural terror that Cai felt in horrifying blend of fear that had the boy shivering insensately.

"Get back! Go away! Leave me alone! Stop! Get away from me! Get back! Get _back_!" Caiellis shouted and yelled at it, barely away that he was actually saying the words as he desperately flung mana around him, radiant explosions of purifying White mana alternating with ebony detonations of desolating Black mana that the Lord of Riots merely waded through, laughing at the pitiful resistance of the youngest Lucerna all the while. Caiellis would have dropped his sword if not for the white-knuckled grip that he had on it because of the fact that he was trembling and shaking in the proximity of the demon so much, wanting to act courageous and face his foe head on so that his last few moments could be worthy of the heroic Lucerna family which he wasn't truly a part of but unable to muster up that sort of death-defying bravery at the moment.

No, it wasn't death that scared him – death didn't bother him at all, especially not now, not now that he knew the true reason for his dad hating him and had realised the reality that every single person he had ever loved had been put in danger because of him, but thought of spending an eternity of torture in the Lord of Riots's personal hell chilled him to the core. He knew that he deserved the perpetual pain for what he had done and what he had failed to save or help – angels, his mother had died because of his weakness and his older brother who was so selfless and had always risked his life for Cai's sake had almost followed suite, and while he and Alex hadn't talked about the night which had almost killed the seventeen year old the thirteen year old was sure that his brother had been forced to submit because Aksua was hurting the younger of the two when he was trapped within her horror's dream realm – but he was just so damn _scared _and he wanted nothing more than to have peace and escape from all the pain and sadness, not be thrust into an endless world of it.

"**And what are you going to do to force me to do these things? You have already done everything that you are capable of! You cannot harm me!**" the demon roared, almost deafening the poor child below it who was trying to look as small as possible as if that would save him from the Lord of Riots who could smell his fear as well as his delectable soul. Any other demon or taunting servant of them might have told him to submit, told him to give in, but Rakdos was not any other servant of Black mana and enjoyed violence in all of its forms – and he enjoyed proving to others who was stronger and oppressing the weak, and to that end he didn't try to stop Cai resisting him; he liked the feeling of the boy's pathetic and desperate magic pattering harmlessly off of him just as he would enjoy the feeling of snapping his weak bones and breaking his soul.

He pressed his back against the wall of obsidian behind him that stretched up above him as the demon leaned closer, grazing his back against the pulsating rock and burning himself on the tainted sigils that sprung up with the contact, but all he could think of was putting as much distance as possible between himself and the Archdemon that was closing in on him. He could feel the sensation of warm tears streaking and streaming down his cheeks, and while for now he was out of the perpetual torrent of blood from the sky as the spire behind him was blocking it out he could still feel the cuts on his cheek inflicted by the most recent avatar of discord bleeding heavily as his crimson vitae pooled on his cheeks and spilled out.

The Lord of Riots reached towards him with a massive hand, blocking out everything else in his vision as it grasped in the direction of the boy, and Cai cowered even further down, huddling his skinny and small body further against the painful rock of hell as he resisted the temptation to shut his eyes, holding the handle of his sword with such a desperate and tight grip that would have easily broken bones if he had been as strong as his brother or father. The gigantic hand of the demon reached down towards him, and as it got close to him Caiellis charged all of his mana into the Sword of Glass, slashing at the palm of the being in a thunderous detonation of incandescent White magic mixed in with blasts of dark shadows that curled around the light.

The blade of the prince bounced off of the hard skin of the demon, the force of the powerful blow achieving nothing shuddering up Caiellis's wounded form and making him gasp in fear and pain. The Archdemon touched him, wrapping his massive fingers that were thicker than the boy's thighs around his slender form as he struck again at it with his relic sword. The second contact was made with Rakdos, pain, instantaneous and blinding and the worst thing that Caiellis had felt so far, exploded throughout the boy's body, psychotic screaming in his mind drowning out his own whimpers as the hand of the demon closed on him. The Defiler yanked him out from his useless hiding place as he thrashed and shuddered in the grip of the demon – it was like being touched by the Sire of Insanity once again, but a thousand times worse and all of the boy's wounds flared, screaming for his attention, into life once again, baying for more pain to be inflicted upon him to join them in their agonising revel across his body.

The Lord of Riots tossed the boy like a discarded rag doll across the courtyard, and Caiellis's head span as he was launched through the air for the umpteenth time in this battle, but the sensation of flying through the tainted courtyard and crashing to a tumbling and scraping halt on the ground was nothing compared to the utter torment that the Defiler's touch had induced within him, the shrieking chorus of a thousand dying worlds that were consumed by the unholy pyres of their own lust and overindulgence mixing with the demon's laughter that echoed throughout Cai's head, smashing apart any chance of having coherent thoughts as he spasmed for a second on the ground in unadulterated agony at having a being of that power touch him.

Orzhova's words rose unbidden to him as he tried to get control of his unmanageable shuddering and trembling, her dire warning flashing within his mind within the whirling tempest of pain and screaming: "_You running in behind me is exactly what the Defiler wants you to do, and if he touches you then you die, simple as that._" He wasn't dead yet, though Cai wasn't exactly certain of that fact because he knew that if he did die before the Archdemon was banished then he would be subjected to this pain forever and wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the agony within reality and the agony of the tortuous afterlife that Rakdos had planned for him.

Shaking, Caiellis pathetically pulled the ineffectual Sword of Glass that he had inadvertently dropped as he had had every single sense in his mind converted to be focussing solely upon his pain, indescribably glad that he had had the intelligence to create this tether after almost losing the blade before Tristram had found it and taken it with him because of the fact that he had proven numerous time that he was too weak to keep a hold on the blade within battle.

Not that it would do anything to the demon that seemed to be immune to all of his magic (although the fact that he had stopped the Twilight Reprisal by using his own foul magic suggested that it would have done damage to it had the Lord of Riots simply allowed it to crash into him, and Caiellis would see that if he could think properly through the pain and the terror chilling his limbs despite the immense heat), but he felt more comfortable with a sword in his hands, felt like he had some form of defence if he was holding a weapon and a way to protect himself for the forces of the darkness that hunted him down. He had been made like that by the civil war when he and Alexander had been relentlessly tracked down and attacked by all forms of creatures, and although at first Cai had been too weak to use any form of useful offensive magic even at four years old he had felt safer with a knife to clutch upon so that he could beat back the nightmare creatures that descended upon him.

Hissing in the pain that periodically rushed up and down his entire body, the smallest Lucerna rolled and pulled himself back to his feet, trying to stop the worst images that he had seen so far – and that was saying something with the amount of vile visualisations he had been subjected to over the course of this battle – blared into his mind and danced behind his eyes, screaming out within his head along with all of the panic and terror that he was drowning within. He pulled his bloody and wounded form to his feet, rapidly blinking back tears of pain and stifling whimpers all the while as he flicked his blurred gaze towards the Lord of Riots that was already stepping slowly towards him, gazing down at his prey like one might gaze down at a fly before squashing it, or in this case subject it to the most painful mental and physical tortures known to the world.

He dragged up all of the mana from inside of him up to the surface, feeling the familiar grip upon his magic slackening and becoming harder and harder to obtain as his magical reserves started to run out – and as White and Black mana seemed to be based upon emotions and thoughts (like all mana, but more than some others) the fact that he had neither good enough to repel the Lord of Riots meant that his magic was weaker. The Defiler stepped towards him again as he kept his form low down enough that ringing pains weren't sent through his head.

_Stop! Leave me alone! Someone help me! _

His heart was palpitating faster and faster like some sort of insane drummer was playing his instrument at an extremely fast rate within his ribcage, the urge to scream returning at full force as the demon's hand descended towards him again. He summoned up a powerful shield, feeling the burn inside of him of wanting and trying to use mana that he just didn't have any more, and as he tried to run backwards the massive hand of the Lord of Riots wrapped around his shield.

Instantly, it started to break, a horrible cracking and shattering sound like the breaking of a thousand cathedral windows in unison by the anarchistic revels of the ones who would follow Rakdos, and the boy gasped in more pain as he felt his mana dying as the Lord of Riots squeezed.

His vision was filled by the massive hand of the Archdemon, and as he curled up, whimpering within his orb of glassy mana that surrounded him, large and incandescent fractures began to appear on his protection, as the gigantic fingers of the Defiler closed harder around it, cracking the shield as he squeezed. Cai cried, terrified of what would happen if Rakdos decided to pick him up again and chose not to throw him away like some sort of toy that was no longer wanted. His slender palms were open and pushing away at his shield, like his pathetic resistance would be able to do anything against the might of the Archdemon bearing down on him, and golden mana flowed from his small hands into the shield as it cracked and splintered into shards of crystalline luminescence that glittered as they faded into nothingness and took parts of the youngest Lucerna's protection with them.

"Please!" he yelped, his voice laced with desperation as his shield began to truly break, and the Lord of Riots boomed with the thunderous laugher of a dark and malicious god who revelled in the suffering of humanity, blood welling up within his hands and running down his palms as the scrapes and gashes upon the skin opened up with even greater force because of the mana that he was pulsing through them, spikes of pain stabbing into the hands as he shut his eyes. The shield finally cracked with a screeching break of mana, but instead of being crushed into a pulp by the Lord of Riots's massive hand that could break Caiellis's fragile body with a single finger, or being picked up by the demon and dangled in front of its rows of sharp teeth, the boy didn't feel anything but the malicious aura of the demon immensely close.

He risked opening his eyes for a second, his hand on the Sword of Glass holding the hilt of the blade tight as the other one's nails dug into his already bleeding skin he was squeezing his left hand into such a tight fist, and saw the crimson flesh of the demon still around him, wrapping almost fully around his body but not touching him yet. He could feel the heat and the malevolent mana seeping from the skin of the Defiler, and let out a muted whimper at it, knowing that it could crush him to a pulp whenever Rakdos chose and there was nothing that he could do about it at all.

Dark magic, swirling sigils that pulsed with a malevolent red the colour of freshly spilt blood ripped themselves into existence from the demon's palm, spinning around Cai like smoky tendrils as the boy instinctively tried to pull away. The demon's hand was suddenly removed, and the youngster gave an involuntary gasp of relief at the proximity of the demon decreasing, breathing out the gasping breath which he hadn't realised he had been holding in.

"**Pathetic**," the Lord of Riots growled at him, although within the disgust at human frailty and fear within the snarl there was a dark and sadistic amusement present at watching Caiellis writhe in torment and whimper at the utter mercy of the merciless demon. The boy could feel the demonic and occult magic from the lowest hells of the underworld within the abyss saturating the air around him and making it immensely hard to breathe now that the golden respirator of light which Orzhova had gifted him with which had been purifying the air that he breathed in had gone, and was about to try and raise another shield of mana to push them away before crimson orbs of power appeared all around him, the sigils of darkness and destruction coalescing into spheres of Black and Red mana that surrounded the youngster.

Cai didn't even have enough time to brace himself before they began to attack him, crimson lighting crackling within some as it was blasted into him, electrifying his young form in arcs of pain that had him instantly screaming in the agony rushing throughout him. Some others pulsed black, and the boy was assaulted by thousands of needles of venomous and malicious mana that stabbed into his nerves as the lighting coruscated through him, and others set him alight and burnt him with evil hellfire that seared his pale skin raw.

"AAAAAH!" Caiellis howled in the pain surrounding him, grasping a hold of the tiny piece of mana that he had left and desperately flinging it out of him, the White and Black mana combined instantly consumed and obliterated by the malignant power of the Archdemon as pure and unadulterated agony in all of its physical forms coursed through Caiellis. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he could only scream.

_Make it stop! Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!_

This was by far the worst pain that he had gone through so far, and it was only getting worse, every single one of Caiellis's sensed assaulted by a variety of agonising stimuli in a riotous carnival of torment which would have had him begging for mercy if he could make any other sound than the choked screams of anguish and agony that he was releasing which he couldn't hear over the pounding in his skull – but he could hear them, his shrieks of pain warped and distorted until they were shrill howls that sliced into Caiellis's eardrums, or even corrupted even more and made into hedonistic and orgiastic wails of dark rapture and ecstasy within the pain.

He was being burnt, electrocuted, sliced, cut, smashed, crushed, strangled, stabbed, had all of his bones broken, was being subjected to the most horrifying and hedonistic screams that cut straight into his mind and made him want to scream as well, though not in pleasure. He was being hacked apart by cleavers dipped in toxins that heightened every sensation to their optimum feeling, ripped apart by the knives of the most foul inhuman pain artisans, throw into walls of spikes and squeezed to death by the massive hand of the Lord of Riots as his bones were ground to dust and his internal organs smashed to a pulp; he was subjected to the most vile and unnatural narcotics and drugs that drove talons of fire and darkness into his brain; he was flayed alive as layer after layer of skin and muscle was removed by slicing blades and knives; he was being eaten alive by the human and demonic revellers of the darkest festivals of self-indulgence and had all of their tortures inflicted upon him.

And there was more than that, the orbs of agony and crimson causing him pain that he had never even though existed before now and did not bear speaking about, exposing to torments that he had never considered before in his life despite knowing that they existed, and others that he had dismissed at being inconsequential sources of pain that had been amplified to the direst and most agonising levels. There were things that he felt happening to him that he didn't even know what they were, things of a psychopath's mind drenched in insanity and given the unholy power of a false god that words would simply fail to describe, agony so painful that nothing would ever describe it pulsing throughout the thirteen year old boy.

_STOP! SOMEONE HELP ME! PLEASE! PLEASE, MAKE IT STOP!_

He wanted his brother. He wanted Uncle Tristram and Uncle Tybalt. He wanted his father, the father that he remembered and the father that would protect his youngest son from this. He couldn't care less how childish or pathetic that want was, that a Lucerna should have been able to endure on their own and rise above the base desire for the help of family or loved ones. He _wanted _them. He didn't want to die like this – and more than that, he didn't want to have to be within this forever, the pain increasing every single second even though he was sure that nothing could be as painful as this.

It was strange; in other parts of Cai's life and something he was certain would happen and had happened to others, when the pain reached a certain point, a level of agony that could not be surpassed and consumed everything, the body simply shut down its senses and could not take any more. However, with this, there was no respite, no halt in the pain, and it kept getting higher and higher and higher with no limitations upon it.

He couldn't see anything past the malicious crimson glow that filled his sight, he couldn't hear anything over the screaming of millions of souls subjected to the same level of torment as him for all eternity after their deaths, he couldn't smell anything because of the nauseating scent of burnt flesh combined with the horrible aroma of freshly hacked apart meat and the odour of oceans of blood spilling out from the slaughterhouses of hell. He couldn't taste anything other than the coppery tang of crimson blood within his mouth and the sickly sweet taste of taint and corruption with it, and he couldn't feel anything other than the unrelenting pain that consumed everything and refused to give him any breaks.

Sometimes it seemed like it would stop, decreasing in intensity to the point where primal hope flared up within the prince's mind that it would finally cease, before returning with an even greater intensity. Through it all, the youngest Lucerna could hear the tempestuous and psychotic laughter of the Lord of Riots and feel its dark caress upon him that caused him physical and magical agony worse than almost all humans on the planet had experienced.

_STOP! ANGELS, STOP! END IT! SOMETHING, PLEASE, END IT!_

Cai screamed and screamed and screamed in the agony as the crimson orbs of pain surrounded him, shuddering violently as blood poured out from his open mouth, nose, eyes and ears again, spilling down his young form in trickles of scarlet. He felt like he was being sliced open as numerous cuts opened up upon him, all of his wounds reopened and flaring into painful life once again, and lines of darkness drawn by blades of magic ripped through his pale skin, branding him with the occult sigils associated with the Lord of Riots as they were cut onto him by the unholy magic, marring his pure form with their malicious intent as the boy shrieked in agony.

The boy's eyelids fluttered from where they were clamped shut, although blood leaked out of the closed eyes and dripped down his face like crimson tears, and the green orbs of the youngest Lucaelian in Welkas moved rapidly behind the closed lids. Had his eyes been open, they would have been bloodshot and red from the vital liquids pouring out of them and pooling at the bottom of them, and his pupils were dilated to the point that there was barely any green left within the irises, though instead of being only blackness because of the expanded pupils violent red light shone through them.

As the Lucerna prince was marked by the symbols of the Defiler, his agony increased exponentially, his screams of pain becoming raw and choked as he struggled to breathe from the blood welling up in his mouth from his throat and pouring out of it, and he convulsed on the ground as the orbs closed in on him and utterly surrounded him in a cage of unceasing pain.

_I have to … keep going … can't stop now … can't stop now … have to … help the Lucaelian force … have to … slay the Defiler … and … atone for … my mistakes …_

_Have to … save Alex … have to … save people who … protected me …_

In spite of all of the pain and terror swirling around within the boy's brain, Caiellis somehow managed to create a sanctuary for himself, an oasis within the endless seas of agony and horror that roiled in his head, reinforced by these gasping thoughts of determination and his adamant will to succeed that was the core of his being. He knew that if he held onto that, no pain, no matter how horrible, could overcome him, and even though at the back of his mind he was aware that that wasn't true and that he was already slipping away into an abyss of torment and already begging for mercy, he grasped with all of his force with the few almost coherent thoughts within his agonised and abused young mind.

He didn't know how he managed it, how he kept going within the endless agony of the dark magic cast onto him by the Lord of Riots that put him through every type of physical and magical pain that he had ever experienced and far more besides that. His entire personality and mind was being lost within the agony, but he still managed to keep a hold upon his ideals, these last few thoughts, a sliver at the core of his being that the pain could not degrade as it washed away everything else with its torture, the fateful combination of terror and pain preventing him from acting or even thinking as it consumed everything but that last fragment of determination which he protected with all of the mental might that he could muster.

Then, the agony suddenly stopped, though instead of instantly pulling away and leaving him bereft of the torment it faded to the point where he could regain consciousness and awareness of his surroundings, and with that the little determination which he had mustered up because it was the only thing that he could hold onto within his chaotic mind filled to the brim with endless pain was swallowed up by him being given access to the rest of his brain again, hopelessness and helplessness flooding through it and washing the sliver of resolution away under its tides of despair.

Cai coughed violently as the convulsion wracked his painfully thin body when he tried to breathe in, the blood flowing back into his mouth as he was laid backwards with the back of his head on the ground and clogging up his windpipe until he pushed his head and throat vertically and allowed it to run down, his body still hurt like hell – but this pain was much more specific than the combined sensations of ultimate agony from before, shuddering up and down his slender and small form, and despite the fact that objectively the agony that he had been suffering through earlier had been worse subjectively this was because he could actually feel the pain again instead of having his mind and senses overloaded by the amount that there was – it was like what he had thought about earlier, where one's body would shut off its sensory capabilities and shut down when the torment became too much, but not the same as that as he had been able to still feel all of the pain.

It was just that there had been that much of it that it became everything that he could feel, subsuming all of his other senses underneath the tidal waves of excruciation, but now that he could feel himself as well as the pain the fact that there was a hope to escape from it but it was forever too far away made it first. Now that he could feel himself, remember who he was and what he had to do, the pain was worse because even though he had a brief respite from it now he knew that it was only going to get worse, especially when Rakdos primed his next assault that Caiellis would be able to do nothing about.

The boy was assaulted by a hollow sensation and the pit of his stomach and within his mind, like he was immensely hungry and thirsty all at once but physical sustenance could not fill him, and as he tried to pull up some mana so that he could mount even a pitiful and useless defence against the demon he found that there was absolutely nothing left. There wasn't even a single droplet of magical energy remaining within his Lucerna mana pool, and in spite of the reality that his magic had been achieving nothing and not harming the Archdemon in the first place the realisation that he had nothing left, nothing at all, made even more terror flood through Caiellis.

He had always known, even when he was only four or five years old participating in some mild sparring sessions with his older brother despite his age, that he had an over reliance upon his magic because of the fact that his physicality was so worthless, but no matter how hard he had tried to train and get stronger nothing had happened, even now when he had supposedly hit puberty and was supposed to start growing taller and eventually filling out (although Caiellis was aware from the experience of watching others and, to a lesser extent, himself since he _had _grown in the past few months but the fact that he was still way too small and his gain of height was nothing compared to his already much taller brother's meant that it was almost unnoticeable, that usually adolescents became much thinner when they got taller, and Cai wasn't sure how that was going to work with him when he was already as thin as a twig – not that he would ever reach that time), and he had been physically weak for as long as he could remember.

However, his magic had always been strong, and because he could use that to make up for his deficiency in strength and resilience he had developed a kind of dependency upon it, something which had been highlighted and brought into light when he had been kidnapped by the Master of Violence Arendus Draal and reduced to utter uselessness by the shackles upon his mana that had been placed upon him. Now that he had no magical ability left, now that his entire mana pool had been exhausted in this ruthless and agonising and emotional battle which had seen him brush against the door of death several times, he felt even more hopeless than before.

The chance of him damaging the Archdemon, something which had been minuscule even when he had access to all of his mana, his guardian First Sisterhood angel Orzhova had been by his side and he was casting his most powerful spells, dissolved into nothingness. He had never even been able to win against his older brother when they were both being serious in their sparring matches (or rarely their full blown fights which had progressed from angry arguments into violence between the brothers, something which had always ended badly for Cai), so how was he supposed to defeat the Lord of Riots with no mana left to call upon?

"**Are you ready to surrender yet, little Lucerna child?! Are you ready to embrace the Festival of Bloodshed as your destiny?!**" Rakdos demanded of him, the Archdemon still incredibly close as the boy took this chance to begin to crawl backwards away from him, not caring that pain exploded through him at the motions and he tore the bare flesh of his back (as the shirt had been utterly shredded by all of the falling and scraping he had done, the shreds of fabric stuck painfully to his open wounds and gashes) to tatters as he dragged himself backwards over sharp shards of rock and rubble.

Half of him wanted to turn around and scramble fully across the ground away from the Archdemon, but the other part of him would not countenance turning away from the demon because of what it might do to him when he did so and the fact that he wouldn't be able to see it (no matter that he could do nothing to stop its actions anyway), so he continued to slowly and painfully drag himself backwards over the abused ground as he sent terrified flicks of his eyes up to the demon's monstrous visage, though he knew to avoid its baleful eyes that were fixed upon him.

He was aware that he would never be able to escape, but that didn't stop the part of him that he tried to keep locked away as much as possible, the part of him that was still a young, innocent and scared child ripped away from anyone that would protect him and plunged into war and violence that he couldn't help with at all, from trying to get away from the Archdemon so that it couldn't do anything more to him. As he escaped, he panted for breath with each of the movements that sent waves of exhaustion and pain rippling throughout him, and as he raised one of his hands that had been pushed behind him to hold his back off of the ground something out of the corner of his eye caught him.

He raised his palm, bloody and red from the numerous gashes and lacerations upon the small and delicate hand that was not suitable for a Lucerna at all, and stared at it in horror when he saw the malicious lines of some sort of symbol carved upon it, pulsing black and crimson in alternating emissions of demonic light. He could feel agony whenever the thing that looked like a scar cut into him but didn't bleed pulsated with its malevolent glow, and a kind of sick and morbid curiosity mixed with utter horror at being defiled by the Archdemon came over him as he saw that the horrible pattern that hurt his eyes merely by looking it and summoned up images and thoughts of madness behind them as he flicked it over them tracing down his hand and onto his wrist.

Despite the fact that his lightly armoured jacket had been all but utterly obliterated, he still wore the last remaining sleeve of it upon his right arm which he was now looking at, the watch upon it which had been given to him by the father that hated them when he had asked for it back in Lucael destroyed beyond repair by the violence of the battle (although, strangely enough, the bent and burnt hands upon the timekeeping device read 08:17, which wasn't right at all since the attack had started after that point – and in retrospect he probably should have thought that it would have been destroyed in the bloodiest battle of his life and not strapped it on automatically as he got dressed (Alex going back to his own tent once the two had woken up and had a terse conversation in the morning which had aptly exemplified their worry and tenseness)) before he ripped it off and pulled at the sleeve which was stuck to his skin by the blood which had soaked through it from the endless Rain of Gore coming from the unholy storm above.

His mouth opened in shock and fear as he could see the symbols extending up his now bare arm to the sleeve of his shirt and underneath that, somehow marked onto his skin by the unnatural power of the demon. There were sigils of darkness, hedonism, violence and indulgent destruction, seven pointed stars mixing with jagged and warped symbols that distorted as the boy gazed at them in horror, writhing under his gaze like moving needles in his skin as he began to breathe faster. Somehow he hadn't considered this, assuming at the back of his mind that the fact that he was a Lucerna prince, a descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna with his own First Sisterhood angel to use, that he would be immune to the corruption of the Archdemon, but it seemed like without Orzhova to protect and purify him the Lord of Riots was free to leave its mark upon him, staining his body and hopefully not tainting his eternal soul – as when Cai obtained his freedom from his pain he wanted to be able to have peace.

"Wha … What have you done to me?" the boy asked, barely able to breathe out the words in horror past his hyperventilating, and although his voice was quiet and broken from all the shock and pain and screaming that he had gone through the post human auditory senses of the Archdemon still heard it. Rakdos smiled down at him, full of a predatory need to break him and subject him to eternal pain as well as a kind of dark benevolence, replying with sadistic amusement, "**I merely imparted my blessings upon you, little Caiellis, now that your angel isn't here to stop me any more, in preparation for your departure from this world. Now there is no chance of you escaping from me, or other intervening and saving you from your fate. Why do you look so horrified, young Lucerna? In the same way that your beloved First Sisterhood angels mutated their Summoner's flesh and mark them with their sigils, so too do Archdemons like to brand those who are of a special significance to them. You should be embracing this gift with rapturous applause, not terror!**"

The Archdemon stamped its foot, and Caiellis was sent tumbling as a shockwave of geomantic force rushed through him from the thunderous impact of the weight of Rakdos, sprawling across the jagged ground again as all of his wounds drained more and more of his energy in trying to get back up. He couldn't escape the fact that his body was sullied, corrupted, and he could barely tear away his gaze from looking down his front and seeing the dark branding of the Lord of Riots tracing lines of malice and spite up and down his pale body which was already covered in numerous painful wounds, the pattern going over some of his larger gashes and pulsing underneath it like it was within his flesh and not just on the surface, and the boy couldn't stop himself from brushing his finger on them. There was no physical feeling from it, no lines or breakages in the skin that he was touching, which showed that, as opposed to what it looked like, it wasn't a scar, but when he touched them he could feel the sensation of prickling corruption and stabs of sadistic pain into his fingertips.

It was like the sensation of touching a Lucerna birthmark – physically, it felt the same as simply touching normal skin, and to theoretical humans with absolutely no mana whatsoever that didn't actually exist it would feel no different to making contact with anywhere else on the person's body, but magically the birthmarks thrummed with the divine power of the angel which had given the descendant of the First King their blessing. However, instead of the feeling of impressive awe mixed with a tinge of haunting melancholy that the boy had become used to from his Black Sun on his right cheek, or more rarely the sensation of righteous zeal and encouragement that he had felt whenever he had touched Alexander's Swords of Flame on his right bicep, the massive non-pattern of sadism and depraved barbarity etched upon him caused him pain in his sixth sense to touch and heightened the maddening pounding within his skull.

Caiellis had to stop his churning stomach from distracting him too much, pushing the bile that rose up within him from the revolting stain of the Archdemon of hedonism upon him which had threatened to burst out of his mouth, holding one of his hands over it as he was certain that he was going to throw up (and it showed how much self control the thirteen year old had that he did not give himself credit for that he hadn't vomited his guts up yet) as he touched the other to his gaunt left cheek, trying not to image his reflection tarnished and debased by the spiralling yet jagged and sharp patterns that were on his face as well, wondering if he was permanently corrupted by this or whether it would disappear when the demon was banished from this plane of existence.

"**No matter. I hardly expected you, an accursed Lucerna, to be grateful for my gifts**," the demon snarled as Cai began to start crawling back away from it again. Rakdos suddenly threw his flaming scythe, the boy letting out a cry of panic as the flaming blade of the screaming weapon arched through the air towards him, but instead of consuming Caiellis within the hellfire blade it smashed into the ground behind him, sending jagged sprays of obsidian debris into the air and utterly blocking off his path of escape. The boy knew that he was stuck, and after sending a frightened glance over to the scythe behind him he looked fearfully back at the demon that towered over him again.

Rakdos raised its massive left hand, an orb of bloody empyreal matter appearing within it out of raw Black and Red mana, and the youngest Lucerna couldn't help but let out an utterly pathetic whimper as several chains of fleshy metal ripped themselves out of the fabric of reality and wrapped around him, constricting round his thin body like the shadows of his own corrupted mana had before and burning into his skin in the exact same places, though this time it felt like savage spikes were being driven into him as well. He tried to move his arms despite the chains holding them to the ground, though the ropes that looked suspiciously like the bloody intestines of some sort of being that was much larger than a human but combined with bloodthirst brass metal allowed him a relatively reasonable range of motion, like he was shackled to a point out of this world and unable to move too far from it but not held utterly immobile like the last time as the Defiler, mimicking its avatar of discord set upon the youngest Lucerna earlier, strode menacingly towards him.

Cai knew that he should be thinking rationally about this, that he should try to remove the bonds on his arms and legs before this one, but he couldn't stop himself from grabbing onto the fleshy tendril once again encircling his bruised throat and trying to pull it off of him. It wasn't squeezing hard, but the boy still had a primal fear of it and that meant that it would have to be that one first, and even though the chains stabbing into his arms restricted his movements he was able to grab onto the thick tendril round his neck, pulling at it desperately but not making it move at all as he struggled, kicking his legs against the ground as he tried to move them as well.

The whole brand of the Archdemon was blazing with agony at the touch of its unholy magic, and the simultaneously unreal yet corporeal spikes stabbing into the boy from the chains wrapped around his arms, legs, throat and lower chest (proving that the spikes didn't actually exist otherwise they would have been ramming into his neck and ribs and lungs when they weren't) caused him huge amounts of pain as he thrashed ineffectually. He was trapped, and while the last time he had managed to escape by blasting his mana out of himself this time he didn't have any to use in that method of breaking free.

"**I must say, for your pathetic size and species you are very resilient to pain, as even though you do scream you do not give up**," the Defiler smirked maliciously at the trapped youngster who was still pulling at the chain round his neck as he strained against his bonds with his legs, trying desperately to break free and escape. Rakdos squeezed his talons into the orb of raw and corrupt magic controlling the dark forces restraining Caiellis, and the chains of metal and flesh tightened massively, crushing Caiellis's broken ribs and bruised throat as well as pulling his arms away from trying to free himself and to the ground. He ground out strangled shrieks of agony as he felt spikes of pure torture piercing into his fragile flesh all around him, and his still bloodshot green eyes bulged as the chains simultaneously throttled him and squeezed down on his ribs.

A few of the same spheres of agony inflicting crimson which had forced him to scream until his lungs bled earlier orbited around him and sent pulsations of excruciating pain flooding through his already tortured limbs, and he couldn't even move his thin arms from where they had been dragged to the ground to try and yank at the worst rope of the substance of hell of them all, the one that was making him go through one of the things that he hated most out of anything in the world. His fingers squeezed into fists as he pulled them at the bonds holding them down, his mouth opening wide as he tried to suck even a tiny breath into his lungs.

_No! Not again! STOP! STOP IT! PLEASE! I CAN'T KEEP GOING THROUGH THIS! SOMETHING STOP THE PAIN! I CAN'T BREATHE! Please..._

The Lord of Riots said something else, but the boy couldn't hear it over the pounding of both blood and panic within his head at being subjected to _this _once again, and his vision of the creature was blurring every second. While his father had taken time with the murder of him, this chain was not and it had instantly started at the final pressure that Marik had used, and it was as such strangling the boy much faster as his tongue began to swell in his mouth. The pressure eased up, pain abating to a tolerable level like it had done so many times already with the Defiler which would bring him to the brink of dying from the utter agony and then give him a tiny respite before almost killing him again.

He gasped in a lungful of air, the bruises already on his throat (the front of which was bare of the savage desecration scattered up and down him but the back covered by it) joined by new ones which weren't in the shape of fingers and were more like rope burns, like the shadows had done but on his neck instead of just his arms and legs, though the fact that they were like that instead of specifically on his windpipe meant that they would be less effective. Cai wondered how long he could last from being plunged in and out of a sea of pain, but as long as he had that little piece of determination within him to atone for all of his crimes despite all that had been done to him over the course of this violent battle he wouldn't give in; he would endure for as long as he could because that was his duty and he wanted peace, peace which wouldn't come if he died and was claimed by the demon.

"**Like I said: you are an excellent toy because pain does more to you than most but you refuse to give into it!**" Rakdos laughed, full of demonic humour that almost had Caiellis bursting into psychopathic hysteria as well at the fact that an Archdemon was saying this about him, instead, he reached his hand up to his face – the chains still on him but slackening to the point that they had been at earlier, and the crimson magic of agony still revolving around him but not torturing his abused body – and scrubbing the tears away, resolving to attempting to give the demon as little enjoyment as possible it could from inflicting him pain. He dipped into his mana pool, but there was still nothing there, and could have laughed grimly and bitterly at the fact that Orzhova had told him that she believed he could have defeated Rakdos with what she had been able to give him after he had foolishly wasted all of his magical energy in the Twilight Reprisal.

"Please," he wasn't able to stop himself from pleading, more tears spilling out of his haunted eyes as he tried to pull at the constricting tendril around his neck. His voice was innocent, broken, shaking and raw from all of his screaming as well as all of the bruises and squeezing of his throat from both his father and the dark spells of Rakdos, imploring a being that did not understand nor had ever felt the concept of mercy for that exact same mercy. He sounded every inch his thirteen years, and breathed heavily as his trembling fingers scrabbled at the steely flesh round his neck, even his thin digits unable to get underneath it and push it away, and he was far too weak to pull it off. The Lord of Riots simply grinned with the vile pleasure it had been finding in all of this fight down at him, slightly tightening its hand around the throbbing vortex of pure Black and Red mana within it, and Caiellis stared back up at him pleadingly as the chains began to slowly tighten around him.

"Please..." he begged for a second time, his voice strained by the tightening of the chain and scared at the thought of going through something that never got any better or more bearable the more that he went through it. He was reminded of that time long ago when he had only been seven years old and picked up on this fear which hadn't been that much of a problem for him all of his life (since, unlike something like a phobia of heights – or public speaking, his much more pronounced fear that at least wasn't as bad as it was before he had given the massive speech to the entire army – usually when he was being strangled he was in a situation to be terrified in already, instead of being filled with fear in relatively normal situations) until these past two weeks, when his older brother had been insistent on testing out his new wrestling moves on Caiellis who hadn't been in the mood at all.

Alex had been like that relatively often – enough to make it not a rarity but not enough that he would ever be doing it with the intent to actually hurt Cai or bullying the younger boy with it, and had often been obsessed (in the youngest Lucerna's mind, at any rate) with submission manoeuvres – and who better to practice them on that his little brother? Cai had understood why, of course, even at seven years of age, because his older sibling needed someone weaker than him (or at least someone who wasn't stronger than him) to test the moves on, otherwise they would just break out, and he needed someone who he was comfortable with and who knew he wouldn't be trying to kill him.

The two brothers had gotten into a form of a fight, as Caiellis had been suffering with a headache in the aftermath of the migraine he had had the day before and really wasn't in the mood for his brother to be putting him in some form of painful hold and demonstrating, whether he meant it in an insulting way or not, how much weaker the younger of the two was than him. They had pushed each other around a bit, not yelling at each other because they knew that Tristram and Tybalt were downstairs trying to plan and talking about important things, hissing at one another.

Cai had given his brother a particularly hard shove that had caught Alex off balance, making him painfully jab his elbow into a wooden cabinet. The seven year old had been forced to stifle giggles at the expression that his brother had pulled and the yelp of pain that he had made, and that had annoyed his older sibling even more than he already was. Alexander had told him then and there that he was going to test the move on him whether he liked it or not, and shoved him painfully up against the wall. He had grabbed hold of Caiellis's small neck, even at eleven years old able to almost fully wrap his hand (which had been quite thin at the time thinking about it, but not to Cai since he was so much smaller than his brother – to him the hands of Alex had always been large) around his little brother's throat, and easily lifted him off of his feet.

The younger boy had started panicking instantly, desperately telling his brother that he was really sorry for shoving him and laughing at him as Alex had lifted him further up into the air to the point where Cai had been on the same level as his brother (which might not have been much if they height discrepancy between the siblings hadn't always been so pronounced) and smirking at the way that even with only one hand Cai hadn't been able to pry his brother's fingers off. He had told the youngest member of their party and family that the more Caiellis resisted and the more he pleaded with him to let go the harder he was going to squeeze – which would have been all well and good if the seven year old Caiellis hadn't already not been able to breathe in his brother's strong grip and hadn't already been panicking because he was only seven.

Eventually, it got to the point where the older boy was squeezing so hard that Caiellis had fallen unconscious convinced that his big brother hated him and wanted to kill him, and woken up to a concerned Tybalt and Tristram and a very, very guilty and scared Alex staring down at him. He didn't speak to his brother for a week, and tried to stay away from him as much as possible until Alexander finally managed to corner him and apologised profusely to his little brother. In retrospect, Alexander had probably been intrigued by his own strength and hadn't known the extent of how strong he actually was, wanting to test that out on his brother, never wanting to choke him out or make him really scared of him, and Cai had never really blamed his brother for it since they were both boys and boys were often far too rough – especially boys that happened to be older brothers, even more so with ones that had younger brothers.

But the fear had persisted, one that he had been able to push down when either his brother or very, very rarely Tristram placed him in a choke hold because he knew that they wouldn't hurt him at all (especially since the Guardian only did it to show his students the technique, taking it in turns with Alex and Cai should they ever need to use it and didn't have access to their magic to subdue opponents without hurting them too much).

This reminded him of that, but instead of pleading with an annoyed big brother who didn't know the extent of his own strength he was begging an Archdemon who wanted to put him through the pain and the fear.

"_Please..._" he gasped out, his voice quiet and small because of the increased pressure, and though the chains didn't increase the amount that they were choking him and restraining his limbs, allowing a very thin trickle of air into his lungs, they were still strangling him and he would go unconscious because of the lack of air and the pressure on his wounds that was sending dizziness and faintness through him.

His eyes locked with those of the Defiler, who cocked his terrifying head to the side and licked his lips at the struggling boy. He snapped his fingers within the orb of mana, and crackling electricity flooded through Caiellis's body from the crimson spheres around him, and as the boy choked out screams of pain he continued, "**This is definitely one of your greatest fears, I can _feel _it. If your father hadn't exposed it to me when he tried to kill you, I might never have known. However, you prove my point once more. Even though you are suffering, and there is nothing you can do to stop it, you still persist and still remain unbroken. That gives me the opportunity to try something else!**"

Caiellis pawed at the restraints around his throat – his arms able to reach there because of the fact the chains on them weren't tightening very much – but couldn't even dislodge them slightly, as Rakdos spat something, spiralling contrails of blackness and blood forming from the inhuman words which sent shivers of madness through the boy as he tried to shut his ears off from hearing them. The Archdemon slashed its claws through the air and Cai gasped as a huge rent in reality opened up in front of him. Or at least he would have done if he would have been able to breathe properly, but he paid almost no heed to the strangled wheeze that left his mouth as he gazed in horror at what he saw through the tear in the fabric of the world that had opened up in front of his restrained form.

The image was tinted crimson by the matter of hell that was washing over it, and Caiellis's vision was blurred from the lack of breath and the pain that was rushing through him, but what it showed was unmistakable.

"_Alex!_" Caiellis shouted, though his voice was raw and full of emotion at seeing his older brother again for the first time after he had taken it upon himself to end this war on his own and left the relative safety of his big brother's side to Voidwalk to the private residence where he was now. More panic, and concern for the person he loved most in the world, surged through him when he saw his beloved older brother being attacked by the Master of Violence Arendus Draal who had been the one that had started this whole war in the first place by violently subduing Caiellis back at the Scholaria Magnus. Alexander was hoisted off of his feet by one hand of the massive Welkalite brute, and Cai let out a whimper of emotional pain and suffering when he saw that the huge man's hand was clamped firmly around the seventeen year old's throat.

"_Alexander!_" Cai choked out again, straining against the chains that stabbed into him and held him down in an even greater frenzy as more tears began to pour out of his eyes. His big brother looked dead; he wasn't doing anything to stop the Master of Violence choking him to death. Aurelia was across in the large open space outside of the Slaughterhouse Colosseum where the eldest prince and the Welkalite fought, battling frantically against a large demon son of Rakdos who seemed to be far more powerful than a "normal" greater demon if such a thing existed. His feet were dangling numbly off of the ground, and Cai knew that it would require someone with tremendous height and strength to be able to hoist his brother into the air by his throat like that – and Arendus certainly conformed with that, as the youngest prince was sure that the Master of Violence would have easily been able to snap the smallest Lucerna's neck or probably even physical tear his head from his shoulders if he hadn't have been under orders to take him alive so that he could be used as a bargaining tool to take the two princes.

Alexander wasn't moving. Alexander _wasn't moving_.

Spines of a malicious and hellish origin similar to the chains that choked and held down Cai now were poking out of his back, the boy's own crimson blood dripping from them as they wriggled within him, and Alex's broad chest which easily put Caiellis's to shame that would only get even bigger as he got older wasn't moving up and down with the powerful breaths that his brother usually took. The older boy's eyes were bloodshot and bulging, something that Caiellis would also see if he looked at his own reflection in a mirror, and they were looking off into the distance as if he could see Cai there.

"_Let him go! Let him go! Stop killing him!_" the youngest Lucerna gasped out, seemingly oblivious to his own predicament now that he could see his sibling, thrashing against his bonds in the desperate need to help his older brother, despite one rational and cold part of his psyche which had somehow survived through all of the pain and anguish informing him that the eldest prince was far away and that the only way he could help was killing the Lord of Riots now.

Alexander was in danger because of him. If he hadn't of left, if he hadn't ran off on his reckless and stupid mission here which he had failed anyway, then his big brother wouldn't be there, dangling in the air with the air choked from his lungs and looking small and fragile like a lots little boy next to the hugely proportioned Master of Violence. It had been stupid, selfish of him to make his brother worry by Voidwalking to Tradax's location instantly, and now instead of Cai paying the price (it didn't register to him that overall he had actually suffered far more pain than his brother had over the course of this battle) it was his brother doing it once again. He knew that Alexander was wounded. He _knew _that he shouldn't have left the older boy alone, not after only being a week since he had almost died, and now Alexander was going to die because of him.

"_Let him go! Let go of my big brother!_" he screamed, his own voice coming out as a raw gasp from all of the screaming that he had done which had shredded his vocal chords, and he dug his fingers into the ground, not caring that the shards of obsidian upon it cut into him as he tried to get out of his suddenly tightening bonds, fear for himself and fear for his loved ones rushing through him. That desperation was fuelled by the need to help the one person in his life who had always protected him ever since the moment of his birth, made him feel welcome and wanted, been a friend when he needed one, a shoulder to lean and cry on and an obstacle to attempt to surpass, a mentor when Caiellis required it and someone who would always make an effort to cheer his younger sibling up if he was down. He had saved Caiellis's life numerous times over the courses of their two lives fraught with danger and peril, and the younger boy hadn't even begun to start repaying that favour.

That desire to help his older brother fuelled his desperate strength, and, screaming (or choking out, depending upon how you looked at it) his defiance of the Archdemon all the while and the danger that his brother was in, managed to pull up his right arm and reach towards the rent in the flesh of the world that showed him his brother for just a second. His fingers were stretched towards the image of the older boy dying in the arms of Arendus just like he had been dying in the arms of their father less than an hour of almost unrelenting pain ago, like by touching the picture he could save his older brother, but the chains tightened even more and with a strangled gasp the arm was pulled back down to the ground.

"_Alex!_" he wheezed out once more, thrashing against his bonds so that he could somehow come to the aid of his dying brother, and the Defiler gazed down at him with a predatory intent, its flaming eyes lit up with ravenous hunger for the broken soul of a Lucerna as his malevolent visage was pulled into a wolfish and exultant grin. "**Yes, your beloved big brother is in danger, dying to the Summoner of one of my most powerful sons! And you can do nothing to help him! You cannot stop him from dying, and once he has been killed all alone with no one to help him I will claim his soul and feast upon it for all eternity just like I will with yours!**"

Tears of self-loathing and utter terror burned down Cai's cheeks that were already stained with blood from the cuts upon them and the Rain of Gore above, and he couldn't move his hands to wipe them out of his eyes. He choked out more sobs, the chain round his throat squeezing tighter with a malicious strength but leaving him enough air to breathe so that he could scream in pain and whimper for mercy for himself and his loved ones and Rakdos could bask in that.

"_Alexander..._" he cried, knowing that his father was right – he was worthless, utterly useless and the older boy didn't deserve a pathetic and weak younger brother like him – or, more precisely, he didn't deserve a strong and compassionate big brother like Alexander. He had put him in danger again, just like when they had been abducted, just like when his four year older sibling had thrown himself in front of blows destined for the younger prince all of those times in the past, just like when they had fought Aksua and he had been thrust into a perfect world of dreams and had been too weak to fight his way out when he had known that something was wrong.

And he couldn't do anything to save him. That was the worse part, the final nail in the coffin of spikes that rammed into him and pierced him with barbs of emotional, mental and physical pain for all angles. He couldn't do anything but watch his older brother be choked to death all because of Cai's weakness and stupidity. All of this thrashing, crying and screaming was accomplishing nothing, and Alexander desperately needed his help. If he had slain the Lord of Riots by now, or even better killed Jarred Redhand or even Tradax before the ritual had completed, then his brother wouldn't be in this situation, and that just made Cai hated himself even more for what he had allowed to happen.

"**But it is not just your brother that is in danger**," the Defiler told him, Rakdos's grin splitting his face as he increased the amount of pain that Cai was suffering from his orbs of crimson torment, controlling all of the factors that were torturing Caiellis like a puppet-master artfully manipulating their dolls to obtain the perfect effect or a chemister from the Yentarian League of Xechun carefully mixing together explosive substances to produce the best product, a subtle touch uncharacteristic of one of the louder but no less insidious Archdemons ensuring that Cai was suffering the maximum amount of pain that his body could take without being utterly consumed by it.

The boy choked and screamed as another rift opened up in front of him, this one coloured with a much darker shade of scarlet to the first. The youngest Lucerna was loathe to tear his eyes away from the image of his older brother, thinking that he should be there to witness all of his sibling's pain and punish himself for it in his attempts to save him, not wanting to look away in case something happened or his brother was killed, but the chain wrapped around his throat had a growth of fleshy matter burst out from it and turn his head so that he was looking at the other one.

Caiellis gasped in shock as he saw his older brother's best friends, the Montlea twins Leodred and Elizabex, with their father Carlis and Uncle Tristram and fighting against an albino woman with murderous and defiant red eyes that wielded a ravenous greater demon which exuded hunger and battled against the Capitalia Lux Guardian's Athela of the Aegis who must have been the new Master of Gluttony considering the fact that somehow Caiellis's oxygen-starved and hurt mind was able to pick out that they were fighting within Banquet Street.

Well, he said fighting, but Elizabex and Tristram were both unconscious and covered in blood. Horrified, Caiellis stared at the downed form of his physical combat mentor and one of the two people in his life who had loved him without being related to him in any way, and he blanched when he saw that the thirty year old who was much more of a father to him than his own dad had his right arm missing, hacked off at the elbow and pulsing with a poison of malicious Black mana. They were both stirring, however, and when he heard a scream of pain the youngest Lucerna looked over to the battle.

Leodred, Cai's big brother's best friend since before the thirteen year old had even been born who the youngest Lucerna found slightly annoying (especially when paired with his brother as the two reckless youths set one another off) but still liked in spite of being extremely shy around him and his sister, was trapped within the splintered rubble of a large and garish market stall, and the lithe woman who moved with the grace of a predator (reminding Cai of Aksua, though while the last vampire had tempered that grace with the aura of her beauty which could lull almost all who looked upon her into complete submission and had walked with a knowledge of the effects of her appearance, this woman did not and was much more like a ruthless huntress than the covetous vampiress) leaping towards him.

"_No_!" Caiellis shouted as his father friend Carlis charged in front of the blow aimed at his trapped son, the blade plunging through him as he was lifted off of his feet by the strength of it.

"_DAD!_" Leo howled in anguish as his father died right in front of his eyes, the image of the man impaled by the sharpness of the malicious blade overlayed with that of Caiellis's own mother with the claws of the grinning demon rammed into her stomach, and Cai was filled with horror at the sight of the death of one of the most influential generals in the kingdom, the death of the father of Alexander's best friends (and technically his as well since he did not have any others to call friends) that he had never really ever had the chance to speak to but knew that he was a great father and had struggled to get to grips with his children like Marik had but, unlike the king, had much more of an attempt to do so and had eventually succeeded.

The woman threw the body away from her and turned her fiery and piercing red gaze upon the sobbing Leodred. _I could have saved him. If I had just been stronger, faster, smarter, Carlis wouldn't have died, and Leo and Elizabex wouldn't have been left without a father now. _The thoughts rose within Caiellis's mind, tinged with significant amounts of self-loathing that prickled his eyes in the tears that fell out of them, electrical crimson conducting and into his writhing body from the orbs of agony that swirled in a mad dance around him, and the Lord of Riots boomed with more tempestuous and atavistic laughter.

More rifts were torn open in front of the boy's face that was streaked with tears and blood both from his wounds and the endless Rain of Gore from the rumbling and screeching sky, and as the youngest Lucerna was choked and electrocuted and burnt as new spheres of fiery agony were summoned up around him he looked upon them, weeping as he did so as the full scale of his utter failure to help anyone became truly apparent for the first time.

He saw his beloved Uncle Tybalt and the silent and dutiful Guardian Lelia battling desperately against a conceited and arrogant youth that the thirteen year old remembered from the Scholaria Magnus peace negotiations that seemed like many months ago instead of less than two weeks, a Master of Passion from one of the depraved Orders (though it had to be Wealth since all other major Orders of Passion had been taken) which had sold their empire and the innocents within it to hedonistic and wicked demons in the name of obtaining more power to rule over those who they exploited who could wield the destructive and selfish combination of Red and Black mana.

Lelia was picked up by a many armed demon formed from the dark desires of all mortals and covetous beings from Sancturia, an archfiend of depravity that was surrounded by pure darkness and sickly corruption, and tossed out of the window of what Caiellis assumed was the top floor of one of the three edifices to greed and wealth, and the boy shouted out as the semi-conscious young woman who was courageous and had rallied her people after the massacre at Gol at the same age that Cai was now was tossed almost casually and certainly sadistically out of the window.

Uncle Tybalt, the Hierarch of Capitalia Lux who had been Caiellis's teacher for as long as he could remember, was one of the few people that the boy could call friend – though he was family to the youngest prince as he had been raised by the man and the much younger Tristram, and had preferred Tybalt at the start because of his greater familiarity with him and then at the ages of six to ten when he had disliked Tristram because of the rigorous exercise and combat regimes that he made them go through. The aged teacher and his youngest student shared many similar interests, and the thirteen year old knew that Uncle Tybalt had shaped the way that he thought about things and approached problems.

The man had taught him almost all that he knew which wasn't simply knowledge of life in general (that had mostly been covered by his brother and his own experience), and he could fondly remember the look of pride on the venerable Hierarch's features as he completed mathematical tasks set for those at least four years older than him – even some which Alexander had struggled with. It had been the look of pride of a teacher, a mentor who was proud when their student excelled, but also of a parent, a man who had tremendous pride in his young charges that were almost like sons to him – and were in everything but name and blood.

Tybalt was nearing the end of his tether in this brutal and tough battle, and Caiellis grimaced and felt sick as he saw the Guardian who was a thousand times the protector of the Lucaelian people that he could ever be being launched out of the window, and he heard Tybalt's cry of shock resounding round inside of his head. But, something that was somehow worse than the sight of Lelia dying right in front of his eyes, was the amount of golden statues in the dark room that he was only just noticing now were not simply decorations. Caiellis suddenly realised that they were soldiers, turned into sculptures of precious metal by the dark magic of the Master of Wealth and his greater demon, and his heart began to beat even faster within his skull as he began to comprehend how many were dying because of his own weakness in failing to slay the Lord of Riots.

They were the Swords of Silence, an elite formation that had survived the massacre of Gol and had been instrumental in obtaining victory over the forces of Johnias, comprised of powerful veterans and expert warriors who were all sworn to silence until the perpetrators of the heinous acts inflicted upon their once beautiful and serene city were brought to justice, and they had been turned to gold and killed like they were mere chaff by the power of the Master of Wealth and his unholy demon of turpitude.

There were more fissures in the thin skin of the physical world torn open in front of him, and the boy choked out what was a mixture between a wail of fear and pain and a cry of emotional agony when he looked upon them, the chains around his throat and limbs tightening around them like the constricting motions of a snake and making it increasingly harder to think or even breathe properly, and although he was being strangled hard it was child's play for the Lord of Riots to give him just enough air to scream and whimper, albeit every sound that came out of him was extremely strained through the pain and anguish and the fact that his throat was raw with howling in agony and the amount that it had been squeezed violently.

He gasped in pain and sadness as he saw the Lucaelian army being decimated in all Quarters of the Welkalite capital. He could see Mysos, his father, Xathan, the Slayer of the Wicked and the Guardian of Cassida Principia, and his two other daughters fighting with their elite regiment within some sort of unholy pleasure den within what must have been the Hedonist's Quarter, a demon that did not seem to be bound to a human Summoner fighting against them with vile magic as it pinned Mysos up against the wall with one hand and blocked his father's desperate attack with the sword blade (which was more like an oversized dagger than anything) in its other, the Guardian's massive broadsword which was similar to Cai's own father's weapon shining with light as his angel dove in at the denizen of the abyss to be swarmed upon by hordes of scantily clad hedonists with psychotic red and black gleams within their unnaturally wide eyes.

The indulgent tormentor squeezed hard, digging its large and sharp talons into Mysos's side and raking rents down his armour as he tore it open, explosions of blood exploding out on each side as the boy and Caiellis's champion tried stoically to hold in his screams of pain for as long as possible before he gave into the urge and started howling in agony. Xathan and his two older children were assaulted by the members of the Order of Rapture, pain artisans blasting them with vivid pink lightning as dancers and performers leapt down from the ceiling alongside carnival devils and other, more grotesque creations.

He saw his four personal Lucerna bodyguards within a long street between the Champion's Quarter and the domain of the Order of Gluttony, and tried to reach out towards them to help them when he saw that Drax and Aymer were possessed by a maddening rage that made them turn on their comrades. Their Summonings had faded, but so had those of Ruthia and Lancalo, and the two who remained sane were covered in wounds from trying to non-violently subdue their comrades, not yet ready to fight back fully against them. The largest of Caiellis's praetorians, quiet and solemn Aymer (who was as large as Arendus Draal) whom he had always seen as a gentle giant despite witnessing several of his brutal exploits in battle as he wielded his massive strength and huge form in the service of the Lucerna family, was screaming loudly as he smashed his fists into one of the buildings forming the walls of the street, Ruthia just managing to dodge out of the way of the momentous punch which would have left her crushed to a pulp.

Lancalo had a long gash down his body which had pierced through his armour, and was breathing extremely heavily because of a smaller but no less horrific hole in his lower abdomen which must have caused excessive internal bleeding. The middle aged bodyguard was grimacing as he moved to avoid another one of Drax's flashing strikes, and Cai hated to see his warriors turned upon one another by the dark magic of the Lord of Riots in front of him. He didn't even bother wondering if that was what had happened to his father, because for one the man was a Lucerna and had the crown to protect him and secondly he had been perfectly aware of what he was doing whereas the maddened members of the Lucerna guard seemed utterly insensate and driven to violence by the screaming inside of their heads. Marik had meant to do what he had done, and while one section of Caiellis blamed him for it the rest of him knew that the man had not been in the wrong.

He saw streets that were flooded with the blood of the slain and the sky above, Welkalites and Lucaelians alike drenched in gore as they waded through the waist-height lake of vital fluids to battle against one another. He saw whole regiments of loyal warriors from the Kingdom of Light slain as rifts in reality were torn open below them, the whole city around them warping and changing as they were murdered screaming by the pure substance of the forsaken abyss. He saw regiments of soldiers beset upon all sides by hordes of shrieking Welkalites and unholy devils that wielded tongues of flame as whips and rode upon demonic hell-hounds, laughing and giggling with malicious hysteria as they charged down those soldiers who had become possessed by dread as tried to flee.

He saw whole divisions of the Lucaelian crusader force slain by greater demons that descended from the sky in fiery gouts of infernal death as they ripped the souls from their victims and feasted upon them. He saw soldiers that he recognised from his own army who had survived the battles of Jeksaan and Fort Egetau impaled as the ground grew spikes and massive spires of obsidian much like the ones surrounding the courtyard which Caiellis was being tortured upon burst forth from the earth.

He saw soldiers turning upon one another, ripping apart brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives and friends in the lust for blood that gripped them and controlled their every action, and cried as he watched the rage infused victors of the conflict begin to consume those who they had fought alongside in a cannibalistic frenzy for human flesh as the tore at the dying warriors with their teeth.

He saw groups of men and women who were part of many different regiments and came from many different cities brought together by the violence of the war cornered into cul-de-sacs within the sprawling City of Pleasure as the hellish influence of the Defiler made reality buckle and warp around them as demonic beings ripped themselves out of Sancturia and into the world of man, praying for the help of the angels and the Lucerna rulers that Cai knew would never come. He sobbed and whimpered as he saw them being torn to shreds, screaming and dying with thoughts of the ones who were supposed to protect them on their minds.

It was a massacre. Everywhere he looked, Lucaelians were being cut down and overrun by the psychotic warriors of the Welkalite Empire as they screamed in pleasure at the violence and howled their worship of their new dark god who had entered into the world and blessed them with such magnificent and rapturous bloodshed. There was screaming, the screaming of the insane Welkalites who basked in the slaughter of the invaders who had been trying to bring peace to their nation and free them from the corruption of their dictatorial masters and those demons that controlled them in turn, but what was worse than that was the screaming of the soldiers as they were slaughtered and died in their droves, their faith that the Lucerna family and the holy angels would deliver them from this hell that Usnaan had become remaining to their dying breath for some but wavering and faltering for others as they were killed.

The screaming pierced into Caiellis's young and abused thirteen mind, screaming that he should have stopped because of deaths that could have been prevented if he had just been stronger and better. The scenes of seemingly endless violence exploded around him, somehow worse than the images of horrific debauchery which the Lord of Riots had placed within his head because he knew that these were real – and worse, he knew that these were his fault, and real. If he hadn't have recklessly, Voidwalked here, if he had completed his duty to stop the ritual conjuring the Tempest of Craving instead of failing horribly to do so and barely surviving for long against the Archdemon that emerged, then these people with individual hopes, dreams, families and personalities wouldn't be dying within the city of torture and slaughter that Usnaan was becoming.

_I … I failed all these people … I failed my big brother … I failed my Uncles Tybalt and Tristram … I failed my father … I failed my mother, all those years ago … I failed my bodyguards, my friends, the families of my friends … I failed every single person in the army which has come to this city because of my weakness in allowing myself to be captured and used as a negotiation asset. I failed all of them. I even failed myself._

Caiellis's vision was almost utterly obscured by tears, but that didn't stop the thousands of scenes of Lucaelian warriors who had depended upon him to succeed so that they could emerge victories died because of his weakness penetrating into his mind. He was able to move his arms, though the chains dug painfully into them and scraped of flesh as he pulled them up, and he didn't realise he had placed his hands over his ears to dry and drown out the sound of everyone who he had ever known from his own nation dying in front of his eyes, everyone that had ever been precious to him preyed upon by vile demons and their equally nefarious Summoners as the Lord of Riots laughed.

"_Stop_! _Stop hurting them_!" he shrieked as the chains tightened around his neck, coughing for breath in between screams of anguish and pain as he looked upon what an utter failure he had become and the awful consequences of his weakness which was placing every single Lucaelian within the City of Pleasure in immense danger. He curled up into a foetal ball, only the chain around his neck acting with any real tightness, huddling his thin and gashed knees up to his equally as abused head and placing his hands over it, trying to shut his eyes to block out the images that continued on no matter that he was no longer looking at them. He shuddered in pain, arcs of agony crackling along him as a far greater emotional torment wracked him with sobs. He had failed, but instead of him paying the price it was everyone else who had been willing to give their lives to save the Welkalites from their own self-destruction, everyone else who had been counting on him to pull through and end the Tempest of Craving above.

He need to save them, he needed to slay the Defiler and banish it from this world and free Usnaan from its corrupting influence, but he couldn't do anything but shudder and tremble and scream and sob and cry and choke and gasp for breath and curl up into a ball and will it all not to be true.

"_Need … to help … need … to save ..._" he wheezed out, not even aware that he was doing it as he pressed his head further into his knees, one hand covering his head and the other tugging desperately at the ever-tightening tendril of fleshy iron wrapped round his fragile throat that was causing him physical pain that almost matched the mental agony he was suffering through. He didn't know where the Sword of Glass had gone, and he couldn't open his eyes to see because all he saw were black spots in front of his vision that was blurred by tears, and the images of his friends, comrades, family members and soldiers who had looked up to him despite his age and unimpressive stature and the fact that he had done nothing for them dying in front of him stopped him from being able to focus on anything else.

"**How can you save them if you cannot even save yourself?!**" the Lord of Riots boomed, Rakdos laughing tempestuously at the boy in front of him who was finally snapping under all of the tension and pain – both mental and physical – which he had gone through over the course of this battle and his entire life. He dug his talons harder into the orb in his hand, and Caiellis's sobs were choked as the chain squeezed harder around his neck, cutting off his air almost completely apart from a few choking sounds that he could make as he tried to escape from all of the pain and death which had been caused by his weakness.

Suddenly Caiellis was four years old again, watching his beloved and kind mother die right in front of him and powerless to stop it. He had reached out to her, just as he was trying to reach out to the Lucaelians who were dying within the further city, and just like then he couldn't do anything to help those who had given up everything for him. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how far he delved into his mind to find even a tiny speck of his magical power that he could use to resist and save them, there was nothing he could do and he was filled with self-loathing to a degree that he hadn't ever experienced before.

The runes cut into the youngest Lucerna's skin by the unholy blessing of the Defiler flared with dark power as he screamed and choked in anguish at the voices of the dying and the dead that swirled around him, pointing accusing fingers of desperate cries at the one who had failed them, Rakdos leaned forward with a predatory and sadistic smile etched upon his demonic features that were the stuff of the nightmares of angels. This was what he had been waiting for. Caiellis had been able to resist all of the huge amounts of pain inflicted onto himself, but what he couldn't escape from was the dying of the people who he cared so deeply about.

As the tendril of corruption tightened round his abused and bruised throat, the agony that was flooding through him increased in intensity, and the screaming of those dying in the city below due to his failures increased in volume and number, Cai tried to hide himself away. He shut himself off from the horrible, horrible noise and the pain of dying in the worst way possible, retreating inside of his mind. The Mind Realm was blocked, probably by the pain that he was in, so he went elsewhere as he desperately attempted to get away from the cruel reality of life. He tried to find that sliver of determination and solace that he had managed to grasp upon earlier that had stopped him from succumbing to every type of physical pain at once, holding onto it with all of his mental might and desperation and childish need to have somewhere safe.

That was not safe either. Even there, in his most private sanctuary that he had built for himself, the screams of the dying that formed a wail of accusation howling out Caiellis's name as they left this world of hate and war penetrated through the walls of his mind.

He huddled further inwards, no longer aware that he couldn't breathe, trying to block them out, trying to block everything out so that he could be alone and have peace away from his failures and pain, but they followed him in there, the desperate cries of those who he loved and those who had depended upon him to save them screaming within his head as his mind was filled with the images of them dying. Alone, in the pain and the agony and the sadness, Caiellis tried to push them away, but when the sight of his brother hanging limply in the hands of the Master of Violence appeared to him, the thirteen year old couldn't keep them out any longer.

The sanctuary that he had built for himself was useless, and nothing could protect him from the reality of his failure and the consequences of his weakness and stupidity. The screaming kept getting louder and louder and louder, the pain increasing every second as stars exploded behind Caiellis's closed eyes and agony exploded through his limbs, and the boy tried one last time to lock himself away. The death and the screaming followed him in there, swarming around him and drowning him in guilt and despair as he screamed out in anguish himself, squeezing his tiny and weak hands into fists as he pressed them into the sides of his head.

He had failed them all. And both he and them knew that as the shrieked at him in fury for letting them die and get hurt because he was too weak to complete his duty. Shutting himself away or screaming himself didn't get them out, nothing could get them out of his head, nothing could free him from the screaming of those who he had failed, nothing could deliver him from the hell that his life had become and nothing could erase the consequences of his weakness from the world.

The image of Alexander appeared to him again, the boy's body scarred, limp, broken, his head lolling backwards and his bloodshot eyes staring up at his little brother. The hands clamped around his throat didn't let up no matter how much Caiellis screamed at them to, the insurmountable pressure they were applying cruelly mirrored by that of the fleshy tendril strangling the youngest Lucerna that had followed him into his most inner regions.

His big brother's eyes, once so blue and vivid, gazed up at him. There was accusation in those eyes, anger and _hatred _that Cai could never escape from, but much worse than that was the lack of life that he saw in them. Alexander coughed once, a horrible, heart-wrenching sound that ripped up lungfuls of blood from both him and his brother, before releasing a horrible choked scream.

He had failed Alexander. He had failed the only person who had treated him with the love and affection that he had always craved. Now he was dead, and the Lucaelian people were sure to follow. It was over. For all of them.

And then suddenly, Caiellis broke.

* * *

New Summonings and Creatures in this chapter:

Rakdos's Carnival: Avatar of Discord


	39. A Hero's Death (Part V)

_And here it is: part five. Again I had the bolding issue, so I hope that they fix that soon. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter, and thank you for reading my story._

* * *

The city of Usnaan was screaming. It bled magma and the empyreal blood of the abyss from scores of wounds gouged into it by coruscations of crimson lightning from the Tempest of Craving and bloody rents where greater demons had ripped open the thin walls between Sancturia and the City of Pleasure and the other world had haemorrhaged into this one with their coming.

It burned black where massive meteorites, some containing scores of insane hellish entities that were disgorged upon impact, carved blazing canyons through its streets that were already covered in viscera and the brutalised bodies of both sides of the savage conflict. The darkness caused by the Tempest of Craving was banished, and yet it was not, the massive and angry clouds blocking out any form of natural or holy light.

The storm roiling above the city was reaching a crescendo of destructive activity, spitting out massive bolts of unholy lightning that crashed into the burning city below and vomiting up fiery missiles that scratched painfully bright parabolas into the sky in an almost artful manner as they shed blazing debris over the entire capital of the New Empire of Passion.

The city of Usnaan was screaming, but it was not a death scream, nor the frightened wail of a terrified victim. It was a howl of rapture, a shriek of orgiastic pleasure as the massive city transformed in the Festival of Bloodshed which had been started by the Archdemon Rakdos, a frenzied cry of ecstasy given voice by those battling within the sprawling confines of the capital. It was the discordant cacophony of a foul metamorphosis, a tainted evolution as the city died, drowned in blood and fire, but in its ashes a new capital of carnal debauchery would emerge.

Plumes of fire rose up from the City of Pleasure, like the bloody fingers of a newborn child reaching towards the euphoric mother who had just given birth to them. The Tempest of Craving answered, crackling bolts of lighting carving buildings and streets apart as a gigantic meteor crashed into one of the three massive Towers of Ecstasy, the glittering monuments to greed and depravity no longer shining opulent gold but covered in the sticky crimson blood that rained down from the abused sky instead as the large building on the right was split in half by the thunderous impact, the boom that should have echoed across the city eclipsed by the shrieking of the unholy storm looming over Usnaan as the top half of the tower flattened extravagant sections of the Augur's Quarter in which it was located, wealth that could have collectively fed thousands of those innocent Welkalites in poverty destroyed in the shockwave that crashed out from the falling tower.

A seven pointed star was etched upon the heavens, the unholy heptagram formed from lines of burning hellfire glowing with dark malice as the ruinous sigil span at the same time as remaining still. Seven spires of obsidian that echoed ones which could just be seen if one looked to the centre of the city past the Palace of Desire rose up out of the ground at equidistant and yet chaotic points around the edges of the city, preparing it for the transformation it would undergo because of the malicious will of newly Summoned Rakdos within it. The Rain of Gore increased in intensity once again, massive gobbets of blood the size of balls in the forgotten Yentarian game of Tennise arcing down from the sky and splattering upon the streets and those who fought within them.

Demonic figures stalked through the city, some taking flight upon batlike wings within the air tainted by foul ash and blood and battling against shining angels, their luminous radiance dimmed by the hellish glow of the smouldering City of Pleasure as they clashed with their counterparts formed of darkness and the evil desires of humanity.

At the edge of the city, far enough away to be out of any of the violence but not too far as to be unaffected by the perpetual torrent of claret vitae from the blood red and black skies, stood a lone figure who seemed to be watching the destruction. A flash of lighting illuminated a mask in the shape of a fox's snout, covered in the rivulets of blood that poured down the figure and stained her kimono red, poking out from a hooded outfit that blended into the smog and the smoke surrounding the burning city even at this distance. Another flash lit up gleaming sea green eyes from within the eye holes of the mask, eyes that were fixed upon the city of Usnaan not too far away from the figure's position.

The woman – as that was unmistakable – held a long and elegant blade in her left hand, drawn at a ready position and covered in blood. That wasn't because of any violence she had committed, but due to the Rain of Gore, and fortunately there hadn't been the need for her sabre to kiss flesh upon this day. At any rate, it didn't hurt to be cautious, even though the woman's magic could probably dispatch most enemies before they even reached her blade.

To an eye not trained in such things, the mysterious woman would appear perfectly calm with the horrific scene of a huge city – one of the largest on the super-continent of Magnus-Primae – being turned into a hellscape of deprivation and destructive hedonism, but inside she was seething with internal tension. She hated watching this, hated all of this death that could have been avoided had the Welkalites not been turned to darkness – by members of her very own order, no less. She understood why, of course, but it didn't make the death any more bearable, no matter what it was in the name of. She was honestly shocked that some of her fellow Confederates could oversee massacres on a vast scale without batting an eyelid, but then again almost all of them had lost their humanity over the many thousands of years spent controlling events from the shadows.

But, more importantly than the fact that many were losing their lives in the brutal battles within the streets, was the reality that much of what the Confederacy had worked towards over the past century of unprecedented action could be undone by the chaotic events of this battle. However, there was nothing that Delta could do about it. She wished that she could, and the tension of only being able to watch gnawed at her from within as she beheld the burning city in all of its infernal glory. None of them could intervene, because if they did, if they helped those that they needed in the future to prosecute their plans, then they would automatically be considered unsuitable. No, they needed to overcome their trials on their own, otherwise they would not be worthy of the roles that they needed to play within the schemes of the Confederacy.

That didn't mean that Delta wasn't itching to launch herself into the city and make sure that those who needed to survive did not lose their lives, but she knew that doing that would make the situation even worse. If the important ones, the _chosen _ones, died within Usnaan against the hellish forces of the unholy Defiler, then the plans of those who worked in the shadows to ensure the safety of the world would be set back around half a century at the very least. They could ill afford a delay in these dark times as the forces of death and destruction grew, but what would be worse was if they went ahead with the plan with those too weak to fulfil what was needed of them because they had been coddled and preserved, because that would end in the entire world being consumed by the growing shadow.

That was why Delta was here, stood outside of the burning City of Pleasure and watching it die closely but unable to intervene. Her duty was to enact the second half of their plan which would save the world if this last part of the first half succeeded, to keep those who were essential to the success of the entire strategy safe should they prove themselves to be strong enough through this battle. This slaughter was awful, but it was nothing compared to the death and subsequent enslavement of the souls of those killed that would sweep the two joined worlds if they failed.

It was all for the greater good. No matter how many died here, many more would live on, Delta reminded herself, and she, if no one else, would remember the sacrifices made in the name of the greater good.

Everything they had ever done, it was all for the greater good.

It was always for the greater good.

.*.*.*.

Caiellis screamed. It was loud, all consuming, and he couldn't sense anything past the sound of his own mouth howling in anguish and pain as he surged to his feet, his body shaking with the violent energies coursing throughout it as he was surrounded by the images of everyone who he ever loved dying in front of his eyes with him powerless to do nothing about it.

He couldn't think properly; he barely knew what he was doing or what was happening, but as the shadows surrounded him and the darkness flooded throughout him, he knew what he needed to do. He knew that the Lord of Riots had to die for what it had done, and he held onto that dark wish as he was filled with hatred and power that filled his mind with darkness. His mind was still alight with the screaming of his comrades, family, friends and soldiers, and he was still terrified of it, but that terror was nothing compared to the hatred that was surging through his entire being and stopping him from thinking of anything else.

Spiralling dark flames of purple power burst out of the downed youth, annihilating the chains that had dragged him to the floor and choked him and destroying the orbs of crimson agony which had been inflicting pain onto him with the release of power mana, the Black Sun on his cheek shining with a dark power that was far stronger than anything else he had ever witnessed before, not that he could pay attention to that as he was almost insensate. The runes scratched into his skin by the will of the Defiler flared with a bright and violent scarlet light, sending waves of agony that Caiellis could no longer feel and no longer cared about throughout him before the flames of annihilation surrounding him purged the mark of the Archdemon from his small body.

While the fire may have destroyed the sigils of corruption and vile hedonism that had been etched upon his skinny limbs, face and chest, it did not heal him or repair the many wounds scattered across his entire body, but Caiellis was able to ignore them because of the intoxicating power running through him – although he was in no way addicted to it because he couldn't think straight, his mental functions compromised by the amount of pain and abuse they had suffered through, and he didn't even know what he was doing. All he could think of were those that had died in this war because of his own weakness, but moreso because of the foul presence of Rakdos who had turned this city into his own personal pleasure den and trampled it into his revel site, the bastard demon that needed to die or be forced to leave due to the destruction of its physical form thanks to what it had done.

He rose to his feet, swaying like a drunk or a reanimated zombie called from the grave by some necromancer, and the only thing holding him upright was the pure Black mana that rushed through him and out of his limbs, collecting around him in a shroud of darkness and haunting purple light which he had seen only once before. They were the flames that had come to him on the night of his mother's death, and they were the flames that he was going to use to banish the Lord of Riots from the world of man – or die trying. There was no time for cowering now. It was time to act, and stop hiding behind his fear and sadness.

"**What is this?**" Rakdos asked, half of his his rumbling and snarling voice which had had entire cultures throwing themselves at his feet and begging for the gift of sybaritic pleasure filled with sadistic curiosity at the sudden rise of solely Black mana in his youngest Lucerna opponent, and the other half tinted with concern because of this unprecedented development. He was _sure_ that he had broken little Caiellis, he had sensed the boy's mind snapping under the strain as he finally gave up and surrendered to the overwhelming power of an Archdemon, but this would seem to suggest otherwise.

He leaned forwards, intrigued more than anything else at the moment – he had never seen the first Lucerna to have Black mana inside of him, and so he was unsure of how the power of the darkness interacted with those who served the holiest form of light, but he had fought Orzhova and nothing like this had ever happened before. The bloody heart in his left hand gave a wet cough and exploded thanks to the enchantments powering it which had fed upon and drawn sustenance from Caiellis's suffering being destroyed by this spontaneous eruption of Black energy, but Rakdos paid it no heed as he beheld the youngest member of the hated Lucerna line with coils of darkness wrapping around him and fire of pure annihilation leaping forth from his hands and ripping apart the ground that he was stood upon.

Pain flooded through Caiellis. It was everything that he was, apart from the hatred, the base desire to rid the world of this foul demon that had put everyone in the world in danger through its nefarious scheming and bloodthirsty revelling. It was burning, sapping away his life every second he channelled this amount of Black mana. It was killing him. But he did not care. Nothing was going to stop him from fulfilling his wish of hatred and wiping the taint of the Lord of Riots from this world. He could not think, and he could barely even control himself, but so long as he had the power, the need to banish Rakdos, then he didn't need to be in control.

He swayed as he stood to his full and unimpressive height of four feet and eleven inches, the only think allowing him to stand with his abused body the mana that was coursing through him and gifting him with the strength borne from his loathing of his current foe and his creations. The Sword of Glass was in his hand before he even knew it, the crystalline edge of the weapon dripping with tenebrous flames that emitted a dark purple light that spoke of annihilation and utter destruction.

The Lord of Riots did the same, rising to its massive height and spreading its huge leathery wings wide as it rose its arms as if challenging the boy to use this new power now that he had managed to escape from the fate that the Defiler had in store for him, the Tempest of Craving above flashing with massive coruscations of painfully bright lightning that lit up the demon as the sky formed a massive symbol of flame upon itself, the burning sigil the same as the seven pointed star of corruption that Rakdos had used to negate and protect himself from the Twilight Reprisal, and meteorites arced down from the crackling heavens towards the city below.

Darkness pooled within Cai's limbs and around them, the pure Black mana saturating the air around him and erasing the corruption of the Archdemon in a small area surrounding the youngest Lucerna as it flickered with the light of purple and ebony fire. The Black Sun on the boy's cheek that was the conformation of his royal blood and the favour of a First Sisterhood angel coruscated with purple and black lightning so different to the crimson and pink electricity of those who utilised Red and Black mana combined despite sharing what was essentially the same structure, and as the fingers of dark energy brushed the air in front of the boy a swirling vortex of shadow opened up in front of his left eye.

The thirteen year old shut the green orb that was reflecting internal purple light of both haunting sadness and hatred combined in a way which had only come to him once before, gifting him with power from deep within him, from a place that he could not consciously access, as if in reward for the strength of his emotions. When he re-opened his left eye, inky tenebrosity was filling the whole orb with a lacuna of darkness that had shadow revolving around it and pulled inwards due to its malevolent gravity. The tears that had been still pouring out of his wide eyes despite the fact that by now he should have squeezed every drop of moisture from inside of him from the amount that he had cried so far became black, running down his face like trails of midnight blood and crepitating with dark energy.

All he could see now was the Lord of Riots, his entire vision devoted to the Lens of Guilt which had been able to form within his left eye. The pain that it conjured was excruciating, agonising with the amount of guilt and evil that was focussed into a single point which seemed far too small for the amount of wickedness within it that was forever bursting out of the Archdemon and tainting everything around it, but Caiellis couldn't pay any attention to it even if he had wanted to because of the dark mana flowing through him.

Even though he could still see through his right eye, the iris still emerald green like his late mother's had been even though it shone with haunting illumination (the same colour of amethyst that the Black Sun birthmark shone with when his tears touched it and it reacted to his sorrow), the only thing that he was able to focus on with it was the physical representation of the Lord of Riots which was far less terrifying than the image that showed up in the Lens of Guilt despite the fact that it was still horrifying. The aura of the creature of pure, carnal evil and dark hedonism was the worst bit about it and could – and did – induce terror in even the most courageous individuals, and that was what the Lens of Guilt allowed the youngster to see.

However, even though he still felt the unnatural dread and terror within him, instead of letting it take over him and control or weaken him as he had allowed it to do before, Cai embraced that fear, using it to empower and mould his hatred into a powerful weapon which would allow him to remove the Defiler from this world in which it did not belong. The fact that the being was so _evil _merely strengthened Caiellis's loathing of it, making the mana that was rushing out of him even more powerful.

"**COME THEN, CAIELLIS NOCTIS LUCERNA! SHOW ME THIS NEW POWER THAT YOU HAVE ACQUIRED! SHOW ME THE POWER OF THE DARKNESS WITHIN YOU, LUCERNA BRAT!**" Rakdos roared at him, the power and volume of the frenzied and exultant howl almost sending the youngest Lucerna flying off of his feet in spite of the mana that was pulsing through him until he rammed his sword into the ground and held onto that, his lip curling into a snarl of hatred as more of it filled him with its intent to slay the blight on the world, the Lucaelian army and the Welkalite people that was the Lord of Riots.

As he focussed upon the demon with the Lens of Guilt now that he was able to actually use it and ignored the intense torment that seeing through it engendered, his mind alight with the need to remove the unholy darkness of the Archdemon that was desecrating the world with its tainted presence, he saw that within the seething maelstrom of chaos and carnal debauchery that was Rakdos, eclipsed and almost unnoticeable with the gigantic essence of the Archdemon surrounding it, there was a lone and chained figure inside of it radiating Black and Red mana and completely corrupted by the nearness to the monarch of sin and hell.

He fixed his eyes upon it, his mind forcing him to look deeper in spite of the massive amounts of agony that exploded through him that he no longer cared about in any way, and nodded mentally to himself. He should have seen that already, but now that he could employ the Lens of Guilt he was able to. Within the place where the beating heart of the Lord of Riots should have been had it followed normal body composition, there was the trapped form of Jarred Redhand, the Vessel of the Archdemon which had been eaten by him at the start of this battle.

Caiellis had automatically assumed – although to be fair at the time he hadn't been able to think over the terror blossoming within him, a flower of fear spreading its pollen of horror and its sweet nectar of paralysis through the boy, at the entrance of the Archdemon – that the fact that the Protector had been consumed had meant that Rakdos had no need of a Summoner now that he had entered the City of Pleasure, but now he knew that while the Defiler could easily sustain himself out of Sancturia he needed a conduit, a way to remain within the world of humanity. That was where Cai would strike, arguably the most protected point of the demon, because otherwise nothing would be enough to banish it without the death of Redhand who was anchoring its massive power to the material realm.

Cai coughed without paying attention to it, blood spurting out of his mouth and trickling down his chin to be joined by the splattering of bloody droplets from the crimson rain above, and despite his wounds he felt the power within him, power that was utterly controlling him in tandem with his emotions in the same way that they had done nine years ago. He could still see the scenes of slaughter and darkness which had his friends, family and soldiers dying horrible deaths in front of his eyes, and he could still hear their accusatory screaming and cries for mercy, but within them was the sight of his beautiful mother with the demon's gleaming claws rammed through her stomach and her feet lifted off of the floor, right next to the sight of his precious older brother being killed by the brutish Master of Violence.

He was breathing heavily, but each one of the panting breaths was filled with his loathing of the demon and his broken, anguished sorrow at what had happened to him and those that he loved because of him, the emotions of rejection and sorrow blending together in a potent combination of hurt and sadness because of what his father who he had loved as much as his mother and brother had said and done to him, what had happened to Emili Noctis nine years ago, and what was happening now and had only just happened to the loyal soldiers and generals within the city of Usnaan that empowered his hatred of the being that had caused all of this even more.

"I … I am going to make you pay," Caiellis somehow managed to half snarl and half cry out, every word formed by his broken voice suffused with raw emotion and every syllable filled with anguished sorrow, but through all of them was an ominous undertone of powerful, tangible hatred that had the demon laughing and cackling in response to the words. The boy wasn't sure why he had said them, but then, he couldn't control himself, he couldn't think past the screaming images of the pain of those that he loved and who relied on him to deliver them, past the surge of hatred that was rushing through him and filling his limbs with the pure darkness of Black mana.

"**I WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY, BOY! YOU CAN DO NOTHING TO ME, FOR I AM AN ARCHDEMON, ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL CREATURES IN THE TWO WORLDS, AND YOU ARE MERELY A PATHETIC CHILD WHO CAN'T EVEN CONTROL HIS OWN CRYING!**" the Archdemon shouted at him, the sheer volume of his words that were spat in the foul demonic tongue of his kind echoing across the entire City of Pleasure, although only those who could understand the language of the abyss and Cai (who was afforded this honour by Rakdos so that he could tremble in fear) knew what the words meant.

The Lord of Riots flapped his wings, gathering up the raw power of the hedonistic empyrean within itself as it pointed its flaming scythe towards the sky, a circle of flame exploding around the courtyard hill and filling the sky around it with infernal hellfire that surged upwards around it. It was meant to intimidate Cai, but the boy couldn't even see it and with the power of the emotions running through him it wouldn't have fazed him even if he could. He was going to kill this Archdemon and avenge those who had died because of it so far, destroy its connection to this world so that no more could be hurt or killed while it still existed, because unlike when his mother had died this time he had been given the chance to end the being threatening those who still lived before all of them died, and even though many had already lost their lives this foul being was still causing the rest agonising pain.

The demon slammed the crude bottom of its savage scythe into the ground, smashing apart the obsidian rock underneath it and leaving a large crater of bubbling magma where he had done so, and the flaming wall surrounding them rose up to the height of the massive spires curling round towards the courtyard below it. They collected on the tips of the claws of igneous rock formed from no natural volcanic phenomena, and with a cry from the massive crimson demon stood within the hellish arena containing an Archdemon and the smallest Lucerna prince the fire forming circles of infernal conflagration around the pinnacles of the seven obsidian talons began to blast seven gouts of flames towards the small boy within the courtyard.

Caiellis stood his ground, glaring at the demon all the while with both his natural eye which shone with the purple light of annihilation and his one that had darkness pooled within it and was fully ebon. He raised his Sword of Glass that was filled with black fire that ran up and down the crystal blade, and snarled his hatred of the demon, knowing that despite the fact that he could barely formulate any semblance of coherent thought that he should save his strongest emotions until the time when he was attacking the demon.

A blinding scintillation of incandescent darkness, shadows with the light of annihilation within them bursting forth from the Sword of Glass and Caiellis's shining Lucerna birthmark. The darkness was blinding, like it was combined with White mana, but Cai knew that it was not – it was merely the impression of the magic of light moulding it without actually being present, the fact that White mana was a part of him imprinting itself onto his dark spells without him even using any light energy within them, and it rushed forth from him, a sphere of pure blackness that crackled with purple electricity and the power of a dying star of unlight surrounding the youngest prince as the fire impacted into him.

It was destroyed. The powerful Red mana within the flames was utterly annihilated by the shield of darkness and hatred that was protecting the littlest Lucerna, but Cai instinctively knew that it was only ever meant to test his defences, test the capabilities of the new mana that had risen up within his exhausted form, and even then he could feel the heat on his skin as it surged around him.

The fire dissipated, destroyed and warded off by his blast of Black mana that was more powerful individually than any type he had wielded before other than the power that he had used on the night of his beloved mother's death – but even then, this was stronger than that. He was older now, stronger, and had a much larger mana pool – both from his normal growth of such things (augmented by the fact that he was a Lucerna prince and as such had an ability to have a large amount of mana inside of him), and while no one out of the people who were the most precious in his life had died yet they were on the verge of doing so and that gifted him with desperate strength. He had already felt what it was like to lose someone immensely close to you and someone who you loved more than anyone else apart from his brother and father at the age of four years old, and so he knew what would happen should one of them die.

Besides, the Lord of Riots was his problem, his duty, and the longer he took the more people would die. There was no thought, no planning as Caiellis began to charge the massive demon at the other side of the courtyard to him, rushing out of the flames that flickered in the light of their extinguishing with no hesitation or concern for his own well-being any longer – which, despite what he might like to say or profess, was what had slowed him down earlier.

Caiellis blinked back tears of anguish as he watched his older brother begin to wake back up, evidently not yet unconscious and having been afflicted by some sort of curse or debilitating aura, and begin to try and paw at the hand around his throat desperately. The youngest Lucerna could empathise a lot with Alexander in that respect, and he knew that from his thrashing movements that the seventeen year old didn't have much air left, his face turning red and blue as he tried to get out, choking out Caiellis's name into his ear.

That was right next to the image of their mother dying in the arms of the foul and sadistically grinning demon that had killed her, and the boy didn't have a choice before his mind plunged him right back into the worst memory of his life, drawing more Black mana from his sadness and hatred from remembering what had happened to his perfect family and combining it with the current loathing and sorrow that was rushing through him to make him use his magic even stronger.

The Lord of Riots glared at him, ripping its talons that were surrounded by bloody mists of crimson power through the flesh of the world, launching another blast of fire at the youngest Lucerna who hacked it apart with his blade of shadows and darkness, running forwards to engage with Rakdos who roared at him again, not having expected much of a challenge but now enticed by the prospect of one, enticed by the possibility of feeling exquisite pain once again and having something that he could utilise his full power against.

Shadows drew circles of power around Caiellis's left eye, the inky black orb glowering back at the essence of the demon and the boy's new target of Jarred Redhand trapped within the Lord of Riots. Caiellis was no longer Caiellis in this moment.

Caiellis became something more and yet less than himself, became suffused by hatred and pain and unable to act other than fulfilling the wishes of his inner emotions that controlled his mind and forced his body forward, gifting him with immense power but removing his ability to feel anything other than these emotions. He could still see Uncle Tybalt fighting against the many armed archfiend of depravity that he had gazed upon before, he could still see Uncle Tristram using magic to create himself a temporary replacement for his arm so that he could hold his signature axe that had belonged to his father in the past and battle against the inhumanly powerful albino Master of Gluttony so that the stricken Leodred could free himself. He could still see thousands dying in agonising pain as they were ran down by devils and claimed, their souls added to the Tempest of Craving which in turn heightened the sacrilegious power of the Defiler, and as if Rakdos wanted to intimidate or stop him with this they pressed in against his unthinking mind at all sides.

Caiellis could see them, but he was no longer affected by them. His mind was consumed by hatred, rage and sorrow at what had been done, controlling him like nothing else had ever done before after the night of his mother's death, although maybe even more than that because of the fact that he had been only four years old at the time and barely able to think for himself – whereas now he was fully able to, but could not because of the power rushing through him and focussing all of his being on a singular goal, pushing every piece of him towards one single outcome.

_KILL THE LORD OF RIOTS!_

The youngest Lucerna, his body surrounded by purple and black flames that bled detestation and loathing and annihilated everything around them, did not stop his charge at the Defiler, who roared back in challenge once again, swinging his scythe down at the upstart child who would dare to fight against his supremacy. There was no holding back now, no using only a fraction of his power to torture the boy Summoner of Orzhova and slowly force him to submit after putting him through immense amounts of physical and mental agony which _had _broken him. It had destroyed Cai's courage and determination completely, but instead of the void in its place becoming filled with despair as was customary both the sorrow and the resolve of the child had been annihilated, replaced by undying hatred directed towards the demon.

Rakdos knew fully well how powerful his opponent was becoming – this Black mana was exquisite and pure, but at the same time completely inimical to the Archdemon despite the fact that he was one of the strongest creations of the magic of darkness and the abyss, pure darkness flowing out of the brat that was not something the Defiler had ever had the pleasure of experiencing before. Had he been more interested in such a thing as that, like some of his "brothers" were, the Lord of Riots might have wanted to capture or claim Caiellis to find out more of him at his own leisure, but the Red and Black Archdemon did not care and simply wanted his Festival of Bloodshed to continue now that he was finally able to bring it to the human world after so long.

Caiellis clearly wouldn't be broken, that was for certain, not mentally at least. Well, he was broken, but instead of that rendering him unable to act through the terror it seemed like the Black mana of Orzhova reacting with the boy's accursed Lucerna heritage was drawing strength from his emotions. It was a peculiar enigma, something that the Archdemon had never seen before, but ultimately it did not matter. He would tear this little princeling asunder, feast upon his soul if any of it still remained, and then turn upon the other surviving Lucernas. They were older, arguably more powerful, and would not scream as much, but he would still enjoy breaking them, especially after what he would show them of the baby of their family.

Although the father seemed to want to kill his son just as much as Rakdos did, but he was sure that the other Lucerna he sensed wielding damned Aurelia against his current favourite son, Zankranith, Alexander, would care about his brother. Even though they would be more resilient to the agony for a time, the Lord of Riots was looking forward to making them crack, and supposed that because they would be more confident in themselves and their abilities it would be even more fun to painfully highlight their folly. He arced his scythe through the air towards the onrushing prince, dark fire blossoming all around the human child, bursting into existence in a way that was not reminiscent of normal flames whatsoever as they swirled out of the air around him and rushed round him.

The scythe rushed towards the boy, but Cai wasn't even looking at that. He couldn't. All he could see were the images in his mind, the screaming anguish of himself and the others turning into more fuel for his mana and hatred as he watched his mother die again in front of him. Without thinking, he dove back into the horrible memories because of a part of this unconscious form of himself knew that would increase his power, and that was all that he wanted – power to kill the Archdemon who had done this.

-_The older boy held him tight and close, wrapping one of his arms around his little brother as if to say that he wouldn't let anyone get close to Cai, and the youngest Lucerna made sure to keep his face pressed firmly into Alex's side because when he looked away for a moment he could see the shadows in the room wiggling and writhing in a malignant and spasmodic dance of their own, the flames flickering on the other side of the room seemingly shrouded by the intensification of the darkness-_

Caiellis leapt upwards, a blade of pure shadow formed from the ever-burning flames of utter eradication slicing down through the tainted air below him from the tip of his sword and piercing into the Lord of Riots's scythe, hacking apart its own infernal edge formed from the flaming souls of those who had pledged their entire lives to spreading debauchery and destruction throughout the world of man with his dark power as the Defiler swung it upwards to accommodate his opponent's sudden surge in motion. There was no holding back now, from either side. Cai had no time to waste being on the defensive, and couldn't think enough to form a logical plan of finding out which sort of attacks would hurt the Defiler, whereas Rakdos was tired of this boy now that he hadn't broken properly and wanted to destroy him so that he could continue on with terrorizing the rest of the Lucaelians and enjoy his entrance into the world of humans.

-_ "Oh, you'll see, Emili Noctis, you'll see," Haldren growled intimidatingly, his face still rippling violently as the rest of his body began to join it, his arms extending and elongating as he became taller, the darkness on that side of the relatively large (for a bedroom at any rate) room rushed out of him. Emili knew instantly that something was horribly wrong, and she could sense the taint of corrupted Black mana that she had only detected once before in her life when she had been tasked with banishing a lesser nether creature by her master and mentor, the Hierarch of Scientia Mos._

_She stayed in front of her young sons, allowing golden and warm light to spill out of her hands, playfully wrapping around her fingers as she stared defiantly up at the man. This is what she had feared would happen, that with Johnias's supposed betrayal there would be agents in the palace … but this was far, far worse than she ever could have anticipated. Emili wasn't a fighter, but she had to delay as long as possible for her husband and the others to get here. The queen sensed distinctly that the two beings in the nursery were no longer Jack and Haldren, if they had ever been in the first place. She could hear Caiellis whimpering in fright behind her, and wanted to turn around and comfort him, but she needed to keep her eyes on the things that had masqueraded as Lucerna praetorians here with them- _

The Archdemon roared at him, fire bursting out of its open mouth in a bloody inferno of magic that scarred the air as it crashed through it to the prince, the rush of hellfire from the gut of the Lord of Riots accompanied by painful sigils that scratched themselves into the fabric of reality by the side of the Red and Black inferno and warped space around them. Caiellis snarled back, his magic and emotions that strengthened one another in a never ending cycle of empowerment as his hatred and sadness fuelled his Black mana and the rise of dark energy made him feel the loathing and sorrow all too keenly bursting out of him and meeting the fire that filled his vision with the dark flames of annihilation that he could not control and yet responded to his hatred.

The fire consumed the boy, but the Defiler was not so naïve as to wait until the explosion caused by the two conflagrations, both unnatural, meeting to see what had happened – besides, he could still sense the youngest Lucerna. He pulled his scythe back, the substance of souls that had been cut out of the blade soon repaired as more furious spirits replaced the ones that had been freed, the darkness and the bloody rain intensifying all around the massive demon because of the fact that it was drawing upon more and more power, the whole of Usnaan warping and writhing because of the presence of the Archdemon Rakdos expanding within it and truly beginning to corrupt it fully.

Caiellis was surrounded by fire that screamed and hissed at him, raking him with long claws of flame as the insane souls tried to tear his soul from his body so that he could join them in their psychotic and endless rapture of eternal pain, slavering jaws fixing themselves onto him before they were blasted apart and utterly annihilated by his emission of powerful magic. He automatically raised his arms in front of his face, still able to see through them with his left eye and look through the inferno rushing past him and burning him, more of his jacket shredded as the talons of fire burnt and cut when they clawed at him, but the pain was gone completely ignored and mostly the Black mana around him prevented him from being damaged too badly, providing him with a dark vitality and power in exchange for taking complete control.

The shadows wrapped round his feet and up his back, flickering and impossibly dark wings of tenebrosity forming behind the boy but not actually attached to him like the Gift of Orzhova was, merely coalescing behind him and arcing upwards. He used the midnight edge of his Sword of Glass to cut through the fire, and was instantly met by massive spikes of fleshy obsidian that looked like they were half made from igneous rock and half comprised of bloody, throbbing organic matter that pulsated with unnatural blood through veins rippling within the rock. They ripped through the earth towards him as the fire faded, ramming into the boy's position at an immense speed.

-_Cai felt and heard his mother's usage of mana, and the glow of the familiar magical energy made him feel more comfortable, but he could sense another dark power within the room with them, a dark and scary power that he had felt in his nightmares but never this bad before, and it made him want to scream and cry despite his mummy being here to protect him like she always had done._

_Caiellis couldn't have gotten away from his big brother even if he had wanted to, the eight year old's arm wrapped tightly around him, and Alex sorely wished that he had his short sword with him. It was on the other side of the room, next to their beds, and without it he could only use his magic to help their mum. Cai felt in his mind Alexander conjuring up White and a bit of his brother's Red mana next to him, but even that feeling didn't help much. He risked a glance at the guards who had been nice to him before, peeking out from where he was stood slightly behind his brother, hoping that they had gone and that they were just imaginary like his nightmare that had stopped him from wanting to go back to sleep had been._

"_Stay away from my children," mummy's voice rang out from the woman, strong and determined, and Cai knew that he had to stop being a wimp and help out his big brother and their mummy against these mean monsters that were true. He was luckily too young to pick up on the hint of fear for her children in her tone that she tried to hide from the little boys, but could still tell that she was worried. The man who had been Haldren (or "Haldwen" as pronounced by little Cai) smiled sadistically in a way that was twisted into an exaggerated frown __by the mutation of his face as it warped-_

Caiellis raised his free hand, void darkness collecting within it and forming a rough orb of Black mana, moving back from the spikes ramming up from the hellish ground towards him and hacking apart jetting sprays of lava from below with the spinning crescents of pure darkness that were launched in arcs of ebony from his left hand. The scythe rushed towards him again, Rakdos terrifyingly fast and agile despite its massive size, and without even thinking or using normal instincts the youngest Lucerna dove backwards quickly, turning his movement into a fast descent towards the desolate and volcanic ground as three massive spires of obsidian crashed up behind him, a bloody field of crimson electricitysparking into life behind it that would have hacked Cai apart should he have leapt back to avoid the Defiler's swing.

Normally he would have been adverse to approaching the ground, especially what with it erupting in sprays of lava that seemed to be made from melted rock from hell fused with superheated blood and the spikes originating from there, but there was no thought. There was only action, anguish and hatred borne from that sorrow as, in his abused and fractured mind, he was forced to bear witness to the worst things he had ever seen in his young life, his two most loved family members dying as his mind entered the memories and body of his four year old self and simultaneously watched the scenes that the Lord of Riots had shown him which had started this.

Caiellis's mind was in two places at once – one was within his tiny child body within the nursery of the Lucerna citadel, reliving his recollection of the night of Emili Noctis's death, whereas the other was on its knees and sobbing within the prison of his head as he was forced to watch his brother, the Uncles who had taken care of him for nine years, those that he knew within the army and those that he didn't beset on all sides by powerful and demonic enemies from the lowest pits of vile hell. None of the thirteen year old was controlling his body, although he was not possessed. His hatred created from his anguish was controlling him, emotions stronger than any he had possessed before rushing through him and directing him towards the goal of removing this Archdemon that was threatening all of the Lucaelians within Usnaan and ultimately the world.

As he descended at a swift rate towards the ground, fiery creatures vaguely resembling demons with horns and inhuman proportions pulled themselves out of the pools of bubbling magma as smaller figures formed from the bloody puddles splattered across the courtyard by the heavy Rain of Gore (that was becoming increasingly corrosive and powerful), like the souls condemned to eternal suffering obediently following their captors into the realm of the underworld.

They rushed towards Cai the second he got close, and there was a large explosion above him as the crude weapon of the Defiler smashed into the brimstone talons, large shards of rock raining down upon him as the creatures formed from the sheer power of the Archdemon that could infuse malevolent and psychotic life into anything around it charged towards the boy, their only purpose to slow him down so that their master could get a good strike in and murder the upstart Lucerna.

"**I WILL DESTROY YOU! I WILL TEAR YOUR WEAKLING FORM ASUNDER AND DROWN YOUR PATHETIC SOUL IN AN ETERNITY OF AGONY AND TORMENT! YOU ARE TOO WEAK TO PROTECT YOUR FRIENDS! YOU ARE TOO WEAK TO PROTECT YOUR FAMILY! SO WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE NOT TOO WEAK TO CHALLENGE MY ARCHDEMONIC MIGHT?!**" Rakdos bellowed, its voice like a million violently erupting volcanoes and massive storms of indiscriminately destructive power pledging their allegiance and servitude to the Lord of Riots. Cai didn't hear the words. He didn't hear or see anything any more within the world of reality, the world outside of his screaming and crying mind.

Instead of battling off the elementals rushing towards him and enduring the swiftly falling cloud of debris, the largest of which was an entire top half of one of the curling spikes larger than the Defiler itself falling towards the ground, the boy leapt upwards on his unmoving wings of darkness that were more like shards of pure blackness again, annihilating a stray rock in front of him that would have smashed him out of the sky as he jumped into the rain of black fragments which had once constitutes unnatural spikes.

\- _"Oh, but my gracious queen, I'm afraid that we can't do that," the man's smile was replaced by a malicious grin this time, his eyes that were changing colour and shape every second and rapidly darkening gazing past the medium sized woman __and fixing upon her two young children. Cai shivered as a feeling of cold overcame him, like he was outside playing in the snow and his big brother had buried him in it (until their daddy came and pulled him out and they buried Alex instead), but he didn't feel cold. He wasn't yet old enough to understand that he was trembling because of the fear, as the man monster continued, "You see, Alexander and Caiellis are very important to the Kingdom of Light. It would be such a shame if anything happened to them..."  
"Get behind me, Alexander," Emili told her eldest sternly without looking backwards, the eight year old having made his way to her side with magic flowing between his fingers, his brother still attached to his side. The scared boy complied, knowing that just from his mum's tone that he needed to listen to her, and Emili placed her two hands together, light blossoming out from them and accompanied by her Blue mana. Strangely enough, her Summoning was made of entirely White magic, but the mother of the princes could __wield the magic of intellect and thought because it had always been inside of her even before her Sancturia creature had appeared to the infant her the day she had been born._

"_Misthrendieyll," Caiellis's mum murmured, the White light that was flowing around her forming the shape of a spirit creature that the boy had seen before when his mummy had Summoned to show him it, the Summoning small enough to fit in the room easily and braying as it saw the hated enemies of the light against it. Misty, as Cai and Alex called the kirin, had let the two boys ride on its back when they had asked, and generally liked the two children of the queen, although while Emili had said to her youngest that she could talk to Misty through the mind the creature couldn't speak to Cai or Alex with its mouth. _

_The four year old thought that that was weird but cool, and Misty was really nice to touch, and he felt emboldened seeing the kirin of Sancturia that served the angels like the one inside of Caiellis. Misty would fight away all of the scary monsters and protect mummy, Alex and Cai from them. Despite the fact that an aura of gentle light rose up from the queen when she had Summoned and the kirin glowed with a force borne from White mana, the darkness still spread around them, and the youngest Lucerna couldn't stop himself from sniffling in fear when the smaller one of the men taunted, "And you think that this will stop us, _my queen_? You are not a Lucerna." -_

Cai leapt onto one of the larger rocks, his wings not powerful enough to allow him to fly but augmenting the way that he propelled himself through the air, the eye suffused with the judgemental darkness of the Lens of Guilt blooming with concentric circles of blackness that expanded out from it, maintaining their circular shape up to the point where their outer edge met the Black Sun on his right cheek, dragged towards that by the dark gravity of the youngest Lucerna's rare birthmark and ripped out of its expansion, warping as it grew larger and began to swirl around the thirteen year old instead, billowing around him like it was affected by some sort of invisible wind that buffeted the rest of Cai's blood matted hair and pulled into the rest of the dark shapes surrounding the boy.

They added themselves to the flames that did not burn and were cold around the youngest Lucerna, who jumped swiftly between the rocks with a preternatural agility and speed gifted to him by the increase in his mana's strength and magical power, dodging the shards that were large enough to damage him but too small to use as propulsion as he leapt to and from the larger rocks, allowing the smallest obsidian fragments to smash into the shield of unadulterated darkness around him and be annihilated by that. The occasional one pierced through the shield, slashing at Cai and inflicting minor cuts that were merely added to the rest, though the boy couldn't sense the pain from deep within the darkest recesses within his young and tumultuous psyche.

The Lord of Riots scowled at his tactics, a gigantic bolt of blinding crimson lightning blasting down from the heavens and into the courtyard, or more precisely at the location of Cai as he leapt between the falling rocks towards the Defiler. Rakdos swung its scythe round one way and uppercutted with its massive free fist into the cloud of debris as the pillar of unholy electricity coruscated down from the Tempest of Craving that still had the diabolical sigil of the Archdemon Rakdos imprinted onto the roiling clouds that made the City of Pleasure constantly transform below it.

\- _Even without saying anything like he normally would have done in this sort of situation, Alex conveyed without words that everything would be alright to his little brother who still clung to him for comfort. Cai could sense in his brother's tense posture that the eight year old was scared as well despite not trying to show it, and in spite of his own fear he allowed himself to believe that everything would be ok – either mummy and Misty would fight off the scary monsters, or daddy would come and save them from the nightmare creatures._

"_No. I am not a blessed Lucerna," Emili began, keeping her eyes on the things that the bodyguards who had only hours ago talked to her and her children and promised the two little boys that they would keep the youngsters safe, Misthrendieyll placing its hooves on the ground as its horse-like yet comforting body stood dutifully by the queen's side, "But I am a mother, and, whatever you are, you are not going to touch my children."_

"_We'll see about that, Emili Noctis. I do not quite think you know how much your brother in law has embraced the darkness," Haldren snickered maliciously as his face began to crack again, his arms and legs and spine extending and elongating in a sickening snapping of bone that chilled little Cai to the core. Bony protrusions like scything blades ripped out of the skin of his forearms, pushing the man monster's elbows out of the back of his forearms, and his nails began to grow longer. Two thick horns stabbed out of the being's head as its eyes changed colour, settling on malevolent pearls of gleaming ebony, as as its legs began to extend it rose up in height to even taller than it had been before, which was terrifying considering Haldren had been one of the tallest people the four year old knew. _

_Its skin greyed like it was dying, the pallor of death suffusing its form as massive claws extended out of the fingertips of its right hand, but what had Caiellis whimpering in fear was when the creature opened its mouth, the split in its face filled with jagged teeth that seemed to be grinning at the youngest prince and his older brother, who let his mana flow out of him even more in response to their combined fear. The other bodyguard, Jack, underwent a slightly less impressive but no less horrific transformation, becoming a creature that was a lesser version of the one that had been Haldren._

_The word "demon" rose unbidden to the boy's young mind, even though he did not know exactly what a demon was. If he had been able to think past the freezing fear in his head, he might of recognised this foul monster as the one that had appeared in his horrible nightmare, but all he could think of was how scary it was. He wanted his brother and mummy to tell him that they would be safe, that the monsters wouldn't hurt them – or that they wouldn't _let _the monsters hurt them – but Alex and mummy were staying silent in the unnaturally dark nursery._

"_Now, hand over the brats, and I might just spare your life," the demon said, though its eyes showed that it was only taunting the thirty one year old woman, its nefarious companion snorting in amusement and agreement like a playground miscreant and bully who would do anything to please the head of their gang. Emili didn't respond, she had no reason to and was channelling her mana to the fore in the hope that someone within the palace would notice if they hadn't already, so Alexander growled at them, "Mum won't let you take us, monster! And I won't let you hurt my little brother whilst I'm here!"  
Cai would have said something to agree with his big brother but he was way too scared and didn't want the demon to look at him again, and its already impossibly wide smile seemed to widen even more as it replied, "Very well then. It seems that your spawn has spoken for you, my queen." -_

Caiellis ripped his sword that was dripping with tenebrosity and infused with the black fire of hatred across the air in front of him, his unthinking mind only concerned about the death of the Archdemon's physical form and not his own safety, an arc of void darkness cut into the skin of reality that he called Black mana out of, the corrupt and evil magic of the abyssal darkness surrounding Lucael and the corresponding location in Sancturia (if they were not one and the same) harkening to his need for more power and fuelling his hatred and ambition to kill, anathema to his own Black mana that rumbled in loathing as it felt the magic of the infernal nether, but instead of using it to further his own dark energy he did not even touch it as he flung the shadows bled into reality from the void realm at the Defiler and the crashing bolt of red lightning.

He would have hesitated to do so had he had control of his mind, concerned by the implications of using magic from the most hated place in all of the two worlds in spite of not actually allowing it to touch him, especially wielding it against an Archdemon who by all means should have been able to control it, but in a violent expulsion of the stuff of the nether that was vomited out towards Rakdos the Lord of Riots screamed in rage as he sensed another, familiar power discreetly lending its aid towards Caiellis in the control of the tainted mana that should not have affected the other Archdemon at all.

The globules of darkness fountained upwards, and Cai paid no attention to it as it consumed the massive thunderbolt of impassioned Red and Black mana from the storm above, the electricity conducting into that as the shadows crackled with the volatile energy, and as the rift that the boy had created closed up it dragged the excess mana back into the abyss with it. To any observer it would simply look like Caiellis had used his own mana to do the deed, as there was little visual difference between the prince's shadows which he had used before and the darkness from the portal he had opened, but the Lord of Riots knew that one of his brothers had intervened and taken the crimson lightning meant for the youngest Lucerna.

That drove him into an even greater rage, especially since the brat wouldn't even truly know what had happened and would simply assume – if he could even think – that he had directed the force of the magic elsewhere instead of having it taken away by another being, and he roared as he swung his scythe horizontally at the boy who was still jumping between rocky debris and his fist upwards. The volume of the noise sent the rocks smashing into one another and moving back through the air, but that did not faze the hatred and anguish controlling Caiellis as he accommodated the sudden motion.

\- _The demon moved forwards at an impossibly fast speed, the almost solid gloom of the once inviting room wrapping around it and allowing it to bend the laws of motion to propel itself at the queen, dodging the bolt of swirling light that Emili shot at it that was lost within the writhing darkness that whispered maliciously at Cai, who was shrugged __off__ gently but firmly by his brother. Caiellis knew why the eight year old had pushed him off, because his big brother needed to be able to move without him clinging to his leg and waist, but he instantly felt more unprotected without contact with his family members._

_Emili cried out in shock when the grinning demon shot forwards, faster than her eye could track it, smashing its right hand into the kirin at her side's chest and lifting the now writhing creature off the floor. Misty let out a warbled shriek of pain, opening its mouth and blasting a stream of golden luminescence at the demon lifting it off of its hooves, but it did not do anything to the mean monster. It grabbed the creature around one of its shining horns with its left hand, wrenching its head to the side and snapping its neck extremely quickly as it screamed in the throes of its death._

"_Misty..." Cai whispered in shock at the powerful creature being killed so quickly as the demon tossed its unmoving body to the side where grasping arms of shadow reached towards it. The dead creature dissipated into sparkling particles of light that were quickly consumed and drowned out by the shadow. Mummy placed her hands together, invoking her smart Blue mana as well as her White as she flung chains at the demon, who barked with laughter and smashed them aside contemptuously. _

_The __four year old__ boy tore his eyes away from the monster, looking up at his mum's concerned features that were fixed on the creature threatening her sons, and when she __felt both of her sons' gazes upon her she tried to make her face less worried so that they would not be frightened as much despite the direness of the situation. _

_That didn't do much to calm Caiellis's nerves, and he turned towards his big brother who was still at his side, Alex's eyes full of fear as well as anger at what had been done to poor Misty, as he raised his own hand. He launched his own beam of incandescence into the darkness, his less controlled than his mother's but with the hint of more raw power within it because of the fact that he was a Lucerna, hitting the monster in the shoulder as Cai held his breath, believing in his big brother who was so strong (though not as strong as daddy, or mummy for that matter, though mummy was usually more gentle), but the demon shrugged off that as well and grinned down at him. "You're going to pay for that, you little bastard."-_

Caiellis dodged the scything blow that slashed through the air below him and burnt his feet when the few souls that reached towards him touched his shoes with their fiery hands, and instead of evading the uppercut – something that his unconscious somehow knew would leave him in a bad position for Rakdos to attack him from there – he coalesced his black fire more prominently underneath him as he let the massive fist smash into him from below. Two more of his ribs shattered in the thunderous impact that sent him flying upwards as the hand smashed through his shield of darkness and hatred, and the youngest Lucerna coughed up a spray of blood once more.

The pain did not affect him in any way. Even if he had been able to access all of this power consciously and only barely felt the agony, he still would have reacted instinctually, a moment of hesitation as his mind processed the newest injuries springing up that could have been fatal, but there was no delay in any shape or form as the magical power rushed through him.

He twisted mid air, the fact that more of his bones were broken proving to be irrelevant with the shadows infusing him with their dark vitality and strength, added to the reality that there was nowhere left in his mind dedicated to physical pain – it was instead consumed by what he had seen and what he was still witnessing in the rest of the city, Alexander pawing at the Master of Violence's corded forearm and his mum attempting to conjure up more spells to help them against the demon that the real him knew would kill her and end his perfect life, although the part of him trapped within the memories of his four year old existence could not even countenance that.

The darkness blossomed around him like flowers with petals of haunting purple flames growing underneath the light of a Black Sun, allowing him to manoeuvre himself through the air as tendrils of shadow fought against claws of flame that reached up towards him, the cold sweat of fear mixing with the perspiration caused by the immense heat of the courtyard coupled with the already hot climate of the Welkalite Empire and dripping down the young boy and he flipped, moving with the force of the demon's fist smashing into him that would have pulped his body had had not had this power rushing through him and would have done that irrespective of power if he hadn't of twisted his body with the impact and focussed the shield around him.

Caiellis opened his left hand, pointing the palm at the snarling Lord of Riots below him who was already priming another powerful spell to fling at the boy, the whirlpools of blood and souls that had been present at the Defiler's nullification of the Twilight Reprisal swirling around the courtyard once again as the iron circle of a star with seven points was ripped out from within the ground, although this time it was even bigger than before and was drenched in blood that fountained out of it, the tendrils of metal and flesh tearing themselves out of it like snakes made from blood that shot towards the boy.

There was a surge in Black mana from the insensate youngest Lucerna, dark fire surging forth from his outstretched hand, roaring in a mournful song mixed with the smallest prince's screams of despair and hatred as they rushed towards the Defiler, the first offensive attack in a while Cai had directed at the evil Archdemon of pleasure and carnal violence. Pulsing with an internal purple light that was the manifestation of the thirteen year old's inner feelings and powerful emotional torment, they grew every second as they annihilated everything in their path towards the Lord of Riots, who raised his arms to ward off the magic of darkness that was some of the most potent he had ever had the pleasure of witnessing before.

-_The nursery exploded into violence after that, the grinning demon that had been Haldren rushing forwards once again, opening up its left fist as claws of shadow were formed from the dancing darkness within the room, reaching towards the Lucerna princes and their mother before Emili beat them back with golden shields of light that protected them from the movement of the gloom that had Caiellis wanting to curl up into a ball and hide. He was sure that his mummy or big brother would have told him to hide if it would have helped their situation, and he somehow knew that this being could smell his fear so hiding under the sheets on the other side of the room wouldn't do anything._

_He was so, so scared, and he didn't know what he could do to help his family as his mummy blasted bolt after bolt after bolt at the mean grinning monster who had killed Misty, mummy's kirin Summoning, to seemingly little effect. It batted aside most of the beams of magic power from the woman, striding towards her every second as Emili did everything in her power to stop it. _

_Fear crept up the young boy's spine and Caiellis backed away before he felt something touch him from behind. It was a cold, sweaty touch, and a sickly sweet yet foetid and __pungent scent filled his nostrils. He felt a hand on the back of his pyjama top, sharp claws digging into the fabric harshly but not tearing it open, and he shrieked in panic as he tried to run away from whatever had grabbed him. He kicked his legs in terror, and the soft bedtime socks that he was wearing strangely met no resistance._

"_Mummy!" he cried, not knowing what else to say as he was lifted off of his little feet. He knew that the woman was concentrating on her own enemies, the larger of the two monsters that had killed poor Misty and sent her back to the Mind Realm. One thing that he had understood for a long time as a child was that sometimes not everyone could focus on him, that sometimes people had to do other things rather than tend to his needs constantly. Perhaps it was because his daddy spent so long doing his job as the king of Lucael, or maybe Cai was simply smart like that. But right now, apart from Alexander who was already here, he didn't know who else to call to come and help him._

"_Caiellis!" was the responding shout, from Emili at the same as Alex, but it was the eight year old that responded first, a flaming fist of light blasted out from the big brother of the squirming Caiellis and smashed into the monster holding him, the Red and White mana within it not yet strong enough to burn the creature with cleansing fire but powerful enough to hurt it. Cai felt the nails dig into his back harder, and a terrifying snarl of annoyance the monster threw him away._

_The boy tumbled through the air, __remembering when Alex had once been way too rough with his wrestling moves and threw his little brother across the "arena" of two beds that they had created – Cai had landed on the floor and started crying, but had been nursed back to health by his suddenly gentle and contrite brother before any of their parents came in. An arm caught his fall, yanking his small body out of the air, but that didn't stop all of his forward momentum and he crashed into his older brother._

"_Get behind me!" Alexander yelled at him, pulling the terrified younger boy off of him and trying not to show his own fear as he pushed his baby brother behind him. There wasn't enough time to check whether or not he had been hurt by the fall, and Alex and Cai both turned around in time to see the second demon pulling itself out of the shadows that it had grabbed Caiellis from and drag itself out of the gloom, its teeth glinting in the golden light from the magic being cast in the room, although __when the illumination touched it it turned horrible and dark-_

The flames exploded against the massive corded arms of the Defiler, utterly destroying the bracers that it had been wearing and even ripping apart some of its hard crimson flesh, though there was no blood because the way that the fire of annihilation destroyed simply tore the essence from the Archdemon instead of cutting it open or burning it, removing its physical form. Rakdos felt the delectable pain up and down his arms, the sensation of agony pulsing through the demon completely different to that a human could ever sense, and it laughed hysterically in masochistic psychopathy as it slammed its foot on the ground, the inferno of loathing increasing in intensity and eroding the Defiler's crossed arms even more.

They would regenerate eventually, particularly with the amount of souls that he had consumed so far, but for now the Archdemon's own Rain of Gore was stopping him from instantly repairing the damage with dark healing magic which would create new muscle and sinew to replace that which had been destroyed – and Rakdos wouldn't have it any other way. Healing was an ability used by cowards who had not discovered the true bliss in torment and pleasure within pain, and the Lord of Riots wanted everyone to fight without the power to simply undo damage inflicted unto them.

Caiellis's power was reaching a crescendo of mana generation that hurt his own fragile body with the dark magic that was surging throughout it, almost too much for even a Lucerna to handle but especially hard for one as young and frail as he was, not that he had any choice in the matter as he did not know or care what was happening outside of the scenes in his head. The Lord of Riots bled more mana into the air, the massive spinning and spiked circle of a star with seven point rising up into the air and making the tides of blood in the ocean of viscera and mad souls below that were joined by more every second in time with their deaths within Cai's mind, twirling maddeningly at such a rate that the fabric of the world was pulled apart and distorted by its spinning insanity as it rose up to the Defiler.

More flames rose to Cai's hands, the darkness forming them from his hatred and loathing and the anguish and emotional torment at seeing innocent people – particularly innocent people who he knew and who had given up so much for him and loved him – die infusing the dark fire with their melancholy purple glow that added even more destructive power to them. There was no technique, no long and complicated ritual in which a perfect balance of emotion and power had to be maintained. Caiellis screamed and cried within his head, and the darkness responded, gifting him power from within that he could not normally access to use in his mission of slaying Rakdos and freeing the City of Pleasure from its despotic masters.

Rakdos spoke words of dark intent and malicious noise that sounded more like the screams of a billion souls dying in unison to a billion different types of unique pain inflicted upon each one individually mixed with insatiably ravenous and lascivious demonic growls from the darkest of creatures than words, sounds that had Cai's ears bleeding once again despite the fact that he could not actually hear them they were that powerful, and pulled back from the onslaught of black and purple flames from his aerial opponent.

-_It grinned maliciously at the two boys, Alex's hands roughly in the combat magic positions that he had been thought, though he had never expected to have to use them so early. Cai clutched at the back of his brother's pyjamas, before consciously forcing himself to pull away so that they could both move. He craved comfort, but even at four years old he understood the direness of their situation._

"_Don't touch my little brother again!" Alexander shouted at it, more for Caiellis's benefit than his own, and although if the youngest Lucerna would have __listened more intently he would have picked up on the note of fear in his brother's shaky yet defiant voice. Cai's terror overwhelmed that thought, and he believed in his big brother, not willing to think that if these monsters could kill Misty so easily then they would be able to do the same to them as well. _

_He was about to turn to mummy to see if she was alright before the demon tensed its large and muscular legs (inheriting that from the human Jack that it had inhabited) and springing towards them, Cai letting out another whimpering scream of panic and fear. Alex launched a weak fireball of light and flame at the monster, before trying to jump back and escape from the swipe of its large and clawed hands._

"_Alex!" Cai cried, unaware that he had pronounced his brother's name perfectly for the first time without slurring the x within it in his panic as the large fingers of the demon wrapped around Alexander's head and dragged him forwards. The four year old's tough big brother instantly started fighting back, kicking and punching with small fists and feet (though they were not in Caiellis's sight since he was much smaller himself) surrounded by weak mana as he himself was lifted off of his feet, his ineffectual thrashing doing nothing from dissuading the monster who was inspecting him like one would inspect a good fishing catch before tossing it into the box containing the rest of the flailing aquatic animals._

_There was a cry of panic and pain coming from the blonde youngster as he was pulled forwards, and it roused Caiellis's anger that something would dare to touch his invincible big brother who was almost as strong as mummy and daddy who would be here soon to beat up these mean demons. Alex couldn't see, his eyes and face hidden by the grey flesh of the smaller but still large monster, and the boy tried desperately to pull the fingers that were digging into his head and hurting him off, blinking back tears all the while. _

_The older boy's pain roused more fear within Cai, but also a form of dislike that he had never felt before, surpassing annoyance and even anger and becoming something else entirely, and the four year old knew that he had to help his big brother who was in danger-_

Instead of allowing the Lord of Riots to complete his foul ritual, the slender adolescent launched himself forwards again, blasting fire out of his free hand and tenebrous Sword of Glass as the shadows pooling around him blasted out tendrils of pure blackness to smash aside anything that would prove detrimental to his airborne charge. More hatred filled him, hatred of this demon, everything that it represented and everything that it had done, and that was counterbalanced and enhanced by another surge of sorrow from deep within his head at what was happening within his mind, and the boy's black tears darkened his pale (where they weren't splattered with both unnaturally vibrant gore and his own blood) cheeks as they ran down him like ink, the birthmark on his right cheek glowing with its mournful purple light.

Waves of fire and blood were blasted at the boy, powerful attacks that might have individually killed him had they been launched at him earlier in this fight such was the amount of mana poured into them, crimson arcs slamming into him, but they were only ever delaying tactics that were supposed to hold him back and inflict as much damage as possible before the main event of the false god's crude and destructive spells that were equally as likely to kill foe or friend. He smashed through them, more bruising appearing on his weak body from the forces of the impact of launching himself through the attacks.

Rakdos snarled again, its growling voice the culmination of all atavistic hunger and anger combined, raising up its left fist as the spinning seven pointed circle of corruption and depravity rose up to his height, fleshy tentacles of metal much like the chains that had choked and restrained the boy before he had been broken into what he was now lashing towards the aerial prince and destroyed by blasts of pure hatred from the darkness exuded out of him.

Dark, pulsing and crude sigils of blood were etched into the air surrounding the demon once again, warping symbols of base debauchery and capriciously violent sadism imprinted onto the tainted skin of the material plane within Usnaan, empowering the raw magic of the demon that was made from all of these vile things and more as they surrounded him with their corrupted glow.

The savage emblems that had existed before the Kingdom of Light was founded and yet changed every second into a new form did not dissuade Cai, nor did the magic that was launched at him in an attempt to slow him down deter his speed or prevent him from closing in on the Lord of Riots, darkness rippling into life all around him as more of the dark fire of annihilation burst out of him. The black inferno was reaching obscene levels of power and size all focussed into a small area around Caiellis and occasionally blasted at the demon to damage it, though the hatred of the boy knew that it was not powerful enough to obliterate the Archdemon at this range and required him to get closer.

"**Aww, I am sorry, little Caiellis. Did I hit a nerve by showing you all of your family, friends and soldiers dying in my Festival of Bloodshed below?!**" Rakdos taunted, though it was unknown where it was aware or not that the youngest Lucerna could not hear his words over the screaming in his head. The circle of demonic power glowed with its crimson light, and the Lord of Riots thrust its massive left hand into it, grinning at the sensation of pain as the unholy metal of the sigil pierced into the skin of his lower hand with barbed spikes of abyssal iron/flesh, his sacrilegious black blood that could kill a weak Second Sisterhood angel merely by touching it flowing upwards onto the unholy seven pointed star that stopped its spinning, stabbing into Rakdos like some sort of strange bracelet as the demon's blood that was the definition of taint swirled up the barbs piercing into the massive being.

_\- Caiellis shouted in a mixture of fear and anger at the pain inflicted upon his big brother, feeling a strange rush from within him that he had only experienced a couple of times in the past when being taught about magic but never in this power before. He was familiar with White mana, having seen a few people use it before, but it was weird having it rise up from inside of him instead of being able to feel in in the air. The four year old finally felt that he could do something to help his big brother who had already saved him from the monster that was holding Alex now, __and golden light spilled out of his palm as he fired it towards the nightmare creature holding a wriggling Alexander who was kicking the air wildly and trying to pull the hand around his eyes, nose and mouth off._

_The boy's magic was formless, having not been taught much about magical technique in wielding spells to harm baddies because of his very young age and the fact that even though he was a Lucerna he could barely channel any mana at all, and as such it was not moulded into any effective form as it spiralled towards the demon. It crashed into it, splitting apart like a spray of water and splashing golden mana all around the creature-_

The demon flapped its massive and terrifying wings, buffeting air, ash and blood all around it as it rose up above the ground a few metres itself, rising to Caiellis's height instead of the boy being quite far above the Lord of Riots and making the boy look immensely small once again, the emblems of darkness and hedonism tearing holes in the world as they rose up with their master as he crashed through the air towards the boy.

The circle of ultimate excess and dark passion around the lower palm of the Defiler's left hand was emitting huge amounts of power that made everything glow dark crimson, a voracious colour that symbolised an eternal and insatiable need for more and more pleasure. Caiellis did not care, and nothing would stop him now from completing his desire to banish the Lord of Riots from this world in which it did not belong, to make it pay for all of the pain and death it had inflicted upon the Lucaelians attempting to save the New Empire of Passion from death at its own hands through its despotic masters' indulgence and exploitation of those below them.

Pulsing red lines, like veins etched into the air, spread out from the Archdemon Rakdos, moving like a cancer or infection towards the youngest Lucerna as they travelled throughout the air, carrying large amounts of combined Black and Red mana within them that had them flashing spasmodically with many different but all evil and obtrusive colours. Caiellis slashed his Sword of Glass that was burning like some of Alexander's, and, by extension, Aurelia's blades when they used their red mana, though instead of flames of zeal and passion the crystalline weapon was alight with an inferno of hatred and pure annihilation, across the air in front of him when the web-like pattern of magic that had a similar structure to the corded veins of those muscled brutes in which the blood vessels were obvious.

Darkness burst out of the blade, turning the crimson air around it black as it washed over the attacking magic. One moment, the pulsating corruption was there, reaching towards Caiellis and hoping to taint the boy with its malevolent infection. The next it was gone. It was undone by the boy's powerful magic that simply erased it from existence, removing it from the face of the world seemingly effortlessly as the thirteen year old kept his eyes fixed upon the demon, or more precisely Jarred Redhand used as a conduit within the demon, ignoring everything else around him in the extremely distracting carnival of colours and depraved magic flashing around the two as he still jumped between rocks which had started to float upwards instead of fall towards the floor.

It was as if the Archdemon wanted them to stay here so that he could meet his opponent face to face instead of staring down at him, and Cai was more than happy to oblige as the mere auras of their magic strained against each other for supremacy. Rakdos owned everything apart from the small circle around Caiellis, its spiteful emanation covering everything with a hungering shadow that was far larger than the shade the demon's massive physical form should have taken up. Blinding flashes of lightning scoured lines of destruction through the earth, ripping through the courtyard below them as more than a little of them smashed into Cai, sending jolting bolts of electricity arcing through his nervous system when they managed to penetrate through the dark inferno coalescing around him.

-_But the magic didn't do anything to the monster. The spray of light merely bounced off of it before being quickly absorbed by the intense shadows in the room that made it feel much more claustrophobic and cloying than it usually was. Cai's young and large green eyes that were already welling with tears of fear and sadness because of what had happened to Misty widened even more in shock and worry for his big brother when his magic had no effect, and he stared in terror at the demon holding the struggling eight year old._

_Fright rooted him to the spot as Alex's muffled yells of anger and yelps of pain reached his young ears, and Caiellis snapped himself out of it. Alex and mummy were in danger, which meant that he had to help them instead of standing around doing nothing. Alexander had helped the baby him when the older prince had been his age, as though Cai couldn't remember it he just knew it in his heart, the tiny heart that was pounding in his head and filled with the need to help those who loved him and made him happy and were protecting him from meanie monsters who wanted him and his big brother. _

_He began to run at the demon creature holding Alexander, not reacting as the young boy's fists impacted multiple times onto its wrist and fingers in spite of the fact that they were surrounded by bits of mana, and shouted his precious sibling's name as he copied his brother's own technique, surrounding his tiny hand with golden mana and charging at the monster hurting Alex. It turned round to him, __gleaming black eyes fixated on the running and yelling four year old as if only noticing him for the first time, and the malicious pearls set into its monstrous face narrowed as it growled._

_Caiellis swung his small fist, but before it connected with the creature a large hand out of nowhere smashed him in the face, claws cutting at the soft skin above his eyes on his forehead as a hand-shaped bruise instantly imprinted itself onto his cheek as he was flung backwards. The young boy yelped in pain as he tumbled across the room again, scraping the knees of his pyjama trousers on the floor as tears began to drip out of his eyes. The pain was immense, the strength of the demon hurting the boy immensely as his young and fragile body was thrust into agony, and he skidded across the floor._

_He pulled himself up to look back at his brother, but couldn't see anything through the haze of pain and the stinging tears blurring his vision, as well as the blood that was dripping into his left eye that was more than just a trickle of crimson. _

"_Cai!" he heard the muffled voice of his big brother, hearing his baby brother in pain despite not being able to look over at him or having seen it, and he honed in on the noise as he couldn't stop himself from crying, too young at four to be suffering through this fear and pain. How much Alexander loved him was apparent though, as well as how brave the eight year old was, as he seemed more worried for Caiellis than he was for himself __despite the fact that he was in more danger at the moment-_

Rakdos raised the scythe in his right hand, the flaming blade of the infernal weapon blazing with more fire than ever before as the screaming of souls and the sounds of the destruction of the entire city melded into one howling and discordant cacophony of malevolence and chaos. He swung it at the boy once again, leaving a trail of gigantic embers that were like extinguished lives behind it as the scythe rushed towards Cai, who had no choice but to block it on his sword this time.

The Sword of Glass rose to meet the massive weapon of the demon, the crystalline blade that should not have been able to absorb the force of the impact taking it fully as Caiellis used that to thrust himself forwards, utilising the momentum of the demon's scything strike to suicidally launch himself further at the Defiler with his black sword in front of him and held in two hands. The scythe burnt him, leaving trails of red on his back where parts of his last remaining and shredded clothes were incinerated as he once again carved a path through the soulfire blade of the savage weapon, paying no heed to the burning pain of more wounds being inflicted onto him. It was a given by now that he would not be able to move without the mana that was flowing throughout him.

He emerged on the other side of the flames, his eyes still fixed upon the position of the Lord of Riots because of the fact that the black orb of the Lens of Guilt suffusing his left eye in darkness could see it through anything, and Rakdos squeezed its fingers into the savage emblem of hedonism wrapped round his left wrist, contaminated black blood cascading out of them as massive rifts opened up around Cai, red blotches on the tainted air of the City of Pleasure that glowed like volcanoes about to erupt in sprays of boiling lava appearing around the boy as he got closer, the scythe swinging round from behind and forcing him to continue on with his attack.

Mental images assailed the youngsters in a relentless onslaught of violence and slaughter, but apparently the prince of pleasure had made a potentially fatal mistake in forcing the young teenager to watch what was happening within the city despite the fact that it was the only think that would have broken his last vestiges of determination which he had clung to with an almost unbreakable grip, as now none of its sensational assaults had any effect on the Lucerna brat that was still leaping towards the Archdemon through the air.

"**YOU _DARE _TO CHALLENGE MY MIGHT, CHILD?! YOU _DARE_ TO ATTEMPT TO INTERRUPT MY REBIRTH?! YOU DO NOT KNOW THE STRENGTH OF WHAT YOU ARE DEALING WITH, CAIELLIS NOCTIS LUCERNA, AND WHEN I AM FINISHED WITH YOU I WILL ENJOY TEARING YOUR PRECIOUS FAMILY AND ARMY TO SHREDS! I THINK I WILL START WITH DEAR BIG BROTHER ALEXANDER, AND AFTER I HAVE CLAIMED YOUR SOUL I WILL FORCE YOU TO BE THE ONE THAT INFLICTS TORTURE AFTER TORTURE UPON YOUR SIBLING!**" furious and frustrated rage encapsulated the being's words, passionate fury that could melt the world in endless fire and drive even the most disciplined and peaceful monks into a psychotic frenzy drowning every syllable in an endless tide of blood as the circles of power around Caiellis exploded in massive pillars of crimson and black destruction that slammed into him.

_KILL THE LORD OF RIOTS!_

-_Emili spun around after managing to detain the largest of the two demons with binding Blue and White mana from her __lawmage capabilities, knowing that the other one had used the shadows to appear behind her and threaten her children but having been unable to turn around with what Haldren had become so close to her because it would have meant instant death. It was still immensely risky to do this, but she needed to because her children that meant everything to her were in danger._

_Cai could barely see through the tears welling up in his puffy, exhausted and scared wide green eyes, but he brushed his hand violently over them to try and clear his vision and have another go at helping his big brother who was still calling out his name in a mixture of an involuntary cry for help and in concern for the younger boy, who, for all he knew, had been knocked unconscious by the other hand of the demon that was holding onto him._

_The four year old saw his older brother being turned around, yanked closer to the demon's tall but hunched body that was still larger in height than the eight year old it head. Alex was allowed to see again, fire flickering in his eyes as the wisps that had been controlling the small fire that Emili had lit to make the room warmer for her children were greedily devoured by the expanding shadow._

_The frightened blue eyes of the eight year old met the welling green orbs of his baby brother, and Cai was not reassured by what he saw as the demon's leathery hand was pressed down on his brother's mouth and squeezed his nose shut._

_It whispered to Alexander, words that Cai couldn't understand but nevertheless hurt his ears like someone had stuck a knife into them repeated by the cloying shadows around them that made all movement difficult, as the blonde youngster thrashed in its suffocating grip, his eyes widening as he tried to escape and looked pleadingly at Caiellis for any form of help and in concern for the younger boy who was losing a lot of blood through the brutal gash on his forehead that cascaded down his face-_

The explosions ripped into the boy, but he merely spread his arms out wide and howled in anguish as his own darkness blasted and discharged out of him, the raw Red and Black corruption that was crashing into him met by the flames of annihilation that were only increasing in power as his broken yet undying emotions got stronger and stronger every second. His skin was burnt and cut, but the magic of the demon was overcome despite the overwhelming force that was behind it, the huge quantities of mana poured into it from one of the strongest beings of the two worlds and the massive amount of damage that it dealt as more of Cai's blood whipped into the air from cuts and lacerations.

The crimson fluid turned black the second it touched the darkness pooling around him and forming strange and indescribable shapes round the boy as it roughly orbited him before being turned into fire at his extremities and by his will of hatred and vengeance, and Cai kept going in spite of the injuries that his fragile and unhealthily light young form was sustaining in his charge, his hatred and anguish preventing him from stopping or giving any of his actions pause as he did not consider them, aiming his body like a missile towards the blot in the Archdemon that was the Welkalite Protector who had deposed the old tyrants only to allow new ones to rise to the occasion when he was trapped within his aggrieved mourning.

_KILL THE LORD OF RIOTS!_

_\- The demon said some more things to Alex that Cai couldn't understand as he staggered to his feet, almost dropping to the ground again because of the pain in his head from the contact and the fall, another bruise developing behind his locks of brown hair on the back of his small head from when he had whacked it on the floor after being driven away from his older brother. Alex kicked impotently back at the creature who was still wearing scraps of Jack's ornate armour that he had always taken great pride in, his thrashing becoming weaker because of the lack of air, before the hand was removed just enough to allow him to breathe._

_Caiellis almost tumbled over again, thrusting his tiny hands out to stop his fall, his need to help his brave big brother and mother the only thing preventing him from curling up into a foetal ball and crying his eyes out because of the pain and fear. He saw his brother gasp in a lungful of air, his eyes flicking to the side and fixing upon something other than Cai, before the demon's hand began to be saturated with darkness and it placed it close to the boy's mouth again._

_Alex heightened his desperate struggling as the darkness began to go up his nose slowly, panic making the eight year old's motions frantic as the demon's left hand almost gently stroked his short blonde hair, resolutely clamping his mouth shut and shaking his head from side to side to try and stop the thing that looked like smoke from entering his nostrils and through his mouth. The __noxious and__ grey __gas-esque magic was slowly getting into his nose, but his twisting and turning and the fact that he had his mouth shut prevented much of it from entering his lungs and doing whatever it would do whilst within there. _

_The creature's thumb and forefinger squeezed his nose shut once again as the grip of its left hand on his head became iron and implacable, preventing it from moving as Cai could tell that his brother was trying to keep his mouth shut for as long as possible so that he didn't have to breathe in whatever was around the monster's hand. _

_Alex could hold in his breath for a long time, Caiellis had found out in one of their many competitions that had started recently now that he was old enough (though he could remember doing races with his brother and other things like that as far as his memory stretched back) as while he had tried really hard not to lose he had eventually been forced to suck a breath in to replenish his starved lungs, conceding to his big brother again. Emili had gently admonished them, telling them that it was unfair that Alex had done that since his lungs were much bigger and older, commenting on the way that Cai's cheeks had gone red because of how hard he had tried to win against his older brother, but that hadn't stopped __Alexander gently teasing Cai about it and walking with a slightly triumphant swagger for the rest of the day, much to the four year old's displeasure._

_Now he could see that his brother was desperately trying to replicate the same tactics that had had him win their breath holding competition, __but his struggles were growing weaker but more frantic. Cai tried to conjure up the light again even though it had been useless, but nothing was coming to his hands, so he resolved to try and run to his brother to help the four years older boy. He found that he couldn't move, tendrils of shadow wrapping around his childishly chubby (due to his age) yet still thin legs __and holding him down in spite of his resistance-_

Spears of darkness and black flame shot out from the darkness around Cai, impacting onto the demon's own defences of occult magic from the most vile of sources, dark spell-casting that was the epitome of corruption and unrestrainedcarnage that would have instantly shattered Caiellis's sanity and broken apart his mind into a thousand pieces had he been able to hear it. Words whispered into his ear, rapturous screams echoing in the empty spaces between the Black mana of hatred and sorrow that was around him, but none had any affect apart from increasing the flow of blood out of his ears, mouth and nose, as the crimson liquid that would be spilling out of his eyes as well turned midnight pitch as it touched his tears and the Lens of Guilt on his left eye.

Caiellis kept going, and the intensity of the magic that was flung against him that would have killed him a million times over without this mana increased. There were explosions of fire, blasts of crimson and black lightning, a rain of blades made from the sharpened bones of demons that were coated in potent hallucinogenic venoms, unspeakable symbols that danced against his eyes and tried to mutate his body into something inhuman and fleshy tendrils of iron that shot towards him from below from the screaming pit of souls of blood that wanted nothing more than to drag him under and drown him so that he could spend an eternity of torment with them.

Avatars of discord rose up from the shadow of the Lord of Riots around him, screaming in an extremely high pitched chorus of horrisonant noise as they flew towards the boy, chittering and howling as they reached towards him with their claws. They screamed as the fire melted their essence from their bones, rendering their unnatural bodies diffuse as it snapped their tether that was giving them unholy life through the cruel power of the Defiler infusing his shadow with malevolent sentience and debased existence.

Sigils of dark power and taint were periodically etched onto the boy's skin by the huge increase in mana from the Lord of Riots who was still roaring and bellowing his hatred of the Lucerna line that would seek to unseat him from this power that he had gained within Usnaan and disrupt the Festival of Bloodshed with their regards to morality and restraint, ripping through Cai's pale skin like they had done before but much more violently and destructively, marking the boy with the darkness of the Defiler before waves of purple and black fire washed over them and burnt them off, though they were quickly replaced by more that were scratched onto Caiellis's young flesh and branding him with the darkness of the Archdemon Rakdos.

There were malicious and barbed heptagrams that imprinted themselves onto his chest and left cheek before being annihilated off by the pure darkness flowing out of him, chaotic glyphs reminiscent of demonic skulls that were cut into his skin by invisible blades and sent agonising Red and Black mana coursing through his bloodstream and nervous system, but the darkness of all-consuming anguish and hatred refused to let go of the skinny teenager and it did not allow any of the demon's magic to obtain a hold upon him and corrupt him into following the Archdemon's commands as he cried and whimpered and screamed in opposition of the menagerie of sounds and noises that the magic of Rakdos was filling the air with.

Cai's young voice was broken and raw from all of the screaming and strangling that had shredded the inside of his throat, tormented by the emotional agony that he had gone through and was drowning in within his own head that fuelled his hatred of the thing that had caused all of that, the magic around him overflowing with his hatred and destroying everything around the boy as he kept advancing.

Rakdos was blasting massive amounts of mana at the child, invoking magic darker than had ever been seen before in the city of Usnaan or even the entirety of Welkas and flinging it at the boy, each one enough to kill millions of souls and crush the most powerful civilisations into dust as their subjects were corrupted and turned to enter the eternal revel of bloodthirst and violence and excess that the demon was the unholy master of. None seemed to have any effect, breaking apart on the unrelenting surges of pure hatred and despair from the youngest Lucerna, the darkness roaring with a mournful song that made it ridiculously powerful as they mixed with the current Caiellis's screams of despair and hatred and the anguished crying of the four year old him that punctuated everything and could not be eclipsed by any of the other noise, deafening hymnals of raw emotion and unadulterated sadness that crashed through and destroyed even the Archdemon's unholy spells.

_KILL THE LORD OF RIOTS!_

_-Alex's eyes began to flutter as he tried desperately not to breath in the fumes, his brother falling to his knees as he put everything that he had in moving towards his big brother, but the shadows lashed around him and dragged him to the ground, grabbing at him like they had done in some of his nightmares and stopping him from going anywhere. Eventually, the eight year old opened his mouth, gasping in a lungful of air since that was the only way that he could breathe with his nose held shut, and ingested the strange magic of the monster holding him._

_A spiralling beam of warm luminescence shot out from the side of the demon, blasting it in the side of the head as it snarled and yanked Alex round as if to use him as a human shield, the boy's eyelids drooping and his limbs becoming lead as his struggles stopped. Lullabies of the children of the darkness sang __into both boys' ears, making them feel unnaturally tired and exacerbating the exhaustion they both felt because of the fact that it was around one in the morning at the very least and Caiellis hadn't slept much at all, and Alexander's eyes shut as he leaned back into the foetid embrace of the demon that was feeding him that dark magic._

_Another beam of incandescence crashed into the being, causing it to mewl in pain and holding Alexander even more in front of him so that the one attacking it would have no choice but to go through the boy to get to it. Caiellis, with tears falling ashamedly down his face because of the pain and the fear and the fact that his big brother had been forced to fall asleep which meant that he was in lots of danger coupled with the reality that he hadn't been able to do anything to help the brave and strong older boy who had protected him and stopped the mean and scary monster from doing the same to the four year old, looked over at the source of the light magic._

_He saw his mummy striding towards them, golden light collecting around her outstretched palms as she primed another attack on the creature that had forced her eldest son into a restless and unnatural sleep and cut open her youngest's forehead as well as smashed him across the room. Mummy looked more angry than Cai had ever seen before, and that scared him a lot because of the fact that he had barely ever seen the woman angry, but even though he knew that the anger wasn't directed against him it still frightened the four year old as it reminded him of the direness of the situation. He couldn't help but think that mummy was angry at him because he hadn't helped his big brother._

"_Let go of my son!" the woman shouted, her soft and comforting voice loud and defiant as her mana reacted to her baby boys' peril, and Cai wasn't able to stop himself from crying out, "Mummy!" even though she already knew that they were in danger. He was only four years old, and he didn't know what to do, and he could feel the pouring of warm blood down his face in a way that scared him. _

_A shadow flickered at the corner of Cai's vision-_

"**WHAT IS THIS POWER?!**" the Lord of Riots demanded and shouted, his demonic voice suffused with outrage and fury mixed with a kind of sadistic wonder at the sudden strength of this young child who had failed to even scratch him before and had been forced to use large amounts of his Lucerna mana to deflect even the weakest attacks of the Archdemon but was now almost completely unaffected by the strongest.

To all intents and purposes the boy should not be moving, with four of his fragile ribs broken and the rest heavily bruised, his own blood cascading down him from countless wounds and much of his pale skin shredded, his throat covered in bruising in the shape of finger and thumb marks as well as scratches from the chains that had been wrapped round it, his left leg looking like it was broken as well because of the angle at which it was dangling down from him, but Cai was moving faster than he had done in the entire battle. Rakdos felt a pulse of something that he had inflicted upon numberless hordes of others but never felt himself tingling at the base of his Archdemonic spine, something that was exquisite but also completely uncomfortable and an unwanted sensation.

The child should not have been able to hold this much mana inside of him without dying instantly, much less wield it like he was doing, although the demon knew that the Caiellis he had been fighting against – well, torturing – had completely gone, no matter that he was a Lucerna – he could not have been much older than thirteen at the very most, but even if Caiellis had been an adult most Lucernas could not wield this amount of power. Then again, all other Lucernas did not have access to Black mana, and that meant that this little brat was different, as he had access to magic that rewarded abuse and losing control and would gain power from his hatred.

Rakdos roared again, howling his atavistic desire to destroy and consume the world in a never-ending orgy of blood and destruction at the sky, and he gathered Black and Red mana into his fist as he swung it at the boy with immense speed, tainted magic surrounding the massive and sharp knuckles as it thundered through the air towards Caiellis.

The boy screamed back, his shredded vocal cords making the noise haunted and mournful as well as desperate and anguished as the darkness billowed around him in a maelstrom of black flames and ruinous shadows as the Sword of Glass shone with the dark energy collected into it that was already warping and extending the crystalline blade that channelled the huge amounts of Black mana into it. Red and Black mana crashed into him constantly, demonic magic that tore apart his skin when it got through his shield and drowned his mind in blood and vile images that he couldn't pay attention to, his mental self locked into gazing at those who he had failed and half of him reliving the night of his mother's death.

Next to his face and above the pulsating Black Sun on his cheek that shone with a scintillation of incandescent darkness, the flames pulsed and collected, moulded together by his loathing of the demon that had caused this anguish to him and many others and filled the world with darkness and pain that he wanted nothing more than to brutally extinguish, and they began to form one of the six tenets of White and Black mana that made up the holy Circle of Orzhova utilised in Caiellis's most powerful rituals in front of his right cheek. It shone with a pure darkness tinted purple by sorrow but mostly black and full of darkness and annihilating power.

It was Hatred, and it had formed from Caiellis's power and come to wipe the stain of the Defiler from this world in which it did not belong. When the sigil of darkness appeared, a jagged symbol that belied magisterial excellence as well as the haunting power to consume and destroy everything, the flames of annihilation and the death of souls rose in power, screaming out their song of destruction into the air to match the haunting melody of the youngest Lucerna's crying and sobbing and howls of broken grief, the shattering of innocence mixing with the death of perfection and happiness in a haunting and terrifying verse that promised the utter eradication of Rakdos itself.

Hatred increased Caiellis's power, the unstable magic inside of him rising to new levels of strength, and as the massive fist covered in hellfire and darkness from the deepest pits of deprivation sped towards the small thirteen year old, Cai flipped in the air, an elegant somersault that allowed him to sliced the thrumming Sword of Glass into the demon's closed fist, hacking through the magic that surrounded it and slicing into the Archdemon's crimson flesh as he dragged it along its fingers. Rakdos howled in anger and pain as his huge fingers, thicker than Caiellis's waist and arcing towards the boy who was moving fast, were eviscerated, severed off by the blade of crystal filled with the prince's darkness and hatred.

An explosion of black and tainted blood surrounded Caiellis as Rakdos swept his now fingerless hand into him, nonplussed by the pain of having his fingers chopped off because he could regenerate them later once he had dealt with this brat, but the boy merely screamed back and blasted a destructive wave of black fire that pulsed with an inner purple light of heartbreak into the hand that destroyed the flesh and erased the fist from existence as Hatred grew in size and moved round in front of the boy, providing a medium which the youngster could use to amplify and channel his Black mana through.

That had the demon shouted loudly and screaming curses even louder, making the boy's teeth rattled together as his skull shook within his head and his bones vibrated, harming his broken ribs even more, though that would not stop the youngest Lucerna now, not now that he had this much power flowing through him as empyreal matter surrounded him and tried to drag him into the hell of Sancturia where he would be subjected to every torture that had ever existed for all eternity. He launched himself towards the demon, the black viscera that poured over him turned to nothing by his flames of undoing as he shot through the air, his sword outstretched and pointing squarely towards the degenerate heart of the Archdemon where Jarred Redhand was trapped.

_KILL THE LORD OF RIOTS!_

_\- and Cai was filled with a surge of fear as he saw a large figure shooting through the coalescing and dancing darkness behind his mother as she advanced on the monster holding Alexander and lulling him into a twisted sleep, the boy unable to see what was happening because he had lost consciousness, the dark substance still drifting languidly into the eight year old's mouth and nose-_

As he launched himself towards the demon, all of the Lord of Riots's magic was railed against him, gigantic meteorites crashing down from the sky above as seven titanic thunderbolts of crimson and pink lightning crashed into the spot where he was. Spinning seven pointed circles formed from blood and iron that tore through the fabric of the world and let out a tide of deviant savagery into reality and ripped through the air as they shot towards Caiellis, reaching towards him with thousands of iron tendrils of flesh and muscle that snapped and lashed towards the boy. Numerous barbaric blades and wicked torture implements, too many to count, rained down upon him, made of corrupted iron and bone, but Caiellis was not kept away by any of the magic that was bombarding his fragile form with savage power that should have torn him apart and ripped him into a thousand parts, each one subjected to a different type of encapsulating pain.

The sigil of Hatred pulsed in time with the song of its namesake, the weeping chorus of sadness and loathing directed at the ones who would cause such anguish and sorrow, and the magical attacks were warded off by an impossibly powerful shield as the boy got closer, shooting through the air like a missile of darkness towards the heart of the demon.

Rakdos tried to batter him away with his massive wings, the pinions of darkness folding inwards quickly and then outwards, an expanding shield that smashed into Caiellis and juddered his bones before he used his sword that annihilated the essence of whatever it touched because of the amount of Black mana focussed into the glassy edge to hack his way through the leathery and thick wings. He cut through the skin and the bone of the next one without diverting his course or moving his sword at all, the blade pointing at the conduit of the demon to this world and slicing large holes through the being's wings as he charged towards it, ripping through the bloody and occult ritual circles that span into life in front of him and shot lightning into him as he passed through them.

The Lord of Riots bellowed at him, opening its gaping maw wide, and within that there could be heard a momentous din of thousands of thundering footfalls like a storm of movement from within the Defiler as his Red and Black mana was focussed into the youngest Lucerna. A creature emerged from the fire that was pouring out of the Archdemon's mouth that was thronged with teeth, the vague shape of a massive skeletal horse with its proportions massively distorted and becoming more vicious, like some sort of carnival steed from hell that had two heads and howled at Caiellis in anger as it spotted him. It was surrounded in fire, and at least twice as tall as the body as it ran within the inferno blasted towards the youngest Lucerna, but there was not just one.

Soon thousands of tempestuous hoof beats could be heard, and many more of the flaming horses were formed out of the breath fire of the Lord of Riots, screaming their hatred of the boy as they ran through the air towards him as he cut a path towards the massive Defiler who was swinging his brutalised scythe at him from behind, the din of the fireherd drowning out everything else and filling his vision with blazing fire from hell as they charged towards the attacking Lucaelian youth.

The boy didn't look away from his target as the Archdemon also moved to intercept him, still vomiting up more demonic elemental horses from within him and spitting them at Cai as he raised the stump of his left wrist, a bituminous blast of oily and sticky black blood fountaining at the littlest Lucaelian within Usnaan in tandem with the blazing herd of carnival hellsteeds, the infernal sparks of their hooves crashing into the air setting the tar like vital fluids of the Archdemon alight and flooding the air with fire.

The ritual circle was still stabbing into the demon's now bare wrist as the blast fulminated towards Caiellis, a new hand formed from darkness and blood spilt in a million rapturous sacrifices to the Lord of Riots ripped itself out of his wrist, covered in demonic sigils as it reached towards Caiellis, lightning still blasting down from the sky and the rumbling Tempest of Craving in an onslaught of Red and Black mana in every form crashing into Cai.

_KILL THE LORD OF RIOTS!_

_-and forcing Alexander to sleep through this battle, his eyes moving between his shut lids. Cai was not looking at his brother, however, but at the shadow that was swiftly moving behind their mummy as she focussed on dissuading the smaller demon from hurting the eight year old prince. He tried to move, but the shadows were still holding him down, and when he was about to call out to his mummy that something was behind her a clammy tendril snaked shut around his mouth, muffling his warning cries as his hands tried to rip it off. _

_The darkness was strong, and it was cold, and merely touching it sent shivers of fear trembling up and down the boy's body as the palpitations of his heart echoed within his head. He tried to scream out again, but the darkness which was being animated by an evil will was holding him down and stopping him from making any sounds apart from high-pitched and smothered grunts __as his eyes widened even more in spite of the blood dripping into them and the tears spilling out of them-_

Caiellis placed his free left hand upon his Sword of Glass, the powerful emblem of Hatred that was far stronger than Retribution had ever been with everything focussed into just it moving in tandem with his hand, mana that was killing the boy rising up within him and following the path of the sigil formed from the thirteen year old's darkness. A pulse of annihilating flames blasted out from within him, the darkness surrounding him rippling with the explosion and adding its power to the detonation, like the violent destruction of a star of darkness that absorbed everything around it in its death throes and undulated outwards from him.

The first of the flaming elementals that were the physical forms of the nightmares of raving lunatics was touched by the wave of unlight purple, its blackened bones disintegrating into particles of ash that were quickly destroyed and consumed by the hatred pouring out of the youth, and soon the rest of them joined them in its fate, the fire and the tar blood of the demon erased from the world with the pulse of pure loathing given form by the anguish of the boy that would not be satiated by lifetimes of endless crying, sadness that could not be satisfied even when the world was drowned in oceans of tears.

"**BASTARD CHILD! YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN DEFEAT ME?! YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN DAMAGE ME, LITTLE CAIELLIS?!**" the demon screamed, the only one to bear witness to its words that echoed across the whole of Usnaan in the language of the Archdemonic not even understood by the greater demon lieutenants of the Defiler who were fighting and winning elsewhere in the Welkalite capital city which had been the site of immense violence that the Yentarian Republic would find shocking when they discovered it. Its rage was absolute, all-consuming, inspiring every single servant of it within the city and more into a violent and frenzied rage, filling them with the desire to take as many lives as possible before they died and entered the hell that their Archdemonic patron had waiting for them.

Caiellis didn't hear them. He couldn't hear the taunts or the insults, the rage or the frustrated screaming of the Lord of Riots over the howling within his head, the crying and sobbing that drowned everything else out as his physical form surrendered to the emotions that were controlling it and giving him power as he cut and annihilated his way through everything that was obstructing him from the heart of the demon, the trapped form of Jarred Redhand that was allowing it to stay here.

Caiellis's skin was picking up more cuts and burns by the second as he endured the storm of utter and unadulterated destruction the Lord of Riots was conjuring up in front of him with his new iron hand of darkness and violence, and as the sigil of Hatred made its way to his left hand, causing immense pain in the fingers and the palm that was more focussed than anywhere else on his body, he placed it within his Sword of Glass that was already filled with mana. He unflinchingly forced it within the blade, the crystal structure of the weapon warping with the huge quantities of Black mana held within it as the emblem of Hatred entered the relic weapon that was four hundred years old, rumbling and singing with the broken voice of the youngest prince as it did so, the blade pulsing with dark purple and black that filled it.

The screaming, indescribable mass of destruction that was created by the Lord of Riots, powerful enough to kill a fellow Archdemon (as it had done), a maelstrom of Black and Red mana that combined in endlessly chaotic ways, swirled around the boy, trying to tear him asunder but failing as his pure Black mana overwhelmed it and destroyed it, the song of hatred rising in volume to the point where it was getting louder than the atavistic and furious howling of Rakdos as he snarled at the rapidly approaching youngest Lucerna.

_KILL THE LORD OF RIOTS!_

_-that blurred his vision and made it extremely hard to see. He thrashed desperately, harder than he had ever done before because he knew that even though he was only four he was a big boy now, not a baby any more, and that his family depended upon him to help them so that they could survive until daddy came and saved them from the evil monsters. The shadows were almost gentle with him, only holding him down and enclosing around his mouth to the point where he couldn't make much of a sound._

_His wriggling and squirming accomplished nothing, and he was reminded of when his big brother called him a wimp because he wasn't very strong and couldn't pick up the box that his toys were in, relying upon Alex to move them. The words had cut deeply (even though Alexander had only been teasing his baby brother gently, something that little Cai had not picked up on), and he knew that they were true. He was a wimp, a weakling, a _baby, _because he couldn't help his mummy or his big brother._

_One of the spiralling contrails of light shot out from his mother's outstretched hands reacted to the plight of her youngest son as well, Emili's maternal instinct extending to both of her precious little boys that meant the world to her and her husband who she dearly hoped would be coming soon. It warmed the unnatural chill of the darkness off of the four year old, though it didn't take away the cold pit at the bottom of his little stomach, and as the light washed over him it burnt the shadows holding him still and stopping him from speaking or shouting away. The boy instantly yelled, "Mummy!"-_

Caiellis shot forwards, smashing into the Lord of Riots and landing on its gigantic pectorals with his Sword of Glass instantly smashing into its bloated heart underneath him, darkness pulsing into the blade as it hacked into the Defiler that howled in agonised pain and instantly batted at the boy who had smashed his sword into him, his whole form rippling as distorting with the darkness of hatred that was poured into him from the crystalline blade rammed into his heart.

The skin of the demon instantly started disintegrating around the darkness of the youngest Lucerna and his sword that shone with the midnight blackness of Hatred, ripping through layers of flesh and muscle as the boy screamed his loathing of this unholy being that was the manifestation of everything he hated, the avatar of everything that he stood against, the shadows and the purple and black flames burning away its flesh as it tore through the essence of the Archdemon.

Black blood sprayed over the boy, eating at his skin and solidifying upon him, but the youngest Lucerna did not have the mental capacity at the current time to be able to pay attention to that or give the pain that it caused any heed – and if he did then there would be much worse agony everywhere on his young form because of the wounds he had sustained and the mana that was killing him rushing through him.

Layer after layer of the foul substance of Rakdos was destroyed as the demon screamed in the pain it was in, its hand smashing into Caiellis's shield as its scythe crashed into it from the other side, but the boy was unaffected by what amounted to desperate thrashing as his sword hacked through the demon's body. He could see the vague form of what had once been a lean human man but had been corrupted and defiled beyond recognition by being used as a Summoner by Rakdos, matching what he was able to perceive in the Lens of Guilt but in an even more sorry state than what he had seen there. Demonic perversions ofveins were moulded into the man, extracting blood from him every second and replacing it with the vital fluids of the demon

Had Cai had control of his body and mental functions, he might have felt sympathy for the poor Protector, and definitely revulsion at what had happened to him, but since he did not all this thing trapped within the Defiler happened to be was a target to be hated and destroyed so that the Archdemon could be too.

All of his darkness began to be pulled into the Sword of Glass, the sigil of pure Hatred within it greedily dragging the flames of annihilation and the Black mana that had not taken form within it and with it more damage was inflicted to the Lord of Riots, lines of darkness etching themselves onto its skin around the relatively large cavity Cai had eradicated from the being and tearing apart the essence of whatever debased and vile thing it had that would be considered a soul piece by piece, heavily disrupting its connection to the hellish realm within Sancturia that it originated from.

The boy's sword had hacked into the heart of the Protector as well, the glass blade that was filled with darkness and black fire killing the man in spite of the mana pouring through him and the dark vitality and unnatural resilience given to him by the Archdemon which had used him to enter this world, and the unfortunate thing that Jarred Redhand had become mewled pathetically as it died, its essence withered away as its tether to its own soul was cut, the darkness of the littlest Lucerna destroying his body as it ripped apart his soul. The man reached towards him with a clawed hand, seven fingers (including the thumb) with seven joints brushing against Caiellis's cheek almost tenderly as the man died, as if thanking him for what he had done in freeing him from the embrace of the heart of Rakdos.

The hand, even as its flesh was eroded away and annihilated in layers from touching the left cheek of the boy, suddenly became harsh, stabbing its nails into the already cut flesh of his face and dragging it down the pale cheek, feebly grabbing the boy's throat in an attempt to kill him as the unnatural will of the Defiler overcame any base gratitude the thing who had once been Redhand, the leader of the revolution against the Last Tyrant, had possessed, latching onto his bruised neck with his fingers that were only skeletal bones now but ultimately achieving absolutely nothing as even they were dissolved away by the darkness.

The man died silently, though the screams of the Lord of Riots more than made up for that as they were overwhelmed by the crescendo of noise from Caiellis's emotive but insensate choir that drowned out the howling of the Archdemon as the darkness of the boy spread through it. The demon's flesh and essence was being destroyed in huge amounts as it tried to claw at the boy as the darkness pulsed into his sword now that the connection between the demon and this realm had been sliced apart and destroyed, pulsating globules of anguished fire and Black mana that were heightened and amplified by Hatred using the wound carved into the Lord of Riots from by the Sword of Glass to enter the demon past all of its magical defences as it screamed, shouting its rage and thrashing, beginning to fall back to the ground as its wings lost their uniform movement and moved spasmodically.

But the demon was not dying, it was not being banished from the material plane to the hell in which it belonged, despite the fact that its Summoner had finally been killed and Archdemons could not exist in the physical world without one. Caiellis was heavily damaging it, ripping apart its flesh and annihilating its malicious essence, but Usnaan was too far gone to be considered solely of the material realm any longer.

The hells of Sancturia had superimposed too strongly over the City of Pleasure, allowing the Archdemon to remain within it without a Summoner but weaker until the transformation of the Welkalite capital was completed, but that meant that Rakdos could not be simply banished from the world even with the annihilating power of Hatred that was being poured into it that was causing the whole demon and Caiellis to shake violently and all of the darkness around Cai to be sucked into the Sword of Glass with Hatred within it. Even as the demon was being destroyed, it was not being banished, but since Caiellis could not think he could not even consider stopping now as more power rushed out of him.

The Archdemon crashed into the ground, its back flattening everything in the courtyard but luckily missing the king of Lucael still unconscious in the cage of his son's vitrified blood as a massive shockwave spread out from it, Caiellis still on top of the demon's massive chest with his sword shining with darkness still plunged into its heart. But it was not being banished.

_KILL THE LORD OF RIOTS!_

_-The woman heard her youngest son's screamed warning, and Cai scrambled quickly to his feet as he shouted it now that the darkness holding him down was removed, and her green eyes that were a reflection of Caiellis's own opened wide in concern and shock again when the voice reached her. She was about to turn around, mummy was about to turn around, before it happened._

_Large, gleaming and white talons dripping with a noxious black substance rammed through her stomach in a slicing stab, Emili's blood spraying out across the room and covering her youngest son in its crimson liquid. Her eyes widened again, in shock and horror, and she let out a gasping scream of pain as the sadistic claws thrust through her lower abdomen lifted her off of her feet, blood dripping down her mouth._

_Caiellis's mind froze in anguish and terror as his beloved mother's blood dripped down him, and the sight of his mummy with the talons protruding from her stomach would stay with him for as long as he lived._

"_Got you," the demon whispered sadistically in the woman's ear as she was lifted off the floor, mummy coughing up blood as she choked out shrieks of agonised pain._

MUMMY!-

Caiellis screamed in pure hatred and pain, his voice a howling shriek of anger, hatred, anguish, sadness, rejection, pain, torment, defiance and loathing. The fire of darkness blossomed into life in even greater quantities, rushing through his Sword of Glass and into the demon that it was stabbed into, the massive discharge of Black mana in conjunction with the four year old in his head forced to watch his perfect and compassionate mother die in front of him once again, empowering his Black mana to insane levels of power that flooded through the demon.

But it was not enough. It was not enough to kill it.

Then, suddenly, more mana rose up within the boy. It was no longer the magic of darkness, however, which was still endlessly rushing out of him, but the magic of light that rushed out of Caiellis and blossomed into incandescent existence within him at the death of his mother, powered by his need to deliver judgement upon this immense demon for all that it had done to the innocents of the world. Light surged up and out of him, the sudden and blinding luminescence flooding out of the left side of the boy as the shining Lens of Innocence wrapped around his right eye, the light within it rising to levels to meet the overwhelming levels of dark magic that was flooding out of him, golden destruction rising up alongside purple flames of annihilation.

Next to the left side of his face, another sigil was conjured into existence, a twin to Hatred but formed of much more desire for judgement and vindication than its dark brother, curving lines of radiance written onto the darkness in front of the Lens of Guilt in the opposite manner to how Hatred had been drawn. It was Justice, and it had come to deliver punishment upon the Lord of Riots that deserved to be utterly obliterated from this world.

The levels of White mana within the boy that were usually much more stable than his Black, not liable to rise or fall as much as the magic of darkness, began to rise to the same obscene levels of power as the tenebrosity around him, beginning to form a balance of Hatred and Justice between the two and mixing Caiellis's anguish and desire to destroy those who had caused it and would inflict it upon more with his intrinsic need to deliver judgement and death upon the evil whose crimes had rendered them beyond redemption.

The sigil of Justice was pulled into his thrumming and rumbling Sword of Glass as well as the chorus of screaming and haunting song got even louder, blinding light flowing into the blade alongside more darkness and annihilating flames as the White mana matched his Black and combined with it. It was blinding darkness, shining shadows, dark radiance, scintillating destruction in all of its pure forms of light and darkness mixed together, and it was blasted into the Lord of Riots through the Sword of Glass as the demon screamed in agony as its entire essence was attacked by double the mana than before – but far more than double the power, as the strength of light and darkness, Justice and Hatred, mixed was far more than the power of its individual elements.

Caiellis howled in his anguish and hatred, the fire of annihilation infused with blinding light as a massive pillar of pure White and Black mana rose up around him, flowing into his crystalline sword that shook with the amount of power within it that was being pulsed into the Lord of Riots. Stars of darklight rose up around the boy, exploding and adding their own energy to his power as the blinding darkness and tenebrous incandescence became lighter and darker every second Cai screamed.

**_KILL THE LORD OF RIOTS!_**

The Sword of Glass exploded.

The power that had been channelled within it to the point where the ancient blade shattered crashed into the shrieking Archdemon, a gigantic column of dark luminescence and shining shadow mixing together to form blinding and haunting purple twilight rising up above the boy that pierced through the howling Tempest of Craving, tearing apart the heptagram of flames etched onto the heavens as it consumed the Lord of Riots and the youngest Lucerna sat atop it. The flesh of the roaring demon was turning to glass at a rapid rate, crystallising because of the gigantic amounts of light and darkness rushing through its foul body, a crescendo of power and a zenith of destruction from the combination of Justice and Hatred slamming down into the stricken Archdemon as its body vitrified at an increasing speed.

It screamed in agonising pain, a rare form of pain that it did not enjoy, frustration and fear, and Caiellis screamed along with it, his unnaturally loud voice that was echoed by his magic infused with an otherworldly resonance by the amount of mana that was discharged out of his fragile form but nevertheless all to human with the emotions that were within it, amplified by his mana and the alternate energies combining within the Lucerna.

The demon thrashed, trying to move and stop the glassification of its entire being, its magical essence trapped within its physical form because of how much Sancturia had overlapped with the material plane in the City of Pleasure – it had meant that it could not be simply banished back to Sancturia because Sancturia was not here, but it also meant that if enough power was used to destroy it the Archdemon Rakdos would truly die.

Red and Black mana in huge amounts invoked forbidden spells in a desperate attempt to murder the thirteen year old wielding the power of his Lucerna heritage and seethed through the air, but they were utterly annihilated by the White and Black mana combined together that flooded the courtyard and was tearing apart everything within it.

Each of the glass fragments that were the Archdemon were overflowing with light and darkness in equal measures, and as the strength of the blinding darklight rose even higher, consuming everything within it and making the world shake with its power to the point where even Caiellis within his mind was seeing the light of the darkness, the Lord of Riots gave one final, undulating death scream as it died, light and darkness filling everything as it was turned into shining crystal that was brimming with White and Black energy.

Caiellis's vision within his head was consumed by the night and the radiance, the sight of all of the people depending upon him in danger and the scene of his mother dying in front of him overwhelmed by the power crashing through all of him, and as the demon exploded twilight drowned everything else out. Rakdos shattered into a million pieces all filled with power that exploded again in bursts of midnight incandescence and shining darkness, like a billion miniature suns detonating all at once all across the universe of the courtyard as the song of light and darkness reached its apotheosis.

Cai's vision shattered, his mind filled with white light and dark shadow as everything around him imploded and fractured into endless numbers of glass fragments that poured to the floor around him.

He couldn't feel, and he couldn't think. A kind of numbness overcame his spent form as the Archdemon Rakdos died in the world around him, and as the power left the boy's mind he willingly fell into the abyss of bliss around him.

.*.*.*.

Cai coughed painfully, chapped lips opening up as another dry croak came to his ears, agony flooding through the darkness that had cocooned him, and opened his eyes. The pounding in his skull that had risen up as soon as he was dragged out of unconsciousness was exacerbated by the light of the world outside of his mind; it seemed to burn into his retinas like a laser or a beam of holy incineration, scorching every nerve ending in its path.

"Nuuuuhhhhgggguuhhh..." Caiellis winced and moaned, rolling slowly and agonisingly onto his side, as his mouth continued to make sounds of pain, trying to shield himself from this new enemy. He felt exhausted, his eyelids already drooping down and wanting to shut themselves so that he could fall back into the realm of sleep, but the boy knew that for some reason he had to stay awake. The rock that he was laid on certainly wasn't the comfortable mattress of his bed, or any bed, that was for certain. He honestly hadn't remembered the outside world being so bright, even though he could tell that wherever he was it was still grey.

Jagged, broken ribs inside of the thirteen year old's chest slipped and ground together with the movement, and the boy was forced to smother an outright scream of pure agony because of the pain, worse than he had ever experienced before, that he was in.

He lay, panting, on the rough ground for a few minutes, his eyes scrunched shut, waiting out the torment that was thundering through him, willing away the pain that swept in waves of torture throughout his small body. He felt like he had been run over by one of the large and heavy monorail trains and then been drowned in a vat of corrosive acid. It was an exercise in futility, because every movement, large or infinitesimally small, carried the same result of brutal spikes of pain and Caiellis had to resign himself to living with it, resolving to move himself. Otherwise it meant spending angels knew how long lying on this ground until his father or brother or Uncles found him...

_Oh angels!_

Caiellis juddered forwards with a jolt, and this time he didn't bother even trying to hold back the scream of pain that was ripped from his lips. White bolts of agony knifed like daggers of nerve-shredding pain through his head, his chest … not one single part of him seemed to escape the torture, and within his skull was the pounding drumbeat of his heart that made him wonder briefly if he was having a migraine or not.

_Oh angels! Make it stop!_

Caiellis clamped a hand around his mouth but the fresh vomit from the meal he had eaten this morning, flecked with no small amount of crimson blood, spilled out over it, dripping down his chin and onto his t-shirt … or what was left of it, and the boy felt the disgusting sensation of the sick touching the bare skin of his chest and causing little fingers of stinging suffering to dance along his open cuts, of which there seemed to be many.

He managed to rip off some of the frayed fabric, intending to use it to clean himself up, but the second that the material touched the skin he pulled it away with a hiss of world around him spun and the few things that could have been ruins or buildings morphed into swollen, black holes that threatened to swallow the boy within them until he clamped his eyes shut once again.

Cai had to force them open when the pain subsided to a level in which he could function. His ribs were broken, that much was certain, and when the boy looked down at his body in front of him he gasped in shock, something that sent more shudders of agony throughout him. Angels above, he was messed up, and that was not even counting the wounds that he couldn't see and that he felt on him, as well as any potential internal damage.

He needed to think of a way to start moving. Memories were coming back to him, not very fast, but enough so that he knew where he was – which happened to be in enemy territory, the Welkalite capital of Usnaan to be precise. He tried to move again, gasping in agony, but he was stuck down to the floor, some sort of solidified and sticky substance holding him down. Even though he normally wasn't very strong without his magic, of which he had absolutely none and was one of the main contributors to his torment as his whole body flared with the amount that he had used, he would have probably been able to force himself out of this strange tar like matter holding him down and trapping his brutalised body on the ground, the amount of wounds that he had picked up made it almost impossible to pull himself out.

His head pounded, and each breath, no matter how little, sent sharp pains through his chest and his throat. The black substance that was sticking to him, probably infecting his wounds but at the very least making them much more painful as he tried to move, would not budge even as he tore at it with his hands, trying not to panic as he imagined some Welkalite enemies finding him here and easily killing him, or even worse, using the fact that he was restrained and exhausted and heavily wounded to torture or capture him and use him as a bargaining chip like they had done before.

Eventually, he let his head fall back in defeat, painful sobs wracking him as more and more of his memories were rising up within his head, the pain that was running through him too much to deal with. His hands fell down at his sides, useless in freeing himself from what he was going to assume was some form of magical or unnatural tar, and as he gasped in breaths that he tried to make as painless as possible, he saw something gleaming in his tear blurred vision with his bleeding head laid out on the ground and his eyes looking behind him. The boy twisted, craning his neck and trying to ignore that pain that rose up in his throat from a number of bruises upon it, and he saw a knife of Lucaelian make on the ground behind him.

He tried to to get a better look at it because the entire world was still spinning and blurry and he couldn't tell how far away it actually was, grimacing all the while and whimpering in pain from all of the movements. One part of him just wanted to lay here and wait until someone came and saved him, but another knew that that was just pathetic, that the Welkalites might find him and use him against his family again and even if he didn't move he was still in agony, so the thirteen year old who was in the process of having several fragmented images that he found extremely disturbing coming back to him turned his body round.

The dagger was there, straight Lucaelian steel glinting out at him in the wan orange light of flickering flames further away in the City of Pleasure, just within reach if Cai was able to stretch his arm out. Caiellis wasn't keen on the idea of having to move his arm round and reach out towards the knife that he might be able to use to cut himself free, but his tense mind protested otherwise. Besides, he had a vague recollection of something happening to the Sword of Glass, and he was no longer connected to the magical tether of it, so it would be good to have some form of protection in the form of a self-defence knife, surprisingly enough the same make as the one that he had been given in the civil war.

Cai turned round, panting out pained breaths, and reached out his skinny and bleeding arm towards the knife that was less than a metre away from him. The agony was instantaneous and blinding, white slices of torture all across the limb and his chest and his lungs when he sucked in more breaths. Working through the pain, his fingers slipped against the hilt of the dagger, but instead of grasping round it and pulling the small weapon back his slippery fingers that were covered in claret vitae missed by around a millimetre and the knife slid backwards across the ground.

He was too exhausted and hurt to even mutter a curse of exasperation and frustration, letting out the breath that he hadn't realised he was holding and wanting to curl up into a ball, but with the black tar thing on his legs and waist he couldn't even do that. Besides, it would be far too painful on his broken ribs. Then he noticed that the knife had hardly been pushed far away at all by the weak contact with his thin fingers, a faint glimmer of hope rising up in his mind that he was too tired and wounded to push away with reason and logic.

He didn't even know if the blade could cut the seemingly solid tar that was stopping him from moving his legs, or if he would even be able to move after he had freed himself from this sticky prison, not least what he was going to do in this state. Caiellis had to think in tiny steps, such as how he was going to obtain the knife. He would deal with problems as he approached them.

The boy's mind began to settle into the survival routine that had been drilled into him by Uncle Tristram and to a lesser extent Uncle Tybalt as well as the instincts that he had developed through years of living through desperate situations even though he would barely be on his own in them and if he was something was going horribly wrong for his brother to be separated from Cai. He would solve each problem as it came, remembering the lessons that his mentors had taught him to stay alive, although none really covered what to do when he was this wounded.

He was aware that his wounds needed binding and seeing to and could easily be heavily infected, and while the thought of that made him shudder he methodically culled it from his mind, knowing that he could do nothing for his injuries whilst he was trapped here and unable to access his full range of mobility.

Caiellis wondered whether or not he could reach the knife if he sat up, something that would be extremely painful as his ribs ground together, and decided that there was no point in not trying – yes, it would save him from more pain, but survival was more important than comfort at the moment. Taking a deep breath in that hurt his neck and chest, the boy located a shard of rock next to him that he could hold onto to help himself up, grabbing it with his left hand and the jagged fragment cut into his already lacerated fingers.

He grasped it tightly his life depended on it, which it may well do, his arms wobbling like they didn't belong to him and threatening to fall lifelessly by his sides at any moments, tears and blood from cuts on his forehead misting up his vision before he brushed them away and fixed his vision on the dagger behind him. Sniffling miserably and whimpering in pain, he used all of his strength to pull himself so that he was sat upright. The movement nearly sent his chest and head crashing back to the ground; more pain rolled through his frail young body as he reached out to the dagger from a more upright position, his fingers digging into the rock he was using as leverage to keep himself like this, and white light burst behind the boy's eyes.

He grasped onto the handle of the dagger with all of his might, yanking it closer before he could pass out.

"Th-thank th-the a-angels!" the youngster gasped out, letting go of the rock that had been holding him up and allowing his body to lay back down again as the agony shuddered through him, clutching the knife to his chest like it was a soft toy and would protect him from the horrors of the bedtime world. _Breathe through it! Just breathe through it …_

The smallest and youngest Lucerna was breathing a little too fast, shaking a little too much, but he had got the weapon. That was stage one done, at the very least, though the amount of pain that he had gone through to get it had almost killed him.

He raised the dagger to his face, some part of him wanting to look at the prize that it had taken him so much effort to acquire and a kind of curiosity entering his head that made him want to find out who the knife would belong to (as usually the family name of the person, their initials or a symbol associated with them would be engraved into the hilt so that the weapon could be returned or, more frequently, the deceased could be identified as every soldier was issued one of these, though this specimen was more ornate than most), but he never got there.

Shock awaited him when he gazed in the reflection that had been waiting for him in the straight blade of the knife. He had known he was in a bad state, had seen the horrible patchwork of wounds on his small chest and could feel the bruising and cuts on his face, but somehow seeing his own face like this made everything worse than before. His entire face was covered in blood, but more predominantly the left side where most of the physical pain was coming from (as the Black Sun Lucerna birthmark was aching with a torment that was not physical).

Most of it was dried, but lots of fresh crimson was leaking from a deep gash on his forehead and numerous cuts in his left cheek that hadn't sealed up or scabbed over, meaning that it could only have been mere minutes since they had been inflicted – although his Lucerna regeneration would be occupied with simply keeping him alive and without that his fragile body took a long time to heal.

His bottom lip (and his top, but much less noticeably) was also full, swollen and bleeding, and there were numerous dark bruises and cuts scattered across his pale and soft flesh. His eyes were bloodshot and red rimmed from the tears, and on his throat there was what was definitely bruises in the shape of large fingers as well as some form of less obvious rope burn like he had been cut down from a hanging. The boy stared at his reflection in horror for a few seconds, utterly taken aback by how bad his face looked, especially the pain in his eyes that was far more than even what he was feeling now, before a thought came to him.

_At least I don't look as bad as Alexander did when I left Aksua alone with him …_

The fuzzy images of pain, violence and anger that were already entering his mind suddenly exploded into excruciating clarity within the boy's head, and instead of taking a sauntering walk down Memory Lane the youngest Lucerna was thrust head first into Remembrance Ocean. And it wasn't pretty.

He could see his big brother convulsing in a pool of his own blood, with a large and bloody gap in the middle of his chest as he coughed up sticky black and corrupted fluid and the Hierarchs Tybalt and Aretis desperately tried to heal him, a memory that, while relatively recent, was long enough ago to not be as concerning to him as the others that were flooding back to him in agonising clearness.

Alexander, dangling in the grip of Arendus Draal and not moving at all. The Archdemon Rakdos, laughing, screaming and howling in tempestuous delight, smirking sadistically at the boy as he destroyed Orzhova with his massive scythe and battered aside Caiellis's Twilight Reprisal. The boy's dad, shouting, angry, furious, sneering, his face up close and personal, yelling in rage, throwing Cai across the courtyard, punching him the face, lifting him off of his feet and _strangling _him with the intent to kill.

Cai gulped and shivered in distress, his stomach churning again like a ship in a storm, and he wrapped his free left arm around his broken ribs as he looked away from the sight of his face, although that didn't make the horrible memories go away. He leaned to the side, and, sensing an outlet, his gut rebelled again, leaving the thirteen year old gagging and retching helplessly even though all that he was throwing up by now was blood.

It hurt so damn much, but what hurt even more was the knowledge of who had done most of this to him. A tiny ray of light and hope tried to fight its way through the roiling whirlpool of despair that was Caiellis's mind, _it wasn't … it couldn't have been him … dad would never hurt you like that, _but it was quickly swallowed up by the blackness of depression and dejection that came from a broken heart and an abused body. A part of his psyche reminded him that his father hadn't been psychotically angry like the victims of the Lord of Riots's unnatural bloodthirst were, that he had known full well what he had been doing, presenting him with the horrible words that his dad had said as it to evidence that truth.

_Worthless little shit …_

The boy whimpered in pain, bending over and sobbing his heart out when the retching stopped as more images and words assaulted him, placing his hands around his ears like they would block out the mental accusations thrown at him by the memories of his dad.

_You left your older brother, my eldest son, to die while you pranced around in happy fantasy land!_

_You don't pay attention, you never listen, and I'm fed up with all of your questions! You're incapable of obeying orders and that puts other people at risk! I fucking warned you … I told you that some day you were going to get one of us killed!_

The blows were emotional, but the pain that they caused was very physical, and the boy curled up with his arms around him, though he was still unable to move his legs, and began to cry his eyes out. Through the haze of tears and pain, he stared at the knife on the floor when it clattered to the ground as he let go of it and he remembered that he had it again.

A few slices on the tar that was holding his legs to the floor. That was all that he needed.

He touched the knife with his hands, slowly sliding it around the bloody ground with his extended index finger like a toddler playing with his food, tears streaming down his cheeks all the while.

_To think that Emili, your mother, my perfect wife, died to save you..._

A few slices on the tar that was holding his legs to the floor. That was all that he needed.

But the boy kept staring at the self-defence dagger, in too much pain and emotional distress to notice that the beautiful engraving on the elaborate and elegant hilt read C.N.L. and was enclosed by majestic angel wings.

His pain wasn't just physical now. It ran soul deep, and he remembered what had rushed through his mind before whatever had happened that had rendered him unconscious for a time...

_I should have __just__ left you there to die along with __her__..._

Blinking back the tears, Cai picked up the knife, the same size as the one that he had possessed before unlocking Orzhova at the Scholaria Magnus, clutching it to his chest like he had done so many times after meeting his father for the first time after the ending of the civil war that had torn apart his perfect life and defined the rest of his existence. The vulnerable thirteen year old brought it up higher so that he could look at his distorted reflection within the blade.

"Maybe … it's for the best," he whispered. He was alone, as he deserved, no one to care or to even notice that he was gone. And everyone who would have cared was in danger because of him.

The boy raised the dagger up to his throat, placing it next to the pulsing carotid artery in his neck like he had done many times in the past, the transparent tears that were spilling down his cheeks dripping from his chin and onto the clean blade. It would be painless, almost instant if he did it right and stopped his trembling.

No one would know. They would all think it was the Archdemon that had ended him just as he had ended it, that he had died slaying the beast and destroying the Lord of Riots. It was a good, honourable end.

Caiellis just wanted to get away from it all, get away from his father's hate and the broken life that he was living. And if he did it now, then he wouldn't bring shame upon his family either, wouldn't make the people think that they were weak.

"A hero's death," he murmured, softly, the words accompanied by a stifled sob of a broken heart. That's what they would think. _A hero's death_. _One that I don't deserve, and one that is not true._

He tried to stay dignified, if for nothing than his own little fragments of pride, but he couldn't. Breath hitching in misery, Cai cried silently, the tears rolling down his bruised and bloodied face and onto the knife that he held at his throat. Caiellis felt weak, disgraced, a shamed heart in a cowards body, and he had to bite his lower lip to stop himself from bursting into tears and trembling too much. He just wanted to escape from the pain.

The boy took a deep breath, just as one, final memory came back to haunt him.

_Why don't you do us all a favour, and just die?_

He steadied his hand holding the weapon, closing his eyes as the tears slipped silently out of them and the melancholy glow of the Black Sun could been seen behind his eyelids.

_I'm so sorry, Uncle Tristram, Uncle Tybalt … I can't go on ..._

_I'm so sorry, Alexander … but I can't take this any more … I love you, big brother … __Thank you __so much__ for everything ..._

There was no more hesitation. Everything that had to be thought had been thought. He visualised his brother's happy smile as he hugged or teased his younger sibling, pushing aside his father's hatred for now so that he could have one last look at the little happiness present in his shattered life.

It was almost enough to stop him. Almost, but not quite, and that happiness was tainted by what had happened to his big brother because of him.

Crying silently, Caiellis drew the dagger across his throat, and the world fell into darkness.

* * *

New Summonings and Creatures in this chapter:

Rakdos's Carnival: Carnival Hellsteed


	40. Sunset

Marik watched, with baited breath, as his son laid silently on the ground after killing one of the most powerful demons that the man had ever seen, blood pumping from numerous wounds and each breath strained and ragged. He was immensely proud of the boy, proud of what he had done, but he also wished that it hadn't taken Caiellis risking his life and almost dying after being tortured at the hands of the Lord of Riots for him to see that.

The power levels that he had seen from his thirteen year old son had been insane, but also extremely disturbing – Caiellis had managed to generate as much mana as the king himself had at the height of some of his most powerful spells, or perhaps even more so, but the boy had not had access to his angel and the surge of magic had seemingly been formed from his grief and distress at what Rakdos had shown him, something that Marik simultaneously wished that he could have seen so that he could know what it was that truly afflicted his second son (although he did have a good idea that it was to do with the other members of the army in the city, especially young Alexander given the youngster's initial reaction) though also thought that it was probably something that he would have hated to see if it had made Caiellis react in a way that he had not done since his mother's death.

He hoped that Alexander was alright, that the seventeen year old had survived the battle that, while still probably raging across Usnaan, had effectively been ended by the youngest Lucerna's slaying of the Defiler, unscathed, but what he was more concerned about was the awful state of his fragile youngest. Caiellis was heavily wounded, and not one part of his body had seemed to escape some form of bruising or bloodying even though the Rain of Gore had stopped and the angry clouds of the Tempest of Craving were beginning to dissipate.

Marik hated seeing his son in pain more than anything in the world, and the boy was definitely nowhere near out of danger, especially in the state that he was in. The king did not even know if the thirteen year old was going to wake up again, although whilst the damage he had sustained was awful it wasn't as life-threatening as what Marik had seen in the past – which included Alexander's wounding at the hands of the last vampire. That didn't at all take away from the pain, emotional and physical, that the youth had been subjected to, and Marik knew that there would be a very strenuous and painful healing process ahead for Caiellis to be nursed back to health, but he promised himself that he would do everything in his power to help his thirteen year old son recover and make him feel safe and loved, no matter how hard that would be.

Although the fact that the forty year old had been possessed by the same horror that had stopped Caiellis from aiding his brother a week ago was no excuse whatsoever for Marik's actions as he, a Lucerna king and a father with a duty to protect his vulnerable sons from danger instead of thrusting them head first into it, he hoped that by giving the boy that information it would help Caiellis recover and know that his father would have never hurt him.

He _should _never have hurt him, but he was too weak, too stupid to notice that something was wrong with him, too focussed on the war and the problems of his teenage son instead of himself, and as such Caiellis had paid the price instead of Marik doing it himself – though his son's pain was definitely his pain and every wound that the youngest member of the royal family suffered was one that Marik felt inflicted onto himself.

Caiellis, sweet, kind and brave Caiellis, deserved a perfect life, and the king was going to do his damned hardest to make sure that his youngest son – and his eldest son – got one, was finally given the chance to be a child instead of the adult that almost everyone expected him to be. Marik was filled with equal amounts of pride and worry, but currently the latter far eclipsed the former in urgency because he needed to wake up and aid his wounded youngest son as well as ascertain the location of his eldest and lead the army to the victory that Caiellis had given it the chance to obtain.

Marik willed his unconscious body which had been freed from Caiellis's cage of his own blood to move, but he was trapped within this slumber from nothing more than his own wounds and the magic of his son wearing off slowly. He should have been at the boy's side, helping him fight and protecting him from the huge amount of pain that he had gone through because of him, doing something right for once in the lives of his sons, and the impotence that he had felt was killing him as he watched his son lay, restlessly unconscious and heaving in pain from the wounds he was suffering through.

Even though what he had seen was horrible, the king was glad that the horror who had turned him against his son and almost made him choke the poor innocent boy to death had allowed him to see what was happening, obviously wanting Marik to be tormented by his guilt of seeing the boy die to an Archdemon and be powerless to stop it, but through the power of his heart and his convictions Caiellis had prevailed, done something that his father might not have even been able to do. Despite all of the pain his son had gone through, all that he had seen and all that had been done to him, Caiellis hadn't given up and had fought a battle worthy of a Lucerna.

What Marik was more scared about was what his son would think and do once he woke up, the sadness and sorrow that would rightly suffuse him as well as the pain that he woke up to, and the king kept trying to force himself to wake up and move so that he would be there to greet and comfort his son and explain everything to him before Caiellis regained consciousness. It would allow him to tend to the boy's numerous wounds, get him out of the very real danger of an enemy city, and make sure that he was safe, but no matter how hard the mental form of the king inside of his Mind Realm tried to leave his body refused to awaken.

When he saw his son's eyes fluttering and heard a series of pained coughs from the boy who had his lower half covered in the sticky blood of the Lord of Riots which was hopefully not seeping into the wounds on his lower body and corrupting him, Marik knew that the boy would wake up before he did to his shame, as because the king was the father of Caiellis he should have been awake to protect him and see to him. Caiellis's green eyes snapped open, the man wincing as he stood inside of his empty Mind Realm cathedral at the wounds on his son's face and the painful noises that the youngster was making, wishing that all of the boy's pain could be transferred onto him instead so that his son was not hurt.

He deserved it for what he had allowed to happen to the boy, what he had _done _to him in a possessed rage that had made it even harder to destroy the Lord of Riots, but in spite of all of what his dad, who was supposed to protect, nurture and love his son, had said and done, Caiellis hadn't given up, even when he was being tortured by the demon and shown things that could easily stay with him forever.

Marik watched on as his son painfully tried to free himself from his restraints, the bruised and bloodied boy crying out in pain and throwing up, though what was more disturbing was the amount of blood that was in the vomit spilling out of Caiellis's hand. If Marik could have felt the Mind Realm around him, if he could have looked away from the tunnel into reality that the horror had given to him so that he could observe his son's pain and be powerless to stop it, he might have started smashing things because of the sheer frustration and worthlessness rushing through him.

He should have been awake, helping out his youngest son, taking the burden of the pain onto him and carrying his unhealthily light form away from this city of horrors, and he only hoped that Caiellis wasn't too hurt to move or get himself somewhere safe. With the amount of mana that his son had released, the man wouldn't be surprised if Caiellis would be suffering from pain caused by mana deficiency like the king had done after annihilating the traitorous city of Vectura in a rage because of what Johnias had done, so the boy would be absolutely exhausted and his natural regeneration given to him by the blessing of a First Sisterhood angel would be nullified – meaning that he would be in even more pain as his body would be in agony because of his wounds and his massive usage of mana.

Caiellis looked devastated, that was for certain, and even though he hadn't broken down yet in tears like the king had almost been expecting him to the boy still looked broken and miserable. However, in his emerald green eyes that were misted up by tears of pain there was a bit of confusion, and it hit Marik that the reason his son was not reacting to what had happened very much, what had been done to him by his father and the nefarious Archdemon Rakdos, was because he couldn't quite remember it.

_Caiellis … I'm so, so sorry. Just hold on until I wake up, and I will try to make everything better, you hear me? _

The boy managed to get a hold of a knife that must have slipped out of his jacket in all of the violence and destruction which had swept through the courtyard when the youngster had to fight against three distinct enemies, trying to suppress screams of pain all the while and fight for some semblance of dignity that made the king pity his son even more. Caiellis was trying his damned hardest to be a good Lucerna, and he was certainly one of the royal family. He had nothing to prove, it was only his father's stupidity and callousness that had made him think that he did have to show that he was capable of being a prince.

It was a truly awful thing that a thirteen year old boy who should have been focussing on a multitude of other things had to worry about being suitable for the throne in the event that the ruling monarch died and chose them in the Death Vision that swept through them, but that was the way of the Lucerna family – but instead of being left to deal with it on his own, Caiellis should have been given all of the support of his father, firm but gentle censure when he made mistakes because no one was perfect, as opposed to the angry disciplining that Marik had done in an attempt to get his petulant teenager in line.

Caiellis looked into the self-defence blade that the king was certain was the one that he had used to cut himself in all of the visions that he had been forced to watch and had made him ache within his heart at the pain his little boy had gone through alone, the man having not been informed that the dagger had been thrown into the peaceful river of Tranquillity's Descent on the Scholaria Magnus island.

And then he broke down in tears, the clear liquid that had been brimming in his eyes because of the pain and the sadness that he had been able to admirably hold back until this point cascading down his bruised and cut pale cheeks as he sobbed his heart out. The worse thing about it, apart from the fact that Marik couldn't get out of his Mind Realm to comfort his son just like he had hadn't been able to help him in this battle or salve his emotional state when he had been cutting himself to alleviate the crushing weight of pressure, was the harsh truth that the king couldn't even cry because his body was not his to control in its unconscious state and the him in the Mind Realm was utterly transfixed on Caiellis in the real world.

Caiellis, his baby boy, was throwing up blood in his sadness and pain, and the king was sharply reminded of the wounds that he had inflicted onto his fragile son in his possession, the broken ribs and the numerous bruises on his face and throat. The small thirteen year old was crying, worse than Marik had seen before, even worse than when he had been slicing open his own skin, even worse than when he had been fighting the Archdemon as his guts heaved and more insubstantial sick was ejected out of his mouth. The boy's bloodshot and exhausted green eyes, so much like Emili's but with noticeable traits of both his brother and father within the sorrowful orbs, fixed upon the blade in his hand, and it didn't take a genius to realise what he was going to do with it.

_Caiellis, no! Please, don't do that! Your life is worth so much, so, so much, and so many people love you, baby boy, _I _love you! _

The horror of the last vampire's words came back to the king unbidden, slicing through his mind like a dagger of pure malice that stabbed into his heart: "_If Rakdos somehow doesn't kill him, then he'll finish himself off soon enough..._" And, as much as he hated it more than he had hated anything in his life apart from his traitorous twin brother who had caused the death of his beloved wife, he could see the truth of that statement now.

He could see it so clearly that it hurt. Caiellis had lost all hope, all sense of purpose and self worth. What Marik had been forced to say to him combined with whatever the Archdemon Rakdos had shown him had clearly ruined all of the boy's confidence and desire to keep living, having all of his thoughts of others that lived him beaten and choked out of him by the man whose duty it was to protect and care for him. It hurt Marik to see how sad his son was, how hard he had taken all of the words and vile accusations and horrible shouting, and the king knew that the worst thing for the boy was the fact that the horror controlling the forty year old had forced him to say that it was his son's fault for the potential danger that Alexander was in, his fault for the death of Emili that had made his youngest boy's life a hell already.

Marik had already blamed the boy for Alexander almost dying to the last vampire as an outlet for the rage that he felt at the closeness to death of his eldest, and while he had known that it had cut very deeply it was only recently that he had realised how much it had hurt his son. And accusing him of making his mother die when he was only four years old, something that had scarred all of the Lucerna family for life but perhaps Caiellis even moreso because of his age and the fact that he had been awake whilst Alexander had been forced into an unnatural slumber, was one of the worst things that a father could ever say to his child – only matched by what else he had said, that his son was a burden and should just die to make all of their lives easier.

Of course it was going to hit Caiellis hard, especially coming from him, the man that he had fought against but still loved, which was precisely why he fought in the passionate way that he did, the man who he had looked forward to seeing from the day that he was ripped away from his perfect life at the extremely tender age of four and had only been a disappointment to his son. Marik had made so many mistakes, and now Caiellis was paying for it in a way that he should never have had to.

_No … Caiellis, don't to that! Please … son, please! Just wait for me to wake up, for someone to come and find you! Take out all of this sadness on me instead, not on yourself!_

Marik was forced to helplessly watch his son raise the knife to his slender and bruised throat, tears dripping onto the clean blade as they spilled down the vulnerable and despondent boy's face. Breath hitching in misery, Caiellis cried as quietly as he could, tears rolling down his bruised and bloodied face that was contorted in such sadness that Marik would have given anything to take away from his youngest son, his precious, intelligent, driven, brave, quiet and brilliant baby boy.

_Caiellis … don't … _The man pleaded uselessly, knowing that his child couldn't hear him. Caiellis shouldn't have ever have had to even consider doing such a thing, let alone have the willingness to enact it because his life was so awful and he wanted more than anything to get away from the pain.

Shaking violently, the hand that was holding the knife was positioned expertly next to the carotid artery in his youngest son's thin throat, and Marik felt sick to his stomach at the fact that it was so easily done, like he had mastered the motions. He had seen his son in this position before, crying his eyes out and placing the dagger next to his neck, ready to end it all, but none had been as bad as this.

The king hoped beyond any rational hope that Caiellis would realise how much people loved him, even wishing for him to turn on his body again and start cutting himself, _anything _to stop him from doing what Marik knew deep down that he would, but all the boy knew now was that his older brother who he loved more than anyone else, who had almost died already because of "his weakness", was in danger because of him, that his mother had died due to him being too pathetic to protect her at the age of _four years old,_ and that his father hated him more than he hated an Archdemon that had corrupted an entire nation and caused the deaths of possibly thousands of soldiers.

The boy's dad had told his son that he wanted him dead, no matter that it hadn't been him speaking the words, and now Caiellis thought that the only way he could help anyone was to die.

Caiellis murmured something to himself, shutting his eyes as the tears still flowed freely out of the closed lids, and Marik could vaguely himself slamming at the wall of the Mind Realm that he could not leave because he was unconscious, trying to wake himself up so that he could stop his son and save him from the fate that the boy's father had caused.

_Caiellis … please … please … don't do this to yourself … CAIELLIS!_

The knife was whipped across his throat, blood spurting out from the wound as the boy's eyes flashed open again, and he began to sway, slumping backwards onto the ground as crimson fluid poured from the efficient and almost painless incision that would kill him within a few minutes. His eyelids began to droop again, but the tears didn't stop, still spilling out of his wide green eyes which were full of pain.

His once beautifully clear and expressive emerald eyes glazed over before finally disappearing under heavy lids, the tears stopping their flow as his eyelashes formed dark crescents against his ashen face. Marik was filled with pain, pain that encompassed his entire being, pain that he would never get a respite from, pain even worse than he had felt the night that Emili had died in front of his eyes and his perfect life had been destroyed.

Marik howled in anguish, and the Mind Realm collapsed around him.

.*.*.*.

Alexander was still fighting for his life when the Rain of Gore stopped its torrential storm of blood over the entire City of Pleasure. Exhausted and wounded, the seventeen year old only just managed to dodge a blindingly fast strike from Zankranith, the Master of Cruelties's spear slicing through the empty air that the boy had been in a second ago as he launched a spear of radiance at the greater demon.

The crimson beast laughed as it almost casually batted it away, retaliating with a spray of spines that wriggled with a life of their own and throbbed to the sound of Alex's own pounding and adrenalized heartbeat. They were then annihilated, turned to purified ashes, by a cleansing wave of flame shot out by the furious Warleader. Aurelia was in the process of battling against the huge Master of Violence whose heart was swelling with the corruption given to him from the presence of one of the most powerful greater demons, the strongest source of taint within the sprawling capital city of Usnaan apart from the massive beacon of rapturous hedonism and violent depravity in the centre of it, residing like a canker at the heart of the City of Pleasure.

Alex grimaced, spitting blood from his mouth, his agitation and concern rising all the while because of the fact that the power level of the being at the centre of Usnaan was steadily and exponentially rising, beginning to eclipse everything else in the besieged capital and corrupting the entire city. All of his wounds hurt, but this was no time to indulge in his minor aches and pains, not when his father and little brother were in great danger and he was stuck here fighting the Master of Violence that he should have overcome quickly.

Arendus's horrific patchwork face of scars and stitches twisted into something that was a sickening mixture of a sadistic smile and a leering sneer, breaking off from the storm of clashing blades that was him fighting against Aurelia and regrouping with his demon. Alexander took the chance to do the same, practically panting as he made his way to the side of the Warleader, the First Sisterhood angel's divine features forming a perfect snarl of zealous anger as she shone with a righteous radiance like a miniature sun. The Rain of Gore still pounded at them like before, the unholy blood from the sky turned to ash when it touched the Warleader, steaming off of her likes waves of fanatical anger from the seraph.

Alexander was at the height of his power, but this long and drawn out battle was draining him, and he knew that he would have to initiate an aggressive push for victory if he wanted to emerge triumphant in this engagement and get to his dad and Caiellis as soon as possible, if he wasn't too late already.

He pushed the thought of his mind as soon as it arose, his concern for his family still prevalent within his mind, but the teenager couldn't allow himself to think that anything awful had happened to either of them while he was delayed here. It would distract him, and that would definitely be fatal against such strong opponents, but in spite of his attempts to get rid of it the horrible possibility of his dad or his younger brother being hurt refused to utterly leave his mind, nestling within it and digging deep, staying out of the way but still making the boy feel hollow inside.

Ever since the greater demon had been Summoned by the savage Master of Violence, Zankranith had been targeting the middle Lucerna whereas Arendus himself had held off Aurelia so that she could not come to the aid of her young Summoner, and constantly defending against the demon was taking its toll on the youngster. One strike from that spear connecting with him would kill him instantly, Lucerna heritage and the blessing of a First Sisterhood angel or not, so he had been forced to place a lot of his White mana into shields which he used to protect himself form blows that he wouldn't have been able to dodge otherwise, as well as casting enchantments formed from the speed augmenting aspects of Red mana so that he could keep himself at a good distance at all times, meaning that he had a lot less power to put into his offensive attacks.

In spite of his savage and insane demeanour and outer shell, the Master of Violence was a methodical and efficient fighter, aware that he had time on his side and that he was far more durable than the eldest prince because the boy was still only seventeen years of age, and was playing for the long game even with his aggressive Red and Black mana. He had delayed Alex this far, and the adolescent knew that was only going to get worse as he slowly ran out of mana by having Aurelia Summoned, but if there was one thing that would stop the boy from ever entertaining the idea of giving up (besides all of the other reasons) it was his family in danger.

The boy took a very brief moment to glance at the sky, having vaguely seen what was happening in a desperate clash with the Master of Violence and his greater demon but unable to focus on it when he was trying to stay alive and avoid the weapons of his opponents. Imprinted on the Tempest of Craving was a malicious symbol of dark intent that made the seventeen year old feel like he was a powerless mortal utterly at the mercy of the malicious entities that ruled the abyssal hells, and despite the fact that he had never seen it before he somehow knew at the core of his being that it was the unholy sigil of this Rakdos, the Lord of Riots that Zankranith had mentioned being the favoured son of, the dark deity of all of these demons of passion and excess and the source of the contamination at the heart of the Welkalite people.

In the distance he could also see massive, curling spires of obsidian rock that pulsed with chaotic energy in tracing patterns of pulsating red that looked like veins, and that simply made him even more angry at what the thing Marik and Cai were fighting against was doing to the city, the destruction that selfish Tradax had invited upon thousands of innocent people who had been abused and exploited by the despotic Orders of Passion, and that gave Alexander even more mana than he already had as his emotions powered his magic. He quickly looked away from the devastation wreaked upon the sky and the city, the idea that there were probably thousands – if not _millions –_ of innocent people just like Kaled and the Resistance still in Usnaan made his blood boil.

It didn't really matter to him all that much that they were not Lucaelian; he hated injustice wherever he saw it, and hated people exploiting the innocent or those that were weaker than them – especially in the name of dark goals such as these. Alex would always care more about his own people, because they were the ones who he had a duty to protect and had been given this power so he could do so, they were the ones who, like he, had spent their entire lives within the darkness and fighting against the forces of the abyss, but that didn't mean he was utterly apathetic when it came to other nations.

He glared at the two enemies on the other side of the street that they were fighting in outside of the looming Slaughterhouse Colosseum, the stone and mud of the pavement saturated with the huge amounts of blood that had poured into it ever since the Rain of Gore first started, sodden with the crimson vitae that made fighting treacherous as it ran in rivulets of red down across the ground like snaking rivers of vital fluids, though Alex was an experienced and agile enough warrior to be aware of the terrain around him.

Aurelia stared down at the boy for a moment, her fiery eyes glancing over him in a way that made Alexander feel that she was simultaneously assessing his capabilities to fight further and making sure that he was relatively unharmed, which, apart from his broken ribs (the ones that hadn't healed properly since Aksua broke them a week ago, though at least he had managed to hide that from Cai and their dad) and a few minor (ok, while they weren't really "minor" in any sense of the word the fact that the boy was able to fight with them and they were ignorable meant that Alexander would push them from his mind) wounds he was fit to keep fighting, not that he would stop, not with his vulnerable baby brother in danger and the father who loved both of his sons in peril.

He wished more than anything that he could be at Caiellis's side and helping him through fighting this extremely powerful demon at the centre of Usnaan, aiding him in backing up their father against the main threat like he was supposed to, but simply wishing that it would come true wouldn't make it do so.

However, he focussed the thoughts into his mind, combining them with his passionate anger and righteous hatred of Arendus Draal who had killed the soldiers from Cassida Principia who had fought alongside the prince in his charge through the city to get to his reckless brother (who he was only angry at because of his pure older brother concern for him and more furious at their father, and more prominently himself for failing Cai), who had kidnapped the seventeen year old's innocent kid brother and choked him.

He drew upon his large reserves of Red and White mana, intending to end this battle once and for all, as he knew that there was no way he could be delayed any longer from bringing the aid of another seraph of the highest angelic order, and his eyes were infused with an ardent fire as the magic flowed through his limbs. Not for him and Aurelia were the long and drawn out rituals that he knew Caiellis and Orzhova employed from the younger boy's description of casting the Merciless Eviction to him when he had asked, and while he still did need to go through the appropriate motions of casting a powerful spell like the one that he had in mind, because of his age and the identity of his First Sisterhood angel Alex was able to cast spells of a high magnitude much faster than his younger brother could.

The boy's skin began to glow with incandescence as his hair began to be buffeted by the wind of a thousand angelic wings beating as they flew to war, and light shimmered off of him like ripples of heat rising from a horizon scorched by the holy Lucaelian sun. Vortices of energy played around his muscular and healthy limbs, and circles of power much like the ones that he conjured up on his Summoning ritual began to spread out across the ground around him. This was one that Aurelia had taught to him, but one that he had never had the chance to enact before – as either the enemies stopped it or they were not powerful enough to require such a large release of magical energy to subdue.

Aurelia landed on the ground in front of him, the straight edged blade in her left hand blazing with luminescent fire that would purify the corrupt and sear their tainted flesh from their unholy bones whilst the curved and more elaborate sword held in her right flashed with arcs of radiant electricity, helices of lightning forming around it and ready to be discharged at her command, although because of the malicious influence of the perpetual deluge of viscera from the burning storm above the blasts of holy energy wouldn't be able to heal her and her young Summoner.

"You think that you can slay me with a little magic, boy princeling?!" Zankranith taunted and jeered, an incredulous note to his painful voice that set the seventeen year old's teeth on edge and made him feel a sharp tingling down his spine. The tone of the demon was paradoxically extremely high pitched to the point where it was agonising to all who heard it but in the same instance a deep and malevolent boom, an atavistic and primal roar of indulgence and a sadistic desire to inflict pain in all of its many forms.

It angered the eldest prince even more that these evil creatures whose only purpose was to cause misery, violence and suffering existed and that there were those who would give up their souls and chance of entering the Third Realm to these demons, and that anger fuelled more of his mana generation as the powerful Warleader prepared to defend her Summoner at all costs until he completed the spell that he was in the midst of as he held his sword given to him personally by his father aloft, the blade shining with a blinding light from the White and Red mana poured into it.

Arendus Draal pulled up Black and Red mana from within him, the blade of his midnight axe still glowing with the spiteful aura of dark red around it, and he held the weapon at a ready position in front of him so that he could be protected from the spell that he knew his young opponent was soon to release. However, Alexander's spell was not made of entirely magical attacks, and he was confident that it would give him the strength to end the Master of Violence now, or at the very least even the playing field – _no. None of that. No half-measures now. Your father who you are supposed to reinforce and back up and your little brother who you have to protect and keep safe are in grave danger, and you have wasted enough time here already whilst they could be getting hurt._

Alexander blew out a long breath, a tense exhalation that allowed him to focus his mind and fill it with discipline and strength, heightening the strength of his White mana and letting it temper the passionate emotion of his Red, giving his zeal direction and moulding it into a powerful weapon that infused his young body with strength and martial skill. The Tempest of Craving screamed down at him from the heavens above, crackling with blindingly vibrant crimson and pink electricity as it spat out swarms of meteorites in the city below, their distant detonations shaking the ground on which the seventeen year old stood as the Rain of Gore upped its intensity even more.

The strange sigil that was stamped upon the heavens and glaring down at the city below it glowed with an even more frenzied light, and at the back of his mind the middle Lucerna could feel a frenetic itch to do violence that might have overtaken him in spite of all of his mental defences if not for the fortifying presence of Aurelia that focussed his mind and refused to let the psychotic corruption take hold and taint his pure intent to one of destruction and revelling in the bloodshed.

Alexander's mana rushed through his young body, infusing it with energy that would allow him to completely ignore his wounds as Red and White mana flowed to the extremities of his limbs, pooling in his fingers and rushing into his elegant sword that he would use to purge the greater demon Summoning of Arendus Draal from this world as the tension in the battlefield of the area outside the arena that had been the site of many deaths rose to breaking point, the Master of Violence and the Master of Cruelties each straining at the ends of their tethers in preparation to violently attack Aurelia and prevent the seventeen year old Lucerna from using the spell that he was planning to implement.

Then the rain stopped.

There was no warning of it, no prior signs that the Rain of Gore would cease its endless deluge of viscera upon the City of Pleasure below, but Alexander suddenly felt the splattering impacts of blood that had been perpetually pattering upon him stop, the warm blood that was trickling off him not replaced by any more apart from the vital fluids dripping from his own wounds.

The prince wasn't going to let this spontaneous peculiarity distract him, however, even though it could herald a change in the Tempest of Craving like it had done before (as it had relented for a very short time before exploding back into life in full force as the Lord of Riots at the centre of the city was Summoned into this world in spite of Caiellis's efforts) and that such a thing could be extremely dangerous to him. He had no more mental power to divert to concentrating on such things, he mind becoming filled with an army of volatile and impassioned emotions that heightened his Red mana and a desire to punish the evil and aid the innocent that empowered his White magic, moulded together and disciplined by his Lucerna will that made sure he could wield his emotions like an extension of himself, as much a weapon as the sword gripped tightly in his right hand.

The demon on the other side of the street extended its snake like tongue out of its gaping mouth filled with cruel needle teeth, lapping at the air in front of it like a rabid dog eager for blood or a malevolent serpent tasting the air for the aroma of its prey, frowning in consternation as Alexander sensed a rise in familiar Black mana from the centre of the city, the levels of Caiellis's dark energy increasing to the point where they met the output of foul mana that the demon demon which he and his dad was fighting against was emitting, rising even more as Alex somehow sensed deep despair and hatred coming from his little brother, power from the younger boy transmitted across the city that he had never sensed before apart from at the back of his mind after the night that their mother had been slain.

Alexander's eyes widened as, behind the Slaughterhouse Colosseum that he faced (with the Master of Violence and his demonic Summoning with their backs to it, a massive pillar of combined light and darkness imprinted with Cai's well known mana rose up into the roiling and tempestuous sky, splitting apart the howling Tempest of Craving and saturating the air with huge quantities of White and Black magic that made the boy immensely proud of his little brother but also extremely concerned of what consequences such a release of mana could entail for the fragile kid.

Furthermore, no matter how hard his mind instantly began to look into it with his sixth sense as the gigantic column of mana crashed through the storm above and rent it asunder with its shining blackness mixed with dark light, the seventeen year old couldn't sense his father's mana in the slightest, which, coupled with the pure hatred and despair that he could detect very strongly in his sibling's spell (if it could be called that as it was more a discharge of huge amounts of energy), did not bode well for the fate of the forty year old that Alex was only just getting to know once again after the nine years of being apart (although in the period before they were sent to the Scholaria Magnus the eldest son of the king had spoken to his father far more than his little brother had as the younger boy had been obsessed with his Summoning trial).

That infused Alexander with more urgency that turned into determination to be done with these foes so that he could get to and protect his baby brother who would be exhausted after such a release – Cai had already dealt with his much more powerful enemy, judging by the cacophonous and agonising death screams echoing across the entire City of Pleasure as the storm split in half and the unnatural clouds were destroyed, replaced by their dark but natural counterparts, so that meant that Alex should be finishing off here instead of wasting time.

"No! NO! THIS CANNOT BE! HOW?! HOW HAS THE LORD OF RIOTS BEEN SLAIN?!" Zankranith howled at the sky, his voice raking lines of pain down Alexander's ears and cutting through the determined chorus that had sprung up around him, a heart stirring and zealous war anthem that inspired him to achieve victory even more and promised death to those who would abuse and exploit the innocent people of this world at the hand of their protectors such as Alex and the Warleader, the mana around him becoming blind.

The demon's form began to change, tendrils of flesh and mutations ripping out of it as it screamed, and Aurelia wasted no time. In a rush of energy Alexander felt all of the energy that he had channelled within him suddenly being pulled out, although not painfully and as soon as he quickly realised what was happening he poured the mana out of him and into the fiery First Sisterhood seraphim at his side. The Warleader shot forwards at blinding speed, her blades crackling with golden energy as she broke the sound barrier, a sonic boom of energy rippling out from her and knocking Arendus Draal away – almost off of his feet as he couldn't block the natural energy on his numbing mage bane axe, but years of experience in fighting brutal battles against a variety of opponents to get to the rank that he was in now prevented him from losing his balance completely and he quickly regained his footing, sliding across the blood-slick ground and carving deep grooves into it with his heavy footwear.

Aurelia crashed into the Master of Cruelties like and thunderbolt, her twin blades raised up to the neck of the demon as she ripped into it with a crashing slice that reminded Alexander of the thunderous detonations he had seen from his father's Angel of Wrath when she fought. Its head was decapitated, but instead of just that its body was burned from existence by a massive explosion of cleansing Red and White mana that was discharged into the area behind it, lightning up the darkness with a gigantic flare of energy that ripped into the Slaughterhouse Colosseum.

As the rock of the crude but undeniably horrible building crashed to the ground from the force of the extremely fast shockwave smashing into it, Zankranith didn't even have the chance to scream in pain or rage as he was torn from this world by the force of the Warleader's zealous attack as she instantly spun round to the Master of Violence, her fiery eyes like radiant flares of dazzling energy that fixed upon the hulking Welkalite who looked completely nonplussed by the sudden turning of the tide within his city.

Alexander glared over at him, his own blue orbs that he had inherited from his father (although according to the man he had inherited Emili's warmth as well and the passionate fire within his eyes rather than his father's coldness) suffused with the ardent flame of righteous anger at the Welkalite, who simply stared back, his face twisting into a small smile as he beheld the shining middle Lucerna and his awe-inspiring First Sisterhood angel who shone like a beacon of holy light and would give the Lucaelians a point to rally around if Alex wasn't intending to go instantly to his father and brother once he had finished with him.

"Impressive," the Master of Violence's gravely voice, like the rumbling of a distant earthquake mixed with a bloodthirsty need for violence and death, though the sarcastic tint to the growl made the compliment less than genuine as he stalked round so that there was an equal distance between him and Alex as there was him and the Warleader. His scarred face smiled grimly at the boy, who snarled back, hoping that the man's confidence wasn't indicative of something he knew that the boy didn't – like he was about to Re-summon his demon, or that the Lord of Riots was not slain at all. He would give a lot to wipe that sadistic smirk from the Welkalite's maliciously smug features, and that was what he was about to do before the man's words gave him pause.

"I'll admit, to say I originally wanted to fight against your brat of a brother, that was a lot more enjoyable than I expected it to be," the Master of Violence ground back, the timbre of his voice deep, harsh, and brutal as Alex focussed his mana into his hands, dragging up more from his severely lacking reserves now that he had expended the large quantities he had gathered up to allow Aurelia to deal with the demon, the angel gifting him with her own Red and White mana in response to his emotions.

There was a modicum of amusement in his tone that made the younger man bristle at the thought that Arendus wanted to battle against Cai because of the fact that he thought the boy was easy prey "And you definitely put up a lot more of a fight than he did the first time. But this is where it ends."

"Not if I have anything to do about it, monster," Alexander snarled back without even thinking, the words spat out of his mouth at the mere thought that the Master of Violence had wanted to prey upon Caiellis, Alex's little brother that he had done an awful job at protecting the past month after the ending of the civil war in Lucael. He automatically tensed even more, knowing that while Draal could be bluffing it didn't hurt to be careful and that the Master of Violence was very powerful even without his Summoning and did not seem concerned with the loss of the demon as screams of demonic rage resounded across Usnaan, a cacophony of frustration and anger at their plans being thwarted.

Arendus laughed then, the sound unfamiliar and grating as he thrust the stump of his right arm forwards before staring at it in annoyance as if he had forgotten that the Warleader had hacked it off at the elbow, before turning back to the boy he had been fighting against who had white lightning ensorcelled by coils of orange fire and grinning widely at him, exposing a mouth missing teeth but with the rest filed down to points so that they could be used to tear out an opponent's throat in the midst of a gladiator battle.

"There is nothing that you can do to stop me, prince Alexander. You should be grateful that I am leaving like this, as that will allow you to go and see to your precious baby brother," the Master of Violence replied belligerently, spitting Alex's title in a mocking attempt of a Lucaelian accent, before bowing derisively to the frowning youngster. Even though he executed the slightly contemptuous but very insulting motions the Master of Violence kept up his combat ready stance, the position of his feet and the way that he held his posture assuring Alex that any movement or attack that he would make would be quickly reacted to by the hulking man.

How the hell did Arendus expect to leave with him and Aurelia standing there, ready to chase him down and end him? _He can't ..._ _u__nless he has some form of teleportation magic … _It suddenly hit Alex what Arendus Draal was intending to do to escape the wrath of the prince when the mana around his axe glowed black as he ripped it through the fabric of reality in a way that Caiellis had done to propel himself into the middle of the City of Pleasure at the start of this battle, dark tendrils reaching out of the abyss in a way that they had not done when the youngest Lucerna and embracing the Welkalite with their dark touch.

Arendus didn't react it any way to them as he turned back to the eldest prince, the boy forcing himself to look away from the shifting abyss that was so much like the darkness outside of the safe Lucaelian metropolises, and raising his hands so that a helix of silver and gold electricity spat out of his extended left palm towards the Welkalite, who, as Alexander had anticipated, casually batted it away with his axe that forced the mana to dissipate as he stepped backwards into the darkness with a lot less nervous trepidation than Caiellis had shown when he had done it.

Fleeing from a battle now that he was losing and contacting dark powers like the ones inside of this nether realm that would contain far more demons than just the hedonistic variety that the denizens of the New Empire of Passion were accustomed to did not fit with the character profile that the seventeen year old, usually a very good judge of character and personality, had created for the brutal Master of Violence, but throughout the fight Alexander had constantly thought that there was lost about Arendus Draal that did not add up and match with how he had shown himself before, although then and now the second youngest Lucerna didn't particularly care about that so long as it didn't affect his chances of victory.

"I will take my leave now, my liege," Arendus snarled back at him, his gruff voice unused to enunciating the sounds of the syllables as he growled at the angry prince who was tempted to dive at him and chase him into the eternal void in which he was about to depart to. However, the fact that the Master of Violence was leaving now, even though it meant that he would survive to spread his savage influence elsewhere and escape punishment for his horrendous crimes, would allow Alex to get to his precious family even faster so that he could protect them and ascertain their conditions, and so he refused to reply and forced his lips shut as the man stepped into the scar of the world he had just created.

**I assume that we are not going to prevent the Master of Violence from leaving and bring justice down upon him? **Aurelia's zealous but not unwelcome voice spoke into Alex's mind, able to do so because the massively disrupting influence of the demon Rakdos and the Tempest of Craving that had died with him was now gone, leaving the city's atmosphere almost as it had been the last time that the seventeen year old and his kid brother had been forcefully brought here. Alexander shook his head, knowing from the timbre of her angelic words that the First Sisterhood angel was disappointed and would have liked to kill him here so that he could not harm any others, but she also knew that there was little way that they could prevent him from departing in the abrupt way that he was almost finished with and that Alex's first concern was getting to the eldest and youngest Lucernas as fast possible.

The void swallowed up the brutal man who had played a vital role in engendering this slaughter of a war within its endless depths of grasping shadow, though Alexander distinctly had the feeling that they would meet again despite a lot of evidence pointing to the contrary, and the boy was left feeling hollow as he departed. Alex would have to train a lot harder, unlock more power and become able to cast many powerful spells in quick succession, become more resistant to wounds and improve his reaction time even further, as he was immensely angry at himself because of the fact that he hadn't even defeated Arendus Draal and had left his father and brother alone against the greatest threat.

He looked up at Aurelia, urgency and concern flooding him in the wake of the adrenaline of combat slowly leaving him, though it did not dissipate completely because of his worry for his family now that he could sense barely anything of them, only a small amount of his dad's pure White mana and none of his brother's magical energy, and met the flaming seraph's fiery golden orbs of eyes that would be blinding to her enemies and those who could not wield mana in great amounts.

Even though sometimes her angelic eyes seemed inscrutable and did not yield any emotion whatsoever, Alexander knew that his angel always showed some of her emotions because of the fact that she used Red mana, and some were simply different forms of the ones that humans felt, elevated to a point where the seventeen year old couldn't tell exactly what they were.

However, right now Alex could definitely see what Aurelia was thinking because she made no effort to conceal it from him or repress it. There was anger, anger at the Master of Violence for what he had done to her young Summoner (concern that Alexander felt he did not deserve), the fact that he had fled and escaped her rage causing even more of it to be formed and fury at the demons of Rakdos that had abused and corrupted this city and forced the Lucaelians into coming and cleansing it with massive losses of innocent lives from both sides.

There was a faint glimmer of pride as well, pride in Alexander himself that he knew he did not merit because he had taken so long and not even defeated the warrior he had been fighting, allowed Telaia Gladium and her soldiers to die whilst under his leadership and not been there for the little brother that it had been his job to protect ever since their mother had been killed by demons and he had been handed the unconscious form of the four year old and had been told to run out of the city whilst the others covered his retreat and kept him as safe as possible (and even before that, when his fragile brother had been born too early it had been his responsibility to keep him safe, but less than it was now since back then life was nowhere near as dangerous and they hadn't gone through a civil war relying upon one another) and the father who he should have supported.

Nonetheless, the most predominant emotion in those impressive and impassioned eyes was the concern and worry of her Summoner echoed within her own fiery gaze.

It was an angelic form of anxiety for Alex's own wounds that he had sustained and that could not yet be healed with the Rain of Gore still affecting him even though it, and the one who had caused it, had been ended, combined with concern for the rest of the Lucaelian army, the other two Lucernas that Aurelia also cared quite deeply about (as she cared about every member of the Lucerna family, but especially those that were alive whilst she had a Summoner and could speak to when Summoned as the one who was the host of the Warleader always cared deeply about their family members) and her sisters who had fought alongside them that she could no longer sense.

Alex knew, from the softening of his angel's glare, that his eyes must have been reflecting the large amount of worry that he felt, and any hurt that was done to his family made him sick inside, the possibility of his brother or father being seriously hurt or worse worming around in his stomach, icy fingers gripping at his heart from the inside as he couldn't managed to shake the sensation that his family could have been hurt because of his weakness that made his moistureless mouth even drier.

Aurelia sheathed the curved blade in her right hand and placed a perfect hand on her young Summoner's shoulder, saying that which could not be communicated with words to him through the comforting gesture. If Alex hadn't felt the touch of his angel before the armoured hand would have felt far heavier than it should have done to him, and even though it radiated with huge amounts of holy heat that would burn any taint away from those that it came into contact with to the young teenager it was a reassuring warmth that didn't quite manage to dispel the coldness of worry pervading his insides, though it was appreciated.

Alexander realised that the simple but powerful gesture had infused him with the direction that he had needed, and thanked his angel by bowing his head, not wanting to break the silence that had descended, punctuated only by the sounds of violence in the distance that reminded him there was still a war going on. Aurelia pulled away after a second or so, knowing from her Summoner and herself not to waste any time delaying the Lucerna she gave her blessing to, and it was her divine voice that shattered the quiet which had filled the two for a short moment, "I will be leaving you now, Alexander. You need to conserve your mana, and having me Summoned is not going to do that. Remember that you fought well, my Summoner."  
With that she departed herself in a flash of golden mana and flames that washed over her, her form dissipating into particles of luminescence quickly swept away by the natural wind that had sprung up across the city. Alex felt a rush of exhaustion as the mana conjured naturally within him when he Summoned left him, his tired and bruised limbs aching for a rest that he was not going to give them, not until he left this city victoriously and safely with his family and the army that they led.

He knew that technically, as a Lucerna prince with a duty to keep the people safe with the power he had been blessed with by the exalted angels, he should have rallied the army and led it to victory against the Welkalites that they were still fighting against, but all he could think of was his precious family and the two people that he cared about more than any others, the two who he had let down by being held up here for so long. While he felt like he was making excuses for himself, the youngster told himself that the generals who led the army were masterful and probably much better at strategy than he was (in spite of him memorising the plan and not giving himself nearly enough credit for it), and that he wouldn't be much use overall to the war effort without access to his First Sisterhood angel that he could probably Summon again for a very limited time if he had to.

Bone tiredness percolated through his limbs and muscles, but it was something that didn't stop him from instantly beginning a sprint towards where he could only just sense his father's kingly White mana, pushing himself as fast as he could go with no regards to his own safety or the state of his own wounds. His sword was ready to kill any enemies that made the mistake of getting in his way now, though at the moment all he could see where a few Enforcers from the Augur's Quarter "tactically withdrawing" from the battlefield. Alexander's eyes met those of the one in command who had taken off his helmet, who instantly looked away from the powerful intensity in the blue orbs that pierced into his soul, and the Lucerna prince ignored the fleeing rabble as he kept running towards the location of Caiellis and Marik.

Pushing aside one part of his psyche's insistences that he needed to slow down before he seriously hurt himself as his abused lungs burned and his own broken ribs ground against one another in the sprint, Alex shot through the city with a speed borne of his concern for his father but mostly his brother because he was the one that the seventeen year old could no longer sense any more, he was the one that was the most fragile out of the two, the youngest and the smallest Lucerna who had got to the centre of Usnaan first and fought against the greatest threat the longest. His breathing was laboured by pain, but mostly worry for his father and sibling, his inspiration and his heart, who had just got out of immense danger.

_Hold on dad, little bro, I'm coming! Just hold on! _

.*.*.*.

As the malignant Tempest of Craving, no longer powered by the Lord of Riots's unholy magic, began to dissipate, the baleful red orb of the Welkalite sun could be seen setting in the distance. The wan orange light that spilled into the burning city was shadowed and broken by the angry black clouds spreading out across the sky, no longer crackling with crimson light.

Shafts of golden orange sunlight illuminated the war torn Usnaan, waves of subtle red pastels flowing surprisingly gently over the streets still embroiled in brutal violence between Welkalite and Lucaelian, those from the New Empire of Passion refusing to be taken alive and urged onwards by their psychotic and cruel generals who still insisted that they could achieve victory. It was a moving watercolour of an evening, though the fact that it was still in the middle of winter even in temperate Welkas meant that it was only just past five in the afternoon.

The dazzling display of natural light penetrating through the hedonistic and angry darkness of the clouds that had shrouded the City of Pleasure, representing the breaking free of depraved tyrants and the true power of the Welkalites should they be able to obtain it without being sidetracked by promises of corruption or temptation, was completely lost on the king as his eyes fluttered restlessly behind their lids.

The first thing that hit him was the pain in his lower stomach of an untreated internal bleeding that was stinging and most likely infected by exposure to the corruption of the Welkalite capital. A sense of numb confusion worked its way into his mind, a fog of bewilderment and exhaustion shrouding his thought processes as he fought to awaken from the cloying darkness that had wrapped him in its clammy embrace. Marik tried to get a hold of what was going on in his head as he slowly came to awareness, his body splayed out across fractured stone like he had been unceremoniously dumped here, discarded like an unwanted toy and left to rot, and the thick stench of blood pervaded his nostrils to the point where he wanted to gag and throw up the breakfast he had eaten this morning.

His eyes snapped open, though his vision was blurred with pain and stinging tears that he assumed had come from the agony in his lower half, which was strange since even though the pain was awful he had gritted his teeth and suffered through far worse without his eyes even moistening, so to awaken with his mind fuzzy and his eyes streaming with transparent liquid was quite a surprise to the king who tried to get aware and combat ready as soon as possible when he remembered that he was still in the hostile City of Pleasure that would still be filled to the brim with Welkalites despite – _despite _what_? Why can I not put my finger on it? It's like I have just woken up from a nightmare that I can't remember, but instead of it being a bad dream that I cannot recall it is reality. Work mind, damn it! _

The king frowned. His memories were fuddled, some fractured almost beyond repair as he subconsciously began to piece them back together. He remembered the damned horror within his mind with almost complete clarity, and snarled in pure hatred of the being that must have jumbled up his recollection of events for when he would awaken with full control of his body once again. The bastard creature had plundered his thoughts, and he only now was he beginning to place them back in the order that they should have been in. He searched for anything, _anything_, that would reveal to him why his worry was on overdrive and the tears wouldn't stop streaming out of his eyes no matter how hard he tried, but all he go were misty recollections of events.

All he could tell with complete clarity was that he had been forced into reliving some of his best but also his worst memories once again, and even though he had seen his wife die right in front of his eyes without it being in a nightmare, felt the fresh and raw emotions of her death for a second time instead of the sense of loss that he was familiar with now, that didn't explain it at all. Marik slowly sat up, pushing away the fallen rock that had pinned him to the ground, and then gaped like a dying fish, blinked wildly for a few seconds, and abruptly stood up, used to ignoring the protestation of his wounds from years of doing so.

Then it all came flooding back to him.

_Worthless..._

_Should have just left you there to die..._

_Why can't you do us all a favour, and just die?_

_CAIELLIS!_

Marik's head instantly swivelled round on his neck, concern and worry in equal amounts drowning out everything else as it consumed him in its entirety and he tried to locate his youngest son, his head instantly beginning to pound as the image of his baby slitting his own throat because of how sad his life had become thrust itself into the forefront of his mind.

Marik's throat constricted to the point where he couldn't breathe and tears streamed out of his eyes when he saw his son laid on the ground like he was sleeping only a few metres away, and fear flashed its way through him. The boy's chest wasn't moving. It _wasn't moving_!

"Caiellis!" he choked out, the words having trouble leaving his tightening throat as he stumbled desperately towards him, his arms outstretched towards his youngest son in front of him just like they had been extended towards Emili as she had been laid on the ground after dying in the arms of the demon that had killed her. The journey to his son's side seemed to take years as he staggered in the unmoving boy's direction, his eyes closed shut and his cheeks unnaturally pale.

Marik Ensis Lucerna could face down traitors, psychopaths, reanimated zombies, banshees and evil spirits, demons, horrors too terrible to describe and countless things from the most imaginative nightmares of the most deranged lunatics without a blink of his eye, but seeing his bright and inquisitive and defiant and gentle so still and hurt scared him more than the worst things that he had killed.

"Caiellis..." he gasped out again, repeating his son's name over and over and over and over, but the boy still didn't respond, he didn't react to his father calling him. The man's voice, infused with strength and hatred the last time it had been used, was raw and broken, ripped to shreds like the happiness of his youngest son, the heart that he had only just managed to piece back together after the death of his beautiful wife in the nine years with her gone shattering within his chest completely as he fell to his knees beside his baby, reaching out towards him.

Caiellis was dead. Marik didn't even have to check – he just knew. Just like he had known the night that his wife had left this world, known at the back of his mind despite refusing to think of the possibility, just like he couldn't even think of his son dying now. The inevitability, the awful, stark, unavoidable truth. Marik had killed his son. It had not been his hand that had dealt the final blow, but it had been his that had brought Caiellis to this point, it had been his that had driven the thirteen year old to do _it_.

"No ... no … nonono … not you as well … not you as well ..." Marik sobbed, his voice pathetic, gasping, wheezing for breath as his world collapsed around him, the second breaking of his heart carried over in his words. He drew his youngest son into his arms, the boy moving limply in his father's grip, his eyes remaining shut as the wound on his throat looked stark against his pale body, the wound that had killed him stark against the rest of the many injuries scattered across the child that Marik easily held against him.

_Not Caiellis … no … not Caiellis … why him? Not him … can't lose him as well … please not him … please not my son … not Caiellis … not Caiellis …_

He placed his hand to his son's throat that was gaping open from the crimson slash upon it, ignoring the warm blood that leaked out of it when he touched it, and it confirmed the worst. There was no pulse within his son, none at all, not even a tiny thud that would assure Marik that his son was still alive, that his son wouldn't leave him, that his son wouldn't _die..._

Caiellis was broken, and as Marik's fingers pressed to Caiellis's neck, desperately seeking a pulse that would give him some indication that his son was living, unready to give up on the idea that he was still alive in there, the man couldn't stop himself from being wracked with desperate sobs as he held the boy's lifeless and still body in his arms, his mind flashing back to the time when he had done the same to Emili, but this was even worse. This was his flesh and blood, his baby boy that he had done nothing for in his extremely short thirteen years of life, and the man shook with distress and sadness as his son refused to open his eyes or even breathe out.

_Caiellis … Caiellis … you can't go … you can't leave us … I have so much to say to you … so much love to show you … that I should have shown you before …_

"Caiellis..." Marik repeated the word, the _name,_ of his baby boy in his arms again, the child's slender arms falling limply by his side as Marik rocked him, the tears streaming out of his eyes dripping onto Caiellis's pale face as he tried to conjure up mana to heal the boy, but none came to him. _Why … WHY? I CAN'T BE THAT EXHAUSTED! I NEED TO HELP HIM! I NEED TO SAVE HIM! HE IS TOO YOUNG … he is so young … I can't let him die … I can't … him and Alexander … they are everything to me … _

_Why did it have to be him … why did it have to be my baby … _Marik repeated the words over and over and over again within his skull, refusing to give up on his youngest son as he moved the boy's lifeless and light body round, beginning chest compressions with his gauntleted hands that looked too large and destructive next to his delicate son, managing to drag up some form of mana from within him and infusing his son with holy light as he performed the CPR that would undoubtedly leave large bruises that the king did not care about at all if it saved his son's life.

The boy's head was tilted backwards, blood spilling from his lips, though it simply dripped from them instead of pumped out of them because of the fact that he wasn't breathing and his heart wasn't beating, and Marik kept going until his own arms fell limply at his sides. Caiellis looked almost exactly the same now as he had done a few minutes ago, the little thirteen year old still and pale and small in his father's arms as Marik sobbed, pulling the boy closer to his chest in a way that he hadn't done for years as the body of his son shudder with the whimpers that wracked the king, a torrent of despair flooding through his mind.

He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe, and the world was going blurry around him, everything apart from his son mixing together in a muddle of colours and shades that meant nothing at all to him.

All that he could focus on with his teary gaze was his baby boy in his arms, and while he wanted desperately to close his eyes, imagine that Caiellis was alive and happy again, smiling in a way that the father had never seen from his youngest son in the month that he had been back with him again, laughing like the young teenager that he was and unburdened by the problems pressing down on his painfully thin shoulders, so that he could pretend that this was just a horrible nightmare and that his son would be there, alive in his father's large arms when he reopened them, but the king knew that that was giving up on the boy, that if he looked away now any life that might still be clinging to Caiellis could leave him.

Desperation made Marik's throat tight as he pulled his weightless son closer, the boy's head resting on his broad shoulder as the blood kept trickling down his chin and the Black Sun birthmark that wasn't glowing at all and was much less stark than it had been before. He had seen this from his father, when the Shield Inviolate on his wrist had faded in the moments that he had died and suffered his Death Vision, and even though the realisation of that was crashing through Marik's head he refused to focus on it, screaming at the unavoidable truth to leave him alone, leave _his son _alone!

The golden light encircled his son, wrapping him in a cocoon of luminescence that poured forth from Marik, the king releasing mana without even thinking about it that did all that it could to heal the broken boy in his arms, but there was nothing the White mana could do for the dead, even if Marik refused to admit that his son was dead, that his youngest son had died thinking that his father hated him more than anything else, died thinking that Marik blamed him for the death of his mother and the danger that his brother was in.

"No … you can't die like this, Caiellis … you can't … you have too much … too much to live for …" Marik wailed, the sounds that were escaping his mouth hoarse and broken like they had been when Emili had died, but this was even worse, and the king couldn't even work up the anger, the rage and hatred, to howl at the sky in defiance of the injustice of the world. All he could think, as the world span around him and lost all meaning, was how fragile his son was in his arms, how delicate the boy that he was holding was, yet how hard he had fought for victory even as the world threw everything at him. The boy had battled and emerged victorious against an Archdemon, one of the most powerful things that Marik had seen, he had overcome that, but he hadn't wanted to live any more because of what his father had said to him in the grip of the horror.

"I'm sorry … please, baby boy, I'm sorry … please come back … I'll make it all better … your dad will make it all better ..." Marik wept uncontrollably, shuddering in the grip of a depression that would never let go of him, and his son shuddered with him, wracked by his father's sobs. He had thought that the worst feeling in the world was to lose one's soul mate, to lose the person that you would gladly spend the rest of your life with and the person that your heart was devoted utterly to.

He was wrong. So, _so, wrong. _This was somehow much worse than that, despair that was soul-crushing and made Marik want to die a thousand times over so that his son could even live a second longer consuming him utterly as he cried whilst holding the unmoving body of his youngest child close enough so that he would have been able to feel the boy's breath puffing onto his cheeks had he been breathing.

"Come back … Caiellis, come back … you are loved here … I am so sorry … you can't leave … you are too young … too young … PLEASE!" Marik's voice finally managed to rise to a howl of pure and unadulterated loss, screaming out the monosyllable at his son's lifeless form and stepping up the pace of the compressions that he had stopped, pressing his lips to his son's and breathing for the boy, ignoring the taste of copper that was the boy's blood that Marik had caused to be shed, the light that was surrounding them both becoming blinding in its intensity had there been anyone else to see it.

Marik was unaffected by the glow as everything apart from the body of his son had blended into one once colourful but now harsh and grey expanse of coldness, and his son couldn't see because his eyes were closed and dead underneath their lids. Marik, the person who had promised to keep his son safe, was holding the still and weightless body of the thirteen year old in his arms, and he was pretty sure that he was just as dead as Caiellis is. That crouching there, with his youngest son looking pitifully small in his father's heavily armoured arms, his insides and the world around them numb and cold and blank, that's he was just as dead as his baby boy was. Only his body hadn't quite got the message yet.

Marik was screaming, an incoherent howl of pure sadness and despair at the unmoving child that he was holding and gently rocking, the unadulterated darkness and coldness of a life without another one of his family members wrapping around him and stabbing into him from every side.

_Why did it have to be him … WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE HIM?! HE'S SO YOUNG … HE HAS SO MUCH LIFE LEFT … he … he has only just become a teenager … I haven't … I haven't told him that I love him yet … _Marik was severely regretting that, just like he was regretting every single choice that he had made to do with Caiellis ever since the civil war that he had let tear him apart and make him an awful father had ended. He hadn't yet told his son that he loved him through his own words after the civil war, assuming that Caiellis would know at the back of his mind, that it was unnecessary for him to express that. He hadn't ever thought of doing it, because he wasn't used to being a father, because he had forgotten the things that had come naturally to him before Johnias's betrayal, all meaningless excuses because all that mattered now was that his baby boy had died thinking that Marik had hated him and blamed him for the death of his mother.

"I don't hate you … I could never hate you … It wasn't me! I love you! Come back! Come back, Caiellis! C-come b-back, s-son..." Marik sobbed his heart out over the boy, cradling his fragile and broken form close to his chest, starting to scream at the injustice of the cruel and uncaring world that had taken away not just Emili Noctis from him, but their youngest son as well, before Marik had seen the truth and seen how much he loved his children, had seen that he had been making a massive mistake with what he was attempting to do in parenting the boy.

It was such a simple thing that Marik had missed out on, but it was one that could have saved his son's life. He would have known that, in spite of all their arguments and the violence that Marik had been forced to show to his son by the horror, his father did truly love him more than anything else in the world apart from his brother. It might have given him more pause when he had used his Black mana to enter the centre of Usnaan alone, and it might have gifted him with a faint glimmer of hope that perhaps his father wasn't himself, that another force had taken over the king who _did _love him and _did _want him.

If Marik had been more diligent in ensuring that his sons were happy and knew how much they were loved, if he had looked past the constant arguments that had snapped his tether multiple times with his youngest son and made it up to him in the end, Caiellis might not have taken his own life, and he wouldn't be here in his father's arms with the man sobbing desperately and pleading with the unmoving boy to come back to life.

He felt like his entire body was being ripped inside out, that the true and raw and now broken emotion that he had been unable to show to his youngest son spilling out of him in a tide of wracking sobs that made him feel like he was dying, which he was.

He tried compressions again for a third time now, refusing to give up on any possibility of his son being alive in the slender and slight thing covered in crimson blood that was his body, and as Caiellis's chest moved underneath his hands, the man hating the fact that he could feel the brittle and young bones of his son almost bending under the pressure that he was putting on his broken heart in an attempt to get it restarted again, alternating between screaming like a mad man and howling in loss with whispering comfort and encouragement to his youngest son, he was reminded of earlier times.

He remembered how fragile Caiellis had been as an infant. Alexander had been large and robust, meaty and eager to meet the world outside of his mother's womb. Caiellis had been small and weak, premature but tenacious all the same, clinging to the slender thread of his life with all that he had as he had done all the way through that life which he had earned with tears and pain, that life which had been broken by the words and actions of his father, the man who was supposed to protect him from the danger of the world instead of thrust him into it, and brutally cut short because of the sadness that had consumed him that Marik would have done anything to take away from his young second son. He'd always been afraid to hold Caiellis, afraid of somehow hurting his baby boy.

To think, all these years later, he had been right about that.

With a wracking sob, Marik pulled his gauntlets that had been desperately trying to restart his son's heart and instil it with motion that would pump his blood around his body away, choosing instead to huddle the body of his son close once again like he had done when the boy was a young child. Caiellis had missed out on almost all of his father's love with him, and now he would never get the chance to truly see it, having taken his own life with the certainty that the king hated him and had never loved or wanted him.

"I'm so sorry … I'm so sorry … you didn't deserve … you shouldn't have been … I should have …" the babbling whimper of fractured pieces of pure emotion was sobbed out of Marik's heart as he held his son close like mere presence to his father would bring him back to life, rocking him gently like he was just asleep. And he could have been asleep if not for the bloody rent in his throat, the wounds and bruises and cuts and burns that scattered his son's body that Marik wished more than anything he could take onto himself a million times over if it would only bring his son back to life, if not for the fact that his chest wasn't moving in the steady rhythm of soft breaths that perpetuated his slumber when he wasn't in a nightmare, although this time it was Marik that was in the nightmare and it was one that he would never wake up from.

Caiellis was angelic looking when he slept, and it was no different now apart from the wounds that covered him and the fact that his skin was becoming colder and was already extremely pale, greying by the second. He was innocence and purity personified, rent asunder by the cruel world and his father's failure to do the one thing that was expected as him as a parent – make sure that his son knew he was loved. Everything else, no matter how horrible it was, could have been forgiven if he had just managed to do that, if he had just managed to show love to Caiellis when he was awake and able to receive it. But he had failed him even in that, and now his undeserving, innocent and too young had paid the price that should have been Marik's to suffer, as was a father's duty.

It was the greatest terror of any parent to outlive their children, and Marik was in the endless despair that was caused by that. It had only been less than a minute since he had began holding his son in his arms, two since he had woken up (and if he had done so earlier he could have saved Caiellis, just like if he had managed to do anythingelse, succeed in _anything, _change even one small thing_,_ then his son could have lived), but Marik's mind had lost all sense of time as his heart and his psyche broke, smashed apart like the will of his youngest son to keep on living.

He shook his youngest son gently, rocking him back and forth and back and forth like Caiellis was a young child suffering from a nightmare or the pain of his premature birth once again, and although it had been Emili who had normally completed these motions for their fragile youngest son, Marik had of course partaken in it and done his best to comfort his son.

If only he had done more. Marik wished that he had done so much more for Caiellis, done so much more with Caiellis because he had missed out on so much of the boy's life and made no effort to get back into it once the war with his brother had ended. His son was so young and so fragile, and it hurt Marik more than anything else had ever done before to see him like this, with his lips cold and blue from the fact that he hadn't been breathing in minutes and his normally pale cheeks ghastly and grey where they weren't covered in splatters of stark crimson blood and the blotches of purple and black bruises desecrating the innocence of the boy.

"You can't go … not you … not you … you're … you're too young ..." Marik muttered the almost incoherent words without thinking at all, because if he had he knew that they were meaningless platitudes and that his youngest son wasn't going to come back because of them. This was all the king's fault, and it was brutally killing the last vestiges of personality and love that had remained after the death of Emili which he had been slowly bringing back together after the civil war, the father inside of him that had risen to the fore with all that the horror had forced him to see dying within him and taking everything with it.

He would give everything to talk to his son one last time again, to see his baby boy's smile directed at him and to be able to show Caiellis the love that he deserved, the love that he had earned, but the boy wasn't moving, he wasn't breathing, his strong and gentle heart wasn't beating and had been cracked in half by what Marik had done, and that was killing the man. He felt cold, colder than he had ever done before, like he was trapped within a frozen ocean of endless sadness and despair, drowning within the freezing waters and unable to break through the icy surface of solid misery and loss that would forever keep him within.

_Come back to me, son … please … we can work everything out … I will do anything for you … I will show you all the love that I have for you … please, come back … for your brother and for everyone who loves you … for Emili, for your mother who brought you into this world and loved her perfect sons more than anything else … come back, for _me._ I need you to know that I love you so, so much, Caiellis … _

Tears spilled onto the boy's cheeks after they had trickled off his father's, running down tracks in the youngster's gaunt cheeks drawn by the ones that had ran out of his own eyes in a flood of despair no child should have ever been subjected to. The blood flecked within the man's breath from his own internal bleeding that meant nothing to him now, as it was just as cold and detached as the rest of the world, dappled splotches of scarlet onto Caiellis as he held him closer than he had ever done after the civil war that had torn his life apart, and now that he had finally managed to rebuild it after countless, irredeemable, unforgivable mistakes with his youngest son, his life was being ripped to shreds again. And this time it would not repair itself.

But Marik, as he sobbed and cried like a young boy himself over the slender and small body of his innocent and cute youngest son suffused with the stillness of death, cared nothing about that. Caiellis's blood was on his hands, both literally and figuratively, and the king was consumed by the sadness of knowing that what he had done had killed his son who had his whole life ahead of him. Caiellis didn't deserve this. Such a kind, heroic, thoughtful, gentle, compassionate, strong-hearted, intelligent and understanding young boy did not deserve to die like this, had not deserved to go through so much pain and suffering in his short life, and Marik was all to blame as he cried pitifully as he held his youngest son, one of the two lights of his life and the one that had been the most fragile, the one that he had failed to protect.

The king couldn't hear anything over the sound of his mind screaming at him because of what had happened to his son, what Caiellis had done to himself because of his father's words and actions that he should have been able to prevent. Caiellis shouldn't have ever been in this war; he was only thirteen years old and had lived nine years of that life within conflict, the fact that he was a Lucerna prince – an exemplary Lucerna prince, a much better Lucerna than Marik could ever hope to be even at this tender age – be damned to the hell that the boy had sent Rakdos to, and not the hell of the abyss because the Archdemon was fully dead and never coming back.

Caiellis was a hero, but that didn't matter at all because he wasn't breathing and his heart wasn't beating no matter how many times Marik tried to rectify that, screaming until his own voice was bloody and hoarse and his voice box was shredded by the grief-stricken noise. Even then he didn't stop, howling his misery at the sky because of the death of his second son, the heart of his family and the youngest member of it that he should have protected.

He didn't want to have to live in a world without Caiellis, and even though he had endured the death of Emili that had shattered his heart apart, known the loss of family members keenly and become familiar with the death of those that he loved more than anything else in this cruel and bleak world, even though he had been filled with a father's fear at seeing his children in mortal danger, seen Alexander almost die in front of his eyes and seen Caiellis battling a desperate battle for his life against his possessed father and an Archdemon that he had only won with the same fire of grief and annihilation that had killed the murderers of Emili, he somehow hadn't truly considered the possibility of either of his infinitely precious sons, the last things that were left of Emili and brilliant people in their own right, dying in this battle.

He had known that they were in immense danger, but somehow his mind hadn't quite ever properly considered the possibility, not able to think that far about his children because of the fact that he loved them so much, and now he was paying the price for it. No, that wasn't right. Caiellis had paid a greater price for his father's mistakes than Marik ever had and ever would.

The king had never felt so powerless, so useless, so utterly _pathetic –_ not even in the days after Emili had been coldly murdered when all of the planning had been done and all he could do was sit and stare at a wall, not even in the years that he had murdered all the traitors that he came across like it would do anything to bring his perfect wife back to him had he felt this impotent. His mana still bled into his son's cold body, and even though the light seeped into him and illuminated the young child in its golden and white glow Caiellis's skin did not seem to get any brighter and the coldness of death did not leave him.

"Caiellis..." he choked out, because there was nothing else he could say, no other words that his mouth would make, nothing that he could do to bring his dead son, his dead heart, back to life, and started sobbing and crying with the endless grief suffusing him once again, gasping and whimpering as he felt like he was retching up the entire contents of his sorrowful mind through the horrible sounds that didn't get anywhere near doing justice to the anguish that Marik felt flooding through him and tearing everything apart.

He should have spoken with his son so much more, and now there were thousands of things that Caiellis would never be able to talk about him with, so many things that the king did not know about his more reserved and less confident son. Caiellis's favourite colour, his favourite book, what he thought about different things, his favourite food, his favourite drink, his favourite place, what he liked to spend his time doing the most.

What he dreamed about, what he longed to do, his fears and concerns and worries, of which there would be many because of the fact he was a young teenager only just going through puberty (though, before it had been halted by Marik's carelessness and stupidity, it had been quite slow, his son's voice hadn't broken and his growth spurt hadn't begun, although he was still as painfully thin as a lot of teenagers and that coupled with the smallness of his body for his age made him look even younger).

And there were endless other things that Marik had been too foolish and presumptuous not to find out that did not require him talking to his son. Like how the best way to put him to bed after an exhausting day was, the best way to comfort him through pain or a nightmare, how Caiellis reacted to different things and the best way to cheer the boy up or make amends with him after an argument that had drained them both and made them both strongly dislike one another. All he had asked about was how good he was at combat, how well he was developing mentally and how adept he was at wielding magic, not caring about how his sons had developed as people until he started talking to them again after the weeks proceeding the civil war but before the fated Scholaria Magnus departure.

Marik had missed out on all of these things, too focussed on ensuring that Caiellis was a good little prince and followed all of his orders, was good at fighting in hand to hand combat and able to lead the army to victory, all things that were necessary at his station as a Lucerna but things that should have gone hand in hand with being a good father and communicating with his son as a person instead of a prince for once.

Instead of that, he had concentrated far too much on quelling Caiellis's defiance, wasting time and effort attempting to extinguish the obstinate fires at his heart without bothering to ask _why _Caiellis was showing him that sort of disrespect, why Caiellis was like that him with him and only him and excelled when out of the presence of his father.

And now there was no time left for that, his son was dead in his arms and all Marik could think of was how much he had failed as both a father and a king, how his little baby boy didn't deserve any of this pain and anguish and should have been cared for much better by his dad – as this all came down to him in the end.

He could try and blame the enemies, blame Johnias for forcing him to leave his sons and not see them for nine years, blame the corrupt Welkalites for abducting his children and attacking the innocent Lucaelian people, blame the Archdemon for singling out Caiellis and subjecting his son to all this torture, blame the horror of Aksua for forcing him to be violent towards his youngest boy, wrap his hands round his fragile throat and tell him that he wanted him to die, but these were all things that were caused by the evil of the world and they wouldn't have acted differently.

However, none of these things would have happened if he had paid more attention, if he had shown more love instead of displeasure and censure to the baby of his family, if he had made Caiellis safer and happier, and it was like a thousand million daggers ramming into him at once that reminded him of that fact.

He couldn't feel anything apart from the boy in his hands, the silence of a heart that should have been beating softly in repose and the stillness in the air where there should have been gentle puffs of breath wafting up to him, the motionlessness in his arms where Caiellis should have been gently squirming to unconsciously get more comfortable in his sleep, and the coldness and anguish and pain in his chest where there should have been happiness and love and joy knowing that his youngest son was safe in his arms.

_Caiellis … Caiellis … Why Caiellis? _

Then another sensation finally broke through to his despairing and tortured mind, a sensation that was very familiar to him and almost heralded a glimmer of hope to the distraught king that he grasped onto with all his might. He span for a second, turning his tear filled and blurring gaze upon the shining figure stood at his shoulder, though even her divine radiance was dimmed by the tragedy of the youngest prince's death. Akroma stared, almost blankly, back at the father who was living one of his worst nightmares (of which there were only three – and those three comprised of the three combinations of his sons dying) and gasping out broken words that wouldn't bring Caiellis back.

"Akroma … you can help … you can help him, can't you?!" Marik's voice rose to a howl of raw anguish as he stared up at the Angel of Wrath at his side, her exalted visage distorted by the stinging tears that refracted the light of her angelic being that did nothing to warm or reassure Marik. Knowing better than to answer the distressed king, the angel merely stared back and shook her head, a gentle motion that conveyed no emotion whatsoever and was imperceptible to the king who could not see through the tears streaming out of his eyes.

"Akroma?! AKROMA! HELP ME! HELP CAIELLIS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE?! SAVE HIM! SAVE MY SON! BRING HIM BACK!" Marik screamed in a rage borne of his anger at the mistreatment to his infinitely and immeasurably precious and fragile youngest son and the utter impotence that he felt being able to do nothing to help him, nothing to atone for the mistakes that little Caiellis had wrongly paid for – and neither could his First Sisterhood angel, and deep down in spite of his howling at Akroma he knew it. Anything that would have saved his son's life should have been done in the past, and now it was too late.

"SAVE HIM! PLEASE! HE CAN'T DIE!" Marik cried, a desperate plea for aid from his angel who stared blankly and emotionlessly back. He was directing his fury at the seraph because his mind had sensed an outlet, a way to focus the blame on someone else as well because he was angry and scared and his son had died because of him, but no matter how much he might want to blame the angel it wouldn't change the cold truth. Caiellis was dead, and it was his fault.

He screamed at Akroma again, letting go of Caiellis with one hand and hurling a shard of jagged rock at the angel, accompanied by a howl of rage and anguish, turning back to his son as Akroma deflected the pitiful attack with her hand.

She knew that the king wasn't intending to hurt her, that he was distressed and anguished because of the loss of his youngest son, and she had seen the same from him when his wife had been slain by the demons who had infiltrated the Lucerna palace. Another spray of rocks thrown by the frantic and anguished king pattered off of her armour, though the austere angel did not react in any manner to what some would consider the highest heresy.

"HE CAN'T! … he can't..." the king's voice broke in a way that Akroma had only seen once before, his screams of desperation at him grasping with all of his might upon the brief hope the entrance of the Angel of Wrath, who had Summoned herself, had provided, if only for a very short moment, becoming sobs and anguished snivels as he hugged his son closer as if he was trying to give him all the attention and love that he had deserved but had been neglected by his father instead now that he was dead and gone.

"Please … Akroma … _please _… you can't just let him die … please … he's my son, Akroma … he doesn't deserve to die … he's so young … Akroma, please!" the king cried, his words broken sobs that carried all of his emotion within them that was quickly being drained out of him. In time that despair, that sadness, would fade to nothingness, a cold emptiness that he had felt keenly after Emili's death and would consume him with Caiellis's. But the angel's face didn't change, and she didn't make any move towards her Summoner nor his son.

She turned away, neither quickly nor slowly, and began to patrol the area to ensure that the king, her Summoner, could grieve without interruptions. The First Sisterhood angel was sharply aware that nothing she could say would help or comfort him and that there was nothing she could do for the dead, do nothing for Caiellis, her Summoner's son and her sister's host, other than hope that he reached salvation in the form of the heaven that he deserved.

Marik started crying again, wallowing within his grief and despair that was worse than he had ever felt before, because he had failed the kingdom in allowing one of its prized Lucerna princes to die, he had failed his beautiful wife who would be disappointed in him from paradise, he had failed Alexander who loved his little brother more than anyone else, and most of all he had failed his youngest son in letting him get this emotionally distraught and hurt that he would prefer death to a life within the misery and pain of his father's hatred.

Marik couldn't live with the pain of another one of his beloved family dying. He wouldn't be able to, even though he had to for the kingdom that he ruled, and tenderly brushed Caiellis's brown hair that was matted with blood from his eyes when the fringe obscured them, his youngest son so much like his mother and yet so different, a unique and fantastic person who had been hurt and killed because of the failure that dared to call himself his father.

_Caiellis … no … Caiellis … Caiellis! NO! Don't die … you can't die … I have so much time to spend with you … you have so much to live for … you can't die … you're my baby … you can't … I need you in my life … _

_It took me so long to see that, but I need you in my life … Caiellis … baby boy … I can't go on without you … I should have been there for you … I should have protected you … I should have loved you, cherished you for the brilliant son that you are … I'm sorry … I'm sorry … I'M SORRY! COME BACK! _

_NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NONONONONO! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING! YOU CAN'T DIE! YOU ARE ONLY JUST THIRTEEN YEARS OLD! IT'S TOO YOUNG … IT'S TOO YOUNG TO DIE! I LOVE YOU! I'M SO SORRY!_

It took a Marik to realise that he was screaming the words at the cloudy sky that was breaking up with beams of natural sunlight, shining down on the scarred and savaged city with a warmth that the king didn't feel, a warmth that he would never feel again, but that didn't make him stop. He deserved so much more torment than the pain of his sobbed words through his shredded and raw vocal cords for what he had failed to do for his youngest son, and kept on rocking the body of the small boy that was near weightless in his arms, wishing that the son he was cradling was still alive to be comforted by it.

However, whilst Marik may have been a father that dragged his young sons into brutal wars that were far too dangerous for them, he may have been the father that cared more about how well his children could lead an army or execute a combat move instead of how they were developing as people and what they were achieving in school, he may have been the father that punished his children – well, his youngest – by not letting them read books and he may have been a father that had expected them to lead armies of soldiers twice their age to victory.

But he was not the kind of father that admitted defeat, not when his youngest son was on the line, not when he was certain there was some way that he could bring the still boy back to life and make sure that he knew he was loved, loved more than anything else in the world by his father who had hurt him and hadn't been able to stop his possessed body damaging the boy beyond repair.

He had lost once.

He wouldn't lose this.

He couldn't.

He had lost Emili, he had lost happiness and normal and safety and joy and love that his dying heart still ached for all these years, but even worse than that was the all-consuming anguish that he felt from looking down at his son and knowing that he was hurt worse than he had ever been before. He wouldn't lose Caiellis.

The king easily manoeuvred the boy round to his front again from where his small body had been nestled against his father, trying not to think about how Caiellis was too thin, too small for this type of warfare – or any type of warfare – too young to die because of his idiotic and selfish father's mistakes. He tried to ignore the feeling of the blood of his son leaking into his gauntleted hands from gaps in the metal after all the abuse it had sustained today, knowing that it was all his fault that Caiellis had chosen to take his own life, knowing that his son had been unbreathing and his heart hadn't been beating for at least a minute, though all time had lost all meaning just like everything else in the world apart from the dead body of his son.

_NO! He can't be dead … he has to be still alive … I can't live without him … he can't die … he's only thirteen … have to … have to save him … have to … have to be a good father … for once in his life._

The anguished storm of grief in his mind kept repeating the words over and over again, refusing to acknowledge the cold hard truth of the world and give up on his youngest son, the boy who had fought so hard and had defeated the greatest foe he had ever faced before, one of the most powerful things Marik had ever seen that had been threatening the army and had been destroyed by his hero of a youngest son.

_Have to help Caiellis … he wouldn't give up on me … _Marik knew the truth of the thoughts. Even though he had done horrible, horrible things to his second son that he would never forgive himself for, the compassionate, gentle and kind boy hadn't hurt Marik in any way, even when fighting for his life against the man who had choked him to an inch of being unconscious and sliced into him with his ancient sword, the wound on his stomach one of many other bloody rents and gashes in the youngster's pale, small and too-thin form, and the hand- and finger-shaped bruises on his throat were purple and black contusions joining many others that made Marik baulk at the pain inflicted onto his precious and fragile but internally strong baby boy.

But none were as bad as the cut on his carotid artery that had been inflicted by the boy's own hand, the self-defence knife that had incised the deliberate and self-inflicted life taking injury laying discarded on the ground next to Marik, covered with the blood of his youngest son that was still leaking and dripping out of the wound on his throat, the wound that had killed him and freed him from the pain of his young life. It was pain that he should have been kept away from, torment that should have been taken by his father who should have protected the youngest member of his family, and anguish that he should have never had to feel, and even though Marik would wallow within regret and grief because of what he had failed to do for an eternity, the tears of broken emotions still coursing out of his eyes that beheld the broken body of his youngest son, he couldn't do anything to change time now, as much as he wanted to.

Caiellis had been so brave, and so kind to want to take the pain away from others by putting it on himself, and even though it spoke volumes of how badly Marik was treating his son that the thirteen year old felt he needed to act like that the king couldn't help but be immensely proud of his heroic little youngster, even though none of Caiellis's positive points had ever come from his father. And even through all that Marik had done to him, his son had never given up on him, hadn't hurt him in any way because he was so kind and thoughtful.

Marik was not going to give up on his son, and he couldn't even if he had wanted to.

He pressed his lips to Caiellis's again, ignoring the blood in it and trying to breath for his son, and even though he breathed into the slack mouth the boy's lungs weren't taking the breath and making it their own, only moving because of the air occasionally going through them and the desperate chest compressions that the king began once again, tears blurring his vision of everything else apart from his son as he felt the boy's thin bones almost bending beneath the pressure that he was putting on his unbroken ribs.

But broken ribs would be preferable to Caiellis being dead and no longer having a chance to do all the things that he deserved to, all the things that should have been given freely to him instead of having to fight for them like the youngest Lucerna had.

"Come on … come on, son … come back to us … come back to the world … I'm sorry … I'm so so sorry … I need you in my life, Caiellis … I love you ..." Marik gasped and choked out in between panting breaths of coming up for more air that he could try and put inside of his son, though his hands did not cease their rhythm of compressions, blinding light still surrounding the parent and his youngest child as he tried harder than he had tried anything before to bring Caiellis back to life so that he could have the love he deserved.

"Come on! COME BACK! PLEASE!" the king howled, breaking off the connection and gasping at the air that flooded into his lungs, his son's blood spilling down his face and on his hands as he screamed in incoherent rage and anguish at the fate of his baby boy. Tears spilled in an even greater intensity than before out of his eyes, which, if Marik had been thinking properly, would previously have seemed like the maximum amount that could be shed, to the point where it felt like his eyes were going to be wrenched out of his sockets because of the flow of sadness, and he hitched in breaths filled with broken and raw sadness worse than he had experienced even at the time of Emili's death.

_This can't be happening … Caiellis can't be dying … he is too young … he isn't supposed to die … he is supposed to outlive me … he is my son … and I've killed him … I'm so sorry … please, forgive me … no, don't forgive me … I don't deserve your forgiveness … just come back … JUST COME BACK! I can't live without you … you and your older brother are everything to me … please, son … I will gladly die for you …_

Marik was filled with more wracking sobs that shuddered through his large form that held his son who seemed so small and fragile in his father's grip, so delicate and easily damaged by one as strong as he, and it hurt Marik more than anything else to know that his youngest son could face down the foulest of demons with only the weakest and smallest flinches, that he could fight against traitors who had murdered thousands and battle valiantly in the face of some of the darkest and most vile evil this world had ever seen given form in a manifest avatar of debauchery and carnal carnage, but it was his father's words and actions that had broken him, the sight of those that he loved in danger coupled with the accusations and attempts to kill him from a man who was supposed to love him unconditionally that had destroyed his will to live, to fight against the evil of the world, his will to keep on defying the pain that perpetuated his life in the hope that he would finally have peace and happiness.

Eventually, his hands stopped pressing down on the youngster's small chest, the fabric that was frayed and shredded there by numerous assaults on the fragile child utterly destroyed by his compressions that had left many dark bruises to join countless others heaped onto the youngest Lucerna, desecrating the innocent purity of his form that should have been kept away from the pain instead of forcefully shoved into it. The king's fingers were shaking and trembling too much to do it, and his whole body was shuddering with the emotional torment wracking it, his son vibrating in the shakes of his distraught father who was forced to stop trying to bring the boy back from the horrible and unjust death that had claimed him, taken him away from his family and those that loved him.

"I'm so sorry ..." the king blubbered the words like he was a young child trying to stop his father from beating him again and apologising too late for his natural disobedience, but, like then, the apologies wouldn't change anything, they wouldn't instil life into Caiellis's cold body and they wouldn't offer Marik forgiveness for what he had done to his youngest boy, what he had allowed to happen to the person that he was supposed to protect above all else, the innocent baby of his family who had fought for the perfect life that had been ripped away from him harder than anybody else and been given scorn and displeasure, censure and anger, hatred and pain because of it.

He wrapped his shaking arms around the youthful teenager who had been placed on the floor so that he could perform the desperate chest compressions, the strength that was within the limbs useless in the task of helping his youngest son, instead hurting the boy as opposed to protecting and guarding him from the horrors within this cruel world.

One large hand went around the back of the boy's head and neck, whilst the other arm was pulled around his chest and lower body so that he could be pulled into a cradling position once again, held close against his father as the man choked on his sobs and pulled his son into his arms, gently stroking the back of his blood-matted hair that was so much like Emili's but with some of his father's slickness and straightness within it, not as curly as the queen's had been but more wavy and just as lovable if only Marik had realised that before being trapped within his mind, realised that he had two brilliant sons instead of just one and another that wasn't worth his time.

"I'm sorry ..." he whimpered and sobbed again, driven to a deep sadness that was further within anguish than he had ever been before, because he had lost two members of his perfect family now due to his horrible failure to protect them, and this one had died thinking that his father hated him and blamed him for Alexander's pain, for his mother's death. He pressed his head against Caiellis's soft fringe that was slick with his own blood and the rain of viscera from the sky that Marik couldn't tell and didn't care if it had stopped or not, though the fact that his healing hadn't hurt him would have informed him that it was no longer affecting the city if he had been able to think through the grief.

"Caiellis … I love you ..." he held his son close, trying to imagine what his breathing would be like, what mumbling would slip out of his son's quiet mouth, before the images were tainted by the fact that he didn't know well enough, he hadn't held his son enough to know, and the truth that Caiellis was dead, his lips grey where they weren't covered in crimson vitae and his throat slit by his own blade so that he would not have to endure any more hatred and pain that he should never have been exposed to in the first place.

Marik's vision was blurring because of the fact that he couldn't breathe and was hyperventilating, but the injuries on his son and the broken body of the boy that did nothing to dispel his youthful innocence was still as clear as anything had ever been to him. He stroked his son's hair gently, feeling a large bruise on the back of his son's head that was covered in blood from where it had been split open when his father had thrown him against the wall that had almost been the site of his death whilst he had still been in the grip of the horror that he had never managed to purge out of his mind until it chose to leave once the damage had been done.

"Come back … come back, son … you are so welcome here ..." Marik whispered, like Caiellis was asleep and he didn't want to wake the boy up, like the thirteen year old was a very young baby once again and for once Marik was speaking to him, rocking him gently in the grip of one of his painful nightmares and the agony that his young body had been in. But that had been preferable to this stillness, the only thing moving Caiellis the motion of his utter failure of a father, the utter immobility of the boy as his arms flopped listlessly at his sides until the king grabbed hold of both painfully thin wrists in one large hand and gently laid them still on his stomach.

The pain within the sobs still wracking the man didn't diminish, but their volume had done as he spoke softly to his son, his words coming out in between cries of utter misery as a parent's worst nightmare unfolded in front of his eyes and he could do nothing to stop it. Being the king of one of the most powerful civilisations on the planet, having an army that numbered in the millions and comprised of heavily trained and elite individuals at his beck and call, being blessed by a First Sisterhood angel from the highest order of the divine heavens above, having the ability to command magic that could destroy whole cities and turn entire hordes of corrupt enemies into dust.

All of it meant nothing because none of it could help his youngest son, none of it could bring him back into this world of life that he belonged within, a world that would be barren and cold without his presence within it. The king couldn't take this, he couldn't take another one of his family dying, and part of him wanted to flee, run as far as he could from everything that he had ever known in the hope that it would free him from this anguish, but that was a cowardly thought and he needed to be here to take all of the punishment that he deserved because of what he had allowed to happen to his precious youngest.

He couldn't run from this no more than he could bring his son back to life, and those disgraceful notions were soon drowned underneath a tide of grief and sorrow that poured in physical form out of the king's blue eyes that were full of emotion in a way that they hadn't been since the beginning of the civil war, even at the time when Alexander had almost died. No, that was not true, his eyes had been suffused and filled to the brim with feeling, but instead of despondency and despair that would remain with him through the life that he no longer wanted to live back then his cold blue orbs had been consumed by anger directed at his youngest son.

He had known that Alexander would pull through, known at the back of his mind because of a father's belief in his son, and he had seen his eldest son fighting against his fate with all that he had so that he could still be there to protect other people. But now … Caiellis had willingly given into this fate, not that Marik could ever blame him because the words that he had been forced to say to his son had hurt him more than words had ever done before, and he had not even been the recipient of them so had not been harmed by them nearly as much as the already vulnerable and exhausted and terrified thirteen year old, and he was in an even worse state than his more resilient big brother had ever been in.

His forehead was pressed to Caiellis's in a way that he had only done before the civil war, before Emili had been ripped away from him, before the blindness and the insatiable desire for vengeance had claimed him and prevented him seeing what was right in front of his eyes – that his wife was still alive, living within her living and breathing sons, _their _living and breathing sons that Marik had neglected and ignored as much as possible when the war had finished.

He wanted to scrunch his eyes shut and imagine a time where they could all be happy, where he had made good relationships with both his eldest son and his youngest boy, where Caiellis would willingly share anything with his father and confide his worries within him, but that would be selfish to his youngest son who was cold and all alone here. That would be abandoning the boy just as much as running away was, and Marik had done that too much in his life already, left Caiellis alone to face the darkness too often.

Instead he kept them open, pulling his head away from his still son so that he could look at his face again, gently brushing his fringe from where it obscured closed eyes, eyes that had been screwed up back when his son was still alive but were now slack and shut only because there was nothing within the boy to open them again. Caiellis was utter innocence, perfection like Emili had been, like Alexander was, and it hurt Marik so much to see him like this, hurt him more to know that it was him that had done this to his amazing son.

He wasn't going to leave his son here. He would stay here forever, cradling the boy in his large arms and Caiellis remained still within them like he was just asleep and would crack open those expressive and crystalline green eyes again and favour his father with a soulful puppy dog look. He couldn't leave his son, the youngest member of his family that had already lost one member, and he knew that Alexander would understand. He tried to relax his breathing, managing only to stop his frantic hyperventilation and reduce it to something slower but no less anguished as he couldn't stop himself from failing to stifle horrible sobs that had nothing on the sadness his son had been forced to endure over the course of his life.

He would never leave Caiellis again, even though it was too late now, too late to start acting like the father that his son had always deserved and wanted after the death of his mother, the father that had been ripped away from him at the incredibly tender and too young age of four years old and never given back to him, though what made it worse was that the dad he needed was there, just too stupid, selfish and angry to pull himself out of the shell he had created for himself that was supposed to stop the shattered pieces of his heart from feeling any more emotional pain or being pulled apart even more but had instead stopped him from repairing it and had endangered his sons.

Caiellis had deserved so much more, and because of his father he had never got it, but Marik could at least do one thing right and never leave his infinitely precious youngest son, not now or ever.

The thought of mindlessly fleeing from all of this pain, or adversely trying to pull the fractured heart within his chest that had been destroyed far beyond repair now when it had been so close to being pulled back together again back into its cage of duty and vengeance, was swamped under tidal waves of sorrow and a father's anguish seeing his son dead and knowing it was his fault.

It was slowly replaced by a new idea, one that burned within Marik's breast alongside the sadness once again, the twin forces of despair and hatred springing to life once again within the king as he gently rocked his youngest son in his arms, unable to let go of him or ever be able to move past him like he had been almost been able to move on from Emili – not that he would ever forget her, but he would have continued on with life like his wife would have wanted to and been as close to the perfect father to his children that they deserved as possible.

He wouldn't ever leave his son, but that did not mean that he could not extract divine vengeance for what had happened to the boy. He would make sure that the Welkalites would pay for the part that they had to pay in the death of Caiellis, the innocent and pure prince who should never have died within this accursed city. Marik could never make reparations for what he had done to the youngest Lucerna, he could never earn forgiveness for what he had allowed to happen to the precious thirteen year old, but that did not mean that he could not make the Welkalites understand what they had done.

This city would be Caiellis's tomb, until his body was interred within the vaults like the other heroes of the past, like he deserved. Marik would make the darkness of the world pay, and he would die here with his son, his light, his heart, but right now he didn't want to think of that, couldn't think about the burning yet cold vengeance growing within him past the sheer anguish and emotional pain flooding through everything within him as he held the unmoving and heavily wounded body of his youngest son close to his chest, his heart pounding within his head and his wracking sobs the only thing that he could hear as he gave one final how of absolute pain at the sky, streaks of sunlight breaking through the dark clouds which had once constituted the Tempest of Craving and shining down upon him and the city that would be the last place that Caiellis was alive within.

Marik was dead, as dead as his son, only his body hadn't yet realised it. But his mind knew, it knew that he could not take another one of his family members dying.

He had always known that, after the loss of Emili, that he wouldn't survive one of his sons dying, but never even in his wildest and saddest imaginations could he have ever predicted how soul-crushingly painful it would be.

_Caiellis … I'm so, so sorry … you deserve so much better, my baby … my youngest son … I'm so sorry … _

.*.*.*.

_Coldness._

_That is the first thing that I feel, a sense of coldness that permeates through my bones, suffusing my entire being and becoming everything that I am. _

_The second thing that comes to me is the confusion, the murk within my head. I don't know where I am. I don't know what is happening. I can't remember what has happened, and if I try to all I see is a mist of grey covering everything but the core memories of my being. _

_But even then, only scattered flecks of light manage to get through the fog in my head, fragmented images of memory that are blurred by the endless shades of colourlessness, distorted and becoming more akin to ideas and notions rather than actual recollections._

_A mother's touch, a brother's love, friendship and happiness, things like that. They are facets of existence that I know that I have been able to experience before but can't recall specific examples of, like I was simply an observer of these things through a mist of greyness._

_I open my eyes. Then I realise that my eyes were never closed, I was merely not looking through them, a disconcerting sensation that somehow doesn't make me feel anything as I look at this strange yet familiar world around me. It is a vast expanse of water, transparent water the non-colour of silver and emotionless grey that stretches out as far as they eye can see and far beyond that._

_Where am I? What is this place? What is happening to me?_

_Who is _me_? That question stings the most, because I feel like I should know who I am, but at the same time the realisation of that is muffled beneath the blanket clouding and smothering all sensation within me. I think about it for a moment, yet only half formed letters manage to come out of the blankness in my head, ideas and perceptions of things bereft of relation to the things in question, form without dimension and words without definition, incomplete things that mean nothing to me._

_I soon realise that I don't care. The lack of identity, at once concerning and frightening yet strangely unburdening and weirdly pleasant, soon becomes covered with the grey and nondescript clouds of nothingness in my mind, and I feel a tide pulling at my legs, urging me forwards and giving me direction within this endless ocean of greyness and strangeness. I don't know where it will lead me, and I don't know how there can be any form of destination within this formless sea, or lake, but I only know that it is the right way to go._

_I step forwards, my eyes scanning the endless distance. All of it looks the same. A grey blanket of water the same colour as the silver sky that is only separated by a thin line of light, which lets me distinguish between it. I look down, past my slender legs, and onto the water on which I walk. It flows around and through my feet, the tides gently yet firmly encouraging me onwards, and I'm not sure if I would be able to resist if I even wanted to. _

_What is more strange is the fact that I have no reflection within the still yet moving water, and as I stare into the strange blankness where my face that I can't imagine should be, I notice that instead of being fully submerged within the infinitely deep water only my feet are beneath the grey sea, like there is an invisible barrier only a few inches underneath the surface. Although this barrier feels no different to the water._

_The water reaches my ankles, and though I am not sure what size I am because everything is bigger than me here and there is no one else to compare myself to I know that the water would reach my ankles no matter what height I was. _

_I take another step, still looking down to see what will happen as my foot rises through the water that does not leave the lake like my foot does, not obeying what I think are the laws of water at all, and there is no resistance as my bare toes meet the glistening yet muted surface once again. There are no ripples, strangely, which, coupled with the fact I have no reflection, is very strange and almost concerning._

_Only almost because I can't think properly through the barriers of mist and endless fog in my head that I might have been worried about, but I can't find or create the emotion to be bothered by it. Instead, a kind of curiosity that I can simultaneously remember yet is unknown to me and something which I cannot recall no matter how hard I try overcomes me, and I kneel down within the water._

_Then it hits me that the coldness I feel isn't because of the water, because the temperature of my knees and lower legs doesn't change despite being submerged. The water doesn't feel like anything that I have ever touched before, like the impression of sensation without the sensation itself stimulating nervous response, and as I extend my pale hand in front of my face, the fingers looking bony and thin, long in comparison to the smallness of the palm and the rest of me, I realise that the coldness is within me. _

_However, for all I know my hand could be far bigger than those possessed by other people, because I can't liken it to anything. I only have the strange, half formed sense that I am a thin person, that this hand is small, and though it does not matter to me that is all I have to go by._

_I skim my fingers along the surface of this grey liquid that behaves like water unless I do anything to try and change it, no ripples forming up from the movement of my hand within it, and then plunge my hand in. It feels like nothing, no different to if I was holding my hands above it, no change in temperature or density, and as I try to pull my hand up, placing my other one in the grey ocean and cupping them together to try and take out some more, the moment my hands reach the surface the water simply parts for them like they had no effect on it at all, and none leaves the sea._

_It is like I am not here at all, like this world and this strange environment is not affected at all by my presence. It is endless, eternal, and I am merely just another traveller following the tides of forever. Or, at least, that is the impression I get. Though I have always been one for the metaphorical. I think. I don't know._

_Puzzled, I stare at the water for a few moments longer, before I feel the tide increasing it intensity, pushing me forwards – wherever forwards is, as this direction could easily be backwards or left or upwards for all that I know, though something at the back of my mind tells my that the direction the water is unmoving in is forwards. It is becoming impatient with my delaying, urging me onwards, the spaces of greyness blocking me out from my mind whispering strange sounds that have never been spoken by human tongue that I shouldn't be able to understand._

_But I can. I know that they are telling me to follow the tide, just as the motion of the water itself is more forcefully pushing me with it. I have no doubt that if I remain here longer the tide will sweep me along with it, so I quickly return to my feet and begin to walk in the direction of the waves, the only movement the massive body of water that stretches out past the horizon miles away has made so far, though I get the distinct feeling that the ocean is not moving at all. _

_Instead of stumbling in the waves and losing my footing, the motion of the water complements my movements, urging me along again, and once more I get a strange impression that it is encouraging me, that it wants me to come with it and is excited for me. That last bit is strange, though I cannot think about it._

_I walk, not wanting to run, knowing that to outpace the tide would be wrong, but equally as wrong would be to fall behind the movement of the silver and infinite waters so my pace is still reasonably fast to keep up with it as it gets more excited and animated. _

_The world is endless and infinite, and I have no idea if I have covered any distance at all within it, but I cannot look back to see even if I had wanted to. Besides, the ocean of grey behind me is the same as the ocean of grey in front of me, so there is nothing there that is important to me._

_Seconds blend into minutes into hours into days as I walk, the tide seemingly happy with my progress and not increasing in speed to force the body I have designated as small into a jog. Time loses all meaning here, and I could have easily been walking for less than a second, or adversely been part of a journey which is lasting longer than a thousand years. The dimensions of this place are infinite and eternal, and as I look up into the sky I can see the same waters that are beneath me forming the air above me._

_Within the water and the sky I can see dream-like images of light scrawled onto the world, single droplets of purest illuminescence dancing to an unknowable rhythm in time and yet impossible out of synch with the waves below and above me. They draw sublime and incomprehensible things to me that I cannot focus on, my gaze endlessly drawn back to the invisible path ahead as the unknowable light sings to me at the edges of my vision. _

_I cannot see any of this world, in fact. It is sight without sight that allows me to perceive it, sound without sound that I can hear, and even though the thought that I am imagining this place crosses my mind I know instantly that it is not true._

_I cannot see nor hear it, but I can _feel _it, feel that I have made progress._

_The tide feels it too, lapping at my legs like the tongue of an exhilarated puppy happy to see its owner, though that analogy is flawed as the waves are more like my master than I am their owner. It normally would have made me feel happy, or content, or give rise to a surge of satisfaction within me at having made progress, but I still feel nothing. Nothing expect the eternal need to keep moving that comes from the core of my being, nothing expect the nothingness itself within me._

_This place is at once ephemeral and everlasting, a new place created just for me and a location that has felt the touch of innumerable others, unseen figures wandering this expanse like I am and joining me within my walk. Even with that, I still feel that I am alone, alone within this boundless world of colourless grey, and the singing of the light falls on my deaf ears as I keep walking. The sempiternal tides urge me ever onwards, and even though I feel like I could have been walking for months I never question it again, I know that to follow it is the right thing to do._

_The grey in my head stops me wondering who I am, what I have done, who knows me, where I come from, and for that I am grateful. Such things would only slow me down, make me hesitate instead of keep walking, and although it feels like I have been on this sojourn through the silver ocean forever I do not tire._

_I am not tired, but nor am I exited by the prospect of what, if anything, I will face. Perhaps this in itself is my fate, to be forever walking onwards, to be forever tempted by _something_ at the corner of my vision. Such a thing doesn't bother me, which is something I would have found strange had I not got used to the feeling of eternal apathy suffusing me like the mist within my head that stops me from thinking._

_Part of me almost wants to stop, to stop and consider the world around me, but as if in response to the sudden rebellious thoughts the tide picks up its pace again, the animated motion of the waves half pushing me forwards and forcing me to increase the speed of what are distinctly skinning limbs the more I occasionally get a glimpse of them at the bottom of my vision. I almost stumble and fall with this sudden increase in speed, but the waves do not slow down and I know that if I fall then I will be either swept along or be left behind._

_Neither thought appeals to me, whatever _me _is, even with the lack of anything resembling emotion that I feel, and through something that I cannot describe I know that I want to never be left behind the waves that guide me and that I cannot be mindlessly pulled along by them because I, for a reason I cannot quantify, want to have some semblance of independence._

_Then I see it, and the strangeness of the sudden change in the landscape makes me stop. The tides stop as well, pooling around me and ready to urge me onwards once I start moving again but giving me this brief respite that I neither need nor want. But I cannot move through the spontaneous push of confusion, and my eyes that I do not know the colour or the size of narrow so that I can focus on this thing in the distance._

_It is a figure, like me, though I have a suspicion that they are taller than I am, something I should not have been able to pick out at this distance – but then, distance means as little as time in this place, and I do now know how far they are away. Or if I even want to walk to them. They may not know who I am, they might be scared of me should I approach. As I pull myself back to my feet, though I do not remember falling to my knees, the tide gently urges me onwards, like a parent giving encouragement to their child, something that I somehow know has been lacking in my life._

_My life. I know nothing of what that is, or what that means, whether it is something that is important and to be preserved at all costs or something to be discarded and regained in cycles of existence through endless time. I do not know if my life has just begun, or if it has lasted for an eternity. I do not know if my life is only this journey through the colourless seas tenderly goading me towards the figure stark against the limitless background, or if there was or is more to it than this, but that is something I can think of another time._

_Right now, I know that the tide wants me to keep going, that this is what it wanted to lead me to, and that it will force me given time of I take too long. Moonlight dances atop the upturned world, and the conversation of two timeless beings writes itself out on the walls of the boundless and unconfined world to the side of me in whirls of lyrical and enigmatic melodies that sing for me to carry on. I know that I must continue, and there is little point in staying here. What's more, I can feel that I am nearing my destination, that I am closing in on the point that the tides of silver wanted to lead me to._

_I start walking again, the grey waters brushing against my slender calves as if in praise of my confidence as it pushes me forwards, towards the figure in the distance who turns towards me as if able to hear me even though I am certain that I am not making any sound._

_As I get closer, I am able to pick out features, distinct things about this person, this _woman _stood in front of me that send shudders of actual emotion up and down my spine, feeling that manages to break through the mist of grey within my mind that rushes out within my head as I walk faster towards the figure that is getting closer at a faster rate than I am walking towards her. It is a burst of euphoria and happiness that overwhelms everything else, though the nothingness is still within me and ready to return at any time, clouding the joy and following its path throughout me. _

_She is of a reasonable height, wearing an amethyst dress that fits her slender form perfectly as she makes no moves towards me. She is pale, like me but not as much as myself, and has curly brown hair that half-masks one of her eyes. The eyes themselves were emerald green orbs full of intelligence and the expression of her emotions, the emotion filling them at the current moment predominantly confusion as I run towards her now. She is the only colour in this vast realm of nondescript grey, but it is colour that could satisfy and fill the entire world with life._

"_Caiellis?" she asks, with concern, her lyrical and soft voice soothing the worry I hadn't felt flowing through me. So that is what I am called. Caiellis. The word seems familiar. I suppose that is because it is my name. But it is not as familiar as I think a name should be. Though that does not matter now._

_She is here, exactly as I remember her, exactly the same as the moments before she was ripped away from me all those years ago. Memories, almost fully formed but still slightly distorted and broken, come flooding back to me, and I smile for the first time in what feels like an eternity as her eyes meet mine as I stop in front of her. _

_This is what the tide wanted to show me! My mum! My brilliant mother who I have missed ever since she was taken away from me, though I cannot remember or think of what took her away from my life, or the exact circumstances in which it happened. All I can think of, however, is kindness, and love, and knowing that I was protected by this woman, and that is all that I need to be happy as I stop a couple of metres or so away from her, the tide parting around me and stopping once again._

"_Mum?" I reply, my voice shaking and breaking with the emotion flooding through it as I feel warm tears welling up within my eyes, my eyes that are very similar to my mother's, a sensation that I am unfamiliar and yet intimate with and one that is not entirely unwelcome as they begin to stream down my cheeks, though these are not tears of sadness. My voice is weak, like a young boy's, and I suppose that Caiellis was a young boy, that Caiellis _is _a young boy because I am Caiellis._

"_What are you doing here, Caiellis?" she asks, her graceful and comforting voice that has helped me through nights of pain that I can barely remember because I was so young tinted with heavy amounts of concern for me that show in her bright green eyes as I look up into them. They are welling with tears themselves, tears that are already spilling down my face, as she looks me up and down. _

_I do not know how to answer the question. I do not know what I am doing here, but I really hope that it is to meet my mum again after years that I cannot count – no! Nine years. It has been nine years since I have seen here, nine long years of pain and wishing that she was here. I cannot remember what happened to her, or what happened to me so that I could come to see her, because those parts of my mind are the ones most deeply concealed by the fog that shrouds Caiellis's life, _my _life, but I don't care because she is here. Mum is here!_

_Instead, with tears blurring my vision of everything but her, I reply with my thoughts, the only thing that I can think of, the single word that means more than anything to me in this colourless path and evokes emotions far more powerful than the few letters that makes it, "Mum?"_

"_You shouldn't be here," she responds, stepping towards me again. She shoots a quick glance backwards as she does so, though I do not see what she is looking at. However, she cannot conceal the fear in her forest green eyes, fear not for herself but me, her son, stood in front of me, fear that I can't see the source of. It makes me hesitate, though I repress the urge to step backwards. That would be increasing the distance between me and my mum, something that I am not willing to do, and I cannot step back now. _

_My legs simply refuse to make the motion, but I trust my mum more than I trust myself so I stay where I am._

_She turns back to me, the same fear in her eyes that is overwhelming the brief happiness at seeing me again, and I can tell that she is pushing back the joy at seeing me that I am filled with, pushing back her want to grab hold of me and hold me tighter than ever before and pushing back her desire to want to talk to me._

"_I don't understand," I tell her, suddenly annoyed at the blubbering quality to my voice that sounds too young, the fact that it is shaking with joy mixed in with confusion at her actions. It is truthful, because I don't know what is going on, and I don't know why she is so concerned to see me here, the fog is blocking all of that out, but to be honest I don't care. All I need to know is that she is here, my mother who I haven't seen since I was very young, and that this truth fills me with elation that can't be pushed back down by her worry._

_She smiles at me, a smile of genuine happiness that extends to her, but that doesn't stop it from being a grim smile, a gesture of concern for her son that is far more predominant in her emerald green orbs. I look up at her, waiting for her response, instinctively waiting for guidance because I _know _that everything she says is right, everything that she does is for my safety because she loves me. I love her as well, an undying love that a young son feels for his mother, not having had the time to be tainted by arguments or anger at one another._

"_You don't have to understand, Caiellis. I don't want you to understand," she says, and my I blink in bemusement, some of the tears sticking to my eyelashes and glistening in my vision as I stare up at her. I know that she is saying these things for my benefit, but I don't like not understanding, I don't like not knowing why she is scared. _

_I shake my head, because I don't know what else to do but look up at my mother as tears pour out of my eyes, tears that I would have violently brushed away had this been any other situation than a reunion with the woman who gave birth to me. She smiles sadly back again, and takes a step forward. A slender palm reaches out, joined by another at the other side of it, and two soft digits gently thumb away the tears of happiness and confusion that are running down my cheeks. I slightly lean into my mother's touch, having not felt it for so long, and shut my eyes, wanting to stay here forever. I feel so safe, so protected, more than I have ever done in years._

"_You are still so young," her voice makes me open my eyes, still wet with tears that I push back, and look up at her again. She hasn't let go of me yet, her palms still cupping my cheeks like I am a baby boy once again, and I can smell the distinct scent of lavender that I always associated with her from the perfume that was her favourite, a sweet aroma that never failed to make me feel safer. I still don't understand, but I have already told her that and repeating it to her won't achieve anything._

"_So, so young," she repeats, her voice coloured with deep sadness as she gently brushes hair out of my eyes, and I smile up at her, the strange way that she was acting only doing little to dispel my utter happiness at seeing mum again. Unwilling to break off the contact when it seems like she might pull away, I reach up, my thin fingers wrapping round her wrists, barely managing to fit all the way around them and only doing so because she is quite a thin woman, and she can't help but smile back at me. I know that it is needy, but I don't care because I haven't seen her in so long. I want to hug her like I used to back when she was around, but I sense that she still wants to speak to me, that she wants to look me in the eyes as she talks to me._

"_Mum..." I try, though the word comes out too weak and tremulous, the high pitched voice that belongs to me filled with a sadness that I don't feel, but a sadness associated with loss and nights of crying into another's side, though the identity of the person I can't quite recall even though I know they were and are very important to me. I take a deep, shuddering breath, letting go of her hands as she moves one of them to the shoulder beneath, giving it a reassuring squeeze that I knew at once was both automatic and intended. _

_Being a mother was as natural to this woman as breathing, and I admire her for it. She is a person that I would be happy sharing anything with, a person that I would come to with my worries and a person that would listen to them and help me through the toils of life without a second thought. She would have been the perfect parent, even though I am not naïve enough not to know that there would have been some occasional friction between us because that was the way of a parent and a child. _

_But she would have been perfect, better than anything or anyone else in raising me, and that feeling of loss and heartache is why tears are still gathering in my eyes, though at least I am not crying like a baby again. When I finish my breath, the lump in my throat is distinct and uncomfortable when I want to speak, but it won't stop me. Emili watches on encouragingly, occasionally flicking her eyes backwards, and knowing that it is my mother who I have not seen for years waiting to hear my voice fills me with strength._

"_What is happening to me, then? Where are why? Where am I supposed to be if not here?" I inquire, enjoying the feeling of finally being able to speak to her. Once I ascertained the source of her worry and allowed her to think past it, there was so much that I wanted to talk about with her. And I am sure that there are things that she wants to ask me as well, I can see it in her expressive eyes that had always been filled with emotion underneath the worry and concern that she was using to force it away. _

_Although I'm not sure I can answer her questions considering the fact that I can barely remember my life and the only things that I can recall are experiences that I shared with her when I was very young, too young to remember them too well. And even then one is missing, the final piece of the puzzle of happiness and loss that I'm not sure I want to remember because I know it is the one where she is ripped away from me._

"_Do you remember anything before you came here? Anything at all?" the woman asks her son, asks me as she stares deep and seriously into my eyes. I wrack my brain, trying to peer through the fog that is clouding everything but the memories of me and my mum spending time together. I know that she is trying to protect me, know that she wants the best for me even after so long spent away from one another, so I try as hard as I can to comply to her request. I shut my eyes, hoping that it will allow me to focus on the things within myself instead of without, and try to delve into memories that I know I have past the colourless mist within my head._

_I remember a time long ago, where I was just a small child, trying hard to understand some of the things that my beloved mother attempted to teach me. Whenever I failed with some of them, when I couldn't get the answer out of my mind and I just couldn't think of it, mum would always be very proud of what I had already done, telling me that I was doing fantastically for a four year old and that she never expected me to get this far, but I was always left feeling slightly bitter and thinking that I had failed her in spite of that – although because I was a child that state of mind would soon fade._

_I then realise the group of similar memories for what it is – a distraction – and I try to pull away, to remember what happened before I came to this place of endless grey tides, but I am unable to force my way through the wall of grey and solid memory. I screwed my eyes shut, trying hard to comply with her request because she was my mother and she wanted to help protect me and she couldn't if I didn't help her myself, because if I fail her again she might leave me once more._

_Obviously my consternation and strain must be showing as I batter my mind against the barriers around it to no avail, lost in the fog of the past and the mist of confusion within my head, as mum then interjects, "It is alright if you don't, Caiellis. Don't hurt yourself."_

_I open my eyes again, disappointed to know that I had failed mum again, and my vision is filled with blurring tears that I haven't quite managed to suppress completely, burning streaks of disappointment mixing with the remnants of happiness at seeing mum again stinging my eyes. She smiles at me again, still holding protectively onto my thin shoulders, and I shake my head sadly when I see that disappointment is reaching her eyes as well._

"_I'm sorry..." I tell her, almost hanging my head in shame, but she is quick to assuage me. _

"_Don't be, Caiellis. It's alright if you can't remember. I thought that you probably wouldn't be able to, but I couldn't take that chance in case you could. It doesn't matter," she says, but even though she is smiling at me and her voice is reassuring I can see that it does matter from her expressive green eyes. I do not know why it matters, because I am here with her and I don't want to be anywhere else, but mum seems to think that it does so I'm inclined to agree._

_I trust her more than I trust anything at the moment, even though I know it is because the inner four year old in me is breaking out and seizing hold of my mind, telling me that there is no way my mum could be wrong or mistaken about anything and that she can do anything, and if I was younger I would have missed the flash of concern and something akin to fear, but not for herself, in her eyes._

_Since I am no longer that young, although I must be because of how she is treating me and how I barely reach the bottom her neck in height, I can see that me not remembering anything is a cause for worry. To break the silence and make myself seem like less of a failure to mum, and supposing that any bit of information could help her, I say: "All I can remember are the times that we spent together, and even then some are missing."_

_She smiles sympathetically back at me, and for once I feel like a child. I want to let her take the lead, which is what she is doing, because I'm tired of doing it myself, because even though I can't feel that emotion, can't feel any emotion past the ones that the impermeable miasma of grey lets through, I know that I am scared. _

_It is strange, however. Despite her comforting touch, despite the fact that she should be hot with the life flowing through her, mum is just as cold as me, and no warmth comes from her. It is as if I am frozen, both within and without, unable to feel any heat from the world and blocked from seeing my mind properly by walls of mist and ice freezing me in place. All of my senses and almost every one of my emotions are dulled down, blanketed by waves of bitter fog that drown out almost all stimulus to the point where it feels distant and far away, and no warmth can reach me from the coldness consuming my body._

"_Can you-" the woman stood in front of me was cut off by a sudden noise, like a breaking in the walls of this world combined with a splash of water, the splattering of silver droplets on my skin a strange and otherworldly feeling that alerts me as to how dangerous what is happening could be – as the tide has only moved of its own accord so far. It surges around me and my mum, sent rippling backwards in great waves of colourless spray, and figure begins to be formed of scintillating light behind my mum._

"_Caiellis. You trust me, right?" mum asks quickly, gently but firmly holding my chin with her hand when I try to look round her, to face this new potential threat and to prepare myself for helping mum against it. I strain automatically for a second, but despite her slender frame mum is still stronger than I am, because I am small and because I am not fighting against her, and I give up and look back into her eyes. _

_But not before catching a glimpse of shining crimson armour spiked by spines of the same bloody colour, wings like a gigantic version of a raven's pinions stretching out behind and above it. A scythe, or axe, made from some sort of golden stone, brutal and large yet belying elegance and sophistication past its outwardly crude appearance. A flash of brilliant red fabric entwined within midnight black hair, and eyes concealed by a blindfold of scarlet._

_The smile that mum was wearing has now dissolved completely, her motherly features forming an expression of shock and worry that she is trying desperately not to show me, I can see that much. I feel quakes of real fear trembling up and down my spine, spilling out of the mist and tingling through my slender bones as I stare into mum's worried eyes, knowing that my own green irises must be even more frightened than hers._

_I nod quickly, like an eager puppy anxious for its master's orders, and she grips onto my painfully thin shoulders again with her hands._

"_I need you to keep looking at me. Look into my eyes. Do not look behind me, Caiellis, no matter what you do, no matter how much you want to. Do not look behind me, my son," she explains quickly, her voice filled with worry and anxiety for me, and I nod again, to let her know that I know what to do. I focus on staring at her, even as I can hear the wings of darkness unfurling, and see the black pinions at the corners of my vision, joined back pulses of red from the fabric fluttering around her._

_The waves rippled around us, the presence of this being behind mum causing large undulations in the silver ocean that originate from its point, the grey tides recoiling from it. I focus on staring at mum, who looks back reassuringly and brushes a thumb up one of my cheeks from the attached hand still on my shoulder to try and calm my nerves. I know that I shouldn't be frightened, that I should be fighting against this scary thing with mum instead of letting her handle it, but the fright is filling me now that I can feel it and all I want to do is let mummy handle it like she would always do in the old days._

_A booming, thunderous laugh, like the impossibly deep sound of thousands of souls crying out for deliverance, washes over me and sends water surging up out of the infinite lake and crashing down around us. The tremors of fear that were cascading up and down my spine develop into full blown earthquakes of unnatural dread and terror, and I can't help but let out a little, pathetic whimper of fear as the laughter echoes over and over again inside my head, ricocheting off of the walls of mist and filling me with fright that makes me want to turn around and run as fast as I can._

_I let out another sob of pure fear that I know shouldn't be concerning me because I am suppose to be something which means I should be brave, and mum wraps her arms around me and hugs me close so that all I can see is her. I fall into the embrace willingly, having not felt something like this for years as I press my head into her and put my hands on my ears, willing the sound that chases me down into my deepest sanctuaries to go away. _

"_Just focus on me, Caiellis. Everything is going to be alright. Just keep focussing on me, little one," mum's voice made its way through the pain in my skull as she pulled me in tightly so that I could not be harmed, and I tried to just focus on her voice._

"_You cannot save him, Emili Noctis," the booming voice of the woman behind mum rings out, seemingly spoken from inside of myself instead of from where she was stood, and mum makes sure that I am close as she hugs me, preventing the woman – the _angel, _as she could be nothing else_ –_ from getting to me without going through her first. She rubs soothing circles on my back in a manner that had always calmed me during my childhood pain, and even though I do feel scared the motions create a sense of safety and security within my head that stops me from breaking down in absolute terror and sobbing my heart out._

"_And I won't let you take him either. It can't be his time yet. I'm sure of it, and I won't let you have him," the strong voice of mum, tinted with concern for me that made me feel loved and filled me with my own sense of anxiety in equal measures, opposes the words of the angel. I don't understand what is happening, why she wants to take me, why mum can't save me and what she is supposed to be saving me from, but I find solidarity in the embrace of the only other human in this strange realm of endless grey._

_The being laughs again, sending tears spilling down my cheeks as I bury my head in my mother's dress to wipe them away, unwilling to even look up at my mum for fear of what I might see as my body trembles in the grip of the fear holding onto it. I wonder, through the turmoil inside of me, how my mum isn't as scared as I am – perhaps I am just weak, which would not be surprising, or perhaps it is because this woman who has to be an angel, though not an angel I have ever been in the presence of before, wants me and wants to take me._

"_How would you even know if it is your son's time or not, Emili Noctis? You are a mere mortal. I am the arbiter of the Veil, and what I see in front of me are two souls that I must take beyond it. I do not know how you managed to escape through the Veil, or why you think that your son is exempt from the rules that govern the transient mortal coil of human existence, but you cannot save him," the angel spoke, her words like a sonorous dirge combined with mourning hymnals that sing of passage, though what sort of passage I cannot begin to fathom, especially in my frightened and agitated state._

"_I can't explain it. I simply know that it is not Caiellis's time, that he has so much more life left to live. I will not let you take him beyond the Veil," Emili replies whilst hugging me to assure me of that fact as I stifle whimpers and sobs, wishing that I could be strong like her and hating myself for being as pathetic as I am. It is utterly pitiful, but I can't stop myself from acting this way, and the terror and emotional instability is completely controlling me in spite of my resistance to it._

_I feel ripples in the water as the beating of massive wings buffets my mother's hair, the presence of the angel that is sublime and intangible to me yet I can still sense it moving closer and filling my mind with even more wisping tendrils of fright that claw into my head. _

"_And you would deprive your son of peaceful Passage beyond the Veil?" the angel asks mum, her terrifying voice sending shivers of coldness through me that I can't suppress as I tremble in the arms of mum, the woman whispering comforts to me to try and calm me down and help me overcome the unnatural dread. "You would deprive him of entering the afterlife that he deserves simply because you think that you, a mere mortal, knows more than the Sightless?"_

_I don't understand what is happening, and I can barely hear her words over the screaming in my head. I don't pick up on some of the terms, and I don't hear my mother's response as I press my head into her and whimper pathetically, the sound inside of my skull like the blood-curdling howling of hunting dogs encircling me and driving me onwards as well as thousands of moaning souls reaching out to me and trying to drag me with them. I try to fight it, but it is consuming me and dragging me under the grey waves, the only thing that is constant in my vision my mum holding tightly and protectively onto me._

_I am certain that I would have been drowned and pulled under by now if not for her, that she is the only thing stopping the angel from taking me._

"_Everything is going to be alright, Caiellis. Just concentrate on me, and only me. Try to block everything else out of your mind. It is not your time yet, I know it, and I will not let any harm come to you," Emili repeats over and over, whispering into my ear like she did when I was a young child suffering through horrible and gruesome nightmares and the pain of my body growing. _

"_Not my time for what?!" I want to ask, but I cannot force the words out through the shaking of my body and the lump in my throat. I can barely breathe I am that frightened, hyperventilating into my mum who rubs me soothingly and makes sure that I cannot see past her to the thing that wants to take me away from my mum._

_I can feel droplets of warm moisture dripping onto my forehead and cascading down my face along with the tears still spilling out of my eyes that I won't bother to brush away because I know that they will be replaced just as quickly._

_At first I think that it is rain, that some form of warm and unnatural precipitation is trickling down from the sky, or that the silver water had sprayed up onto me from the angel's movements, but then I realise that its origin is much more mundane. Mum is crying, glistening tears spilling from her own eyes as her lip quivers and she tries admirably to keep control of herself and not make me any more worried. I can't see much of that in the embrace of her, but her tears still make me feel like I should be doing something to emotionally reassure her as she is comforting me as well._

"_D-don't c-cry, m-mum," I tell her, through my own tears and sobs, and her right hand briefly lets go of the back of my head to presumably brush them away. I don't think that she even realised she was crying, but when her hand returns the grip is firmer and more encouraging._

_I do not know why she is sad, but it must have something to do with the fact that the angel wants to take me away from her – that is why I am crying as well – or perhaps the fear engendered by the strange being in this realm that speaks from inside of me instead of her position behind mum has finally got to mum only she has been able to hold it back longer. _

_She kisses me on the top of the head by way of thanks, and I whimper as I hear the angel raising her weapon as she stalks towards us even more._

"_Shh. Shhh, Caiellis. I will protect you. I will make sure that no harm comes to you, my precious son," mum murmurs, her voice full of love and strength as well as sadness from the possibility of being separated once again – or at least that is what I think it is. I want to extricate myself from my mother's grip, to stop being a baby and face this threat head on, but I know that if I truly look upon the terrifying visage of the angel of the grey tides then I will be lost forever. All I can do is to trust in mum, trust that she will be able to protect me like she always did in the past when we were together. I squeeze my half open eyes shut as I hear the angel's chains jangling as she pulls her weapon upwards, ready to strike down at mum and me._

_Then, suddenly, something changes, a flash of twilight purple within the mists of my mind that are threatening to consume everything that I am and cover up the memories of my mum once again._

_I feel something behind me, a presence intimately familiar and yet one that I cannot recognise forming in the grey expanse and reaching out to my mind with fingers of solidarity and reassurance. I know that I should be able to identify what this new thing is, the fourth presence in this realm of silver oceans and blindfolded angels, that I should know what it is and that I have met it before, but the fog blocks out all memories that might have sprung to the fore in answer of my question._

"_What ..." the scary angel mutters, though her thunderous voice still rumbled up from within me and evokes more unquenchable fear, and mum squeezes my shoulder and the back of my head reassuringly. She has stopped crying, which is good since it was scaring me and making me feel empathetically horrible as well, and I know that if I was able to understand what was going on I know why she was crying._

_I hear another rippling splash within the waves, new wings unfurling wide as a melancholy and sombre aura makes itself known to me within my head, and mum gasps. I try to pull out and twist my head around to gaze upon this new arrival, but I don't want to leave mum's embrace after so long of not being able to have it. Besides, my legs are frozen to the spot by fear and by the strange rules of this unknown realm, and just like all the way throughout my journey here I cannot turn to look around even if I did want to, which I don't because I don't know whether this new presence is a friend or foe yet._

"_What are you doing here, Orzhova?" the first angel, the one who said things that meant nothing to me and spoke up from inside of my head and caused trembles of fear to cascade up and down me, demands, her scythe or axe returning to presumably its normal position with a swish of air._

"_Tariel," comes the reply from behind me, making me hug my mum tighter as my thin arms wrapped around her from where they had been holding my ears in an attempt to block out all the noise. This woman's otherworldly voice is honeyed and sweet, inflected with a hint of melancholy that I feel in small, fragmented pieces that manage to break through the clouds in my mind. I'm scared, but more scared of the other angel than this one (as I assume that she is one because I can hear more wings), and mum mutters something reassuringly to me as she makes sure that I am protected, her chin on my head and looking over me as she gently soothes me._

"_Saying my name does not answer my question, Angel of the Black Sun," the one who this Orzhova called Tariel snarls back, her angry voice simultaneously impatient for an answer yet filled with the knowledge that she knows it inevitably must come to her soon, recklessness and impetuousness mixed with inexorability in a paradoxical blend that only serves to send more wracking shivers through my thin and cold body. "What are you doing in the Lake of Emptiness?"_

_I don't like this, I don't like only feeling the cold, but worse than that I don't like the chance that I could be ripped away from mum again, that I might be torn away from her love and forced to live without it like I had done before this. I can feel eyes staring into me from behind, the powerful gaze of this Orzhova piercing and almost physical. The name and the title of the second angel are familiar to me, but I can't place them. It is like I am trying to read a book to locate the information only to find that all of the pages, once filled with swathes of information and colour, are now empty and blank. It is irritating, but not frustrating enough to block out the cold and inevitable fear gripping me, fear that I cannot describe but fear that is unopposed by any of my frozen emotions. _

_It promises loss, loss that I cannot go through again, and I grab onto mum's wrist with my hands, my eyes still squeezed shut and my head still close to her. I should have been able to hear the steady or heightened beating of her heart, but there is nothing there and the pounding in my skull must be drowning it out._

"_I have come for him," Orzhova replies succinctly and simply, her voice resolute and certain of that course of action, but I can barely hear it over the sounds inside of my head that scream out of the endless mist. The response from the first angel is almost instantaneous and coloured with tempestuous wrath that makes me shudder in fear even more to the point where mum has to squeeze me tighter to stop me from beginning to convulse violently. "What do you mean you have come for him?! You cannot take him, Angel of the Black Sun, for he is already gone! I cannot let you have him; I cannot let either of you prevent him from following his mortal course and piercing the Veil! He must enter the Third Realm, because that is the law that governs this world, and I will not allow you to defy it."_

_What is happening? What is this Third Realm that I am supposed to be entering? Why do both mum and this Orzhova want to stop me from going into it? I don't understand! I want to scream out all these questions, but I can't force the words out through the paralysis-inducing and freezing fear holding me tight within its cold embrace exactly like how mum holds me protectively in her own hug. The fog's level is rising, and with it the indescribable fear that ascends through my mind with it. I lose memories in time to the angel's words, images and remembrances shattering in tandem with each statement as I suppress a wail, holding onto the only thing that I can trust in this world, the only thing that I know will protect me and keep me safe._

"_Tariel," the Angel of the Black Sun behind me says again, making no moves towards the coldly furious angel who seethes like a tempest of frost and a heavenly inferno of ice, lightning and death. Her voice betrays no fear, no emotion at all even with the haunting resonance to it, but there is a slice of endless determination within it that I would not want to be on the receiving end of. The eternal will of Orzhova to endure and achieve her goals battles against Tariel's raging storm fury in a display of crashing waves that avoid me and mum, holding each other close even with the power of the two angelic beings on a completely different scale to us clashing around us._

"_You owe me a debt, or have you forgotten that so easily? I have come to claim the favour that you owe me, Reckoner of Souls."_

"_You cannot do that, Orzhova. You are correct, I do owe you a favour, but I cannot obey the natural laws of the three realms simply because of an obligation to help you because of what you have done in the past," Tariel tells the other angel, her voice still coloured with huge amounts of freezing anger, far more than a human could ever muster, but not as furious as before – more bitter and resentful and frustrated than frenzied. The angel behind me sighs, but it is not a sigh of resignation – it is a sigh of vexation and irritation._

_I can barely hear or understand the words of the angels, and to my shame I can't stop crying, although at least I have snapped my mouth shut and stopped making pathetic whimpers. Mum keeps whispering to me, her words too quiet for me to be able to truly know what she is saying, but to know that she is saying something is enough for me, just like it was when I was too young to understand words. Merely the fact that she is filling the little space between us with her words, building up a cocoon of safety around me with them, makes me feel more secure._

"_Would you like me to reveal my knowledge of your secrets to all, Tariel? I do not wish to have to manipulate you, but rest assured if you do not surrender my Summoner to me now the entire Sisterhood of the Sanctum Angelica shall know of you and your whereabouts, the whereabouts of the Lake of Emptiness that leads to the Veil between realms," the angel closer to me states, her calm voice belying a sense of impatience and agitation utterly at odds with the rest of her heavenly tone that would have invoked inevitability and inexorability, like she could wait forever for this if not for that quite significant tinge of anxiety and distress much like that which my mum felt._

_I find myself warming to this Angel of the Black Sun ever so slightly because of a few reasons – she feels the same as mum, although I cannot be certain because her emotions are on a different level to those of humans, and she wants to do similar to mum as well. Besides, she is trying to protect me and mum from the terrifying angel named Tariel, and I can be nothing but grateful for that._

_Tariel snarls back, a sharp sound like a hiss from a gigantic, world-spanning tempest raining down cold fire and death, and my breath catches in my throat as the world spins around me. I can barely breathe, and when I do it is in short gasps for air from my hyperventilation, and mum more urgently rocks and rubs my back._

"_Breathe, Caiellis. Just breathe, young one. I am here for you. Just focus on my voice. In, out. In, out." mum tries to steady me, but I still can't force much air into my lungs as I shake violently from all of the strain of the fog and the angel's hissing voice of pure cold anger that is ripping through me. I feel that I am the recipient of two sympathetic stares, one significantly different to the other, but I do not want to open my eyes. All I do is focus on mum's sweet and comforting voice, trying to block out everything else, which I mostly succeed it._

"_You seek to blackmail me, Orzhova?!" Tariel shrieks at her, spontaneous bursts of cold emotion reaching out from the seething angel and clawing at me with talons of light, dark and fire from the inside that send shudders of strange pain through my small body. The other angel's response was determined, cold, resolute, but also urgent, "Yes, I do, Tariel. Your debt to me will be paid in full if you just give Caiellis to me. I can feel that it is not truly his time, that he lingers in the Lake of Emptiness, but your presence is pulling him over to the other side. I cannot allow this. I need him, Tariel. And even though I do not want to threaten you, if you do not free him I will make you pay."_

"_What is one mortal to you, Angel of the Black Sun? What is he to you, Orzhova?!" the other angel rages back, waves of unnatural fury washing over me and causing the dread within me to rise, but another presence reassures me alongside my mum, reinforcing power rushing through me from the Angel of the Black Sun that I am grateful for, though I do not know why she is helping me and mum or what she is saving us from. "He is very important to me, Tariel, because he is my second Summoner and I will not allow him to leave before it is his time. Now give him to me, Reckoner of Souls. I know that you can do it, that Caiellis has not truly been claimed yet."_

_The fury of the other angel rushes through me completely, surging throughout my body as I can't help but cry out in agonised pain, and mum holds me close as I scream and gasp for breath and sob murmuring to me all the while. "You're going to be alright, Caiellis, you're going to be ok. Just listen to me, and ride through the pain. You can do it. It will stop soon, Cai, it will stop soon."_

_The pain rises to its apotheosis of agony before draining out of me in a blaring whoosh of torment that would have had me staggering to my knees if not for mum holding me up and making sure that I don't stumble or fall. She tells me, though I can barely hear what she is saying over the slowly dissipating ringing in my head, "That's it, Caiellis. You're alright now. You did well."_

"_Fine. You can have the boy," Tariel spits, her voice originating from where she is standing instead of from inside of me, something that I am immensely grateful for. "But consider my debt to you paid in full, Orzhova. And do not think that I will ever help you again, Angel of the Black Sun."_

_She leaves as abruptly as that, though remnants of her presence still lingered which tell me that she is still watching us for some reason. Mum is about to pull away, but remains close to me after experimentally tugging away when I still hold onto her, unwilling to break off the contact after so long and wanting her to help me with the swirling morass of grey and colour within my head that I can't distinguish from one another._

"_Thank you. Thank you so much," mum says, though the words are not directed at me but the angel behind me who I cannot turn to look at and don't want to. With the departure of the first angel to speak to me and mum, the dread has let go of its vice like grip on my mind, and now the happiness and joy at seeing her, the woman who gave birth to me and showed me love that only a mother can give, again comes flooding back._

"_It is the least I can do," comes the reply, the urgent tone of the angel's more empathetic and less terrifying voice filling the silence and with some of the agitation gone, though I do not pay much attention to her. _

_All I care about is the fact that I am with mum again, and now that Tariel has gone I can be with her forever and have the love that was taken away from me when I was almost too young to truly remember it. Mum shifts slightly into a more comfortable position for her with me still hugging her, so I pull back a bit to give her more room, remembering that I'm not a toddler any more and despite the fact that I am small and light it could still be uncomfortable – my lack of size didn't stop it from having another human hanging off you awkward._

"_You saved my son, Ang- Orzhova. I don't think I will ever be able to repay _

_you for that," mum says, and I open my eyes again now that the pain has gone, though the grey confusion still remains in some parts and I still don't really understand what is happening. What I do understand is that mum is here, which means I am happy and safe, protected from the danger of the world and given love freely. The angel speaks, "It is my fault he is here in the first place, Queen Emili. I should have protected him. He should never have been sent here, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that it is many, many years in the future when he will return. And besides, I'm not sure I would have got here quickly enough if you hadn't been able to delay Tariel for so long, which I'm not sure how you did."_

"_Call it a mother's power to protect her child," the woman holding me answers back, though the conversation goes unnoticed by me. The angels' reply is simply, "Ah. I see. I'm not going to question you on it, because it helped us save Caiellis."_

_Mum nods, her arm still around my back and her free hand automatically brushing my tears from my cheeks as I smile up at her. The worry and concern, while not completely gone from her eyes, has dissipated somewhat in her emerald green gaze, replaced by happiness and love directed at me, and she smiles back, though it is still a sad smile rather than a smile of joy like the one that belongs to me._

"_It is time for us to go now, Caiellis," the angel's voice pierces into me from behind, and I narrow my eyes, shock running through me. That is exactly what I don't want to do. I want to stay here with mum, with the woman who gave birth to me and was ripped away from me before I truly got to know her as a person past a mother. I don't want to leave her with an angel that I don't know. But I am not opposed to leaving with her, so I ask, "Is mum coming with us?"_

"_No, Caiellis," the woman holding onto me answers after a brief moment of silence where the angel didn't respond, and I feel a surge of panic flooding through me, the empty and cold pit at the bottom of my stomach growing in size and dragging away all the happiness and joy which had been filling me. "I am not coming with you. I cannot come with you, young one, and that is how it is supposed to be. Don't cry, little one."  
I am barely even aware of the fact that tears have sprung up in my eyes again, barely able to feel the reality of them trickling down my cheeks for the second time as I stare in horror at mum who smiles sadly back at me, the sorrow in her eyes obvious even as she tries to hide it. _

"_No! No. I'm not leaving you … I won't be forced to leave you again..." I begin to sob, my voice starting to sound like that of a very young child's, but I don't care. All I care about is the fact that the angel wants to make me leave mum, and that is something that I do not want to happen more than anything in this strange world. "I can't leave you again ..."_

_My voice breaks, swallowed up in a sob of pure loss and torment at facing leaving my mum again as the horrible memories begin to rise above the surface of the mist clouding my mind, the sheer emptiness and depression that I felt when I was four years old and my mum had been ripped away from me._

"_You have to, Caiellis. I know that you don't want to leave me, and believe me I don't want to leave you again either, but you have so much more life left to live. Think of your brother and father, Caiellis. They would miss you so much. And it is not your time yet," mum tells me, but despite her encouragements and words I still feel the same sense of horror at having her torn away from me once again as she puts her hands on my shoulders once more and looks into my tear-blurred and welling eyes._

"_I don't want to..." I reply, sadly, sorrow suffusing my young voice as I cry, diverting my vision away from her because I don't want to meet her sad smile, because I don't want to see her eyes that tell me she wants me to leave. "You have to, sunbeam, you have to. I will be fine. And I will be waiting for you once it is truly your time."_

"_We have to leave," Orzhova's serious and urgent voice cuts in, stirring up more fractured memories within me. I know that I know the angel, and that she probably wants the best for me as well, just like mum, but that doesn't mean I want to go with her and leave mum. The tide is rippling around me, recoiling from me like I am a threat to it now, a far cry from when it surged around me and lead me forwards a few indeterminable moments ago which could have comprised seconds or months._

_Her heavy and angelic hand that radiates power grips onto my shoulder as mum lets go, and I twist away, pulling myself towards the woman who raised me up to the age of four and was pulled away from me at that tender age. _

"_No! Let g-go of me! I d-don't w-want t-to l-leave m-mum! G-get away f-from me!" I shout, my voice raw with the emotion surging within me as I grab hold of mum's hand like it is a lifeline when she is about to turn away. She turns back to me, meeting my desperate gaze once again, her face the only thing not blurred by the tears pouring out of the eyes I inherited from her._

_She kneels down to my height, though she is slightly smaller than me when she does it, and gently grasps my chin in her slender hand, tenderly turning it towards her when I send my dejected gaze to the ground._

"_Listen to me, young man. You have to go now, or Alexander and Marik will be missing you for as long as they live. And you have to live long as well, my youngest son, and have the happy life that you deserve. That is why you have to go with Orzhova. I will be safe here, Caiellis, and you will see me again when the time is right. Don't cry, baby. I know you are sad, but everything is ok."_

_How can I live a happy life without her in it? The question doesn't have an answer, and though I cannot remember my father and brother at all I know that they must have some importance to me from the brief glimpses of them in my memories of mum. _

"_I-I w-want t-to l-live w-with y-you," I protest weakly, all of my defiance of this fate drained out of me by her words. She smiles, a genuinely happy smile that almost hides the sadness in her eyes, sadness that I am here and sadness that I was nearly taken away by Tariel, whoever she is. _

"_He won't remember this, will he?" mum asks, though I do not see Orzhova's response. I assume it is a shake of the head by the way mum smiles sadly again and nods her head with a form of sorrowful contentment. She leans forwards and plants a kiss on my forehead, smoothing the hair that is so much like hers from my eyes, and then pulls away. "I love you so, so much, Caiellis. You won't remember this, but you have grown up into a fantastic young man. Though you are still my little boy (she smiles and pats my head affectionately, getting back to her feet) You will face pain when you get back into the world of the living, otherwise you wouldn't be here, but I'm sure that with the help of your dad and brother you will be able to get through it. Goodbye, my son. I will see you when it is the true time."_

"_No!" I call out as a feel an arm encircling my waist from behind. Mum begins to shine with a strange light from within, infusing her with an ethereal quality that makes her more translucent. Illumination spills out from the woman as I struggle against the iron-hard grip holding me back, but her smile does not fade as she does._

_The whole world is dissolving into darkness around me as I feebly bat at the arm holding me still and stopping me from getting to my mum, but even as she fades she is the only thing that remains light in my vision as I try to call out to her, the memories of losing her, the memories of her _death_ coming back to me in floods of tears and fragments of sheer pain and loss that overload my vision. Pain it pulling at me, cuts, burns, bruises and other types of agony rushing through my body and inflicting themselves onto me as I am pulled by Orzhova away from mum and away from the realm of endless silver water._

"_Mum! MUM!" I scream out without even knowing that I am doing so, wriggling in the grip of the angel as hard as I can, but nothing I do will stop her from dragging me away from the woman who is beginning to dissipate into particles of light. First her legs dissolve into flecks of gentle and warm golden illuminescence, then her lower body, and I cry and sob all the way till only her face is left in the darkness clouding my eyes._

"_I love you, my son."_

And then everything faded into blackness, and Caiellis wasn't able to stop himself from slipping back into the waiting shadows that wrapped around him and forced him into an agonising slumber.

.*.*.*.

"Son … Caiellis ..." Marik whispered to his baby boy as he held the lifeless body of the slender youngster in arms that looked far too big compared to the scrawny teenager, rocking him gently like he was still asleep as he held Caiellis close. He should have held him close so long ago, before this happened, before his son had decided that taking his own life was better than enduring the pain of his existence any longer.

Caiellis was dead. _Caiellis was dead!_

And there was nothing that Marik could do to help him, to save his son from the cold abyss that would drag him to the paradise the compassionate and brave boy deserved, and that scared him and thrust him into a deeper depression than he had ever been in before. His son was still in his arms, had bled out and probably choked on his own blood as the artery was slit, and though it would have been a quick dead it would have by no means been painless.

It hurt Marik to the core of his being to know that his youngest son had chosen that fate over living on because of what his father had said and done to him, horror possession be damned, leaving deep scars that would never heal in all of his remaining life.

His son was dead, and this city would die with him. It would not be what Caiellis would want, it was not what Marik would want either, but the Welkalites had gone too far and they needed to be punished so that they would never, ever threaten the safety of Lucael and the innocent children, like Caiellis, within it. Marik wasn't sure whether or not he could control his grief-stricken magic either out of him that was flooding out of his limbs, and he definitely didn't care at all about that.

"I'm so sorry … angels I'm so sorry ..." he murmured, but it was too late now, far too late for his son who had died because of his father's flaws and mistakes that should never have affected him. Marik's whole body was cold, as cold as his son's lifeless form that was limp in his father's embrace. Caiellis was too small, too thin, too young for this war, too young for any sort of violence or danger, and Marik didn't care about the fact that he was a Lucerna, that Caiellis had proved himself to be an exemplary warrior with a strategic mindset and a compassionate approach to warfare, something that had proved to be in his detriment.

Nothing he could say or do could help the boy now, and it was the most painful thing in the world to know that he _could _have easily saved his son from this horrible fate if he had only tried. Caiellis was his baby, his youngest son and the smallest member of his family, his heart and light alongside his brother, and he should have outlived them all. He shouldn't be the one dead here, that should be his worthless, good for nothing father who was crying over him and trying to repair fatal wounds, trying to infuse life into the lifeless.

Marik's world was going cold and dead around him, everything already having lost feeling apart from the boy in his hands as he gently stroked his blood-slick hair, and as such he barely heard the sound from around him. It was loud, but so, so quiet to the man who could only stare futilely at his son and wish that it was him in the boy's place and that Caiellis would be the one crying over the dead, the way that it was supposed to be. Fathers were not supposed to bury their sons. It was not supposed to happen.

"Dad?! Dad!" the words sounded as if they were distant, like they were shouted from many miles away and by the time they reached Marik's ears had grown quiet, but in actual fact they came from very close by. They were pained, and urgent, but that was it and Marik couldn't pay attention to them if he had wanted to. He kept staring at the still body of his youngest son, the innocent boy that was small for his age who he should have protected more than anything else, his mind freezing up with anguish and loss.

"DAD?! Caiellis?!" the shouts came to Marik, becoming more and more hysterical as time passed and the pounding of footfalls on the blood-slick ground could be heard, as well as the panting and pained breaths of another individual obviously suffering with his own wounds coming closer and closer every moment that stretched out into an eternity of coldness and sorrow to the king. He could not respond, could not turn from the still body of his youngest son to address this new arrival, and he could barely pay any attention to it as his first son neared the kneeling form of his distraught father holding the cold and slender body of his little brother.

The boy was turning more and more urgent by the second as his father didn't respond and he began to identify the small and broken body in his arms, terror flooding through Alexander as he pushed his wounded body to the extreme, hurtling blindly across the ruin of the courtyard covered in glass refracting the orange light of the evening sun that illuminated everything in a wan amber glow, ignoring Akroma's brief and almost mournful but calculating glance, as if assessing Alexander as not being a threat to her Summoner's grieving, and skidding to a halt beside his father.

Marik didn't even look up, and he couldn't even if he had wanted to. His attention was still fixed upon his poor youngest son, his precious baby who had been hurt so badly both emotionally and physically to the point where he didn't want to live any more. He didn't know how many minutes had passed since he had woken up and found his son like this, how many minutes had passed since Caiellis had decided that death was a better fate than living out a life where his father hated him and he blamed himself for the harm done to his family members, and he had no idea at all when Alexander arrived.

"DAD?! CAIELLIS! CAI! CAI!" the boy shouted, howling his brother's name as the boy was still in his father's arms. Marik felt himself being roughly shoved out of the way, almost sent tumbling backwards by the desperate push from his eldest son who ripped the body of his youngest out of his arms and instantly started screaming at the wounds inflicted upon the thirteen year old, the way that Caiellis's chest wasn't moving and his face was cold and infused with the grey pallor of death, lacking anything resembling life.

Marik wanted to stop his eldest son, wanted to shake him and tell him "It's over, we've lost. Caiellis is dead, and it is all my fault," but he couldn't. He couldn't do anything. He just stood there as his first son wrenched the body of his second from their father's arms and gripped the boy tightly with a ferocity that the man had never seen from Alexander before, not even whilst watching him fight the Welkalites opposing them or when Caiellis had been captured by the Master of Violence Arendus Draal. Alexander shouted loudly at the boy, who for once did not respond to his big brother's calls or movements.

All this screaming … it was too late. It would never be enough. And the fact makes Marik want to fall to his knees again, belatedly realising that he had stood up and was towering over his eldest and youngest son. The seventeen year old held the body of his little brother in his arms in a reflection of Marik's earlier actions, sobbing incoherently and screaming frantically at the unmoving younger boy, his eyes already blinded by tears of terror and anguish at seeing Caiellis like this.

Alexander was screaming, but Marik couldn't hear what he was saying. He wasn't even sure that the teenager was using words, but it didn't matter because the horrible noises aptly carried his grief, grief that Marik felt himself and grief that had already consumed the king and was dragging the middle Lucerna underneath its tides of anguish also.

The supreme king of Lucael could only watch as Caiellis's body fell limply to the floor as Alexander let go of him. The older boy was hovering over his brother, trembling and shaking in a way that Marik had been doing himself and was probably doing now, shaking the younger boy's body, checking for a pulse, screaming at Caiellis, screaming at Marik.

"DAD! CAI! CAI!" he howled, his voice becoming rawer and rawer as he screamed at the two members of his family. Neither of the two were moving, not even a little – unless one counted Alexander's frantic shaking of his baby brother. Alexander was moving enough for all of them, with frantic and desperate movements that spoke of the deepest denial and grief that Marik knew was flooding through him, though with the latter far eclipsing the latter now that he was beginning to truly come to terms with the scale of his mistakes.

The eldest prince was grabbing at his small and heavily wounded younger brother, pulling at the younger boy who didn't respond in any way to his brother's touch just like he hadn't responded to his father's. Marik felt that if Caiellis was going to react to anything, it would be the older brother who he had lived his whole life with and was closer to than anyone else in this cruel world, but the fact that he didn't only confirmed the worst.

Tears were already streaming down Alexander's bruised and battered cheeks that looked too young for this war as well, the seventeen year old who always acted much older than his age when he wasn't teasing or arguing with his brother breaking down in front of the corpse of the younger boy and crying over him.

Caiellis's body had no life of its own and it flopped in Alexander's unsteady and violently shaking hands as he unceremoniously dumps his brother on the ground, preparing to go through the desperate motions that the king had only executed what seemed like lifetimes but could only have been a few seconds ago. But Alexander didn't notice and he didn't care to the point that he acknowledged it meant that his little brother was in an extremely bad condition. He hauls his brother's across the courtyard, the small body stretched out at an awkward angle as the seventeen year old begins to desperately pump at his chest in an ultimately futile attempt to restart his heart, much more violently than Marik had done it.

Blood spurted out from the younger boy's mouth and dripped down his chin at the forceful motions of his big brother using all of the strength he could muster to pound his hands on the thirteen year old's chest that wasn't moving of its own accord, and the boy knew he would probably be breaking Caiellis's fragile bones and at the very least leaving more horrible bruising by doing this, but he didn't care. Anything was worth saving him. Anything.

He was screaming and whispering in alternating bursts of hysteria and anguish as he panted for breath, his own wounds aching with a fiery pain that refused to be ignored but one that the seventeen year old disregarded anyway. Caiellis's head fell back, his brown hair matted with both unnatural and natural crimson blood making it sticky and thick. His arms slid backwards limply, dragging backwards against the shredded ground as his brother moved him in the attempt to bring him back to life.

"DAD! WE NEED TO HELP CAI!" the boy shrieked in misery and anguish and frustration at his father who was just standing there behind him and making no moves in helping the older boy with saving the youngest member of their small but infinitely precious family that Alexander would easily give up everything for. "DAD!"

Marik just watched, watched as if he wasn't even there as the middle Lucerna frantically pumped at his brother's chest and tried breathing for him, coughing at the blood in his mouth as he resumed the compressions which would have been ineffectual even if Caiellis had still been alive because of how much the older adolescent was shaking violently, his blue eyes wide and pouring with tears. It was like he was watching some form of theatrical tragedy production playing out in front of his eyes that he couldn't stop or change or even comment upon as the older boy desperately tried to save the youngest from a death that he had already entered before the seventeen year old came here.

Shuddering violently and feeling like he was going to throw up his guts, Alexander pulled his brother closer, momentarily abandoning his chest compressions to drag Caiellis's chest against his own, burying his head into Caiellis's painfully thin shoulder and sobbing his eyes out against his little brother as the boy's own head fell forwards and rested on Alexander's shoulder.

From a distance it would look like the two were simply embracing after the battle, but Marik knew better than that. Alexander's cries were far away. His grieved motions were untouchable as he pulled his baby brother away once again so that he could get a better look at the still body, his own form still wracked by brutal sobs that sounded like his heart was being wrenched out of his chest and dragged out of his mouth.

The king could only watch as his eldest son desperately tries again to repair the mistake of his father, stood still barely a metre away but convinced that he might as well have been thousands of mile distant for all the help that he could provide. He simply stood still with his arms unmoving at his sides, covered in Caiellis's blood, resting on legs that he couldn't feel. He wasn't even sure if he was breathing or not.

Alexander's hands were on his little brother again, and the older boy wished that they didn't look so big compared to his sibling's small body, the fragility of Caiellis that he should have protected, the thing that he needed to protect more than anything else but the thing that he had failed by being delayed by Arendus Draal for so long. They went over his brutally cut and bruised chest, to the horrible, horrible cut on his slender throat that undoubtedly put Caiellis in the state that he was in currently, to his face that looked too innocent and too young in the orange light of the Welkalite sun piercing through the black clouds above the City of Pleasure.

Long and reasonably thick, though not huge fingers that usually showed strength but were now radiating panic and shaking unstably landed on the pulse point on Caiellis's cheek, placed on the faded Black Sun that always made Caiellis look even more innocent and pure and had never stopped Alexander from loving him more than anything else in spite of what it might entail, searching desperately for any signs of life within the broken body of the youngster.

The thirteen year old didn't twitch, didn't move other than his body automatically shifting under the pressure like any normal object, just laid there as his big brother tried frantically to salvage something from Marik's horrible mistakes as his father watched powerlessly. When that yielded nothing, the boy hugged his baby brother close once more, spinning around back to his father who watched with streaming eyes, though he could not feel the tears spilling down his own cheeks and matching the liquid pouring down Alexander's own.

Anger, anger worse than Marik had ever seen before even when the boy had been shouting at him because of Caiellis's self harming, was suddenly directed at the king, fiery anguish that could have incinerated him in the flames of their grieving fury if not for the fact that the king was already consumed by an inferno of cold sorrow blazing out across the distance between the two.

The king was sure that his son would have slammed him up against the wall if it meant that he didn't have to let go of his little brother, and Marik wouldn't have resisted at all because he deserved the pain, deserved his son's anger. Alexander would be even more furious if he had known what circumstances had led to Caiellis being like this, but right now the only reason his anguished anger was targeted towards his father was because of the fact that he could make no moves towards his two sons.

"HELP ME! I WON'T LET HIM GO! HELP ME, DAMN YOU! YOU WILL HELP HIM!" Alexander was losing it, screaming hysterically at his father, sounding like a toddler in the midst of a terrible tantrum, and Marik couldn't blame him. He wanted to reach out to his eldest son, to stop him, to tell him that it is too late for Caiellis now, but he didn't have the heart, didn't have the will, didn't have the power to break out of his own freezing tides of grief.

Caiellis was dead.

"HELP HIM! H-Help h-him!" the boy choked out, and for a brief moment Marik realised that this was probably similar to how Akroma had felt when he had howled at her in desperate sorrow only minutes ago. Alexander's words become slurred, gurgled out through the tears that were defiant of Caiellis's fate, painful sobs that should have stirred out sadness within Marik if not for the fact that his heart had died with his youngest son and all that was left within him was anguish worse than the cries of his eldest could ever create. "H-he's y-your s-son! H-how c-can y-you j-just s-stand t-there?! Y-you h-have t-to h-help h-him! W-we c-can't l-let C-Cai d-die ..."

When Marik didn't respond in any way, Alexander howled in fury and incoherent rage at the fact that his dad was just stood there and making no moves towards his little brother, turning back round and hugging the younger boy close. But instead of there being a response from his little sibling, there was nothing, no snuggling closer as Caiellis leaned into the comfort given by his big brother, no half-hearted defiance as the smaller boy tried to push Alex away because the embrace was far too harsh and hurt, nothing, just endless stillness that scared the seventeen year old more than anything else in the world. Alexander almost collapsed, his forehead pressed to his little brother's and his lips to Caiellis's pale and grey cheeks, showing such affection that made Marik ache even more in empathetic pain because he wished he had done similar in the past.

"No … no … you can't … little brother … you can't ..." the boy sobbed, though even through that Marik barely heard. Alexander's emotions were much stronger than the ones that had and were flooding throughout his forty year old father, because of his more intimated connection with the youngster that had been stolen from them by the sheer cruelty of the world. The seventeen year old forced acidic bile back down his throat, refusing to be sick on his little brother and affording him that one dignity as he easily manoeuvred him around, refusing to accept the fact that Cai might be dead.

He just couldn't. Such a concept did not exist to the eldest prince, and as such he could never give up on his baby brother, the person who he should have protected, the person who made everything better just by being around and the person who had helped Alex so much through his own life. And his cries were so far away to the Lucerna king who could feel the world being ripped away from him, the brief happiness that he should have been able to cling onto and should have protected but which he hadn't seen and hadn't realised was right in front of him departing with Caiellis's life. Alexander's denial flared up again, and his grief broke for a moment as he dropped his brother down once more. "No."  
The monosyllable was brief but utterly adamant, filled with an older brother's will to protect their younger siblings. The boy leaned over for a second time, and Marik thought that the middle Lucerna was going to kiss his little brother again, but instead Alexander started to breathe once more into his brother's mouth, puffing air into him that was not taken up by Caiellis, tears of pain and self-loathing and sheer despair coursing down his cheeks all the while as he tried everything to bring life back to the younger brother that he loved so much and couldn't live without.

Alexander was snapping in half, but Marik could do nothing to help him because he had already been torn apart by the death of his youngest, and now that he had accepted it and given into his overwhelming grief the world was cold and dead around him. Alexander pulled back for only a second and let out a screaming howl of defiance mirroring Marik's own but somehow much worse because he was still only the tender age of seventeen years old and he should never have been forced to cope with such loss. The sound was horrible, like the young boy's heart breaking right in front of his father's eyes with nothing he could do to stop it as the eldest son of the king tried to revive the youngest.

"W-why d-did i-it h-have t-to b-be h-him? H-he i-is o-only t-thirteen … Why him?! Why my little brother?! Why couldn't it have been me?! WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE CAI?!"

And then suddenly, with a rush of alternating life and coldness that would never leave the king now that his youngest was gone, Marik's feeling of being immeasurably distant to the plight of his seventeen year old boy shattered like his heart had already done. The king would not survive this, he would never survive the grief of seeing two of his infinitely precious family members dying in front of him and because of him, especially with one who had died thinking that his father hated him and blamed him for the death of his mother, but that did not mean that in spite of all of the loss and the death Alexander couldn't have a happy life, couldn't have the life that they all deserved but only he was able to take now.

He was at his sons' side without even realising it, leaning over the two boys as Alexander howled and cried in anguish and sloppily tried to save his brother through the panic, terror and hysterical sadness gripping him and refusing to let go because of the condition that his four year younger brother was in. The boy couldn't even see him or Caiellis, his eyes blinded by the tears cascading out of them, and while Marik still cried it was done so silently, without the agonised sobs that wracked the blonde youngster which had afflicted his father only moments before the seventeen year old arrived. Even though the boy couldn't see, he still looked up at his dad, his welling eyes wide and full of tears and emotion that Marik wasn't sure he could ever repair.

Even after all these years, Alexander still looked to his father who he trusted almost more than anyone else to do the right thing for guidance in this horrible situation, guidance that he couldn't provide as he stared into the boy's wet eyes, Alexander still fixing him with his anguished gaze defiant of the state of his little brother even as he tried to breathe for the boy who wouldn't make the air his own and whose lungs wouldn't restart after being still and cold for so long.

Marik knew that during that horrible night long ago that was somehow eclipsed by this, had he been able to turn around when Alexander had woken up after the death of his mother and the start of the civil war, he would have been presented by something exactly the same as how the seventeen year old looked now. Wide blue eyes brimming with tears staring up at him, hoping that he could do something to fix this mess, to fix Caiellis and fix the family that would be shattered apart if he left if, and Marik knew that he could do none of these things so it made it even more painful to watch his eldest struggling at the impossible task of bringing Caiellis back from the dead.

He turned away once more, breaking off the contact with his father in favour of focussing on Caiellis even more, something that seems right to the king even though he wanted to help his eldest son. Alexander loved his little brother so much, and it was his father's fault that the thirteen year old would be ripped away from his best friend, protector and brother.

"Alexander ..." Marik barely recognised his own voice. It was so empty and broken and terrified that it sounded alien to him, and would have been doing nothing to aid his eldest son. The boy was almost choking himself to death trying that hard to make his brother's lungs inflate with air, blood leaking from the cut in Caiellis's neck that had killed him and crimson liquid trickling down Alexander's mouth like he was some sort of vampire feasting upon the younger boy.

The seventeen year old was killing himself he was pushing his quite heavily wounded body so far to try and save his little sibling, though if he was anything like Marik then his own injuries had lost all of their sting in the face of the void of grief that threatened the swallow them both up at the death of the youngest member of their small but precious family that was far from perfect but could have been close to it if only the head of it hadn't been so blinded and angry, letting his negative emotion rule him and using that to fuel his rage directed at the one of them who was still.

"Alexander," Marik tried again when the boy didn't change his position, his words almost coughed out of his raw throat and almost too quiet to be heard, as if because his youngest son had been deprived of the opportunity to make any more sound his father could not do so either. This time it was pleading and desperate. They couldn't help Caiellis, it was too late for that now, far too late, and Marik was beyond saving from the chasm of despair and utter coldness that was consuming him, but he would be damned if the last remaining member of his family didn't get to live on and at least battle through the grief.

Failure passed between the two. Failure and resignation and utter hopelessness, though the second was refusing to be adopted by Alexander no matter how much of it flooded through him and screamed at him that his thirteen year old brother who had so much left to do and had his whole life ahead of him was dead and he had failed to protect him. Marik knew that there was no recovering from this. This was the failure that would kill them both, and they could both feel it happening, the stillness of the smallest Lucerna sapping away at their energy, draining their will to keep on living and destroying the strength of their grip upon the happiness that was denied to them. But while Marik was certain that he would never be able to escape that, Alexander still had the chance to do so and obtain happiness once more, and as a father the only thing that he could do was to help his sons as much as he could.

The king felt himself breaking as he reached towards his eldest son, his face puffy and red from all the exertion of trying to force air into his brother still held tightly in his arms. He was reaching towards the only son that he could help now, the last remaining member of his broken family that had started so perfectly but been torn asunder by jealously, negligence, war and darkness. He was still cradling his younger brother, the thirteen year old small and young in his brother's arms, any growing that he had done utterly eclipsed by the gains of height, weight and muscle Alexander had put on in the same time.

Alexander breathed again, hacking out a pained cough that spoke of broken ribs like the ones that were the least of their concerns about Caiellis and spitting blood, both that which belonged to him and that which had gotten to him from his dead brother, as he did so, panting for air which he could use to try and save his brother with. His free hand touched the side of Caiellis's cold face, brushing the cheek that was cut and covered in bruising and scars and shuddering even more at the thought of the amount of pain that his little brother went through.

Marik couldn't let this happen.

He could not let more than one son be broken in front of him, and Alexander was perilously close to shattering. He needed to help the seventeen year old – it would be what Caiellis would have wanted –; he needed to help Alexander let his brother go when the time came. He gripped onto the boy's broad shoulder that still had a measure of youthfulness to it, still small enough to have his father's large hand clamping round it fully. It was a strong grip, even though the forty year old was trembling, though that was lost underneath Alexander's frightened and violent shaking that was tantamount to convulsing in the terror running through him at the thought of a life without his little brother.

"It's too late," he told the younger male, trying to keep his voice as emotionless as possible, as strong and firm as he could make it because for once, just like when Alexander was younger, he would provide solidarity and security for his eldest son, solidarity and security that he had failed to give to his youngest and paid a horrible price for it. There was no easier way to say this, no possible way to say it nicer because of the truly terrifying information that it contained.

The king let the words sink into them both like a brand that seared their souls, a failure that would mark them forever but one that Alexander played no part in, one that he shouldn't have to carry grief and guilt over for the rest of his life like Marik would. Alexander shook his head, trying to argue, trembling and unable to catch his breath as his pants broke upon a renewed burst of sobbing. The boy tried to pull away, but the man's grip was firm and unyielding on his shoulder as the seventeen year old cried.

An ounce of more defiance gurgled up from the sobbing youngster holding his little brother in his arms and he pulled away, fighting to regain control of himself so that he could help his younger sibling who did not deserve to die, who did not deserve to have gone through all the pain that he did, once more. He growled back at his dad, whose hand was gripping his shoulder tightly to stop him from breaking away and to offer the young teenager as much reassurance and comfort as possible without forcing him to let go of his brother, and his voice was throaty and barely human it was saturated with so much sadness. "No. No!"

"Alexander … he's not ..." there were no words that weren't cruel, so Marik simply kept his large hand on his son's shoulder, wanting to break every single person and thing that put his sons through so much pain and wishing that he could do anything to change this, to swap places with Caiellis and give his sons the lives that they had fought for and the lives that had been torn away from them nine years ago by his brother and the demons he sold his soul to for dark power. Tears spilled down his own cheeks as he beheld his two sons, one of them dead and the other one extremely close to it and dying inside, and his grip on Alexander's shoulder shook. He had to put all of his will power into stopping himself from wrapping the shuddering and sobbing boy, his eldest son, into a hug and letting him cry over his father, because Alexander needed time with Caiellis and would react violently to being torn away from him.

He deserved time with his younger brother who had died because of Marik's failure to be a father, his failure to protect the things that were closest to him and his failure to make sure his sons knew that they were loved more than anything else in this world. Alexander deserved to be with his little brother, because he was the only one in Caiellis's family that had shown him the love that Marik should have given him after the loss of Emili, and if anything the seventeen year old had been a better father to Caiellis than his actual one.

He had protected the younger boy, taught him about the world, stayed with him throughout the civil war, fought their dad for the thirteen year old's sake and always been there to emotionally reassure and comfort him, was always there to be whatever Caiellis needed, and the second the youngest Lucerna was in his father's care Marik failed both of his sons and his wife who had given birth to both of them, failed himself because he had been too stupid to embrace the happiness of the world that still existed even after the death of his soul mate, pushing away and despising the gift of his two wonderful sons who had survived the civil war.

If anything, Alexander had much more of a reason to be sad than their failure of a father, as he wept over the slender and small form of his younger brother who was as thin as a tall teenager should be but without the height to match it, making him seem so young and fragile which he was, so vulnerable. Caiellis limply rested his head on his brother's shoulder as Alexander gave up trying to breathe for him for another short moment, panting for breath desperately as the body of his sibling leaned into him, the two innocent boys appearing like they were embracing each other without the fact that Caiellis's arms were hanging at his sides instead of wrapped part way across his brother.

And how many times had Marik seen his sons like this, peeking in on his sons to see them sleeping in the same bed and drawing comfort from one another? There had been the night after the Aksua incident and the first of the horrible arguments between father and youngest son, where Caiellis had calmed down his scared and pained older brother and likewise gained security and safety from being with someone he could trust after being hurt by their dad. And then there had been the early hours of today, whereby his young sons had cuddled up to each other before the battle because of how scared they both were, and how many arguments Marik and Caiellis had gone through the day before, the day when the horror had made the king strangle his youngest son for the first and what should have been the last time he ever laid a hand on his son with the intent to do harm.

They had snuggled together, sensing what each other had needed and giving it freely and readily, setting aside the proprietary barriers of being teenage boys who also needed personal space to do so and help one another, whereas Marik hadn't been able to set aside the role of being a Lucerna king to come to the aid of his youngest son when he needed emotional reassurance that his brother was almost too wounded to give.

But now, instead of them sleeping in the same bed as one another and snug in the presence of each other, innocence and brotherly love made manifest, Alexander was wracked with shivers of fright and grief that wouldn't stop and his brother wasn't moving at all of his own accord, would have been still without the trembling seventeen year old trying to fix his father's mistakes.

Marik kept his hand heavy on his son's shoulder, ready and waiting to provide comfort when needed even though he doubted that anything he could ever do would help either of his sons or even himself. He wouldn't be able to salvage Alexander's heart, because his own was broken and there was no way that he could fix it after seeing Caiellis take his own life and cry his eyes out because of what he thought his father's true opinion of him was, sadness equal to that which Alexander and Marik felt afflicting his youngest son and making him not want to live any longer, but instead of running from the pain of his children this time, he would do his damned hardest to help the last remaining member of his family.

Alexander would let go of his brother eventually, because he had to, even though Marik knew that it could be hours before he did so, and the king would wait all that time and more for the point where his seventeen year old son, too young for this type of grief, although there was no one old enough for it, no one that deserved it, curled into his father and sobbed into the man instead of his still younger brother. And Marik would be there for him.

He had nowhere else to go, and the world was cold around him. The army could be winning the battle for Usnaan, especially after his son's sacrifice, the destruction of the Archdemon Rakdos and the annihilation of the Tempest of Craving that was giving the Welkalites a massive advantage, or it could be being slaughtered without the Lucernas to lead it. Marik didn't care, even though a small part of him insisted that now he had failed his sons he could not fail the kingdom, but he knew that the generals of the Lucaelian force were adept enough to finish the battle without him or Alexander.

He needed to remain with his eldest son, to help him through this as much as he could. The boy was the only thing that was left to Marik, and while he would never obtain happiness again that didn't mean that Alexander should be left bereft of it for the rest of his life.

Marik was about to say something as the snivelling of his eldest child abated somewhat, the boy sobbing more quietly and managing to whisper to his brother, too quiet and broken for the forty year old to hear even in the silence all around them, about to do something to try and help the only son that he had left, when Alexander shrieked loudly.

"He's not dead!"

The words were alien to the king, who automatically assumed, trapped within his own freezing ocean of anguish making everything cold and colourless around him, dulling down every sensation and every emotion apart from the grief and the guilt consuming him, that Alexander was simply protesting defiantly in the face of his brother's horrible predicament, that he refused to believe that Caiellis was dead because of the awful reality that the thirteen year old would not live out the rest of his life being too harsh for the youngster. The boy shouted again at his brother, "Caiellis!"

But instead of defiance within the tone, this time it was not resistance to the stillness of his baby brother, it was belief and truth and relief and utter desperation that wracked the seventeen year old. Marik leaned forwards, his hand slipping from his son's shoulder involuntarily as he did so.

And, just like that, Marik bore witness to a miracle.

Alexander quickly pushed his little brother away from him so that he could see the boy who was vibrating without his brother's trembling movements, something so infinitesimal and small that Marik hadn't noticed it, though even with how imperceptible it would have been he was not in the least bit surprised that Alexander had picked up on it because of his intimate connection with his younger brother.

Alexander was crying again, tears of shock and joy mixed with the anguish and sadness that hadn't truly gone yet but was having none of the boy's attention, and while Caiellis was still limp in his brother's arms he was limp but trembling himself as well.

_It can't be …_

While Marik did not know how long his baby boy had been dead and cold for as time had lost all meaning to him after waking up and being confronted by his corpse, he knew for certain that Caiellis was dead, and the boy wouldn't suddenly restart without his brother or father doing anything at the time to help him. The king was afraid to believe, afraid to believe that the boy's body wasn't just trembling from releasing the magical energy that had been poured into it when his father had desperately tried to use White mana borne of his protective grief to repair his broken form, but when he saw the sparkles of light above the boy's birthmark he knew that his son was coming back to life.

There were sparkles of gold and purple, but more so of the latter, a haunting and melancholy yet innocent and pure sphere of radiance and iridescence floating above the Black Sun on the boy's bruised and bloody cheek, dancing around it like the luminescent flight of a Goldenglow moth Summoning. It was a weak light, but it was there, filled with a strength that was much more than its dimmed form, and Marik somehow _knew_ that this little ball of light was as much his youngest son as the small and thin body held tightly and protectively in his big brother's arms.

"He's alive!" Alexander cried, choking on the words of utter and unadulterated joy flooding through him. Marik didn't want to be premature, he didn't want to be filled with the hope that his son was alive only for it to be a trick of the light. He had known that his son was dead, but his skinny chest was hitching forwards like he was trying to breathe as the light was slowly absorbed into him. The paleness of his bloodied cheeks did not dissipate, but the dead greyness of them did, and even though the boy was as white as a sheet where he was not wounded he was still alive.

He knew what he saw. He knew that he lost one son today at the price of his arrogance, at the price of his failure to be the only thing that the boy needed from him. He knew it … but …

A flicker of scintillating darkness and resonant light caught him at the corner of his vision, and even though he was loathe to tear his eyes away from his sons for the fear that Caiellis would leave him whilst he wasn't looking, he had to look over at it. There, stood by his sons' side, was an angel, the most magnificent angel that Marik had ever seen, the angel that Marik had been the most grateful to see out of all of them.

She was weak, and infused with an ethereal quality that made her fade in and out of the world and allowed the king to see through her even when she was there, and for a second Marik though he was imagining the image, imaging his son coming back to life as his grief-stricken mind refused to accept the reality that he was dead. But she was there, Marik could see her, her hand outstretched where she had released the little ball of light that was his youngest son into the abused body of the boy here, and he was not imagining it as she turned towards the king.

There was hatred in her eyes, hatred that Marik deserved, and grief, grief that the king was intimately familiar with, as well as some sympathy that he did not merit at all. However, the greatest part of her haunting and awe-inspiring gaze was the pleading note to it, something that he had never seen from an angel before but something that alerted him to the direness of the situation despite the miracle of life in his son once again.

Her lips, purple and infused with an angelic glow that could have made Marik fall to his knees and weep, moved. Even though no sound came out of them, the king could still read the words that were spoken.

"_Save him."_

And suddenly, the coldness around the king shattered as the dark angel dissolved into twinkling particles of beautiful and iridescent purple illumination, and sensation returned to the king as he staggered forwards, his eyes instantly going towards his youngest son as the light pulsed into his Lucerna birthmark and disappeared. Marik was still scared to believe, scared to even breathe, because of how terrified he was at the possibility of losing his youngest son once again, but the boy was breathing right in front of him.

Or at least trying to. Caiellis's skinny chest hitched up and down, and his mouth opened, gaping for air as his brother watched with bated breath and eyes blinded by tears. His eyes remained resolutely shut, and he was clearly unconscious, but that didn't stop him from making horrible wheezing, gasping sounds as blood began to bubble up from his lips and choke him, the pained noises he was making breaking Marik completely out of his stupor as he knelt down quickly beside Alexander, the seventeen year old still clutching onto his younger brother as he gazed at him with a mixture of pure relief and hysterical panic as the smaller boy trembled, blood spilling from his slightly open mouth.

"Caiellis..." the older boy whispered, his eyes still wide with shock and horror as his brother moved weakly in his hands, his arms wrapped around Caiellis but not clutching him too tightly so that he could not see what was happening. Marik leaned forwards, stretching out his hand to his youngest son and searching for a pulse. There still wasn't one, which was extremely bad, as the little life that had been given back to his little boy by the Angel of the Black Sun would soon run out without any air and no beating of his heart to pump blood around his body and infuse him with energy.

He quickly took of his gauntlets, ripping off the ornate and artificer relic armour and tossing the metal gloves aside so that he could better help his son as his heartbeat was loud inside of his head, thumping desperately inside of him as the hope of having his son back after being swamped by endless freezing anguish clashed with the horrible possibility of not being able to save him once again, not being able to help his son because his wounds were too bad even with the life given to the boy.

That would not happen. Now that Caiellis was alive, Marik would not fail him again, he would never fail him again, and while the man and his child still drew breath Caiellis would be protected and safe and _he is going to live angels damn it if it is the last thing I do! He deserves to live, and Orzhova has given me this chance to make up for all of my mistakes and I am _**not **_going to waste Caiellis's last opportunity for life._

He wouldn't lose Caiellis again. He wouldn't lose Caiellis. He wouldn't lose Caiellis, Alexander wouldn't lose his little brother, Emili wouldn't see her youngest son in paradise until, many, many more years had passed, and Marik would be the first out of his family to see his wife once again. Johnias wouldn't, because there was a special place in hell reserved for the king's twin brother, but right now Marik did not care about that at all. All he cared about was the truth that his second son had been given a lifeline by his angelic Summoning Orzhova, a thin strand of life that Marik had to secure and allow Caiellis to never let go of for as long as his dad lived.

The king quickly wiped away tears with his bloody hands, the amount of crimson vitae that had spilt upon his gauntlets when he had been wearing them meaning that some had leaked through the very small gaps in them and now covered his hands. He needed to see his son; he couldn't be crying now or indulging in his own emotions because Caiellis's hold upon life was very weak, his son still couldn't breathe on his own and his heart wasn't beating.

_Alright, Marik, stop panicking. You can do this. Caiellis needs you, and you can do this. _He consciously managed to stop most of his shuddering, only to the point where it wasn't going to hurt Caiellis, but he couldn't stop all of the shaking because he was still scared for his son.

His eldest boy still held his brother, his motions and shaking frozen up as he stared at his younger sibling, his eyes fixed upon the younger boy's face that was still motionless apart from the crimson bubbling up from his pale, blue lips and spilling down his face and chin. Alexander was still trembling, as was his brother in his arms, but neither of them were moving apart from that. It seemed that the seventeen year old who had tried desperately to save his dead brother when his father had been stood still and unable to help was now prevented from reacting by his horror at seeing his brother dying right in front of his eyes, the tiny bit of life given to him by the angel, his saviour, running out as his older brother was powerless to act.

The boy was transfixed by seeing his brother die, because he hadn't seen it the first time and couldn't do anything to help him, couldn't force his body into moving as he forgot how to move.

"We need to perform CPR and breathe for him, Alexander," Marik told the boy, quickly, efficiently, his voice only carrying how scared he was at the possibility of losing Caiellis for the second time now that he could help the much younger male, losing almost all of the grief and broken anguish within it as he grabbed hold of the chance to save his son with all of his might. He didn't even notice Akroma dissipating because of the fact that all of his mana had been used up, didn't feel her returning to him as he spoke to his eldest son. He sounded far saner than he truly felt, but he had to be strong now, for Caiellis.

Alexander looked up at him once again, and once again he appeared extremely young and barely put together, like a tiny breeze would knock him over and shatter his body. His blue eyes were wide and scared for a second time, gazing up at Marik with a mixture of confusion borne from severe shock and fear as tears pour out of his eyes. The boy then murmured, "He's going to be ok."

There was a scary shade of hope and brokenness in Alexander's voice, and it made Marik wonder when and how he forgot his children were still only young boys and unsuited for this amount of emotional and physical pain. He needed comfort, stability, and love. Both of his sons needed comfort and love, but Marik couldn't give these things right now, he didn't know how to give them now, he didn't have the time to give them now. But he could offer them strength. It was all that he had right now, welling up from a source that Marik couldn't identify within him but one that he was immensely grateful for.

"Alexander? Do you understand me?" the king asked, his voice too harsh, but he couldn't control his tone now, not when it didn't matter. He was reminded of when Alexander had been as close to dying as Caiellis was now (though even then the younger boy was probably much closer), when he had acted with irritation and anger at everything because of how scared he was, shouting at Caiellis for being unable to help hoist his brother up. This was similar to that, but instead of anger there was just desperation that made his voice hard and growling.

He reached out to take his youngest son from his eldest, the boy too shocked watching his baby brother struggle to breathe or live to act, but Alexander's grip was fierce and he was not letting go. Alexander didn't know how to let go. He had been holding onto Caiellis as the world and everything they had known was ripped apart around them since he was eight years old, and he wasn't about to stop now, not for anything.

"He's going to be ok?" Alexander repeated, but this time it was much more of a question, a desperate inquiry that sent waves of terror through the king. The boy sounded younger than eight years old this time, though the words were infused with all of the terror he had felt waking up to a dead mother in the arms of his father and being held back by former Guardian Axeclion.

If the Lucerna patriarch had any intentions on answering truthfully and as factually as possible, he would have told the younger man that all signs pointed towards Caiellis not surviving this, that Caiellis needed a hospital and dedicated healers to save his life but there was no way that he would be able to get to one in time, that the only thing his father and brother could do to help him was to stabilise his condition as much as possible and even then his hold upon life would still be perilous and he wouldn't be able to breathe on his own.

But Marik wasn't even thinking of these facts himself. All he was thinking about was the safety of his youngest son, the second chance he had been given to save the boy's life when he had been too late and too negligent the first time around, so instead he answered with the only words that he knew, "He will, Alexander. But we need to help him, and I need to have him."

That was enough to convince the seventeen year old to be able to relinquish his grasp upon his fragile little brother who was barely moving but _was _moving all the same, even if those movements were only frail little shakes as blood was spat up from his mouth and the cut in his neck. Alexander wasn't subdued enough to let go of his brother fully, however, which was a good thing as Marik went about quickly and extremely efficiently going into a routine of examining his youngest son, sharply aware of how little time they had to save Caiellis.

"We are going to perform CPR, do you understand me Alexander?" Marik asked, keeping his voice as level and even as he could as to not scare his eldest son who ideally needed someone seeing to his wounds as well. This was something that he knew how to do, and with that came the strength to act. He hadn't been able to do anything for Caiellis when he was dead, but now that he was alive again he could approach each problem as it came and right now what his son needed was to be able to breathe and have his heart pumped around his body.

"Shouldn't we call for help? Shouldn't we get a healer?" Alexander asked quickly as his father gently pulled his youngest son completely away from his eldest, the boy coming round the side and instinctively grabbing hold of one of Caiellis's small and delicate hands which shouldn't have ever been wrapped around the handle of a weapon, much less wielding the weapon against the foulest horrors and demons of the forsaken abyssm.

He quickly wiped the tears of joy and shock and grief away from his face and vision, his eyes still transfixed by the horrible image of his brother choking on his blood almost silently that would remain with him for as long as he lived. Marik positioned Caiellis flat on his back again, tilting his head backwards.

"There is no time," Marik replied quickly, "We either do this ourselves or Caiellis will be gone. Do you hear me, Alexander? Caiellis will be gone if we don't help him."

He didn't want to scare his son past the terror that was already flooding through the seventeen year old boy, but the words had to be said and honestly Marik couldn't care less about the emotional state of Alexander when Caiellis was dying in front of his eyes once again – but this time he wasn't trapped in his mind and only able to watch, no, this time he could help. He could save his youngest son, and he needed Alexander's help to do that no matter how the teenager felt.

He didn't wait for the boy's response, but leaned over and pinched Caiellis's nose once again, blowing hard into his mouth to the point where his own vision was blurring with streaks of darkness. With one hand he held his son's head still and in the right position, and with the other he put pressure on the wound slicing open his throat, dearly wishing he hadn't wasted all of his mana earlier trying to heal a corpse because now he might be able to seal it up. Watching Caiellis's chest begin to rise and fall even as the boy made horrible choking noises, he positioned himself over the youngster's thin chest.

"I need you to breathe for him," Marik ordered, because orders he could work with, orders he could give out and orders he could follow, so as he commanded his son he commanded himself in a series of steps inside of his head that prevented the despair and anguish and guilt which would do nothing for Caiellis from overwhelming him.

He grabbed hold of Alexander's bare and bruised left wrist with a blood-slick hand, the one that had been preventing Caiellis choking as much on his blood and putting pressure on the self-inflicted wound which hand killed him, his son's hand smaller than his but still much larger than the slender hand within its grasp that belonged to the youngest Lucerna which was let go of quickly. He wrapped the seventeen year old's hand around Caiellis's slender throat, trying not to think of how his own larger hands had been doing the same only an hour or two ago and had been crushing the life from the young adolescent.

"I need you to breathe for him, and to put pressure on his wound so that he can breathe. Just like I did just then, just like you did earlier. Can you do that?" the king asked, though really it was more of a demand. Alexander nodded quickly, the horrified and shocked expression on his face not leaving but blending with one of pure determination to save his younger sibling and brotherly love. It wasn't a question that Marik had to ask. Alexander always followed his father's orders, unless those orders compromised his brother's safety – but that was the only exception. And Alexander always protected Caiellis.

But that was the way that Marik was. Asking questions that didn't need to be asked and not asking the ones that actually mattered. Not asking why Caiellis had fought so hard against things with his father but had been so polite and pleasant to everyone else. Not asking his youngest son how he actually felt, not asking him if he knew that he was loved even through all of the arguments and fights. Not asking if there was more to his violent anger directed towards the youngest Lucerna when they fought. Not asking if Caiellis could be right.

Not asking if it was possible that Marik was wrong about everything.

The seventeen year old bent down to breathe for his younger brother, firmly pressing down in the horrible slice on his neck that must have made Caiellis go fully unconscious, stop breathing and having his heart not beating earlier, because Alexander refused to believe that his younger sibling had actually died. He had just coded, that was all, his heart had stopped and he had not been breathing, but he had never died. It was a very near death experience.

He winced at the horrible bruising all across the younger boy's throat, the tiny mark where he had been choked by dad the day before seemingly small and innocent in the face of all of these awful finger marks and horrific red lines that looked something like rope burns. The middle Lucerna tried not to think of his baby brother being strangled by chains of darkness and blood from the greatest demon in the capital city of Usnaan that the youngster had fought, of Cai being sliced and cut and burnt by knives and fire from the deepest pits of hell.

And most of all he tried not to think of Cai dying, falling unconscious because he couldn't breathe with the wound on his neck and bleeding out, tried not to think of the coppery, metallic tang of his brother's blood in his mouth as he breathed for the boy. He forced down the vomit that threatened to rise up from his stomach, because throwing up would stop him from breathing for his little brother and that was something that was not going to happen for as long as he could still breathe himself, but even if he couldn't he would find a way to do it.

Caiellis's fragile chest moved under the king's hands, and whilst his son was trying not to think about anything but saving the younger brother he loved so much Marik couldn't think of anything else but the boy who he had failed that he needed to bring back to life now. He could feel Caiellis's cold skin underneath his hands, the low temperature of the boy worrying him tremendously as the cold seeped out from the remnants of his shredded clothes. His son made another terrible strangled, wheezing sound, and Marik tried not to snap as he said, "Don't squeeze his throat too hard, Alexander. Too much pressure on it will choke him even more and set off the bruising. Just be firm but not squeezing, and if you have any mana left this would be a good time to use it."

The boy nodded back, though his father didn't see, not that he needed to check that the command had been acknowledged by the eldest teenager here. He shifted his grip on Caiellis's neck even if he hadn't been choking him, a few pathetic golden particles drifting out of his fingers and doing pitifully little to repair the gaping wound in his throat that was leaking, no, _pumping _blood at a greater rate now that their dad was restating his hand and covering Alexander's hand in crimson vitae.

Alexander breathed for his brother. Marik pushed at his chest. True to form when with his father, Caiellis didn't respond past making a few more noises that would haunt Marik's nightmares. But, angels damn everything, Marik wasn't quitting, wasn't intending to ever give up or ever surrender now that he had been given the gift of having a second chance with saving his youngest son, and Alexander sure as hell wasn't either. And neither was Caiellis, even though he wasn't in the position to decide whether he wanted to or not.

Alexander breathed deeper. Marik pushed harder, putting all of his determination and resolution that Caiellis would get the life that he deserved into the compressions. And Caiellis sucked in a strangled breath from the air his brother was giving him. A surge of hope pushed its way into Marik's almost broken heart. Maybe Caiellis would be ok after all, even with the wounds he had suffered and the emotional pain he had gone through. Alexander backed off for a moment, heaving in breaths of air and spitting blood again but keeping his hand pressed on his brother's throat as firmly as possible without choking him as the small body sprawled out on the obliterated ground took one stuttering breath, followed quickly by another.

Marik stopped his compressions for a moment, holding his palm out flat across his son's abused chest and blocking out the sounds of his gasping breaths for a second as he focussed on his heart. There were vibrations there, in his youngest son, too weak and too erratic and far too fast, but there was a beat there and it made Marik want to punch the air in joy and cry tears of happiness. But it was far too early for that right now, as Caiellis was nowhere near safe or in a good condition – or even a bad but stable one.

He executed a few more compressions, if only to strengthen and steady the beating of his baby boy's heart, and then stopped. The monarch of the Kingdom of Light was tempted to place his hand on his son's throat alongside Alexander's so that he could have contact with both of his sons, but personal comfort could wait until Caiellis was fine.

The boy was breathing on his own, but he wouldn't be able to do it without the pressure his big brother was putting on the wound that would prevent in inhalation of air and stopped too much blood from spurting out from it. He was thankful for a second that Caiellis was so small compared to his brother as otherwise more blood would be getting out, the thirteen year old couldn't afford to lose much more, and was pleased when Alexander let his brother's head drop as he moved his other hand round to better focus his lacking healing mana, allowing Marik to hold the youngster's head up.

The hope within him turned to more grim determination as Caiellis's back suddenly arched off of the ground, his small muscles pulling taut as he convulsed. Caiellis might have been breathing on his own but he was also seizing, something that Marik had know had been possible but something that he wanted to avoid. Even though the boy was unconscious, and deeply so, Marik could see that he was in pain, huge amounts of it that the king wished he could take away as he thrashed, Alexander's panic rising instantly the second his brother began to move.

"Dad? Dad?! What is happening?! What is he doing?!" the boy instantly screamed in pure terror at having the almost perfect state of his younger brother ruined, shaking again as Caiellis moved underneath his palms, and while he didn't want to take away his hands from his brother's wounds it hurt him to see Caiellis thrashing and scraping himself on the ground as sounds akin to choked hyperventilations emerged from his mouth.

"He's just seizing up. Let me handle this," the king told his son sternly, though there was a note of shaky desperation to his voice that he couldn't quite erase from his tone. The eldest Lucerna didn't want his firstborn son moving his lastborn in a way that would hurt Caiellis even more as he could tell that Alexander wasn't able to think straight and could do more harm than good if he started holding the small thirteen year old down. Marik didn't understand how he could think straight either, but all he was focussed upon was his youngest son, his baby, and that he had to save him.

The forty year old father grabbed Caiellis's thin and bony right arm, manoeuvring it so that it was at a right angle to his body with the jutting elbow bent and the cut and burned palm facing outwards, a task made slightly harder by the teenager's convulsing but thankfully (well, not really, but in this case it was a good thing) it was weak enough so Marik could easily overwhelm it. Not that if his son had been at full strength his father wouldn't have been able to overpower the small and physically weak boy, but that wasn't important now and only meant that Marik should have protected him even more.

The boy's equally thin left arm was placed across his heavily marked chest with the back of his hand against his cheek that was more marked by his Lucerna heritage and the angel that had chosen him, the angel that Marik had admittedly mistrusted but the angel which had saved his life and brought him back from death's door. Pulling up Caiellis's left knee, mildly concerned by the fact that the boy's thigh was thinner than his father's arm though there were far more pressing issues currently, Marik bent the leg and moved it forwards until the foot was flat on the ground, Alexander's panicked eyes watching his movements all the while and making sure he kept up the pressure.

The single father of two and the king of the entire nation of Lucael rolled Caiellis back over so that he was flat with his back on the ground instead of curling to one side in his spasms, tilting his head back so that his airways could remain open and he could breathe. He hated seeing his son in pain more than anything apart from seeing him dead, and holding the still body of Caiellis in his arms was a memory that he was never going to forget, just like he was never going to forget these shivering convulsions after the boy had just started to road to, while it couldn't be called recovery, stabilisation at the very least.

Tremors rippled through his youngest son and Marik could only stare. He had done all he could in putting the wounded thirteen year old in a safe and stable position, and now it was up to Caiellis to stop. Marik didn't want to think about what would happen If the boy's seizures caused by having his heart suddenly restarted and his body coming to terms with all of the injuries inflicted upon it didn't abate, because there would be nothing that he could do.

"Why aren't they stopping? Come on, Cai, stop. Caiellis, please, stop moving. Caiellis..." the boy's big brother said to him, his voice suffused with a pleading note as he wished he could hold the younger boy still and help, but he knew that he was helping by allowing the smaller male to breathe. Alexander's voice was desperate, they both hated seeing Caiellis in this much pain and it still hurt even though they had seen him still and dead and this was better than that, and Marik wished that he could do something for Caiellis. He settled on stroking the back of the boy's head with a bloody thumb, moving the youngest Lucerna's sticky hair around with it as he forced himself to keep watching and not look away. More bloody spittle was frothing up from Caiellis's mouth that was closed and shut, the boy breathing out of his nose when he could though he alternated between that and his mouth.

"Cai … please, little brother, stop. Please, Caiellis, you're just hurting yourself," Alexander spoke to him like Marik wasn't even there, like his baby brother wasn't asleep and convulsing in the grip of violent seizures even as his father ensured he was in the optimal position for recovering from them and made his grip steady the boy. Marik wondered if he should be saying something along those lines to his youngest son as well, saying something to reassure and comfort Caiellis despite the fact that the boy wouldn't be able to hear it, but he couldn't think of the words so stayed silent.

He continued with his motions of gently rubbing the boy, glad Alexander hadn't stop putting pressure on the wound on the child's neck and that the seventeen year old was healing the smaller boy as much as possible with his severely lacking mana. Whilst he didn't know what to say and didn't want to interrupt Alexander, Marik hoped that simply keeping contact with his youngest son and soothing his pain as much as possible in that way would help, even if it was only a tiny bit, and reassure the thrashing boy that his family was here to help him through this pain and protect him.

He held the boy's head up to stop him from smashing it into the ground repeatedly, and grasped both of Caiellis's small wrists in his large hand to stop his arms from flailing weakly around, hating how they were covered in blood, cut, bruised and burnt by the chains of darkness which had held him down and stopped him from saving himself. Marik would have shivered in fright as he remembered the awful images of his youngest son being tortured and broken by the Archdemon Rakdos, images that would stay with him forever just like all of the ones playing out in front of him now would, if he hadn't been so focussed on helping his little boy.

The entire city could be falling down around the two, but as long as it did not affect Caiellis or stop them from helping him neither would pay attention to it, such was their devotion to the youngest member of their small and broken family. "Come on, little bro. Stop this now. You can do it. I believe in you, Cai, and me and dad are here for you. Please, stop. Please, just wake up."

With an explosive exhalation of air that sprayed saliva flecked with heavy amounts of blood all around him, Caiellis's seizure ceased, and returned to being scarily still once again. Marik instantly spread out his palm and could have wept with joy when he felt the faint vibrations of Caiellis's heartbeat in his chest. It was small, weak, and far too fast despite that, but it was there and that was all that mattered.

"Dad," Alexander let go of his brother's throat with one hand, the vital artery within it almost healed up by the meagre healing he had poured into it with all of his strength and all of his need to protect his brother, and grabbed onto his father's arm, clinging to the larger man like he was a lifeline. The words he spoke were desperate and needing Marik to reassure him as he asked, "Is Caiellis going to be ok now?"  
The voice of his eldest son was so young and so uncertain and the king wished to the angels that he had an answer to the question. No, Caiellis wasn't alright now, because if he had another seizure it would probably be much worse as his breathing was already awful, and there was nothing either of them could do to stop it, but Marik couldn't say that to his son – he could barely even think it to himself, but it was his job to think of the potential dangers to his sons so that he could eliminate them.

Concentrating on Caiellis's chest, the king of Lucael waited for the tell-tale and systematic rise and fall of it that would be indicative of his son being able to breathe on his own once again, forcing the panic back when at first he didn't feel anything. He consciously stopped himself from shaking and shuddering because he would be no use to his son that way, stilling his frightened and shocked shivering so that he would be able to actually feel if Caiellis was breathing or not. It was there, now that he had stopped himself trembling, the movements of his chest slight and his breathing shallow. But it was there. That was all that mattered for now.

Infusing as much authority and determination as he could muster up into the words, Marik answered his son, "Yes, Alexander. Caiellis will be fine."

The words lacked conviction but Alexander seemed to be satisfied by it, his hard grip on his father's arm that would probably leave a bruise with how strong his eldest son was becoming relaxing infinitesimally.

They needed to move Caiellis, to get him somewhere safe and somewhere where there was a trained Ordo Medella operative that was a master of the healing arts. But Marik didn't want to move his son because he was, for now, stable here. He recalled Akroma to him, before then realising that she had been forced to leave when he had run out of mana, something he had not noticed with all of the fear of losing his youngest once again as well as the renewed hope of seeing him breathe and feeling his small but strong and kind heart beating.

Akroma would have been able to carry the boy to the camp outside of the city where the non-combative Ordo Medella personnel would be waiting to take care of the wounded if they hadn't started entering the City of Pleasure already now that the Rain of Gore had stopped. Aurelia would be able to do that too, but Marik knew already that if his eldest son had enough mana to Summon her then she would already be here.

But without an angel there was no way they could get Caiellis to a Medella doctor with the resources, knowledge and expertise to help him without carrying him through the city that would still probably be in the midst of the brutal war waged to save the foolish Welkalites from their idiocy and their leaders' pacts with demons, demons like the Lord of Riots that Caiellis had not just banished but killed.

"Shouldn't he be waking up? Why isn't he waking up?" Alexander asked nervously, and Marik was sure that his seventeen year old son would have been practically bouncing up and down if he didn't have to keep pressure on Caiellis's throat wound. Marik didn't even glance at him, just kept focussing on the youngest member of his family. The king let his hand slide across the thirteen year old's hair, a movement of comfort and solace which should have been given freely in the days before this, a movement of comfort and solace that shouldn't have had to wait until Caiellis had already nearly died and left the world of the living to be delivered. He didn't want to answer; he didn't know how to answer the burning question.

"He's weak," Marik tried, pushing his son's long (for a boy) hair out of his eyes. It was a gigantic understatement. Caiellis's chest was barely moving and Marik was keeping his other hand there just to be sure that it kept at it. "His breathing is still shallow."

"But shouldn't he be waking up now?" Alexander pressed, because he was so concerned for his little brother and needed to know everything that was wrong with him. He knew that the boy had just come back from the dead, knew that he was very weak, but he just wanted Caiellis to wake up and know that his big brother was there to protect and help him. He wanted to be able to know that Cai was aware he was safe and that Alex was here, and the younger boy's stillness scared him.

Caiellis had always been a quiet and shy boy, even though he had been a bit of a chatter box when he had been younger and in the company of people he liked and felt comfortable talking around, always asking questions in an attempt to satiate the endless curiosity his ridiculously sized brain had. Though even with that Alexander had always been louder than his brother, that was just how it had been and how it was, and despite the fact that Cai had never really made much noise this unnatural silence was terrifying him.

He remembered the days, the weeks, after their mother's death where the four year old Caiellis had refused to talk, even to his big brother, locked away all of his emotion and declined to speak to anyone until a week or so after it when he had exploded in tears when Alexander had started crying in front of him (something that the older boy would never admit to anyone, not even his brother, telling him he had imagined it) and then couldn't stop crying almost continuously for days on end until his throat was raw from the sobs. But this silence was even worse then that.

Alexander knew that he was being ridiculous even thinking that Caiellis would be in a condition to speak with the appalling wounds on his throat, much less be aware enough to do so coherently, but the seventeen year old desperately wanted to hear his little brother's voice – even if it was confused and only semi-conscious. He just wanted Cai awake, because firstly it would mean that his condition wasn't as bad as he thought it was and secondly even if his brother was only ever so slightly aware of the outside world Alex would be able to calm him down and comfort him.

The man quickly ripped a piece of fabric from his bloody shirt underneath his armour that he had half-shrugged off for more manoeuvrability with his stricken son, gently prying Alexander's hand away from the younger boy's wound and wrapping the cloth quite tightly but not constrictively around it. They needed to move, and soon, before Caiellis's fragile body gave out again. Once he had done that, Marik acknowledged the boy's question.

The king sent a small glance over to his eldest son, loathe to look away from Caiellis even for a second in case something happened to the boy, but he had two sons and an obligation to make sure that both of them were alright. Alexander's eyes, the same colour as his father's, though the blue in them was much warmer, but with the same expressiveness and love as Emili's even though the boy could adopt the mask as quickly as any of his family and much better sometimes so that he could force others to ignore his own pain and help themselves, were periodically flicking between little brother and father, checking one was alright and looking to the other for guidance that Marik wasn't sure he could provide but would do all he could to try to.

The seventeen year old looked so damn scared, so lost within this world and unable to help his little brother, and Marik felt so much sympathy for his son in that one single moment. He wished he could drag Alexander into his arms, drag both of his sons into his arms, but there would be time for that later, when Caiellis got the help that he needed to get through this.

Marik didn't know how to answer the question, so he didn't, because there were no reassurances that would help his eldest son that he could give right now, with Caiellis slipping away slowly in front of them. He pulled the younger one of his two sons into his arms, the boy almost weightless within them. Caiellis almost stirred, a faint, fleeting flicker of infinitesimal awareness that diminished the instant it sprang into life and the boy was slack in his arms as he pulled him up, still kneeling down.

The king coughed, involuntarily, his breath coloured with blood that suggested his own internal bleeding was even worse, but it wasn't possible for him to care less about that right now so long as it didn't stop him from helping his son. The pain was distant, ignorable, and nothing compared to the danger that Caiellis was in, so as a father he repressed it.

Since there had been no response from his dad, Alexander turned back to his younger brother in his father's arms, wanting to keep contact with him but not wanting to get in the way and almost wishing he was carrying the younger teenager who needed to be able to live out the rest of his teenage years.

The eldest loyal Lucerna hefted the boy up, preparing to stand, one arm under his son's skinny knees just above the wounds in his lower abdomen, the other one round his shoulders and holding his head still and in a position where he could still breathe. The man gently pulled Caiellis forwards so that the little boy was resting against him, his head cradled in the crook of Marik's neck and his messy hair tickling his chin. The king wondered whether he should leave his son with Alexander instead of standing up with him in his arms and go and find help on his own, stay with Caiellis and send Alexander (he instantly dismissed that, because the thought of his son going alone in the city with that little mana terrified him) or to carry Caiellis and have Alexander follow them.

All of the decisions had their own positives and potential consequences and downfalls, but what was certain that keeping Caiellis, who was slowly dying in spite of him not wanting to acknowledge that or let Alexander know, here in the courtyard was and simply waiting for help was achieving nothing.

He stood up to his full height, Alexander following the motions and rising to his own feet, the seventeen year old quickly grabbing and sheathing the sword that he had dropped when he had first seen his dead little brother in preparation for moving, such efficient motions that someone looking in from the outside might not be able to tell that he was panicked and lost and terrified apart from the shaking movements his body was still making.

But for now Marik paused. He held his baby boy in his arms, striving to feel the tiny tremors that constituted Caiellis's pained and shallow breathing. He was still extremely worried, and not only because of the fact that the boy was slowly slipping away back into the cold chasm of death that Orzhova had dragged him out of, because of the numerous things that could be wrong – oxygen deprivation, organ failure, potentially permanent brain damage – but Caiellis was alive, and it was such an unexpected gift that Marik didn't know how to understand the joy that was breaking his chest.

He didn't know how to understand any of this. All he knew that this was his son, his precious baby boy, and he was still clinging to life with all of his might.

"Caiellis, please, wake up. Please, dad, make Cai wake up," Alexander begged him, though Marik knew that if his eldest son had been thinking clearly he would have known that there was probably no way Caiellis would awaken any time soon from his weak and hopefully restorative slumber (although Marik feared the worst and feared that his son's condition was indicative of him getting worse as time went by and he didn't get any medical aid). The king looked back at his first son again, the tall boy seemingly very small and cowed by his brother's wounds; he was so vulnerable, so young, and Marik could tell from the wideness of his eyes that he was probably in shock himself over all that had happened. But the king couldn't deal with that now, he couldn't deal with Alexander's wounds because he would live just like he couldn't deal with his own wounds because the boy in his arms was far more important at the moment.

Marik looked down at Caiellis, then back at his eldest son, and then down to the boy held tightly once again, noting how his face was screwed up in pain and he was making awful sounds now that he had been picked up, his broken bones and wounds flaring into life once again.

"Please, dad. Make this right," Alexander murmured, only heard because of the fact that the youngster nestle up against Marik had such quiet and shallow breathing, and the utter desperation in his voice made Marik wish that he could have hugged the boy and put them both in impenetrable spheres of safety where the danger of the world could not harm them, or at least kept them in the Kingdom of Light away from the violence of this war after so recently being abducted.

And Alexander was a mixture of four or eight years old again, looking at his father with complete trust and faith that, while not extremely rare from the middle Lucerna, was unknown to the man in this amount after the civil war. There was no doubt whatsoever in his eyes with the pupils dilated almost over all of his blue irises, no question, and Marik was the hero that would put everything back together, repaired all of the pieces of their family and fixed everything that was wrong with their lives.

Even if it wasn't true, even if Marik didn't believe it himself, it was enough to make the king of Lucael act. His sons had lost too much over the years and in this battle within the capital of the New Empire of Passion, come too close today for them to lose anything more, even if it was something as transient and ethereal as Alexander's belief in his father.

Marik made his decision, turning back from the small and frail youngster in his arms to the bigger but no less fragile teenager stood behind him, waiting on his every move and looking pleadingly at the last two members of his small family that was infinitely precious and valuable beyond words to them all.

"I need you to hold your brother, Alexander. I am going to scout ahead and make sure the path down to the city streets is clear. Wait for my signal before you move," Marik told the younger man, ever so slightly loosening his grip on his slack youngest son who was still freezing cold but breaking into a sweat because of the amount of pain he was in in preparation for passing him over to his brother. Marik didn't want his seventeen year old to have to ensure that there were no enemies in their way, not in the state that he was in right now because it would be tantamount to a death sentence for the boy.

No, instead he would have his sons trailing behind him, trusting the older one of the two to be able to protect and carry the youngest whilst their father destroyed all the resistance in their way. They could not stay here, with Caiellis's condition slowly deteriorating, and while Marik hated the thought of breaking off contact with his second son it was the only thing that was feasible at the current moment if the thirteen year old was going to get the medical help that he needed to get through this.

"You call me right away if your brother stops breathing or he has a seizure again," Marik ordered, securing the fabric that was already wet and dripping with crimson blood around Caiellis's neck and ensuring it was putting enough pressure on the horrible wound that hadn't been healed much by his big brother's lacking mana, planting a kiss on his head as he did so when he thought of it. Alexander's attention and his eyes remained fixed on his younger brother, and the king had to shake his shoulder hard in order to elicit a response from the eldest prince.

Panicked eyes in a white face quickly turned towards Marik, a few freckles that Marik didn't even know his son had standing out because of how ashen his eldest son was, paler than he had been when it was him that had been dying because of the vampire's curse where the blood didn't splatter on his young face. "Got it, dad … call if Cai stops breathing or has a seizure."

Alexander stretched out his arms, ready to take his little brother within them when Marik chose to hand him over. The king smoothed back his son's hair, consciously aware that he was wasting time so that he could hold onto Caiellis for longer and not have to break off contact with his youngest son, an incredibly selfish action that was only prolonging the amount of time it would take to get Caiellis to safety, but he was loathe to let go of the boy.

The youngest Lucerna's birthmark then suddenly flashed with a haunting purple glow, wisping coils of gold and shadow pulsing out of it for a few seconds, and Marik pulled him forward and glanced at him alarm as Caiellis's almost slack face screwed up in pain, like he was going to begin another seizure and hurt himself.

"Dad?" Alexander's panicked voice rang out as he quickly shot through the very short distance between the two to his brother's side, hoping beyond hope that Cai would be ok and that he wasn't about to start convulsing once again, not now they needed to go and get him to help and safety – otherwise Alex didn't know what would happen. He wanted to hold Caiellis's hand but both of them were quite heavily injured, just like almost everywhere on the little teenager's fragile and easily damaged body that was littered with wounds, and he didn't want to get in the way of his father.

The sudden luminescence formed up next to Alex, who pried his eyes away from his brother as it did so, coalescing into a recognisable, albeit it weak and fading and infused with an ethereal quality that made it partly transparent, and the boy could have smiled in pure relief if he wasn't still shocked and horrified by what had transpired on this day and seeing his little brother still and _almost _dead, because while he may have coded, his heart may have stopped beating and he may have stopped breathing, he had not died as Alexander refused to believe that.

"That will not be necessary," a voice, normally honeyed and lyrical but instead suffused with urgency and strangely distant and quiet, evoking a little less of the awe-inspiring yet slightly terrifying resonance that it normally did which little Caiellis seemed to be completely immune to, or at least able to ignore it. Orzhova Summoned herself, which, while unexpected because of the fact that Alexander thought that Caiellis wouldn't have any mana whatsoever left with the amount that he had released and the amount of pain he was in – he was unconscious, which meant that he shouldn't have enough mana for the angel to use to Summon herself.

She continued on quickly, ignoring the two shocked stares that pierced into her and looking straight into king Marik's eyes, glaring at him with all of her divine force, "With the same technique that got my Summoner here in the first place, Voidwalking, I can take you two and Caiellis back to the City of the Sun, back to the Ordo Medella hospital that was responsible for saving Alexander from Aksua's curse. The medical tent back at the war camp will not be sufficient for saving Caiellis, but we can make a detour there to take Choirmaster Esmelde back to Civitas Sol so that she can work with Surgeon-general Mortan, who I presume stayed back in Lucael and save Caiellis."

Marik frowned for a moment, although inside he was glad because it would mean that they would be able to instantly leave Lucael and not have to move Caiellis far to get help. But the abyss would be dangerous, sensing the weak Lucerna and the exhaustion of the other two loyal members of the royal family travelling within its dark depths, and while he was sure that Orzhova would protect them she could be Unsummoned at any time if Caiellis became too weak to sustain her – which he already seemed to be, and if the way that she was pulsing in and out of reality was any indication then she wouldn't last much longer.

Besides, the doctors would be confused and uncertain without any way to contact them like they had done when Alexander had been wounded, and there was no way to ensure that they would all be in the same place – or if the ones within the Ordo Medella hospital were even trained for combat wounds, or how many of them were left there. Marik knew that they were extremely rigorously trained to react to any emergencies extremely quickly, but the king wasn't sure if such a course of action would have been more beneficial than simply Voidwalking Caiellis to the operatives within the war camp in spite of what the First Sisterhood angel said.

"Surely Choirmaster Esmelde should remain with the army so that she can help in saving the other wounded across Usnaan?" Marik replied, keeping hold of his son tightly despite Alexander's arms still being outstretched towards him and ready to take the younger boy himself. The Angel of the Black Sun glowered at him in a way that made it blatantly clear that it was physically impossible for her to care less about the other soldiers within the city, and Marik had to suppress a nervous gulp at the amount of hatred that he saw within the angel's eyes, remembering that his youngest son's Summoning had seen him when he had been possessed, spoken to him after he almost choked the boy to death and nearly killed him in numerous ways.

Marik knew that he deserved the angel's detestation, but he had never had hatred from a First Sisterhood angel (or any angel for that matter, but that made it worse) directed towards him before and it filled him with dread, dread that was pushed aside by his growing worry for Caiellis. He just hoped that Orzhova wasn't going to strike him down like he deserved, because he needed to make everything right with his son and hoped that his determined gaze conveyed that, even as staring into her onyx eyes made him want to run away screaming as fast as he could, fall to his knees in supplication, or weep at the shortness of life in equal measures.

Her presence was diminished by Caiellis's abject lack of mana, but she was still very impressive and Marik could only hope that she understood he had never meant to hurt his son, hurt her second ever Summoner.

"I sent warning ahead already," Orzhova told them as if she had been reading Marik's thoughts straight out of his head, her voice still agitated and urgent, though the emotions were different to the ones that humans felt and her angelic urgency was simultaneously incomparable to mortal haste and worry yet very close to it, almost parallel. "And we need to go quickly. The surgeons at the war camp outside of Usnaan have insufficient equipment for saving Caiellis's life, king Marik. I would not be able to carry him either, because I am too weak to have a proper physical form at the moment and he would simply pass straight through me."

Marik didn't want to have to leave the Lucaelian force of his subjects on its own within the City of Pleasure, but the battle had almost been won in one fell swoop by Caiellis's bravery and sacrifice, and he would be little use to the army in the state that he was. They would understand that he wanted to preserve the life of his Lucerna heir, even if Marik was still guilty about it because he didn't think in that manner about his family. However, the generals remaining in the army would be able to wipe out the remainders of the Orders of Passion now that their demonic power had gone, and honestly the king had ceased to care about what happened to Usnaan now so long as it didn't threaten the Kingdom of Light or his children.

The king still had severe doubts, but when the boy in his arms started coughing and gasping, but nowhere near as violently as before, his mind was set. Caiellis stopped again, nestling closer against his father as his body trembled weakly and his breathing became harsher yet shallower as well.

Alexander was still holding out his arms for his younger brother, wanting to carry the thirteen year old himself as Orzhova quickly spun around next to him, the edge of her scythe dripping with Black mana as she hacked open a rent in the fabric of the world to the darkness on the other side. Once again, Marik was loathe to let go of his baby boy who was in pain and close to death once again.

Alexander's arms were reaching, waiting, expectant for his little brother, but Marik wanted to hold Caiellis close. The forty year old knew that he didn't have that right, not now, not after what he had allowed to happen and after all that he had done to his youngest son. Alexander had much more of a right to hold his little brother because he had done so much more for the younger boy, but Marik wasn't ready to relinquish his hold on his baby boy even if his first son deserved to hold him much more than he did.

"We need to go. Now," Orzhova stated, her exalted voice brooking no dissent in the matter as she turned to the two, and Marik nodded quickly, gathering up his little son in his arms and turning away from Alexander, not missing the flash of pain in his eyes at not being able to touch his brother and be able to make sure he was safe as his arms fell back at his sides.

_I'm sorry, Alexander. But I am not letting go of him, not any more. There will be plenty of opportunities to help him when we get there, son. _Orzhova, or the much weaker version of her than Caiellis normally Summoned (not that the king had actually seen his son Summon her much, not counting watching Caiellis and the Angel of the Black Sun fighting together through the vision that the horror who had caused this had granted him), stepped quickly into the abyss, opening her shimmering midnight wings wide as the pulsed in and out of existence.

If Caiellis hadn't been in such a bad condition, as he was half-choking on his blood once again in spite of the king's attempts to hold him and his breathing was getting much more pained and much weaker because of the fact that he had to be moved, Marik might have hesitated to dragging his sons into the void, especially with the state that they were in. Additionally, Orzhova was fading and blinking out of reality periodically, suggesting that she might return to Caiellis's Mind Realm any time soon, and if she did whilst they were walking through the dark nether they would be trapped forever – three Lucernas dead.

But Caiellis would surely die if they did not. Marik turned to his eldest son, half wanting to tell him to stay here so that one of them would survive if this went wrong, even though he did not want to leave Alexander in Usnaan on his own and he did not want to tear him away from his brother, but one look into his first child's lost eyes told him that such a thing would end the seventeen year old.

"Come on then, Alexander," he encouraged, wishing that his voice was more comforting to help his teenage son instead of terse and brusque, but with his fragile youngest in so much danger not controlling his voice could be forgiven. He walked into the darkness unflinchingly, thinking only of his sons and not of himself, adjusting Caiellis's position in some ridiculous notion of comfort as he did so. The seventeen year old was at his side instantly, and the rift in the world closed up behind them, leaving Orzhova as the only light within the endless shadows that seemed stiller and safer than Marik had expected – though obviously Caiellis's angel would choose the safest path possible.

"Do not look around you, whatever you do. Simply focus your mind on your destination, what you want to achieve with this journey, and do not look into the shadows. I have picked as safe a route as possible, but as you well know the abyss is always dangerous," Orzhova behind her, the edge of her golden scythe and the medallion representation of the Black Sun symbol in her left hand both shining with pure white incandescence, a rare colour for the dark seraphim as Marik normally saw her use more imperious and golden light instead of white light akin to Akroma's wrathful radiance.

She still felt huge amounts of hatred for the king because of what he had put her Summoner through, making Orzhova have to watch the boy killing himself, something that even though she was an angel would probably stay with her forever. However, strangely enough the man looked distraught and immensely guilty, and was doing all that he could to help her Summoner, so for now she would tolerate him around. Perhaps he had been controlled by some dark force, but in that case it meant it was Akroma's fault he had been made to act the way that he did towards his son.

To all intents and purposes Orzhova blamed Marik for the death of her son and the emotional pain that Cai had gone through, but perhaps if the king could prove that he did love the boy she would forgive him with time. It all boiled down to whether or not Caiellis did forgive him, because it was not Orzhova's place to hold grudges against her Summoner's father if her Summoner himself didn't do the same. But right now Caiellis needed help, and that was what they were walking through the void for.

The king hoped that Alexander had heard, but their intentions were pure and concentrated wholly on saving Caiellis, the youngest member of their family and the most vulnerable to the predation of the darkness and the most fragile in general, so he refused to worry about this path they were taking.

Orzhova led the way, beating her wings and releasing the occasional circle of purifying light around her to presumably ensure that nothing was nearby, and Marik followed dutifully with his son limp in his arms. Alexander was at his side, trailing his dad and little brother a little like a lost puppy, and if Marik hadn't have been holding his youngest son he would have placed a reassuring arm around the boy's quite broad shoulders.

Caiellis didn't move, his arms were like a rag doll's inanimate limbs, and the king couldn't walk through the eternal void fast enough.

_Hold on, Caiellis! Just hold on, son! I will not let you die again! You will get the help that you need!_

Marik's thoughts were joined by those of his eldest son, the seventeen year old feeling lost and helpless as he ran alongside his dad and baby brother, wishing that he could have arrived before Caiellis had gotten this wounded and hating himself for it. He quickly banished the thoughts from his mind, remembering what Orzhova had said about not being focussed on his destination and what he wanted to accomplish, and concentrated on his little brother, the person he loved most in the world apart from their father.

_Just stay with us, baby bro. Big bro is going to make everything alright, just you wait._

The two were afraid to speak, afraid that if they spoiled the silence, they would miss the unsteady intake of air that would signal Caiellis was in trouble as they ran desperately through the unchanging yet ever shifting shadows around them.

With all of their attention focussed upon the youngest member of their family and the angel leading their way through the abyss, a small torch in the endless darkness, they did not see a pair of vibrantly blue eyes gazing at them knowingly from the shadows behind them.


	41. Convalescence

Tristram was breathing extremely heavily, the poisons borne from the Black mana of the malicious blade that the Master of Gluttony, Ilentia, had chopped off his right arm with rushing through his bloodstream and making him feel weaker every second. He knew he had to stay awake, and was filled with the determination to do so because he had to protect the daughter and son of Carlis from the Welkalite forces after the death of their heroic father.

Athela was still relatively strong, strong enough to hold off the self-styled Archdemon of Greed at any rate, but if the new Guardian of Capitalia Lux succumbed to his wounds then the Aegis Angel would be Unsummoned with him, leaving Leodred and Elizabex alone in a precarious situation against the ravenous demon and its mistress who was stood in front of Tristram now, glaring back at him with her baleful red eyes as the bloody rain pounded all around them.

The eighteen year old boy, his eyes still streaming with tears of loss, guilt and sheer despair at watching his father die in front of him, was pulling himself from the rubble of the sodden market stall which had trapped him in and forced him to be unable to help his father against the Master of Gluttony, aided by the spirit incarnation of Valour who had become noticeably more sombre faced with its Summoner's father dying and it being able to do nothing to help. However, its white aura blazed with a need for revenge that would be suffusing Leo soon once he somehow managed to push past the utter depression and despair that was consuming him.

Tristram would ideally like to leave the boy to mourn or to comfort him in any way that he could (as although he was nowhere near as close to the Montlea scions as he was to the Lucerna children, he still knew them relatively well as every time they had visited Capitalia Lux his eldest charge had wanted to see them if it was safe to reveal their identity and as such Tristram had talked to them a reasonable amount – he wondered if that was what parents felt like talking to their children's friends, as Alexander and Caiellis had been like children to Tristram through the nine years of the lamentable civil war) but they were in the middle of a brutal battle and the boy would have to help, to fight for his life so that no one else would suffer the same fate as his father.

Elizabex, her eyes streaming with silent tears as well, was resting heavily on her staff, but just from looking at her the thirty year old Guardian could tell that she was putting on more of an illusion of discomfort and showing all of her pain instead of hiding it. Ilentia might see through that, but if she didn't Elizabex was presenting herself as an easy target, which went against Tristram's entire way of fighting which was to make the enemies focus upon him instead. He was a Guardian, a protector of the people and someone who both safeguarded the innocents of the Kingdom of Light and ensured that the members of the Lucerna royal family were safe and able to do their duty of ruling Lucael.

And he had failed to protect Carlis, a renowned general and the champion of King Marik before Tristram had become it when he had been instated as the Guardian of Capitalia Lux, as he had been too affected by his wounds and let them slow him down too much. But that did not mean that he would not do everything in his power to ensure that his children, his legacy, would live on and survive this horrific battle that had seen both the Lucaelian and Welkalite forces decimated in a slaughter that only benefited the demonic patrons of the New Empire of Passion.

The storm above was screaming and howling in exultation and tempestuous rage, the city below it warping and rippling as it was subjected to the anger and hellish presence of the horrible thing at the centre which Caiellis and Marik were fighting together against, but Tristram couldn't pay much attention to the way that Usnaan was turning into a hellscape all around them.

A massive spire of rock smashed through the ground like a curling talon of obsidian only a few streets away, shattering apart and crashing through the most ornate and extravagant restaurants in the Glutton's Quarter, obliterating the soaring buildings like they were nothing as it rose upwards. The bloody rain from the Tempest of Craving was increasing in intensity even more, and meteorites joined the large droplets of viscera in their arcing descent towards the City of Pleasure below. Crimson and pink lightning flashed, and the blood covering everything reflected the vibrant and obtrusively intense colours as it did so.

Despite the fact that Athela and the greater demon that was solely comprised of Black mana were still brutally and mercilessly battling it out, the Aegis Angel fully willing to indulge in the spawn of the forsaken abyss's desire to fight her and her alone as it meant that her Summoner and his comrades would not have to battle against the foul might of a greater demon, a kind of lull had fallen upon the central Banquet Street as the two sides of humans stared each other down, although the only member of the Empire might not be considered one by some.

Ilentia still held herself with predatory grace in spite of the wounds that she had suffered that seemed not to be bothering her, unnatural black blood spilling out of her side where Tristram's enchanted axe had cut through her armour and into the pale flesh beneath. Her red eyes flashed with anger and defiance in the lightning of the storm as they glared at the Guardian who was panting for breath with only the movements he had executed so far, whipping around between him and the two crying Montlea teenagers like a hunter of men sighting new prey and evaluating each one of them.

It seemed that the Master of Gluttony was infuriated by the fact that Tristram had stopped her from killing Leodred after she murdered Carlis in front of him, but her anger was nothing compared to his that was directed against her, hatred and disgust warring in equal measures within the large man that was well over six feet in height. The forearm and conjoined hand of pure magic that was holding Tristram's axe along with his natural one felt extremely strange, and he did not particularly like having to move it with the part of his mind dedicated to the management of mana instead of physical movement even though the two were very close.

It was going to be strange not having a right hand, but it was something that wasn't very important right now so long as Tristram could wield his weapon and fight, and his magic was strengthened by his protective instinct as well as his righteous hatred of this bitch, all trepidation about her origins and the fact that she seemed to hate her demon almost as much as a Lucaelian would gone in the face of what she had done. The murder of the entire Spears of Justice was on her hands, as well as probably countless deaths, and Tristram was going to exact that toll upon her.

Ilentia held her two blades once again, Malice aching for more blood to slake its insatiable and sadistic thirst for torture and pain and writhing exultantly in her grip and thoroughly enjoying the sight of the pain it had already caused, though the woman knew that attributing such characteristics to a mere blade, a tool, was absurd. Meanwhile in her left hand Fire was a jealous spark ready to be released as a raging inferno of envy and lust for any form of destruction, caring not for the finer points of killing and only wanting to demonstrate its rage upon anything and everything around it.

The more brutal but less malicious and cruel weapon was resentful of its sibling's greater use this battle and the fact that Malice had inflicted more wounds and killed more of the powerful opponents, and Ilentia smiled at the enemies, promising her sword that it would get its share of the bloodshed soon enough if the way that all three of the Lucaelians had their faces contorted in different forms of hatred, even if the children had their younger features filled with sorrow at the death of their father.

Ilentia was enjoying this battle despite herself and her usual apathy towards anything that didn't concern her survival, revelling in the brutality but not to a psychotic degree like those from the Order of Violence and liking the challenge her new body had been put under. Reality and emotions were strange things to the Master of Gluttony after the few days of her dark revival, her mind working in new ways and different sensations engendering different responses that sometimes varied wildly for things that were quite similar.

The smile that she let out was at once forced to intimidate her opponents further and fully representative of her current feelings. She wanted to kill these foes and make them suffer, but at the same time she was utterly apathetic towards them and did not care what happened to them so long as it did not endanger her own continued survival. She would do anything to prolong that, nothing was beyond any ridiculous sense of morality or rules enforced by the weak to keep the weak safe, and these Lucaelians were getting in her way so they were going to die for that. And if she wanted to enjoy their deaths, then she would.

If Tradax was still alive, which Ilentia highly doubted considering she had sensed the release of White and Black mana in the Redhand mansion from here before the most powerful demon she had ever sensed had entered the city, she would kill him once she was finished with these to truly obtain her freedom. She felt no sense of loyalty towards him; the Archlord of Rapture had revived her after killing her and turned her into what she was now to simply further his own goals and for his own sick sense of amusement and by freeing herself from him she would be merely repaying the favour.

That left Arrapackxia, the greater demon that she had almost been forced into selling her own Summoning to back when all she had known was to serve Tradax because she had only just walked into this new life. That had only been six days ago, but already Ilentia had changed much from the woman she had been after her dark resurrection. The Archdemon of Greed which wasn't actually an Archdemon apparently (whatever that meant, though if anything Ilentia supposed the monstrous presence at the corrupt heart of her birth city would be one) was a powerful force that she could command and was definitely making her more powerful, but he was disobedient, hated her for the contract as much as she hated him, and she did not like the way he sometimes intentionally endangered her and would not follow her commands.

It was a very powerful asset, the greater demon, and for now Ilentia would tolerate it until she was powerful enough herself to be rid of the chains binding her to its dark essence. She twirled her blades, assessing the combat capabilities of each of her foes, the only Summoning against her the combat incarnation that she was utterly unimpressed and unconcerned by.

Ilentia grinned as sadistically as she could at the girl and the boy and then the adult when her red eyes met his burning gaze, knowing that emotion was a tool to be manipulated and that if they did not use it to their advantage then it would be to their detriment. Anger and hatred were two very unpredictable forces that could have her enemies either rushing towards her and completely disregarding their own safety or fighting much better than they had before, but sorrow was something which would mean only good things for her.

She would not be able to foster the latter in the tallest Lucaelian man, as he was stronger than that and probably not related to the other one she had killed only a few minutes ago, and the girl was most likely off limits as well, but the boy was different as he had caused his father's death. Part of her wanted to anger her enemies further so that they would be more chaotic and unstable, because it would guarantee that they would throw themselves into the fight with little regard for the own security, but another, the one more concerned with preserving herself above all else, including enjoyment, knew that while that could give her and easy victory it could just as easily end in her dying if their power levels rose through their emotions.

She resolved to say nothing, because if she tried to make the boy feel even more hopeless and guilty it would only result in the further angering of the other two, but to satiate her desire to do so anyway she stared back into the blue eyes of the tallest opponent, wondering why so many people cared about the names of those who they were fighting, she tilted her head in the direction of the boy behind him who was freed himself from the rubble and was laid at his still father's side.

Tristram bristled at that, the smirking woman in front of him trying to tell him that she could easily kill the heavily distracted Leodred within a blink of an eye so he better not blink. However, he was content for now to wait for her move so that he could stop it and place himself in front of the blows, readying his admittedly lacking defensive mana in preparation for this.

It seemed that Elizabex did not share the Guardian's sentiment, and there was a sizzling whoosh of purifying mana as a bolt of righteous detestation shot forth from her staff, the girl snarling her hatred of their opponent as she blasted the White magic at her. Ilentia flipped away from the attack, but instead of being a straight pillar of light this assault was more like a coiling serpent of light that twisted through the air towards the unrighteous and the guilty attempting to escape from it.

The Master of Gluttony batted it away with a wave of pure Black mana directed by Malice, who objected to being used in a defensive manner but was promptly ignored by the Welkalite, and then Tristram was upon her. His axe sliced out, the hand of mana that was holding it combined with his normal physical limb that was also ensorcelled with magic power augmenting the speed of the heavy weapon as it sliced through the air towards the Welkalite woman.

Tristram knew that it was very unlikely that he could achieve victory, not in the awful condition he was in with the poisons of the malevolent sabre blade running through his bloodstream and with one arm entirely dependant upon sapping his mana reserves, but they wouldn't be able to flee either and Tristram was too determined to even think of doing that against this foe – unless it meant that Elizabex and Leodred would escape, in which case he might consider it. More likely than not they would refuse or simply be run down as well, and the fact that the city was filled with hostile enemies would mean that even if they escaped the Master of Gluttony it would be unlikely that they would get to safety.

The strike was never intended to hit, although Tristram did still aim at the Master of Gluttony and if she did not move then she would be hit by the blow of the thrumming axe, the weapon that had been wielded by previous Guardians of the capital city of the Kingdom of Light reacting positively to his protective instinct that had been thrust into over drive now that he was forced to remember that Elizabex and Leodred, while eighteen and technically adults, were still young kids and needed guarding from the horrors of the world, energised by his White mana. It could cause significant damage if Ilentia allowed it to slice into her, but as Tristram expected she effortlessly leapt back into the air, somersaulting over the second youngest Guardian and pirouetting towards the downed Leodred, her red eyes lit with a predatory but also efficient and murderous glint.

The Master of Gluttony was not like other Welkalites – while many of them, the devotees of hedonistic and depraved demons that they were, would prefer to cause their opponents immense amounts of agony before they finished with them, the woman that the Montlea family and the Light-bearer were fighting was more concerned with killing her opponents and ending them as swiftly as possible instead of revelling in their pain, making her far more dangerous in Tristram's view.

"Leodred!" he shouted as a warning, his voice bellowing across the clearing at the end of the once garishly coloured but now almost completely crimson Banquet Street and slamming into the kneeling and weeping boy like the words had physically shoved him backwards. Tristram didn't intend to let Ilentia get anywhere near the youngest of Carlis's children, and neither did the Summoning of Valour that raised its spear in preparation to defend against the onslaught from the demonic Summoner speeding towards them, her agility enhanced further by enchantments of Red cast automatically around her, but simply not cautioning the mourning lad of the extremely fast approach of the Welkalite would be a sure fire way to end with him dead.

He shot towards the back of the woman as Elizabex snarled in hatred of the person who had killed not only her father but the elite regiment of troops that she had got to know reasonably well over the past month or so that she and Leodred had become honorary members of for the time being. She raised her staff, topped with glittering illumination, and tried to ignore the way that calling upon her mana sent biting pains all the way through her body like she was being eaten away from the inside by malicious creatures with jaws of venomous and spined fangs.

It had been her usage of healing mana in attempting to help Caiellis's Uncle Tristram that had caused the explosion of retaliatory and punishing Red and Black to ripple through her that had almost killed her with the amount of White magic that she had poured into the healing spell, but instead it had knocked her unconscious, dispelled Purity as the gentle being tried to heal her and met the exact same fate as her Summoning, and forced her allies to have to protect her.

Which was what had got Leodred trapped within the market stall that he had only just freed himself from and forced her to watch as she blearily regained consciousness to see her father dying in front of her eyes. The pain that she felt inside was nothing compared to the sheer agony and loss that was rushing through her at the death of her dad who she loved more than anything else apart from the only close family members she had, and she wanted nothing more than to shut herself away from everyone and cry her heart out until the pain went away, even though that was only a blind hope and the agony of loss would probably never dissipate.

Elizabex knew that she couldn't – they were in the middle of a brutal war and more would die if she gave into the anguish and sorrow welling up inside of her. If she surrendered to the grief now, then her father's sacrifice would be in vain, the Guardian of Capitalia Lux who was loved by her and her brother's best friend (though she wouldn't quite admit it if anyone asked her, preferring to let Leo call Alex his best friend instead of her) and his little brother (who was also her friend but more incidentally) would be injured further and could be killed either by the Master of Gluttony or the poison that was running through him that Elizabex could do little about.

But even worse than that was the truth that her little twin brother would also be hurt or even killed just like their father had been by the Master of Gluttony if she left the crying boy alone in all of this violence and death around them and permeating the City of Pleasure with a foul stench and a magical resonance that made the mage priest want to throw up. Leodred was the closest person in her life to her, even closer than her closest friends, and while he could be annoying or argumentative he was her twin brother and there was nothing in the world that she would rather have in her life than him at the moment.

It had been her weakness that had got their dad killed, no matter what her sibling would think to himself about it, but she wouldn't allow anyone else to die here. Muttering a prayer under her breath that would aid her in invoking the light of the angels to smite the wicked of the world and protect the innocents from their nefarious corruption, she slammed her staff into the ground, channelling White mana into it that she still had in spite of the fact her Summoning had been killed and sent back to the Mind Realm as coils of incandescence swirled around it.

Her magic was derived from what both her mother, who was one of the most powerful mages she had met and set to inherit the role of Hierarch from Tybalt Litria when he became unable to prosecute the duties that came with the position (amongst others), and her father had taught her, the ritual and powerful channelling processes of the Priesthood based within the Cathedral of Salvation mixed with the practical combat magic and instinctual reactions that her now dead father had taught her in, honing her naturally high mana and allowing her to focus the powerful spells into a more efficient form.

She would never get enough time to finish one of her more formidable and destructive rituals of purification, nor would Elizabex be able to cast a momentous spell that would gift the loyal subjects of the Lucerna line, not with how fast the Master of Gluttony was and how quickly she would notice the girl beginning to cast a spell of that magnitude. Instead she relied upon the combat magic that she knew, combining what bother her father and mother had taught her and thinking of how the Welkalite needed to be punished for what she had done and erased from the face of the earth before she could hurt any more undeserving people.

Leodred quickly shook his head, violently wiping the tears of self-loathing and anguish from his eyes along with the blood that had poured into them and was matting his short brown hair, and grabbed his sword that had been given to him by the man laid dead in front of him. He had pulled his father's body up so that the muscular man (though slightly smaller and thinner than the king and Tristram) was laid with his back on the ground, his grief stricken mind not content with him being dumped unceremoniously on the ground like he was some sort of discarded toy and that he was not worth any time or remembrance. The whole in his armour was still stark, and Leo felt a sense of numbness all the way through him, and he had wished that he had been able to know his father better.

Sure, they had been able to actually see one another during the civil war unlike Alexander and the king because Leodred and Eliza weren't targets like the Lucerna brothers, but Carlis had always been distracted and focussed on the brutality of the war at the same time as showing love to his young children. When Leo had become a teenager he had started acting up with his mother and father both, selfishly hating the fact that he couldn't spend much time with the man in spite of the fact that it was barely limited to him and many of the youngsters that were his friends also had their parents torn away by the war.

Carlis had always been concentrated on his daughter and son's fighting capabilities, but since Leodred had less mana than his fraternal twin sister that meant he should have spent more time with his dad because he couldn't participate in some of the more advanced lessons taught by his mum to his sister, and since his best friend could only come to Capitalia Lux every so often when it was deemed safe he had started to get lonely with the rise of his hormones. He and his dad had only just began to really start bonding between the two of them a year or two ago, and now Carlis had been ripped away from his son, daughter and wife before he could see them truly become adults.

Leodred was going to make sure that his father was avenged.

The boy quickly pulled himself to his feet as Ilentia sped like a thunderbolt towards him, shields of light conjured up by Tristram to help protect him smashing apart into blasts of light as she used the destructive blade in her left hand to crash through them in waves of fire and Red mana. Leodred didn't exactly know what he was doing, his mind still consumed by the anguish of seeing his beloved father sacrifice his life for him, and die because of his weakness, but his body had been thrust into adrenalized overdrive and his some parts of his instinct were screaming at him to react instead of just sitting here and letting Ilentia advance towards him at the speed the boy couldn't become used to she was that fast.

Valour shot forwards as well, twirling his spear as Tristram advanced from behind, ensuring that he did not over commit on deploying magic to delay the Master of Gluttony whilst she could blast it apart because he needed some in reserve to keep conscious, attempt to repel the poison within him that was killing him and making him extremely pale and his eyes glassy with fever, hold his axe, and use more mana when he needed it. The incarnation conjured up swords of light and flung them at the Welkalite, who dodged some by twirling her sinewy body in the air and knocked others aside with her enchanted sabres as she launched herself at it, the elemental slashing at her with its own righteous speed that left light within the air as Leodred hefted his sword.

He was covered in his father's blood and the torrential gore drenching everything in vibrant crimson, though there were clear tracks in his face where tears of hurt had spilled down them and were continuing to do so even though he knew he needed to see properly. He didn't know what he wanted to do, because no matter what he did dad would still be dead and nothing would ever change that, and without his honed survival instincts and warrior training he knew that he would have been content to give up and wait for the end to come quickly enough. He deserved to die for getting his father killed, but that would be fleeing from the battle, fleeing from his job to protect his twin sister and fleeing from his duty as a son to avenge his dad's death and make it worth something.

The boy was not going to give up or retreat from his duty because that was what Lucaelians did not do, and he had the honour of the Montlea family to hold up. He needed to make this bitch pay for what she had done already before she could hurt anyone else.

Leo knew for certain that Carlis would not have died if he had not been here, if his dad hadn't been forced to look after his failure of a son and be killed because of it, and that made the boy hate himself even more when he realised it. Leodred had never really had too many problems with confidence, though he had always felt slightly envious of his best friend Prince Alexander because of the power and respect the younger boy commanded throughout the kingdom, though he knew what almost crushing responsibility and cost that power entailed.

He also constantly wanted to be stronger, to get out of this lanky phase that he was in where he was growing taller but not building up much muscle in spite of his attempts to do so, and that was another way in which Alex and many of his other friends around the same age as them had him beaten. Finally, he had always wanted to make his father proud of him, but it seemed that he couldn't not make a mistake when he was doing combat training. Dad had often told him that he needed to be more patient, less impetuous and to assess the situation before rushing blindly into it, because if he was ever going to inherit the role of one of the main generals of the Capitalia Lux legion then he needed to be able to get a greater picture of things before committing his soldiers into the combat.

"_It is reckless and foolish to risk your life by throwing it into dangerous situations with no thought of the consequences, __but it is downright selfish to lead others with you and put their lives in danger as well before assessing the state of the battle,_" dad had once admonished as he helped his son back to his feet after repelling one of his blind offensives and knocking him over.

The man had also hit the nail on the head when Leodred had objected that Alexander fought in the same way as him but he wouldn't be criticised because he was a Lucerna, patiently telling him that while the eldest prince fought in a very offensive manner firstly he had a First Sisterhood angel, one of the most aggressive, at his command, and secondly whilst he was an extremely fast warrior that used constant aggression and pressure to his advantage Carlis had seen the two spar and knew that Alex still analysed the situation before heading in.

And now Carlis was dead, all because Leodred hadn't listened to him. The man had warned him of this, and instead of Leo dying because of not paying enough attention to the situation his father had taken the blow intended for him instead. Ilentia swayed out of the way of one of Valour's strikes, the spear tip that was coated with light flashing past her as she swept past the Summoning and towards Leodred.

Anger and anguish surged through the youngster in equal measures as the Master of Gluttony came at him from the ground, the malicious and curved blade that had killed his dad extended towards him whilst the other sabre that was lit up by impulsive and destructive Red mana was held to the side to slash at him once he dodged or repelled the first blow.

Screaming in his hatred of the woman, White mana crashed through the body of the eighteen year old, coursing through his limbs and surging into the straight edge of his Lucaelian steel sword as he leapt at the Master of Gluttony to oppose her. He wanted to make her pay for what she had done, and he didn't care that this was exactly what his father had warned him about, exactly the thing that had forced Carlis to die in protecting his only son from the formidable Welkalite opponent who had slaughtered one of the most elite regiments in the kingdom like they were nothing but untrained youths handed blades and pushed into the army. All he knew now was the need for vengeance upon the one who had wronged his family so much, and his grief-stricken mind howled at him to do it.

His blade met empty air in spite of the surge of energy that had gripped him and the speed at which the strike had been executed, and Leodred blearily looked up with a vision blurred by stinging tears that he did not know how to stop. The eighteen year old was half expecting Ilentia to be attacking him from a different angle now, to have anticipated his angry assault and completely out manoeuvred him, and he was fully prepared for a sting of a blade stabbing into him from behind or a blast of magic that would wrap around him or consumed him in an inferno of fire.

He could barely concentrate on the battle at all with the grief rushing through him constantly, the condemnations of his stupidity that had led to his father's end by his own mind drowning out every other sense as all he felt was the sting of emotion in his head, emotion that did not do that much to empower his mana without the need to obtain righteous vengeance and protect others from the fate that he had allowed to come upon his father. Leodred only just noticed the Master of Gluttony metres away from him and baring down on his twin sister who had been channelling her mana in defence of him, and his protective instinct flared in his head. He instantly began running towards her, refusing to let Elizabex be hurt as well because of him.

The eldest child of Carlis was about finished in casting one of her powerful but also relatively quick spells when Ilentia had leapt off the ground with unnatural agility gifted to her both by her demonic pact with the being fighting Tristram's Second Sisterhood angel and the Red mana running through her and was suddenly in the air above her. Elizabex quickly abandoned her offensive magic, acting upon instinct instead of any rational thought as sudden screaming eclipsed the hymnals she had begun singing, beseeching the angels above to lend her their divine might so that she could smite this monster of a Welkalite from the face of the world.

An undulating wave of twisting shadows was vomited up from the sword in the right hand of Ilentia towards the young woman, who quickly placed her staff lengthways across the ground, still gripped in her hands, and raised it up, a square of luminescence following the magical armament as she drew it upwards and focussed her defensive White mana into the staff given to her by her mother. The Black mana crashed into her shield, and she gritted her teeth, refusing to give into the thoughts of hopelessness that were running at the back of her mind – as if her dad, one of the most powerful warriors she had ever seen (although she was slightly biased considered he was her father) had been defeated by the Master of Gluttony than what hope did she have?

No, instead she had to think that now Ilentia must have been weakened in some way by the sacrifice that her dad had made so that his son and daughter could live on for longer, and though she didn't seem to be concerned by the quite prominent wound in her side that had shredded her flexible leather armour and ripped apart her flesh it was probably affecting her in some way, even if it was only slightly. Right now Elizabex couldn't see the older woman to analyse her for weakness with the darkness battering against her shield of light, the two opposing forces raging against each other in their endless battle for supremacy.

The girl was ready and waiting for the Master of Gluttony to begin using Red mana in an attempt at catching her off guard, and knew that the others in their party would probably be rushing towards her now so that they could help Elizabex, or to leap past her shield and begin to assault her. Adversely, Ilentia might keep up her constant assault, wait for the others to over extend and then target them instead, and Elizabex knew that Leodred was definitely not in any condition to be fighting right now and might charge blindly at the one attacking his twin sister if Tristram, who was most likely coming to try and help as well, couldn't stop him or if Valour didn't either.

The Lucaelian girl wasn't sure how she could keep so relatively calm (as she was anything but collected and was still distraught and sad, but not enough to stop her from thinking almost clearly) with all that had happened, but supposed that she could mourn later once this battle was won and once no one else would get hurt. She had always been the least emotional one of out the two siblings, able to push them away easier than her slightly younger brother, but that didn't mean that she didn't feel it and often had trouble showing hurt herself.

Elizabex quickly pulled herself out of her thoughts, aware that either she would become lost within them or distracted by them or that she would become consumed by guilt and sorrow to the point where she was unable to act if she let her father's death get to her too much. Ilentia shot through the shadow at that point, the darkness spilling off of her lean limbs like steam and blasting through the shield of pure mana as her swords slashed at different angles towards the Montlea girl, twin forces of death in different ways rushing at Elizabex.

Remembering her combat training and fusing that with her instinct, Elizabex rolled backwards at the same as bringing her staff round, dodging one of the sabres that seemed to hiss threateningly and sadistically at her as if promising she would feel pain soon enough as it passed over her head. The other blade, spitting with sparks of flame, crashed into the handle of her staff that she reinforced with White mana to prevent it from being sliced in half, and her own brown eyes met the piercing red orbs of the Master of Gluttony as she pressed into her.

Elizabex refused to be intimated, drawing upon her natural Lucaelian resilience in the face of the darkness and courage to oppose all foes to stare down the Welkalite and whip her staff round, pouring thrumming and blinding White mana into it in a blinding strike that had Ilentia's already tiny pupils compressed into a minute black sphere at the centre of her unnaturally large red irises that left little white at the edges of the fiery circle.

She crashed the magical equipment that enhanced her ability to focus her mana into the ground just as Ilentia flipped backwards, dodging a strike of light that Elizabex hadn't even seen herself despite facing the direction it came from which evaporated the blood slick on the ground where it landed. Elizabex had expected this from the Master of Gluttony and quickly darted her eyes round to get vision of her, Tristram cursing in anger and barely concealed agony as she launched herself at him for a moment.

Instead of attempting to hit the Welkalite with another magical assault that was likely to miss and simply waste her mana, Elizabex infused Tristram with light, giving him more strength and speed as well as helping to help the advance of the poison through him that Eliza couldn't do anything about without having access to her healing magic or medical equipment which she was trained slightly to use (though her skills would probably prove to be inadequate for a mana based toxin that potent).

Tristram battered the woman back from him, the circling arcs of fire behind her that smouldered as they whooshed through the air towards him impacting upon the many shields of mana that rose up around him. Tristram's magic was very defensive and focussed upon preserving himself and others and winning through his physical might and empowering that as well.

It had been perfect for protecting the young princes throughout the vast majority of the civil war, drawing enemies to attack him instead of them and the aged Tybalt who had provided adept magical support with onslaughts of powerful spells from the back lines along with the Lucerna boys, but it was not the best tactic against the Master of Gluttony because she was significantly faster than he was in spite of the fact that he was a very quick warrior, and could easily target others instead of him and deal damage to them as opposed to piercing through the Guardian's formidable defences.

He felt Elizabex's magic fortifying his state and silently thanked the girl for it, refusing to acknowledge the state of his wounds because he instinctively knew how dire they were and that merely paying any attention to them would make them seem even worse and exacerbate the effects of the agony that he was in. He didn't want to have to think about life with only one arm, because even if he could conjure up a magical replacement it wouldn't be the same, and instead focussed utterly on the battle and ensuring the survival of his young comrades that their father had already given his life to continue.

The Guardian of Capitalia Lux was starting to tire, and while he would have liked to be able to analyse Ilentia's fighting style it was all he could do to force himself to stay conscious and aware of the world around him, let alone battle against the Master of Gluttony who was bearing down on him once again, her twin sabres flashing in alternating arcs of fire and darkness as they swept towards the man from above. The woman liked to utilise many different angles of attack to distract and confuse her opponents, but Tristram had always been a staunch warrior used to taking punishment (because he didn't want others to get hurt and it was often the case that they couldn't get hurt as they were far more fragile than he was – such as during the civil war that had seen him mature from a young adult right at the start to an adult capable of taking care of little kids, whereby the other members of their small party had either been too old or too young to endure much pain) and stood his ground against the blazing assault of insidious and murderous shadow combined with flames of a heart's yearning to be free.

His axe whipped around after he blocked the two strikes of Ilentia on conjured shields of inviolate light that held strong even as the enchanted blades crashed into them, absorbing the magical forces behind the blows and nullifying the strength put into them, a potentially lethal riposte initiated by the shining edge of the blade that only hacked into nearly solid murk that filled the Guardian's vision before he erased it with a blast of holy light which restored clarity to the dark avenue.

"Leo! Look out!" Elizabex shouted quickly to her brother before Ilentia had even fully disengaged with Tristram and was in the process of flipping around to attack the youngest Montlea once again, as the eighteen year old male was afflicted heavily by his emotions and was early beginning to charge at where the Master of Gluttony had been prior to her effortlessly breaking away from the Light-bearer and somersaulting once again at the boy across the large street from her.

Elizabex's twin brother reacted to the warning by looking into the air, readying his sword to try and strike down the Master of Gluttony as Valour ran to his side and twirled his spear, barriers of White mana floating into life that would impede the Welkalite's progress and slow her down saturating the air in front of her. With the sudden switch of assaulting Tristram and then going to attack Leodred when he had been distracted by being about to rush her from behind, Elizabex was piecing together the Master of Gluttony's effective strategy more and more, and this was giving the hypothesis that she had already come up with more credence.

Ilentia fought by dividing her enemies, turning the greatest strength of the soldiers of the Kingdom of Light, their unity, against each other, forcing them to fight their own individual battles against her and preying upon the one that she thought was the weakest at any given time. Eliza knew that her fighting style was very chaotic, which was reminiscent of a lot of Welkalite strategies and tactics, but this one was more focussed upon not allowing the Lucaelians to attack her from every side at once because even though the Master of Gluttony was very powerful she could not hope to resist that.

The girl was beginning to see a very clear pattern to Ilentia's seemingly random and unplanned combat approach to his battle, and the fact that she had left Tristram to attack her brother now only confirmed what she had had suspicions about, though not enough until now to begin to plan her own counter to the enemy's plan of action. Ilentia targeted the weakest at each individual point in time, but she forced that weakness herself by preying upon the natural need of Lucaelians to want to help their comrades and make sure that they did not get hurt, taking advantage of the fact that they were all fully willing to sacrifice their lives for their allies to make them do just that.

She would attack the one who was the furthest away from the other two (or three, but she did not target Valour at all and it was safe to say that she would rather kill the Summoner and get rid of the incarnation without having to touch it – probably meaning that Ilentia felt a lot safer fighting against humans because they were more predictable and easier to manipulate into making a mistake than an almost perfect warrior elemental) to make the others leave the relative safety of their positions to come to the aid of their stricken friend and become more focussed on aiding the one in trouble rather than protecting themselves.

Then she would target the one farthest away once again now that they were preparing to lend their strength to help the one who the Master of Gluttony was assaulting before, utilising her incredible manoeuvrability and speed to get to them before the others could react. That would put them under pressure and potentially get them killed, but if it didn't it would therefore lead the others out of position so that she could pick and choose a new target to attempt to kill.

It was forcing them into a reactionary game where none of them could get used to the state of the combat before it was changed and reversed on its head, and Ilentia would remain almost immune to any form of retaliation because individually she was stronger than any of them and could evade their retaliatory counter attacks with little effort.

She was slowly weakening them all to the point where one of them became far too exhausted and wounded to continue on with this type of warfare and make a mistake, which would compromise all of them as they scrambled to help their stricken fellow Lucaelian and give her full reign to force them into heavily risking their lives or even sacrificing it to ensure that others would live on.

Much as it hurt her to even think about it, Elizabex knew that what she had just figured out would have been the reason for her father dying, that her slightly younger brother by a few hours would have either over extended or been hurt enough by the woman to allow her to go all out in attacking him and trapping him in the fallen wreckage of that market stall which he had only just freed himself from, and making Carlis have to choose between his son's life or his own – which had been an easy decision to make for the loving father of two.

Ilentia would attack her if Leodred didn't let her get close enough to hurting him or somehow open himself up for more attack, which, judging by his enraged and anguished expression, probably accentuated by the malevolent effects of the Tempest of Craving above that was currently screaming in its endless thirst for blood and undying rage, though she could not pay attention to that now or the way that the Red and Black mana levels suffusing the entire city in hedonistic magic which heightened every sensation to exquisitely painful intensity, not with Tristram and her twin brother who knew her more than anyone else in grave danger.

As Tristram, grunting in pain that he attempted to hide coming from his wounds and the horrible poison which would have killed a lesser man, began to run towards the twelve year younger male, Elizabex hoped that Leodred wouldn't expose himself enough so that Ilentia abandoned her plan and went into the second phase of attempting to kill him instead of going to attack Eliza which the girl was certain the Master of Gluttony would do next.

She wished that she had some way of communicating her thoughts with her allies without having Ilentia know that she had figured out parts of her strategy because then the Welkalite would adapt and change it as she was clearly a very cunning fighter (also evidenced by the way that she had organised her forces across the Glutton's Quarter which was the first one to come under attack by the Lucaelians, delaying and splitting them up with clever yet extremely callous placements of troops), but since she didn't all she could do was look like she was going to rush towards her brother or begin to cast a spell which would leave her right open to attack.

She began, starting to pulse huge amounts of mana into her staff, but instead of using as much as she could Elizabex discreetly enchanted the ground around her with traps that would flare into life when she activated them and the Welkalite targeted her – they were very powerful, but they did not last long and if Ilentia's plan was different to what Elizabex had predicted she would end up wasting huge amounts of mana when they ran out and then the Master of Gluttony could capitalise upon that instead to attack her.

Reacting quickly now that his sister had warned him of the attack, Leo snarled in a way that he didn't care if it was intimidating or not as he launched himself at the woman, his sword shining with a blinding glow. He no longer cared whether he would be hurt or not, all he wanted was to make this bastard face justice for what she had done, and to avenge his father's death which should not have happened, and his sword slashed through the air towards the woman as she lanced a kick out into Valour, fire exploding from her foot and rippling into the elemental that quickly rose an aegis of White mana conjured up onto its left forearm.

Elizabex poured mana into the two spells she was casting at once, knowing that she was taking an immense risk because if the Master of Gluttony saw through her ruse then she would be achieving nothing apart from putting herself – and consequently the others who would rush forwards to help her – in even greater peril. She hoped beyond any rational hope that this would work, because if it did they could win and get out of the danger that they were deep within now, if only for a brief moment because of the climax of the Lucaelian/Welkalite war contained in this sprawling city of hedonism and horrors.

Elizabex would never get to see if she was right or not.

A massive pillar of combined light and darkness in huge amounts blasted up from the centre of Usnaan and into the heavens, piercing through and utterly annihilating the Tempest of Craving which shrieked as it died. However, its howls of pain were nothing compared to the undulating death scream that rippled out throughout the entirety of the City of Pleasure, the dying roar of a fallen god as it was killed by the gigantic amounts of mana released in the vicinity of it and targeted against it making Elizabex's skull pound and her teeth rattle with the intensity of it. Ilentia quickly broke off from her attack, Leodred even his enraged and almost frenzied state pausing and his eyes widening at the sheer release of power that crashed through the storm above and destroyed the heart of corruption in the centre of the Welkalite capital.

"WHAT IS THIS?" a demonic voice bellowed, though to Ilentia's ears Arrapackxia seemed more concerned and incredulous than genuinely distressed that its true master which Tradax had brought into Usnaan and had been the most powerful thing the Master of Gluttony had ever sensed before had been slain. The greater demon smashed the angel it was battling solely against away with a wave of screaming and hungry shadow surrounding its pale forearm and swooped down next to Ilentia, its foetid and ravenous presence reminding the woman of the darkness within her that she couldn't care less about.

Athela, instead of capitalising on this distraction to strike from behind, raised her circular aegis and blocked the attack on the ornate shield embossed with the sigil of Iona, and then landed next to her Summoner so that she could protect him and the other two Lucaelians from any further attack. She felt like she had failed Tristram in allowing him to sustain such horrible wounds, but Athela was a practical angel and knew that it would be much worse if she had let them fight the very powerful demon she had held up and delayed as he played his games with her.

"Your master, the foul Lord of Riots, has been slain by the might of the First Sisterhood and the Lucerna family!" the Aegis Angel shouted back, pretending not to be concerned by the fact that it had been the traitor of the First Sisterhood, the Summoning of her Summoner's youngest charge during the civil war, who had provided all of the power to kill Rakdos. No, that wasn't true – while it had been very similar to the Angel of the Black Sun's magic of heavenly light and abyssal darkness, it had been Prince Caiellis himself who had annihilated – not just banished – the unholy Defiler, the young boy who called her Summoner his "Uncle" who was sweet and innocent releasing that much haunting energy because of his Lucerna heritage a reminder that no matter the size or age of the Lucerna they would never fail to protect the people.

Arrapackxia's contemptuous eyes opened up wide in exaggerated shock, though the greater demon was truly surprised that his creator had been utterly destroyed in the time of his ascension and the true beginning of the Festival of Bloodshed, before he started laughing. Derisive sniggers and snorts burst forth from the self-styled Archdemon of Greed who could easily have the opportunity to descend to that rank now that his master was gone which were warped into malevolent laughter by its dark tongue as it cackled almost hysterically.

"It does seem that that is the case, doesn't it, little seraphim? Oh well. It seems that the conclusion to our fight will have to come at another time. Now then, Ilentia, since your master Tradax has failed and my "lord" Rakdos has been slain, there is little point in me remaining here, is there? Ta ta, my sweet Summoner. I will see you in hell," Arrapackxia snorted, his lips curling into a hungry sneer as he beheld the slightly surprised yet somewhat apathetic woman. The demon quickly Unsummoned itself in an opening portal of spiralling tenebrosity which devoured its physical form, returning to the Master of Gluttony's Mind Realm in preparation for her death so that it could claim her soul and refusing to be Summoned once more.

Ilentia glanced back at her five enemies, including an angel which had managed to hold of her demon, albeit Arrapackxia had been playing with her in lieu of defeating her quickly and coming to Ilentia's aid like it had been capable of doing, and all of them glared back at her with their endless determination and endurance. It was an admirable Lucaelian trait, Ilentia had to admit, but it was borne from their irritatingly arrogant sense of self-righteousness and unquestioned belief that everything they were doing in their slavery to their angelic overseers and their scions in the Lucerna family which made it so they did not know when they had lost.

There was no way that she could defeat all of them, not now that some of her power was leaving her in tandem with the departure of her demon, and she would not be able to flee either as they would chase her down and kill her. However, it was sharply clear that Arrapackxia paid little attention to her activities in the physical world when the demon was not Summoned, and she pulled out the device that Eras Stormwind, Master of Wealth, had given her in the very early hours of the morning of this day.

She did not know where it would take her, or if it would even work, but that did not particularly bother the Master of Gluttony. Nor did she feel any inclination to stay within the city of her birth the capital city that she was supposed to be leading the defence of, because this battle was lost and she refused to die here. She would make her own life from here, be able to do what ever she chose to with no masters controlling her or forcing her into wars that she did not care about.

Ilentia wasn't even annoyed that she wouldn't be able to finish this battle, in fact she didn't care at all about these Lucaelians, as while it had been enjoyable she did not feel much at all towards them and would rather survive and keep living. The Master of Gluttony, if such a title existed any more as the capital city of the New Empire of Passion was perilously close to being over run and conquered, did not know what she wanted to do with her life, as there were endless possibilities, but all that mattered was that it was her life now.

With no hesitation at all, she pressed down on the button of the strange teleportation device, and Tristram and the Montlea twins watched as foreign and swirling Blue mana engulfed the pale woman who was covered in blood, no longer weakened by the influence of the Tempest of Craving now that it had been destroyed, and suddenly left without a trace. The Guardian was left feeling hollow inside at the victory in spite of the fact that they had won, and turned to look up at his angel who swiftly glanced back down at him, her warm golden eyes suffused with concern for her Summoner.

"I am sorry, Tristram. But I have to go back to the Mind Realm now so that your mana can be conserved," Athela told the man, who nodded back and then regretted it as the world spun nauseatingly around him in tandem to the Second Sisterhood angel leaving this realm of existence and returning to his mind in a solemn flash of concentric white luminescence. Leodred stood still for a few seconds, swaying precariously as he stared daggers into the spot where Ilentia had been stood, and then collapsed to his knees, dropping his sword with a splash of blood from the torrential rain which had abruptly stopped and starting to cry his eyes out in wracking sobs that exacerbated the feeling of emptiness Tristram was experiencing.

Victory had been achieved, in this area anyway and probably across the whole city, which was a good thing as now the innocents of Welkas would be able to be free from dictators who would willingly invite demons upon their people and sacrifice their souls to them, but it had come with a great cost. Tristram turned round to Leodred, starting to step towards him and wanting to comfort him in any way possible even though he knew the words would be hollow, because he had experienced the same when woefully attempting to lessen the pain of an eight year old and a four year old who had lost their mother and been pulled away from their father, but the second he moved pain shuddered through him.

He grunted at the sudden, stinging agony rushing through his veins, pushing back a scream of pain that almost slipped out of his lips which were clamped shut, blood and bile threatening to rush up his throat from the effects of the poison that now had nothing holding it back. He staggered, falling to one knee as the world blurred around him and torture ripped through his muscular body, the stump of his right elbow the source of his pain as the man could feel the progress of the poison through him.

"Tristram! Let me heal you," a concerned but sad voice that was moments away from tears and broken by the events of the battle went into his ears, though Tristram ignored it for the moment as he pulled his body onwards, about to turn around and tell her not to before she added, "The blood from the rain is still here, but since the Tempest of Craving has gone I can heal you without what happened earlier. Although I suppose you didn't see that."

He tried to move forwards before a strong hand gripped his shoulder and soothing light began to spill into him, though he growled at the pain as the felt the purifying magic rushing through him and burning the venomous magic away from him.

"Hold still," the voice of Elizabex rang out as the Guardian stubbornly tried to pull away so that he could go and help the sobbing Leodred. He turned back to the girl, hoping the tears in his eyes weren't showing because his own pain would be nothing compared to their emotional agony – he hadn't even been there when his own parents died during the civil war, finding out from his cousin when he had been planning to take the Lucerna children there and he wanted to see his mother and father to ensure that they were alright, so he knew the sting of losing a parent intimately, but he had not been there when they had been killed so could only imagine what that would feel like.

Tears were spilling unimpeded down Elizabex's young cheeks as well, but she stoically refused to give into them like her twin brother and concentrated on healing Tristram and erasing the poison from his veins.

"Go see to your brother. I'll be fine," Tristram ground out through gritted teeth, trying not to let the true extent of his pain show to the eighteen year old who smiled sadly at him, a haunted twist of her lip that the Guardian was all too familiar with in all of the years of grief and sorrow that had preceded this war. Elizabex rolled her eyes, though the fact that she was feigning being alright did not mean that the sadness in them was erased from the daughter of Carlis, who replied, "And leave you to die from the poison of Ilentia's blade or any other infections that you might have? Not a chance. Sit down so it is easier."

Tristram complied, not muttering profanities under his breath like he would have done in any other situation because he could hear how close Elizabex was to breaking, how close her façade of tending to him instead of giving in to her tears was to shattering in the flood of sadness. Elizabex's eyes didn't stray from his wounds as she ripped off some fabric from the priest clothing above her armour, infused it with mana and bound the wound of Tristram's arm. The Guardian hissed in pain and had to consciously stop himself from jerking away from the girl's soothing ministrations, Elizabex accommodating for his pain by the way she used spells that would reduce it as well.

The man was reminded of earlier times when he would have to be patched up by his mother after his over-eager stupidity of doing daring things that his older friends bet that he couldn't, and more recently during the civil war where he would be healed by Tybalt or the Lucerna children (mostly little Cai because he was much better at healing than his older brother, though Alexander was still good at things like stitching or patching up wounds without much magic) if the Light-bearers were too wounded to tend to one another. They sat silently, Tristram giving Elizabex the privacy she needed and pretended he couldn't see her crying quietly, looking over to Leodred who was leaning over his father's corpse, his dad's hands clasped in his as Valour watched sombrely above him and kept guard for any potential enemies.

Tristram didn't know what, if anything, he could say to Elizabex that would help with emotional wounds so freshly inflicted, and so stayed quiet instead, letting a mournful silence descend that was only punctuated by the wracking whimpers of Leodred and the occasional sob that Elizabex let out as she efficiently dressed and healed Tristram's wound to the point where the pain was still there in a large amount but it was far more numbed than before and it was only that part of him hurting, the poison within him much less powerful with the cowardly departure of the Master of Gluttony reducing its effectiveness.

He knew full well that Elizabex was spending lots of time rejuvenating his wounds and ensuring that he was perfectly fine because that was something that she could deal with, something that would delay the coming swell of anguish within her and something that she had the power to change. She wouldn't know how to confront the sadness and loss that would be within her, and she didn't want to cry like Leodred or fall into the embrace of the despair like her twin brother because she wouldn't be sure if she could escape from it or not and she didn't know if there was anything she could do to handle it. Tristram knew this because he had seen it from other people, most notably an eight year old Alex who had thrust himself fully into caring for his baby brother so that he did not have to think about the loss of his mum and the fact that the perfect life he had known was now nothing more than memories and dreams of a new one.

The Guardian closed his eyes so that he could focus his sixth sense on the city now that the Tempest of Craving was gone and the Lord of Riots which had been slain was no longer distracting and obscuring it with its sheer power, the adrenaline draining out of him with his deep breaths as the girl sat next to him refused to give into her tears and kept at healing him. He could sense Alexander, that was one of the first things, though the boy's magical presence suddenly became massively diminished which meant that the Warleader must have returned to his Mind Realm. He could sense Hierarch Tybalt and Guardian Lelia finishing off their own foe who had been the Master of Wealth if their location and what he remembered from the fateful "negotiations" that had led to this war was anything to go by.

At the centre of the city he could also pick up on the quite faint presence of King Marik, but much more disturbingly was the utter absence of Caiellis – his mana presence wasn't even extremely weak, it was just not there at all and that scared Tristram, though such a thing was understandable with the amount of mana he had released killing the greatest demon in the City of Pleasure. What was equally as frightening was the amount of sheer despair and sorrow the man had detected in the mana discharge of White and Black magic coming from the thirteen year old which had slain the Lord of Riots as Athela had called it, the fact that Tristram had felt his youngest student's sheer pain and anguish from here and the truth that it had led to that much mana generation indicated something was very wrong.

"Don't push yourself too hard, Elizabex," he gently admonished the girl who was pouring her mana into him, and she shook her head, tears spilling out of her brown eyes and trickling down her bloodied cheeks as she did so. "I'm fine, Tristram."

The Guardian didn't comment further that she wasn't and was pleased when Elizabex heeded the fact that she didn't have much mana left and reduced the amount she was using to heal the thirty year old before she hurt herself. After another few seconds of mournful quiet, Elizabex's voice piped up, caught halfway into a sob that made it shaky, "W-was t-that … ?"

"Caiellis," Tristram replied gravely, knowing the question before she finished it, and Elizabex's eyes widened slightly in awe and more sadness as she nodded back at the Guardian. The light faded from her hands, and Tristram quietly thanked her for the healing, but she wasn't listening. Her eyes were fixed upon her twin brother, and the eldest living member of the group didn't impede the girl as she slowly trudged towards Leodred, staring down at her dead father with haunted eyes and kneeling beside him and her brother, her own hands reaching towards the clasped ones of the male members of her family.

There were no words that could be said that would do anything to help Leo, so Elizabex stayed silent at his side, crying as well but sharing the burden of the grief with him, making sure that he knew he wasn't alone in this. She would ensure her brother was aware that it wasn't his fault at all for their father's death, but saying it now would accomplish nothing and only make him hate himself further. She put an arm around his shoulders, wondering when the day would come when she wouldn't be able to do that any longer because he would broaden more than he had done already, and Leodred couldn't stop himself from burying his head in his sister's shoulder and crying his eyes out.

Eliza put her chin on her brother's short brown hair that was matted down with the blood from the sky as the heavens opened up for a second time, but instead of torrents of gore pouring out of the clouds it began to rain normally, clear liquid droplets raining down from the sky and washing away the blood that had drenched the City of Pleasure, though it would never wash away the horrible events that had occurred here.

Elizabex didn't bother saying anything to comfort her brother who was slightly taller than her now but still knelt on the ground like she was, because it wouldn't do anything and she couldn't get it out past the sobs she so desperately wanted to give into. Leodred pulled himself out of her shoulder, pushing her head back as he did so, and then wrapped his sister in a hug, both of them still crying at the fact that their beloved father was dead. Tristram left them to it, tenderly touching the fabric that was binding the stump of his right elbow and thanking the angels that he was left handed in anything but wielding his axe as the cool but not freezing and refreshing rain spattered onto him. He would stay here and protect these two from any other potential enemies, even though a very large part of him wanted to rush to the centre of the city as fast as possible to check on the condition of the two boys that were like children to him.

Tristram shook his head sadly as he watched the two twins in their sorrowful embrace, drawing comfort from one another and providing it freely to their counterpart to get through the initial onslaught of emotional pain, reminding the man heavily of another pair of siblings who meant a lot to him. He had to be sure that whatever had happened to Caiellis, his father and brother would be able to take care of him – Alexander would undoubtedly do everything in his power to do so, and he only hoped that Marik would look past his youngest son's disobedience and risky attack against the Master of Rapture to do the same and provide the comfort, the loving father, that the kiddo would need.

He idly fingered the stump of his arm, knowing that it would be a while before he got used to not having a right forearm but also aware that he had escaped massively lucky – far luckier than poor heroic Carlis had been. Elizabex had done an exemplary job of healing the Guardian.

It was just a shame that there were no spells that could repair a broken heart.

.*.*.*.

"Are you sure about this?" Meri's voice rang out within the empty corridor, loud at first before Annia clamped a slender hand around his mouth and made an exaggerated shushing motion with the other. There was no one else in sight, but that did not mean that caution wasn't paramount if they didn't want to get caught.

The sixteen year old's light red eyes flashed with annoyance and the girl glowered at him for a moment before releasing the older Yentarian, who took the hint and lowered his voice to a hushed whisper before continuing, "I mean, what if we get suspended doing this? This is way too risky. There is a reason it says not to enter down here."

"If you are just going to complain then you may as well not be here, Yentarian," Leleth Barkbite, a tall Erian student who was fifteen years old, hissed back caustically, taller and more muscular than the boy in between her and Annia as they held back in the shadows of one of the off limits corridors within the Scholaria Magnus academy. This was one of the few areas besides potentially dangerous training zones that were off limits to the students, as it was the place where the staff and teachers of the international school resided, though Sergeant Tarkos of Welkas and Miss Gloria of Lucael had departed at the same time as the students from the Kingdom of Light were pulled out as a safety precaution.

Annia found it interesting that while King Marik, her brief friend/acquaintance/classmate Caiellis's father, had taken out the students from his nation when his sons were abducted by the Welkalite delegation to ensure their safety, but the pupils sent from the New Empire of Passion had not been – apart from Kaled who had joined Sergeant Tarkos in his venture back to Welkas. It spoke a lot about the cultures of the two different nations, as from what she knew the Lucaelians would never think of targeting the Welkalite teenagers within what was supposed to be a project to maintain peace within the nations whilst obviously the New Empire wouldn't hesitate to do the same.

She turned back to the older Yentarian who was only slightly smaller than her, her hazel eyes glancing over him as he bristled at the Erian girl, wondering if it had been a mistake to bring him along. Annia and Meri had been friends when they were younger and their parents had collaborated on projects, but back then they had only been three years old and the friendship had not continued since then. The son of one of the most prominent chemisters from the explosive and experimental League of Xechun scowled, hissing back, "It wasn't as if I had much of a choice! I mean, you told me that you would "give me enough bruises to make a man eating troll look like a pampered princess in comparison"."

"That's still a choice," the tallest amongst them replied icily, seeming to Annia like she was enjoying taunting the smaller student despite the fact that what she had seen from Leleth, a shaman like Freya, so far had shown her to be relatively quiet and not one to antagonise others. "And that's what you deserve for listening in on a private conversation."

Leleth had confronted Annia and Freya (well, mostly the latter one of the two but the Yentarian had refused to leave and knew about to) about the growing darkness that the living creatures spoke of, as well as the fact that they could sense something strange in the heart of the Scholaria Magnus academy. The sensory powers of Green mages were certainly something to behold, and Freya had spoken to her room mate about her growing concerns about the power of death she had mentioned only two days ago.

Now that Leleth, who Annia had been defeated by in the team battles the day Caiellis and Alexander had been abducted and the war between Welkas and Lucael had begun, had shared her suspicions with her fellow shaman and the fact that one of the plants had told her of some strange activities and magical power within the private quarters of the academy, the Yentarian girl had decided that she was not content to simply sit here and wait for something bad to happen, not while other people were risking their lives to free the Welkalite people from the tyrannical dictators which had taken over their empire.

Jenna, while obviously not wanting to worry her younger sister, had informed Annia of how bad the situation was going, and the last time they had spoken the twenty year old had been making sure that everything was organised for Caiellis one last time before the siege of Usnaan began that Jenna would understandably not be participating in – though it did disturb the younger girl that a thirteen year old like Cai would be just because he was a prince and the son of the king and could wield great power. Jenna had also told her about how the small boy had lead his army to victory on two occasions, flawlessly in one battle seeing off ambushers from a faction which Jenna hadn't been able to tell Annia about as the information was heavily classified (meaning that the Republic knew a lot less about Lucael than it thought it did).

However, the leaders of the New Empire of Passion, the cunningly named Masters of Passion, were far worse than had originally been envisioned according to Jenna, as while the Yentarian Republic had very limited dealings with Sancturia demons the Lucaelians were quite familiar with them and apparently they were the most evil things in the two worlds – and the Masters of Passion had contacted them and traded their old Summonings in for them in something which Jenna had been told was called an Infernal Bargain. Annia wasn't sure what she thought of Black mana, as while it seemed evil she reasoned it was the mana type that those who were evil would gravitate towards so that they could achieve their goals, but these demons could have links to the darkness that Freya and Leleth had sensed.

The type of mana that Annia used was not at all opposed to Black whilst the Green mana of the girls was and detested the colour that was linked closest to death, but Jenna had told her that she had seen a demon that Caiellis had fought against and slew the Summoner of and that even though Black mana itself was not evil demons were the very definition of the word.

Annia was not content at all just to sit here whilst two people that she knew, two shamans from Eria who were connected strongly to the land itself, spoke of a darkness that was being aided by forces in the centre of the academy. And that was why they were sneaking around in an area off limits to students of the Scholaria Magnus in the evening of the ten days after they had arrived here when they should have either been finishing their meals in one of the many places to eat from within the dormitory halls or back in their rooms, completing work or generally relaxing if all the work was done

She peeked round the corridor, ignoring the two bickering students for a second and glad that they had heeded her warning and were being quiet as discovery, while at this stage wouldn't be punishable, would be suspicions and it would reduce the chances of their plan succeeding. The door at the opposite side of the courtyard was locked with a traditional Yentarian rune seal which would require decoding in a certain manner to allow them to enter, but also done in such a way that did not show their presence and did not indicate that the seal had been temporarily broken.

"Maybe I will leave then," Meri replied, defensively and sullenly, and Annia turned back around to him. So far they hadn't seen any form of security devices or observation networks within the areas they had traversed, though that didn't mean there weren't any and Annia was fully aware that while her detection powers of Blue mana were quite powerful that didn't mean that she would be able to reveal the concealment magic potentially used to hide any form of camera by mages more formidable than she was. But if Meri wandered back the way that they had come and was spotted by a teacher or a member of the support staff then they would be very suspicious and the girl didn't trust the other Yentarian to keep quiet about it. "I mean it's not like I care about the ramblings of two insane shamans and your stupid mission."

For some reason Meri had been eavesdropping on their conversation when they had been talking in hushed tones about it in one of their rooms – Annia's and Freya's next to the now empty room which had belonged to Caiellis and Kaled -, stood listening in through the doorway that had been accidentally left slightly open, but since both Leleth and Freya were Erians who had been trained to hunt and hear even the slightest movement and could employ their Green mana in sensing life the former had opened the door and yanked him inside when they detected him.

It had been agreed that he was going to have to come with them, because otherwise he might tell someone of their plans and get them into trouble which would prevent them from completing their strategy to just have a look inside of the private location of the academy. Now Meri was here, pouting like a three year old denied chocolate by a parent who refused to listen to their whining, and before Leleth could react to the thoughtless words the youngest Bylae cut in, looking into the boy's eyes.

"You can leave if you want, Meri, and we won't do anything to stop you," she began, ignoring Leleth's suppressed snort and the way that Freya was still stood silently with them, and making her voice slightly soothing towards the three month older boy. The other Yentarian looked back at her, stood awkwardly and nervously intimated by the tall Erian girl at the other side of him as she continued, "But the evil isn't just going to leave because you refuse to acknowledge that it exists. And I want you here because you are the only person in our year that is better than me at breaking runes and decoding magical ciphers."

Meri blushed at the compliment, rubbing the back of his sandy blonde hair sheepishly and suddenly avoiding Annia's gaze. The Yentarian girl knew full well that the somewhat shy sixteen year old in her year was attracted to her, though she wasn't trying to manipulate him into staying with them because of that as she had eyes for another, even though she wasn't sure about anything that she couldn't use logic and precise mathematics to solve and often ignored her emotions because she didn't like not to understand them and did not like most things that she could not quantify.

What she had said was true – Meri was the only person better than her at the tasks that she had outlined, and Annia would be very glad to have him helping her in breaking the runic seal on the door whilst ensuring that no one would be able to know of it. Annia felt sorry for the older Yentarian because it seemed that while he was very talented he had never had any acknowledgement of that until now when the teachers marvelled at his skill. He had obviously lived a very lonely life, because his mother had died in a laboratory accident before he knew who she was (he had been less than one year old at the time) and his father, a brilliant but obsessed scientist from the League of Xechun who was only interested in expanding his research and was probably unwilling to confront the grief created by having his wife die whilst carrying their second child, had no time for those who could not help him in his experiments.

Meri had little to no talent for explosions and mixing chemicals despite the fact he could wield both Blue and Red mana, and despite the fact that he had many skills in other areas such as this one that wouldn't be valued at all by his father and as such the boy barely valued them himself. It was clear to Annia that Meri just wished that his dad would see that he had other talents and was a unique person instead of only caring about a specific set of abilities which the boy did not possess. He evidently was not sure how to react to being complimented after only ever really being given disappointment from his father, especially by the girl that he was currently attracted to.

"I … I," he stammered blushing in embarrassment again, his relatively pale complexion caused by living in one of the more northern islands of the Yentarian Republic that stretched across large amounts of different climates lit up bright red in his nervous bashfulness, and Leleth sniggered and clapped him on the arm in a way that was normally only reserved for other Erians. She smirked, "I suppose that means you are staying with us then, right?"

Meri nodded, and Annia turned away from him and back to the one who had passed her in being the front of the group, the fifteen year old Yentarian having once again elected herself the impromptu leader because no one else wanted to take it up instead. Freya was stood silently and solemnly in front of her room mate, the smaller girl shutting her eyes and placing her palm to the wall, feeling the opposition of life that the plants had spoken of emanating from further within the off limits area. Annia asked her, "Can you still sense it, Freya? Are we going the right way?"

The mysterious and quiet Erian girl nodded sombrely, and Annia felt a little tingling of excitement and anticipation warring with anxiety and nervousness at the base of her spine. She did not even know what she intended for them to do once they got into the locked area of private rooms belonging to the teachers of the Scholaria Magnus, or what they would do if they found something like a monster in their, but she couldn't say that she wasn't enjoying this, enjoying feeling like she was doing something right, something to help the world. The Yentarian felt a bit giddy with the possibility of breaking the rules that she had almost always adhered to throughout her life, though she was still apprehensive of what would happen if they were found out and suspended from this opportunity or worse.

"Right then. Meri, I need you to help me with the door. Keep it quiet and keep down in case some one walks past. Freya and Leleth, you keep a look out and warn us if anyone is coming," Annia ordered, trying not to sound too forceful and the others nodded, the other member of the Republic having composed himself now as they quietly made their way to the other side of the courtyard. Before attempting to begin in decoding the runic locks on the door in front of them, Annia analysed the enchantments woven into the fabric of the wood, intuitively knowing that they would have to employ a multi stage unlocking process to open the door.

Meri looked over at her for guidance in whether or not to begin, his slender hand ready and waiting to begin channelling the mana that would be required to activate the opening mechanism built into the door so that they could see the puzzle that would be needed to be solved if they were to open it. Annia and Meri would have to work as a team to do it, and that would require them to actually verbally communicate with the other.

"We can start whenever you are ready," she told her fellow student, who nodded, his thin fingers becoming suffused with twinkling Blue mana that played along it as the door responded in kind, the auras enchanting it springing into the life with the mana infused onto it and instantly sending out a message to other security devices to tell them that someone was beginning to unlock it. Annia quickly intercepted the automatic mechanism before the mana pulse left the door, as while it would only inform any other enchantments that the door was being opened – a regular occurrence – if they didn't unlock it quickly with the pass code that would be known by anyone who should have been going here or if they failed then the teachers would know and she didn't know what would happen – though it was certain to be detrimental to their plan.

She efficiently cast a small counter spell to quell the mana message wriggling within her magical net, motioning to Meri to continue whilst she checked for any other potential security measures that would be deployed by the runes upon the door if it detected that the first one had been halted. A relatively large – for the unlocking mechanism as Yentarian runes did not require much mana at all, just the precise usage of it – surge of mana almost caught her off guard for a moment before both Annia and Meri stopped the hundreds of messages that would suddenly released, identical to the first one but in such a quantity that anyone who received them would know that someone who was opening the door had stopped the first message and probably did not want to be found out.

"It is a triple cipher. This could take a while," Meri admitted, his brow furrowed in consternation as Leleth turned around at the sound of the voice, took one look at the door, raised her eyebrows and turned back away – she had been taught a bit of the magic and the techniques of using it by Doctor Argyle, but only the very basics and this was very far from that. If she didn't already know that it would fail she would have used her Green magic to remove the enchantments and render the door back into a normal entrance once again.

"Perhaps," Annia replied, her hazel eyes narrowing in concentration as she solved one of the runic puzzles on the door that would be told to anyone who knew the pass code, glad that it flashed happily instead of failing and wondering if she should have asked Meri first before initiating it as any mistake would wipe out all of his effort as well as hers. She was about to use her mana to press down on another symbol before Meri's interrupted it, the boy quickly saying, "No, that's not the right one. See, the total amount of mana to unlock the one that you just solved was thirty percent of the one I did before that, which should mean that instead of the answer to this rune being fifty it should be seventy."

Annia nodded, impressed and wondering where the shy and nervous boy that they had brought with them who wouldn't stop complaining had gone. She had thought that the runes she wasn't quite familiar with had indicated that the correct result would be fifty due to the question that was asked, but Annia hadn't seen the link between this one and the other cryptograms written in magical letters onto the door whereas Meri had. To prove his point, the boy pressed on the symbol he had identified as being the correct one and grinned widely like a child in a sweet shop when it flashed as being the correct one.

Meri was quite clearly in his element with this, and Annia wondered whether his father knew how exceptionally his good his son was at Yentarian runes (as there were two types that the Republic knew of, the one that wizards and mages of the old kingdoms had invented that had evolved over the ages and based upon solely Blue mana which was the type they were currently decoding, and then Lucaelian runes as well of White mana that functioned in a very different way and only reacted to certain mana types instead of being decodable by anyone if they knew how) or if he would even care if he did because the man had a reputation for being extremely cold unless he was in the midst of one of his experiments, though eccentricity was almost an entry requirement for the highest ranks in the predominantly Blue and Red League of Xechun.

A few minutes later, the two finally cracked the last cipher and grinned widely when the door opened in front of them, revealing an almost identical corridor on the other side of it. The teachers at the Scholaria Magnus academy had taught their students very well, though the Yentarian was sure that they had never envisioned the students in question using their lessons to break the school's rules. Annia only hoped that no security measures managed to get past her to alert anyone inside this building to their intrusion as the two Erians followed the Yentarians inside the quiet area.

"The death is stronger here," Freya commented ominously, her soft voice breaking the silence that had descended and making Annia glance at her worriedly. Now that the elation of finally making their way in here had dissipated, Annia was just beginning to come to terms with the fact that if this evil was as dangerous as Freya and Leleth both thought it was then they could be putting themselves in immense danger. She wanted to send the others back, well, the more heroic part of her mind did, but at the same time she did not want to go alone and was more comfortable with the others around them.

But it was only now hitting her that if they did uncover the darkness, if they did find the evil festering in this private area of the academy that the plants and a few animals had told Freya of, then what would four teenagers do about it? None of them were ridiculously powerful even if they were strong mages and may become that in the future, and if this evil was as hazardous to the world's safety as Freya maintained that it was they could be walking into a death trap.

"Are you alright, Annia?" the Erian girl's voice broke her Yentarian room mate out of her reverie, Annia shaking her head imperceptibly and refusing to give into her inner demons and her sudden desire to turn around and leave while they still could. Jenna was out risking her life to try and bring peace to two warring nations, Kaled would be helping the Welkalites be free from the tyrannical Orders of Passion and Caiellis would be fighting against the ones who had abducted him and his brother with the Lucaelian army. She couldn't be cowardly now, not with other people's lives potentially at stake and with her friends and sister risking their safety to help the world as well. "Yeah, I'm fine. We need to keep moving. Lead the way."

Freya nodded in response and her and Leleth began to walk through the corridor, Annia trying to ignore the thumping of her heart because they hadn't even found anything out of the ordinary yet and pushing down the part of her mind that told her that this was the most stupid thing she had ever done and that even if it didn't get them killed it would get them suspended from the Scholaria Magnus. The corridors were made from the same pleasant materials on the other side, with no need to make this area any nicer than the student dormitories because the dormitories in question were almost luxurious they were that good.

She saw an empty room on the right of them with the door slightly ajar and assumed that it had belonged to either Sergeant Tarkos or Miss Gloria who had now left, but didn't have much time to check if anything was in there at all as Freya kept moving through this part of the academy none of them had ever been in before. Each of the rooms they passed was a bit bigger than one of the student ones, though that made sense because the teachers would have to plan their lessons within there, until the Erians walked up a small staircase at the end of the corridor that had a mahogany door at the end of it, a door that happened to be locked with a conventional key.

"That's the headmaster's room, isn't it?" Meri asked, his eyes lit up with equal amounts of trepidation and excitement at their antics of sneaking through a restricted area. Annia nodded her head, wondering how they were going to get in here without smashing the door open, and also surprised that the senses of the Erians had led them here considering. Annia had been in Headmaster Colae's office only once before when he had personally asked her how she was finding the school and that he hoped she wasn't disturbed by the fact that two students had been abducted whilst they were here, especially since she knew one of them.

The fifteen year old had been touched by the sentiment and thought that the headmaster was a kind, affable and understanding man who ran the school very efficiently considering what a logistical nightmare it would be to organise an academy full of students from four different nationalities, many if not all of whom would never have been outside of their respective nations before and would have never met a member of another in their lives. It had been customary of the man to ask to see a large number of the students individually to make sure that they were getting along fine and so that he could know all of the protégés in his academy, and was probably intending to do it for all of them, but still.

To say that she was slightly shocked that both Freya and Leleth had decided that the headmaster's room was the source of the evil which scared the plants that they had been able to speak to was an understatement, and raised her eyebrows as Leleth approached the door. Green mana pulsed out of her outstretched fingertip, a vine made from her magic reaching out and entering the lock. Annia's eyes narrowed in incredulity that the Erian was going to pick the lock with a vine of all things, but soon changed her opinion when the mundane defence clicked and the door to the headmaster's personal room swung open.

"I hope no one finds us while we are snooping around in Mr Colae's room," Meri muttered, and Annia agreed silently, though the boy seemed uncomfortable with the fact that no one else was talking. Annia was still thinking to herself, for once not feeling the need to speak because she would rather focus upon her own thoughts, and couldn't help but feel that they were being extremely disrespectful and intrusive to enter the private room of the man who had made this brilliant school (which hopefully the Lucaelians would return to once the war finished if King Marik deemed it safe otherwise they would be missing out on a massive opportunity to interact with the other nations).

This was not something that she would normally do, not even if her curiosity for knowledge had been motivating her in the past to want to do something like this, but the fate of other people could be at stake here and Annia refused to do nothing if she knew that the evil existed and that there was something she could do about it. Annia didn't particularly believe in there being a clear cut distinction between evil and good like many Yentarians, with many acts on the grey areas of the spectrum that was morality, but some things were definitely what she would consider evil and these were the things that she hoped to somehow stop by doing this.

They all lingered on the threshold of the unlocked door, knowing that even though they had broken into here they could leave and no one would know, that entering there was transgressing into someone's private space and that all of them had been taught better than that. Then suddenly, unexpectedly to Annia, Freya walked up to the door and pushed it open fully, slipping past Leleth confidently and entering the room, showing the most self-assurance that the Yentarian had seen from the nervous and quiet girl so far, and Annia nodded her head to no one. Was she really stood here, ruminating upon whether or not getting into trouble was worse potentially saving people's lives? That was quite petty even for some of her standards of superficiality, and knew that even if they were found and there was nothing there she could get Freya and Leleth to explain to the headmaster what they thought had been wrong. Hopefully he would understand and forgive them, even if Annia had to admit that she probably wouldn't in the same situation.

She entered the room after Leleth, shooting a quick glance over her shoulder to ensure that Meri was following, and heard a couple of muted gasps. Annia quickly spun around, her eyes alighting on a table with a map of the known world stretched out across it, locations that even the Republic didn't know of (such as some Lucaelian or Erian cities or tribal encampments respectively) marked clearly, such as some place known as the Sonelth Letharda which she had never even heard of stamped at a place within the Erian Conclave's deep forest. Another that she recognised was the Court of Oaks, said to be secret to all but the highest ranking shamans who chose initiates to be brought there.

That was obviously what had captured the attention of the two other girls, but what Annia thought was a bit strange was that what was known of Lucael was only slightly more advanced than what the Yentarian Republic itself had been told by cartographers from the Kingdom of Light whereas Eria was covered in markers.

"How has he got all this information?" Leleth asked in awe, and Annia noted the way that there was a line of white indicating Lucael surrounding the Welkalite capital city of Usnaan, suggesting that they knew of the siege of the capital.

Annia had to drag her eyes away from the wealth of information on the table, noting another couple of doors leading out from this room into different chambers, most probably a bedroom and a bathroom. There was a china saucer of half-drunk and aromatic tea on the side of the table, which was not yet completely cold and forgotten about, suggesting that the headmaster couldn't have left that long ago. There were pictures on the wall, pictures that she felt were private but pictures that she nevertheless looked at, such as a photograph of a relatively younger headmaster with a smiling young boy who couldn't have been more than four or five years old sat on his shoulders and one next to it of the boy again with a loving woman, presumably the child's mother.

"What is this thing?" Annia moved towards Meri at the question, the boy pointing towards some form of artifact device, and Annia glanced at it for a second, her mind beginning to work in overdrive at the amount of information that she was finding out by going in here. It was obviously of Uverian design, that much was for certain, but at the same time it had elements of what Annia would associate with belonging to what she had seen from brief mentions of the League of Thrazek. Well, there was only one way to find out. Annia pressed on a button at the top of the elegant metal contraption with her mana, and gasped in sudden surprise as it lit up with light, filling the whole room with a hologram conjured from mana.

_Is this what I think-_

The hologram abruptly shut off with a flash when Annia accidentally removed her hand her mind was that shocked with what it had shown as it overlayed the map and the walls became covered with pictures and images, all four of them stood with their mouths gaping open at what they had seen until they spun around when the door opened again.

"Excuse me, children, but what are you doing in my room?" the headmaster asked, stood in the doorway with the light of the corridor spilling into the dimly lit room that none of them had bothered to turn the light on for. He seemed more amused and perplexed than annoyed, but his face that was set in a half smile suddenly turned into a frown that showed some sadness within it as the man of medium height turned his wise eyes upon Annia with her hand still pointing towards the device she had activated and inadvertently allowed to close.

"Wh- what ..." Annia struggled to regain her composure as her eyes were wide open with what she had seen, stuttering the words as her shock overcame her, "What is this?"

"Oh. So you pressed it," Hadan Colae replied, his voice slightly sad and weary, and all four of the teenagers nodded nervously in reply, the other three too shocked to speak or answer their headmaster's questions. He stayed within the doorway, his medium frame wearing the grey robes of neutrality that he was habitually seen within, "And evidently you saw what was within the device. That is very regrettable. I apologise profusely for this."

The man's voice was grim and filled with a sorrow that did not show in his body posture but did in his grey blue eyes that were so old, older than Annia had ever seen before and older than the headmaster's middle aged body. Annia was about to ask him what it was again, her mind alight with what she had seen, before the man raised his thin hand and light spilled out of it, White mana that was very powerful wrapping around the students in chains of gold that held them down and ensured that they would not move anywhere, hieromancy in the form of enchantments that restricted the students and chained them to the floor.

Annia was about to shout at him to ask him what he was doing before a golden chain from the ground went around her mouth and muffled her cries. The spell was not in any way uncomfortable or painful, though it could have been if the headmaster had chosen it to be harmful to his student's, and Annia's eyes were wide as she tried to use mana in an attempt to escape and found that the numbing sensation of the restrictions were preventing her from calling upon her magic.

"I am truly sorry that I have to take this unfortunate action with you youngsters," the voice of Hadan really did sound genuinely apologetic and sad that he was doing this, and panic rushed through Annia as she tried to pull away from the suppression bonds that were holding her down, her breathing increasing in speed to the point where she was hyperventilating because she felt that, with the headmaster's grave tone and what they had seen, she was in great danger. "Do not try to struggle, Annia, Freya, Leleth and Meri. I am not going to hurt you, I promise."

Blue mana joined the White that was suppressing Annia and the others, and the girl felt a gentle but foreign presence in her mind that nevertheless calmed her down, even though she knew that the tranquillity it had created was utterly artificial. She felt a tender touch looking through her memories, what she remembered of her past, and tried to fight it off with all of her might, but her mind was utterly powerless against the headmaster's probing influence. The girl had never considered that the headmaster of the Scholaria Magnus was a telepath, though she had sensed that he could use White and Blue mana, and if she hadn't been in this situation her mind would have been alight with the implications of having the headmaster of this school able to delve into any of the student's minds.

"Do not worry, my students. I will only take what you have seen since your entrance to this room. And Annia, while my assurances may mean nothing to you, I do not employ my powers unless they are completely necessary. I do not look into your minds, nor do I use telepathy of any form in any but the direst situations," the headmaster told them, his words coming from both the man stood in the doorway with light wrapped around his outstretched hand and his eyes lit up with a dazzling sapphire luminescence and inside of their heads, speaking from within their minds in a way that was not as intrusively as Annia had experienced from a telepath once before who had forced her way inside her head with none of the precision and gentleness of the headmaster.

"I am sorry about this," the man said again as the adolescents from the Republic and the Conclave felt small pieces of their mind being taken away from them, more peaceful than Annia had expected as her eyes began to roll back in her head and slumber beckoned because of the memory erasure, "But it had to be done. The things that you have seen were not suitable for children at all, and you do not need to know of them. Rest assured that the darkness that you have sensed, Freya and Leleth, will be extinguished soon."

Even as Annia's vision faded to black and she fell to her knees, stopped from hitting her head on anything by the White magic suppressing her mana and her movement, the headmaster's kind but also mirthless and regretful voice spoke into her mind as she plunged into unconsciousness.

"Do not worry. You will not be harmed. Once the erasure has finished, you will return to your rooms and continue on with your school lives, with no memories of what you have seen here or even your venture into this private area."

Hadan watched silently as the students in front of him each fell into a peaceful slumber, wishing that he had not had to do this to them. He hated messing with other people's minds, especially destroying their memories, because even the most expert and the lightest touch could leave irrevocable and unforeseeable damage on a person's psyche, and it was particularly lamentable that he had been forced to do such a thing to bright young children with their entire lives ahead of them, but nothing unexpected had occurred in the removal of what they had seen here.

It was just another section of the long list of regrets that comprised the headmaster's life, though it was at least good to know that the results of doing what he had done over the course of his life would ensure that others had the chance to earn bright futures.

With a wave of his hand he undid the enchantments holding the teenagers after gently placing them on the ground as to avoid anybody being hurt, and the pure golden light surrounding his fingers became Blue on his command. An illusion that looked exactly like the headmaster rose up beside him, which would take the students to their rooms with the abilities of concealment magic that he gave it, and it would function perfectly well as him during his absence from the Scholaria Magnus. The illusion nodded to its creator, possessing the same memories of the man, who walked over to the other side of his room, pushing the door open to his bedroom and staring at the framed picture on his bedside cabinet for a long moment before turning to what was laid on his bed.

The mask was simple, an unadorned and white piece of fabric that was not infused with any mana or anything to make it other than a normal mask with eye and mouth holes, but it was what the mask represented that was important. Purity. Innocence, though Hadan did not feel at all innocent. Righteousness, and the willingness to do what was right for the benefit of the world, the willingness to do anything and everything in the name of the one thing that defined all that Hadan had done ever since he had been given the mask and the identity that it carried.

He hated removing the memories of his students that he genuinely cared about, but he hated almost everything that he had done in the past few years, even if all of the activities that would forever stain his mind had been towards one specific goal.

Everything that he had done, and everything that he would do in the coming days in the culmination of years of planning would be for one thing, the most important thing in the world: the greater good.

.*.*.*.

"It's going to be alright," Marik murmured, loud enough for both of his sons to hear the words but still quiet enough for them to be mournful and full of shock, though he did not know who he was directing the reassurance to.

Maybe it was towards the limp and bloody little boy in his arms whose breaths were short and painful.

Perhaps it was targeted at the older boy running behind him who was distraught at what had happened to his younger brother.

Or possibly Marik was saying for his own benefit, to assure himself that they were going to get help for his fragile and broken youngest son soon, before he was pulled into death once again, that he wouldn't have to watch another member of his family die in front of him without him being able to do anything, that Alexander wouldn't be deprived of the younger brother he loved so much and Marik wouldn't have his second son die before the boy knew how much he was loved by his father.

They ran through the dark abyss behind the Angel of the Black Sun, Orzhova still pulsing in and out of existence even with this greater connection to Sancturia and threatening to return to the Mind Realm inside of Caiellis at any moment, although none of them mentioned anything like that or complained about it as they were going as fast as they could possibly go within the murky nether and with the wounds that all of them apart from the First Sisterhood seraphim had sustained.

Occasionally as they passed some form of checkpoints that seemed utterly arbitrary to the king as all sense of distance had lost all meaning within this shifting world of shadows, a faint source of illumination could be seen in the distance, emanating from some form of crystalline lantern that dissolved into twinkling particles of light as they passed them. They had evidently been placed within the abyss by the Angel of the Black Sun so that they knew where they were going, and if Marik hadn't been so utterly focussed on his youngest son he would have thought that such a way of travelling by ignoring large distances in the formless nether realm that defied all quantification was extremely efficient for those who wielded the darkness and would be a massive asset for the armies of Black mana.

Even in the dim, almost non existent luminescence within the abyss that was only conjured by Orzhova and the markers she had placed that would lead them to Civitas Sol, the limp thirteen year old in the king's arms still looked dead. The blue hadn't faded by much at all, though at least the grey had given way slightly more, but not all the way and it was beginning to frighten Marik even more that they were taking too long and that the boy was going to give out before they got to the hospital within the City of the Sun. Because Caiellis should be looking better, at least, with access to oxygen now, he should be breathing more, becoming stronger, gaining colour.

It was a testament to how awful the teenager's horrific wounds were that he had not woken up yet, even if such a way of gaining consciousness would have its awareness blocked by the haze of pain and the fact that he had only just been pulled up from death. Marik was already pushing his limbs as far as they could go, with Alexander hot on his heels, though the pain in his stomach was becoming burning and if his son hadn't been in so much danger than he would have succumbed to it by now. Both Alexander and the king's breathing was ragged, though not as bad as the youngest member of their family, and their limbs were on fire with the exertion of trying to keep up with the increasingly ethereal angel, her solidity worsening in synchronisation with Caiellis's condition getting worse and worse.

Marik wanted to look round and make sure that his eldest son was alright, wanted the seventeen year old to be between him and Orzhova instead of behind the king and his younger brother's guardian angel, but with Caiellis dying in his arms he had to be ready to leave this place as fast as possible because even mere seconds could be the difference between life and death for his vulnerable baby boy who had an extremely tenuous hold upon the life that had only recently be given back to him by the dark angel who had pulled him back from the brink.

The king of Lucael had to trust that Alexander would be alright because he couldn't carry both of his sons with him, the first born amongst them was too big though Marik had proven that he could still carry him easily enough back only a single weak ago when he had been horribly wounded by Aksua as well.

He knew how determined the seventeen year old was in general, but when it was with his younger brother in any form of danger that determination became unstoppable. Alexander would give his life for Caiellis, and that was reciprocated by the younger boy as well, and even though he hated it Marik knew that even with his uselessness as a father and the fact that he had done absolutely nothing good for either of his precious children his sons would give their lives for him as well. It went without saying that he would do the same without hesitation for either of them.

Marik was a complete disaster as a father, and he wondered how bad one had to be to get to his levels of carrying his both of his extremely wounded and close to death sons to a hospital because of his negligence and failure to protect them within a week of one another. Being a Lucerna prince was very dangerous, and they were constantly the targets of the darkness who wanted to either end the royal line or attack the most vulnerable descendants of Matalis Ortus Lucerna at any given time, but that did not excuse anything and it meant even more that Marik should have been able to guard them.

The forty year old was immeasurably grateful to the Angel of the Black Sun which he did not distrust any longer, as she had gone to all lengths to save his son whilst Marik had been too weak to do the same, protected him from his father when the man had wrapped his large hands around his youngest child's throat, and brought him back from the precipice of death's door as the king had been crying over his corpse and unable to stop Alexander from following his lead. At first, thirteen years ago, he had been mistrustful of the dark angel, wary of her motives in choosing the youngest Lucerna to be her new Summoner even with what she had explained to the king and that the man hadn't quite thought she was evil when he had seen her – though he had never watched her in Xarius's reign and knew that his opinion would change if he had.

The crystalline spheres that Orzhova had placed upon the journey somehow must have been created when she had alerted the doctors within the Ordo Medella hospital of Civitas Sol that had also saved Alexander's life (meaning that they were extremely dependable and had already proven themselves in saving lives, not that they wouldn't have before that incident as only the best doctors would be allowed to operate on one of the exalted Lucerna line), and as the Angel of the Black Sun efficiently swept her glowing scythe into the fabric of the twisting warp Marik thought that they had arrived at Civitas Sol.

He was immediately disappointed and agitated further when, past the First Sisterhood seraphim, they were presented with the image of the Medella tent within the camp situated outside Usnaan that was already filled with orderlies packing up equipment and ready to be sent into the City of Pleasure to find the wounded, and some soldiers who had been taken back into the camp prior to this as the battle had obviously almost been won already. The king had forgotten that Orzhova had wanted to stop and get Choirmaster Esmelde first, even though the short journey to the outside of Usnaan through the abyss had seemed to take years with Caiellis worsening in his grip every single moment.

They didn't even step out of the nether realm, as Caiellis's guardian angel stood in front of the king and his eldest son who almost ran into the back of him and took that moment to stroke the pained and unconscious thirteen year old's brown hair that was sodden and sticky with blood and sweat, moving the strands that were plastered onto his forehead out of his eyes and whispering softly to the stricken youngster, more softly than Marik had ever heard from his often gruff eldest who had a soft spot for his younger brother.

"He's going to be ok, Alexander. We are going to get him the help that he needs," Marik told the seventeen year old as Orzhova quickly and efficiently spoke in front of them to a person they could see every time the angel's light faded for a short moment. He wished that he could have put more conviction into the words, that he actually believed the words himself instead of feeling like he was lying to his eldest son, but it seemed that the boy was hanging onto every single thing that his father said and nodded in agreement as he kissed Caiellis's forehead unashamedly.

The Choirmaster stepped inside of the shifting abyss without a second's hesitation or any trepidation whatsoever, moving through the angel in a slightly disconcerting way that only reminded them how weak Caiellis and therefore Orzhova was. Her eyes lit up with sympathy as soon as she regarded the youngest prince in the arms of his father and being comforted by his brother, though in her soft blue orbs Marik saw that there was hardness as well, that this would definitely not be the worst that she would have seen despite how bad it was and how close to death the youngest Lucerna was.

Even with all that however, there was determination and resolution to never fail the Lucerna family, the royal line that had led the people of Lucael for more than a thousand years, and Marik's distraught mind was reassured slightly by what he saw despite the fact that they still had to go to Civitas Sol through the abyss to get Caiellis proper medical aid and that he could easily die even with that.

_No, don't think like that. Don't give up on your son now, not after all he has been through. I'm not going to let him die if it is the last thing that I do!_

The expression of shock on the woman's face was quickly masked, though it was clear to all that she felt immensely sorry for the young prince who was probably the youngest person she had ever had to help in the condition that Caiellis was in now.

"We need to keep going," Orzhova told them, her voice impossibly distant for how close the Angel of the Black Sun was to them, and Marik nodded to the Choirmaster, reminding himself that this woman needed some form of reward for her bravery as she had stepped into the abyss that she would have been taught was the most dangerous place in the two worlds without a second thought if it would help the youngest Lucerna.

"I won't be able to help your son much whilst we are moving, my lord," Esmelde told the kingly solemnly as they began to run in pursuit of the Angel of the Black Sun once again so that she could lead them to the City of the Sun, the crystalline sphere held in the Choirmaster's hands that must have informed her of what was to happen dissolving into particles of twinkling light that were soon consumed by the vast and endless yet claustrophobic and clammy darkness around them that seemed larger than any mortal comprehension yet pressing down on them at all sides.

Marik would have replied, but he could barely force any words out himself as they started sprinting again, the wound in his stomach baying for the attention that he wasn't giving it with flares of pure agony that were nothing compared to the pain in his mind. He knew that he would have looked awful himself, nothing like what a powerful and strong Lucerna king was supposed to appear like to his subjects, but he couldn't bring himself to care even if he had wanted to. There were far more important things, and he was only managing to keep himself from breaking down in more tears as he ran for Alexander and Caiellis's sake. His eldest son was hooked onto his every word and action and if he started showing how hopeless and powerless he felt the seventeen year old would begin to worry even more.

As she ran alongside the tall king who dwarfed her in both height and bulk, covered in blood from multiple different sources and suffering from wounds that the man would kill her for if she tried to touch them before seeing to his sons, Esmelde held her hand next to Caiellis, a soothing orb of warm light pulsing forth from it and making a calming humming noise as it interacted with the prince. It wouldn't actually do anything pro active about the small boy's wounds because Esmelde wasn't able to examine them in more detail and they were moving far too fast to use any of the small scale medical equipment she had taken with her, but even if the only effect it had was to soothe the prince's pain it was something that she was going to put her all into.

"Check his breathing, my lord, and tell me what it is like" the Choirmaster quietly commanded the eldest Lucerna, her desire to save her patient and her medical training overriding any notion of etiquette and nervousness at ordering the king of the entirety of Lucael around. She would have rather held the boy herself so that she could check out his wounds more closely as they ran and assessed his condition better, but the king was holding onto the frail body of his youngest child with a grip that told her he would rather die than relinquish it until they got Caiellis to safety.

She wished that they could have stopped so that they could operate on Prince Caiellis properly, but that would probably end in the boy's death as they didn't have enough equipment or trained professionals here to save him and that was not a risk that any of them were willing to take within this surreal darkness around them that Esmelde paid no attention to, her mind fixed on her young patient that she had left the Ordo Medella presence in Usnaan for. She would also have liked them to slow down, unsure about whether or not Caiellis should be moved at all in his current condition that looked awful but would undoubtedly be worse when she was able to truly examine it, but Esmelde pushed aside these concerns because she knew that the only way the prince could be saved was if they got to Civitas Sol and a proper hospital and even then it would be a hard battle.

Marik listened to the words, half glad that someone else was taking control so that he could not spread any more failures to his youngest son, though that short relief didn't do anything to quench the agitated sadness that he felt. He held in his own breathing despite the fact that he was still running at full pelt after the dark seraphim who led the way through the infinite shadows, his lungs burning as he listened to the sound of his son's short and pained and weak breaths.

"He's barely breathing at all," the king reported with a long inhale of breath, and Esmelde nodded efficiently as she had expected that with the amount of wounds that the smallest prince had sustained. She could also tell that the king was trying to reign in his panic from the broken and desperate note to his normally strong and unstoppable voice, trying to keep his worry at bay so that the seventeen year old who ran behind them would not panic even more than he already was doing.

But Caiellis was breathing, and Marik figured that at this point it was all that counted. It was all that they had, Caiellis clinging to life with all of his slipping might, and it had to be enough because there was nothing else.

"Do you know how long he was unconscious for before this?" she asked in between breaths as they ran, not bothering to think about how dangerous the situation was for all of them. Despite knowing that the doctor needed to know about his brother's problems so that she could help fix them and inform the other Medella operatives when they arrived in the City of the Sun, Alex wished that she and dad would keep quiet even though their voices were barely above a whisper. He was afraid to even murmur comfortingly to his brother himself as he ran along the left side of the two other members of his family, Choirmaster Esmelde taking up the right of the monarch. Afraid that if he spoiled the silence, he would miss the unsteady intake of air that would signal his baby brother was in trouble again.

Well, more trouble than he was already in at any rate. Alexander hoped that Civitas Sol wasn't too far away, because even though this journey was only taking minutes when days would normally be required to get from Usnaan to the City of the Sun without any form of transport it still felt like it was too long, that they were taking too much time to get his little brother to safety.

"I don't … I'm not sure," the king replied, more uncertain than Esmelde had ever seen from him before, and she nodded again, keeping up the front that there was still something she and her fellow operatives could do even though deep down she was beginning to doubt that herself with the state of the boy. They would never give up, however, because even though he was only thirteen years of age and in spite of the fact that he was still a small and thin boy Prince Caiellis had risked his life multiple times for the kingdom that partly distrusted him for his Summoning, and abandoning the Lucerna family after all it had done for her and the nation she lived in would be akin to leaving her own relatives in peril. "And has he woken up yet at all ever since he … was made like this?"  
"No, he hasn't. It has only been a few minutes since he came back to life," Marik answered, glad that there was a question that he could reply to properly even though the answer to it was another simple reminder to the direness of their situation, as if he needed any more.

He stroked his son's clammy, cold and sweaty forehead again that was still covered in blood, and as he held the back of Caiellis's head his hand stilled as it made contact with something warm and wet that hadn't been there before. He yanked his fingers, bare instead of covered in metal after he had dumped his artificer gauntlets back on the plaza that Caiellis had died upon, back, and stared at the crimson dripping down his fingers again.

Caiellis's head was bleeding once more from the wound that had been inflicted after Marik threw him against one of the last remaining walls of the ruins on the courtyard they had been fighting within when he had been under the malicious influence of Aksua's horror. It had stopped, but obviously with all of the movement and the thrashing the wound had re-opened, and Marik carefully put pressure on it as he held his youngest boy tight in his arms, never wanting to let go of him again. This just kept getting better and better.

Esmelde nodded for the umpteenth time, knowing that when she was dealing with patients who were in shock it was good to appear certain, calm and collected so that they could draw upon her resolve, and even though technically King Marik and Prince Alexander were not her current patients they were also quite significantly wounded themselves and were the only ones who could actually hear what she was saying to them. Despite the reality that she would never be very close to the Lucernas because of their station compared with hers, the Choirmaster considered herself relatively familiar with the Lucerna family as people instead of just royal icons and inspiring figureheads.

Ever since Prince Alexander had been brought into her care and the care of the other doctors that she worked with in the City of the Sun, Esmelde had seen a different side to the rulers of her nation, a side that showed them much more like actual humans rather than aloof and almost infallible demigods with the blessing of the highest ranking angels and the divine right to rule. Instead of disappointing her and making her feel that perhaps the Lucerna family wasn't anything special, it had simply made the woman love them even more because they were still human, still almost normal people that needed the same things as their subjects – love, acceptance, kindness and friendship.

Her belief in the line of queens and kings that could be traced directly back to Matalis Ortus had been solidified by seeing the side to them that was not shown to the public often if at all, that in essence they were just a normal family with their own problems and arguments but still dependant on one another for love even after all of that. She had seen Caiellis talking to his stricken brother, calming down the thrashing and terrified teenager who had been releasing mana all around him in an attempt to make the doctors get away from him by reminding them of their past, watched the younger boy sleep in the same bed as his older sibling so that the two could draw comfort from one another and so he could make Alexander seem safe.

She had observed Marik and his youngest son shouting at one another like a normal parent and their teenage child, but adversely healed the thirteen year old Lucerna in the fit of a pained nightmare (though at that time his medium burn wounds which had soon healed because he was a Lucerna were nothing in comparison to the damage he had sustained wiping out the greatest foe the Welkalites and their demonic masters – or demonic master, as that was who the prince had killed – could muster up in defiance of Lucael) as his father held his hand in a way that the woman had never seen him do when his son was awake.

Esmelde was aware that there was a lot to this small family that she did not know and had not seen, but she felt like she had witnessed something amazing these moments of solidarity and family, felt like she had somehow seen and even stronger side to the Lucerna royalty in spite of the fact that other people would see it as being much weaker.

It was good to be reminded that Marik was not just a king, but a father of two teenage sons who probably struggled to connect with his youngest after the horrible civil war that had ripped them away from each other for nine years when Caiellis had only been four, that Alexander and Caiellis were not just princes who had an equal chance of one day becoming the king of the nation but brothers who had been through pain and happiness together.

With every family that she had seen in her career of helping and saving people's lives, Esmelde felt like she was able to see another side to people, to have a brief glimpse into the many stories of those who were within the Kingdom of Light and help to make sure that as many of those stories that were in peril could continue on until their natural end. It was only ever a few pages that she got to read into the many families and friendships within Lucael, but Esmelde wouldn't have it any other way.

It was the same here. Marik wasn't a king right now, he was a stricken and distressed dad holding on to his youngest son who was dying in his arms. Alexander wasn't a prince, a scion of the Lucerna family who could inherit the throne when his father passed away, but a panicked and shocked big brother with his little brother slipping further away from him every second as he did everything that he could do to comfort him whilst he was in his father's arms.

And that was why Esmelde was going to make sure that Caiellis would survive this, not because he was a prince and it was her duty to do everything that she could do to save one of her rulers, but because Caiellis was a (young) person who had a family that needed him so that they could keep going and still had a life to live through.

Alexander gripped onto his brother's small and cut hand tightly, though careful not to cause even more pain to the younger boy by hurting the torn flesh. He wished that his brother would have squeezed back when he gave it a reassuring squeeze himself for a moment, though he still kept held onto it. Caiellis's squeezes had never been strong, even when he had tried to make it like that to reassure his big brother, but it was the thought that had always counted, the notion that Cai would always have his back just like Alexander had his and was safe and sound.

The boy's limp hand that would have been hanging listlessly by his side if Alex hadn't been holding onto it even while he ran (though he made sure that it was not awkward nor impeding their movements in any way as they sprinted through the dangerous nether realm) was too small, too thin, too young for anything bad to happen to him.

The fingers, while still small in comparison to other, larger thirteen year olds and tiny next to Alexander's bigger digits, were long relative to the size of the hand, which made them seem even thinner. They would have been perfect for playing a piano, and were great for wielding a pen and writing. They shouldn't have had to grip a sword handle so tightly that the skin almost chafed off of them, or to wield said sword in the defence of people exclusively older than him.

_Just hold on, baby brother. I'm going to make sure that everything will be alright for you. I'm never going to let you go alone in the middle of a battle ever again, so expect to see a lot of me soon. You're going to be alright, Caiellis, you have to be alright. I'm not going to let you die, you hear me, runt?_

Alexander belatedly realised that he was speaking the words out loud to his unconscious little brother who was making more pained noises, but no one was paying attention to him or cared about his distressed rambling to his younger brother. All of them were focussed on getting Cai to safety, and that was their main priority right now. Their own pain could be ignored when faced with what had happened to the youngest and most innocent member of their family, and Alex wished that he could do something more constructive for his little brother instead of just talking to the unconscious boy.

It was killing the seventeen year old that he could do nothing for Cai in this situation that they were in. His little brother always (_well, not always – he was cutting himself and felt awful about the Summoning trial and didn't tell me about that at all, and sometimes in the past he has tried to hide things because either we argued and I said something that I shouldn't have or he didn't want to bother me) _came to him with his worries and his questions and when he was hurt either physically or emotionally, and in the past almost every single time Alexander had known what words to say and the right things to do to make the younger boy feel better.

Now he could only watch as his brother stayed still within their father's embrace, his young and bruised and bloodied face which had very clear tear tracks smudged into it that were stark despite the blood screwed up in pain, worse pain than the seventeen year old had ever seen his baby brother in before. Now he could only watch as Caiellis struggled to breathe.

Alexander longed to pull the kid into his own arms, clutch his little brother to his chest like he should as an older brother, but he didn't dare even asking the question to his father. It would be a waste of time transferring them anyway, but he wanted Caiellis next to him where the younger boy would know that he was protecting him and making sure he was safe, and even though he disliked to think it he knew that his sibling would rather have him holding him instead of their father.

He wanted to feel the puffs of his brother's pained breaths for himself, to feel the thudding of the weak heartbeat that Alex could barely sense even when clutching onto his brother's too thin wrist. He wanted to know for himself that Caiellis was alive, because in his father's arms it was hard to tell whether the boy was still living or not even though Alex knew that he definitely was – he could still feel the immensely weak and paradoxically simultaneously sluggish yet racing pulse that signalled his brother's gentle heart was still pumping blood around his body and out of his wounds.

The middle Lucerna only hoped that his little bud somehow knew that he was here, that through his unconscious he would feel the presence of big brother and know that he was there to guard him as they got him to safety.

"How much further is there to go?!" Marik gasped out, his voice a mixture of the pain that he refused to acknowledge that was rippling up and down him from his internally bleeding stomach and concern combined with desperation for his youngest child whose pained breaths were becoming even more agonised. He was making more noise, and the breaths were getting louder, but that wasn't a good thing at all as the way he was breathing told everyone around that Caiellis was barely getting any air at all. Orzhova didn't reply, didn't want to waste her energy that was being drained every second answering a question that she truly didn't know the exact answer to, and Marik exhaled loudly in anger and annoyance that was heavily exacerbated by his son's pain that he could do nothing for.

Caiellis choked out a small, gasping whimper, and the forty year old feared that he was going to go into another seizure once again which would be extremely bad – as the best thing for the boy if that happened would be to be placed flat on the ground but that was not feasible at all. However, trapped in his father's arms, the seizure could be worse because the worst possible thing to do to someone convulsing like Caiellis had been was to restrain them too much apart from ensuring that they wouldn't damage their head.

Marik didn't say anything more, though he was tempted to scream at the Angel of the Black Sun who had not replied to his question, wondering if the healing that Choirmaster Esmelde was in the process of completing was actually doing anything to help Caiellis or if it was only there to look pretty.

Any other time he would have admonished himself for the brash thoughts, knowing that the younger Lucaelian was doing all that she could to help the prince without access to the equipment or stability that would be given to them by the Ordo Medella hospital in Civitas Sol and that Esmelde was risking her life coming through the abyss (that luckily enough hadn't been as dangerous as he had anticipated, though he attributed that to Orzhova's guidance throughout the nether realm rather than it being less deadly than it was supposed to be), but right now he didn't care. All he did care about were his sons, and the one in his arms more at the moment.

After what seemed like days, Caiellis worsening every second but fortunately not devolving into a seizure once again, Orzhova suddenly stopped, Marik wondering why the angel couldn't have given them any form of warning before abruptly halting in her path. Another one of the crystalline glass spheres that were actually quite beautiful if the king had been able to pay heed to meaningless things like aesthetics in this time of great need flashed and pulsed in front of the seraphim, who reached out her free hand and touched it with her slender fingers that were also suffused in light, though this luminescence was the haunting purple of Caiellis's sadness that the Lucerna patriarch had seen before, before pulling back and hacking her scythe vertically down into it.

"We're here. Get Caiellis in. Now!" Orzhova practically shouted at the king after her belated statement, and even though Marik heard the barely repressed fury in the angel's divine yet distant voice he was nothing but grateful towards his son's Summoning. The king did not need telling twice, and he ran past the angel and into the light of the world that rose up around him and consumed him in its glow.

Or in this case it was the oppressively bright surgery that had been the site of Alexander's life being saved and the vampiric corruption of Aksua being purged from his veins. Marik stood, dazed for a second by the brightness after his eyes had adjusted to the unnatural shadow of the abyss all around them, before a voice broke him from his stupefaction.

"We need to get your son on the operating table now!" shouted the familiar harsh and gruff tones of Surgeon-General Mortan, pushing Marik back into action. He was glad that once again the grizzled doctor had dispensed with pointless pleasantries when someone's life was on the line, and meekly held out his youngest son.

He almost didn't want to let go of the boy – no, that was wrong. He didn't want to let go of the boy at all, but he had to if Caiellis was going to live through this. He was being pathetic thinking that he was making sure that Caiellis was safe by holding him tight to his chest, and the second he held out his son, relaxing his grip on him enough so that the boy could be taken off of him but not enough so that Caiellis would fall, his vision still blurry as his pupils contracted inwards from their heavily dilated state in the face of this bright light, the thirteen year old was plucked – near _yanked –_ from his father's arms.

Marik blinked, moving further into the operating theatre that was very large as a burly orderly who he remembered was a doctor who had helped Alexander (although most of the faces were fresh and new, the vast majority of older doctors having gone to help the war effort back in Usnaan that Marik had just abandoned) quickly transferred Caiellis to the clean bed in front of them that was surrounded by all sorts of equipment and doctors who had prepared them, a seemingly ubiquitous crystal orb floating around them and making sure that it wasn't distracting them before Orzhova recalled it to her quickly.

Alexander panted in a breath as his body burned from the almost constant running, as he had sprinted from the Champion's Quarter to the centre of Usnaan after fighting for his life against that bastard brute Arendus Draal, not had time to regain his breath crying over his brother and being shocked when he revived and had to breathe for the kid, and then ran through the abyss alongside his father and behind the Angel of the Black Sun. Alexander knew that he was a fit teenager, but that would have been pushing it even without the wounds he had sustained and the fact that his ribs had been broken once again in the violence.

He watched as his brother was gently but still unceremoniously shoved onto the bed that seemed way too large for little Caiellis, a sense of vertigo almost overcoming Alex as the doctors and assistant operatives swarmed around the youngest Lucerna. One of them pulled out a pair of clean scissors and began to cut open Cai's shredded vestiges of clothing, and Alexander had to physically stop himself from pushing through them and stopping the woman, wanting to preserve the last remnants of dignity that his little brother had left.

Caiellis's mouth fell open, even though he was still unconscious and his eyes weren't open, just moving beneath eyelids that were clamped resolutely shut, and a strangled noise made its way up from the back of his throat. Alex wasn't sure if his brother was trying to speak or scream, but one thing he was sure about was that the thirteen year old couldn't breathe at all as red bubbles overflowed past his blue lips and spilled down his chin.

The Ordo Medella operatives were a hive of buzzing activity, medical jargon and terminology, some of which Alexander recognised but most which he didn't, spilling from them as they worked quickly and efficiently around the youngest prince. Although they seemed calm and collected enough, despite being terse and brusque with one another as they set about saving Caiellis's life, it didn't take an expert to see that this was the closest the professionals could get to panicking over their patient.

Esmelde blended seamlessly within them, rattling off what she knew about the boy's condition and the little information Marik had been able to tell them to the others as they started working, looking to Alex like each of them had different ideas about how to go about saving Cai even though he knew that they were merely approaching the many aspects of the problem from multiple different angles all at once.

Alex did not miss his brother's thin fingers begin to curl into a death grip upon the sterilised white sheets of his bed as an intravenous therapy pole was attached to his arm through the veins in his left arm, though it seemed unnecessary to make another puncture hole with the needle when there were already numerous wounds scattered across the boy's left forearm alone. The seventeen year old stayed close to his brother's bed, feeling his father at his side as the doctors worked around them for the moment, the thought that they might be in the way occurring to neither as Alexander gripped his brother's small hand reassuringly again, feeling the pain that Caiellis was in from the force of his grip that latched onto Alex's hand.

"You're going to be fine, baby brother. You're going to be fine. I know you're in pain, but you've just got to get through it," the boy murmured, though his words were lost within the hubbub of medical activity all around them. More needles attached to different machines were being hooked and inserted into his little brother, and Alexander could have smiled sadly as he remembered Cai's fear of needles that he was sure was probably down to his older brother being scared of them as well, though both of them had sucked it up when it mattered and he was sure that Caiellis would do this time as well.

More waves of guilt were assailing the middle Lucerna as the surgeons strapped an oxygen mask to Cai's young and innocent but bruised and bloody face that instantly began to be stained with flecks of crimson from his breathing of blood, the makeshift bandage that Marik had put around the wound on his neck that had killed him quickly replaced with a clean one that was already starting to turn bright red from the crimson vitae bled out of it, but not as severely as the tsunami of regret and accusation that was assailing Marik.

_Oh angels … Caiellis … I'm so sorry son … all this is because of me … all these wounds …_

"Oxygen levels are perilously low," a voice rang out, and the king winced painfully, grasping onto the same hand as the one that Alexander was holding onto as the boy's right arm wasn't being inserted by needles, touching the two hands with his larger one that was still bigger than Alexander's even though the boy's was racing after him in size. He made sure to hold both of his son's hands in his, not pushing Alexander's out of the way nor being too distant for Caiellis to know that he was here even as he repeated a frantic prayer for his baby boy's safety over and over again in his head.  
"Heart rate is too fast and too weak," another answered, clipped and clinical, confirmed by the dangerously fast pinging of the monitor, though there was an underlying note of something close to fear that Marik picked up on within his tone. The king swallowed a sob, knowing that he had to be strong for both his family members, and hated how pale his youngest son was even under all of the blue purple bruising and crimson and bloody wounds. He placed his other hand on Alexander's shoulder after a thought, clenching it firmly in a way that he hoped felt reassuring to his eldest son.

"Mana is virtually non-existent and being drained every second," the hard voice of the surgeon-general made itself known to the occupants of the room, and all of those who were not occupied turned towards the Angel of the Black Sun still stood in their midst, watching over Caiellis from a more clear area so that she wasn't in the way.

Orzhova returned Marik's brief look icily, and if the king hadn't already been frozen and cold, only ready to be thawed when Caiellis was saved and pulled back into the life that was begging for him to live it, he would have felt shivers of the winter outside up and down his spine. The gaze of those onyx eyes, their terrifying nature only mildly reduced by the angel's current weakness, told Marik that she would not hesitate to rip him apart and destroy his soul if he laid a finger on his youngest son with the intention to do harm once again, and the king knew that he deserved her anger for what he had done to Caiellis. It was a testament to how insidious and vile the horror was that a First Sisterhood angel hadn't been able to see its malevolence seeping through Marik's Mind Realm, and though he longed to explain himself to the angel it wasn't the time and the possession wasn't an excuse at all for his actions.

He only wanted Caiellis to know that it wasn't him, didn't want his son to die thinking that his father hated him, and everyone else apart from Alexander was secondary – including the boy's guardian angel. He gulped inadvertently as he stared back at the Angel of the Black Sun, who ripped her gaze away from the king when Surgeon-General Mortan asked her, forgoing any form of pleasantry for a being that he would probably have worshipped had it been any of her sisters though the king didn't know about the cynical man's religious identification, "What are you still doing here?"  
Orzhova glared down at the man, her physical form fading in and out of the world like she was a mere illusion, though her black eyes still conveyed the intensity of her gaze that the man held without even being a Lucerna or having an angel of his own. She snarled back "I am staying to look after my Summoner."

"No you are not. Caiellis needs you to leave now. You are draining his mana every second, which is killing him before we can save his life," the man replied, evenly and clinically, only thinking about his patient and not caring if he offended a functionally immortal angel from the heavens above, and the Angel of the Black Sun, whose mouth twisted into a growl of rage. The seraph responded, her voice rising to a furious and desperate shriek, "I need to stay! I need to make sure that you humans do your FUCKING JOBS!"

Her voice pierced across the room even in its weakened state, causing all of those who were within it to want to run as far away from her as they possibly could. It was the first time that Alex had ever heard an angel swear or profane, even with how angry Aurelia got when they were battling against the corrupt forces of the darkness, though for some reason it did not come as a surprise that Orzhova would break that unspoken rule. Marik felt another spike of guilt welling up within him, knowing that that scream of fury was almost entirely directed towards him and his failure to protect his youngest son from the danger of the world, putting Orzhova's Summoner in more danger instead of that.

The room was almost silent for a moment, though many of the doctors still commendably carried on with their work as if nothing had happened, the loudest noise the high pitched whine of the machine monitoring Cai's heartbeat. None of them missed the choked whimper that Caiellis let out seemingly in tandem with his angel's words, nor did Alex fail to notice the way that the boy's small fingers moved and stretched out before resuming their grip in time with the pained noise. The young adolescent was already making a supreme effort to breathe with the oxygen mask around his face, though his breaths were still strangled and wheezed out through broken ribs and an abused throat that was being healed the most as it was the worst wound on the plethora covering the poor kid.

Alexander hated to leave the contact with his little brother, but for his safety he would do it easily as his chest cramped up tight with anxiousness for his best friend and younger brother. He slipped out of the grip of his sibling easily, turning towards Orzhova as he gulped nervously in the face of the angel's wrath as he walked towards her.

"Orzhova," he started, hating how weak and shaky and young his voice sounded, knowing instinctively that Caiellis thought the same in the past about his even more than Alexander did now. He cleared his throat quickly, wasting no time for his little brother's sake as the whining of the heart rate monitor suddenly changed to an unsteady beeping and Alex could swear he felt his own heart arresting in tandem with his brother's, and wiped away the tears that were blurring his eyes. "I'm not going to let him get any more hurt. I'm going to make sure that he is alright. Please, Orzhova, if you are draining his mana then you need to go so that he starts regenerating it and can being to heal. You know that I will protect him as much as I can, because I am his big brother. Please, you know you can trust me."  
The angel's black eyes became inscrutable as she stared down the bloody seventeen year old who was pleading with her, and then turned back to the unconscious Caiellis who was writing in his almost silent pain and whimpering as his father held his hand. The anger dissolved from her eyes, and even though she was not corporeal enough to touch him she placed her hand on Alexander's shoulder – the gesture was all that mattered, not the contact itself.

She looked deep into his imploring and expressive blue eyes that were filled with guilt for allowing Caiellis to get like this even though it was nowhere near Alexander's fault at all, sadness that Cai would be as hurt as much as he had and shock because of the same that had his pupils dilated heavily and his breathing almost as erratic as his brother's, the desire to protect his younger brother that was evident within them, and a spark of hope, a faint glimmer of belief that his sibling would get through this without any lasting harm and that his brother would stay alive.

She remembered looking through the fractured lens of her Summoner's mind into the world around the youngest Lucerna, able to stare into the world around the boy before he had unlocked her as his Summoning, though the images were often unclear and fragmented, exactly like the boy's thoughts that she was able to detect across the barrier of the lonely Mind Realm. She remembered watching Alexander, the person that little Cai spent the most amount of time with after their young mother had been killed, watching him cheer up her young Summoner as well as fight with him, though they always made reparations afterwards and never stayed mad at each other for more than a few days at most.

She remembered Alexander saving her Summoner's life on multiple occasions, she remembered being forced to watch horrific nightmares that her Summoner was suffering through, then being able to see the broken reality again as Caiellis snuggled up to his older brother and Alexander would always be able to comfort him and assure Orzhova's host that everything was alright.

She remembered watching Alexander protect Caiellis from monsters that were hunting them, watching him protect Caiellis from the guilt of killing another human being (even though the human being in question was a vile, corrupt one who was a servant of Johnias), watching him guard his brother from children that wanted to bully him despite the fact he was a Lucerna because of the Black Sun on his cheek that made him an outcast and naturally evoked distrust from others. She remembered the events of only a few days ago when her Summoner's self harming had been discovered, when Alexander had fought against their uncaring parent for her Summoner's sake and had even hurt and scared the youngest Lucerna to make sure that he would keep himself safe (the fact that tactic didn't work and Cai had killed his mental form to pass the Summoning trial) did not matter now.

She had watched him give Caiellis a place in his heart where almost everyone else had pushed him away, watched him make sure that his little brother always felt welcome with him and always came to him with his problems and troubles, watched him freely give his sibling a best friend, a mentor, an obstacle to overcome, a rival. A big brother who would love, protect, teach and accept him.

And then there was everything that she had seen clearly in the time after Caiellis had passed her purposefully extremely difficult and emotionally agonising trial.

Finally, she remembered that time thirteen years ago when she wasn't Caiellis's Summoning yet, when her Angelic Descent had only just begun and the four year old Alexander had even then placed himself in front of his fragile baby brother who he hadn't known for more than twelve hours yet. Alexander's eyes, even though they had changed so much in the thirteen years that passed, moulded by loss, sadness, war and maturity, were the same as they had been then, filled with the need to let nothing hurt his younger brother.

Orzhova would be perfectly fine leaving Caiellis here in the protection of his older brother who had done so much for him in his entire life, the older brother who was pleading with her to leave so that Cai could start to use his mana to attempt to heal himself instead of having it forcefully taken away so that he could sustain her. Her eyes were filled with gratitude for Alexander who had loved her Summoner ever since the moment they first met eyes, and the boy's blue irises reciprocated that as he knew that Orzhova was responsible for giving Caiellis this second chance at life that Alex was going to make sure lasted as long as it was supposed to instead of being cut short artificially.

She shifted her gaze to Marik, who looked up from his youngest son into the angel's onyx orbs, and glared at the man. She had definitely been wrong about the king hating his youngest son, that was for certain, unless he had undergone a sudden change of heart and hadn't actually wanted Cai to die after all that he had done to the boy but still detested every fibre of his being. However, these actions were not of a father who resented the mere existence of their second son, and even though Orzhova still mistrusted him heavily she was willing to admit that dark forces had probably been at work in the manipulation of the king and that she should have been able to expunge them from him.

Nonetheless, she persisted in glaring at the king for a moment longer, hardening her gaze and subjecting the man to the most terrifying glare she could muster up in this fleeting state. The Angel of the Black Sun still felt hatred for him, it just was not as strong as it had been when she had been forced to observe Marik choking the life from her fragile Summoner, and she was perfectly ready to change her opinion of him if he could prove that he did love his son whilst the boy was awake and able to speak his mind to his father.

"I shall take my leave then. But I expect you all to do the best for my Summoner," Orzhova told them, tempted to make some sort of threat but knowing it would accomplish nothing apart from make her – and by extension Caiellis – the subject of more animosity and mistrust. The Angel of the Black Sun closed her eyes and disappeared in a flash of melancholy purple that was in the vague resemblance of the birthmark imprinted upon the current occupant of the medical bed's cheek, but instead of becoming more peaceful Caiellis's raised heart rate became even faster and more desperate.

"What's happening?" Alexander asked, though his words were either lost within the noise and unheard by the healing professionals as the fought to save the youngest Lucerna or ignored by those who had better things to do than answer his question or more likely both. The movement of the surgeons somehow became even faster as the boy in the bed began to thrash, his heartbeat a rolling tremble of insane drums as the eldest prince quickly returned to his little brother's side. Marik replied for him, guessing at what was going on, "I assume that with Orzhova gone, before Caiellis's mana begins to regenerate he will be suffering from the sudden disappearance of his Summoning – like when you Unsummon Aurelia and feel weaker after it."  
Marik wished he felt as assured of that as his words suggested, though even then they were still panicked and broken and he was unsure as to how Alexander could take them and be as satisfied with them as he was. Caiellis dug his nails into his father's hand, not drawing blood from the calloused skin because the fingernails were not sharp, though occasionally he stretched out his fingers out like he was trying to reach for something that would help end the pain he was in. He wished that he could do something more tha just stand here and hope that the agony his baby boy was enduring through would fade away before it consumed him.

Another alarm, one which must have recently been attached to surveil the youngest's vitality, began screaming loudly, echoing what Marik would have done in the situation if it would have achieved anything and he didn't have another son that he needed to look after, joining the loud beeping of the cardiac scanning system in a chorus of desperation and danger that howled around the room. The boy's entire body starting flailing again, telling them all that he was in a seizure once more, and the burly orderly from earlier rolled the potential heir to the Lucerna throne onto his side in an attempt to alleviate some of the pain he was in, making it so that he was facing Marik and Alexander even more.

The supreme human authority within the Kingdom of Light could see the increase of blue in Caiellis's face as the blood spilled over his barely breathing lips as he was turned towards his father and brother. He felt himself wanting to give in once and for all to the rampant panic that he had barely held at bay ever since Alexander had arrived to see his dead brother and had managed to push away when Orzhova gave him the gift of his son's life. Marik and Alexander were shoved back without ceremony, the king placing a simultaneously comforting and restraining arm around his eldest son's shoulders to make sure that he wouldn't get in the way further as he stared forlornly at his baby boy who was too small with all of the adults running around him, swamped in the bed that had been big for Alexander when he had been in it.

The Ordo Medella healers used words that neither one of the conscious Lucernas understood or remembered, although Marik couldn't help but think he was sure that had his youngest son been awake he would have been able to rattle off the definitions for all of the complex terminology without even batting an eyelid.

He had barely been able to see much of his apparently geeky second son (according to Alexander at any rate, though judging by the quality of Caiellis's written work and how intelligent he was for his age of just thirteen Marik might have been inclined to agree) apart from when he had told the king a comprehensive definition of the Sword of Glass (which had detonated in the killing of the Archdemon Rakdos, a worthy end for such a blade), instead pushing away his intellectual talents and trying to make him into a better soldier, trying to change Caiellis instead of accommodating for him. But it was something that he would definitely talk to his youngest about when the boy recovered, chat to him about what he liked and make sure he knew how proud his father was of all of his talents, not just the ones that made him a good warrior and prince.

Marik focussed his gaze upon his youngest son once again after his vision became obscured by a sheen of stinging tears borne from his self-loathing, regret and sadness for his baby boy.

Caiellis's face was so pale where it wasn't covered with blood or the black contusions of bruises, bruises that Marik had inflicted and blood that he had spilt, and his son didn't deserve the pain that he was going through. Seeing Caiellis like this reminded the king how young his son was, not that he hadn't been reminded by everything that had happened in the battle for Usnaan and the aftermath of the engagement with the Lord of Riots.

Nothing had changed. They still had barely any idea what was going on or how Caiellis was doing past what he looked like to them. They only knew that he was in good hands now, that he was getting the help that he needed. It had to be enough. It had to be enough, because it was all that they had to go on now. The king was immeasurably glad that no one had decided to look at his own wounds yet, although they would have to be seen to and there was no denying of that fact, because he needed to stay in the same room as Caiellis at least even if there was not enough space for him to keep contact with his boy.

Alexander would be healed before him however, Marik wasn't so focussed upon Caiellis that he hadn't seen or noticed the seventeen year old's wounds, but right now he couldn't bring himself to force his eldest son away from his youngest.

As the doctors laboured over the small boy who was covered in awful wounds (although luckily there seemed to be no corruption because the Lord of Riots was now dead), Marik wanted to give his first born son some encouragement, to remain strong for Alexander, but it was so hard when his youngest child was thrashing painfully on the bed, the oxygen mask on his face almost entirely obscuring his mouth and nose it was covered in so much blood from Caiellis's breathing.

Alexander's eyes kept turning from his flailing baby brother, to his father who stared at the boy in the operating theatre and surrounded by Medella doctors, and then back again to Caiellis. Then he was looking up at his father who was four inches taller than him once more, his eyes pleading and distressed. As if Marik could do anything. He was just as out of his element here as here as he had been dealing with the youngest Lucerna after the civil war, and he could do nothing to help his smallest son now.

Caiellis's mouth gaped open, claret liquid still bubbling out of it in spite of the best efforts of the doctors, his eyes still scrunched shut in the pain and refusing to open, although even if he had done he wouldn't have been able to know what was going on through the pain and the substances that were being pumped through him that were supposed to be helping him. He lifted both of his hands, the first proper movement that he had done seemingly of his own volition so far ever since his father had found him, his small and thin fingers instantly beginning to scrabble desperately at the edges of the oxygen mask around his face, frantic to get it off of him as he made more whimpering noises that were some of the most painful and heart wrenching noises Marik had ever heard in his life filled with darkness and sorrow.

Caiellis's efforts barely dislodged the mask, but he was getting more and more desperate to pull it off of him. One of the doctors, one who neither of the Lucernas recognised, was about to react. Alex beat him to it, running towards his kid brother as if to comfort Caiellis, as if to try and save him through the force of brotherly love alone as he slotted himself into a gap at the boy's bedside. It was simply second nature to the eldest prince, and Marik was sure that his son wasn't thinking anything through at the present moment.

His large hands immediately shot out and encircled Caiellis's wrists like they had done many times in the past when he was messing with his younger brother, pinning both of his arms above his head and to the bed behind him as the doctors, too busy trying to save their young patient to move the seventeen year old out of the way, swarmed around the boy.

"No, Caiellis. You need to keep that on, ok? You need to breathe, little brother. Stop it," Alexander told his brother sternly, though he still made his tone as comforting as possible, admonishing the boy like he had done in the past without any malice or anger behind it. He hated the way how Cai weakly thrashed his arms in his brother's unrelenting grip, hated how fragile and feeble his little brother felt even though it would have been the same if he was awake and Alex knew he could restrain both of Caiellis's arms by holding his wrists in one hand. The boy kept trying to somehow rise up and push his brother away, prompting Alexander to say, "It's alright, Cai, it is just me. It is just your big brother, and I am not trying to hurt you. You need to breathe with the oxygen mask, not against it. You need it on, trust me little guy, because otherwise you won't be able to breathe."

His heart broke at the pitiful moans and weak and muffled gasps that his brother was letting out, feeling like he was hurting the younger boy as he struggled and writhed in his grip. Eventually, Cai's arms fell still, tears spilling out of his closed eyes and running down his face in a way that made Alex want to join his younger brother in crying. He smiled, more for himself than the boy who couldn't see him, trying to be gentle and not let the unconscious kid hear how sad and broken his older brother had become in his next words, "You're doing great, kiddo, just keep being like that. The mask will help you breathe, short stuff, so when I let go I want you to stay like you are, alright?"

Caiellis had almost stopped moving completely apart from the way his fists were clenching and unclenching in a way that Alex knew his brother only did when he was in extreme pain, and the way his legs were buckling and writhing in the agony he was subjected to. Alex experimentally weakened his grip on his brother's wrists, knowing that even though he had intentionally not gone full strength his forceful grasp would definitely leave more bruises, and there was no movement on Cai's part. The middle Lucerna was blind to the world around him and his younger brother, and, sensing no motion and knowing that he had to make more space for the doctors trying to save his younger sibling, he let go of his brother.

The mere instant he did so Caiellis's hands returned to his face and he started hyperventilating even faster, whimpering through his pained panting as he tried to pry the mask that was supplying him with life-giving oxygen off of him. The boy's thin fingers immediately began to fumble for purchase at the edge of the mask before Alex dragged them away again, feeling more tears misting up his vision at the sight of his poor brother thinking that the oxygen mask was choking him and not the thing that was helping him breathe.

"No, Cai!" he shouted at his brother, his protective voice loud and inflected with his anger at the younger boy that was only reserved for when Caiellis did something to endanger his own safety – the special type of anger that rose up when he had discovered his brother cutting himself and when Cai had wanted to throw himself into Orzhova's Summoning trial twice in one day after almost dying during the first and being so exhausted that he could barely stand on his own. The smaller teenager thrashed underneath his grip again, whimpering and crying out in choked gasps as the oxygen mask misted up with more blood, and Alexander wanted to burst into tears and cry his eyes out because of what was happening to his younger brother.

He felt utterly useless, holding Caiellis's arms down as the boy weakly tried to push upwards with his forearms and force him off, his fingers curling round to try and grab hold of the thing that was pushing his arms down but too small to reach Alexander's large hand. His baby brother hadn't reacted to his presence at all, and that hurt Alex more than he would like to admit to someone else out loud because it meant that Cai was in so much pain he couldn't distinguish the identity of his big brother from all of the torment and turmoil roiling within him.

Caiellis always calmed down when Alexander was there without fail (though not when the two were arguing because then the older prince wasn't trying to comfort his sibling), and in the past even if he had been in immense pain the mere presence of his big brother would assuage him and make him feel protected. Now Cai couldn't even sense Alex or hear his words, and the boy hated the feeling that his little brother would be thinking that Alexander was trying to kill him by holding down his arms and stopping him from wrenching off the thing Cai's unconscious mind would believe was preventing him from breathing properly.

"Get out of the way!" one of the surgeons, Alex didn't know who, shouted at the boy as Caiellis began to seize painfully again, no better than when they had been back in Usnaan and in fact much worse, the cacophony of the machines surveying the kid's status blending with the voice to become a background noise to the eldest prince.

All the boy could hear was the sound of his brother's pained breathing, the noise of him choking out screams and whimpers of pure pain and terror breaking the seventeen year old's heart piece by piece. What was killing him even more was that he could do nothing to help his brother apart from hold his arms down (which made him feel like he was only hurting the boy, not helping him), that he could not repay Caiellis's kindness in helping him through his own wounds and making it so that Alex himself could recover from them both physically and mentally.

When Aksua had wounded him, he had tried to fight against the treatment of the Ordo Medella operatives as well, believing them and their equipment to be the vampire herself because of what the machines were doing to him in the procedure to purge the corruption from him, but Cai had calmed him down, taken his attention and been there to provide support and comfort to his older brother through his time of need. Why couldn't Alexander do the same? Why couldn't he help his brother even in his unconscious state, get him to calm down and realise that the mask was saving him?

"You need to keep the mask on! It is letting you breathe, little brother! Listen to me, Caiellis!" he yelled into his brother's face, his voice one of many raised and shouting over the screaming of the machines as Cai died. His heart hurt in his chest and fresh tears were welling up in his eyes that he refused to get into as he watched his brother struggle and cry, and there was more shouting, the burly doctor from earlier almost pushing Alex out of the way before the boy held his ground and stayed with his brother, still holding Cai's arms down so that he wouldn't remove the oxygen mask. "No! You can't make me go! Caiellis … my little brother needs me! He is going to take off the mask!"

There was more of a commotion as someone screamed at him this time to get out of the way so that they could have more space in order to save Caiellis's life, but Alexander was completely incoherent to it all, because Cai had never been hurt this badly before, because he had never messed up so much in not protecting his little brother from the danger of the world and the predation of those who longed to see him dead or hurt, and there was just not enough oxygen in this room at all for all of the noise and screaming in it. Alexander refused to leave his brother's side even though he knew that rationally he could be of little physical help and that he was in the way of the people trying to save his younger sibling.

Cai needed his emotional support, that much was certain, and the seventeen year old was never going to leave his brother, he would be with him every step of the way through this because it was the only thing that he could do to help his baby brother now and he would be damned if he left him now. He needed to be with his brother, it was his job as an older sibling to protect him and with Caiellis's condition getting worse and worse Alexander did not have the capabilities to step away from his side and break off contact with the younger boy who he had been through so much with and was dying again in front of his eyes.

Marik watched up until this point, the feeling of being detatched from reality and being a mere observer that could do nothing but mentally rail against this (like when he had been trapped within his mind) dissolving. He wanted to reach out to his eldest and youngest son again, to touch them, to hug them, to make it all right and make everything better like he had been able to before Emili had been killed, but he couldn't move no more than he could fix this mess that he had put his sons in with his negligence towards them, especially Caiellis. He didn't start the war between Lucael and Welkas, but he dragged his boys in there with him, and this was all his fault.

For the second time in this horrible day, Marik felt himself being separated from his physical body once more, but this time it was not because of the control of a malicious creature inside of his mind. He could see it all – he could see Alexander fighting to stay with his younger brother and protect him, trying to stop him from pulling the oxygen mask, and he could see the doctors shouting at him to move as they injected things into Caiellis and pulsed healing magic in his direction. And he could see himself, stood back from the operating bed, not nearly close enough to either of his sons.

It was enough to make him break free from the reverie. This time he was not going to ignore the plight of his progeny, this time he was not going to simply stand by and pay no attention to one of his two sons. He couldn't help Caiellis right now, that was only something that the Ordo Medella operatives fighting to be his salvation could do, but he was able to help Alexander and by doing so he would be indirectly aiding his seizing youngest son.

Marik pushed through the doctors towards the seventeen year old prince without much force, somehow grabbing him through the frantic hustle and wrapping an arm around the waist of his eldest son who was crying out without even realising it to his little brother. Alex struggled for a moment against his father, struggling with a ferocity borne of his primal need to protect his younger brother and be there at his side, before breaking down his tears as the man practically dragged him towards the chairs that he and Cai had sat on only a week ago when they had watched Alexander in the same bed that Caiellis was in now.

One of the doctors pulled out a couple of restraints from a box of equipment placed next to them as Caiellis's hands instantly went to his face with Alex no longer holding him down and stopping him from trying to remove the oxygen mask, roughly shoving the boy's slender arms either side of him (below his head this time) and strapping the restraints around the wrists as the boy struggled against them, the burn marks already around his wrists chafing even more as he thrashed against the new restrictions on his movements.

Cai probably thought that these restraints were whatever was holding him down before, and Alexander only just managed to repress a surge of nausea that filled his stomach and the inside of his mouth with acidic bile before he swallowed it back down at the thought of his baby brother being held down by magical chains that had cut into his arms, legs, waist and neck, choking him and cutting off his air as the other wounds were inflicted upon him by the Lord of Riots he had fought against, before a blade was drawn across his throat and he was almost killed by it.

Marik hauled his son back towards the chairs, turning them both round so that he was pushing Alexander instead of dragging him, though his son wasn't resisting with any real strength at all as all of the defiance left him and he gave into the tears that the boy had held back for so long. Marik wanted to break down too, after having seen his youngest son like he was currently, but that wouldn't solve anything so he pushed back the tears. He scrunched his eyes shut for a second, and though when he reopened them the wetness of the welling blue orbs was not gone it was no longer about to take form and pour out of them.

Because tears wouldn't fix this problem. They never have been able to help the king. He cried and mourned for weeks after Emili's death in between the violent battles of the civil war but that didn't bring her back, didn't fill the hole in his family that was widening every second Caiellis plunged further and further down into the pit of death that there was no coming back from this time. It didn't give his sons a mother again, and crying now wouldn't suddenly make the precious youngest Lucerna happy and healthy once more. He failed that, failed Emili and failed Caiellis, and he didn't even want to think about failing either of his sons again. He didn't want to think about anything other than them at all – not about being a Lucerna king, not about the war with the New Empire of Passion, not about the destruction of an Archdemon or what Johnias might have been doing in his absence. Just his sons. That was all he could think about now, and it was time for him to finally embrace his duty as a father of two young boys and be there for them.

Alexander stumbled backwards in blind obedience of his father, sobbing his heart out as tears spilled down his young cheeks as he refused to tear his eyes away from his dying younger brother, gorging upon his despair and growing larger to the point where they were fat and thick droplets that the king had only ever seen from Caiellis before even when his eldest son had been dying in the vampire's curse. He forced his weakly struggling boy, his not so little boy when Caiellis was now still his little boy, into a chair, before he remembered to breathe himself and took a good look at his son.

Alexander stared back, his eyes wide and the pupils dilated to the point where barely any of the crystalline blue within his irises could be seen, hands weakly clutching onto his father's wrists connected to the large hands that were on his shoulders. With Caiellis as young and as innocent as he was, it was often very easy for Marik to forget that Alexander was still only seventeen years old himself, a young teenager who needed support, reassurance and love just as much as his younger brother, and with his his eyes wide like they were the king was reminded heavily of a mixture of his youngest son when he had been scared both in the distant past and the events of only a few days ago, but instead of looking at his father in fear of the man Alexander gazed at him like a puppy that had just been kicked by violent drunks and found by its master again, wanting guidance and strength from the only person who could provide it now.

Marik didn't know how he could be strong for his son when he felt his own insides being wrenched apart by Caiellis's gasping whimpers and strangled howls of pain as he seized, but he refused to leave his eldest son to deal with his emotions alone now. He remembered the night of Alexander's own near death, when he had almost completely ignored his comparatively unharmed young son (and though Alexander was wounded himself in comparison to his younger brother he was in pristine condition – which didn't make it any better, but it would be an injustice to pull the boy away from his sibling now in this desperate time where Caiellis could leave them at any moment) and only paid attention to him when he himself had been forced into the seat that Alexander was now in and decided to comfort the crying thirteen year old.

So consumed by the pain inflicted upon his precious eldest son, Marik had forgotten about his second child and would probably have ended up leaving him back at the abandoned village that Aksua had ambushed the Lucerna princes within if not for the attentiveness of Guardian Tristram who was much more of a father to the youngster than his biological parent (something that Marik was definitely going to change if – _**when –**_ Caiellis recovered from this enough to be conscious). He was not going to repeat that mistake with his eldest son, it was about time he realised that Emili had not just given him the gift of one child, but two amazing young boys that he wouldn't trade anything in the world for, and he pushed Alexander's chin up so that he could see better into his eyes as the oppressive lighting of the surgery shone down into them.

Alexander blinked, tears still streaming out of his young blue orbs and reflecting the luminescence of the mana-powered lights above, the dilation reaction of his pupils delayed and not as Marik would expect from a perfectly functioning human. _But then, of course Alexander isn't a "perfectly functioning human" right now! He is watching his younger brother, the closest person to him in the world not that I know anything about them, know anything about my sons, die right in front of his eyes whilst he can do nothing to help him!_

Marik saw the very visible symptoms for shock in his first born son, and the boy's chest was heaving in a way that was very redolent of hyperventilation which would not be helping his shock at all. Alexander was more wounded than Marik had originally thought, which meant that the seventeen year old's treatment could not be delayed for long, bruises and bloody wounds smattering the eldest teenager in the room and finger shaped marks around his throat, suggesting that much like his younger brother Alexander had been strangled in the battle for Usnaan as well, though with the shape of the neck bruising the king had a very large suspicion as to who had inflicted the wounds and fought his eldest son.

"Get … off me … need to … need to help … Cai … need to help ..." the boy sobbed and panted out, making Marik even more concerned about him as he cried. Alexander struggled against his father's unrelenting grip, the man's hands on his shoulders increasing the strength at which they were holding him down against the back of the chair as the seventeen year old tried to stand up and gave up with a dejected sob.

Marik moved his hands round to the back of his son's head and pushed it in between his knees, trying to balance out the emotion inflecting his words to make his voice comforting but not broken and firm but not cold or emotionless, "Just breathe, Alexander. You won't be able to help your brother at all in the state that you are in now. Just focus on breathing normally, ace, because neither I nor Caiellis want you to have a heart attack yourself because of your hyperventilating. Your little brother is in safe hands, Alexander, just focus on keeping calm and breathing."

Alexander honed in on his father's reassuring words, the man glad that he was beginning to break out of the shell he had placed upon his emotions again and just wishing that he could act this way to his youngest son even though what he was doing now was nothing compared to what a proper father would do for his sons. The words were partly forced, and Marik hoped that they would start coming naturally to him fully, because currently they were half formed ideas from a time before war and loss rising up in his head that he had to grasp hold of and complete himself before saying them, but he had always found it easier with Alexander after the civil conflict ended on his youngest son's ascent into teenage adolescence and this was no different.

Alexander's breathing slowly but surely began to relax, the boy pulling in longer inhalations and exhaling at a slower rate, though the rhythm of his breaths was still hitched with sobs of misery as he let the tears he had held back for Caiellis's sake streamed out of his eyes and cascaded down his face, his ribs that had broken again protesting at bending his body like this. Marik started to rub soothing circles on his back, unknowingly replicating what Alexander had always done to comfort Caiellis because the king had done the same to Emili and his sons before the civil war had ripped them all away from him, forcing himself to keep talking to his eldest son to distract the boy from the whimpers and sobs of his stricken younger brother, "You're doing great, Alexander. Just keep breathing like that. In, out, in, out."  
Obviously deciding that he was done with following his father's orders and that his breathing had relaxed enough, the seventeen year old's head rose up again, locking eyes with his father's blue eyes that were trying not to transmit how terrified he was of losing his youngest son, the boy looking at Marik desperately and pleadingly once more, still hoping that his dad could fix all of this like he had been able to do with anything up until the day when his mother had been murdered.

"I n-need t-to b-be w-with h-him," he protested, his voice breaking in between wracking sobs that the king had never seen from his eldest son before who was finally showing how old he was. Alexander hadn't ever been so distressed before, not even when he had been dying himself, and it only served to remind Marik how selfless his eldest son was, how kind he was. He had inherited Emili's compassion, that was for sure. "H-he's m-my l-little b-brother. H-he's m-my r-responsibility. I-it's m-my j-job t-to p-protect h-him."

Alexander stared up at him, almost like he was looking straight through him, and his mouth quivered before the boy took breath and visibly tried to steady himself and halt the rain of tears he was pushing back down within him.

Marik felt his chest breaking again for the millionth time that day as his eldest child tried desperately to look strong so that his father would let him go back to his baby brother's side and be able to comfort him, a new pain striking through his heart at how Alexander was only seventeen years old but trying to be strong for both his father and his little brother and he loved his son so much, he loved both of his sons so much and he wasn't sure how he could ever have acted like he did in the last month with them.

"You are my sons. You are both my responsibility and it is my job above all to protect you," Marik told him, his voice quiet and filled with pride but loud enough so that they could be heard by the boy in front of him, the only one of his sons that he could help at the moment. Keeping his hands on Alexander's shoulder and hiding a wince of pain at forcing his wounded body to move, instead of towering above his seated son the king crouched down in front of him, one of his hands moving round to his son's face to tilt his head towards him again – he of course didn't want to stop Alexander from looking over at his brother, but he wanted his eldest son's full attention right now. "And I have failed at that, failed at my duty as a father. I have failed so badly, but I am going to make it up to you both. I am going to make sure that you never get hurt again."

Alexander shuddered for a second, the tears straining at the edges of his vision before Marik stood up again, making to sit beside his eldest son before the boy burst into more sobbing and crying. Instead of sitting down, he pulled his son up and embraced him, only able to rest his chin on the boy's bloody and sticky blonde hair because he pulled the youngster in so that his head was on his father's shoulder.

Few things bothered Alexander. Few things made it past the sometimes rough exterior he had created for himself, that they had all created for themselves so that they were not too affected by the act of fighting against those who broke every unspoken moral and killed without thought of the consequences. Marik knew this even having missed out on nine years of his son's young life. But Alexander had seen too much over the past few days, especially in the siege of the Welkalite capital of this day.

From finding out that his precious little brother had been cutting himself for just less than a month, to being abducted and captured by the Welkalites, almost dying himself in the clutches of the last vampire and being consigned to a bed as the already strained, awkward and stunted relationship between his father and younger brother deteriorated into something nasty and full of pent up resentment as he recovered from wounds that had nearly killed him. He was forced into throwing himself in between horrible shouting matches between the other members of his family, almost torn in half as each one of them tugged him a different way, and then thrust into a brutal conflict that had led to him finding his baby brother dead and his father crying over him.

All was all too much for the boy, and while Alexander was usually the one giving out the hugs to crying teenagers (or reciprocating ones that his brother initiated with him, secretly happy at Caiellis's desire for comfort even as he teased the younger boy about it, though that had only happened because of his wounds as before that when his brother became a pre-teen he was reluctant to give any out as he matured, unless either of them became wounded or they had survived horrible engagements with the forces of Johnias) this time it was his father pulling him into one.

"W-why d-did i-it h-have t-to b-be h-him?" the boy cried, speaking like he hoped that this was all just a nightmare, that he would wake up soon and his brother wouldn't be dying with nothing he could do to save him, that this tragedy would turn out to be not so real. Marik wished that it was, but nothing could come of simply hoping that everything was a dream – he had done the same when Emili had died and as expected it accomplished nothing. He hugged his eldest son close, effortlessly ignoring the unpleasant smell of blood and sweat because he knew that he would be coated in it himself and it did not matter at all, feeling his love for his sons breaking out of him again.

Marik didn't have a good answer for Alexander – yes, he had a lot of suspicions as to _why _Caiellis had been hurt like this, but none of them were appropriate at all for the traumatized seventeen year old. He wanted Alexander to know about exactly what had happened so that they could be ready when their younger relative woke up, but right now telling the boy would finish him off for sure and emotionally hurt him even more. Instead the king did the only thing that he had managed to do ever since he had been given the chance to save his son once more by the Angel of the Black Sun – make a promise that he wasn't sure he would be able to keep but one that he would do his damned hardest to ensure that it didn't break.

"Caiellis is going to be alright, Alexander. Caiellis is going to recover from this, and he is going to be alright," Marik assured his eldest son, wishing that he could make all of him believe the words he had just spoken. Part of him, the part of him that was a father and would do anything for his sons, was hooked upon the words and refused to allow anything other than them to happen, whilst another, the more rational part of his psyche, knew that it was such a ridiculous lie that he almost felt guilty for telling it.

Almost, but not quite, as while it could be perceived as a lie by part of him, the part of him that was colder and more objective and viewed everything through the lens of realism that was not distorted by emotion at all (the part of him that he had inherited from his own cold father, though it had less power over him than it did over the previous ruler of Lucael), because he knew how bad a state that Caiellis was in and that it was very unlikely for the youngest Lucerna to survive the horrible wounds inflicted upon him, much less get through this without any form of permanent damage, the rest of him believed that his son had to get through this and live on because he would not let Caiellis die thinking that his father hated him and had never wanted him. He would not allow his mistakes to deprive Alexander of the little brother that he had endured through so much alongside, the younger brother who always made the older son of the king feel happier.

But Alexander believed him anyway. He didn't know how or why but the seventeen year old believed every single word that his father said. Alexander believed him. Not because he was factually right because none of them could predict what would happen to Caiellis. Not because he had earned it as while Marik had reaffirmed the bond he had with his eldest son much more than he had strengthened the infinitesimal one that he possessed with Caiellis he still was not a proper father to Alexander and had failed both of his sons.

He believed him because there was no alternative, because if Alexander didn't listen to and take his father's words as the truth then he would be lost to despair, because he needed someone else to tell him that his belief that Cai would survive this was not stupid or the desperate need of a big brother for his little brother to come back and stay in the world with him, that he wasn't alone in hoping that his sibling got through this pain and suffering in spite of all that had happened and the niggling feeling at the back of his mind that told him Caiellis would die before he screamed at it to go away.

They stayed like that for a while, locked in the embrace of father and son as Marik forced himself to remember that Alexander was not his second in command, his more obedient son who he could always count upon to deliver, but his eldest son and someone who he loved more than anyone apart from the boy on the bed in the room with them. The seventeen year old was shuddering violently, helping to mask Marik's own smaller tremors that rippled up and down his six foot seven frame even as he tried to stay strong for his son, to provide the reassurance that Alexander definitely needed if he wasn't going to give into the sorrow flooding through the youth and be a bulwark against his sadness and fear like he had been in the past before treachery and murder pulled them away from one another.

It was something that the king was perfectly willing to do once Caiellis woke up and would need all the emotional reassurance he could get from his family, especially from his father who had to convince his son that he did love him and had always wanted him after all that he had done to the boy because of the nefarious dominance of the horror or otherwise.

Alexander pulled away from his father after a moment, wondering whether he should ask what happened to his little brother but not wanting to know yet, not wanting to know why his father hadn't been able to protect him against the might of the greatest demonic threat in the City of Pleasure that they had been in only minutes that felt like hours ago, and gazed into the man's strong but scared eyes again. He had never seen his father so scared before, even though Marik was doing a commendable job of hiding it under the veneer of being strong for his son, and the boy knew that he had to suck it up and do the same so that they could focus upon the one out of the Lucernas who deserved it at the moment.

He couldn't quite suppress a gasp of pain as he pulled away, his ribs having been screaming in protest all through the father and son embrace, and Marik narrowed his eyes as Alexander's arm automatically wrapped itself around his upper abdomen and broken ribs before he could stop himself, aware that his dad would already want him to leave and get his own wounds checked out. A wave of vertigo washed over the boy, mixing with the nausea within him at the thought – the _reality –_ of his thirteen year old brother being hurt so much, and it was all he could do not to scream out in pain or vomit up the contents of his stomach as he bit down on his bottom lip.

Steady hands prevented him from falling over, and a strong grip directed him back to the seat as he got another look in at his younger brother who had stopped thrashing as much and was almost still, though the machines around him were still screaming and the blood spilling out of the bottom of the oxygen mask dispelled the image of peacefulness. Alexander knew better than to try and push past his father who had seated him as the waves of nausea began to abate, but he tried anyway and was rewarded by his father's firm prevention of his movements. He was still crying, angels damn everything, he couldn't stop the tears from falling, nor could he repress all of the pathetic sobs that would make anyone think it was him on the operating table, not his baby brother who was making less noise than he was.

Marik's hand ghosted over his ribs, prodding and poking the broken bones as the youngster hissed in pain and tried to push his hand away, and the king's mind was made up as he looked his eldest son up and down again. Alexander was hunched over, curled over trying to hide the state of his own wounds so that he would be permitted to stay in the same room as his little brother. His face still had faded tears upon it that were joined by more, tears that the father of two knew would never go away unless Caiellis recovered and could receive the love that they all had to give him. He couldn't stop moving, couldn't stop shuddering and twitching occasionally as he stared straight through his father as if he could see through the man in front of him to his little brother who was still making some noises of pain and was still in a desperate situation that neither of the older Lucernas could help with.

But he believed that Caiellis was going to be alright and it was written all over his tall form – in his face, in the way that he was holding his ribs tightly and trying to hide his pain so that he would never have to leave the same room as his younger brother, and in his jitters of shuddering sadness and fear.

"Alexander," the king began, before the addressed almost instantly interrupted him, coughing painfully as he did so and blowing his nose on his sleeve so that his voice was less blubbery and filled with sobs, though the occasional one did slip out, "I'm not leaving him, dad. These wounds are nothing. I'm not hurt, not hurt badly enough to leave him. He wouldn't leave me in the same situation, and I'm not going to leave my little brother either. You can't make me."  
Marik paused for a moment, aware that he could easily make his son leave if he forced him to but didn't want to have to resort to that. Instead he tried a different tactic, knowing from the panting of Alexander's breathing and the way that his eyes were still wide that he had suffered some form of concussion in his fighting alone against the Welkalite defenders of Usnaan, as well as many bruises and scrapes that needed seeing to, though he was aware that he would be hard pressed to convince him to go and have his wounds checked out by another doctor (one of those that there was not enough space in the room for) even if Caiellis's wounds had been a quarter as bad as they were now, "In fact, your brother did have to leave you after he had finished making sure that you were alright during the purification and you fell asleep again. He almost fell unconscious, like you are very close to doing, before Guardian Tristram took him away and even then he fainted in the man's arms because we – _I – _ignored his wounds for too long. I am not going to make the same mistake with you. You won't be able to help or be there for your brother if you can barely stay awake yourself."

"I'm not leaving," Alexander replied again, more forcefully and desperately this time, his voice perilously close to breaking once more as his wide eyes beheld his father's stern gaze that was trying to be parental and comforting. Marik sighed, expecting that sort of response from his stubborn eldest son, particularly when it came to Caiellis.

He didn't want Alexander to leave either, because he wouldn't be able to go with his eldest son and while he hated having to choose between them he knew without a doubt that he would have to remain with Caiellis because that was undoubtedly the right thing to do. He wanted the boy to be able to stay with his younger brother as well, loathe to tear his sons who had a brotherly bond stronger than he had ever seen apart because of what might happen if Caiellis did wake up or get worse without Alexander being here, but it was a simply fact of physics that there was not enough space in the room for the seventeen year old to have his own wounds examined and healed.

"I know that you don't want to Alexander, believe me I do because I wouldn't in the same situation," Marik told the boy, hoping that Alexander didn't see the pain that his father was in as he sat next to him instead of remaining stood in front of him, putting his arm around the teenager's shoulders after a moment of indecision as to whether that would be the right thing to do or not and resolving to trust his instincts.

The youngster would think that he was a complete hypocrite if he allowed him to see how bad the single wound he had sustained, the holes in his stomach caused by Enforcer-general Fraetus Etin that were causing internal bleeding and were probably infected by now considering the amount of pain that it was causing which the king paid no heed to, was affecting him, but Marik was a father with a duty to look after both of his children (if only he had realised that a few days ago instead of letting his youngest get more and more distant and taking out his anger on him) and Alexander's wounds were quite bad, though the boy was putting on a commendable effort to ignore them and not let them show.

"But you won't be able to do anything for Caiellis in the state that you are in now, and I have a job to look after you both and I am _not _going to let either of you get more hurt than you already are. Besides, it was only a week ago that you were on that bed yourself, and I know that you can't possibly have recovered from that fully. Son, I do not have to want to force you to get your wounds seen to, but I will not hesitate to do so if you refuse," Marik stated, trying and succeeding to keep his voice as stern as possible without giving into the pain in his eldest boy's wide eyes that seemed to widen even more with his father's words.

He drew upon his authority, but this time it was not his authority as a king that he mustered up – no, it was his authority as a father, as a father who wanted best for his children more than anything else in the world. Alexander still looked unconvinced, so Marik tried one more thing, "Caiellis would be agreeing with me right now if he was awake. Your brother would also want you to get your own wounds seen to."

"Maybe what Caiellis wants isn't the right thing!" the boy suddenly hissed back, the emotional pain within him lighting up at his father's insistence that he leave, and Marik sighed again, too distraught and distressed to get angry with his teenage son now. He wasn't going to make the same mistakes twice, he wasn't going to let out his anger at what had happened to one son at the other as Alexander continued, "Caiellis _wanted _to go to the middle of Usnaan all alone because he _wanted _to impress us – to impress _you –_ and make you believe in him!"

The king flinched back from the words, though he knew they were true and not nearly as much as what he deserved – they didn't even tell half of the story as to why Caiellis was hurt because of him. Marik exhaled loudly, wearily sinking back in his seat, his son's defiance draining him as his eyes left Alexander and went back to Caiellis, ensuring that he was alright for now and wishing there was enough space to go over to him and clasp hold of one of the boy's slender hands. The boy's blue eyes, still filled with stinging tears, were glaring at him, but there wasn't any anger in his eyes. None at all. Just pain, emotional pain that he shouldn't have had to feel, and Marik wished that his son was more angry with him – though there would be time enough for that later.

"I know, son … believe me, I know the extent of the mistakes that I made with him," Marik murmured, his voice unusually quiet as he watched his youngest son thrash in the bed, though the motions were weak enough to be ignored now and the agony he was in was catching up with the boy, as well as any sedatives that would be delivered by the medical equipment inserted into him. The exhaustion of the day coupled with the awful night's sleep he had had the night before was catching up with the ruler of Lucael, but he would not let it stop him from making sure that his sons were as safe as he could make them.

Alexander frowned for a moment at the display of raw emotion from his dad who usually kept it bottled up inside unless it was strong enough to force its way out (such as when he was monumentally furious or anguished), and Marik decided that he was better off speaking to his son as a person rather than as his father, "And the amount of mistakes I made with you both ever since the civil war ended. I know that I am not the perfect father, and that it is my fault for what happened to Caiellis because I should have been able to protect him. But that does not mean that I cannot try to make reparations for what I have done, that I will not become the father that you need and the father that I am supposed to be._ I_ do not want you to be hurt, Alexander, and I want both of you to be recovered from this battle. You need to have your injuries seen to, and I will not ask you again."

The forty year old's voice became stern at the end of the last sentence, the grief within it replaced with a father's adamant will to ensure his children were safe and sound. The middle Lucerna stayed silent for a few seconds, his eyes still filled with grief and pain after his father opened up to him, and it suddenly hit him that Marik was trying all he could to not break down himself over what had happened to Caiellis, trying to do something to get Alexander the help that the boy didn't think he needed because otherwise, if he focussed on the youngest member of their family, he would realise that he could do absolutely nothing and be swallowed up by the hopelessness.

Alexander didn't know what it was like to be close to losing a child, but he assumed it would be a similar feeling to what he was now experiencing in being dangerously near to losing Caiellis, his little brother, and Marik was doing the only thing he could to abate that and still feel like he wasn't failing at being a father. He couldn't help Cai, but he could help Alex and that was what the king was concentrating upon right now.

And Alexander understood that, just as he understood that Caiellis wouldn't want him to be hurt either. He also couldn't help but think, just through the sadness in his father's eyes as he stared over at his thirteen year old son, that there was something to this that he didn't know, though obviously he didn't know what it was. However, he hadn't been there when his younger brother had coded and almost died the first time around before Orzhova brought him back, he hadn't been there when Caiellis was being ripped apart and killed by the Archdemon whilst his father had – just like he hadn't seen his mother die like Marik had witnessed.

He didn't know what it felt like to see his brother being killed right in front of his eyes, though he did know what it felt like to see the horrible aftermath of Cai's fatal heroism that had ended with him here, constantly teetering on the verge of death. The hollowness in his father's eyes told him everything that he needed to know, hollowness that he never wanted to see again but hollowness that he also felt within, where a tear in his heart was beginning to make itself known and would consume all of him in frozen emptiness if his baby brother died here.

He didn't want to leave Caiellis at all, because anything could happen and Alex would be damned forever if he wasn't at his brother's side the instant he woke up, even if that awakening would come with Cai being unaware of his surroundings and flitting between states of consciousness. And even though the boy didn't even want to consider the awful possibility in his mind, the seventeen year old knew at the core of his being that he wanted to be there if his younger brother's body couldn't defy the pain any longer, although _that isn't going to happen!_

But looking into his father's pleading eyes, Alexander couldn't defy any longer and a part of his mind supposed that the sooner he got his own angel-damned wounds seen to the sooner he could return to his brother and not have to be concerned about his own condition. Dad sounded so tired, exhausted by having to look after both of his Lucerna sons at once, and Alex realised that he was being quite selfish in directing the man's attention away from his younger brother and towards him instead – because Marik wanted to take care of both of them and even though the seventeen year old hated the fact that his dad would even pay any heed to his eldest son when there was barely anything wrong with him he knew he would have done the same if the situation was reversed.

He didn't want to have to make his dad force him to leave either, because even with the usually detached man's slight emotional release the boy was under no illusions that his father was perfectly willing to make him submit to having his injuries scrutinised and rejuvenated by one of the spare doctors and that he wouldn't be able to fight off the stronger man – not that he wanted to. He glanced over at his younger brother once more, his heart aching for the innocent kid and wishing that he was the one who was dying, not him, even if he had already been on that operating table/bed and almost died himself. He would go through it again in an instant if Cai wouldn't have to suffer through this agony.

Alexander turned back to his father as the man broke the melancholy silence that had drifted down between the two, though the room would never be silent with the sounds of the shouting doctors and the endless beeping of the machines. That was preferable to the silence because at least it meant that, no matter how much pain he was in or how bad his condition was getting, at least the thirteen year old was still alive. When true silence descended, Alexander and Marik would know that they had failed in their respective responsibilities to defend the well-being of the youngest member of their small family.

"I am going to go and call over some of the doctors who aren't doing anything so that they can take you into a nearby empty room and see to your wounds. So please, Alexander, just get them checked out, for my sake if not for your own," dad seemed resigned and defeated, exhausted by what had happened, and Alex nodded.

"You'll come and get me if …?" Alexander asked nervously, unwilling to finish off the sentence, though his dad already knew what he had meant. The boy would have ended the question with _if Caiellis wakes up _or _if Caiellis gets any worse._ Concern for his younger brother was etched upon the dark patches of fatigue around his eyes and the slump of his shoulders. Marik patted his son as reassuringly as he could on the shoulder, knowing that the boy needed one final confirmation before he resigned to getting his wounds seen to. He replied, his voice full of warring sadness that he tried to suppress and a father's love, "Of course I will, Alexander. You know that you can trust me with that, son."

"Promise?" the seventeen year old boy sniffed, wiping away tears from his eyes. He knew that was childish, but he still believed in promises never being broken and he needed reassurance at this time of need. Marik smiled sympathetically, though the emotions transmitted through facial gesture did not reach his sad blue eyes, and replied, "I promise, son."

Alex nodded. He really didn't want to leave Cai, but he had to, at least for now, and followed his dad as the man stood up to walk towards some of the Ordo Medella staff who stood attentively but awkwardly at the doorway to the room, not illuminated by the brightness as they had not crossed over the threshold and seemingly too dark without the scrutinising examination lights glaring down at them.

The presence of Lucernas always drew attention, especially since there was no current violence going on within the Kingdom of Light meant that the hospital was a lot more empty than usual as many of the doctors trained in war healing and not left behind in case of attack from Johnias or his traitorous compatriots like Hierarch Aretis and a portion of the Civitas Sol legion.

Alexander looked over at Caiellis again, his eyes landing on his baby brother's innocent face that was screwed up in pain, silently promising that he would do anything in his power to prevent him from being hurt again and he would not fail him again. The boy would like to say that he felt a connection pass between him and his younger brother, but truthfully he didn't think that he did as the amount of pain Cai was in coupled with how exhausted and close to death his body was prevented him from knowing his big brother was there – which was in itself something that also attested to how bad of a state the little man was in, as Alex couldn't remember a time where his brother wouldn't react in any way to his presence, despite the fact that it was often too small for him to notice it – even when the boy was asleep or in a nightmare.

_I won't be long, little dude. Stay safe and just focus on your own recovery, and I'll be right back before you even notice that I have gone, ok, Caiellis?_

Alexander lingered just enough to see his father return to where he had been sat, slumping backwards and wincing at the state of his own wounds, forlornly gazing at the frantic operation upon his youngest son and placing his head in his hands, before the boy turned away and hoped that he could be healed as quickly as possible so that he could return to be there for his brother and dad.

.*.*.*.

Pain was the first thing that rushed through him, all different types of pain singing together in a discordant harmony of agony that raced up and down his body, but it was torment that seemed distant, seemed far away even though he could still feel every single excruciating sensation all around him.

Shadows danced with blazes of light in his vision, though they didn't match what he felt was happening around him, and he felt disconcertingly numb yet attuned to all of the pain and the feeling of the world around him, the world that he didn't know if he was truly in or not. The back of his head ached with an intensity that made him want to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. Or he couldn't feel them past the riotous display of agonising sensation that had him writhing in pain.

Both of his hands throbbed in time with his thudding heartbeat. That same heartbeat echoed in his ears, ricocheting through his skull. The beat stuttered, failing, and he clutched at his chest.

His hands refused to budge.

_Where … where am I? What is going on? What is happening? _he thought, the twirling arcs of alternating light and darkness in his eyes flaring in response to his pain, and his body tried to scream without his permission, a reflex action to the torment it was in, but nothing came out. His lungs felt so heavy and it was like his throat was full of grainy sand, making each breath a tortuous venture, a fruitless escapade. Because each intake of air yielded no results – no relief to the burning in his lungs – and his exhalations were an exercise of wretchedness that brought tears to his eyes – or he was sure that they would if he could feel them, but he was in that much pain the sensation of tears trickling down his cheeks – if it was even there – was eclipsed by the agony he was in.

He had to be drowning, drowning in an endless sea of sand that had consumed him, because that was what it felt like.

And then it hit him, the sudden realisation of one terrifying fact that overrode all the other pain he was in and made him truly think of how much danger he was in even with all of the other metaphorical nonsense his probably delirious mind had waxed about the pain. The coming of this simple truth spread fear throughout the boy, flowing through his body and eclipsing the rest of the agony that he was in.

He couldn't breathe.

_I can't breathe! Why can't I breathe?! Someone help me! I can't breathe! I can't see!_

Caiellis instantly started to panic, and would have began to heave in desperate breaths in the frantic confusion and terror that suddenly gripped him if he had been able to. Instead his mouth, which was wide open in horror, couldn't get any air at all, not even a trickle of life-giving oxygen that would help him at least stay conscious. He couldn't see what was stopping him from breathing, what was obstructing the flow of air into him, as all that was in front of his eyes was the dancing darkness that seemed to taunt him with the illusion of slumber and freedom from the agony and the fact that he wasn't breathing at all.

He managed to break out of his paralysis, the fear thrusting his body into frantic motion.

He thrashed, kicking out his arms and legs desperately in an attempt to fight off whatever was stopping him from breathing, whatever was making him re-live one of his worst fears. He could hear voices, shouting words that he couldn't understand all around him, but their meaning was lost and their sounds seemed stretched out across the fabric of existence to the point where Cai could no more hear what they were saying than make himself breathe again.

He was dying. He was _going to die_, and these people were just running and shouting to each other around him without even helping him?! Panic gripped him in its cold hand, squeezing around the boy like a hand on his neck. Maybe he was still in the middle of a battle, the middle of the battle for control of the Welkalite capital if how how terse and frantic the shouting was.

Caiellis pictured himself on the streets of Usnaan, trapped underneath something that was crushing him down and smothering the breath out of him, the flickering fire of the burning city masked by the darkness of whatever was laid on top of him or stabbing into him, but soon forced himself to dispel what he knew was a hallucination because he knew that he was not on the streets of Usnaan.

He did not know where he was, but if anything he would still be at the remnants of the Redhand mansion with the Archdemon still taunting him, Orzhova having abandoned her useless Summoner to his fate. Perhaps this was the Defiler's way of torturing more, but he couldn't _feel _the demon's foul touch, though he wasn't sure about its corrupt presence.

_Help me … somebody help me … can't breathe … can't get _it _off …_

He could feel an obstruction around his mouth, something that was clamped shut over his lips and nose and stopping him from taking in any breaths, suffocating him and making him feel light-headed and making the world slip away from him. Caiellis would have whimpered in fear as the thing clenching and squeezing down on his airways suddenly became a hand, a hand that was stopping the air from getting to him. A hand that belonged to one person in particular.

_Why don't you do us all a favour, and just die? _The person whispered to him, the person who hadn't been able to crush his throat and choke him to death before Orzhova arrived to save him but was now instead suffocating him. Caiellis could see his dad stood next to him at the corner of his vision, one large hand enough to clamp around his son's mouth, finger and thumb squeezing his nose shut and allowing the asphyxiation to begin as Cai tried to flail and desperately thrash to get him away from him.

His brought his hands up, pulling desperately at the single hand that refused to budge even a centimetre off of his face, fingers scrabbling against the much larger digits of his father who sneered derisively at his son's attempts to pull him off. The darkness swam around him, drowning him in its endless depths of tenebrosity that looked strangely redolent of the kaleidoscopic unlight patterns Cai would see if he squeezed his eyes shut really tightly, though he couldn't be doing that because he could see his dad stood right by his side. Even though he was using two hands, his slender fingers could barely find purchase on even the thumb holding his nostrils shut, panic flooding through him and making his heart beat echo within his skull.

_Dad, please … let go … I don't want to die … I'm sorry … I'm sorry …_

Caiellis could barely remember what had happened, all of the events of the battle blending together into one carnival of unrelenting pain, hatred and sorrow that blared out to him in his eyes and distorted the sounds of the shouting around him into the noise of lost souls, souls that had been torn from their bodies and thrust into an abyss of infinite torture because of him, because of his failures and his weakness, screaming out their hatred and their accusations of him.

Then a voice pierced through the howling of forlorn spirits who raked the boy with their claws made from pure fiery pain as they tried to latch onto him and drag him down into their endless torment with them, a familiar voice that didn't do anything to dispel the tortuous trauma of the souls thrusting their claws into him and ripping his skin, his _soul, _wide open so that they could feast upon his agony.

It called out to him through the embrace of the spiteful and sadistic darkness, through the hand of his dad pressing down on his mouth and nose and killing him faster than he souls were as he tried to pull him away with all of his might. He couldn't hear the words over the pounding in his skull from the suffocation of his father who hated him and wanted him dead more than anything else, and they all blended together and lost all definition by the time they reached his ears to the point where he couldn't even distinguish what they were trying to say to him, but relief still surged through him.

_Alexander! Alex, help me! Please! I can't breathe, big brother, I can't breathe!_

Cai knew that he had to stop relying upon his older brother to get him out of bad situations, but at the moment, with no air coming to him at all, he couldn't care less about that. All he wanted was to breathe – freedom from the pain could come after that. All he wanted was to feel the rush of air through him, no matter how painful it was, no matter that it might only last a second before his father's hand clamped down around his airways again.

Strong hands, much like the one that was around his mouth and nose but softer, less calloused and worn by years of war and strangely more like hands than the one suffocating him, wrapped around his wrists, pulling the hands away from pitifully endeavouring to remove his father's from his face and pinning them to something behind him.

_Alexander, please help me! Someone is holding me down! Dad is trying to kill me, and I know I deserve it, but I don't want to die! _

Alexander's voice made its way to him again, the words the auditory representation of an image of the world blurred by tears and loss of vision from lack of air, and Caiellis struggled pathetically against the thing holding him down as he felt himself giving out. He kicked and thrashed frantically and as violently as he could in his hurt state, desperate for even a single breath of air for his burning lungs. He tried to scream out to his big brother, the only person who could protect him from this, but nothing came out of his mouth apart from a sticky and wet liquid that tasted like blood and must have been. He had coughed up blood numerous times in the battle, especially when his dad had tried choking him to death with hands around his neck instead of his mouth and nose, so that was no surprise to him any more.

The hands around his wrists didn't remove themselves, they didn't let go of him, pressing into his already chafed and cut wrists hard and making him want to scream out in panic and pain and confusion and terror and thousands of other horrible things. He couldn't breathe. And that wasn't changing, especially now he couldn't even pull away his father's hand with his own restrained by others.

_Help me, please, big brother …_

Why wasn't Alex helping him? Couldn't he see that his little brother was being throttled to death? _Why is he just talking to me like nothing is wrong when everything is wrong and he couldn't breathe and oh angels I just want to breathe! Alex! Please!_

The hands holding down his wrists were suddenly removed, giving the boy free range of motion with his arms once again as his father laughed contemptuously in his ear, still resolutely clamping down on his son's breathing and stifling any of his attempts to get air.

_Your brother isn't going to save you, Caiellis! It is about time you stopped relying on him and stood up for yourself against your enemies! He can't coddle you forever, and I am going to make sure that he never has to again!_

The boy instantly resumed the unfruitful attempts at pulling his much stronger father away, still bleeding out of his mouth and nose as his body was wracked with painful sobs during his fight for his life. He didn't know why someone – or _something – _had stopped him from doing that, but he assumed that Alexander had managed to find a way to get them away from Cai and was currently battling him off. That explained why he wasn't helping the thirteen year old with their dad who was trying and succeeding to smother him with one hand, tears dripping down the boy's cheeks as he tried to get his last remaining parent away and suck in a breath.

The hands wrapped around his thin wrists again almost the second he began scratching and pulling at the hand choking him, pushing them back once more as he screamed and whimpered in pure terror. Or at least he would have done if he would have been able to breathe, and instead the noise that came out sounded completely alien to Caiellis, who carried on making the strangled shrieks of fear anyway because they might get him some help.

_Please … Alex … I'm scared … please help me … I know I rely on you for everything … but please just help me … I promise I won't ever annoy or fail you again … _

_I'm so scared … big brother … I know you can save me …_

_We both know that he cannot. Alexander is fighting against his own enemies, remember, you worthless brat?! My only true son is dying in the middle of Welkas, far away from his family and friends all because you tried to be a hero and ended up putting us all in danger, you little shit! Have you forgotten what the Lord of Riots showed you?! Don't you think you deserve to die for what you have done?!_

_Yes … but … I can hear him … I can hear my big brother … He is here … He doesn't hate me …_

_You think that, do you? You really think that Alexander doesn't hate you after all that you have done to him?! You made his mother die when he was only eight years old! You forced him to risk his life coming with you to Welkas when _you _were captured by Arendus Draal! You abandoned him when he needed it most for a pathetic dream and left him against the wrath of a vampire who almost killed him!_

_And to top it all off, you, my second son who neither I nor Emili ever wanted, ran away from your brother and I after I specifically told you not to and now he is in danger – now he is _dying –_ all because of you! Now do you see why I want to kill you?! NOW DO YOU SEE WHY I WILL NEVER LET YOU LIVE?! _

_No … it's not true … _Caiellis tried to rail against the horrible words, just as he tried to rail against the hands firmly pressing his arms down, tried to rail against the fingers clamped around his mouth and nose and stopping even a small trickle of air getting to him. But, just like he failed to even move his arms a few inches as he thrashed them in the strong grip of the one holding him, much less remove the hand killing him from his face and suck in air, he couldn't battle against the truth of the words that pressed him at him from all sides.

He could hear Alexander's voice alright. It was shouted into him. It sounded angry, defiant, but also broken, desperate and hurt, just like it had been when Aksua had almost killed him, and Cai knew that his big brother was in immense danger because of him.

_Let go of me! I have to save Alex … I can't breathe … I'm so scared … I can't breathe …_

_I'm not going to let you go! I can't let you put any more lives in danger, Caiellis, and I am doing now what we should have done when you were first born! Alexander was perfect, all we ever wanted, and then you had to come along and kill Emili and put my only true son in danger!_

_Stop it … please dad … I just want to help … I don't want to die … _Cai protested weakly as the hands around his wrists were replaced by ropes and chains that he violently thrashed against, cutting open wounds that were already inflicted upon his arms as the darkness became even more black and streaks of pure shadow pulsed through the dying colours of asphyxiation in his vision. If Caiellis had been able to think clearly through the terror of the suffocation, he would have wondered why what he thought was his dad could hear his thoughts, as he certainly wasn't able to say the words through the blood that was coming out of his mouth and nose and the thing that was stopping him from breathing and reducing all noise that he made into different forms of strangled shrieks and choked whimpers.

_Someone help … want help … want big brother … want Alexander …_

_Are you sure about that, brat? Are you sure that you want your older brother? Are you sure that he will even want to help you after everything that you have done to him, even after all that he has done for you to help your pathetic existence continue on to this point?_

_Yes … yes. I am sure that Alexander will help me … _Cai protested mentally, his mind not allowing for the possibility that his big brother could hate him to take root within his head, even though he could already feel the poisonous claws of such ideas and thoughts spitefully clawing their way throughout his mind and digging their painful talons in deep. Caiellis had relatively often thought in the past that his older brother resented him and hated him, often enough that it wasn't really rare but not with enough frequency to be considered common through the years of him growing up alongside the older boy and only having someone who was four years his senior as his real friend.

After their arguments, the youngest Lucerna almost always wondered if his brother meant all of what he had said, if he actually hated being with Caiellis nearly all the time because of the way that they lived and would rather be an only child than have a little brother to look after. Nonetheless, nearly every time that he had begun to think the thoughts his older brother would make sure to apologise for what he had said to Cai and make it all up to him, just like the younger boy would try to do the same if he wasn't so emotionally distraught by the fights (particularly if they started getting physical and ended really badly, like both of them getting hurt as they threw punches and kicks and both of them saying things that neither meant) that he was scared to approach his big brother for fear of what he might do.

That meant that it had usually been Alex who had extended the hand to his sibling and reaffirmed their brotherly bond again, wiping out the malice between them over stupid arguments and making sure that Caiellis knew that he was wanted because the younger boy would often turn to self-loathing after their fights as he had only ever been able to measure himself up to a boy four years older than him and naturally bigger than him even if they had been the same age, thus making him feel inferior and that he was the weakest one amongst them (which was factually true but that was because he was also by far the youngest and smallest).

However, now that he was entertaining the thoughts that his father's words had placed in his mind, he was beginning to think that perhaps they were right, perhaps Alexander couldn't forgive him over this like he had done over everything else. Caiellis's mind was muddled by the darkness, lack of oxygen and the pain fulminating throughout him, his body a living and feeling lightning rod for electrical blasts of agony which shuddered up and down his fragile form and made him want to scream, but he couldn't with the hand clamping down hard over his mouth and the blood that felt like it was pouring out of his mouth instead of air.

He had caused the older boy to almost die by abandoning him, and his mind was too scared and confused to remember whether or not Alex had forgiven him for that, if his brother would ever truly recover from the near death experience at the hands of the last vampire whilst Caiellis was enjoying himself in a dream realm and did nothing to help him at all. He had seen how broken the seventeen year old had become even as he tried to hide it from his friends and family, trying to hide how much it had affected him from the little brother who had caused it.

And now he had just put Alexander in more danger by abandoning his wounded brother again, hoping that with his reckless attack on Tradax that he could solve everything but instead allowing an Archdemon to be Summoned within the City of Pleasure and placing everyone in even more danger by forcing his father to come and try to save him – or punish him for his disobedience, his _failure _at absolutely everything, as it turned out.

And yet … _No. Alex does love me. He wouldn't do all these things for me if he didn't love me. You can't fake this form of kindness, you can't pretend to love your younger brother if you don't. _

_But do you deserve his love, Caiellis? Alexander does foolishly love you because he has been forced to protect you, taught by others that an older brother should look out for his weaker sibling, because that is the only thing that he has known and he does not know that you were the one who made his beloved mother die._

_But you do not deserve that love. You betrayed your brother's trust, left the only son that I ever wanted for dead while you grasped onto the straws of a fantasy that could never be true __because me and your mother, my beautiful, precious, compassionate, _perfect _wife, never wanted you. You forced him to protect you from me, from the proper punishment for your crimes against him._

_Alexander may want to protect you, and he may well love you, even though I doubt that because who could love a younger brother as pathetic and worthless as yourself? But I am not going to let my perfect son risk his life time and time again for a son that I never wanted to be born, a son that I should have had smothered as soon as I laid eyes upon him._

Caiellis's could feel his struggles getting weaker as he unsuccessfully threshed against the restraints chafing against the already burnt and cut skin of this thin, stick-like wrists, the chains slicing into his skin and adding more pain. He had to help his brother. He couldn't leave him alone against the Welkalites, and he had to push past his fear of dying to aid him. _No … no … _he weakly protested as his body became slacker and slacker, more tears spilling down his face that he couldn't feel and more pain flaring across his entire body as his dad's resolute hold on him refused to budge and he began to die again. And this time Orzhova wouldn't be able to save him from his own weakness, from what he knew he deserved but didn't want to face.

His heartbeat galloped like a nightmare horse with hooves of sparking brimstone and eyes of deepest shadow in his ears, faster, then lethargic and extremely slow, then erratic and thudding once again.

It didn't matter. He had to help his brother. Even though it might be the case that he didn't deserve Alexander's love, the older boy at least pretended to show it and tolerated being in the thirteen year old's presence. He knew deep down that Alex didn't want to spend time with him anymore and had only been doing so recently because of the discovery of his pathetic self-harming that had been a temporary release from the crushing pain that was getting so heavy that he felt he was suffocating underneath it. Well, he was suffocating, asphyxiating as his father held his hand over his youngest and unwanted son's mouth and nose and stopped him from getting any air, but that was a literal death and not a figurative one, even though the two seemed interchangeable and the weight of the youngest Lucerna's failures was killing him just as much as his father's hand.

Caiellis pushed the hurt of that realisation down often when the world was quiet enough that he could actually think about it. He understood why. The war was over, so that meant they didn't have to spend much time with each other unless they were thrust into more danger like they had been after the Scholaria Magnus abduction that had also happened because of Caiellis. Alexander was older, seventeen years old now, and Cai was still just a little kid. A stupid, pathetic excuse for a brother.

He didn't deserve Alexander at all, but that was why he had to save him, had to free his arms from the restraints that they were in and push his father off of him. Dad could kill him once he had saved his big brother, and surely Marik would prefer to save the only son he ever wanted rather than wasting time murdering the one that he didn't?

_Please … let go … have to save Alex … have to save big brother … let go … let go … please … help me …_

He could still hear the frantic shouting all around him, the screaming of the damned souls that reached out to him to try and wrap him in their malicious arms and drag him into the bowels of hell where he belonged with them, and he kicked out his legs as he felt more claws of unadulterated pain being raked up and down him.

_It is too late for that. It is too late to save your older brother now, Caiellis Noctis Lucerna. Not that you are worthy of having the name of the royal family, let alone having your mother's maiden name as your own middle one. You killed her, and now you have hurt my perfect first born son as well. No more. I will have no more, child that I never wanted, worthless brat who dares to think that he is a part of my family. You are going to die so that you can not hurt anyone else, you are going to die because you deserve it after all that you have done, you are going to die because you never should have lived in the first place._

The youngest Lucerna could feel his resistance faltering even more as the unkind words were whispered into his ears, condemning and damning him to more suffering and death as he cried. He knew it was pathetic, and knew that he deserved this fate for what he had done, but he couldn't stop the tears or the muffled whimpering that somehow escaped his mouth even with all of the coppery blood and the hand clamped firmly around it.

The pain was immense, almost worse than he had ever experienced, but he remembered pain like this when he had been fighting the Archdemon Rakdos which he had allowed to be Summoned into the world of man, the Defiler inflicting him with such suffering that he had never felt before that paled in comparison to the amount of emotional pain that he had been forced to go through as he realised that his life should never have begun and his mother had died because of him, that his older brother and two non-biological Uncles were in danger because of his weakness and stupidity.

_Stop it … dad … please … I don't want to die … I'm so scared … I know it is pathetic … but I'm scared … I don't want to die …_

His hands fell limply at his sides, barely moving and responding as he tried to push them up against the restraints around his slender wrists once more, and he could feel the reverberations of his beating heart, the thudding of his disgraced heart echoing through his cowardly body and blocking out all of the noise apart from his father's intimidating voice that spoke to him as he died again.

_Is that so? Is that why you cut open your throat trying to escape from the world, trying to escape from the punishment you have earned?! Are you sure that you don't want to die, you worthless, good for nothing brat, because I am quite certain that the reason you sliced your neck open was because you didn't want to live any more?!_

Caiellis remembered, and it all came back to him. The snivelling, the crying. The unrelenting and unstoppable sadness that was coming back to him and instilling him with the same emotions again. It was true. He hadn't wanted to live, and now that he realised that he also realised that he didn't want to live now, either.

_I may as well stop resisting. I know that I am scared, but I killed the Archdemon, and I was scared then. I am worthless, I don't know what is happening, but I don't want to live any longer._

_Good. I'm glad that you understand what is happening here. You don't deserve to live in this world, and I am going to make sure that you won't any longer. I hope it hurts. I hope that you are scared._

And Caiellis found that he didn't have a problem with that. He didn't have a problem with death, because he had sealed his own fate. He knew he was scared, he knew that it was pathetic, that he was running from his punishment and the mess that he had made of his life, but there was no going back now. He had chosen this path, chosen the cold embrace of death over continuing on in his life of pain and hatred, and there was no time for any regrets.

The boy's limbs fell limply by his sides, his struggling gone apart from a few thrashing and desperate flailing as his body refused to stop trying to kick away the pain that was consuming him and holding him tight within its simultaneously cold and fiery embrace. He had given up, because he knew that he did want to die and there was no point trying to fight against the things in his head that were so real to him, shutting eyes that hadn't opened and stopping pulling up at the restraints as he felt more contact with horrible claws that speared into him and sent blinding bolts of numbness and torture through him.

He just had to get through this, and then he would escape, be able to leave this world of hurt and cruelty that he never should have been born in in the first place, and couldn't do anything to stop the thing clamped round his only airways from squeezing them closed and blocking them up. Everything hurt, and his hands felt like they were twitching of their own volition as if in response to the pain as his father said again what he had at the beginning, the fact that Caiellis was resigned to his fate making the horrible words no less painful.

_Why don't you do us all a favour, and just die?_

Cai wished he could have lived, he really did, and he was scared about what going into death would bring to him, but there was nothing left in him now, no desire to keep on going or fight against the agony of his continued existence where the man who had created him hated him and never wanted him, the mother who loved him in spite of what dad might say had died because of him and never planned for him either, and the big brother who had loved and protected him was being hurt thanks to his useless younger sibling.

He didn't see much in the world that would make him want to stay, but he was still hesitant to give up, to give in and surrender to the darkness and coldness, and he cried silently as he died again in the worst way possible for him. Part of him did not want to just succumb to the plans that cruel fate had in store for him, part of him wanted to fight and rail against it but he had expended all of his defiance and he couldn't oppose fact any more than he could push his dad's hand away from clenching around his face.

The boy whimpered in fear and misery, wishing he could be stronger, wishing that he had done differently, that he could do something to atone for his mistakes, that he could face the pain like his big brother would and work through it, but it was all too much.

He was all alone, with everyone he had ever loved in danger because of his weakness, and the expanse of nothingness was becoming for him to join it in its eternal slumber, away from the pain and the suffering but also away from the brief sparks of happiness within his life.

_Alex … help me … someone …_

Even if Caiellis had wanted to fight against it, he couldn't stop the numbness from taking him again, the man that he could see in the corner of his eye fading away as the thing around his mouth became a lot less akin to squeezing fingers. Some bits of him, the bits that had protested against him drawing a knife across his own neck to end the pain, thought that he should fight against the darkness wrapping around him, that he should battle his way out of this sleep and fight his way back into the world again like Alexander would want him to, but he couldn't listen to the voices telling him to keep going.

His ears and head were ringing with all of the noise around him, the high-pitched screaming of demons come to take him away, drowning out the words that told him to keep on fighting and never give up as all of his emotional agony began flowing around him again, blending with the physical pain to the point where the boy couldn't distinguish between jabbing bolts of real agony and lancing arrows of mental torment and anguish. The extremely loud squealing and howling was no bed time lullaby, but it lulled Caiellis into an even greater sleep despite that.

Alex would want him to fight against this. Uncle Tybalt and Uncle Tristram would want him to fight against this, just like they had wanted him to fight for his survival in the civil war and fight to help them against the forces of the eternal night.

His mum would want him to fight this, as though he knew he was only four years old at the time, an age too young to be able to distinguish between carefully constructed lies and truth, so he might have mistaken what his beloved mother thought about him more than nine years ago before she had died, in spite of whatever his father said the woman that he remembered had loved him (just like the daddy he remembered had done so as well, but Caiellis had concrete, unavoidable evidence that he did not now whilst his mum was dead and so he had never been able to see if she did truly love him or not) and the mum of his childhood that he had been forced to grow up out of only four years into it would want him to live and have a happy life.

And finally some of him wanted to keep living, to keep fighting against this end that he had caused himself, even though he knew that he put everyone who loved him in danger. Some of him wanted to remain within this life, to be able to snuggle up against his big brother and feel protected and safe again, to have Alexander and Uncle Tristram ruffling his hair fondly in affectionate pride of him and to have Uncle Tybalt smile in the way he did when his youngest student completed academic work of a calibre that should have been far beyond what he should have been able to achieve.

But what was one more failure? What was one more failed order, one more unsuccessful endeavour, one more disappointment, one more inability to live up expectations, one more failure to protect what was precious to him amongst so many others?

The pain and anguish of the world tainted all of these things, all of the happiness of his life completely eclipsed by the agony and the grief that living caused, and Cai knew that he did not deserve to live any longer.

Some of the pain was far away now, and so was the shouting of desperate voices and the screaming of high-pitched creatures shrieking at him in their rage that he was living whilst they weren't. And so was the sensation of tears spilling down his cheeks, though he knew for certain that that would be there, destroying any last vestiges of pride that he might still possess and showing the world that he wasn't a heroic Lucerna prince, he wasn't a leader, he wasn't a warrior with the power to slay an Archdemon – he was just a child, a cowardly, scared little boy who would rather run from the pain than confront it.

The world was becoming dark again, the maddening and psychedelic patterns of unreal light that danced behind his eyelids fading away as they were replaced by the true blackness of slumber, and the agony was distant. Caiellis only cried for a few more seconds before, once again, he knew no more.

.*.*.*.

Alexander quickly pushed back into the operating room that would hopefully have had two Lucernas saved within it, the fifteen minutes that he had been forced to be gone within stretched out over the tense hours, and if he had enough mental power to direct his thought processes to anything other than his immeasurably cherished family he would have been thankful that the spare doctor who had tended to him, binding his ribs and healing his wounds had been patient enough not to become annoyed with his constant fidgeting and uncomfortable agitation and hard-skinned and sympathetic enough not to be offended by his terse barbs that the seventeen year old didn't really mean.

The woman had clearly realised that she wasn't going to be able to detain the eldest prince in the room next door to the one where his baby brother was being operated on for long in spite of the fact that she believed that Alexander shouldn't be moving around at all with the state of his own injuries so that he did not damage them wrong, and had told him quite frankly that she would need to heal him more later but for now he was free to go and see to his brother again.

The desire to be with his brother and continue to make sure that he was safe enough for now and in an acceptable condition for his wounds had burnt into a raging inferno within his chest that made him unable to stop running the short distance between wounds in spite of the Ordo Medella doctor's insistence that he should try to take it easy.

How in the name of the holy angels was he supposed to take it easy when his little brother was dying in the room next door to him?

How was he expected to take it easy and not put himself under much strain when he had had to watch his baby brother struggling to draw breath and seizing in his arms, when he had been forced to breathe for the younger boy and had tasted Cai's blood in his mouth?

How could he try to relax and not damage his wounds knowing that he had seen Caiellis dead in their father's arms, knowing that his fragile and innocent younger sibling had been cut, burnt, bruised, crushed, strangled, restrained and murdered by the most powerful demon he had ever sensed before?

How could he stay calm and remain in that room much longer when the last time he had seen his thirteen year old kid brother that it was his job as a big brother to protect and nurture unconsciously crying and whimpering from the pain he was in as he seized and tried desperately to pull off the only thing that was letting him breathe because he thought that it was suffocating him?

As he made his way into the room as fast as he could, Alexander began to worry about the state of his younger brother, that something might have happened while he was gone. He knew that his father had promised that he would be informed as soon as either his brother woke up or got any worse (though the words had not been said the information had transferred between the parent and child), but despite that he wouldn't put it past Marik to try and protect him from something if Caiellis did get worse. He was aware that this was extremely paranoid of him, that if he hadn't been fetched by anyone then it was likely that nothing had happened, but his primal fear for his younger brother would not be briefly satiated until he saw the thirteen year old, and even then it wouldn't be truly satisfied until Cai recovered fully (though after that Alex would still be scared for his safety after all that had happened). But didn't he have an excuse to be paranoid after all that his family had gone through?  
Besides, he needed to be with Caiellis whether the kid knew he was there or not, so that he could react instantly if anything happened, so that he could offer support to his baby brother irrespective of the younger male being aware of it or not, and so that he could just be with the boy no matter what occurred and stay with him until either he recovered, or the unthinkable happened which Alexander refused to even voice in his head no matter that the grim possibility was becoming ever more likely.

The second he laid eyes upon his younger brother again, the doctors still moving about him and cleaning him, healing spells murmured from their lips as their mana was poured into the boy as they bound and saw to his many wounds, Alex stopped in his tracks, the light of the operating theatre shining down upon him, though no one noticed his entrance even with him inhaling sharply at what he saw.

Alexander had been Caiellis's older brother for over thirteen years of happiness and sadness. He had seen him sick, feverish and sweaty, vomiting up anything he had eaten agonisingly painfully, snoring heavily, surrounded by used tissues and panting for breath in pained sleeps. He had seen his little brother wounded and hurt, bleeding from horrible scrapes and injuries as Tybalt and Tristram saw to him with the help of the middle Lucerna.

He had seen his brother be forced to stay in bed for days as his body regenerated from the worst wounds he had sustained through the civil war, the pain caused by a greater demon Summoned by the Hierarch of Vectura before Tristram (as Tybalt had also been heavily wounded) managed to hold it off long enough for help in the form of the Guardian of Scientia Mos to arrive when Cai had been eleven.

Back then the younger boy had looked bad even after the threat of death had been staved off, bruised and pale and extremely uncomfortable even in his sleep, though that was mitigated slightly when Alexander agreed to snuggle up next to him, that part of him breaking out of the teenager state of mind the fifteen year old him had been in to comfort his hurt sibling, though he had barely ever hesitated to help his brother before as he had a soft spot for the younger boy.

That had been bad, though not worse than the other three members of their party had been hurt as well during the violence of the civil war, and both Alexander and Caiellis had small scars from that time (though Tristram had picked up many more and Alex's most prominent ones were those that had been inflicted by Aksua that would heal and fade in time).

Alexander had never seen Cai quite like this.

Caiellis was quite a lively sleeper, especially when he wasn't nestled up to his older brother in the times of stress that made that the way they had slept. He thrashed around, mumbled occasionally, even rarer cried out when he was in the grip of a nightmare so horrible that he couldn't help but yell, and usually woke up with the bedding half on the floor and his feet on his pillow. Even in the rare moments of relative calmness he sprawled on the bed with his arms and legs flung out either side of him – which made it a good job he was so small otherwise he would have taken up all of the beds that they had been forced to share over the civil conflict, although Alexander knew he did the same thing and had often been faced with his brother complaining about it in the morning (or the middle of the night if it was that bad).

Now he was almost completely still, the only movement of the small boy the small breaths that Alex couldn't hear over the general noise of the surgery. Cai had curled slightly onto his side, as much as he could with the restraints that were no longer digging into his arms but still holding his wrists to the bed in case he tried to take the oxygen mask off again, looking like a discarded puppet with his strings in the form of numerous medical attachments trailing everywhere around him.

Alex could see IV lines (a relatively recent invention that was based upon Yentarian technology but with many changes better suiting the Lucaelian method of healing with both magic and medication) in both arms now (as obviously one in the left had not been enough) that fed the boy treatment and more healing, leads to the heart monitor that pinged weakly in the background, large tubes away snaking from the oxygen mask around his face. Caiellis looked even more small and vulnerable than ever, wearing no clothes apart from a modest white cloth that ensured his modesty was kept after it had been checked, and if the doctors hadn't still been operating on him in a desperate attempt to save his life Alex would have pulled his baby brother into his arms.

The boy looked utterly helpless, at the mercy of the impersonal machines powered by thrumming mana surrounding him and the kind doctors who were still in the agitated state from earlier which instantly alerted the seventeen year old that despite his brother's stillness he was nowhere near safe or healthy yet, and that it was possible that he was even worse now than he was when he was seizing. It reminded him of when he and their dad had carried him through the abyss to the room that they were now in, but there was even less movement coming from Caiellis currently than there had been then.

At least the boy's chest was still moving up and down, no matter how slowly and softly to the point where it was almost imperceptible with the amount of movement around him, because that was better than it not, but the sight of his brother like this, with so many wounds unobstructed by dirt and blood, shocked the older sibling.

When Alexander had reluctantly left him, steeling himself against his baby brother's whimpers, Caiellis had been writhing in the agony of his broken body. It was a mild relief now to see that some of the pain had smoothed from his pale face, though there were still lines of torment that persisted through what looked like a slumber. But the stillness, the motionless limp fingers curled into the sheets beneath him that were stained crimson by his blood as the Ordo Medella doctors and healing worked to repair his wounds, was just as worrying – if not more so. At least when he had been weakly thrashing it had shown that he had enough energy to do that.

Now Alexander couldn't tell if his brother was asleep from all of the tiredness of the battle or simply unconscious because his body could no longer sustain even the weak but desperate movements of earlier. And he hated not knowing what was happening with Caiellis. He grimaced as he saw a doctor plucking out shards of obsidian rock that had buried into his brother's waist, wincing at the sheer size of some of them and hoped that none had penetrated to the vital organs underneath otherwise Cai would be suffering from even more potentially fatal complications, and swallowed down his sick again as he watched Choirmaster Esmelde's hands clasped together above a large slice in the unconscious thirteen year old's lower abdomen.

The hitched breathing of his younger brother informed Alex that he had broken ribs, which was something that the seventeen year old had somehow managed not to realise yet through all of the stress and pain of bringing Caiellis here and watching him seize. Their dad sat in the exact same position that he had been in when he had almost forced Alexander to leave, his almost emotionless eyes inflected with heavy amounts of both sadness and fear that make Alex ache in empathetic pain for him – dad would almost certainly be blaming himself for what happened, just like Alexander was now as well, and he hated to think how much worse it must be for the king because he had been there with Cai and unable to stop this from happening to his youngest son.

To anyone who had barely seen the king before he would look like a stoic and resolute statue that was bravely watching over his second son as the doctors tried to heal him and save his life, but anyone who had ever laid eyes upon the man before would be able to see the emotional pain of a father's worst nightmare colouring all of his movements, his posture and his blue eyes that Alexander had inherited from him, although sometimes he was sure that Cai's green eyes were more like their father's despite being the colour of their mother's. The man wasn't slumped like Alexander had been in the same situation, sat rigid on the seat as his fingers played an anxious drumbeat rhythm on the armour of his leg that was stained with blood, and not just the blood from the Rain of Gore.

Alex blinked for a second when he saw that the crimson trickling down his father's leg was human blood, and very fresh, stark against the now dried viscera that had splattered upon it, and followed the pattern of the scarlet to where his dad's other hand and arm was wrapped around his waist, more droplets of blood spilling out from the gaps in between the man's large fingers that clutched what must have been a horrible wound.

The seventeen year old didn't know what he should do about that – on the one hand, it was extremely hypocritical of Marik to send his son away to have his wounds healed when he was suffering from ones that were far more threatening and painful (as now the teenager could tell that the ashen colour of the older male's face was not just due to the fear of losing his youngest son's life), but on the other he completely understood why their dad would rather stay here than go and leave his son, even if he had made Alexander do the same.

He could try and convince their dad to leave, but that would be an almost impossible task and suspected that the king wouldn't listen to him or follow his own advice that he had given to Alex when attempting to persuade him to do the same, as Marik would say that he was the father and that it was his duty to ensure that his sons were safe and healthy, not the other way round, but Alexander didn't agree with that and thought it was his job to protect both of the members of his family as much as possible even if the age differences meant that he would guard his little brother more often because he was the youngest Lucerna whereas Marik was the eldest loyal one.

Alexander, who still hadn't entered the room fully yet past crossing into the light, turned back to his younger brother, feeling a sudden surge of anger and pain at seeing Caiellis as desperately injured at he was, a fury borne from the fact that he knew he had failed to protect him and make sure the smaller boy knew that he was loved and wanted – because it was obvious that he had gone to the centre of the city to try and impress them and show that he wasn't a failure, not that any of his family members thought that he did.

Of course Cai would also have wanted to reduce the amount of pain that others would feel by cutting off the head of the serpent as soon as possible into the battle, but that wasn't his responsibility no matter that he was a Lucerna. Caiellis was one of the people, one of the innocents, who the warriors of Lucael were fighting to protect, too young and gentle for war irrespective of the fact that his powers and intelligence and courage allowed him to excel in it. It shouldn't have been his baby brother who had chosen to make the sacrifice for the crusaders of the Kingdom of Light. It just wasn't right at all, and that made Alexander even more angry with himself that he hadn't been able to stop him – both physically when he left them as they had just penetrated into the Glutton's Quarter and mentally stifle the idea that he had something to prove after what had happened to his big brother with Aksua and the arguments with their father.

He was still angry with his dad for all of that somewhere, but right now it was completely overridden by the emotional pain and sorrow of seeing his younger brother in this state and knowing that if Cai got even a bit worse then he would probably die. It was a miracle he had survived at all, Alex knew deep down, but what he knew even more was that the thirteen year old should never have been hurt that much in the first place. He couldn't be angry with his father though, not after all they had been through, not after seeing the utter horror and grief on the man's face as he watched his youngest son come closer and closer to death.

Things would have to change with the way that they operated as a family, that was for certain, but Alexander was sure that dad knew that as well, knew that Caiellis was their first priority to be protected because he was the youngest, the most fragile and the most innocent out of them, the one who had lived the least amount of time in happiness and with the barest touch of normal before war and death ripped them away from that.

Caiellis had suffered the most out of all of them, Alex decided, because he had known mum the least, he had only been able to have four years, through most of which he was too young to know what was actually going even with his intelligence and remarkable cognitive ability from an extremely young age, because he had lived the greatest proportion of his life within a war that he was far too young to fight within, because he had seen the least of his own father before the man had been changed by Johnias's betrayal.

Alexander would make his dad change the way he dealt with his youngest son, using force if necessary, because Cai had been hurt due to the fact that he thought he was inadequate, because he thought that he wasn't good enough and thought that he needed to prove that he was after what dad had said to him and how Alex had inadvertently humiliated him in the sparring session in front of their father. Caiellis had probably thought that his family, or at least their dad, hated him at the most and resented him at the least, and while that could not be further from the truth it hurt the seventeen year old to admit that he could see where the squirt was coming from with that if that was what he thought.

Dad would definitely change though, he could see that, even if he kept that change to himself and continued on normally once Cai had recovered from this. Alex wouldn't put it past the man to be extremely harsh on their youngest family member once he recuperated enough to be ready for censure (even though it would still hurt him, that was undoubted), because dad was scared of his son doing something like that, because Marik wouldn't know what else to do and would be terrified of Caiellis dying and so vent that on the thirteen year old, but Alexander would not let that happen. Cai deserved the best when he got better, he deserved to have happiness, a loving family and a touch of peace and joy now that the war had to all intents and purposes ended, and if the seventeen year old had to physically fight and break bones to make that happen then break bones he would do with no compunctions.

Realising that he had let himself drift into thought in a way that he didn't often to but knew that he would have to get used to until his baby brother recovered, Alexander walked slowly across the room again, repressing the urge to punch a hole (or multiple) in the wall because of what had happened, and sat down with a weary sigh next to his father, ignoring the fact that his ribs hurt despite the reality that they had been bound (forcing him to put on new clothes usually reserved for patients as well which were clean and to be honest felt a lot better than the bloodstained outfit he had been wearing even if he had thought it was a waste of time as it had stopped him from getting back to his brother for longer) as they were broken and would take a few days to repair properly even with his Lucerna vitality.

"You … you should get that seen to," Alex said in a small voice, stammering slightly in a way that he was not used to because he didn't want to distract his father from staring at Caiellis's operation with old and sad eyes. Marik jumped back, flinching away from Alexander for a second before he brought his body under control, having not noticed his eldest son (who only looked slightly better as the emotional agony was much worse than the physical wounds he had suffered, lines of worry and grief still on the boy's pale face) arriving in the room once again. His mind then processed what the boy was said, and even though it went against what he had told his son to do he shook his head slowly.

He wasn't going to leave Caiellis until his youngest child's condition improved enough so that he was satisfied enough to be able to tear his eyes away from the small, thin boy, even though he knew that the wound in his stomach would eventually kill him and leaving it too long with the internal bleeding could have disastrous consequences. He would have it seen to and healed in time, and he could appreciate his son's concern, but he couldn't leave Caiellis because it was his fault that the boy was in this state in the first place for numerous reasons, most prominently that it had been Marik that inflicted many of the physical and mental wounds, the latter much worse than the former.

If he was being honest he had no idea how long his eldest son had spent out of the room. The silent vigil over Caiellis was lengthy, interminable and of an indeterminable amount of time as his son was healed of wounds that easily could kill him if they were left untreated for too long, but the king could have sat there forever even with his wounds. His eyes flicked to Alexander for a moment, checking on his condition which was much less than good, but the wounds were ones that neither Marik nor the doctors could help with. He sighed, then repressed it, because he had no right to sigh, not when his sons were like this because of him.

Alexander slumped back down in the seat next to him, and Marik wished he could offer up some form of comfort, but he had expended all of his words to his eldest son and he couldn't find any more that would repair the emptiness within them both, emptiness that would only be filled when Caiellis recovered and they could see his smile again, something that the king had barely been blessed with at all though that was none of the thirteen year old's fault and all of his father's.

"Angels above … dad … why did this have to happen to him?" Alexander murmured, almost breathless from fear for his brother eating away at him from the inside, though he wasn't really expecting an answer and Marik did not know one that he could give him so he stayed silent. He turned back to his youngest son once more, watching him with such an intensity that he hadn't given to the boy a while, not even after the battle of Fort Egetau when Caiellis had been hurt then, not even in his arguments with the boy because then he paid more attention to the insolent words his son shouted at him and the way that he would respond.

If only he had paid more attention.

If only he had wondered why he was so, so angry with his youngest son, as while it had been understandable to be angry with the boy it had been turned into something violent and nasty that Marik wouldn't have believed himself possible of with one of his precious little boys by the horror infecting his mind from within, and if he had thought more about that instead of how he could curb Caiellis's defiance and make him into the perfect little prince then he might have been able to purge it from him before it made him do what he had done.

If only he had pondered more about why Caiellis always fought against him so hard, why his son was angry and sullen with him but nobody else, if only he had thought to ask his son why he was like that and what he could do to genuinely make himself better in the boy's eyes. If only he had communicated with his youngest son who had only recently entered his teenage years and was on the verge of leaving them already as the boy's father instead of a commander and ruler, as a man that Caiellis could trust and respect instead of one that didn't understand him at all.

If only he had made his son understand how much he loved the boy, how much both him and Alexander meant to him, and that Caiellis's defiance and his inability to interact with his son hurt him precisely as much as it did Caiellis, that he reacted so badly to his insubordination because he loved him and was scared for him. If only he had been willing to admit that to himself instead of putting it off as him being unable to interact with his son because of a nine year gap in seeing him, if only he had been willing to confess to himself how damn much he loved both of his children before he ripped apart Caiellis's self-esteem and sense of self-worth and drove him to cutting himself to relieve the pressure.

Then none of this would have happened, his youngest son wouldn't be attached to what seemed like tens of medical machines powered by healing mana and surrounded by doctors who had an almost impossible job of repairing nearly insurmountable wounds. Caiellis's blueness had barely faded even with the oxygen mask, still tingeing his lips as well as the blood that had at least stopped fountaining and bubbling up from his mouth instead of exhalations of air, and that scared the king more than the most powerful demons he had faced down and fought against.

He wanted to go to his son's side, to rip away all of the medical equipment and push aside all of the doctors, to haul his weightless son into his father's arms again and embrace him close once again, to make the contact with his youngest son and to be able to feel the small tremors of his heart beating once again, but quickly pushed down the ridiculous notion because that would be a certain way to ensure that Caiellis did end up dead. He wished he could do something, _anything,_ to help his youngest son, even if that help was superficial and only good for making him feel more comfortable, even if that help would only end in Marik feeling slightly better himself no matter how selfish that was.

He angled his gaze slightly at his brooding eldest once again who was clearly traumatized by seeing his younger brother like he was, tempted to pull the boy into his arms once again but unable to move and do so, wanting to say something to help Alexander as well but nothing he could say would do anything to stave off the sadness. Words were pointless, promises that he couldn't keep and assurances that he knew deep down were meaningless platitudes because Caiellis's life was out of his hands now.

As he simultaneously watched both his sons, it hit Marik again that he easily could have lost both of them thanks to his inability to keep them safe. Alexander chewed on his bottom lip, nibbling at it nervously like some form of animal, and Marik thought he should probably do something to stop that before the boy made it start bleeding but knew that if he was going to break the thick silence that had descended it would have to be with something important.

Marik knew he couldn't put if off any longer. Alexander had to know, before Caiellis woke up, and there was no better time to say it because it was horrible news no matter when he revealed it and it would be easier for the boy to digest it now and to have mulled over it before Caiellis awakened or got any worse.

Placing a hand on the boy's shoulder to get his attention, feeling how Alexander's shoulder was muscular and broad but still had a hint of teenage boniness to it that would fade in a year or two, reminding the king that he was still not yet an adult, still very young and tender himself, he cleared his throat, coughing up blood that he tried to mask with his hand that was already red with it, and said, "Alexander. I need to speak with you. In private."

The boy was about to object, to tell his dad that he had only just left the room that his little brother was in and that he would be damned if he was going to do that again now that he had returned to stay with Caiellis for as long as possible, but all his protests died in his throat when he turned and saw the look in his father's eyes. It was grim, determined, and very, very serious, and Alexander would have quivered underneath such a piercing stare if his brother hadn't been so wounded and he had seen much worse on this day to have a gaze rattle him.

"We can go over there in the place usually reserved for the observation of patients by their family members and friends," the king told the boy who looked like he was going to loudly yell that there was no way he was leaving Caiellis for a second time and needed to be able to see what was going on with his little brother. There was an area to the right of the room that Alexander and Marik should really have been in already with glass separating them from the doctors and their patient, and the king continued, "We do not need to stop watching your brother or leave him. I only need to speak to you in private."  
Alexander felt a sinking feeling in his gut as he wondered what could possibly be so bad that the doctors couldn't hear it even in small snippets because for one the chairs at the back of the large room were quite far away from the operating table, too far away for the Ordo Medella operatives to be able to listen in on their conversation if it was spoken at a normal volume even if they wanted to, which they wouldn't considering they were utterly focussed upon saving Caiellis's life. Something that required them leaving a room full of people who wouldn't be listening to them at all was definitely something that the boy should be worried about, and he instinctively knew that it would have something to do with his baby brother.

"Alright," he murmured, not that his father needed his confirmation or permission to drag him out of his seat and into the familial booth that served as a form of private waiting room which none of them had used yet, and stood up, his eyes not leaving his little brother who he would have to leave the room of once again, although he would be extremely close by still. He wanted to brush Caiellis's hair out of his eyes like he did when he was feeling particularly affectionate or it was annoying him too much, as the brown hair that had blood and sweat crusted on it was the least of the doctors' concerns and was covering one of the boy's shut eyes, but that was ridiculous and Alex had to content himself with internally hoping for his younger brother and being able to comfort him when the direness of the situation died down enough so that he could be beside the younger adolescent.

The seventeen year old followed his father to the small space that also had a few chairs in it, non of the surgeons noticing their seemingly random departure to that section of the surgery, too intently concentrated upon the fragile hold upon life their young patient had – and even if they did it wasn't their place to question their Lucerna rulers. The boy followed his father's gaze to the window, watching his younger brother again and wondering how badly Cai was in pain, how long it would take him before he woke up, how long it would take one of the doctors to tell them what exactly was afflicting his younger brother and what they could do to help him.

Marik elected to remain upright in the room, which indicated to Alexander that either this would not take very long and they would be in there with Caiellis once again or he was in too much pain to have to sit down and stand back up again, and when Alex finally managed to pull his eyes away from where his vision was glued upon his thirteen year old brother to look into his father's eyes the man put two large hands on his shoulders, squeezing them gently and comfortingly but firmly and reassuringly in a way that only a father or a big brother could do (or an "Uncle" if Tristram counted as well, though Alex had only used the nicknames for the current Light-bearers of Capitalia Lux to get his younger brother to be more comfortable with them because the boy really had only been a baby-toddler at that time).

Alexander could still see the same look in his dad's eyes, but this time it was saturated with huge amounts of guilt and self-loathing, the sort of thing he had only seen once, when he had confronted the man over him putting his hands round Cai's neck after he had duelled against his younger brother. This was much, much worse than that, and the boy gulped anxiously before the man started speaking because he knew that if any emotion made its way into his dad's blue orbs then it was extremely strong and he couldn't be bothered repressing it.

"Before I begin and tell you what I am going to, I want you to know that absolutely none of this is your fault, my son," Marik told the eldest prince, who would have verbally objected if he could have mustered up the courage within him to tell his father that. Instead, he kept quiet, knowing that while it was nice of his dad to be thinking of that all of this was his fault and nothing Marik said could change that simple fact. "And I do not want you to ask any questions at all until I have finished and told you everything. Is that understood, Alexander?"  
The boy nodded, his mouth incredibly dry like a miniature sandstorm was swirling around within it, but it had been this way for several hours now and the doctor who had tended to him for as long as she had been able to before he got too agitated hadn't had the time to give him a drink of water, so he pushed the sensation to the back of his mind. The prince was sure that if he focussed intently on the sensation, he could still taste his brother's coppery blood in his mouth, and that made him want to throw up and pour acid down onto his tongue to burn the flavour of bloody iron away.

He was dreading what his father was going to tell him, because down in the depths of his psyche he already had an inkling of what it could be, but what was even worse was that he knew that it would be much more severe and grievous than what he could imagine in his darkest dreams.

Marik nodded back, completely disregarding the feeling of light-headedness and nausea that poured through him, the latter because of what he was about to say that made him want to vomit until every single thing in his body was retched out of it, and kept his gaze firmly focussed on his son's eyes to make sure that this would not be too much for him, that this would not break him even more after being almost snapped in half by the injuries his younger brother had sustained. Alexander was only seventeen, and for a moment as he stared into his son's young eyes that were scared and traumatized by what he had seen and what he had been forced to do to get his brother breathing again but trying to stay brave for his dad, he considered simply hugging his son and telling him another time, maybe never.

_No. I can't do that, because he needs to know for everyone's sake. If Caiellis wakes up before I have told him and immediately tries to get away from me, which I am sure he will because of what he last saw from me, what I last said to him and what I have done to him, and then Alexander doesn't know what is going on it could easily be extremely traumatic for both of them. My son needs to know, he _deserves _to know, and I am sure that he can take it. He is strong, bless his soul, and honestly I should probably be more worried about myself than him when I tell him what truly happened. _

The mental joke was a complete failure and Marik resolved to try and interject no more humour into the situation even if it was silent and grim.

He looked down at his hands, hands still stained by his son's blood, clenching them into fists of anger and then relaxing them. These were the hands that had punched, hit, choked and damaged his youngest son, and knew that he needed Alexander to know the truth of what had happened to Caiellis.

"Alexander. I will start by telling you that it was not the Archdemon Rakdos that killed Caiellis. Your younger brother completely destroyed the demon in a burst of power that was stronger than I have ever seen from him before. No, Caiellis survived the battle with the Lord of Riots, though he was extremely wounded as you already know," Marik began, keeping a close eye on his young son to see how he was reacting and satisfied that he should keep going as the boy's eyes widened in shock, though they would be expanding even more when the forty year old said what was coming next. "Your brother woke up a few minutes after killing the demon, and chose to take his own life."

There was no easy way to say it, and the king had delayed too long, made it too dramatic with his earlier wasting of time by talking about the Archdemon that Caiellis barely managed to slay but did something that would be impossible for some of the greatest warriors on the planet. Alexander's eyes instantly grew to at least twice their size, tears gathering at the corners of them as his face went even more pale, the news reverberating through him like an earthquake of emotional distress. The boy would have fallen over, perhaps even lost consciousness completely, if not for his father's hands gripping his shoulders firmly, and the shock that Marik had barely been able to dispel returned fully.

"W-what?! Are you sure?! Why would he do that?!" Alexander shouted in panic, shuddering in his dad's strong grip that kept him upright as his eyes instantly went to his little brother, then his father, then his brother again and his breathing immediately turned back into hyperventilation as the news crashed through his mind that failed to process it. His heart pounded in his head and in his chest, and if he had been able to think clearly he would have been worried that he was going into cardiac arrest.

He tried to push away from his dad who kept a firm hold on him and prevented him from moving away, though not painfully, to get to his younger brother and somehow do something, although he did not know what because the boy was still unconscious. Fear, pain and anger flared in his head, and the boy suddenly felt the urge to be sick greater than he had done before. Alexander found himself being pushed into a chair on the second time that day, his vision blurring up as his mind considered the awful implications of his brother not actually being killed by the Archdemon like he thought.

_But … why? Why would Cai kill himself? Why? I can't … I don't … why would … ?_

It took a moment to register within the boy that he had gasped the words out loud, that his dad was rubbing soothing circles on his back in an attempt to keep him calm, but this new revelation was almost too much to handle with all that they had gone through already. To think that Cai had been how he was when Alexander found him, unbreathing and with his heart making no movements to pump blood around his broken body, because he didn't want to live in the world any longer and had tried – and almost succeeded – to kill himself was just too much for the seventeen year old.

"It's alright. It's alright, Alexander. He is safe now. Caiellis is safe now," Marik found himself murmuring, though whether it was for his benefit or the benefit of the boy he was speaking to or both was currently unknown. If only he could be this automatic with comforting Caiellis or responding to his needs, as while he was far from perfect with his eldest son he at least had some knowledge and experience that was the light which led the way for him whereas with his youngest son he was blundering around in the darkness. He shut his eyes for a second before reopening them, refusing to give into the exhaustion that was tenderly brushing at the back of his mind with lullaby tendrils or the temptation to block out the world and imagine that everything was different like he had done in the past when he had been the same age as his youngest son, or in the brief time he got to himself after Emili's murder.

No, he was a father now with a duty to make sure that his sons were emotionally sound and had to be strong for them no matter how bleak the world was becoming – pretending that Caiellis hadn't tried to end his life because of the pain of it, pretending that Emili wasn't dead, pretending that he didn't have two sons broken in different ways and to varying degrees to take care of was not only foolish, but immensely selfish and Marik refused to be that again, not when his sons were involved. Selfishness had been a big factor of getting them into this mess in the first place, and selfishness was not going to get his sons – or any of them, including himself – out of the grave that he had dug for them.

And he had to get them all out quickly before they were buried alive underneath the anguish and grief.

_Why my little brother? Why would Cai kill himself? I know he has tried to do it once before … but why now? Why at all? I know his life has been pretty bad recently – let's be real, completely horrible and terrifying – but he should know that … he should know that he is loved … he should know that we all want him … he should know that he has so much to live for …_

_But then, of course he doesn't. He already risked his life going to the centre of Usnaan … and … and he … so he obviously thought that he wasn't worth anything … that he had things to prove … but … but that doesn't explain … Why, baby brother? Why would you do that to yourself? I don't understand … I don't understand … I'm so sorry, Caiellis … I'm so so sorry … I failed you, little bro … I should have stopped you … I should have been there for you … ANGELS DAMN IT! WHY?!_

Once again the boy didn't managed to keep his thoughts to himself, incoherently mumbling the words as he hyperventilated again, breathing in and out so fast that he was going to put himself into a seizure at this rate, and managed to scream out the last few words in between pants for breath. Marik stayed with him all the while, trying to comfort him and get him to calm down by soothing him, but he had never been good at that in the first place and it was clearly not working on his eldest son so he switched his strategy for getting the boy back under control and safe to be more stern. He certainly did not want to end this day with both of his sons in surgery beds, and it was a good job that his first born son was so weak at the moment so that his thrashing didn't cause too much pain to Marik's own wounds.

"Alexander, I need you to listen to me. I need your full attention my son. Look at me. Look at me. That is an order," Marik told him sternly, gripping the boy's chin in one hand with the other on his shoulder and forcing him to stare into his father's eyes. Coddling him and indulging him in his panic attack would get nowhere even if Marik wanted to do it, which did not mean that he had to be harsh and couldn't be gentle at the same time as being forceful. Scared and confused blue eyes met his own resolute gaze, and Marik continued, "I know that this is hard for you, son. It is hard for all of us. And I know that it is a lot to take in right now. But I need you to understand that you cannot blame Caiellis for this at all, alright? Caiellis is not to blame at all for what happened."  
"Why didn't you stop him?!" Alexander questioned, his young words halfway between a furious howl of anguished outrage and a child mournfully asking if their dead parent would come back (something the king was sure that his children would have done after Emili was taken away from them). Marik knew that he deserved the feeling of pain for failing to stop his son killing himself as the words lanced like a serrated barb through him, threatening to drag everything out in a bloody spray of emotional agony, and also knew that he had no words to say to his son that would be anywhere near adequate or acceptable for a father. He had failed, and he had no excuses, but he needed his son to listen to him before he hurt himself by panicking.

Perhaps it had been wrong to tell him this now, only less than two hours after they had arrived in Civitas Sol, but then Marik was awful at being a parent and judging other people's moods and had selfishly wanted to get it off of his chest, to tell someone else and his eldest son was the only one that he could. No. Alexander needed to know. If Caiellis had woken up and started screaming at his dad to leave him alone, started having another panic attack and became terrified before he had a chance to explain to Alexander what had happened, then they would all pay for it – especially his youngest son who couldn't be hurt any more.

"I couldn't," Marik replied back as evenly as he could, trying not to let his own emotion seep into his tone, his self-loathing and anger at what had happened. He couldn't stop his voice being frustrated from what they had gone through and terse because of the fact his precious youngest son was still in immense danger due to him, his carelessness and lack of ability to be a good parent. The words came out similar to a growl, but Alexander was calming down enough so that the king could let go of his chin and move further back onto his own seat, hand still on his son's shoulder and eyes still piercing into him to ensure that he was in an acceptable state of mind for them to resume.

Alexander paused in his ranting, taking a deep breath and releasing it as slowly as he could manage to try and get himself back under control. Knowing that Caiellis had been hurt so badly by a demon made him want to smash his fist into a wall until either his hand or the wall was crushed into a pulp, but knowing that his baby brother had tried to take his own life and would have done it without Orzhova's aid in bringing him back from the brink of death made him want to rip apart anyone who had ever laid a finger on his brother with the intent to do harm (including himself and his father) and throw up his insides until everything was dry and empty within him.

It was just so wrong that his kind-hearted, empathetic, gentle and soft little brother had hated his life so much that he wanted to end it. Caiellis didn't have the perfect life, in fact he had a pretty awful one, and it was obvious that something had happened whilst he was fighting the Archdemon Rakdos that had pushed him over the edge completely and motivated him into trying and almost succeeding at killing himself. Alexander had felt the sheer sadness and hatred in that final blast of mana the kid had emitted which hand ended the Lord of Riots and destroyed the Tempest of Craving as well, and knew that he had not had Orzhova Summoned at the time because he could only sense his brother's mana and not the Angel of the Black Sun's.

His heart had ached for the little guy even then, and now it was being wrenched in half because of all that had happened to him. Alex knew which wound it was that his little brother had used to end all of the pain and the anguish of his life, the one on his throat that was by far the most clinical and painless out of all of the injuries, but that did not matter at all because the boy had chosen to end his life. It hurt Alexander to think that even with how he acted towards his brother it hadn't been good enough to stop him from doing what he had done, which just went to show how inadequate of a big brother he was.

"I'm sorry … it's just ..." Alex gave up at trying to speak, wiping tears from his eyes that had sprung up and then brutally brushing more away, determined not to cry in front of his father as he looked over at his smaller sibling once again, the pain in Caiellis's features reflecting what must have been going on in his heart. Marik's expression softened again, and he blew out a sad breath that was full of heart wrenching guilt which even then failed to encapsulate how much he hated himself for what he had allowed to occur and had a gigantic part in causing. "I know. I know it is hard to take it all in. But you have to understand that you cannot blame your brother for this at all. Not with what happened."

_I'm not blaming him, angels damn it! _Alexander could have shouted at his dad if he had been able to muster up the anger, but now that the rage had dissipated to coldness and a hollow feeling that increased the likelihood of him being sick even more. He knew that his father was only trying to ensure that he didn't take out the anger that he felt on his younger brother, but surely Marik would already know that?

Surely he should already know that Alexander wasn't angry at Caiellis at all (well, he was, at the boy not talking to him more about his worries and his concerns, but he understood that his quiet younger brother who had once worn his emotions on his sleeve and had always been willing to ask for help had developed into a shy and introverted teenager, but that wasn't Cai's fault), not after what he had seen his brother go through?

Surely he should know that if he was going to be angry at anyone, it was going to be himself and his father? Actually, thinking about that, Marik hadn't said anything about Alexander not being angry at him, probably because he understood completely that he had had some part in making his youngest son commit suicide, and the hollow look in his dad's eyes that was infused and dripping with self-loathing confirmed that. Of course dad was going to start treating Caiellis differently once he got through this, although Alexander was sure that a stern lecture in not committing suicide and that his life was worth living would definitely be in order.

Instead all the seventeen year old could do was nod meekly in agreement, glad that his father had made him sit down in these seats in the official waiting room (probably when the cases of the patients weren't so bad, or perhaps the room had been expanded over the years to accommodate having seating inside so that the relatives of the patient could be in the same room without getting in the way of the Ordo Medella staff) because he knew that he wouldn't be able to stand up the way that his vision was blurring and his head hurt again.

"Alexander, there is no easy way to say this. I was possessed by the horror of Aksua that managed to get inside of me when I killed the vampire bitch after she had wounded you," Marik stated, trying to control the trembling of his voice and stay strong for his eldest son who rocked back slightly, "It didn't manifest itself much or influence many of my decisions at all, waiting and festering in my mind until it could take over the second I arrived in the centre of Usnaan to help your brother against the Archdemon that had been Summoned there. When I awoke I was in the Mind Realm, and the bastard creature forced me into my memories as it controlled my body and turned it against Caiellis. I couldn't break out from its hold upon my mind. I was too weak. I ..."

Marik had to remove his hand from his son's shoulder his fist was beginning to clench that hard, not wanting to hurt his eldest boy, and took a deep breath to try and stop himself from shuddering in anger – something that he did not succeed in at all. He continued, his eyes drifting over Caiellis once again as a lump that must have been the pieces of his close to completely shattered heart rising up out of his chest made its way into his throat, and he couldn't stop the tears from welling up in his blue orbs again, "It showed me what I did to him, how it forced me to try and kill him when he was already exhausted and terrified by the Lord of Riots. It manipulated my anger at him taking off like he did into something horrible, and made me aware that it had controlled and heightened my rage before – when I put my hands around Caiellis's throat … and made the arguments worse, though at that time it was not strong enough to possess me completely like it did only a few hours ago when we were still fighting."

Alexander panted out his pain, his eyes searching his father's face who was looking over at the stricken form of his youngest son who was almost completely motionless apart from the weak and painful rise and fall of his small chest that was too fast as his body tried to compensate for the abnormally low amount of oxygen inhaled in each short breath. The teenager tried to process everything in his exhausted mind, his wounds still hurting quite a bit though it was negligible when balanced out against the torture in his young heart, a particle of weightless dust measured alongside the combined mass of a thousand worlds.

"How … I mean … Are you sure that is what happened …? Are you that is what it showed you? We know … we know that the forces of the darkness lie ..." Alexander stuttered, his voice uncharacteristically stammering and hesitant, and his father nodded his head with grim sadness, grief saturating his every action. "I am sure. I know what I saw, Alexander. I … I did this to Caiellis. This is my fault, my burden to bear, and I will not have you blaming yourself for what happened to your younger brother. I hurt him. I was possessed, too weak to root out the corruption before it was too late … and by that time …"

Marik's sentence cut off, the man unwilling to voice exactly what had occurred despite the fact that the evidence of it was plain to see through the transparent glass of the window into the surgery in the adjacent room to them. He steeled himself, Alexander deserved to know what happened to his younger brother, even though Marik was sure that he wouldn't be able to tell the middle Lucerna _everything_.

He wasn't willing to repeat what vile damnations of his second son had been forced out of his lips by the parasite inside of his mind, perverting and corrupting everything and making him hurt his own son emotionally as well as physically. There would be time for that later, once Caiellis was safe and in a stable state, but right now Marik couldn't bring himself to make his eldest son even more distraught and hurt than he already was, couldn't bring himself to say the things that he had told his youngest son as his hands inflicted many of the bruises upon the thirteen year old and killed him.

With what he had done and said, he could understand perfectly well why his youngest son had gone as far as he had done, even though he hated the fact that his son had listened to him and believed him as he strangled him. Marik had considered ending his own life before in the distant past after a particularly brutal argument with his own father which had ended in the thirteen year old him picking numerous bruises and being told that he was a disobedient little brat and unworthy of the title of Lucerna, and that had been nothing at all compared to what his youngest son had gone through – and he hadn't even been allowed to see what the demon scum had shown the boy through the dark magic it had cast as they had simply looked like displays of dark letters to the king but obviously were not otherwise they wouldn't have provoked such a response from Caiellis.

"I saw Caiellis draw the blade across his throat after killing the Lord of Riots," Marik murmured quietly after a few seconds of a silence in which the tension and anguish was thick enough to take a bite out of, thick enough to feed an entire metropolis for a week on a melancholy diet of suffering and guilt. Alex inhaled sharply again as his father remembered the scene that would remain with him until the day he died – his precious and vulnerable youngest son, badly hurt but alive and in immense pain, crying his eyes out even with them shut, distressed, injured, and all alone with no one to help him or take the sadness away. It only happened a few hours ago, and it was miraculous that Caiellis was still alive now, but Marik didn't think it was a miracle, he couldn't after all that had occurred.

He _needed _his youngest son to survive through this and recover, because he knew that he wouldn't be able to live with the thought that the boy had died not knowing truly how much his father loved him, that the thirteen year old had cut his life short because of his dad, and he was fully aware that he wouldn't be able to continue being a father without his youngest son.

"And I couldn't do anything to stop him," Marik growled, his voice full of frustration and hatred directed towards himself, and he felt like smashing his fist into the chair below him but giving into the rage that had sprung up because of how wounded and hurt little Caiellis had become would accomplish nothing, neither would letting tears run down his face again help anyone and if anything it would only harm Alexander more. Marik's voice was furious with himself and hollow, terse and scared for his youngest son that he had barely been able to spend any time with but couldn't live properly without, and even though the way he was saying it could evoke that sort of response from others the king did not want his son's pity.

He turned round to Alexander, sensing the boy tensing up again and hearing his pained and angry and terrified breathing, feeling old and weary and completely exhausted but unwilling to give into any of these things whilst his sons still needed his help. There was a flash of fury in the boy's wide blue eyes, but it wasn't enough, Alexander was too tired and shocked to be truly angry, and Marik almost wished that it was more, that his son would be so furious with him that he would shut his father out or even physically attack him.

He wanted Alexander to blame him, because it was his fault and it would give his eldest son a release, an outlet, something to direct his brotherly fury at instead of bottling up inside and directing it at himself because he knew for certain that Alexander would be blaming himself for what happened as well as that was how the seventeen year old worked, particularly when it came to the sweet spot of his smaller brother being harmed, but it seemed like past being angry at him for forcing Caiellis to think that he was useless and believe that he had so much to prove that he would leave the relative safety of his family's side to end the Tempest of Craving alone Alexander did not blame him for what had occurred.

The forty year old hadn't intended to make the horror's dominion of his mind into an excuse for what had happened to the youngest member of his once perfect family, because it wasn't at all, he had only wanted his eldest son to know so that he would be prepared for Caiellis's reaction when he woke up. But instead of anger in his son's eyes there was just pain and sorrow that was far stronger than whatever fury he may have felt, and the king hated seeing his son this way, because it meant that he could do barely anything to help.

He could have taken Alexander's anger, endured his rage that would have been released upon the king, but he could not erase his sadness more than he had already done through his attempts at comforting and soothing the boy's woes – the only one who could do that was Caiellis, who was currently unconscious and recovering from wounds that had killed him before Orzhova brought him back prior to his soul entering the paradise it deserved to go to and meeting his mother once again, and would have definitely had him dead before they even arrived at the City of the Sun's Ordo Medella hospital if he didn't have the blood of kings running through his veins and making him able to cling to life when all hope seemed lost.

Sudden clarity exploded in Alex's mind, and while it was hardly evocative of relief nor was it something that made the pain of seeing his younger brother so hurt, it was something that had only just occurred to him now when he managed to think past the awful reality that Cai had commit suicide because he couldn't bear to live any longer as his father had apparently turned on him. He scanned his father's face again before saying quietly, "So, dad, this wasn't your fault."

Marik sighed, this time letting it happen instead of holding it back even though he didn't deserve it, wishing that his eldest son wasn't so selfless and didn't believe in him so much because he had done nothing to deserve the devotion that Alexander showed him. He instantly replied, "Yes, this is my fault. Caiellis killed himself thinking that I hated him whether you want to blame me or not, and I was not strong enough to force the horror out of my mind and come to his aid when he needed it the most. His wounds are my fault, Alexander, and there is no disputing that."

"But the horror made you do that to him. The vampire bitch's horror made you angry with him even before that as well," Alex replied, protesting against his dad blaming himself for what had happened now that he knew the true root of the problem between his father and baby brother, why dad had acted so violently towards Caiellis and done things that the seventeen year old had never thought that his father would be able to do to one of his sons even with him changing over the course of the civil war like anyone would when faced with the death of their beloved wife, the evacuation of their children to places where even they didn't know for their safety, the betrayal of the twin brother they had trusted and loved and the harsh reality that nothing would return to the happiness that it used to be filled with.

Besides, Cai himself had been trapped within his head by Aksua's Summoning that was apparently able to survive as an Unbound without returning to Sancturia to regenerate its essence, and while Alex would like to believe that he was stronger than that, the grim fact that his dad, the strongest person he knew, hadn't been able to force it out of his mind even while it was showing him attacking his second son in a rage "The horror-"

"The horror latched onto a conflict that was already in place," Marik ground out sternly, his harsh voice brooking no dissent from his eldest son who was already picking at straws to try and blame someone else but his father for what had happened so that he didn't have to come to terms with his family being torn apart again, "A conflict that I should have put down by showing love to Caiellis instead of censure and anger. I should have held him close and comforted him after you yourself almost died instead of blaming him for what had happened and letting my anger get out of control, which was before the horror would have been able to do much about it. This is my fault whether you like it or not, son, and I will be the one to take the blame for what has happened to Caiellis, not you."

The two stayed silent for a moment as Marik let that sink in, hoping that it had worked but knowing that Alexander would probably continue to think as he was already. But he would not have the boy blame himself for what had been done to his younger brother when there had been absolutely nothing that he could do to help him, and while if Marik had been inclined he could have disciplined the seventeen year old for running off into the City of Pleasure after his brother and leaving his father as well now was not the time nor the place for that, not after all that had become of his family. Not after how hurt Caiellis had got.

"The fact that the horror infected my mind does not excuse my actions before or during the battle," Marik told the younger Lucerna, staring over at Caiellis once more to make sure that nothing had gone any worse – and while that may have been the case it wasn't reassuring at all that nothing seemed to be better, machines and magical light surrounding him and cocooning him in a shell of things that would hopefully save him from the horrible wounds he had sustained, although none of them could repair his emotional state and that would be his dad's job once he woke up. "But it is true that I would never lay a hand on either of you with the intent to do harm normally, and I especially wouldn't wrap my hands around Caiellis's throat for any reason at all."

"Did Cai …?" Alexander asked anxiously, pointing at the horrible wounds on Marik's lower abdomen which the king knew would look much worse without his armour being worn on them and concealing a lot of the damage, and the king shook his head. In any other situation he would have smiled ruefully, proudly and grimly, but right now his lips didn't even curl slightly upwards at all.

Caiellis had had the chance to hurt him in defeating him, which if the situation had been between Marik and his own father the present king of Lucael would definitely had done after being strangled near to death, told that he was a failure, a burden, a weight around all of their necks and should never have been born (which he was sure that was how his father felt even though he never said the words – as if Marik had not been born, if the king's mother hadn't had twins, then she would never have died in giving birth to not one but two Lucernas and having all of her mana drained out of them in the pregnancy and birth of two incredibly powerful boys).

But Caiellis was so gentle, so innocent, and most of all believed his dad's words so much that he didn't want to hurt the man any more than he had apparently already done. Marik had seen the look in his son's eyes, the hollow, lost sadness that had barely been repressed through the second stage of their fight now that the sheer terror had dissipated somewhat, the hurt of what his father had been forced to say to him that could not be further from the truth of his thoughts, and he knew that the boy had taken everything to heart instead of railing against it and fighting against the words.

He had given into them because his self-esteem had already been reduced so much that it was utterly believable for him that his dad would say such things and try to kill him even as it hurt, and it showed that Caiellis did now blame himself for his mother's death if he hadn't already which was utterly absurd because he had only been four at the time and Emili had chosen willingly to die protecting him and Alexander.

It made the king ache inside to think that his baby boy believed that he was to blame for what had happened to his beloved mother despite his own age, because even though Marik had never been directly told it by his own father he knew that the man had blamed him, the second son that he had never expected to have because twins had never happened before in the Lucerna line, he had always thought that Garius held him at stake for the death of his own mother – but that was much better than this because he hadn't had to watch her die right in front of his eyes and be able to do nothing about it like Caiellis (and Marik himself) had with Emili and been traumatised by the images.

Caiellis hadn't deserved any of that, he didn't deserve any of this, and his son hadn't even hurt Marik at all in subduing him peacefully even with all that the king had done to his youngest child, even with all that he had hurt the boy. The timbre of his voice took on a mournful tinge interspersed with shame and self-loathing as he responded, "No, Alexander. Caiellis didn't hurt me at all even when I was being forced into attacking him as the Archdemon watched us. He dealt with me by casting a spell that forced me into a sleep and protected me from any potential attack so long as it lasted before fighting the Lord of Riots again. I sustained these wounds – which are nothing – when I fought against the Enforcer-general Fraetus Etin on the way to your brother."

"Caiellis wouldn't ever mean to hurt any of us," the younger male replied softly as he gazed at the cherubic but pained visage of his little brother in the operating bed as the white-clad doctors (some of whom had their outfits now covered in crimson blood from their young patient) moved around him and tended to him. Marik agreed with a nod of his head, wondering what he had done to deserve such wonderful sons given to him by a truly amazing wife and pondering how he could have ever not cherished them as much as he had done before the civil war and before this point. He was going to make sure they knew how precious they were, that was for certain, and while Marik had always found it hard to show love, especially after the betrayal of his brother when dealing with his children again, and would never be as happy as he had been and may revert to being as cold as he usually was he needed to ensure that Caiellis and Alexander were aware of how much love he had for them and how valuable they were to him, as his sons and people not just as potential heirs and princes.

_You are going to know just how much I love you, Caiellis, _the king thought, resting a hand on his son's shoulder after a moment's hesitation as tears welled up in both of their eyes, and Alexander turned back to him, looking for guidance once again as he murmured, "I just … I just can't imagine what must have been going through his head when he … when he … it must have been horrible..."  
Marik nodded his head sadly once again, feeling what his eldest was himself, though he had seen his youngest son in the most vulnerable position of his young life when he had taken it away from himself to try and free himself from the grief and anguish that was flooding him and drowning the little happiness within him. He knew why Alexander would be struggling to visualise it, and he hoped for his first born son's sake that he would never know or have to think the same way as his little brother, that he would be kept from that forever like Caiellis should have been, because he knew that his eldest son would have been in an even worse state if he had been in Marik's position and had seen the boy crying and sobbing as he tried to hold the knife in his hands steady. Marik was honestly surprised that he was managing to keep control of himself knowing what he did, knowing that he had caused this to happen to his beloved youngest son and knowing that the boy had chosen to end his own life rather than live on in a world where his father hated him and thought he should have never been born. If only he had told Caiellis how wrong that was beforehand, if only he had shown love to his son, but even then the king wasn't sure that would do anything.

No. That wasn't true at all. It would have done a lot, because Caiellis wouldn't have believed it was his father doing this to him.

If Marik hadn't been so harsh on him, so admonishing, so angry with him whenever he made a mistake or chose not to follow orders (what had possessed him to humiliate the boy in front of the entire strategium party when he arrived late with the armies of Scientia Mos because Caiellis had believed and been told that his dad was fine with it? It might have been the horror, but even so Marik hadn't felt the feeling that he had any other time the mind invader controlled him and he could still remember the reasons that he thought had been good enough at the time – though he had been planning to embrace his son after that, but when Caiellis had reacted like any normal teenager would that had been thrown out of the figurative window), then Caiellis might have had a glimmer of hope that it hadn't been him whereas in reality he had had no hope at all, no reason to believe that past memories he had been told were false because he had only been four or younger at the time.

"Come on. We should go back into the room," Marik said, not wanting to break the silence but wanting to return to being closer to his youngest son, and Alexander nodded, his eyes almost blank apart from the sadness within them and the boy more withdrawn than Marik had ever seen him, pulled inside of himself by what he had been told and the awful truth that his baby brother had found life not worth living any longer. He followed his father meekly, sinking down in the chair behind him, thinking about how horrible things must have been for his younger brother and hating how he had been too weak to protect Cai from it, before he heard a voice that was calling out his name.

Startled, he blinked, clearing his vision from the tears that stung as they blurred it and the fact that he had sat for an unclear amount of time as the seconds blended into the minutes and passed over him without him realising with his eyes open, unblinking and fixed upon his younger brother. He looked up, not wanting to tear his eyes away from Cai as he was convinced that if he gazed away from his brother any more he would be tempting fate to ensure that something bad happened, wiping his eyes free of tears because only one of them here had the proper reasons for crying and he was currently unconscious, and met the sympathetic face of Choirmaster Esmelde stood in front of him and dad, who had also risen to his feet.

"How is he?" Marik asked instantly, not giving the woman time to open her mouth and say what she had been going to, and Alex's anguished mind concluded that dad must have said his name to try and rouse him from whatever distracted stupor he had fallen into while staring at the wounded form of his younger brother as the doctor came over to them. Esmelde tried to smile, she really did, but what her lips curled into was more of a grimace and there was only grim determination in her eyes as she gazed upon the two Lucernas. Alexander got to his feet as well, energised into action by the prospect of hearing about what his younger brother was like, what was currently affecting him the most and how fast he would recover. He felt he should stand up, because his brother deserved it and he wasn't going to stay sat down when there was news about Caiellis.

Alexander looked at the Ordo Medella doctor almost in fear, his eyes lit up in desperate hope as she coughed, wanting her words to be as clear as possible after driving herself to almost hoarseness from her constant singing of the words of healing and salvation as they healed the boy. She turned to the king, a question in her eyes, and the man quickly said, "Whatever there is to say, Alexander can hear it as well."

The boy felt the icy pit at the bottom of his stomach beginning to grow in size as he heard the words, knowing that if the information that was about to be divulged from the doctor had been considered that something the distraught big brother might not be able to listen to then it was almost certainly going to be bad. If the woman was feeling any discomfort from having the two pairs of transfixing blue eyes piercing into her from the Lucerna relatives of her patient then she didn't give away any visible signs of it. She steeled herself, and told them, "Well, he is stable for now."

That was a start, but it was not really reassuring and honestly it wasn't meant to be, Alex knew, as Esmelde continued, "But I am afraid that Prince Caiellis had slipped into a restorative coma. When deprived of oxygen for as long as he had been, the body makes choices and begins to shut down anything inessential for its survival."

She looked at Marik and Alexander both for a few seconds each, watching them carefully and intently scrutinising their facial expressions until she was sure that both of them could handle the information before she would continue. The king nodded, and he was listening carefully, but he wasn't sure that it made sense to him. Of course, he understood the words, understood what they meant on a factual level, but he wasn't sure his mind could process truly what was happening to his youngest son. Part of him refused to believe it, but he kept nodding numbly until the woman carried on.

"The wounds he has sustained are awful, and while we have cleaned and healed them as much as we can any of them could develop further complications and become a real concern in the future. There was also to be damage to the liver and perforations in the large intestine but we have already dealt with these and shouldn't be a concern any more. In addition, because of the wound on your son's throat it appears that he has aspirated some of the blood into his lungs, which we are trying to remove now but it is unlikely that we alone can do so because any invasive surgery would damage him even more. Some of the particles may have settled into his lungs, and he still has trouble breathing which is why we have him on the oxygen mask."

Both of the two older Lucernas rocked back in shock, but there was still more to come and Esmelde hated this part of her job the most, apart from failing to save a patient. "Furthermore, we know that he has suffered several seizures, which is extremely worrying because it tells us how much trauma Prince Caiellis's brain has been in from the oxygen deprivation. We have cast warding spells in an attempt to prevent further ones, but that does not eliminate the potential of more seizures which would be very bad for the prince in his current condition. We are of course watching him very closely, and we have also put him on medication through the machinery to aid in the power of the warding spells. Lord Caiellis's mana pool is extremely low to the point where his body won't be able to help the spells at all or heal over time with White mana unless his body regenerates naturally and his condition improves. There is only so much mana we can pour into him before it starts to cause damage."

"Prince Caiellis was hypotherminc when you carried him here, but on the bright side we already have his body temperature returning to normal levels, unless he develops a fever which is quite likely in which case it could increase past that point. In fact, the hypothermia probably saved his life, as the cold would have slowed down his brain and body enough to the point where not as much damage has been inflicted on it as would have been the case if he was at normal temperature."

The woman's voice was tense and professional, and while it was sympathetic to their misery and the way that they were reacting it also had a hint of clinical detachment within it that would have told the two Lucernas that Esmelde had shut off her own emotional response to better deal with the doctors' young patient and ignored the fact that not saving the prince would not only have a young teenager die but would deprive the Lucerna family of another heir to the throne and make the whole nation go into mourning – as well as have untold consequences if the soldiers still in Usnaan heard that their young prince Caiellis who had slain the demon at the heart of the city died and decided to unleash their wrath, exact their righteous vengeance upon the Welkalites still remaining there, if Marik and Alexander had been able to listen to the cues of her voice properly.

She wished that she didn't have to say this, especially in front of the traumatised eldest prince who was staring into her eyes like she was his salvation (which, she reflected, was partly true) or she was some sort of angel like the one inside of him, though both pairs of blue orbs carried large amounts of fear for their youngest family member in the sapphire irises and large pupils. But there was no point in lying, and it couldn't not be said. Esmelde was trying to be as sympathetic and gentle about it as possible, particularly for Prince Alexander's sake, but there was only so much she could do and the royal family deserve to know about Caiellis's condition.

When she paused again, though didn't finish off her statement, Marik felt his insides go even colder, knowing that there would be more news and wanting to grip Alexander's shoulder reassuringly before it was delivered, but his arms were leaden and numb by his side and he couldn't move them to comfort his eldest son. He wanted to pull the boy into a hug, pull both of his sons into a hug and tell them that everything would be alright and that they would all get through this and that he loved them more than anything in the world, but he couldn't move and all he could do was stand as his world fell apart around him again.

"My lords, the fact that Prince Caiellis has been unconscious for so long and went without oxygen for such a large amount of time means that even if he does recover and survive brain damage is a very real possibility for him," she said, her voice comforting and gentle in spite of the horrible words that it spoke into the air, "We have only run preliminary tests so far, and while they haven't resulted in us finding out anything conclusive the seizures he had earlier could be indicative of damage. The brain can only survive so long without access to oxygen, and if it is deprived too long parts of the organ can start to die. We need to run more tests than the ones we have done in the past two hours to try and see if there is any damage."

Alexander processed the information that he had been sat staring at his brother as the world rushed around him for at least a whole hour since his and his father's discussion in the official waiting and observation room since that was about how much time had passed since they had brought his brother here to that conversation. It hadn't felt like two hours since that time. He didn't know how long it had felt, because until his brother woke up time wouldn't regain any meaning for the seventeen year old.  
"When will you know?" Marik asked, his voice dangerously close to breaking into another sob as Alexander repressed his own, his eyes drifting from the doctor to the little teenager on the bed who was being healed and helped as much as possible. Marik had considered brain damage, but his mind had pushed it out of the way when it was focussed on saving Caiellis's life and ensuring that the boy kept on living, and now it was rising up again alongside the possibility of the thirteen year old dying.

To think that even if Caiellis did survived this ordeal, there might be permanent damage to his brain, that the intelligence his family was so proud of, the intelligence that Marik had scorned because it meant that he wasn't a perfect soldier and made him question the king might be irrevocably destroyed because of the actions of his father … it didn't bear thinking about, but Marik had to do it anyway because it was his job as a parent to think about things like that. The fact that Caiellis's brightness, his curiosity and his brilliant mind could be damaged permanently with nothing powerful restorative magic nor advanced technology could do about it was almost as bad as the reality that he could die – and perhaps worse, because the king would know that his son would rather be dead than unable to care for himself if his brain was injured that badly, and the Lucaelian people could not have a cripple for a king.

But that didn't matter as much as the fact that Caiellis could lose something that Emili and Marik had always loved about him, something that had defined their baby boy and something that his father had barely been able to see from him. Even worse because Marik had did that to him, and if his mind was damaged so much that he couldn't tell what was happening around him the king wouldn't be able to make sure that his son knew he was loved and cherished.

"We won't know for definite until Caiellis wakes up. And we have little to no idea when that will be, but it is certain that if he does not improve than it may be never," Esmelde's voice cut into Marik's thought, tender and lyrical despite the information that it conveyed that she obviously hadn't wanted to voice – though Marik was glad that she did, because he didn't want any knowledge about his son's state, no matter how dire it was, to be hidden from him. Perhaps he should have had this discussion with one of the doctors away from Alexander, because his son was now ashen pale once again and had suffered too much in this day, emotionally far more than physically but with a substantial amount of the latter as well, but the seventeen year old deserved to know. For better or worse, he deserved to know, and there was no point in keeping Alexander in the dark about what was happening to his little brother.

Still Marik sucked in a painful breath, sure that he was swaying slightly as parts of the world blurred around him and his stomach screamed in pain that wasn't nearly as significant as the agony his heart was being tortured by. He knew that this was even harder on his eldest son than it was on him, because of the boy's much younger age and his greater connection with Caiellis, but with Marik it was arguably just as bad because he knew that what his son had done to himself was motivated by such horrible sadness that was his father's doing. He thought that he should comfort his eldest, but there was nothing that he could do even if he had been able to move his own limbs.

Alexander could barely process the information himself, shaking his head softly as if in defiance as what was said. But the doctor wasn't telling him _anything. _Yes, while she may have been informing them both on exactly what was wrong with Cai so that they could prepare for anything, and Alex did care about that, he really did, but right now he couldn't. It was still too early for him to be able to be bogged down in all of the wounds his brother had and could have sustained, and these words that Esmelde were speaking were pointless words to the eldest prince at the current moment – all Alexander cared about at the moment was one thing.

"Will he be alright? Will Caiellis be ok?" the boy asked, interrupting his father who had just been about to say something. Choirmaster Esmelde's gaze softened even more, something that the boy hadn't thought was possible, his eyes reminding him of his mum's, although they were the wrong colour and could never be as good as calming him down as those emerald orbs that Cai had inherited.

Her voice was like a parent's when she spoke to him, which Alex hated because he didn't want to be patronised, he just wanted to know and he wasn't the one who needed their pity, "We cannot be certain, Prince Alexander. I'm not going to lie to you and say that your brother will be just fine, because we do not know yet and it is still too early for us to be able to tell. But Prince Cai is a very strong boy; he has a very strong heart, and I am sure that if he has the support of his big brother and his dad then he will find a way to get through this."

"Can we sit next to him now?" he questioned, almost a demand because the ambiguous response of the Ordo Medella operative who had helped to save his own life had irritated him and made him even more agitated for his brother's sake, even though rationally he knew it wasn't her fault. He just wished that she, and to a much lesser extent his father (though with him it was much more understandable considering that he had almost lost both of his sons (and still could lose one) within the short timespan of a single week), would stop treating him like a child, like he was too soft to be able to know what was happening to his baby brother, because he wasn't the one who was hurt, he wasn't the one who had almost died despite being only thirteen years old.

"Of course. While we are still operating on him, there is enough space for you both to stay by his side as we have done almost all that we can do for him at the moment," Esmelde replied, and the seventeen year took that as his cue to drag over the seat behind to his younger brother's side and instantly sit there, brushing his brown hair out of his eyes and clasping hold of one thin and small hand. Marik stayed stood up for a moment, mind still processing what the words of the doctor meant as his son sat down next to his youngest and the other Ordo Medella professionals worked around him like he wasn't even there, although the activity was a lot less urgent and frantic and much slower (though no less efficient) than two hours ago now that Caiellis had stopped moving and all of his wounds that could have been seen to had been seen to.

It was like losing Emili all over again, though even worse this time, and the king made a silent promise to his dead wife that he would do everything in his power to help their sons get back to the healthy and happy state they had been before the civil war. It wasn't a promise that he hadn't already made to himself a thousand times since seeing his youngest son dead, and it wasn't one that needed to be made because Marik was already sure that he could do nothing else but that, but he hadn't made it to his wife yet. However, he needed to focus on the living much more than the dead, and didn't even hear Choirmaster Esmelde when she told him that his wounds really needed repairing and healing before they forced him into unconsciousness or got infected.

She asked again, and he replied quickly, "Later. Please. Just let me stay with my sons." The Choirmaster couldn't deny that, even though it seemed like Surgeon-General Mortan was about ready to force the stubborn king to go get them seen to in spite of his weary words. The man effortlessly carried the chair over to the other side of Caiellis's bed as to not take up too much space on one side even though he would have preferred to be by his eldest son (though if his youngest recovered enough to be moved into the same room that Alexander had when the threat to his life had disappeared he would be able to), gazing at the slumbering and unconscious visage of his youngest son and wondering how it was humanly possible to make as many mistakes as he had in caring for his baby boy.

He remembered Caiellis as a younger baby, when he was born, like what the horror had showed him as it relentlessly forced him into his memories of a happier time to curb his dissidence and nullify his attempts at fleeing or combating its control of his body. He remembered, as he slid into the seat on the left side of Caiellis, his eldest son on the right, the first time he held his youngest son about a month after his premature birth, around when he should have been born had everything gone to plan. Caiellis had been so delicate, so perfect, and his face had been scrunched up in a cry of discontent after being passed from his mother – who had been given the chance to first hold him when he was taken out of the neonatal incubation unit – to his father who had never touched him before (as Emili had when he had been born and had obviously carried him for the eight months before that).

To think that all these later that was still the same, but instead of crying now Caiellis would shout back at him – though the arguments had not been his youngest son's fault even if he did have a part in causing them due to his teenage angst. Marik had rocked the baby soothed him gently, and at the back of his mind the king could still hear the promises he had whispered to his youngest son, those that he had told him whilst he was in his arms and those that had been spoken when Caiellis had still been isolated from the world due to his fragility and those that he had told his son – both of his sons – the night Emili had died murmuring like a rustle of wind at the back of his psyche. They were promises of protection, of love and support. Promises that every father owed their children.

Caiellis shouldn't be able to remember them now, though even if he did recall some they would be fragmented and broken, distorted by the passage of time and the lens of growing up, and Marik knew that he hadn't really followed up on any of them throughout his son's young life. That was going to change, and for once Marik was going to be a father to his son – if it was the last thing that he did.

The king silently and tentatively reached down for one of Caiellis's hands, listening to his eldest son quietly whispering reassurances and support for his unconscious younger brother, probably not even aware that he was saying them out loud. They were comforting words, words that Marik thought were perhaps private and not meant for his ears but words that he digested quietly nonetheless. He had the urge to take off the restraints around his son's thin wrists, not enjoying seeing him strapped down like some sort of rabid animal or raving lunatic, especially now that he was in a restorative coma like Esmelde said, but he was unwilling to disrupt anything much more than simply holding onto his son's only free hand.

The small, thin hand in his two was dwarfed by even one of Marik's own, and the king tried to hold it in a way that would not cause pain nor detriment the gauze that was stuck to it and augmenting the healing process of sealing the cuts on his hands. The king tried to feel the warmth and life that he knew was within the slender and lax fingers. He thought about how the hand held a sword, or how it had grown over the years from being tiny and thicker even thought it was still small now, how it had held his back before the civil war, tiny fingers clutching round his father's larger ones and filling him with love, and how the hand had unconsciously curled into the fabric of his shirt after the first migraine that Marik had ever heard about.

He thought about how small and bony it was, how the fingers stretched out limply, and the way in which it was symbolic of youth and purity as well as representative of how much Caiellis was hurt when one considered the amount of plasters and gauze was placed upon it which one kind soul had taken the time to do, leaving no wound untreated to and attempting to give the youngster the most help and comfort they could.

He thought about how, after the civil war, he had never seen that hand holding a pencil or ink pen, he had never seen it clasping hold of his own willingly, he had never seen it gripped hold of a book and turning the pages with the enthusiasm of an excited scholar despite knowing how much his youngest son liked to read, he had never seen it playing the piano like Caiellis could apparently do to some limited degree (as Tristram had told him after the battle of Fort Egetau for some reason), though of course he had never had much time for that at all.

It was not the hand of a warrior. It was not the hand of a general, a leader of armies. It was not the hand of a demon slayer. It was not even the hand of a Lucerna prince that may be destined to one day be given the throne and rule over the Kingdom of Light like his ancestors before him.

It was the hand of Marik's son. And he didn't ever want to forget that.

_It's going to be ok, little brother. You're going to be fine, Caiellis, and I'm going to make sure of that. I'm not leaving you until you wake up, and you'd better wake up. It's all going to be alright, I promise you, little brother. _Alex couldn't care less if he was saying the words going through his mind out loud or not, and he certainly didn't care if anyone heard him. This was his younger brother was hurt, and at the moment no one else mattered to him. The room could have been empty, or it could have been filled with people mourning over the state of the youngest prince, but so long as no one was attempting to hurt Cai then Alexander would not pay any attention to them. He hated the thought of his brother being brain damaged with a passion, but it was infinitely preferable to him dying – which was still also a very real possibility even if he didn't want to admit it.

_I'm so sorry, Cai. I should have been there for you. I should have listened to your concerns about the Tempest of Craving. Damn it! If I had just listened to you, then not as many soldiers might have died, and this never would have happened to you. No more, alright? Next time, I'm going to make sure that both I and dad listen to your concerns about war. Angels above, I'm going to make sure that you don't have to fight any more, not now that the Welkalites are defeated after your heroic murder of their main demon master. _Alexander vowed that he was never going to fail his younger brother again, even though at the back of his mind he knew that he could not keep Caiellis safe for ever – as many things over the past nine years had evidenced.

As Alexander stroked his brother's cold yet sweaty forehead gently, the boy shifted slightly and whimpered in pain, the first movement he had made in a long time – though it was not a good one at all. Alex pulled back his hand for a second, scared that somehow he had damaged his brother as he felt almost all the eyes in the room on the youngest Lucerna, but after a few minutes he resumed the soothing motions with the hand that did not have Caiellis's small right hand clasped gently in it. Evidently some of what he had thought he hadn't said, although this time he made sure that it was all vocal because even if he occasionally seemed like it his younger brother wasn't a telepath.

The seventeen year old didn't even know if Caiellis could hear him or not – before all of this he would have been sure that Caiellis would be able to know his big brother was talking to him whether or not he could distinguish actual words even in his sleep, but now Cai was deeper than he had ever gone before into a slumber from which he might not awaken, and he wasn't reacting at all to the soft tones of his older brother.

But then, it didn't matter if he could hear Alexander or not, because the words needed to be said and even if there was only the slightest, most minuscule possibility that Caiellis could perceive his older brother's voice then Alex would speak to him, whether it helped him or not.

"You're going to recover, baby brother, whether you like it or not. I'm going to make sure that you will be alright. I am going to be with you all the way through this, and I'm not sorry if you get bored of me. I'm so sorry for letting this happen to you, Cai, and I'm going to make it up to you when you wake up. I promise," he whispered, Marik's heart filling with love as he overheard words not meant for him. He turned to his youngest son, who looked no better even with his brother pouring his heart out to him, and found that he himself couldn't say anything. He could only think the words, because he knew that promises to the boy would mean nothing until he awoke and Marik could truly show the love that he had for him.

Alexander wished that his younger brother would wake up, flash his trademark dimples and let Alexander and their dad comfort him and fix everything, but he had heard what the Choirmaster had said and knew that his brother was unlikely to wake up in at least a day's time at the very earliest, and never at the latest. He just wanted his baby brother back so that he could be happy knowing that Caiellis was safe and protected, and wanted to fix what had been broken between the youngest and eldest members of the Lucerna family, especially now that they knew there had been darker forces involved. He wanted his family to be as perfect as it could be now that dad had rediscovered his parenting skills and the constant arguments and fights could stop.

It was several hours later, the three Lucernas in the exact same position as the doctors silently worked around them, disturbing the familial and melancholy silence only when necessary to respect their patients – and not because they were royalty, when Alexander's head finally drooped on his shoulders and his eyes shut, though his hand didn't leave his brother's and remained holding onto it as the arm attached to it half-rested on the bed as well (as Caiellis's hand was on the bed and unable to be moved far from it by the restraints around his slender wrists).

Marik almost smiled when he saw that, not having wanted to tell him to leave and go to bed because Alexander would have almost definitely protested and fought to stay with his younger brother. Caiellis was still too wounded and hurt to have Alexander curling up next to him as well, so Marik was willing to let his eldest son sleep in the chair that he was in currently. He nodded his head in thanks to one of the doctors who passed him a spare blanket, quietly walking over to the other side of the bed and draping it over his seventeen year old son, brushing his blonde hair gently before returning to his own seat.

He remembered a time where Alexander had always vehemently refused to go to bed, insisting that he could stay up longer and play for longer, before falling asleep on the spot if his parents indulged him in that or falling asleep the instant he was tucked into bed. Then again Caiellis had seemed to have that trait as well, though he would never protest against being sent to bed because he didn't want to test his parents.

He wondered how often throughout the civil war Alexander and Caiellis had been forced to sleep in uncomfortable positions, as while the king was used to sleeping in a chair by now (because he slept pretty awfully in normal circumstances anyway) his sons probably wouldn't be. He also knew that Alexander, when he hadn't been suffering nightmares because of Aksua, was a simultaneously lighter yet heavier sleeper than his brother in the way that he could wake up near instantaneously if his body detected a problem but otherwise didn't often awaken during the night to random disturbances or dreams. Apparently, according to Tristram and Tybalt who he had talked about his sons with a reasonable amount (though not nearly enough) in the times he was more open to discussing what they were like, it hadn't always been that way because Alexander was a teenager and liable to want to remain in bed instead of getting up when he wanted to, but he had always slept easier than his younger brother.

In part, Marik attributed that to the fact that his eldest had been in the grip of an induced unconsciousness when his mother had been murdered whereas Caiellis had been awake to watch it all.

"My lord," a voice broke into his thoughts, "I am going to heal your wounds now."

The king turned, unsurprised when he met the stern visage of Surgeon-General Mortan who glowered down at him like he was a delinquent apprentice who had injected their patient with the wrong substances or mumbled the incorrect words to a healing spell. However, his clinical eyes were coloured with sympathy and empathetic pain for the man, and Marik recalled that Mortan had mentioned having children as well. The king was about to protest before the man cut in, "And no, you stubborn so-and-so, you don't have to leave the room. You only need to take off the pieces of armour that are covering it, though I would advise removing it all."

Sighing like a man twice his age and feeling like it, Marik stood up, his vision blurring as he did so and forcing him to cough, wet and sticky liquid that tasted like iron coming up and out of his mouth as he did so. The doctor rolled his eyes for a moment before he called over one of his companions, knowing just from that that the king was bleeding internally. Mortan would ideally have liked to take the younger man into another room to check him out because of how long the wounds had gone untreated – they could present significant health complications – but he knew that the king – the _father –_ wouldn't agree to that at all.

He resolved to silently curse the stubbornness of the Lucerna family when it came to getting help and admitting they were in pain (as it made his job that much harder), muttering insults under his breath, "You're a damn fool, my lord, letting these wounds stay unseen to for so long. A lesser man than yourself without your exalted blood would have passed out or even died by now."

Marik normally would have smiled and joked at the cranky old doctor who had tended to him before, but right now he wasn't in the mood at all and when Mortan gazed into his eyes he saw that and instantly shut up. His eyes strayed to his sons again, their hands still together (though it was only due to Alexander's grip on Caiellis). He hadn't been a good father at all, in fact he had been a complete failure who thrust his sons into dangerous situations and even hurt one of them, no matter that he had been controlled and turned against the boy.

But that was going to change. Marik had realised how much these two youngsters made to him, the last pieces of Emili in this world but so much more than just that, and he was going to protect them and start treating them like they were the most precious things in the world to him instead of just thinking it.

He knew that he wouldn't instantly become the perfect father, that it would be awkward, difficult and downright frustrating at some points, that his family would stretch to breaking point again, but eventually he would prevail and give his sons the happy lives they deserved. And if anyone – man or demon, traitor or external enemy – tried to ruin that, then they would face the wrath of a Lucerna king - one that was fresh out of mercy.


	42. Absolution

The rain spattered down upon everything in the City of Pleasure, washing away the blood as the last dregs of the light from the setting sun spilled into the war torn Welkalite capital, the natural orange luminescence creating iridescent arcs of colour in the air as it was refracted through the clear droplets cascading down from the rumbling heavens above. However, the noise that the storm roiling over the city was a far cry from the one that had been screaming down at it only a few hours ago.

Even so, another tempest in such a short time, natural or not, would be unwelcome for those still in Usnaan, too close to scars that had only recently been inflicted and that were only just being come to terms with. The Welkalite weather, according to some documents that Tybalt had read about it from both Yentarian origin and those written by Lucaelian scholars who had been permitted inside the Empire when tentative trade lines, was volatile and changeable, liable to be perfectly sunny with a few wisps of clouds one second and then pour down in rain from the sky as thunderous nimbi of black gathered in the air within a few seconds.

And even in spite of the torrential rain that began to erase the blood that had pooled with the sprawling streets of the besieged city, the stench of death would not be expunged from Usnaan for a long while yet. As Tybalt stepped through a large avenue out of the Augur's Quarter which had been laid to ruin in bloody fighting at the end of the battle in there around when the Archdemon located at the near centre of the City of Pleasure was defeated, he suppressed a grimace at the sheer amount of bodies littering the ground that was sodden with blood and water that streamed down it in rivers of diluted crimson, repressing the urge to vomit up the contents of his stomach at the awful smell.

So much death. There was so much death, and yet the old man had to remind himself that there would have been even more death had the Welkalites' (well, the Orders of Passion's) heinous scheme to use the power of an Archdemon to further their plans of gaining more power and crushing the opposition of any nation that would stand in their way which had been halted by the sacrifice of the brave Lucaelians who had died here today, as well as the slaughter of the corrupt members of the Orders of Passion who had opposed them. The Hierarch of Capitalia Lux only hoped that the casualties were not too high and that not too many innocent Welkalite civilians had been killed, although collateral damage with the destructiveness of the battle within Usnaan was inevitable and he would be a fool if he denied that.

His venerable body ached from the wounds he had sustained in the fight against the young but utterly insane and corrupt Master of Wealth, and Tybalt knew that there would come a point where he would not be able to fight like that any longer and would have to lend his aid from the back lines exclusively – which he had done a significant amount in the civil war with young Tristram who was in the prime of his life leading from the front and fighting in the defensive and protective mana that he excelled in, but Tybalt had often joined him so that they could protect their young charges who were not old enough for fighting despite being force to help numerous times if they wanted to ensure their survival.

He was disturbed at the mana that he had sensed from his youngest student that had wiped out the Lord of Riots, utterly annihilating the demon and purging its corruption from the world, because he knew that it would definitely have huge consequences on the boy's frail body and was suggestive of something awful happening there. Now he could no longer detect the Lucernas even if he stretched out his magical sense and focussed all he had on endeavouring to perceive them, which was even more worrying considering he had sensed Marik and Alexander earlier.

The man was extremely concerned for them all, especially little Caiellis who should really have stayed out of this conflict at the very least (with Alexander joining him in remaining in the safety of the kingdom in Tybalt's opinion – although it was almost undoubted that the Lucaelian force would have been defeated without the might of the entire loyal Lucerna royal family backing them up and cutting a swathe through the Welkalite lines), but there was nothing he could do for them right now so with some difficultly he bade the thoughts leave his mind.

It was a hard thing to do, because he wanted to protect all three of the younger males, particularly the young brothers who were the son of Marik, and he had the instinct to want to ensure they were safe ingrained into him from not just his upbringing and natural loyalty to the Lucerna family, but from the nine years of the civil war where he had grown to not just be friendly with the Lucerna boys but love them like a father or an uncle (which he supposed was more fitting considering Caiellis's title for him).

His oaken staff, which had picked up numerous dents in the desperate engagement with the Master of this Passion Quarter, clacked on the stone ground which had blood and water running down it, and he leaned heavily on it as he walked, though he refused to pay attention to the relatively few wounds he had received and knew that he had got off lucky and would have been hurt much more if Caiellis had not decisively ended the threat of the demons like he had.

The Augur's Quarter had been almost near obliterated, one of the massive and obscene Towers of Ecstasy having fallen and collapsed into the ostentatious streets below it when it had been rent asunder by a gigantic meteorite that crashed into it, and the largest one that Tybalt had been fighting in gouged by numerous scars of destroyed stone and gold as it had been ripped apart by the smaller meteors smashing into it and disgorging their payloads of shrieking devils into the cylindrical monument to greed.

Lelia walked silently behind him, leaning on her large sword just as Tybalt used his staff to help him walk, and though Tybalt had offered her aid to walk she had quietly and stoically refused it, her eyes wet with tears for the soldiers that she had lost who had gone through the massacre in the City of Quiet with her and the amount of death that had been inflicted on both sides in the conflict in this horrible city that was in itself an edifice to almost all things that Tybalt detested (well, the four Passion Quarters were at any rate), forbidden pleasure that was off limits for a reason, and presumably the pain from the injuries she had suffered through silently.

Bruna led the way, Tybalt still possessing just enough mana to keep her active in case there were more enemies in their way, though the Light of Alabaster had scared off the small party of them so far. The Hierarch was feeling the strain of having his Second Sisterhood angel still Summoned, but it meant that they were protected from any potential enemies still left in the city as they made their way to where the older Light-bearer could sense the rest of the Lucaelian leaders collecting, which was near the Palace of Desire to represent that the City of Pleasure was under Lucaelian control for the time being.

Ideally Lelia needed to go to the camp outside of the urban sprawl and submit herself to the medical care of professionals, but she had refused that without using words as well and Tybalt was not going to force her to swallow the pride that she had left and ensure that she could not contribute to the inevitable discussion of what they would do now that the battle was all but won with the demons and their foul servants having left the city now that the taint had been purged from it and they could no longer sustain themselves as Unbound within Usnaan – and those demons that had Summoners had left because their plan had failed and they would rather claim the souls of the ones who had initiated the Infernal Bargain with them instead of waste effort fighting against assured defeat.

As he walked, or hobbled depending upon how one would like to define it, although he ensured that part of his mind was utterly focussed on the path in front of him and making sure that everything was safe for them to continue on their slow progression through the still dangerous and hostile enemy territory of the City of Pleasure, Tybalt cast his mind back to the last moments of Eras Stormwind less than an hour ago.

_"I am going to make you both pay so much for what you have done to me. I wonder how much pain it will take to break you and make you scream!" the boy shrieked, insanity suffusing every syllable of his sybaritic voice as he howled in pain and hatred at the Lucaelians and laughed at the roiling sky. Tybalt and Lelia stood side by side as the young but insane Master of Wealth opened his arms wide, fingers of his two different hands, one still protected by a golden gauntlet and the other unnatural, stretched out, the Archfiend of Depravity behind him mimicking its master's movements as it held out is four arms like it was the conductor of a foul orchestra of cacophonous and screaming death._

_The Tempest of Craving howled through the many open spaces of the central Tower of Ecstasy's highest tier, the ceiling having been annihilated by the Hierarch's light magic and the walls destroyed by fiery rocks of destruction raining down from the sky and deploying more screeching devils and other denizens of the more hedonistic regions of the unholy abyss into the extravagant building that was more of a status symbol and an icon to excess. The Unbound beings, sustained by the unholy energies that were flowing through the Welkalite capital from the nexus of darkness and depraved passion that was an Archdemon at its corrupt heart, roared and screamed at the two Lucaelians and the angels in their midst, surging towards them from across the room as Eras laughed maniacally and began to release huge amounts of mana._

_Orphia, the Angel of Retribution, instantly leapt into the air and smashed into the ground around them, the daughter of the only dead First Sisterhood angel whipping her sword round into crimson bodies and spraying black blood all over the large room from where she bisected them with her blade. _

_Bruna joined her a moment later, trusting her Summoner and the Summoner of the other angel to be able to contend with the magic that the Master of Wealth was emitting and prepared to help them if need be, divine alabaster light splitting the noxious and tainted air from where it was launched from the tip of her staff which was shaped like Avacyn's Collar, the holy symbol of the Angel of Hope that was repeated in many places covered in revered Lucaelian iconography – such as on Tybalt's robes that had the symbol of each of the ten (now nine, though the Star of Serenity was still there – although it had faded with her sacrifice at Johnias's hand and lost its power) First Sisterhood angels etched upon it._

_Eras laughed again, the young and relatively high pitched voice of the nineteen year old joined by the malevolent insanity from the sadistic demon behind him as coils of darkness started to spiral through the air from the morass of Black mana above Severkarkyis and down towards the comparatively slight Master of Wealth. The tendrils of noxious shadow wrapped around the boy's outstretched arms, emitting a dark and tainted light as it infused him with even more mana borne from him siphoning away portions of his life in return for more power. _

_The sensation was intoxicating, addictive, more powerful than the strongest narcotics that the Master of Wealth had ever sampled before and he wanted more – he couldn't wait to unleash this power upon the pitiful Lucaelians in front of him that would allow him to test his new magic and had wounded his perfect body._

_Black and Red mana coalesced around his arms that were spread wide, snapping and sparking at one another in their discordant and contradictory yet complimentary dance over his limbs, and the boy sucked in an ecstatic breath at the power surging throughout him. Tybalt snarled, blasting apart a squealing creature which managed to penetrate the defensive storm of blessed steel and divine light that was the two angels with a bolt of White mana shot forth from the crystal tip of his staff, as the unnaturally saccharine scent of the Tower of Ecstasy and indeed the Tempest of Craving (which, instead of blowing the smell of corruption away like any normal wind, merely augmented the excessively sweet aroma of taint and impurity) was enhanced by the stench of an even greater contamination from the power that was billowing around the circular chamber at the pinnacle of the tower._

_Tybalt glared over at the much younger man, already pre-casting runic symbols into the air around him through his predominantly White mana, using the defensive and numbing properties of the magic of thought to enhance the protective wards etched into the space around the Hierarch and Guardian. Lelia cast a few of her own spells, adding her mana to the older Light-bearer's, although her defences of a magical nature were not the strongest and she much preferred to be on the offensive and silencing the enemies rather than enduring their spells. _

"_HAHAHA!" Eras's laughter was accompanied by the exultant howling of the Archfiend of Depravity, darkness and pure shadow wrapping around them as the mostly Black but partly Red mana of the Master of Wealth was concentrated into his limbs, spilling out of his fingers in a cascade of tenebrosity mixed with velvet moral pollution as all of the noises in the circular tier at the top of the central and largest Tower of Ecstasy rose in volume until a crescendo of sheer sound was screaming and laughing in Tybalt's ears before he cast a spell that would aid in staving off the secondary effects of such a large amount of mana being released, Lelia aiding by spinning her sword round in a circle as serene yet vengeful characters joined the ones already written around them._

_The noise was not drowned out completely, but muffled to the point where it was bearable without deafening them like it would have done without their precautionary methods, and though someone who had not encountered it before might have been fazed by the insane screaming neither Tybalt nor Lelia were._

_The former because he had lived through so many years of war and banished so many foes, and the latter because she had survived the massacre of almost eight million people – nearly the entire population of the first Gol – and been forced to endure against large numbers of greater demons ripping her birthplace apart and murdering her family at the young age of just thirteen – the age of Caiellis – and had fought in the civil war as some sort of general or symbol of survival and defiance in the face of this treachery._

_Lelia was akin to a saint, and was a definite hero, whilst Tybalt had fought against foes comparable to this – though the Master of Wealth was discharging huge amounts of power and the fact that the level of hellish mana throughout the city was rising as if in concert with the emission from Eras Stormwind was also disturbing. Tybalt knew that the heightening of Red and Black magic within the entirety of the City of Pleasure had little to do with the nineteen year old Welkalite brat that he and Lelia were currently locked in combat with, and that worried him even more because he knew that the power increase was originating from the centre of the sprawling capital of the New Empire of Passion, which definitely did not bode well for the Lucerna family or the entire Lucaelian army itself._

_Screaming and roaring mingled with the noises akin to those being made by the Master of Wealth and his demonic Summoning, but on a much greater and louder scale that reverberated through Tybalt's aged bones and made his teeth chatter with the vibrations, shaking the entire foundations of the Tower of Ecstasy as he saw a gigantic meteorite crashing down from the howling storm above and impacting into another Tower, obliterating the central part of the cylindrical structure as its top half collapsed into the streets below and made everything judder and shake violently once again._

_The dark ascension of the City of Pleasure into madness and deprivation was only just beginning in all of his destructive insanity, a cavalcade of passionate fire, exquisite lighting and hedonistic darkness rushing into everything around them as Eras giggled in his hysterical psychopathy. His eyes, which were already a pale cold colour in the irises which were almost completely covered by the dilation of black pupils in rapturous bliss, flashed with a false golden light that glinted black in the darkness and belied a much more sinister intent, becoming completely filled with the ostentatious colour until they were orbs of greed manifest as he pointed his face to the sky, the pale skin of the youth turned crimson in the bloody torrent of the Rain of Gore._

_Tears of pure molten gold began to drip down his face, melting the skin off of his bones and replacing it with extravagant and lustrous gold that had none of the imperial majesty that the gold of the angels and Lucael did but instead represented greed and the insatiable desire to obtain more and more wealth that would never be sated no matter how much he gained and hoarded. If Eras was concerned even a little bit by the corruption of his flesh as the molten tears seared it off and fused with his face instead, there was no sign as he was wrapped up in his own psychotic giggling and laughter as more avaricious tenebrosity burst out of his limbs, the ravenous and corrupt darkness concealed by the false disguise of prosperous gold that shone with metal manipulating and fervent Red mana._

_The boy beckoned upwards and the magic surged around him, a sea of molten gold rising up round the nineteen year old Welkalite as the statues of the victims of the first spell he had cast in this battle dissolved and melted, adding their own bodies to the waves of liquid metal that was entwined with covetous Black mana. Tybalt grimaced, extremely wary of the gigantic amount of mana that was being emitted that would certainly have been taking its toll on Eras Stormwind's lithe and sickly body as well as requiring to trade off portions of his life and soul to obtain the power to wield this amount of dark energy, recalling Bruna to him so that together they could prepare a form of defensive magic to help protect them from the tidal wave of gold and corruption that would soon be raining down upon them._

_Orphia kept slaying the shrieking demons that tried to get past her and attack the more vulnerable humans that she was defending, the Angel of Retribution covered in the black blood of unholy Sancturia creatures who had been given substance and sustenance by the taint of an Archdemon warping and permeating everything in the city – especially focal points of vileness and concentrated corruption such as this Tower of Ecstasy – which allowed them to remain in the world of humans without a Summoner for an indefinite amount of time unless the dark power keeping them here was reduced, which did not seem to be happening – instead it was only increasing in erratic bursts of malignant energy. _

_The hells of Sancturia's abyss seemed to be being forcefully overlayed upon the city of Usnaan from what the Capitalia Lux Hierarch could see out of the corner of his eye even though he refused to pay attention to it. The whole of the city was alight with hellish flames, and massive claws of obsidian that pulsed with a malicious crimson glow ruptured the ground as they reached up out of it and curled over the City of Pleasure that was evolving and metamorphosing in the sadistic influence of the Archdemon at its centre._

_To an untrained observer, the Angel of Retribution would seem like she was completely invulnerable to the meagre assaults of the hordes of devils and other monsters from a maddening carnival of carnal destruction and debauched carnage, but Lelia knew that defending against such a large number of enemies all on her own and with the little mana that the Guardian of Gol Secondus had left was taking its toll on Orphia even if she didn't overtly show it as she kept killing them, though more were being disgorged by fiery rocks that crashed into the ground of the upper floor of the largest and central Tower of Ecstasy._

_Some were killed by the magical release of the Master of Wealth, indiscriminately turned to gold by tendrils of questing debasement in the form of darkness as their molten bodies were added to the massive, steaming wave of molten gold that was rising up behind the Welkalite youth, ready to surge over the entire room on Eras's command when he built up enough power to completely overwhelm the magic of the Lucaelians._

_Tybalt knew already that there was no way he could use countermagic to dispel such a powerful sorcery and would probably end up hurting himself instead of the Master of Wealth as he attracted the malevolent attention of the Archfiend of Depravity and engaged the demonic being in a battle of wits and mental strength. He did not want to invite madness upon himself, that was for certain, and could already feel the talons of insanity scrabbling upon the shield that was around his mind which would be ripping through the psyches of those less mentally disciplined and weaker than him and turning them into raving lunatics liable to turn upon their allies in a maddened rage at any moment._

"_I will make you feel my true power, old man and mute! The power of your oh so holy angels is _nothing _compared to this strength, Lucaelians! Soon you will realise that! Soon I will make you realise the power of the magic that I have obtained; soon I will make you see the supremacy of the Welkalite people and make you witness my mastery over the dark arts!" Eras screamed at them, already completely mad as the power surged throughout him and corrupted him from without, making his body match the taint and darkness of his soul as parts of his natural pale skin began to blacken and char, turned to gold as they started sloughing off like he was a reptile shedding scales so that they could be replaced with new and improved ones. _

_If Tybalt had been so inclined, he could think of numerous responses to the Master of Wealth's blatant arrogance that merely fuelled the darkness inside of him that he was releasing now, but even if he had wanted to speak them it was unlikely that he would be heard over the discordant melody of sounds that were drowning out everything else, only allowing them to hear Eras Stormwind's voice because of the otherworldly and hellish resonance that inflected it as he screamed his throat raw in his mad cackling. Instead the older of the two Light-bearers concentrated upon maintaining his defences, trying to piece together a plan in his mind that would allow him to capitalise on this massive discharge of magical energy instead of just enduring it because that would almost certainly end in failure._

_The world was shaking around them, and not just because of the heavy vibrations making the whole tower tremble due to the power that was rushing throughout it – the fabric of reality itself was warping and buckling in a way that Tybalt was unfortunately familiar with because of his station as a Hierarch of Lucael who had fought against numerous foes from the unholy abyss. The darkness of the forsaken nether often did this, the realm of darkness that was as much Sancturia as it was the physical substance of reality rippling the frail barrier between the two worlds and making everything bend and warp around those who became trapped within it. _

_He had often experienced such a thing when being forced to travel through portions of the outer abyss with Guardian Tristram, Alexander and Caiellis when routes between the cities that were safer as they were affected less by the influence of the void of shadows and had been assaulted by demons and other denizens of the more magical and evil parts of the endless darkness (these safer routes were what the monorails were constructed upon, the eternal night less dangerous than the shadows of the abyss that constantly encroached upon them), mindlessly bending and warping reality unless those properties were harnessed to suit the needs of particularly powerful individuals or creatures._

_Tybalt had also seen it happen before when in one of the metropolises that had been besieged by Johnias's forces, the fabric of the world contorting and straining the normal qualities of physical existence within the cities under attack, though the one that he remembered most was when it had happened to the nursery of the young princes within the Lucerna palace itself when it had come under attack from within by demons masquerading as guards who had murdered Emili Noctis._

_Although barely any of the survivors of the Silencing of Gol spoke of the horrible slaughter of millions of their fellow citizens that was the consequence of a surprise attack from the renegade Guardian Teylaisian Illustri, his Fallen Hierarch and the leader of the traitors himself who had been eager to test the powers of his new Archdemon that he had murdered Serenity for, the Hierarch assumed that it must have been similar in there – as those poor, hollowed eyed and haunted individuals who had spoken to him of that when the party of the princes and their protectors had met with the army of Guardian Lelia and Hierarch Francis told of the city buildings growing claws and teeth and the streets being infused with a dark life of their own as the city around them turned on them and aided the demonic and traitorous attackers. _

_He knew from the look in Lelia's dark blue eyes that this was reminding her of that fateful time when she had grown from a somewhat naïve and innocent young girl at the age of thirteen to a woman who had led the survivors of the massacre out of the death trap that their city had become. The twenty two year old gazed at the Master of Wealth her eyes alight with hatred as the light of her magic made the scar on her face glow with righteous fury._

_This was similar, but a more insane and psychotic distortion than just simply an evil one, though there was plenty of that as well, and a barrage of sensations and stimuli assaulted Tybalt's aged senses even more than they had already done when entering the foetid pit of corruption and degenerate passion that was this Tower of Ecstasy, almost baffling them to the point where his body would shut down and making him want to rip out his eyes and stick a sharpened sword in his ears because it would lessen the pain of the endless shrieking of the individuals who had been blessed and cursed by the twin gifts of pleasure and pain before he augmented his and Lelia's mental defences (though the young woman (not that one would know she was only twenty two with how solemn she acted) probably wouldn't need the help since she had endured Gol at the young age of just thirteen. _

_Tybalt shut his eyes, focussing exclusively on his magical sixth sense as he took in a deep breath, a long and languid inhalation that allowed his mind to relax and become more concentrated on the spell at hand instead of panicking and as such reducing the amount of power that he could gather up. Normally he would be able to do that without shutting out all of his other senses because he was well practised in the manipulation of White and Blue mana, but with the amount of stimuli that was bombarding him because of the corrupt power of enraptured hedonism that was consuming the entire City of Pleasure (an auspicious and foul name if the man had ever heard one) he could have easily suffered sensory overload and been unable to focus at all._

_However, as he was soon to quickly find out as he opened his eyes wide once again, he needn't have bothered. A massive pulse of White and Black mana combined in a way that he had barely ever seen before rose up from the centre of the city, smashing into the Tempest of Craving as it screamed and its crimson glow was replaced by annihilating black flames, dark incandescence and blinding tenebrosity coiled together in a haunting purple pillar of luminescence that ripped through the storm and exterminated the presence of the Archdemon within the corrupt and beating heart of Usnaan._

_A wave of purification and cleansing mana washed out from it as it tore through the howling Tempest of Craving, a tempestuous, booming and almost deafening death scream roaring across the city as it made Tybalt shake more than anything else had done so in this battle to free the Welkalites from the darkness that their masters had invited willingly upon them, and as much as the Hierarch wished he could have paid attention to that his own predicament was currently much more pressing and demanding of his full attentiveness. Eras's mouth that was stretched out into a smile slowly fell, though it only curled downwards slightly in confusion, making his features twist into something that was a mixture of a rapturous grin and a bewildered grimace of disappointment and confusion._

"_Oh. _Oh_. So the Lord of Riots has been slain, has he? Interesting," Severkarkyis murmured, vaguely anti-climatically as the screaming howl of defiance and the hatred of a fallen god resounding across the entire capital city slowly died down, leaving ringing in Tybalt's old ears as the creatures in front of him began screaming and howling in a frenzy, realising that with the corruption of the abyss fusing with Usnaan quickly being expunged from the release of what could only be Caiellis's mana and launching themselves at the angels and their human Summoners, wanting to vindictively inflict as much damage as possible before they could no longer be sustained as Unbound in the physical realm and were dragged back to the pits of Sancturia's hell where they belonged and could wreak no more havoc upon the denizens of the material world._

_Bruna levelled her staff, the Collar of Avacyn emblazoned atop it shining with light as she launched scattering bursts of illumination into the hordes of devils and other foul creatures charging at them, though she did not release and excessive amount of power to calmly wipe them out as the Master of Wealth's spell was still being cast by the Stormwind brat on the other side of the circular chamber to them._

_The Archfiend of Depravity sniggered, the sound utterly inhuman and strangely quiet after the amount of noise that had assaulted the aged Hierarch from all angles only a few seconds earlier that was still ricocheting around within his skull and mind, before it developed into full blown hysteria that gripped the greater demon as it howled with mad cackling which was nothing compared to the thunderous laughter of the Archdemon which had just been slain and forced reality to return to normal now that there was nothing anchoring the hedonistic pits of deprivation from the underworld of Sancturia to Usnaan and forcing the two realms to collide within the Welkalite capital. _

"_Ahahaha! AHAHAHAHA! Rakdos has been killed! AHAHAHAHA! This is hilarious! That foolish bastard was slain by the little child of the Lucernas?! MWAHAHA! What a ridiculous end!" the greater demon known as Severkarkyis screamed in laughter that filled the room, extending its four arms wide behind its Summoner who had faltered with the casting and completion of his spell now that many things were happening around him at once, the intoxicating power that he had built up diminished somewhat although still mostly there as reality returned back to the state it had been before Tradax had conjured up the Tempest of Craving above the City of Pleasure a few days after the little princelings of Lucael had escaped with the sacrifice of seventy seven slaves in the Palace of Desire._

_The boy felt the gaze of the demon, predatory and no longer falsely indulgent, biting into him from behind, sensing the pain that was rippling through him from such powerful magic more keenly now that his power was fading somewhat, and he quickly tried trading more of his soul to the Archfiend of Depravity so that he could feel the rush of magical energy once again, as while it was still coursing through his veins it was nothing in comparison to what it had felt like only moments earlier. The bargain was denied or ignored, which was strange because he knew that his personal greater demon wanted his soul and that it had always been perfectly amiable to obtaining pieces of it early to play with, and began to turn around to it before he heard the Archfiend of Depravity's foul voice once again._

"_In that case, I have no more use for you, little Welkalite brat. Now that the plan has failed with the death of my "master", there is no longer a point to aiding you in your own personal quest," Severkarkyis spat, and Eras's eyes widened as he spun around and felt the power being ripped from his limbs, his greedy orbs that were the colour of fool's gold returning to their normal yellow structure as he felt a sensation akin to his insides being torn out of him from within that rushed through him. He screamed, stumbling as the waves of gold began to solidify and stop moving, their gleaming and prosperous glow sloughing off like a thin layer of paint as it revealed the throbbing, wet and glistening truth inside it. It was fleshy, black, and quivered like a still beating heart freshly ripped out of a human body as it sprayed murky blood all around it._

_Eras touched a hand to his face, his natural hand recoiling in automatic horror as he felt several moist lumps on his pale cheeks that wriggled like nests of maggots, his aquiline features contorting in disgust as he felt them thrashing and vibrating on his own skin as they burrowed into his flesh, shedding layers of gold to expose the malignant corruption underneath. He raised his hand that had been replaced by the evil magic of his greater demon after his own attempts at dark regeneration had been thwarted by the old Lucaelian man's destruction of the ceiling through the magic of light exposing him to the indiscriminate effects of the Rain of Gore (which had stopped pouring vibrant scarlet blood down on everything), the golden hand that had been given to him melting off and revealing the fused flesh of his wounded fingers that were the products of his endeavour to repair the wound with dark magic himself which hadn't healed at all._

"_No! NO! What are you doing, Severkarkyis! Give me my power back! Give it back!" the boy screamed like he was in the midst of a childish tantrum, genuine fear rushing through him as he scampered backwards from the demon that leaned over him, sending a quick and frightened glance back to the two battered Lucaelians and their angels who watched on with unsympathetic eyes. The Archfiend of Depravity laughed as it dropped to the ground out of the air and stalked forwards, two of its arms placed on the ground and the others extended towards the Master of Wealth who was attempting to scatter away from him. He smirked, "It was never your power to begin with, human, and I will give it and take it away at will."_

_Eras's eyes widened in a mixture of outrage and shock as he tried to ignore the agonising sensation of the fleshy darkness which had masqueraded as brilliant gold stabbing deeper into him, joined by pains from within his own heart as the morass of corruption inside of his soul reached out to the murky and solid shade on the surface of his pale skin. _

_He extended his last remaining hand in front of him, refusing to back down from _his_ demon that he had sacrificed his old Summoning for in return for dark and forbidden power despite the fact that he kept pushing himself backwards as he did so, the crippled hand that he scraped on the floor screaming in torment that he barely managed to ignore as he did so. The hand that he had raised glowed with dark chains of gold that he flung out, wrapping them around the demon's arms, legs, neck and torso in the way of the Infernal Bargain that would allow him to force his greater demon Summoning into submission, "How dare you! You are _mine! _You are mine to command! You are beholden to me! You will obey _me, _Archfiend of Depravity! OBEY ME!"_

_The nineteen year old's defiant shouting slowly regressed into a desperate shriek as none of his words seemed to have any effect at all, squeezing his hand that was the nexus of his binding shadow shut to the point where it should be putting his disobedient Severkarkyis in immense and unignorable agony like it had done the first time he had encountered the Archfiend of Depravity when Tradax had led him through the motions of the demonic contract that had him killing his old Sancturia creature and trading its soul for the power of a demon. Severkarkyis laughed, darkness bursting forth from it and ripping apart the chains as it stalked forwards towards the terrified Welkalite youth who retreated backwards until a questing tendril of solid shadow brushed against him from behind. _

_Eras shrieked in panic, spinning around and sending a bolt of molten metal at the darkness that was coalescing behind him, but it simply devoured the Red mana and increased in size and density to the point where he could barely see the Lucaelian enemies and their angels any longer. He was hyperventilating in panic now that he had no way to control his greater demon – he had always known that Severkarkyis hated and resented him, but had found that hilarious because of the fact that his new Summoning had been unable to do anything to act upon its urge to kill his Summoner. He had enjoyed humiliating and making the demon know its place, but was now regretting those actions as his demon looked perfectly ready to tear him apart and inflict the agonies that he had caused it onto Eras tenfold. _

"_And I was never yours to command, foolish brat! I am beholden to no one!" the greater demon snarled threateningly, his pits of darkness that resembled eyes glinting in exultant malevolence as it got closer to the boy, shadows gathering behind the horrified Master of Wealth to stop him from retreating further as he turned back to the demon, locking eyes with his Summoning who smiled sadistically down at him, revelling in his fear as it neared him. It grinned as Eras Stormwind launched bolt after bolt of fire and molten metal at him, fusing the basic spells of pyromancy that all wielders of Red mana could harness with his own specialised form of ferromancy which was in itself a subset of geomancy – but even with all this there seemed to be no effect upon the Archfiend of Depravity._

_Eras pressed his body against the shadows, anything to get as far away from the demon who had turned upon him and was freezing his mind up in unrelenting terror, remembering a time in the past when his father had threatened to beat him to death in a drunken rage before the man had been killed by his aunty when he attempted to stab Eras in the throat with a knife. He had been terrified then, the only other time in his life he had been fully scared and not just fearful because of his almost constantly changing emotions and feelings inside of his head, and he was terrified now as his demon closed in on him._

_He tried to pull up more defiant Red mana from within him, to tear apart the greater demon with spikes of metal and incinerate it with a wave of immolating fire, but hissed in pain as attempting to draw upon his magic sent pains of white hot agony up and down his young body._

"_And I am going to make sure that you remember that, insolent human," the demon smiled as it reached one of its large hands towards the Master of Wealth who was shaking as he attempted to somehow cower away from it, the fingers that were almost larger than the boy's arms wrapping around his chest as he screamed in pain when the contact was made, insidious torment rushing through him from merely touching the Archfiend of Depravity. He weakly pushed at the finger which was circled round his ribs, using both his natural hand and the fused claw of his other one in his feeble attempts to remove the demon from him even with the pain that touching Severkarkyis caused him, tears of the natural variety spilling down his face and out of his eyes, though they were tinged black like ink instead of transparent like normal tears, because of the pain and the fear._

"_Please … please don't hurt me … please … I'll do anything … I'll give you anything," Eras whimpered in pain, squeezing his eyes shut before small fingers of shadow pulled his lids open again so that he had to face the demon who's face was mere inches from his. He coughed and gasped as the fingers began to crush his body, his bones grinding together underneath the strain on them even though it seemed like the demon was only using a fraction of its strength and could squash him to a bloody pulp within a second. The Archfiend of Depravity barked with laughter, its foetid and unnaturally sweet breath washing over the boy and making his head spin as dizziness and nausea consumed his vision for a moment, his eyesight blurring through the turmoil of the pain of the demon pressing down on his lungs and the scent of the demon's saccharine exhalation that made him cough and splutter even more._

_Moments earlier he would have adored the smell, been addicted to it and revelled in the aroma of sweet corruption, but now it was only disgusting and representative on how different even the most corrupt humans were to demons. The demon pressed down harder, the pressure on Eras's lungs and ribs increasing as the bones scraped against the organs within as he fought desperately for air, the darkness that was once molten gold on his face spasming and wriggling as it dug further into him, moulding into and corrupting the bones of his cheeks as he screamed – or would have done, if he had been able to breathe. All that came out instead was a broken, mewling wheeze, and Eras wasn't sure whether the darkness swirling at the edges of his vision was from the lack of air which he had experienced in the past when attempting to heighten some sensations before or was the product of the Black mana saturating the poisonous aura exuding out of Severkarkyis._

_As the Master of Wealth became sure that his body was going to give out on him, the demon leaned in, its mouth that could swallow the nineteen year old's head whole almost touching his ear as he shuddered in fear and cried in his attempts to breathe, "Oh, but Eras … I don't think you have anything that you can give me. I already have your soul once you die here, and once you do I will be able to spend an eternity torturing you in any way that I like. Most of those that I claim I use to worship me, but I think that I will have a special fate in store for you, arrogant worm."_

_Eras tried to reply, but all that came out from the Master of Wealth was a gasping wheeze as he clawed at the finger pressing down on his lungs. He wasn't sure why he even wanted to speak, how he had got passed the sheer fear of the proximity of the Archfiend of Depravity to be able to make words. Severkarkyis then whispered, though its voice was still agonisingly loud yet sibilantly sweet but sickly and rotten in the young man's ear, "However, as much as I would like to, luckily for you the binding of the Infernal Bargain prevents me from killing you. Otherwise I would have ripped your pathetic mortal form to shreds already so that I could play with your pitiful soul. Already I can feel the compulsion to let go of you, to release you and allow you to draw breath once again, and I will not be able to resist it for much longer. Nonetheless, while I cannot kill you myself due to the rules of our contract, I am sure that there are many ample candidates ready to do that for me."_

_Eras felt the pressure on his lungs ease up with a sudden burst of air that he sucked in as he fell to the floor, landing on it with a painful bump that had him crying out in pain and luckily not breaking any of his bones (though he had not angled the fall in any way that would help to prevent it because he had never been taught how or cared about such things that shouldn't ever have affected him). He let out a wordless scream of petty rage when the demon laughed at him and pulled itself back into the fallen temple of unholy worship and deprivation that was Eras's new Mind Realm, the darkness wrapping around it and turning it into a dissolving cloud of sickly sweet poison that would kill any who breathed it in without any forms of protection._

_Then, instincts that were not trained by any form of experience but heightened by a rush of further adrenaline coursing through him screamed at him to move, and his body did so before he even knew what was happening, unceremoniously rolling as his robes tore on the splintered ground as a bolt of light impacted into the floor and left a crater where he had been only a moment earlier. The fear that had dissipated somewhat when the Archfiend of Depravity had made him aware that it could not kill or harm him much returned fully when the truth of its last words before returning to inside the Master of Wealth made itself known to him, but before he could do anything else he threw up, black vomit spilling out of his mouth as he retched it up from his stomach. _

_The pain of Unsummoning and losing much of the mana that he had left was agonising and made him feel hollow and empty inside, but it was better than having the greater demon here and threatening him. He spun around, wiping away the sick with his crippled hand as he figured that it might have been corrupted and in that case he didn't want to contaminate his only remaining pure hand, and quickly got his feet, pulling up mana from within him that was severely lacking now that Severkarkyis had departed. He locked eyes with the vengeful blue orbs of the Lucaelian mute who, upon further reflection, couldn't have been more than three years older than him despite it at first appearing that they were around a decade apart._

_Tybalt prepared another magical lance of light which he would launch at the Master of Wealth now that his demon had abandoned him to die, feeling the mana run through him now that he had deactivated most of the defensive wards around him and Lelia as he sensed that the threat of the massive spell Eras Stormwind had been casting before the death of the Lord of Riots ending in tandem with the Archdemon. He had not been able to hear what the Archfiend of Depravity had whispered to the boy before he had departed, and while a part of him was inclined to feel slightly sorry for the youth any remorse he might have felt was quickly destroyed when he remembered just what the nineteen year old – an adult with accountability for his actions despite not yet having left his teenage years – had done, how many lives he had ended in his own greed._

_Eras's eyes opened wide for a second when he remembered something that in his own turmoil and fear he had forgotten, marvelling at his own genius at preparing this before the battle. He had thought about it when the demon had first grabbed hold of him, but the thought had left his mind when he realised that Severkarkyis's large finger was over the pocket where the device was stored and that the demon would probably just stop him anyway._

_He shot out his hand, a mixture of relief and focus running through him now that he had a true opportunity to survive, spikes of iron and gold rupturing out of the ground and impeding the progress of Lelia and the Angel of Retribution as they were forced to dodged out of the way of the metal claws which would have impaled them and had to smash through them with their blades to continue._

_Tybalt and Lelia as well as their respective angels had been unanimous in their decision to wait to see what would happen to the Master of Wealth when his demon turned on him instead of intervening and attacking both at once with the greatest threat still within the room. It had been more prudent to be patient instead of rushing into the fray even though it seemed like their two opponents were turning upon one another, and now that the Archfiend of Depravity had left the Master of Wealth alone with the venerable Hierarch and the silent Guardian and their angelic Summonings who were already bearing down on the nineteen year old Welkalite who had thrust his last natural hand into one of his pockets._

_Eras pulled out the teleportation device, too agitated to let a sigh of relief out at the fact that the piece of equipment had not been damaged by the strain of the battle and the demon's hand wrapping around his waist and upper chest, and frantically began clicking on the button that would activate it with his bony claw of an imperfect hand as he held it with its natural one. He couldn't suppress a triumphant smirk from making its way onto his young but now corrupted features as Blue mana stored within the escape device was ejected out of it, the magic of displacement and positional manipulation coursing around him in a mist of sapphire as he smiled victoriously over at the Lucaelians, before narrowing his eyes and then widening them again._

"_There will be no escape for you, heretic. You must face judgement for your crimes against both your own Welkalite citizens and the Lucaelian people," Tybalt's clear voice, tinged with a powerful resonance from the mana that he was drawing up from within him, mana that would help him bring justice to the corrupt Master of Wealth. Eras glared at him for a moment before laughing back, blasting out shards of metal at the angels and their human masters to dissuade them from trying to approach him or attempting to use their magic to harm him as he escaped from the City of Pleasure which had been lost and conquered by the invaders from the Kingdom of Light, before laughing arrogantly back. "I disagree, old man. I think that there will be an escape for me. And while you might view me as a heretic, in my opinion I am not one, so surely that means I should get away for free? Anyway, it doesn't matter what you think. It has been boring fighting you. Bye now."_

_The boy could feel the Blue mana pulling him from this location, preparing to drag him through the Aether in between Sancturia and the material realm so that he could be taken to the eastern city of Kalaan which would not be under attack from self-righteous Lucaelians, though there had been talk of rebellion in the east of Welkas where the control of the Orders of Passion had been waning as they focussed their efforts into the west and their border with Lucael. Even so, it would be much safer than Usnaan at the current moment which was filled with a swarm of crusading invaders from the Kingdom of Light, and a few rebels was nothing that Eras couldn't handle – even if Severkarkyis had chosen to abandon him now._

_Tybalt calmly prepared a counter spell, sensing instantly that the Blue mana was only present in a limited amount from the device and that because it was not augmented by the Master of Wealth's demonic touch and as such he could easily use his own mana borne from thought to counteract it and dispel the teleportation spell which had been woven into the device that Eras carried and was obviously intending to flee with. _

_Blue mana collected at the tip of the quartz crystal of his staff, just as orderly as his White but less concerned about bringing those who had committed crimes against innocents to justice, and he bolstered it with the controlling force of his White that would allow him to absorb the energy of the spell that the Master of Wealth was utilising to flee and attempt to escape justice and convert it into healing for him and Lelia – as he had already sensed that because the Rain of Gore had stopped and the Tempest of Craving had been destroyed by Caiellis he was free to use his magic to heal others and himself now._

_The Hierarch visualised the spell that would transport Eras away from his deserved fate snapping, the cloud of translucent sapphire that was surrounding him dissolving into the air around him, and his Blue mana made it so as he focussed his mind on preventing the spell from being cast. There was a surge of mana as the teleportation began that Tybalt quickly crushed under the heel of his own magic, the mana that the device had emitted instantly absorbed into the Light-bearer's staff as it was pulled from around Eras, who's eyes had opened up even wider in shock._

"_What …?" he whispered in utter stupefaction as the teleportation magic around him instantly dissipated, the rush of relief he had felt leaving with it as the magic his captured Yentarian scientists had made for him disappeared. He instantly assumed that it was the treachery of his slaves, but when he saw the mana collecting around the old Lucaelian and repairing some of the wounds of him and his mute ally he knew that he had been prevented from leaving. The boy rocked back as if slapped, and then began screaming as the words of the Archfiend of Depravity just waiting to get its malicious claws on his soul repeated over and over and over in his head. He wailed, "No! NO! What have you done, you old bastard?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"_

_Tybalt did not reply with words, but instead slammed his staff into the ground in front of him, White mana launching from the holy quartz at the top of it into the heavens above and slamming down in a lucent pillar of divine incandescence that illuminated Eras in its blinding glow as he screamed more, his flesh disintegrating from his bones as the cleansing light purged the corrupt life from him, ripping apart any spells that he tried to to cast that would potentially counteract the damage that was caused as the Hierarch increased the potency of the devouring light._

_The boy shrieked something, but the noise was lost within the thrumming light as he was killed. It was painful, because the purifying light would have torn apart his body and turned it into ashes, but it was nothing compared to the torment he would go through at the demon's hand once his soul returned to Severkarkyis as per the rules of the Infernal Bargain. Tybalt's face was set in grim determination as the Master of Wealth was killed, and when the light faded there was nothing left of the nineteen year old who had been there only moments earlier._

Tybalt shook his head sadly at the recent memory and at the fact that they had passed another corpse of a Lucaelian woman, making the sign of the Reverent Dead above it and silently praying that the soldier's soul would get to the paradise that it deserved to reach. Nineteen was too young an age to die at, but such taint that had festered within the Master of Wealth which the youth had allowed to corrupt him could not be purged in any way other than death, and the boy had already consigned himself to that through his evil actions that could never be forgiven.

Eventually, after meeting up with another division of soldiers led by the bleak faced Captain Decia of Scientia Mos, elite warriors from the City of Books who had been instrumental in breaching the Augur's Quarter in the first place and had held off the army of a general who had been the head of the black clad and sadistic Collectors, Tybalt and Lelia made their way into the impromptu camp that had been set up outside of the now almost crumbling Palace of Desire that was filled with soldiers and medical personnel from the Ordo Medella who had been transferred into the city and were in the process of desperately trying to save as many lives as possible, taking those who could not be healed here across the city to the war camp outside of it where the vast majority of the equipment still was.

Several angels guarded the encampment inside of the city and kept a lookout for any enemies, and with a mental word Tybalt sent Bruna there to aid them – as not only would that assure everyone who looked to the heavens to deliverance that Hierarch Tybalt Litria was indeed still alive but he reasoned that he could sustain her for a bit longer and the Light of Alabaster would be a powerful defensive force in case the last dregs of Welkalite resistance mounted an assault upon the gathered Lucaelians. The man could see prisoners of war being rounded up and held by legionaries who nodded their heads respectfully in the direction of the Hierarch of Capitalia Lux and the Guardian of Gol as they passed. Tybalt nodded back, affording equal respect to them as they gave to him, and gazed upon the terrified face of a young Welkalite woman who had clearly been conscripted into the army of Enforcers to protect their capital city, her pink eyes meeting his venerable orbs for a moment before she looked away.

Tybalt knew that he would be wearing the same grim and hollow expression as each of the legionaries of Lucael that he passed – victory had been achieved, but it was certainly not a glorious one and the man knew already that the casualty report would be a horrific sight. Too many had died, on both sides, but then that was the way of war and the Welkalite people had invited destruction upon themselves – or at least that was what Tybalt liked to tell himself so that he could sleep at night. He knew that war would never stop, that the Lucaelian people would never be able to stop living in fear until all traces of the abyss had been purged, and was also aware that there would have been far more death should the Welkalites been left to complete their schemes and Summon an Archdemon into the world to create their own personal hell without anyone to interfere or banish (or kill as the circumstances were) it.

But it was hard to think like that when there was this much death all around him, and the fact that every single soul who had set foot on Usnaan would be scarred by this battle forever even if they hadn't died left a bitter taste in the man's mouth. He wondered if there was anyone who didn't feel like this in the aftermath of a brutal battle in which only the lords of the underworld were the victors, swiftly concluding that those they had defeated wouldn't feel this sense of remorse.

And that was why the Lucaelians had to win, why they had to keep winning against the forces of evil and oppose them at every turn. Because if they didn't then humanity (or at least the humanity of Lucael) would lose its battle against it, against the darkness, and the soldiers of the shadow would not care about the amount that they killed in their lust for more power and the death of all things good an innocent.

If the Orders of Passion had prevailed in this conflict, then there would be no Lucaelian lives spared (from either death or torture at the hands of the corrupt Welkalites afterwards, the fate of some of the captives from earlier raids from the New Empire of Passion that had been avenged on this fateful day), and there would be further war as the Welkalite leaders gorged upon this victory and used it to attack the Kingdom of Light so that they could presumably claim a portion of the darkness for themselves (although, amusingly enough, they would probably had met resistance in the form of the Fallen who wanted Lucael for themselves).

But even so there was little cause to rejoice here, not right now at any rate as Tybalt was sure that there would be celebrations after the war in the traditional and customary manners where those who had fought could reaffirm their bonds with one another – though remembering the dead would come first, as was right. The layout of the camp was easy to follow as it was standard issue so that anyone entering it from the different points within the city now that the fighting within Usnaan was all but over could quickly find out where they should go, and as expected the "strategium" (as it was only a gathering of the leaders who had already begun to discuss what to do next now that the holy Lucernas had gone and no one knew what had happened to them) was in the centre that Tybalt trudged to through the street that was slick and blood and rainwater from the natural thunderstorm that rumbled above, a far cry from the primordial and atavistic howling of the Tempest of Craving but too similar for the Hierarch's liking.

"Hierarch Tybalt. Guardian Lelia. I'm glad that you are still alive," the aged man was immediately greeted the second he stepped through the cordon of soldiers who were currently guarding the makeshift strategium, and Tybalt turned to the bearer of the voice who regarded him with respectful hazel eyes.

Guardian Oleic was a large man, his artificer armour which was burnished gold so that it would shine like the sun of the city of his birth's namesake and covered in Lucaelian scripture covered in crimson blood that was slowly being washed away by the torrential rain that was soaking Tybalt's own outfit, and his relic hammer held in a golden holster on his back which he had inherited from Guardian Malleus before him who had died in the civil war – though if the former Guardian of Civitas Sol had been an unyielding and forever enduring bulwark of granite in the face of the endless assault of evil, Guardian Oleic was the blazing sun that erased those who sought to hide in the shadows from the face of this world.

Tybalt had already known that the man, who was more tanned than usual Lucaelians because of his life in the City of the Sun, had survived the battle and the assault into the Hedonist's Quarter which he had led because of the fact that he had seen Mikalia, the Iridescent Angel and a Daughter of the Light, standing guard over the encampment and conversing with his own Light of Alabaster, the Daughter of Hope having been sent there by Tybalt. The Guardian liked to keep his angel in reserve until he could use it to turn a battle to his advantage, much like most Lucernas did as well, but was not opposed to Summoning it pre-emptively if that was the required thing to do. Mikalia gifted her Summoner with Blue mana much like Tybalt's Bruna did him, although Oleic seemed not to use it very often at all as he believed in the purity of White.

Because of his dislike of the youngest prince and the fact that he had supported his master and teacher Malleus in advocating killing the newly born Lucerna who had become the Summoner of the Angel of the Black Sun, carrying over that instinctual hatred of Caiellis even after meeting the innocent young boy in the war, Tybalt had always been predisposed to resent the other Light-bearer ever since the birth of the youngest member of the royal family (for a long while, he hoped, since he was sure that Marik didn't want any grandchildren soon and the Hierarch always urged Alexander to use protection if he _had _to do _that_), but he had to admit that the man was a masterful general and strategist, if a bit old-fashioned (which coming from him was saying something) in his methods.

Oleic was the same age as Tristram (which meant that Tybalt still regarded him as a young pup) and the two had often almost come to blows during the course of the civil war – though even before that, when they had both been apprentices to the current bearers of the roles they now held, the two youths had developed a non-too friendly rivalry borne from their mutual dislike of one another and desire to impress their teachers as well as uphold their honour when the two had to duel against each other in training sessions. He was the same height as the man as well, which made him slightly taller than the six foot seven king (something not many could boast of (although Oleic would never dream of doing that)), and made Tybalt feel small even though the man was currently sat down.

The physically specialised Light-bearer of the City of the Sun had never shown anything but respect to the venerable Hierarch of the capital city, and even though Tybalt didn't personally like him he would be an idiot if he didn't feel grateful that the Kingdom of Light could call him one of its Light-bearers who would carry the luminescence of the Lucerna family and the angels who had chosen them to be the royal family as a torch to shine light in the darkness of the world. He was also aware that Alexander didn't like the man because of the fact that he argued with Tristram a lot and because the man who was, with Tybalt, similar to a father to the youth had let slip that Oleic had supported the murder of his little brother – an instant way to get the eldest prince to heavily resent anyone -, though Tybalt did not know the king's current opinion of the Guardian.

Oleic usually radiated confidence as well as dutiful veneration for most of the Lucernas (although he never failed to show young Caiellis respect (even if it was begrudging and slightly scared which was a surprise since nothing seemed to frighten the Guardian of the City of the Sun) when the two were in the same place together), and even though he still was doing so at the current moment the amount that he possessed had been severely diminished by the brutal battle inside of the City of Usnaan.

Next to the Guardian of Civitas Sol who was sat in the entrance to the Palace of Desire which had an overhanging cover to block out the rain on one of the stools which he had pulled up for that purpose, was the Guardian of Scientia Mos, Weiss a completely different man to the younger Light-bearer and was studying the map of Usnaan which had been laid out on a barrel in front of the gathered generals intently, pausing in his scrutiny of it to look up and nod to the Hierarch, who did so back. Weiss was a wise and canny warrior who had led the more magically focussed legion of Scientia Mos into predominantly the Augur's Quarter, attacking the other locations that Tybalt and Lelia had not assaulted with his own cohorts.

The man's wispy white moustache was drooping downwards because of the droplets of blood spattered onto it, and his more exotic than usual swords were sheathed in the scabbards each side of his waist, and although he was wearing an introspective expression as he adjusted the positions of different makeshift figures on the map in front of him, his features were twisted into a dour and bleak grimace like the rest of them. He would have been an excellent mentor for Caiellis in the short time that the boy visited and assumed command of the city of Books if what Tybalt had seen of him already was anything to go by, and the Hierarch knew that Weiss preferred to blend magical and physical attacks instead of relying upon one or the other in his clever way of fighting with three colours of magic.

Tybalt had also seen the man's impressive Empyrial Archangel, one of the strongest Second Sisterhood angels but also one that required a very large amount of predominantly White but also Blue and Green mana to cast, aloft above the camp, her golden armour covered in the crimson blood which had rained down from the sky until the youngest Lucerna cleaved the Tempest of Craving asunder as he killed its master and annihilated its essence, leaving the Archdemon unable to return to Sancturia and permanently killing it with his extremely powerful magic – as the Hierarch of the capital of Lucael could hypothesise that because of the amount of corruption that had been placed within Usnaan at the ascent of the Lord of Riots the Archdemon would have been immune to any form of banishment.

The eldest Light-bearer scanned the faces sat around the table for planning their next move, and though he had seen the Angelic Overseer of Guardian Xathan the Slayer of the Wicked was conspicuously absent from this temporary strategium, which indicated that perhaps one of his three children had been injured or even killed in the battle for the City of Pleasure. Tybalt hoped not, because even the eldest was only twenty years of age and the youngest, who was Caiellis's champion even though the littlest Lucerna had seemed not to want one nor used Mysos to protect him within the battles that he had fought within, was the second youngest in the entire army at the tender age of just fifteen and it would be a damn shame if any of the Guardian of the City of Swords's children had been hurt or wounded, although that is what it seemed like.

The atmosphere inside of this provisional council chamber was tense and brooding, free of the congratulating and merriment that would usually come after a victory which had effectively ended a (admittedly very short but extremely brutal) war between two nations, although it had been the same after most of the engagements in the civil war that Tybalt saw the aftermath of. There would be time to celebrate later when the scars of this battle faded.

With those that were still in the covered section of the exterior of the Palace of Desire which was almost definitely the main entrance to the now nearly ruined building, who were only the Light-bearers and the generals of the legions as there was not enough space to have all of the lower ranking army officials in there as well (as the decision not to enter the Palace of Desire behind them and plan there was unanimous and unspoken – as even though it would have been cleared out of enemies by Xathan himself none of them wanted to be in a place where the residual taint of demons was present – even if the danger of corruption had gone now), Tybalt noticed that quite a few were missing – some that he could point out were generals Bronn Preolm, Rateis Sall, Carlis Montlea who had been the king's champion before Tristram had inherited the role when he had been given the title of Guardian for his exploits throughout the civil war in keeping the young princes alive and helping in some of the battles themselves (as well as slaying several powerful Summoners of demons, such as the one who had pretended to be the former Hierarch of Civitas Sol), and, the one that he noticed the most despite the fact that if any were missing it did not bode well at all, Tristram himself.

He knew that the Guardian of Capitalia Lux had been seconded to the eldest Montlea and had helped lead forces from the capital city deeper into the Glutton's Quarter which had been first breached by the entire army of Lucael, and that if none of them were here then it was possible that the Master of Gluttony (one had presumably been elected to replace the one that Alexander and Caiellis slew on their escape from the city of Usnaan they had besieged only a week later) or whoever had been leading the defence in that section of the megalopolis was still active, though that was unlikely as Tybalt could sense no more demons in the City of Pleasure.

He hoped that Tristram, who was thirty which was young in Tybalt's mind, had not died or been wounded too heavily, because even though at first the former Hierarch of Capitalia Lux had resented and disliked the choice of Guardian Axeclion's apprentice who was apparently incapable of showing respect to his elders and rulers even when he had only been twelve or thirteen before the birth of the eldest prince, and even though the two had almost come to blows within that first year or so of the civil war in their disagreements over the best ways of caring for the Lucerna children (it didn't help that both Alexander and Caiellis had clear favourites out of the two so whenever Tristram did something with the latter it usually didn't work and the same applied for Tybalt interacting with the former), the older and younger males had formed a firm friendship out of tending to and looking after the young princes.

The Guardian, who was young enough to be Tybalt's son if the Hierarch had ever had children, was certainly a unique and powerful warrior and the older man knew for certain that without Tristram there was no way that they would have all survived the civil war like they had done, and that even though he wouldn't admit it and would continue to keep up his act of being disdainful towards the younger Lucaelian Tybalt did enjoy spending time with him and being friends, as well as the fact that Tristram had been able to teach the princes in things that Tybalt hadn't possessed a clue about.

Furthermore, the fact that Carlis and Tristram were missing could suggest that the young Montlea twins Elizabex and Leodred who were firm and close friends with Prince Alexander (to the point where the Hierarch had often had to ban the middle Lucerna from seeing them when he had written work or chores that he needed to do) had been hurt as well, an if there was one thing that Tybalt hated more than anything else it was the young and innocent people of the Kingdom of Light with their entire lives ahead of them being harmed by their foes.

"I assume that you have as little idea as us as to where the blessed Lucernas have gone?" Oleic asked darkly, though there was no sarcasm in his tone, and the Hierarch detected a large amount of worry that the Guardian of Civitas Sol was trying to hide in the man's voice.

It was truly a terrifying prospect that the Lucerna family had disappeared in its entirety, and even though Tybalt could attribute this to his natural Lucaelian loyalty and unwillingness to ever give up in the face of evil and darkness he was certain that they were not dead – well, at least not all of them. He had only just been able to sense Marik and Alexander after the Tempest of Craving and the Archdemon associated with it had been ended, with Caiellis not registering on his sixth sense at all, but then a few minutes later the two other Lucernas' potent mana pools could no longer be detected. Tybalt was positive that they were not dead, but that was probably because he could not fathom the alternative – a world in which the Arch-Heretic Johnias was the only member of the royal family remaining alive and was the only one that could take the crown, which would mean that the kingdom was doomed irrespective of if they chose to resist or the eldest living Lucerna ascended to the throne.

Added to that was the fact that not only were the Lucernas the greatest bulwarks and defences against the demons and the other foul denizens of the abyss of the eternal darkness around the Kingdom of Light, they were all people that Tybalt knew intimately and had known almost ever since each one of them was born (as he had become Marik and his twin brother's teacher when the two had been around eight years of age, which meant that he had known the king for thirty two years), and it was a horrifying thought that they had all been killed in one way or another.

Tybalt shook his head sadly in response, wishing that he could do something to ascertain what had happened to them, and when he opened his mouth in a question the Guardian of Scientia Mos pre-empted it and stated, "Yes, we have sent soldiers to the location of the Archdemon which was slain by Prince Caiellis. There is nothing there apart from the remains of a mansion, evidence of corruption which was more greatly focussed upon there than anywhere else in this damned City of Pleasure which has now gone, and many shards of glass. There was no sign of our Lucerna rulers. The main body of the army has not been officially told yet because we do not want to incite panic, but they obviously know that something is going on because neither King Marik nor either of his sons have shown themselves and addressed the legions."

_Or what remains of them. _The only Hierarch in Welkas digested the information silently, the same as Guardian Lelia behind him who ideally needed medical aid but would refuse it, probably insisting that because others were hurt far more than her she didn't need it. Just as Tybalt was about to rest his weary bones upon one of the chairs and add his thoughts to the strategizing about what they should do next, which in his opinion should be consolidating their current control of Usnaan, finding out what happened to the Lucerna monarchy and establishing contact with the rest of the New Empire of Passion to find out if they still wanted war now that the Orders of Passion had been decapitated and their main strategy for victory had been thwarted, he sensed another presence entering the covered area through the cordon of a few Lucerna praetorians, weak but familiar, and stayed stood up as they entered.

Tristram looked awful. That was the first thing that Tybalt noticed about the younger but much larger man as he walked – though his movement was more reminiscent of a stagger than anything else – his face pale and drawn and covered in bruises and crusted blood. He walked with a painful limp, stubbornly refusing any aid that was offered to him, but what the Hierarch noticed most blatantly about his physically attuned counterpart was the fact that his right arm had been cut off at the elbow and was covered in a bandage that was now soaked through with his blood.

Before Tristram could even say or do anything, Tybalt immediately snapped, "Angels above, Tristram! What are you doing here?! Have you even seen yourself?! Get to a member of the Ordo Medella right now and have yours wounds seen to properly, you stupid boy!"

Tristram's blue eyes opened wide for a second in brief shock, his mind automatically equating the loud noise to something that he needed to protect himself from, before he ascertained that it was just Hierarch Tybalt telling him off and admonishing him (not a rare occurrence, but he must have truly looked awful to get the normally reserved Tybalt to shout because he was that concerned for him – which had happened in the past before when he had refused to give into wounds that were never as bad as this in his duty to protect his young charges).

He smiled, and though it was genuine humour that he felt it didn't reach anywhere near his eyes and his lips twisted into something that looked more like a grimace of pain than a smirking grin, and tried a tactic that he was sure that he had accidentally instilled within Alex to try and use humour to distract him and others from the pain of his injuries, "Calm down, Tybalt. I'm fine. Elizabex healed my wounds well enough, and I'm not as old as you so I can take the punishment."

"Fine?! You call that fine?!" Tybalt ripped into him for a moment, concern for the man who was similar to a nephew to him just like the Lucernas were making his voice angry and harsh, before taking a deep breath and restoring the more calm state that he had been in before the Guardian had entered the room. He knew that all Lucaelians were stubborn about their wounds, and that Tristram possessed that quality more than most, but to call himself fine when he was missing part of his arm? It was extremely foolish, but when Tybalt saw the pain in the younger man's eyes, as well as the grim determination to see this day through to the end, he backed down, muttering, "Fine. See if I care when you end up with an infection in any of your wounds and have to live the rest of your life in a hospital, you foolish brat."

_Are those tears in the corners of his eyes? _Tristram wondered for a moment, before turning his tired and pained gaze to the other members of the room which he had forced himself to come to after Leodred and Elizabex met up with one of their older cousins on their mother's side who had promised to take care of them, Tristram only barely able to coax them away from their father's corpse who would soon be collected to be cremated like the rest of them (as only Lucernas were buried in warded crypts and mausoleums underneath their citadel of residence because of the fact that burying corpses was a massive risk should any necromancers be able to get into the cities – as the rule had been established by Queen Matrice after the reign of the self-styled Emperor of Light), but was feeling slightly better in the knowledge that there was someone who knew them relatively well who could take care of them.

His eyes slid over the Guardian of Civitas Sol and his relatively unfriendly rival, but he was too exhausted to even attempt a jab at him and too sombre to want to in the current situation because it would be extremely disrespectful to the dead. With everyone in the area's eyes on him the Light-bearer of Capitalia Lux took one of the few empty barrels serving as seats next to Oleic, something that he wouldn't have considered doing in a less dire situation. The man stared at him inscrutably for a moment, his hazel spheres lingering on the mess of Tristram's right arm, before sighing and leaning back on his seat.

He slung a muscular arm over Tristram's broad shoulders, which had the slightly (by a measure of two weeks) younger man raising his eyebrows at the suddenly intimate and comradely gesture from a person he had always disliked, and was taken aback by it enough that he wasn't quite sure how to act. Perhaps the man had never really disliked Tristram and had always seen them as friends, or perhaps it was his way of showing that despite the fact that they were competitors and often antagonised one another they were still Lucaelians and bonded by the unity of serving the Lucerna family and protecting the Kingdom of Light from its enemies who hid in the darkness.

"By the angels, Tristram, Hierarch Tybalt was right. You do look awful. And it seems that we will never be able to spar like we used to," Oleic tried, but the joke was too soon and Tristram only just managed to push down the scathing retort that bubbled up from inside of him because of the fact that he was only missing part of an arm and it didn't mean that he was a cripple or unable to fight any longer. He repressed his irritation and annoyance, aware that the other Guardian was simply trying to make him feel better because of his wounds and the horrible battle that they had gone through, but pulled the man's arm off of his shoulders at any rate as he forced a smile onto his face, "I could still defeat you easily with no arms, so the fact that I have one left makes it impossible for you to ever win."

"Is Carlis Montlea …?" one of the generals of Cassida Principia, Aeris Escia, asked without completing the sentence, the middle aged woman squinting her only eye at the Guardian of Capitalia Lux. Tristram nodded his head sadly, bowing it in shame because of the fact that he believed it was his fault for the man's death – if he hadn't have underestimated the Master of Gluttony at the start, if he hadn't have been wounded so heavily by her and succumbed to those wounds, then the general might still be living now – Elizabex and Leodred might still have a father, and it was hard knowing that. The woman nodded in return, murmuring a sombre prayer under her breath for the man's soul so that it could enter the heavenly realms of the angels and find peace there.

Tristram swallowed, knowing that from the bleak expressions of the others the fate of the Lucernas had not been discovered yet – as if they were here then the highest ranking Lucaelians within the City of Pleasure would not be so disheartened and melancholy, but if the royal family was confirmed dead then there would be something akin to mass hysteria within them all because of how precious their rulers were to them and how unsafe the Kingdom of Light would be with no more Lucernas to lead them in their eternal fight with the darkness of the world.

He was worried for all three of the royals, and hoped that they were somehow safe, somewhere – even though there was no evidence that pointed to that fact and they were nowhere within the city of Usnaan. But without the Lucerna king here to lead the way and direct them the army of Lucael was leaderless, having lost all direction and purpose and unsure on what to do next besides ensure that the Welkalite capital was captured and that all of the members of the Orders of Passion were dealt with.

Bereft of a supreme authority, the legions of the Kingdom of Light would have to elect a new commander to temporarily replace King Marik so that they could have a force that would direct them to victory and inspire the troops after this battle had been won to make sure that they knew that this was the right thing to do and that more would have died if the Welkalites had just been left alone, though Tristram knew that he himself couldn't provide that right now, not in his current condition where all he wanted to do was curl up and sleep so that his dreams would be of him when he had an arm once again.

"I wish we knew what had happened to our lords the Lucernas," Oleic muttered loudly under his breath, leaning over the table again now that he had stopped trying to be comradely with Tristram who was obviously not in the mood for it. It was clear that he was trying to concentrate on the map of the city and where to station their soldiers, how to tell the undoubtedly terrified civilians of what had happened and that the Lucaelians would be their temporary rulers until a proper order could be established with the Welkalites who were not loyal to demons as the ruling body, but it was also clear that he was struggling like they all were with the thoughts of their king and beloved princes on their minds.

He slammed his fist on the table, sending the pieces on the map (which were simply metal and rock shards engraved with different symbols to denote different divisions of legionaries) juddering across it and almost snapping the fragile wood in half with his prodigious strength, provoking a disapproving tut from the Guardian of Scientia Mos who sat across from him and instantly began to place the pieces back where they were supposed to be. "Damn it! I can't concentrate knowing that they are out there somewhere, our glorious king and the precious princes are somewhere and we can do nothing to help them!"

"Reign in your temper, Guardian Oleic," Tybalt chastised darkly, suddenly irritated by the man's release of his anger considering what he had seen from Oleic in the past was that he usually had quite a good hold on his emotions – it must have been the strain of the battle and discovering that the Lucerna family had disappeared showing itself in him as well, just like it manifested in all of them in multifarious different ways, but it did not make it any less annoying or detrimental to their efforts in planning. The man shot a glare at him, his auburn eyes blazing like miniature suns in his sockets and aptly highlighting his agitation, "How can you sit there and say that, perfectly calmly, when you know that our rulers – the _entire _Lucerna family apart from the Arch-Heretic – are missing?! How can you not be as angry as I am knowing that our king and beloved princes are gone from the City of Pleasure?!"  
"Don't pretend that you want anything but death for Caiellis simply because of his Summoning," Tristram snarled at the man sat at his side, leaping to Tybalt's defence as well, and Oleic rocked back as if the other Guardian had grown another arm and used it to shove him backwards. He spluttered for a second, trying to think of a response, and then fell silent for a moment before mumbling an uncharacteristically nervous reply of: "You have to understand my concerns about Lord Caiellis, though, even if you spent nine years caring for him. But of course I don't want anything bad to happen to him because he is a blessed Lucerna, yet at the same time I don't want another repeat of the reign of Xarius. And while you may think that not just banishing but killing an Archdemon, which is undoubtedly an incredibly heroic feat and has never been done before, absolves him of the fact that he is the host to the only traitorous angel of the First Sisterhood – or indeed any of the Angelic Sisterhoods – in my opinion it doesn't. The self-styled Emperor of Light also ended the existences, as I hesitate to call the foul essences of demons _lives_, before usurping the throne, revealing his new power and turning the Kingdom of Light into a war torn hell, and simply killing the denizens of the darkness does not prove Caiellis's innocence-"

"And why does he even have to prove his innocence?! He has already proved that he is a suitable Lucerna prince, and he has already proven his innocence to anyone who would take the time to look past the Black Sun on his cheek and the fact that he has the same angel as his Summoning that the unrightful King Xarius did over a hundred years ago! I _know _Caiellis as a person, I watched him grow up from a small child who at the age of four watched his mother being ripped apart by demons in front of his eyes to the courageous and kind thirteen year old he is now! And while he and his older brother have different talents, there is _nothing _about Caiellis that makes him in any way inferior to Alex!" Tristram shouted back, his own choler rising at the words of the other Guardian who had always disliked the youngest prince who the thirty year old felt very protective of (and it was a good job that Alexander wasn't here to witness this as otherwise he wasn't sure he would be able to hold the seventeen year old back from caving Oleic's face in).

The Light-bearer of Civitas Sol gulped slightly anxiously, though his eyes were still alight with the fire of his anger, opening his mouth to speak as Tristram did so as well before Guardian Weiss cut in sternly, "Stop this right now. Both of you are acting like children. Take your arguments outside if you want to fight about this, but now is neither the time nor the place for this. Be quiet if you are not going to say anything constructive to the strategizing."

The man's voice was perfectly even, but it was infused with a large amount of authority despite the fact that he was talking to his equals. Suitably chastised, both Tristram and Oleic bowed their heads shamefully like two teenage boys caught fighting one another in the middle of a lesson. Tristram couldn't understand what had made Oleic so against the youngest prince, but the opinion held by the Guardian of the City of the Sun was a view that was unfortunately shared by many in the Kingdom of Light, although less now then there had been the day that Cai had been born thirteen years ago when Tristram himself had only been the age of the boy's older brother.

He knew that he had been acting rashly and like a hormonal child by shouting at the other man, especially after half baiting him into saying something like that in the first place, but the champion of the eldest Lucerna had become annoyed by Oleic pretending that he cared about all of the Lucernas and that the princes were "beloved" by him. Maybe Alexander, but not poor Caiellis despite all that he had achieved, and that incensed the youngest Light-bearer of Capitalia Lux to no end.

Another general then arrived, battered and covered in blood but otherwise perfectly fine, clasping gauntlets with the silent Guardian of Gol who rose to meet him and sat on the empty barrel next to her, reporting what he knew of the war and what had happened. No sooner had the man settled down then another person burst through the guards who had been defending the remaining secondary leaders of the crusading Lucaelian force who had defeated the Welkalite oppressors of their people and overcame their, the young woman who couldn't have been out of her teens yet panting heavily like she had ran across the entire city to get here – which, upon further reflection, seemed likely considering how she was in an Ordo Medella apprentice outfit but was not completely soaked in blood from the Rain of Gore (as the only crimson on her was probably from patients that she had helped tend to).

"My lords," she panted, forcing the words out in gasps of air as she tried to speak to them – obviously whatever she had to say was very important for them to hear and she had quite clearly sprinted a large distance through a location that was still considered dangerous to get to them. "The … the ..."

"Breathe, girl," Tybalt commanded, and the young woman who was almost definitely still a teenager listened to the authority in the Hierarch's voice, bending over and taking several deep breaths to get air back into her lungs so that she could speak clearly and tell them what needed to be said. The man added, once she had panted in a few exhalations of oxygen, "Now you can speaking without having to pant for breath. What is it you wanted to tell us, young one?"

"My lords," she repeated, sketching a quick bow to the some of the highest ranking individuals in the Kingdom of Light apart from the Lucerna family, her eyes lit up with awe at seeing this many of them as well as surprise at how battered and human they looked, though she was aware that the Lucernas were not here and would have been much more impressed and lost for words had they been. "Choirmaster Esmelde of the Ordo Medella sent me. She has departed with the Lucerna family, blessed be their name, and the Angel of the Black Sun through the darkness and to the City of the Sun. Lord Prince Caiellis is hurt very badly, and he required medical attention that only the hospital of Civitas Sol could provide. She told me to come get here as fast as I could and tell you before you do anything to look for the Lucerna family. I … I'm not sure how they left … or how they got to the encampment outside of Usnaan … but I … I hope that Prince Caiellis is going to make a full recovery ..."

She finished by stuttering nervously, breaking off her words with all of the gazes possessed by the members of the impromptu war council in the aftermath of the bloody battle for Usnaan pierced into her. Tybalt was the first to reply, stroking his chin thoughtfully in a way that barely masked his concern for the youngest Lucerna – as "hurt very badly" would definitely not cover the extent of the damage done to him if facilities in the Ordo Medella detachment to the Lucaelian legions which were designed to deal with the wounds of brutal war was insufficient to heal him, "Thank you for bringing this to our attention ..."

"Nelda. Nelda Prislé," the girl replied, stumbling over the enunciation of the syllables that made up her name because of how nervous she was now that the main news had been dispensed and the adrenalized urgency had left her. Tybalt nodded – she and Choirmaster Esmelde shared the same surname, which suggested they were family members, though he knew from talking to the gentle and kind but efficient doctor who was a masterful caster of the most potent healing rituals that she had no children of her own because her partner had died in the civil war. "Thank you, Nelda. Let us all hope that the Lucerna family recovers and overcomes the pain that has been dealt to its youngest member. You may leave now."

The girl nodded, bowing respectfully to the Light-bearers and generals, and left almost as swiftly as she had entered, leaving the temporary strategium in silence as each member of the council of secondary leaders ruminated upon the news that Prince Caiellis had been heavily wounded enough to have to be taken by his angel to the relatively close City of the Sun with the rest of his family at his side.

"So. At least we know that they are safe, assuming our lords reached Civitas Sol," Guardian Weiss broke the introspective and melancholy quiet, voicing all of their thoughts. He had evidently decided that silence was achieving nothing, and now that it had been revealed that the Lucerna family was relatively safe and that there was nothing they could do for them they should stop thinking and worrying about them and start discussing the situation at hand. "What now, then?"

_What now, indeed? What should we do now? I'm sure that Tristram shares my sentiment in wanting to travel as soon as we can to Civitas Sol to ensure that the Lucernas are still alive and to provide emotional support for all three of them as well as make certain that Marik does not tear apart little Caiellis because of his admittedly uncharacteristically reckless decision to bypass the defences of the Welkalites and enter the centre of Usnaan whilst he is still recovering. _

_I want to make sure that Marik (and Alexander, to a certain extent because I know that he will always be there for his little brother and this will be no exception to that rule) is in the perfect state of mind to comfort his youngest instead of reprimand and censure him like he did after the battle of Fort Egetau – which, although I have not yet been privy to the information of what happened between Marik and his second son, I know was something quite dramatic – and I need to make young Tristram tell me that. Besides, even if Caiellis is hurt he is not the only one that will need help, and I know already that Marik and Alexander will both be blaming themselves for it – just like I am, I suppose. It is natural to want to look after little Cai because of how innocent (a quality that he has managed to keep hold of even after all that he had been through – and one distinctly separate to naivety of which he only possesses in subjects of which he has no experience in) and young he is. _

_I need to see Caiellis for myself, and even though I refuse to assume the worst it is a certain possibility and if so I want to see him one last time if the most horrible outcome is the one that occurs – and I am sure that Tristram agree with me on that. In addition, we can bring knowledge of the situation here, and the other Light-bearers will be sufficient to prosecute the remainder of this war or initialise the withdrawal from the New Empire of Passion if the Yentarians or the non-demonic Welkalites intervene._

The old man glanced over at the Guardian of Capitalia Lux and his opposite in roles, his venerable azure eyes which only gleamed like they used to when he was casting magic highlighting his thought processes for all to see if they were well versed in such things, meeting the gaze of Tristram's light cyan orbs which said the same to him back without needing to talk to one another. The man was determined to get to Civitas Sol even if it killed him to make sure that the youngest Lucerna, their youngest student that they were both fond of just as much as his brother even though they had been carers to him for a greater proportion of Caiellis's' life during the civil war, and Tybalt thought the same.

He would rest at nothing to make sure that all three of the Lucerna family were safe, both emotionally and physically, and the Hierarch silently resolved that he was no longer going to simply play a more passive role and only involve himself in the education of the brothers now that they had returned to their biological father Marik, and relative safety. He would get involved actively, reprimand Marik if he went too far or was too harsh in his parenting of either of his sons, and be there for any of the younger males to talk to as a kind of advisor or teacher for them if they didn't want to share their worries with their other family members.

The shocking truth of what had happened to Caiellis Noctis Lucerna had jolted Tybalt's mind and made him realise that, in the last couple of weeks or so, he had not done much for either of the Lucerna princes, as people not as potential heirs to the holy throne, and that he had not spoken to Caiellis personally in a one to one conversation since the boy started relentlessly attempting his Summoning trial (as Tybalt did not count the few brief exchanges of the boy which had been an endeavour in themselves at trying to get him to talk as proper conversations as it had been plainly evident that Cai had simply wanted him to leave).

He had talked to Alexander about his wounds and the day previous when he had ensured that they were healing as to not make the seventeen year old embarrassed that some random Ordo Medella operative was doing it instead, where they had conversed about the arguments which had been tearing apart the Lucerna family between stubborn father and defiant youngest son which reminded the Hierarch heavily of Marik's own past and his relationship with his late father – if only the king had seen that himself when interacting with his second and more emotionally vulnerable because of his age son then maybe he would go about talking to the boy differently.

He was certain that, if Caiellis wasn't conscious, then at least Marik was regretting the arguments and disputes now that his son was wounded, because even though there was a possibility that the younger man would act stern because of it and admonish Caiellis heavily for his manoeuvre across the City of Pleasure which had him fighting an Archdemon alone until his father could get go it would be because he was so worried about his youngest son.

That was the largest difference between the arguments with Marik and Garius II and the former and his youngest son apart from the civil war which had torn a gulf of unfamiliarity between the man and his child, because Tybalt was certain that his former student was more angry due to the fact that he loved his youngest son but wasn't sure how to express that and worried for him, he became furious because the boy didn't obey his orders and took it upon himself to interpret their meaning instead of following them as the man was his father and not a supreme king to him and Marik was terrified of losing any of the last two remaining members of his family.

He shouted because he didn't know how to interact and connect with his withdrawn and shy teenage son who had only just become thirteen and was going through puberty, he rebuked and scolded him because he was scared for Caiellis despite whatever he might tell himself and wanted the boy to be safe, and he refused others' advice on how to interact with or parent his youngest son because he still believed that he could do it after nine years of not seeing him – that he shouldn't have to parent in any way other than what he saw fit because he was a Lucerna king and Caiellis was his youngest son, not anyone else's.

That may have worked somewhat with Alexander, because the seventeen year old had many more memories of his father that were not obscured by the veil of being a young child who barely knew what was going on around them (irrespective of how perceptive and intelligent Caiellis had been for his age because he was still only four or younger at the time before the murder of his mother poor Emili Noctis), but it was not going to work with Cai as he was an entirely different matter, especially now that he had lived so long without his father and had grown up with Tybalt, Tristram and Alexander in a way as people who he could look up to and come to with the same things that one would ask of a parent – as had the eldest prince, but Alexander still remembered a time when Marik had been their father as he had been eight when that had temporarily ended.

However, when Marik and Garius had argued, even though the latter did care slightly about the former because he was his son and it was impossible for a father not to care at all about their children, it had been more of Marik's teenage rebellion to his cold and austere father who had never paid his sons attention as boys, only Lucerna heirs, and had not cared about them at all as people as the death of his wife had left a rent in his heart which had taken his ability to show love with it and it had never been repaired. Garius had had no qualms about beating his children personally to get them into line and following commands, and was only concerned about them because they would one day rule the kingdom after him.

Perhaps if he had shown actual love then Johnias never would have betrayed, because maybe the younger version of Marik's slightly older twin (in terms of leaving their mother's womb, not in date of conception) would have been valued as a person by his father who he had craved attention and praise from instead of as just a boy who might inherit the throne and with that trait having been focussed exclusively on.

Maybe Johnias would have been able to realise that becoming the king of Lucael was not all that mattered in life, that he could still be happy without sitting on the throne and ruling over the entire country, if he had been given encouragement for him to develop talents that weren't necessarily ones that aided him in ruling the nation by the only person's opinion he had ever really cared about – because while Marik and Tybalt had both complemented him on things, the mentor of the two boys had focussed slightly more on the younger twin due to the fact that no one else had seemed willing to do so (as Johnias had been the kingdom and his father's favourite and Marik had been the "screw up" as the boy had put it himself when Tybalt finally got him talking to him after finding the young lad crying in his room alone when he had been going to complement him on the quality of his written work) and Marik had concentrated more on trying to get his father's approval like Johnias had already.

Johnias had always been told by Garius, who cared not about offending either of his sons' sensibilities or emotions, that he would be the most suited to inheriting the throne, that he would be a better king than Marik based on what he was achieving now and that he was already a better prince – simultaneously making the middle Lucerna at the time develop a form of a narcissistic superiority complex with he kept to himself until his betrayal and an addiction to praise and adulation from the subjects of the Kingdom of Light as well as making Marik even more resentful of his father and reducing the confidence of the current youngest Lucerna also.

If they had been treated equally instead of the older twin receiving more praise because he had developed faster than his brother (who had been a late bloomer and was a much better king than Johnias ever could have been) and was more confident and outspoken instead of shy and awkward in the presence of other people, then perhaps Johnias wouldn't have turned into the murderous and pitiless monster that he had done, maybe he wouldn't have ripped the kingdom apart in his need to obtain the throne in any way possible.

Tybalt bade the thoughts from his mind, smothering the ideas down and unwilling to concentrate upon anyone other than those he cared about now, as he had stopped thinking about Johnias's reasoning for his betrayal past jealously and lust for power and stopped pondering what could have been changed in the past that would keep him loyal even if he hadn't become the king in his late father's Death Vision – because that would make him empathise with the Arch-Heretic more, which was something that Tybalt refused to do – the blame for the civil war lay solely on Johnias's shoulders, not on anyone else's. There were no excuses for doing what he had done, and Tybalt needed to stop wondering if anything could have been different because the man was evil and needed to be killed before he could do anything else in the name of his own desire for dominion and power.

The loyal Lucernas and their Lucaelian subjects were the Hierarch's main concerns now, not the Johnias of the past and how he might have been changed, and once more Tybalt concentrated on thinking about what had happened to young Caiellis and what had occurred before that. He had seen much of the king and his own father in the current fights between parent and youngest son, and only hoped that Marik would be too frightened for Caiellis to let anything other than love motivate and show in his actions – because if he let his fear for the boy take over and punished him it might break Caiellis if he was as wounded as Tybalt feared that he was if he needed to be dangerously transported through the darkness, as the Ordo Medella apprentice had put it, to Civitas Sol.

What the boy would need now would be love, not his father's censure, and Tybalt prayed that Marik hadn't lost too much of his father's instinct not to see that.

.*.*.*.

_Day Fourteen_

.*.*.*.

Alexander launched himself into the world of the awake once again, jolting out of the restless sleep he had been in and forcing himself to regain consciousness once again, terrified blue eyes making their way over to the still figure in the bed in front of him. He could have breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Caiellis was still there, still attached to all of the machines that would be pumping mana and medicine into him so that his baby brother's body could use that to repair itself, but the fact was he barely felt any relief at all because if anything his younger brother somehow looked even worse then had had been a few hours earlier.

His hand was still wrapped around his smaller brother's hand and his thin wrist, and Alex was glad that even in his listless sleep he hadn't let go as the fact that the contact was made meant that he could still feel Cai's weak and sluggish pulse thudding in his wrist – which confirmed that he was still alive, still fighting for the place in this world that he deserved and the happiness that would await him when he woke up.

Alexander had always been able to sleep anywhere he wanted – a technique that he had perfected at a very young age when he fell into sleep after spending too long playing and insisting that he wasn't ready for bed but one that had been especially refined in the civil war by being able to fall asleep in many of the uncomfortable locations that the four of them had been forced to stay within. It was a rare talent, that was for sure, because neither Tybalt, Tristram nor Caiellis had possessed such a thing – Alexander had slept on the floor of rooms without any beds, to a curled up position in one of the monorail trains, to a half inclined lull on a chair, he had done it all.

Angels above, one time he had managed to close his eyes and sleep upon a tree branch when the Lucerna princes had been told to climb up there and wait for Tybalt and Tristram to find them once they had exterminated the enemies that were hunting after the youngest members of the royal family, one of the few places the boy had seen in the eternal night outside of the photo refectories where there were growing trees, albeit still withered and without any leaves, making them look skeletal and bare compared to the flourishing oaks underneath the metropolises.

The seventeen year old had always possessed the ability to close his eyes and force himself into a sleep that would rejuvenate his energy and relax him but still be on high alert even through that and be able to wake up instantly whenever he sensed danger approaching, unlike his younger brother who had usually always drifted between a fitful sleep in the realm of his vivid dreams and a bleary consciousness in which he barely knew what was going on, and as such was almost always more tired in the mornings.

The only time he had ever struggled with that were the horrible nights after his mother's death and their evacuation where he had often woken up with a scream almost slipping out of his lips which he had always forced himself to repress in fear of waking up his baby brother in the few hours of sleep that Cai could catch when he wasn't howling their mother's title himself and thrashing in the throes of his own nightmare, and the mildly drug induced unconscious proceeding his wounding at the hands of Aksua, though (even though he would never admit it to his younger brother unless Caiellis really needed reassurance that he was a good – an awesome - little brother) when Cai had wrapped his little and stick thin arms around him and promised to protect him it had made sleep easier knowing that someone had his back when fighting against the flashbacks of the last vampire.

Even though Alexander hadn't wanted to fall asleep and give into his exhaustion, because he hadn't been able to bring himself to fall into a slumber, too afraid of what might happen, crashing in the chair next to the youngest Lucerna's should have been a piece of cake.

Instead it seemed that the roles of the two princes had been reversed on this night. Caiellis had slumbered without making any sort of move, though that was because of the restorative coma his body had placed itself in to prevent further damage to the boy and the medication that was being pumped through him, although very rarely his eyes had fluttered beneath their closed lids and Alex couldn't guess at the amount of pain that he was in (but at least there had been no more seizures, despite the fact that Alexander didn't know which was worse out of the thrashing or this deathly motionlessness), whereas his big brother had jolted into half awareness several times because of the nightmares.

He had seen his little brother still and dead in his father's arms before Orzhova and the boy's father and sibling had been able to bring him back, had seen the boy seizing in front of him as blood bubbled up from his lips, had imagined in his nightmares Caiellis giving out in spite of Alex breathing for him and Marik trying to restart his heart so that it could beat once more, had seen him clawing desperately at the oxygen mask around his face because he thought that it was killing him and thrashing weakly against his big brother's firm grip on his wrists. Nightmare imagination had blended with truth in those horrible dreams, and each time Alexander had woken up in a desperate panic, needing to assure himself that Cai was still alive before he gave into the sheer anguish inside of him that threatened to overwhelm him at any point.

Each time he had promised himself that he would not fall asleep again, that he would remain vigilant over his baby brother to make sure that nothing happened to him, that nothing could hurt or touch him and that his condition didn't degrade further, but each time he had failed himself and Caiellis and couldn't stop his body from throwing itself into the chasm of restless slumber once more. He didn't remember falling asleep at all, but after waking up the first time he had identified that someone had thrown a blanket around him, which had angered him a large amount because he should have woken up with the movements as it could have been anyone coming to hurt his younger brother.

In addition, they should have woken up instead of taking pity on him and letting him sleep, because he could do nothing in his duty as his little sibling's protector if he was unconscious himself. Finally it seemed and injustice that he, the seventeen year old who had failed to keep Caiellis safe and failed to stop him from thinking that he was worthless and that his life meant so little that he could throw it away in battle, failed to stop his younger brother from not seeing anything in the world that would make him want to keep on living and not kill himself after the Archdemon's death.

He knew that there was something to that which he didn't know, something that he would only find out once Caiellis woke up and if the little man wanted to confer in him (_though I don't see why he would want to talk to his failure of a brother_) with it, but even so it was horrible to think that little Cai had been that despondent and sorrowful that he thought that life wasn't something that he wanted any more, and it simply spoke of how little Alex had done to make his sibling want to stay in the world with him and keep on fighting.

"Good morning, little guy. I'm still here, Caiellis. You're safe with me. You're going to get better soon. Just keep fighting; I know you can do it," Alex whispered softly to the sleeping younger boy, clasping his brother's small hand in both of his larger ones as firmly as he could without hurting the thirteen year old. His throat felt raw, and he could feel bruises rising up where the Master of Violence had choked him, but they were nothing compared to those that he could see on Cai's thin neck where the bandage around the wound which had briefly ended his life wasn't over – and he knew that there would be much worse ones concealed by the white fabric which looked like it had been recently replaced, as the last one that Alex had seen had been stained crimson by his brother's blood, the blood of Marik Ensis Lucerna and Emili Noctis Lucerna that Alexander shared running through his own veins.

He felt thirsty, and a part of him longed to feel the coolness of refreshing water flowing down his throat, but that would mean leaving his younger brother and he deserved to have to endure this little torment because Caiellis wouldn't have any reprieve from his own pain. The boy's hand was still freezing cold to the touch, even though Cai had always had cool hands when he hadn't been doing protracted physical exercise, and Alex rubbed the bits that weren't covered by medical gauze lightly, hoping to instil some of his own heat into his brother's chilled fingers as gently as he could, though it seemed to do nothing.

Alexander felt like crying as he looked down at his younger brother, the clear mask strapped around his face failing to hide the deep sadness in Cai's expression even whilst comatose. That part was the most heart breaking bit about seeing the thirteen year old like this, even worse than the horrible wounding that he had sustained that had been dealt with as much as the Ordo Medella operatives who had worked tirelessly to tend to him, because even deeply unconscious the kid seemed to be suffering. His lips were tilted slightly downwards in sorrow despite the fact that he was asleep and could be for a while, eyebrows drawn into an almost frown; everything about Caiellis screamed grief and despair.

He smirked sadly when he noticed that the boy's hair had somehow managed to get over his eyes again, the fringe which had been cleaned of blood and cold sweat by some kind person wanting to help but not knowing how (although it had probably been done when the concussive wound on the back of his head had been seen to in order to mitigate the possibility of infection) over one of his eyes in the way that it often was, especially when Cai bowed his head on his shoulders and let it freely obscure his expressive emerald orbs.

"You really need a hair cut, baby bro," Alex murmured, talking to Cai like he was still awake because he was convinced that even if his brother couldn't hear him he would still be helped by it, and it was the only thing that he could do for him until he woke up. He gently brushed the hair out of his eyes, wincing at some of the plastered cuts on his forehead and the bruises on his face and gaunt, pale cheeks, and continued, "But I won't ever bug you about that again if you just wake up, Cai. Well, perhaps a little, but that's what big brothers do, right?"

He spared a moment to glance up from his smaller sibling to the chair across from the bed, not particularly surprised to see that his father wasn't there because if he had been then Marik would have greeted him or comforted him like he had done the last few times that Alexander had woken up in the middle of the night – not that he knew what time it was now, nor did he care apart from the fact that it meant he knew how long his brother had been unconscious for. Time had began to lose all meaning to him, minutes drifting into hours as he waited for his brother to wake up, and he knew that it was only going to get worse in the days to come if Cai didn't wake up then.

"He hasn't woken up yet," Marik's voice made its way into Alexander's ears, closer than he would have expected, and he shot upright in his seat, turning quickly to the source of the noise. His dad was stood a couple of metres away from him, startled at the fact that his usually almost perfect and combat attuned senses hadn't realised that their dad had come to close to the bed, let alone know that he had been stood there for a while. _I guess I am tired. _He wiped his eyes of the tears that had formed there, staring back at his father who glanced tiredly down at his son, both of them knowing that how awful the other looked would be reflected within themselves.

Alexander's blue eyes were red rimmed from lack of sleep, and his posture was jittery and nervous, eyes agitatedly flicking over to his brother every few seconds as if ensuring that Caiellis was still there, that he wasn't yet dead and was still fighting to live, and his hair was still covered in the blood that was matting down Marik's as well – though he knew that they would be forced to leave and clean themselves if they left it too long, he just hadn't wanted to be apart from his sons for more than a few minutes for the same reason that Alexander kept glancing at his younger brother.

"Here. I've brought you a drink and something to eat," Marik said, holding out the bottle of water and the small tray of food which could be placed upon the cabinet next to Caiellis's bed (as it was perfectly safe to bring into the surgery as anything inside of the hospital and the room was automatically sanitised by the White mana running through the building). He had already drunk himself, quenching his thirst, and had forced a few mouthfuls down before he felt too sick at the prospect of eating whilst his son was dying inside of the surgery, before having a short conversation with Hierarch Aretis who had spoken to some of the free surgeons when he had sensed the presence of the Lucernas in the city.

Marik knew that he looked awful, because he hadn't slept at all himself, haggard and covered in blood that he hadn't been willing to leave his sons to go and clean, as well as his eyes suffused with none of the indomitable confidence that he had forced into himself ever since he had become a father and a king that the twenty two year old would be used to, but he couldn't bring himself to care and knew that Aretis had seen that in him. The boy had been respectful, quiet and sombre for once, though to be fair he had been the same when Alexander had been rescued from the predations of Aksua who had had an indirect hand in what had happened to Caiellis, but Marik had barely been able to talk to him about the state of the war.

His eldest son took the drink without comment when Marik forced it into his hand, gently pulling it away from Caiellis's and placing the bottle of water (meaning that they wouldn't have to move far from Cai's side to get more, though he had received this from the reception of the Ordo Medella hospital before and the kitchen by the side of it which catered for the patients of the order of healers and doctors, and he placed the tray of food out of the way where it could be acquired when Alexander felt like he wanted to eat something (though, judging by the current situation, that would probably be when Marik forced him to do so).

Alex drunk some of the water, glad that his dad had been thoughtful enough to get it for him, and knew that while Cai would be kept hydrated by some of the medical equipment his mouth would still be as dry as his older brother's had been before this. He couldn't deny that the drink felt good and slightly refreshing, but it was distracting him from caring for Caiellis and he couldn't stomach drinking too much when he knew his brother had been hurt as badly as he had been – let alone eating anything.

He was aware that if he wanted to keep healthy then he would have to keep at the large diet of protein that he had eaten over the last month or so where he had really starting bulking out more than just having lean muscle like he had in the past as well as exercise as much as he usually did even in days of peace, but he didn't care at the moment because there would be plenty of time for that once his little brother woke up from this coma that he was in and recovered fully. His entire reason for living lay on that operating bed, and if Caiellis didn't survive then he didn't know what he would do.

Didn't dad understand that food didn't matter when the seventeen year old knew for certain that if his Caiellis died, then he would die right alongside him? Even if he didn't die himself, his happiness would certainly do so, and Alex wasn't sure if he would ever be able to feel it again if Cai did give out and didn't survive this. Surely dad would know that he didn't care about eating when his brother was dying right in front of him and there was nothing at all that he could do to help him, to save him from this pain and the possibility of dying? _Of course he does_, Alex told himself, _he is just trying to care for both of his sons instead of just one. But I wouldn't care if he paid no attention to me at all, because I don't need it._

And then there was the truth that Marik didn't have the brotherly bond with Caiellis that Alexander had in spite of being his father, that bond which had been forged thirteen years ago and strongly reinforced four years after that. He hadn't been the one who had carried his four year old brother with him out of Capitalia Lux with war all around them and their new carers trying to hold off as many enemies as they could, he hadn't been the one who had to comfort Cai after their mother died and had spent weeks trying to coax the four year old to eat and speak (as he had stayed silent for a few weeks after Emili's death and their evacuation, taking it even worse than Alexander had because of his age) and then soothing him as he cried his eyes out and sobbed himself raw for hours on end once Alex finally got him talking.

Even though Marik was the boy's dad, he didn't have the same connection with their youngest as Alexander did, especially not after nine years of not being able to see either of them as the brothers grew up alongside one another – but that was simply another reason why Caiellis had to survive, why he was _going to _survive, so that he could forge a bond with their dad that might someday be as strong as the brotherly link he had with Alex (though obviously it wasn't that strong as otherwise the boy wouldn't have ended his life like he had tried to).

"He's going to be alright, Alexander," Marik told the boy, resting a hand on his broad but still teenage shoulder and wishing that he could believe the words with more conviction. The boy simply stared back for a few seconds, his blue eyes blank apart from the concern in them, and then turned back to his younger brother. The king sighed as he settled down in the chair opposite his eldest son, aware that this was probably harder on Alexander than it was on him even though he had seen fully all that had happened to Caiellis and had known that it was all of his fault – not his eldest son's, not in the slightest was Alexander to blame and the forty year old wished that there was a way to communicate that with his first born son that would get him to listen and acknowledge him.

The eldest Lucerna reached out a (shaky despite his attempts to project an air of calm and strength to his older son because he was already in a bad state and didn't need to see his father weak as well) hand to his youngest son, before pulling it back and letting it drop at his side once again. As much as he wanted to, no _needed _to touch his youngest son and make it known that his father was there to protect him and show him the affection and attention he had always deserved, he couldn't bring himself to do it now that the sheer shock of having his smallest son reduced to this and hurt so much had dissolved somewhat, leaving him exhausted and sad instead of agitated and terrified – though the fear had not left him, merely bubbling beneath the cage that he had put on it until it rose up again.

He had done this to his youngest son. He had put him here, in this hospital bed with his family worrying over him as his condition deteriorated more and more. It did not matter at all that the horror of the last vampire had possessed him and taken over his body, forcing him to turn on his youngest son and hurt him in the way that he had. It were his hands that had punched and choked, his feet that had kicked, his mouth that had spat the words which had sent Caiellis over the edge and pushed him into a pit of despair that he was still drowning within now, his face that the thirteen year old had seen as he was beaten and strangled near to death before having to fight the most powerful demon he had ever seen.

He should have fought the horror better, been able to stop it from making him do this to his son, should have used the familial bond between him and his child before the war and his desire to create a new one once the conflict between the Kingdom of Light and the New Empire of Passion ceased to defeat the invader of his mind who made him do this to Caiellis. The angels knew that he had to have thought something was wrong when he kept having those sudden rises of anger and hatred towards his youngest son.

He should have asked Akroma about it at the very least, or spoken to Tybalt who had been his mentor in the past and the closest thing to a proper father he had ever had (which was ironic considering that was almost the same with Alexander and Caiellis – with the latter moreso than the former due to spending less time with Marik even before his mother's murder) and had often been able to quantify his emotions. He shouldn't have simply attributed it to Caiellis's defiance and his inability to curb it making him want to do violence to the boy – the king should have swallowed his pride and sought help with the emotions of rage that he had only ever felt towards enemies of the kingdom before instead of pushing it away because it was distracting him and simply ignoring it.

He should have insisted that he wasn't to be left alone with his youngest son under no circumstances, but instead he had assumed that because he was a parent and because he was a king he would be able to overcome the anger, the tendrils of the horror digging deeper into his psyche and exacerbating some emotions and thoughts whilst suppressing others. If he had done any of these things, the thirteen year old Lucerna prince wouldn't be here, fighting for his life against all odds.

A couple of hours passed with them in the exact same position, the doctors of the Ordo Medella coming and going with sympathetic smiles on their faces which, even with their professionalism and ability to mask emotions, couldn't hide the concern in their eyes for their young charge who was still unconscious. They adjusted dials and saw to wounds silently, making some conversation with Marik and trying to do the same with Alexander who stared at them blankly in a way that the king had only ever seen from his youngest son – but it wasn't because Alexander was ignoring them, he just couldn't hear what they were saying and his mind was too distraught to perceive it.

Occasionally though he did smile at the doctors when they spoke to him, especially when they reported one of the few things that was going right with Caiellis, such as his minor wounds healing well enough for now which meant that they didn't have the possibility of them being infected as well to contend with. More antibiotics and other medicines which had recently been invented in Lucael from Yentarian designs that were sent over (as the team of high ranking surgeon-generals, one for each city in the Kingdom of Light, had analysed and changed the medical procedures and substances to better suit their method of healing with magical and physical techniques) were given to the boy, though through it all he never regained anything resembling consciousness. Caiellis remained still like his whole body had been strapped down to the operating bed instead of just his arms.

It was slightly later than lunch time, though Marik wouldn't have realised it until he idly checked his chronometer after the last surgeon left them for a while after completing her duties. The king was stiff from sitting still and tired from his non stop vigil, not able to sleep like Alexander had unwillingly done in the night and content to watch over both of his sons. He was used to going without sleep – it was more common than not with his position as the supreme king of the entire nation. Marik had lost many nights planning, fighting against the enemies of the Kingdom of Light, pouring over the tactics and strategies of his opponents to see if he could predict where they could strike next and if he could see an overall link between the attacks.

He had lost nights by being simply unable to sleep even though there was nothing to do, unwilling to enter the only place in his mind where he couldn't push down the memories of Emili's death and preferring to stay awake and think about the time when he had been happiest, think about all of the good things that his wife had brought into the world and maybe even think of his sons in the civil war in the only time where it wouldn't distract him too much. He would wonder how they were doing, how well they were growing up, imagine what they looked like (because he had refused to even look at the mana camera photographs that had been taken when they were in specific cities the boys and their guardians (one of whom was a literal Guardian now) had visited recently because he knew that it would tear his heart apart again and make him unable to focus) and remember them in the past,

Sitting beside Caiellis's bed, however, was an entirely new level of tension. Because there was nothing he could do. There was absolutely nothing that he could do. What he wanted to stop from happening couldn't be defeated by force of arms and the power of light that flowed through him, what he was waiting for couldn't be seized by the force of a legion with a Lucerna king and a powerful First Sisterhood angel at its head – what he was waiting for was the only thing in his life that he needed right now, the only thing that he was clinging to any more – his baby boy's life. His sons were everything to him. He couldn't lose either of them.

Alexander's eyes were fixed upon his younger brother, not registering the fact that Marik was gazing at him for a moment, knowing that he hadn't yet touched the food he had brought over two hours ago and that it would be a chore to get him to. Alexander had slept on and off throughout the night, as much as the chair that he was sprawled in would permit and as long as his mind would leave him alone for, though each time he had woken up Marik had seen the panic in his son's eyes until he found Caiellis still in the bed in front of him and relaxed slightly.

It was evident to all that the seventeen year old was suffering from severe nightmares over what they had seen the day previous, which was to be understood completely as it hadn't yet been a full day since Caiellis had almost died and Alexander had been forced to breathe for his little brother, an extremely traumatic experience for Marik and he wasn't the one who was still a young teenager. Marik didn't even want to think about what he would see if he let sleep claim him for even a second, because it was bad enough that the images were already dancing behind his eyes and occasionally flashing in front of him.

The eldest of the king's sons had withdrawn, retreated not physically but emotionally. He had said little more than two words to anyone else but his younger brother since the day began, and Caiellis seemed to be the only one that he would consider talking to – which was ironic since his younger brother couldn't listen to him. Marik would be fine talking to him about what had happened against, but he didn't want to force himself into Alexander's personal space and knew that for now the best thing to do was to let the boy deal with it himself for now and provide support at every occasion.

The king sighed, feeling the weight of regret pressing down on him again. It wasn't easy to see his strong, courageous and independent eldest son reduced to this blank slate that was only filled with despair, unable to focus upon anything other than his younger brother, but then again it was even harder to see his gifted, thoughtful and kind youngest son laid out on the bed so lifelessly. Sometimes he couldn't help but remember simpler days, happier times, when the only danger had been the distant tension with Welkas which had reduced over the years of Caiellis's life, when Marik's existence had been Emili and their boys and everything had been so bright and brilliant and peaceful.

Letting his head drop, Marik pushed away the memories and smothered them under his desire to be a father for his sons here and now instead of being trapped within the past. Those days were gone. Taken away from him by his own ignorance, his inability to recognise treachery when it was right under his nose. His failure, his sentimentality and his insistence that his twin brother would _never _betray him had caused him to lose Emili – and now similar things could make him lose their baby boy if he didn't recover in time.

Lifting his head up once again, his eyes took in his youngest son again, how he was a product of both of his father and mother – he had Emili's eyes and hair, as well as her slender and small stature which was exacerbated by his age as a young teenager still going through puberty and maturing emotionally and physically, but he had his father's high cheekbones and more pronounced bones. The king could see a lot of the boy's grandparents in Caiellis as well, with how the boy's chin was more similar to Marik's own father than the thirteen year old's dad or late mother, and how his hair was slightly straighter than Emili's in a way that he had seen only once before – in a picture, the only surviving one as mana cameras had not been invented at the time, of his own mother who he had never met, Alexander and Caiellis's grandmother on their father's side.

He wondered, briefly, what his mother thought of her only grandchildren, and he knew that even though he had never met the woman himself and had no idea what she had been like she would have adored her young grandsons. Well, she would have adored her own sons as well but she had died before even being able to name them or hold them, so there was little point in thinking about that now, as there was nothing he could do about that.

There was not anything he could do for his youngest boy as well. He was as impotent and futile as he had been the night that Emili had been murdered by the shape shifting demon which had disguised itself as one of the Lucerna praetorians he should have never been satisfied in leaving with her and their beloved children. He was ineffectual and helpless and every other awful feeling he had gone years after the night of his wife's death hoping to feel again, emotions running through him which had risen up ever since he had been trapped inside of his Mind Realm by the horror which had caused this.

But he could help his eldest, and that was what he needed to do now. Alexander hadn't gone to the toilet since before the battle yesterday (assuming that he hadn't in the brief stint of having to leave the room because Marik had forced him to get his wounds healed) he needed his own injuries examining and most of all he needed to eat something now before he hurt himself further.

"Alexander. Are you going to touch that food?" he asked, a little too harshly in spite of the fact that he had attempted to infuse some joviality in his tone to break the silent ice he hadn't realised had frozen up between them. The boy didn't even look up from staring at his younger brother with the thirteen year old's left hand held in both of his larger ones, so Marik reached over and tapped him on the shoulder, gently enough not to startle him too much but with enough force to get his attention. Alexander blinked in surprise and glanced quickly up at his father, blinking again to clear his blurred vision and ignored his headache and cramping bones. Marik looked at him expectantly for a moment, so, coughing before he did so, he inquired, "Did you need anything, dad?"  
Marik smiled at that, sitting back in his seat, as usual the facial expression not reaching his anguished eyes no matter what he did to try and make it do so, and replied, "No, I didn't need anything. I just thought that you should try and eat something, considering you haven't eaten anything since the you ate breakfast yesterday morning. I want you to keep up your strength so that you do not hurt yourself as well."

"Oh," was Alexander's soft response, almost too quiet to be heard over the constant beeping of the machines that Marik had almost tuned out – almost, not quite, because while he could stand them now without them annoying him he was attuned to them enough so that he would be able to pick up the slightest change in the noises that signified his youngest son was still fighting for his life. He turned back to his younger brother, before Marik spoke to him again, "Alexander, you need to eat something. I don't want to have to make you, but trust me when I say that I will force feed you if that is the only way of getting you to do so."  
Alexander was strong, physically and emotionally, one of the strongest people that Marik had ever seen despite him only being seventeen years old, but this was breaking him. The only person that he was willing to talk to was his younger brother, and he did so at the same time as ignoring everyone else and making it seem like he had no idea if they were there or not. The boy's desperate blue eyes met his again, and Marik couldn't stop himself from flinching slightly from sympathy and empathy as he stared into them once again. They were still so scared, reflecting Marik's own fear, and Alexander mumbled something like, "I don't want to..."  
"It wasn't a suggestion," Marik replied curtly, using authority because he knew that that was the only way he could get his eldest son to listen in the state that he was in right now. It had always worked on Alexander, even when he had been a little boy liable to occasionally playing up or having a few tantrums when he didn't get what he wanted which were quickly curbed. He had never had to use authority on Caiellis before the civil war because his quiet youngest son had been the definition of a model child, with the fact that Alexander had stopped behaving as petty as he had before as he now had a baby brother to take attention off of him and be a role model for meaning that Caiellis had learnt that he shouldn't approach problems in that way, that he should follow what his parents and big brother did.

When he had used authority on his second son, the first time speaking to him after the civil when he had been angry and disappointed and irritated that he had to deal with the apparent failure of his child, when they had argued because of Alexander's injuries and all of the subsequent times after that, it had never seemed to work. At the time Marik had thought that was a product of him never having to impress his role as the father and the highest order in their relationship before and so Caiellis reacted badly to it because he was not one of the authority figures in his youngest son's life, and while he still stood by that somewhat now it was a very real possibility that being authoritarian with his second son was simply not the way that one should deal with him when he was being disobedient.

Caiellis had always reacted well to the few times that Marik had shown him love and affection before this, so maybe instead of assuming that the methods that worked on Alexander would work exactly the same with his younger brother who Marik was very inept at reprimanding in the proper manner for the boy he should have hearkened to this and used that in his disciplinary methods.

If he had paid more attention to that, if he had tried to do something different with Caiellis instead of just raising his voice at him and trying to punish him when things got out of hand, then his son might have been awake and well with them right now instead of unconscious and getting slowly worse. If Caiellis ever did act up again, Marik knew that he would try something different, approach the problem in a different way instead of blindly attacking it and making the whole situation worse like he had done over the past few days.

The king pushed himself out of the cycle of thoughts his mind had become stuck in. Alexander was still sat across from him, on the other side of Caiellis's bed, and and had made no moves to go and get himself some nourishment. He hated to resort to this, but the forty year old was under no illusions that telling the seventeen year old about what his brother would want for him was the only way he was going to get Alexander to consume something, appealing to the sense that he was no use to his younger sibling it he didn't eat anything, and said, "Alexander, you aren't going to be able to stay with Caiellis if you don't eat anything. You will be too weak. I know that you don't want to eat because your little brother can't at the moment, but trust me when I say that such a line of thinking isn't helping anyone – least of all yourself. You are going to be sick yourself if you don't eat anything and regenerate your own strength. Don't make me have to force you to leave your brother because you aren't eating anything, son."

That got the teenager moving. Marik watched as his eldest boy let go of his youngest son's hand, slumping his shoulders even more and walking over to where the tray of food was, picking up one of the smallest plates and returning to his seat. Alexander, contrary to what Marik had anticipated, hadn't even mustered up the energy to glare at his dad, though he still made begrudgingly eating the food look like it was one of the hardest things he had ever done in the world. So this was where Caiellis got some of his petulance from – although at this point Marik would give anything to see that again, to see his youngest son's defiant green eyes and to hear his young and soft voice raised in anger against his father.

Anything effortlessly beat the silence that was suffusing the littlest Lucerna now, the only sound he was making his breathing that had to be aided by the oxygen mask around the lower parts of his face.

Given the ultimatum of eat or leave, Alexander had no choice in the matter. He ungraciously grabbed the sandwich that was in one hand with both and shoved the whole thing into his mouth, gaining the energy to glare at his dad for a second who had stood up with the words and loomed over both of his sons, meeting Alex's gaze with the stony and resolute appearance of his own and glad that he had finally managed to make his eldest son eat something. The seventeen year old had developed quite an unhealthy and pale pallor over the last day, and Marik didn't want to have to deal with the stress of two sons being sick and hurt – especially not with Caiellis in as bad of a state as he was and Alexander set to get worse if he didn't take care of himself as well as he was taking care of his younger brother.

However, he wished that his eldest son had shown more open defiance instead of flatly refusing at first and then acquiescing quietly – he would have preferred it if the boy had glared at him with more force behind it, or perhaps deliberately eaten with his mouth open like he had when Marik had made him eat something back when Aksua had injured him (though Alexander had half wanted to consume something as well because he wanted to recover as fast as possible). Marik could well empathise with not caring about oneself when confronted with the harsh truth of what had happened to the youngest member of their family – because he was a prime example of such a thing himself – but logically it was not aiding any of them to do that and they wouldn't be able to help Caiellis once he did waqke up if they weren't eating anything.

Alexander forced the food down, suppressing the urge to throw up because he knew that his father was right and that he did need to eat if he was going to be of any use to his younger brother. He was well away that their dad was appealing to his need to aid his smaller and now heavily wounded sibling, and supposed that stopping eating could come after it if Caiellis didn't make it through this part of his life which would definitely be the hardest and the most painful. He ate as much as he could possibly force himself to before turning once more to his younger brother, entwining his fingers with the slender and bony digits of the smaller male once again and blocking out the thoughts of anything else – not that he was able to think of them in the first place, not when every single time he looked away from Cai or closed his eyes even for a brief second he could see the boy in their father's arms again as he closed in on them, or coughing up blood and clawing at the oxygen mask on his face.

A few more hours passed with little to nothing happening, Caiellis's condition not improving at all but luckily not getting much worse. The doctors came and went at regular intervals, and each time Alexander tried to ignore quiet and almost subliminal warnings that even if his younger brother did wake up he might not ever be the same because of the amount of damage he had sustained and the amount of time he had spent without oxygen before Orzhova somehow managed to revive him.

He didn't like how the surgeons tried not to talk about Caiellis as loudly when he was there and awake; he didn't like how they tried to be gentle with him about his younger brother's condition because he wasn't the one that was hurt and he wished that none of their attention would go towards worrying for him because he didn't need that – Cai did. Alex wasn't a child, and he certainly wasn't stupid – and did they think that he would be affected even worse if they actually told him the risk of brain damage and the ever increasing possibility that Caiellis wasn't going to wake up from all of this?

He couldn't possibly get any worse than he could now until something worse happened to his baby brother, and had been driven into almost muted silence by the fact that he just didn't want to talk to anyone but the younger boy. The seventeen year old barely heard his dad leaving, assuming that the man had to go and see to his kingly duties despite the fact that he knew the distraught father who was trying to do everything he could do for his sons would not want to in the slightest. He moved round to the side of his smaller sibling once again, disregarding the aches and pains of his wounded body which hadn't fully recovered from what Aksua had done to him before he had been thrust into another conflict and nearly been killed by the Master of Violence this time.

Alex brushed tears from his eyes as he thought of that, clasping his brother's hand in his and silently willing for Caiellis to squeeze it back, to wriggle his fingers, to pull away, _anything, _anything other than this sad stillness as his brother lay in the hospital bed for what could have been years, though Alexander knew that it had only been a single day fraught with anguish since they had brought him here from the City of Pleasure yesterday evening. He had failed his brother so much. He should have been able to defeat Arendus Draal before Caiellis killed the Archdemon and commit suicide after he woke up from that – hell, he should have been with the younger boy all the way through that undoubtedly awful fight against the Lord of Riots who had dealt the vast majority of these wounds to him.

Dad kept telling him not to blame himself, that it wasn't his fault for what happened to Cai and that it was their father's instead, but Alexander found it incredibly hard not to knowing what he did – knowing that he could have stopped this, if he had paid more heed to the warning signs of his father being physically violent towards one of his children, something that he had never done before, and if he had listened more to the youngest Lucerna's concerns about the Tempest of Craving and helped him research it they might have both saved many lives because they would be able to find out what it would do (or had done now that it was gone) and he would have been able to have his brother trust him enough not to leave him and go and kill Tradax alone like he had.

It was evening now, according to what he had heard from his father when he had told him that he had to leave, though he hadn't paid much attention to the man.

He knew that it was rude not to, and that he should have at least acknowledged his dad with more than a despondent nod of his head, but he wasn't physically able to keep his focus away from his younger brother for more than a second. He had done so once or twice before after the civil war, and look where that had got them – the first time around Caiellis had been cutting himself because of the weight of the pressure upon him, and the second time Alexander had let his attention be on something other than his baby brother the boy had used his magic to leave the relative safety of his family and taken it upon himself to end the main threat.

He forced a grin out as he gazed down at his younger brother, remembering all the times that he had teased Caiellis for accidentally staring at him as the youngest Lucerna drifted off into thought and let his gaze rest on his older brother and wondering what Cai would think now that the situation was reversed. Most probably his little brother would think that he was creep for watching him as he slept, but then again Alex thought that he was excused in this circumstance for that.

The only person that Alexander wasn't bleak and withdrawn with now was his younger brother, because even though when he talked to other people the few times that he could manage it his voice might make it seem like he had given up hope he hadn't at all. It was ironic, in a way, that he railed against the doctors softening their words and always making their prognoses more cautionary and gentle instead of as downright grim as they actually were, but he subjected his sleeping younger brother to the same thing, constantly reassuring him that he was going to be alright and that he was going to recover from this. But then that was the way of big brothers, who would take the pain and the worry off of their younger sibling's shoulders – or at least that was how Alexander saw it, and that was how he was going to continue doing it even when Caiellis became an adult because he would always be the seventeen year old's baby brother and nothing would change that.

He showed his hope only to his younger brother, because he was the only one who needed it at the current moment, and Alexander refused to give up on Caiellis just like everyone else, but not because he was a Lucerna. He plastered a smile onto his face even though all he felt like doing was crying his eyes out, but tears wouldn't help his younger brother and he didn't deserve to cry at the current moment, not with Caiellis in the state that he was now. Because, even if the youngest Lucerna was still locked in deep unconsciousness, even if he was too far into this slumber that he was trapped within and hopefully fighting to get out of, he still needed to hear the hope from his older brother.

Alexander was convinced that it would help Cai, and nothing was going to dissuade him from that. He couldn't not speak to his younger brother like everyone else did just because he was in a coma, and if he let the true direness of the situation slip into his voice when talking to the thirteen year old his brother might become even worse. Caiellis needed to know that he was wanted, that he was wanted _so much,_ that they all wanted him to come back into the world of the awake with them and that none of them had given up on him. So he would keep talking to his younger brother because it kept him believing that everything would be alright as well, that they would all survive through this, as if he stayed silent he might give into the hopelessness that was threatening to drown him and was eating away at his insides every second that Cai didn't wake up.

"Come on, Cai, please. Give me a sign here. Just give me a sign. Squeeze my hand, open your eyes, punch me in the face … just give me a sign," Alexander pleaded for a moment, though there was no change which a part of him expected – though the other part had violently disabused himself of the notion that he was wasting his time doing this for his younger brother. He brushed his hand over Caiellis's forehead again, trying to ignore the breaking of his heart at the sight of the creases of agony on his younger brother's face despite the fact that he was in the clutches of sleep. He was still hoping that his voice could coax his baby brother into waking up, even though deep down he knew that him awakening prematurely from this rejuvenating (not that he seemed to be doing that at all) coma could be even worse than him sleeping on.

That or bore Caiellis to the point where he had no choice but to awaken and tell his big brother to shut up. If only he would do that ...

Nothing was working and Alexander found himself fighting back tears for the umpteenth time in the past two days (including this one), fighting against the devastation that was threatening to tear him apart from the inside and plunge him into a pit of unrelenting sadness. He fought against the temptation to just let the despair take him, because he had to be strong for his younger brother even if the boy wasn't awake to see it. He wiped his eyes, the eyelashes glistening with wet tears which had almost started streaming down his cheeks, and refused to cry in front of his younger brother – who couldn't know how hopeless the situation same, who had to keep fighting against it with all of his might and claw his way back into the world of the living.

Logically he knew that his brother wouldn't be able to hear him, but he didn't care about that – Caiellis was the logical one, not him, and he acted on instinct and what he thought was right. Of course his younger brother did that as well, but the smaller Lucerna was liable to plan everything out before he enacted it – which was perfectly fine with the seventeen year old because it meant that Cai got into less danger when they were fighting, even if it seemed that normally his baby brother was a beacon for trouble despite doing nothing to attract it and could find peril in an empty room (because of the abyss and the warping influence of Sancturia darkness, so there was a legitimate explanation for that).

"Caiellis..." it came out choked, half strangled between clenched teeth, and he was glad for a moment that his sibling wasn't awake to see Alexander in this much emotional pain – though Cai _had _to have known how distraught it would make his older brother when he chose to take his own life, hadn't he? Hadn't he? Or perhaps there was something else, perhaps the demon had shown him something in its final moments, perhaps dad hadn't just turned on Cai physically when the horror had possessed him and said other things – but it was clear that if Marik did know then he wasn't going to tell his eldest son, and Alex wouldn't find out until his brother woke up and if the kid chose to tell him.

The boy looked like he was in so much pain but at the same time so distant, like the pain of his broken and fragile body was the only thing that he could feel from the real world, trapped as he was in his apparently restorative slumber, although with the way that the doctors of the medical order glanced at him it had obviously got far worse than that now. Alexander wished that

The Ordo Medella operatives believed that Caiellis was going to die. Even though they didn't say it, not with Alexander around and probably not with Marik either when they occasionally talked outside of the room with the king, the seventeen year old could see it in the gravity of their expressions that they couldn't hide from him, and that way that their mouths sometimes tightened when speaking about their young patient. They wouldn't say it to anyone, and they most likely wouldn't even admit it to themselves apart from in the deepest recesses of their minds that no one else could see, because confessing that they thought that their Lucerna patient would die was tantamount to heresy, but even though they were still trying their hardest Alexander could see that things were very bad for his younger brother.

And there was nothing he could do about that – there was nothing that he could fight it with. He had always had ways to make things better for his little brother. He'd looked after Caiellis, protected him from the darkness of their world and those who bayed for the blood of a Lucerna prince. He had hacked at and attacked and burned whatever was threatening him, even using his bare fists unaugmented by magic when there was nothing else that he could do to keep the youngest Lucerna safe. He was the shield that kept Cai protected. Alex knew what was out there, threatening the Kingdom of Light and those who would one day rule it and lead its armies against the denizens of the forsaken nether realm that shrouded Lucael in almost eternal blackness, but there had always been an unconscious and unshakable determination that as long as Alexander was there, nothing would get to Caiellis.

He reached out and gently ruffled his little brother's vaguely curly and wavy brown hair, glad that it was no longer covered in blood like it had been earlier and was back to its normal colour and consistency – for nothing other than the fact that it made the younger boy look better, look like he hadn't been dragged through an awful battle the day before and look like he had been smashed against the ground hundreds of times as he was assaulted by flaming blades and chains of shadow.

The boy remembered a time long ago, a time which he only had fractured memories of, when his younger brother had almost been in just as fragile a position. That time had been thirteen years ago, the time he had first laid eyes upon his little brother and the connection between them had first started to develop, although it was only truly affirmed and started to bloom once the four year old Alexander had been allowed to hold his baby brother for the first time.

Even at the age of just four years old, when presented with the sight of the tiny baby in what had appeared to him as a glass cage he had developed the desire to want to help that little infant who he had been told by his mummy and daddy was his new brother, but he hadn't known how and he had been content knowing that his parents would take care of him.

He had trusted that the elders of his family would be able to make Caiellis healthy so that he could come out of the incubator and be with his new family, and despite the fact that Alexander could barely remember it himself because he was so young (which was why he was concerned over the fact that Caiellis still had the events of the beginning of the civil war (although at least his little brother had been knocked unconscious before seeing their mother die and having their father obliterate the demons which had killed her) seared into his memory, though they were obviously much more traumatic events than the ones of having a new family member) he could recall asking his parents what had been wrong with Cai.

He could vaguely bring up flashes of images, of Orzhova appearing to Caiellis a few hours after he had been born and the general uproar over the Angel of the Black Sun choosing a new Summoner in the Kingdom of Light, and had the knowledge that the little him had put himself in front of the even littler Cai to protect him from danger despite knowing him for only a day. Alexander was aware that his memories were fragmented and distorted by the passage of time and the fact that he had always been four, but for as long as he could remember he had always burned with the desire to protect his little brother after seeing him for the first time and knowing instinctively that he needed it.

However, back then he had always had his mum and dad who wanted to guard their youngest as well, he had always had their reassurances that Caiellis would be just fine and that he would be able to leave the neonatal support incubator and live normally, so as he had been a young toddler himself he had been able to believe them with all of his heart and be safe in the knowledge that his baby brother would be ok because they said that he would and they had never been wrong about anything before in his mind.

Now he only had his father's assurances that Caiellis would pull through this and return to the world of the living almost the same as before he had left it – that the only difference would be that he would have happiness where sadness once persisted – and that simply wasn't enough to make Alexander believe with as much conviction as he had thirteen years ago. Of course he was still possessed of the mindset that his sibling would be restored to optimum condition once again as that was the only way that he could think without surrendering to the chains of despair threatening to drag him down at any moment into the pit of endless sorrow inside, but he couldn't prevent the sinking feeling from forming inside of him and ripping a hole in his heart that widened every single second Caiellis did not wake up.

_I don't know if I can stop this, Caiellis. I don't know if I can help you._

Alexander felt like a failure of a brother, a _coward_, for even having the thoughts in his mind, but he made sure this time that he did not voice them like he had done with some of the mental words which had drifted around inside of his head this past day. Caiellis didn't need to hear his doubts. All Caiellis needed to hear was that everything was going to be alright, that the whole world was waking for him to wake up, that his family was sorry for failing him and that they would make it up to him in any and every way that they could. If the younger boy heard his big brother's sadness, his fear … then he might lose hope himself – if he still had any wherever Caiellis's consciousness was.

"Where are you, little dude? What are you dreaming about?" Alexander wondered aloud, simply speaking to his younger brother making him feel like he was more connected with the smaller Lucerna instead of being as impossibly distant as he was even if Caiellis couldn't hear him. He could feel one of the pitying glances of an Ordo Medella operative on him and his younger brother when the person thought that the middle Lucerna wouldn't notice something that the doctor would never dare to do if the situation had been any less desperate, but Alexander paid no heed to it as he gently stroked his little brother's hair, avoiding the spots where he knew bumps and bruises were located as he didn't want to cause his sibling any more pain. He didn't like it, but he wasn't about to turn around and tell them to take their pity elsewhere.

He pondered what Caiellis was thinking about, locked deep within his mind, whether or not he was fighting to get to the surface of the waves that pulled him under the lullaby sea of slumber, or if he had already given up on them and just wanted it all to end. Before he could stop himself, he tried to imagine what it must have been like for his little brother, all alone with the Archdemon's corpse of glass shattered all around him, his father unconscious after he had tried to attack his youngest son, what had driven him to draw the knife across his throat, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and focus on regaining the normal rhythm of his breathing before the threw up the small sandwich that he had been forced to eat earlier.

His little brother might have given up already. Or he might have a choice between fighting to get back to life or surrendering to the coldness slowly claiming him. Everything about his expression screamed of pain, of sadness, of submitting to the despair and letting it take him once again – of letting his suicide which had almost succeeded run its course.

"Don't you _dare_!" Alexander hissed, suddenly, holding his brother's hand in his, though if any of the surgeons heard they chose not to intervene, "Just don't you fucking dare leave me, Caiellis, or I'll come after you." A small sob escaped before he could stop it. "I'll h-hunt y-you down a-and … k-kick y-your ghostly ass..."

He had known that they would have to go at some point. That was the way of the world, the way of this transient coil of human mortality, and they had danced with too much danger to be naïve about that. But Alexander had always thought that it would be when they were older, when they had lived out their lives as either the new king of Lucael or one of its leading generals (or scientists in Cai's case) and had their own families and children and were old men. And he had always known that he would be the one to go first – because he was the oldest, because he would risk his life to ensure that his younger brother lived on in a heartbeat and because he wanted Caiellis to live longer than he did.

He had known because he couldn't live without Caiellis, because his little brother was so infinitely precious to him that he wouldn't be able to comprehend life without him – as Cai was one of the things that he had to protect, the thing that was his greatest responsibility, his innocent and intelligent baby brother who would help change the world with his gentle kindness and scintillating intellect and usher in a new age of peace. Caiellis was almost everything to him, and Alexander had grown up knowing that he wanted to keep the younger boy safe above all else. They had endured too much to not have the lives that they deserved, for Caiellis not to live a long and happy existence with his big brother watching over him.

But now all he could do was hold onto his younger brother with a desperate grip and feel him slowly slipping away from the world. His fingers moved idly, palm gently stroking his little brother's arm with a kindness and tenderness of touch that was only reserved for dire situations when the smaller Lucerna was in pain – but none had ever been as dire as this. Usually Alexander was slightly rough with his younger sibling, because they were brothers and he enjoyed teasing little Cai, he always had done for as long as he could remember, and before the escalation of danger that had been the past two weeks the seventeen year old had kept himself to his own personal space and only touched his brother to jostle him or to sling a casual arm over his bony and thin shoulders, but he had always possessed a soft spot for his younger brother and it was hardly a rarity for Caiellis to snuggle up with him in a comforting (if slightly uncomfortable for the younger boy because of the strength that Alex sometimes put into it) hug over the years when the younger boy was in pain or scared (or more rarely Alexander was help and his sibling sensed his need for comfort that the older prince would never admit to because of his selfless pride).

"I don't know what to do, Caiellis..." Alex whispered, too quiet and hushed for his younger brother for the boy to be able to hear him even if he had been awake, and he felt like even saying the words he was abandoning his younger brother. He wasn't, and never would, even when all hope seemed lost and when Cai was so far away from them despite being within touching distance, but he truly felt that he could do nothing more for his younger brother and it was hurting him.

Caiellis had always (_well, almost always_) come to him with his worries, with his pain, with his fear and if he was hurt or in need of help from his closest friend, and Alexander had always helped the younger boy to the best of his ability, but right now he could only sit by his bedside as the minutes ticked down and the younger boy didn't improve in any manner.

He turned away from the sight of Cai for a moment, staring blankly at the unemblazoned wall across from him, the white section one of the few free to be looked at from his limited vantage point as the rest were obscured by the many contraptions surrounding the youngest Lucerna. It shimmered, blurred with tears that Alex made no effort to wipe away.

The room was quiet when the king walked in, having disappeared when he knew that he wouldn't be able to hold off sending messengers to his army in Welkas any longer and ending up wandering the mostly empty corridors of the Ordo Medella hospital, wanting to release his rage at his sheer impotence and the reality at what he had done to his youngest son on something and knowing that he had to calm down before he re-entered the room that held his youngest son – as his anger would help nobody.

He had expected to hear Alexander talking, hear the deep (yet still young) but soft and quiet tones of his eldest son as he rambled to his sleeping younger brother. Marik had heard some interesting stories over the past few hours, as the darkness of day stretched into the blackness of night once more and there was still no change in Caiellis's condition that was noticeable apart from the fact that he was steadily getting weaker. He might even have been amused at the vast range of random topics that his first born son had managed to discuss, had it not been for his horrible awareness of how one sided those conversations were.

As had become his habit, he instantly glanced at the many monitors connected by recently innovated machinery to his youngest son, watching the meandering patterns of the screens powered by mana and disliking how erratic and weak the vast majority of those were. However, even infinitesimal movements on the devices were preferable to stillness, and it showed that Caiellis was still alive, still fighting, even if his defiance against death had been weakened over the course of him being here.

Emili had commented once, after the birth of her first son when she had managed to get over her sheer happiness and elation at having given life to a child, her _own _child, and brought a baby boy into the world for her and her husband to care for and be able to speak, that her partner was voraciously vigilant within hospitals. Marik barely ever left the room, watched every single monitor at once, noticed every single blip or squiggle that seemed even vaguely abnormal, comforting every slight moan or wince of pain that he saw from the person who was being operated upon. And right now what he saw did not paint a very positive picture, not in the slightest, but he was not going to give up on his youngest son.

He could no more do that then stop himself from breathing.

His gaze shifted, and instead of instantly returning to his seat and watching over attentively watching over Caiellis he stood still for a moment, taking in the state of his eldest son. Alexander's hand was curled firmly around that of his younger brother's, his eyes shut, though he was not asleep because Marik knew that until the seventeen year old could not fight his exhaustion any longer he would refuse to fall into his own unconsciousness once again, his own health and need for rest be damned in the face of his younger brother's wounding.

Alexander's eyes were shut, he breathed heavily, and he didn't stir as his father came round to the other side of the bed that held the youngest member of their family, but the temporary respite from sight did not smooth the lines of fear from the seventeen year old's young face that for once looked its age without old eyes that had seen too much and were full of too much worry open and staring despondently into the world.

And it did not hide the tracks of tears that had spilled down the boy's cheeks. It couldn't hide the wetly clumped eyelashes that drove another stake of emotional agony through the eldest Lucerna. He had only ever seen Alexander cry after the civil war (having seen him cry many times when he was growing up from the years of his birth to the night that his mother died) when he had been extremely close to dying and had only just been saved from the claws and vampiric predations of Aksua but not her malicious curses that were wreaking havoc and torment upon his young body, and when the middle Lucerna had joined his father in howling over Caiellis and ripped the smaller boy out of Marik's arms, sobbing over his brother with grief worse than Marik had ever witnessed before.

Caiellis cried. Caiellis had shed tears when he was upset, when his fights with his father had been particularly intense. The youngest Lucerna was hardly a spoilt brat, nor an immature infant that shed tears at everything going wrong, but Marik had seen enough of his youngest son in immense emotional pain to last him a lifetime of pain through what the horror had shown him from Caiellis cutting himself before the war with the New Empire of Passion due to what his father had said to him about the fact that he had not yet unlocked his Summoning nor passed her trial, and he had seen the young thirteen year old sobbing far too many times for his liking – and he didn't blame the littlest Lucerna for the circumstance at all, because he fought against the tears with all of his might. But Caiellis still cried, still let tears spill down his face in transparent streams of misery when he was in enough stress and sorrow.

Alexander didn't. From what the eldest Lucerna had seen of his older son so far after the ending of the war with his identical twin brother, Alexander simply became stony faced when in pain or severe moroseness unless he wasn't able to control it, pushing the emotions down in a similar way to his dad so that others would not notice them. He usually kept tabs upon his anguish unless it was too much for him to handle, if the emotions came in a surge greater than he could repress or even want to – such as when he had found Caiellis in the dead state that he had been in, smothering them so that he could better help other people in the selfless manner that he did.

Alexander's tears told the king of Lucael that his son was losing hope, even if he would never confess that out loud and would refuse to even believe it himself. And it was hard to see that, because even though the seventeen year old still believed that there was a chance that his younger brother – and the family that the boy was holding together just like Alexander was – would make it through this trial, the fact that the blonde was beginning to lose faith that Caiellis would survive was a true attestation to how bad things had become.

Marik didn't have much experience at all with children other than his own – and barely had any knowledge of them in the grand scheme of things due to his failure at being a father – but he knew that the bond his sons shared was special and that they were unusually close for brothers. They had their arguments, of course, even if Marik had not seen any of them recently and had only heard of some of the worse ones from stories that an amused Tybalt or Tristram had recounted, but either one would take a blow for the other without a moment of hesitation or indecision.

They felt one another's pain, even more than what they had been like before the civil war when even then Alexander had seemed attuned to his younger brother's needs and little Caiellis had comforted his big brother as best he could when the older child fell over and skinned his knees, and whenever one of them was hurt the other would take it out upon themselves and it would cause them nearly more pain than if they themselves had been the ones injured – and Alexander was dying right alongside his brother, even if it was only his happiness and his heart that was breaking instead of his body.

Their bond was so strong, but it also meant that when anything that had the strength to potentially tear it apart through death and loss arose it could potentially end both of them. Alexander was suffering almost as much as his younger brother was, the same as his father was although Marik could hide it better because he had to be strong for both of his sons and he was an adult so could better control his emotions of anguish and grief, and seeing Caiellis like this was tearing them both apart from the inside.

But the seventeen year old needed a break from this. He needed to get out of the room, even if he would protest against it with all of his might, even if he did not want to leave his younger brother's side and even if it would only be for a few minutes. Alexander wouldn't get any better or be able to help his brother or himself at all stuck here, and the boy was slowly breaking by being next to only misery and the potential to lose the person that he was the closest to, his little brother that Marik knew the boy would still be hating himself for not protecting even though it was indubitably Marik's fault for what had occurred and the blame rested solely on him.

"Alexander," the king called out, rising to his feet again as he moved over to the side of his eldest son and gently shook his shoulder, not liking how pale the seventeen year old was even though his pallor was nowhere near as ashen as his younger brother's – which was as white as a spirit.

Marik hadn't thought that his youngest son could get any more pale, as the boy had never seen the sun of Lucael and spent barely any time in the glow of the mundane celestial body that shone in other regions of the world not shrouded by darkness, and the youngest Lucerna had a naturally pale complexion which always exacerbated the dark shadows underneath his eyes and the birthmark of the Black Sun on his right cheek, but the thirteen year old was even more pallid than usually (though some of the greyness had faded) where numerous bruises weren't blackening his innocent and young features or where his face wasn't covered by bandages or other medical gauze healing the scratches and cuts he had suffered.

The boy opened his eyes, blue orbs misted by tears at his father's concerned enunciation of his first name, blearily blinking back the liquid stinging his eyes and blinding his vision and realising that he had drifted off into a kind of slumbering state without actually being asleep. Marik tried to offer him a reassuring smile, but the way his lips curled made the expression look more like a grimace which encapsulated his worry and distress than anything else.

"You need to go out of this room for a bit. You need to get some fresh air, go to the toilet, have a drink and exercise your legs," the father of two told him, endeavouring to feel like he wasn't being cruel by pulling Alexander away from his younger brother when these might be Caiellis's last moments in the world (_ok, do _not _think like that any longer. Your son doesn't deserve for you to give up on him, no matter how dire the situation, and I refuse to let you even consider that Caiellis might die here_), when it might be the last time that he would see his baby brother alive and breathing.

He squeezed the boy's shoulder gently, and the teenager stared blankly up at him for a moment before tenderly releasing Caiellis's hand and placing it back down on the bed (though because of the restraints which had dug into the younger boy's too thin wrists yesterday as he tried to escape from the oxygen mask allowing him to take in air (as he was too weak and wounded to breathe without the vital assistance of the mask) the hand hadn't been far away from the boy it belonged to), turning back towards his younger brother and staring at him for a moment.

Marik expected his eldest son to mutter words of a goodbye, but whatever speech that Alexander had gone through must have been internally, and instead the middle Lucerna brushed Caiellis's hair back with a gentleness that reminded the king of his own late wife before slowly turning away from the youngest Lucerna and standing up, shrugging off his father's hand as he did so.

"Alexander. We are going to get through this. Caiellis is going to get through this," the man tried, though he felt as if his words were having no affect on the adolescent stood in front of him who was almost as far away as his younger brother was despite the actuality of their physical distances. His words lacked conviction apart from a steely hint to them that was accompanied by a tinge of desperation which he couldn't quite clear from his deep tones, and he patted his eldest son on the shoulder as the boy began to walk away from him without words.

The fact that Alexander hadn't even resisted his command to go out of the room and escape from the atmosphere of melancholy grief pressing down on all of them was extremely worrying and disturbing to the king, as Marik had anticipated the seventeen year old fighting tooth and claw against his suggestions and vehemently denying that he needed to leave his younger brother, if only for a short moment, like he had done only a few hours earlier and the day before.

It showed that the boy could barely focus on anything, that he felt just as impotent and useless as Marik did himself, that he believed that him being by Caiellis's side and trying to help him through this tribulation was accomplishing nothing. Alexander had zoned in on his younger brother completely to the point where he barely heard other people, but even then he couldn't muster up the defiance to disobey his father's orders to go get fresh air and have a brief respite from the sombre and claustrophobic mood of the solemn hospital operation room.

Marik watched his eldest son go with a heavy gaze, the boy slouched as he stumbled forwards, probably aching because of the fact that he hadn't moved from his seat since the day before but unwilling to stretch because he couldn't process it. He would have liked to go with his eldest son, to accompany Alexander on this short journey out of the room to ensure that the seventeen year old who was in an incredibly fragile emotional state of mind would be alright and remain safe enough, but he couldn't leave his youngest son with none of his family members by his side and right now Caiellis was the main concern – as neither of his sons would recover if the younger one of the two did not, and Alexander would recover alongside his younger brother as his wounds were mostly emotional ones and could only be healed by the one of them who was the closest to death and in the most precarious position.

He inclined his head back to his youngest son, sitting in the seat opposite the one that had recently been vacated by Alexander because he didn't want Caiellis to somehow think that he was attempting to replace the boy's big brother in any way as that was something that he would never be able to do. He felt like crying, but pushed that sudden urge away as that would do nothing for anyone and it was his job as a father to remain strong for his sons, to be the bulwark against sadness and evil to the best of his ability even if he had failed so horribly at that in every single manner.

He wondered what Caiellis was thinking, if it was anything, and hated the fact that his son had been the recipient of so much pain and sadness that was still contorting his youthful features even through the oxygen mask and the coma induced unconsciousness. He reached out a hand, then pulled it back, remembering what he had done to his youngest son and not wanting the boy to feel even worse if he could even sense the touch, and tried to ignore the mounting feeling of despair swirling around within him and gorging itself upon his anguish and sense of failure.

It was the first time in quite a while that he was alone in the room (apart from the ever present surgeons and other operatives of the Ordo Medella that he mostly paid little attention to, his attention fixed upon his sons, though he did semi regularly thank them for their work and always listened attentively whenever they had more news) with his youngest son, and it was the first time that he had been able to sit by him without Alexander there as well as the former occasion had been when the surgeons were still desperately operating on Caiellis to get him to the relatively stable but constantly degrading condition that he was presently within.

The silence was only punctuated by the noises of the machines attached to the boy, and Marik internally wondered how he was ever supposed to make it up to his youngest son – the fact that it was a horror who had possessed the king and forced him into the heinous actions his body had undertaken would hopefully smooth his youngest's state of mind enough so that he would allow his dad to talk to him and attempt to communicate how loved he was, but the forty year old still had no idea as to what to say to Caiellis that would make reparations for all that he had done to the thirteen year old, under the horror's malevolent domination or not.

"Caiellis is on a crossroads," a voice broke into Marik's reverie at staring intently at his youngest son and pondering what words could be said and what actions could be undertook that would make the youngest Lucerna understand the extent at which he was loved. Startled, Marik spun around, registering immediately that the voice did not belong to one of the surgeons that he had become used to hearing over the past hours which had blended into one long toil for his youngest son's life. His hand instantly went to the hilt of the large relic broadsword in its ornate scabbard attached to the belt at his waist, as although he had taken off his armour and undertaken a quick shower to cleanse his body of the blood of his youngest son that had made him feel sick he had kept the sword with him, not feeling truly safe unless there was a weapon that he was able to quickly access nearby so that he could protect himself and much more importantly his sons.

The wounds on his waist which hadn't fully healed yet (although they were close to by now as sense his mana was at full capacity his body naturally rejuvenated even without the care of the doctors and the mere fact that he was within the Ordo Medella hospital meant that the aura of healing magic that pervaded the building and saturated the air contained in it helped to repair injuries) protested at the sudden movement as the king swivelled round, preparing to stand up as his gaze landed on a slender figure stood at the foot of Caiellis's bed.

She was a girl, a young teenager, taller than Caiellis was but still quite small in comparison to other Lucaelians, and her age seemed to be about fourteen or fifteen. The person was facing towards the youngest Lucerna who was still asleep on the operating bed, and her dazzling silver hair reflected the light of the oppressively bright overhead lights which were necessary for the surgeons to operate upon their patients, as well as the multitude of glowing golden luminescence that was around Caiellis from the machines attached to him, some of which was keeping the boy's mana levels high enough for him to survive.

She was reasonably thin, though not as much as the king's second son was and was more sylphlike than skeletal, and wore a white gown that would be usually donned when the owner wanted to go to sleep or was going around their business in the morning before having a shower (or a wash if one was unavailable). Her eyes were pale blue/grey orbs that took in the small form of the littlest Lucerna, coloured in a melancholy that Marik felt himself but in a different form that the king couldn't quite place, though they flicked up towards the monarch as he stood up out of his seat. She was strangely familiar to the king, though the man couldn't place where he had seen her before and tried to wrack his mind for information concerning her but found that he had no recollection of ever seeing or meeting her again.

"Who are you?!" he demanded loudly and threateningly, though he did not draw his huge blade as he took a menacing step towards the girl who was smaller than him by about a foot and four inches. None of the doctors had reacted to her presence at all, nor the questioning shout of their sovereign, and Marik got the distinct impression that they were not aware of any change whatsoever – which meant that this strange girl who had suddenly appeared within the room without any warning must have something to do with that.

Marik didn't care at all that the figure only seemed like an innocent and pure enough young girl a couple of years older than his youngest son, because the power of the darkness took numerous malicious forms and could assume many different disguises – it could pose as a righteous warrior who had fought against the abyss all of their life, or a crying infant or toddler who had recently entered the world, or an old and motherly woman who appealed to the good for help – or even a beautiful and alluring captain who enticed the Lucaelians into her embrace, as in the case of the last vampire who almost killed the king under the orders of Johnias before Akroma sent her away to lick her wounds and almost killed her, though it had seemed like Aksua had died at the time.

He would not hesitate at all to strike her down in the protection of his youngest son if she did not adequately explain herself or tried to do anything to threaten the chances of Caiellis, no matter what she looked like or how genuine she seemed. There was something ethereal about her, a strange, empyrean quality to the girl which fit with how she had spontaneously appeared and how the surgeons carried on their jobs of preparing equipment, studying monitors and information on sheets they had created with mana and in books of their order, and occasionally adjusting the dials of machines attached to Caiellis.

She seemed like she was a part of this world and yet simultaneously not of it as if she was a product of Sancturia instead, but the king sensed that she was not a spirit of the departed that had come to bless or hurt the youngest prince as she did not have the same aura and did not evoke the same reverence or solemn respect from the forty year old as one of the ancestral spirits, nor the quiet sadness that was inspired by those who had been dragged back from beyond the veil and forced to serve the darkness – or even the disgust that he felt towards the damned souls who had been claimed by the demons that they sold themselves to and used to fight against and terrorise the forces of Lucael.

The girl raised her hands in a placating gesture to the intimidating king, her eyes highlighting her trepidation, although she did not seem particularly scared by the fact that she was in the presence of a distressed and protective father who would do anything to guard his unconscious youngest son who could and was perfectly willing to eviscerate her within a single second if need be. The girl opened her mouth, her voice soft and not malicious, though that did not mean anything to the king, "I do not mean any harm, Marik. I am not going to hurt little Caiellis or yourself. I only want to help, to share what I know with you so that you can better aid your youngest son."  
"What do you mean?" Marik questioned, his hand remaining on the hilt of his greatsword and his posture staying as frightening as it was. He did not back down, but he did not take any more steps forwards towards the girl – or whatever she was, as it was clear that she was no normal human if she was one at all or merely took that form. She looked up at him, stepping backwards away from Caiellis's bed and correctly inferring that such an action would put the king at more ease as it meant that there was less of a chance of her threatening his youngest son – though the monarch did not change how he was acting because of this. She replied, her eyes flicking to the youngest Lucerna once again before returning to gazing back at Marik, cautiously but without any fear, "I am not going to hurt your son, but I cannot tell you who I am because you would not understand it. I am sorry about that, but that is the truth. Rest assured that I am not part of the darkness, nor am I motivated by evil. I know that you are scared for Cai, and rightly so, but believe me when I say that all I want to do is help you both – to help all of you."

The king narrowed his eyes at the girl who was quite pretty, her eyes sparkling with intelligence and also tinged with a seemingly genuine desire to help and impart whatever she was going to say to the man in front of her. He moved his hand away from his sword, though that did not mean that he in any way trusted her or believe what she was saying – but if that was the case then he would be able to obliterate her with magic or his fists if that was necessary, and took another step towards the foot of the bed, moving protectively around so that he was closer to her and almost between her and his youngest son.

"And why should I believe at all what you are saying? Why should I not think that you are associated with the abyss, because the creatures of that forsaken realm can take many forms and yours could easily be one of them? Why should I not strike you down right now?" the king bombarded her with questions, although inside he believed that the girl was probably not a denizen of the darkness as she would have struck already or done something to Caiellis – and the boy was not reacting in any way to the presence of her so he doubted that. At any rate, he kept his guard up, as he would have done so even if the girl had entered in a conventional method as he did not know her and his sons' safety was his top priority at the moment.

"Why have you not attacked me already?" the girl asked, her eyes suddenly covered with an inscrutable sheen as Marik stared at the grey irises and the body language of the youth. He didn't respond, though he knew that she was right by saying that – as normally he would have instantly attacked anything that he found remotely threatening which had suddenly entered the operating room of his youngest son. He thought that it was most likely not a coincidence that she had appeared when Alexander was gone, because there was no telling how the devastated seventeen year old would react to this new arrival and if Marik would have been able to calm him down enough so that he did not attack her.

He wasn't entirely sure why he hadn't already banished her from the room, but he did not feel that she was threatening nor was his sense of danger that had been honed through years of brutal warfare screaming at him to react past his instinct of a father's protective fear for his youngest son. Then again, he hadn't felt that he was in danger when he was with the beautiful Lucaelian captain that Aksua had masqueraded as until just before she revealed her true motives and tried to kill him when he was at his most vulnerable, so he didn't entirely trust his sense for detecting evil when it was hidden as innocence. He watched her as she watched him, and eventually told her, "Fine. I will listen to your words, but if you do anything that I consider to be remotely detrimental to the health of Caiellis or anyone else here then I will not delay in killing you."

She nodded in response, the caution fading from her eyes, and turned back towards the boy on the bed, her lips curling into a sad smile that Marik had seen before from himself as she beheld the frail form of the youngest Lucerna who was breathing weakly with the aid of the oxygen mask. She stared silently at Caiellis for a few seconds, though made no movements towards him because it was clear that Marik would tear her apart if he did so and did not entirely trust her – as the king couldn't, having not ever seen her before and in the strange circumstances she had appeared.

Just as the forty year old was about to impatiently prompt her to speak, her mouth opened, and her gentle and slightly comforting voice broke the tense silence that had fallen within the room, "As I said earlier, Cai is on a crossroads. He is trapped within his mind because of the wounds of his body, as you already know, and he is currently in between two paths."

"My son's name is Caiellis," Marik growled at her, uncomfortable with this unknown girl using the nickname which was the shortened version of the name he had chosen for his and Emili's second child that was utilised mostly by Alexander and Guardian Tristram as well as a few of the others who knew the youngest Lucerna relatively well. He had never liked the pet name which had been given to the boy the day he had been born by an endeared big brother, but then again he had never liked Alexander's nickname of Alex which had often been used by Emili (and he had always had an inkling that she had picked the name so that she could do that as well) unless she was telling the boy off, feeling that the shortened versions didn't do justice to his sons' brilliant names. He had never used them himself, and he wasn't informal enough with either of them now that it wouldn't be weird if he suddenly starting doing so, especially not Caiellis.

He thought deeply about the words that the girl had spoken as she replied, not looking up from the boy in the bed, "Of course. I didn't mean to offend you. At any rate, _Caiellis_ is still on the crossroads within his mind. He will have to make a decision soon, even though he will not even be aware that he is making the decision himself."

"What sort of decision?" Marik asked despite himself, even though he was still not fully convinced that he should be believing the information that was being told to him because of its dubious origin. But any information involving his youngest son was information that he was going to listen to as otherwise there was no way that he could help Caiellis, no way that he could stave off the feelings of uselessness that gnawed at him from within – even though he was undoubtedly a failure of a father, there was no questioning that. The girl turned back to him, her young and pale features pulled into a grim expression and her eyes half obscured by the silver fringe over them as she looked back up at the tall king.

"A decision that will affect his chances at recovering. But he needs you – you and Alex … ander (she added after a moment) – to help him make the right choice in this decision. And you do not have to worry about touching him, King Marik. He needs you to touch him, to make contact with him … to talk to him. He needs you both to help him find his way back from where he is right now," the girl explained mysteriously, although Marik got the impression that what she was telling him was all that she truly knew and that she wasn't hiding anything from him, not that he could isolate and find out why he believed that. He nodded, urging her to continue even though he wasn't entirely sure whether or not he should trust whatever she was saying, and even though he wanted to interrupt and barrage her with questions he resolved to listen to what this enigmatic girl was saying before he asked more.

"He needs you to guide him, to lead him from where he is right now," she murmured, though her voice was still loud enough for the king to hear her clearly. Unable to stop himself, Marik cut in, his darkened eyes alight with worry for his youngest son, "What do you mean, where he is? Where is he?"  
"Inside of his mind, and close to the other side. Caiellis is drifting in the middle of here and there. He will have to make a choice, choose one of two paths, even though he won't know that he is doing it. He will need to know that he is wanted and needed here in order to make the right decision, because he won't be able to follow the right path on his own," the mysterious girl answered cryptically as she stared unflinchingly back at Marik, whose own eyes were wide with desperate concern for his youngest son.

"And if he doesn't make this right decision? If he doesn't follow this path that you are talking about?" he demanded, his words thick with his fear from his frayed emotions. With grim finality, the girl responded, though her voice was level and calm, "Then he will die. And even if he does make the right decision, then there is a large chance that he will do so, or that he will never recover completely – but there is a chance that he will not, that he will survive, and that is better than the certainty of death that the wrong path holds."

Marik swallowed, though he had known at the back of his mind that this was what the girl would say to him. He turned back to Caiellis, knowing in his heart that he would do everything in his power that he could to aid the boy in selecting the correct option in his unconscious state, that he would make the boy know that he was loved and wanted in the world of the awake in any way that he could. He did not reply, because words were not needed, and stayed silent as the girl said: "And do not forget about your eldest son either, King Marik. He is not yet ready to leave his brother's side."

The king narrowed his eyes at the change of tone, but when he looked up to ask for further clarification on what she meant she had gone, disappeared without a trace and with no evidence that she had been there in the first place – leaving Marik wondering whether or not she was merely a figment of his imagination as her words lingered on his mind. He turned back to his youngest son, mulling over if what she had said was true and finding no reason that it wouldn't be – as, really, she had not told him anything that he did not know already, only focussed his thoughts upon that – which again made him ponder if she had been real or not.

At any rate, what she had said last played out in his mind once again, and since he was already stood up he knew that he should go to check upon his eldest son – as the seventeen year old was in a fragile emotional state and could easily have broken down outside of the room. He gazed at the pale face of his youngest son, and murmured, "Caiellis, you had better not go anywhere or get any worse while I go and fetch your big brother."

He turned round to the surgeons, noticing Choirmaster Esmelde flicking her gaze away from him having evidently been looking over at him when he had spoken to his youngest son, and endeavoured to meet her eyes. She did so, inclining her head reverently in respect for her Lucerna ruler whose privacy she had not intended to intrude upon, and then nodded at the question in Marik's eyes, moving closer to the youngest Lucerna's bed as she did so and saying, "Don't worry, my lord. Prince Caiellis will be safe with us while you find Alexander."

"Thank you," the king replied quietly, not wanting to leave his youngest son but knowing what the strange girl had said to him in their brief encountered which had seemed to go unnoticed by the Ordo Medella doctors sharing the room with them. He resolved to be as quick as possible, silently promising Caiellis that he would be back soon and with Alexander in tow, and strode out of the room. It was quite possible that nothing had happened to the seventeen year old, that he was just being paranoid and that Alexander was fine – that the girl had been deceiving him – but he couldn't quite believe that and sped up his pace. This would mean that he would have to force the boy to leave his brother's room on another occasion to have a break, but that would come tomorrow.

.*.*.*.

Alexander walked out of the room that held his younger brother, his mind trapped within his head as his body walked of its own accord, wanting the escape but knowing that it was selfish even if his father would have forced him to do it if he had refused the older male, knowing that he didn't deserve the break from watching over his younger brother. He knew that leaving Caiellis wouldn't make the younger boy's horrible predicament any better, that it wouldn't erase what had happened to his little brother, but his dad had been right and he needed to just get out of the room before the hopelessness consumed him completely.

He hated hospitals, because hospitals meant sickness and injuries and sometimes death and he couldn't deal with the fact that it was Cai, his baby brother, who required the medical attention, especially with the amount of damage that had been done to his younger brother.

Alex increased his pace as he thought the words, not caring where he was going because he wanted to be away, he wanted to run away from what had happened to his younger brother that he had been too weak and stupid to protect him from, despite rationally knowing that no matter how far he ran he would never be able to flee from the fact that Cai was so close to death and getting weaker every second. No distance would help him escape from that fact, and all he was doing was putting himself further away from his younger brother, but he didn't care and his mind couldn't process that as he sped into a hurtling run, his own wounds howling at him to stop even as part of his mind did the same.

_Angels … Caiellis … how could this have happened? What … I don't understand … I don't know … I … I … Cai … what … what … I can't … _Broken thoughts, fragmented sentences and half formed ideas cascaded through his mind as he charged down one of the corridors, only knowing that it was empty because of the lack of reaction from anyone else – though he wouldn't have heard it even if there was one because of the pounding inside of his head.

He needed to get out. Not to get out of the hospital, but to get out of the spiralling despair that was dragging him ever downwards into the pits of endless sorrow eating him out from the inside and consuming his hope, turning it into more despair. He needed to run from the reality of what had happened, even though it wouldn't change anything, it wouldn't change the truth and nothing could – but every second of being with his younger brother was making him worse and worse, and he wouldn't be able to help Cai recover if he could barely control himself.

Now that he was out of the presence of his impressionable baby brother who had always valued Alexander's words and always taken Alexander's statements to heart (meaning that sometimes when Alex said something harsh that he didn't really mean Cai would think badly of himself because of it unless his big brother said something) he could let all of the emotions that he had bottled up inside of him, not wanting his younger brother to feel them, to feel that his big brother was losing his hope that he would make it through this, out. They had been rising constantly, becoming something that he could no longer control now that he didn't have to think about somehow upsetting his unconscious younger brother, and Alexander's vision blurred as stinging tears dripped out of his eyes.

Hyperventilating, his sight distorting even more because of the fact that he wasn't breathing properly at all and his broken ribs which had nowhere near healed fully were restricting the expansion of his lungs, Alex's normal sight of the world around him was replaced by the images that he couldn't stop from flooding up to meet him after pressing them down in everything but his dreams where he hadn't been able to suppress them.

_Caiellis … I'm so sorry … This never, ever should have happened to you … little brother … I'm … I'm … sorry … I can't … I can't help you … I can't do _anything_ … _

Alexander found that he couldn't run any more, not with the images rising up inside of him, and fell down next to one of the white walls of the interior of the Ordo Medella hospital, not knowing how far he had hurtled from his brother's room as he tried to escape from the awful truth of what happened. He rested his hands on his lap and stared at the ground, images of his sibling laid unmoving and broken in their father's arms, covered in blood and not breathing, filled his mind and assaulted his distraught psyche.

_Angels … Cai … Cai … there is so much … so much blood … _There was so much blood. _So much blood. _It was everywhere, the crimson drenching everything around him like the Rain of Gore had, but within the wash of unnaturally vibrant scarlet there was another pigment of red, blood from another source that the seventeen year old was horrified to see. He lifted his hands up, the large and shaking palms covered in his brother's lifeblood, and stared at them in horror as the crimson, stark against the pale skin even though his hands had been scratched by rock and bruised by the Master of Violence that he hadn't been able to defeat in time – and hadn't defeated at all, in fact – dripped over his skin.

It was the evidence of his failure.

His failure to be a good older brother, his failure to protect his younger sibling from what had happened to him, the possession of his father that had made their dad's body turn against Cai and the unnatural spite of the Lord of Riots that his brother had annihilated, his failure to make Caiellis feel loved enough that he would not even consider suicide. Alexander shook as he stared at his hands, before lifting his arms up and wrapping them around his head as he brought his knees up and pressed his head into them in a way that Cai had often done when morose or emotionally lost, collapsing over them. Tortured, grief stricken sobs escaped his mouth as he finally let the emotions that had been building up inside of him ever since dad had told him what truly happened out.

Alexander couldn't stop it. The fatigue, the constant fear and the loneliness without his younger brother caught up with him and overwhelmed his feeble defence. He began to shake even more, his hands and arms that were already shuddering joined by his shoulders and chest until thousands of anguished sobs afflicted his tired body.

All he could see was his younger brother, his younger brother who was dead in his arms as he sloppily tried to revive the thirteen year old in his panic, the younger brother he had wrenched out of his father's grip because the man hadn't been doing anything to help him and the younger brother that he had been forced to breathe a second time for when the Angel of the Black Sun had given life back to Caiellis's lifeless form.

He could feel his brother's blood on him, feel the boy limp in his arms as he sobbed over him. He could feel the boy's blood in his mouth, the coppery tang of his little brother's vital fluids that made him the sibling of Alexander something that he had never wanted to taste and never wanted to experience ever again. He could feel the way that Caiellis's small chest had flopped under Marik's compressions, feel the way that the only thing he had been doing when performing mouth to mouth resuscitation had been making his brother bleed out of his mouth even more.

_Angels … there is so much blood … so much of his blood … I … why … he … no … no … _Alexander gagged at the stench of the gore that filled his nostrils, bile rising within him as he felt his brother's blood in his mouth again, acidic vomit spilling out of his lips as he cried and threw up the half dissolved remnants of the sandwich he had eaten earlier, his chest heaving – but even with the horrible taste of the bile, it didn't get rid of the iron tang of his brother's blood.

He could feel Caiellis's small and thin arms weakly thrashing beneath his hands as blood bubbled up from his mouth and filled the oxygen mask, could see the image of Cai trying desperately to pull it off as his fingers scrabbled against the edges clear glass that made up the transparent sections of the piece of equipment helping to save his life, and it made his stomach churn to think of all that had happened to his fragile baby brother because of a series of mistakes both he and their dad had made in caring for him.

He had no idea how long he sat there, rocking back and forth, wallowing within despair and self-recrimination, stomach heaving as vomit trickled down his lip that he wiped away before more was thrown up, sobbing his heart out as he truly came to terms with the reality that he might never see his younger brother awake and happy ever again if Cai didn't improve at all. All he did know was that his entire life was inside that operating theatre fighting for the chance to keep on living and that nothing else apart from that mattered. Not prosecuting wars against those who served the demons of the foul abyss which surrounded Lucael and blackened Sancturia, not avenging his mother's death and the deaths of thousands, _millions _of others in the civil war because of Johnias's treachery, not even protecting the Kingdom of Light from attack – though that was still very important, but it meant nothing if Caiellis wasn't there to be protected as well.

Caiellis was what mattered. Caiellis was what always mattered most. Nothing else even came close, and now Alexander was on the road to losing the main reason – the _only _reason – his life was worth living, all because of his failure to be the protector that Caiellis needed. He was so sorry, but that didn't change anything, and the tears poured out of his eyes as he sobbed and coughed and gagged at the stench of the blood and the acrid bile in his mouth as the images of his younger brother dead or dying flooded his mind, overloading it with the amount of distress and sadness. It would have been even worse if Alex had seen his brother's attempt at suicide like their father had, or if it had been him that his younger sibling had been forced to fend off to keep alive before taking down an Archdemon all on his own, but Alexander couldn't process that at the current time and all he could think about was how he had failed his brother and how Caiellis was going to die and it would be all his fault.

Caiellis wasn't dead yet. But Alexander knew that it wouldn't be long.

The sound of heavy footsteps only just registered past the pounding within the seventeen year old's head and the pathetic sobbing noises that he was making past his hyperventilating pants for breath, barely audible over the noises inside of his skull. Weeping convulsively and confined by his sorrow, the boy didn't act upon the sudden noise, not possessing the mental ability to wrench himself free from his current state and confront whoever was closing in on him.

A strong hand grabbed hold of his shoulder, and Alexander reacted violently, thrashing all around him in a flurry of kicks and punches as he fought back against this unknown assailant, but almost all of them were blocked almost effortlessly on hard flesh and those that did impact had no effect. His blind flailing achieved nothing, and the grip of his shoulder that had been firm but not painful tightened as another hand grabbed hold of one of his wrists. The man grunted, and the sudden, primal impulse to attack the person who had sprung up on him when he had been ensnared by his haunting memories of Caiellis's near death faded when the familiar person yelled at him, "Alexander! Calm down! It is just me! It is just your father! I am not going to hurt you!"

"D-dad?" Alex choked out through the sobs, the adrenaline that had coursed through him fading and leaving him with his guilt and sadness once more, and he thought could blearily recognise that the person who had reached out to him was indeed his father, though his face was distorted through the haze of tears. Marik replied softly, although his voice was still firm in the way that he hoped would inform his eldest son that he was safe, "Yes, son, it is me. Your father. You are alright. You are safe here, Alexander."

Thinking that perhaps he shouldn't be that pathetic, especially not in front of his father whom he idolised and wanted to appear strong in front of, a suitable heir to the throne and someone that Marik didn't have to focus on so that he could concentrate all of his parenting upon their youngest, was soon overwhelmed by another rush of all consuming despair that wracked the seventeen year old with more pitiful whimpering as his stomach and ribs ached in protest to all of the juddering movements.

Marik watched as his eldest son dissolved into a fit of crying and sobbing completely uncharacteristic of the middle Lucerna, keeping his right hand on the boy's shoulder as he left go of his wrist with his left, unwilling to reveal that Alexander's resistance had made his own injuries flare into life once again. He wondered what he should say, what he should do, whether he should keep his distance and let Alexander solve this himself, do that but offer words of encouragement to his eldest son as the boy recovered on his own, or to give in to his fatherly urge to embrace the seventeen year old and start acting like the dad that he should have been over a month ago to his two sons – even though it might be too late for one of them.

Noticing the vomit that had spilled out of the teenager's lips and stained the clothes he was wearing, Marik's mind was made up, and he pulled the unresisting adolescent into a hug as he crouched down in front of the distraught boy, aware that there was little he could do to salve his son's emotional state past somehow bring Caiellis back into consciousness and awareness but determined to do all that he was able to do in order to aid his eldest boy. He gently pulled Alexander in so that the boy's head was resting on his shoulder, staying silent as the boy's shuddering sobs made him shake against his father who offered solidarity and comfort freely.

"That's it, son," Marik whispered softly, rocking the boy – his little boy - back and forth as he sobbed and cried his heart out. Marik had never seen his oldest child so distraught and heart broken apart from when he had found his father and younger brother in the place where the worst events of the king's life had occurred. He felt his son's young body shaking violently in his arms and held on tight, silently praying to the angels and any other deity that would listen even if he didn't believe in them to to give both of his sons – and him – the strength to get through this.

"Just let it go. Just let it all out," he gently urged. He held back his own tears with an iron will, the impulse to cry pushing even with even more strength than it usually did. This was about helping Alexander, helping him come to fateful terms with what was happening to them and helping him to stay strong when it seemed that there was no hope. There would be time enough later for Mairk to grieve.

He knew what his eldest son would have been thinking about, because it was the same things that flashed behind Marik's eyelids in the blinking moments where he couldn't push it down and focus on his current children, not the past representations of them, and he shifted Alexander round so that the boy's face was in front of his and he could look into his son's eyes. Eventually, the seventeen year old stopped crying, wiping the tears that had fallen from his eyes and incredibly embarrassed by the whole thing, and Marik tried to smile at him for a moment, muttering, "I told you that you would make yourself sick," although it was too quiet for Alexander to hear as his breath hitched through him trying to get it under control once again.

"C-Cai?" the boy asked through sobs that he tried to suppress, though Marik wished that his eldest son didn't feel so ashamed of letting out his emotions in front of his father – or anyone, for that matter. It reminded him of what had happened when Alexander had been wounded, when Aurelia had Summoned herself into the material realm for a very brief time (as Marik entered the room as soon as she left and spoken to his sons through the bathroom door, leaving for a few more minutes because he felt that he was intruding on their privacy before returning as he hadn't heard them exiting the room which had probably been the location of his eldest's break down).

The king knew that despite the fact that Alexander must have run here, he wouldn't have wanted to leave his brother, just escape from the all pervading atmosphere of sorrow and potential loss which surrounded the unconscious Caiellis and reminded them all of the fact that they might never see their precious youngest awake again because of what Marik had done. Even with his near mental collapse that was caused by the culmination of all of the stress and hopelessness that had swirled around within the seventeen year old who felt that he couldn't talk about it with anyone and didn't want to act weak in front of others so that they would focus on his brother or someone else if Caiellis wasn't in danger, Alexander's main priority was still his younger sibling, and the adolescent had managed to mentally connect the fact that Marik was here to the truth that Caiellis was without any family members – which in turn spurred him to recover from his lapse faster as it meant that the king's first child could return to his brother in a shorter amount of time.

"Caiellis is fine. He hasn't woken up yet," the king replied, wondering when the word "fine" had lost all meaning to him, as in this instance it simply meant that his youngest son hadn't got any worse. There was no way that Caiellis was "fine", but Alexander already knew what condition his younger brother was in and repeating it to him wasn't going to help anyone in the present situation. He gripped the boy's shoulder tightly, wanting to bring him into another hug but also not wanting to be out of his second son's presence for very long in case things did begin to deteriorate, and wished that he had someone else to advise him on what was the best course of action to take here. The seventeen year old was still visibly shuddering in his grasp, though that was nothing to do with Marik and the man was glad that he had been able to get his son to recognise him after his initial reaction of recoiling away from the king.

He wanted to tell Alexander that his son would always be able to share things with him, that if the boy wanted someone to talk to about his worries and concerns then that was what he was there for, but knew for certain that the teenager would not take his words to heart and continue to bottle up his emotions until they exploded once again. That, for all that he was trying to be the good father that the middle Lucerna deserved, the only one who could help Alexander now was Caiellis.

Marik was not going to inform his eldest son of what he had seen, the enigmatic girl which he had spoken to, as he had numerous misgivings about her actual appearance in the room and was still unconvinced that she wasn't a figment of his imagination – as while he encouraged and forced his older boy to at least attempt to take care of himself as stay as healthy as they could manage, he was barely following his own advice at all and while he would never admit it he constantly felt nauseous and bilious, especially when he thought about what he had done to his youngest son, what pain his hands and condemnations of the boy had caused.

The boy didn't need to know, he didn't need to be any more frightened or concerned than he already was (if that was even possible), and Alexander was already doing all that he could to convince Caiellis to come back to them and wake up when he was able to. Marik would keep that particular encounter and the conversation that it entailed to himself, as he should, due to the fact that he didn't want his eldest son to think that he was going mad or suffering himself.

"Need to … need to get back to him," the younger male protested, pushing weakly against his father who loosened his grip somewhat, not realising that he had involuntarily tightened it because of his thoughts and the need to protect both of his children. Marik sent his son a sad smile, and responded, "Yes, we will. But first we need to get you cleaned up. We can go to the bathroom next to Caiellis's operating room, then you can go and see your brother again."

It seemed as if Alexander was going to fight against that, but a brief glower from the king shut him up and forced him into compliance, sighing sadly and blinking his eyes in misery to get rid of the tears still pricking at them whenever he thought of his younger brother. This was truly pathetic, Alexander knew. He should have been able to take control of his emotions himself and assert dominance over them instead of allowing them to place him in such a vulnerable position, forcing his dad to come and see to him instead of remaining where he belonged at this grievous and serious time – by Caiellis's bedside and protecting the youngest Lucerna from anything and everything while he recovered.

He was the older brother, the one who was supposed to be strong, but twice now he had let himself fall into selfish despair instead of combating it. Alexander wasn't naïve enough not to know that he had powerful emotions and had to give into them sometimes, but not right now, not when it was his younger brother that was hurt and still in a perilous position. Everything seemed hopeless and dire, but Caiellis could still recover and Alex was going to hold onto that with all of his might. He resolved inside that he would not let this happen again, but even as he thought that he knew that he was lying to himself, that he wouldn't be able to resist the sadness knowing what was happening to his baby brother and that there was no way that he could help.

He was deceiving himself if he thought that he was going to be able to stem off the forlornness and anguish, if he thought that he would ever be able to control himself until Cai woke up and flashed his trademark dimples at his big brother again, because nothing had changed, they were still in the steady decline into loss and death and his weakness had made no difference to Caiellis's condition. He couldn't live without his younger brother, and resolving to be strong was something that he couldn't do – but it was something that he would try. He wasn't going to improve, was only going to get worse, as his own state of mind directly correlated with his little brother's physical health, but he would remain by his brother's side and offer all the support that he could get – and he would not take away any of that support which was offered by their dad from his sibling.

Alex didn't resist as his father led him to the bathroom and wiped off the sick from his clothes with a wet cloth towel, only really paying attention to his thoughts and the tragedy that was closing in on them at a constant rate until Cai started showing improvements which had not happened at all. He thrust his emotions away again in their cage, needing to prepare to be strong for his younger brother once again.

Marik saw his son visibly change, the utter grief fading from his expressive blue eyes and being replaced by the constant sadness which had filled them ever since the seizures which had wracked Caiellis had died down. He wished that his son didn't feel that he had to be strong simply so no one would pay attention to him, but that was both the duty of a selfless Lucerna and the duty of an older brother that Alexander had imposed upon himself, and his boy wouldn't listen if Marik ever told him to stop. He only knew that he would rather that Alexander thought that he didn't have to sacrifice himself for his family, for Marik believed that such a thing was his responsibility as his sons' father and the eldest in their family – that Alexander and Caiellis shouldn't have to think that way, as such a way of thinking did not belong exclusively to the older brother of the youngest prince.

But that did not last long, as when Marik let go of the cloth and turned back around from placing it in the sink Alexander had broken down again, sliding down the wall and almost falling over if not for the grip Marik's strong arms had on him. He held onto his son with all of the strength that he had, whispering encouragements and soothing words that he wasn't sure himself made sense or were actual words or not, but it did not matter at all. He stroked the boy's blonde hair gently, as he rocked him again, knowing how badly this was all affecting Alexander by the fact that he had already tried to push away his sadness and repair his fortifications to ward off the depression within and the grief had consumed him once again. He had no idea how long they stayed there in the small bathroom which was usually used by surgeons wanting to clean their implements or the patients of the room that they were next door to, but Alexander had cried himself to sleep, once again unable to give into the exhaustion which had claimed him – the only time he would relinquish control of his tired body and allow it to slumber. The dry tear tracks on his face made him look impossibly young.

Marik shifted his son, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and the other underneath his legs, mindful of the boy's wounds and not wanting to hurt Alexander or startle him should he wake up. The seventeen year old was a muscular teenager, almost as big as his father was (and he would definitely reach Marik's height and weight within a few more years of growth) and certainly not light (though not unhealthily heavy at all as all of his mass came from muscle), but Marik had little difficultly at all carrying his eldest son back into the room even if it hurt his wounds more, an ignorable pain that he paid no heed to.

The doctors smiled sympathetically at him as he re-entered the surgery, instantly looking over to Caiellis in the bed and the monitors to absorb all the information that he could about his youngest son's current state, and gently laid out his first born son on the chair in which he spent most of his time so that he would wake up and be able to see his younger brother again – even if the king had been slightly tempted to take him to one of the many spare bedrooms in the hospital or even the Sola Atria, though that would have been cruel to his eldest. He might have done in only a few weeks ago, not realising the bond between his children now that they were teenagers, but Marik was learning and he knew for certain that both Alexander and Caiellis would be safer if they were in each other's company.

He gently placed the boy in the chair, shifting the blanket which he had asked to be fetched the first time Alexander had fallen asleep after the siege of Usnaan and their hasty escape to Civitas Sol, careful not to wake up the boy because he knew that the seventeen year old needed every minute of sleep that he could get.

He wearily sat down in his own chair with another sigh, glancing over at his youngest son and noticing that the boy's face was lit up in a slightly different light than before – at first he thought that it was because of some improvement, or a change in the spells that the doctors were using to combat his comatose condition, but when Marik looked over at the window which had its curtains usually closed he saw why. In the time that the king had been absent from the room, the moon had come out, a dazzling silver orb in the blackness of the eternal night that shone with its lunar light into the room and over the City of the Sun.

It was not exactly a rare occurrence, nowhere near as rare as the appearance of the holy sun which hadn't lit up the Kingdom of Light for over fourteen years now, before Caiellis was born (the time before that only being three years earlier, coinciding with Alexander's birth which had been seen as a sign), but still hardly common and it only penetrated through the darkness of the abyss every few months. A halo of lucent light surrounded the moon, a beautiful display of illumination that would augment White mana underneath it.

This occurrence, the only time that the only moon that the Lucaelian's saw (as there were apparently others that the nations outside of the abyss had in their skies of night, though none had the holy significance as Lucael's sacred moon) was powerful enough to break through the reviled shadows, was known as a paraselene. It was a serene moment, said to be a blessing from the Angel of Hope as Avacyn was associated with the moon of the Kingdom of Light, and while the king had seen it many times it still barely ever failed to capture his attention. It had special significance in aiding the destruction of the foul curses and hexes used by the denizens of the hated nether realm, and Marik remembered Akroma once using the moon's power to aid her in combat against an ambushing party of mages that wielded a variety of malicious auras.

If only Caiellis was under the effects of a curse, something that the moon and the blessings of the Angel of Hope would have been able to combat, as they could do nothing for his youngest son in his entirely physically wounded condition. Marik did appreciate the sentiment of the Ordo Medella surgeons in opening the curtains, however, knowing that they would do so across the whole hospital to give hope to the patients and their relatives.

It was something that had fascinated his youngest son back before the civil war, as the baby boy had never seen the celestial magnificence of the divine solar light of the angels and the paraselene was the closest he had ever got to it. He recalled the boy watching it with wonder, enraptured by the silver orb and pointing to it and saying its name to impress his parents as Alexander sat at his side and laughed happily at his baby brother's antics. The king knew, somehow, that his youngest son would still be fascinated by it now as well, that Caiellis would have adored looking at it and sat by the window so that he could get a closer observance of it.

The moon twinkled as he stared at it, and he turned back to his youngest son, the boy's pale face lit up in the lucent illuminescence, shimmering under the light of the moon and making him look like some sort of kind spirit as his soft brown curls reflected the silver glow as they rested gently upon his head. Marik watched with baited breath, silently hoping for something to happen, that something would change for the better in the condition of his youngest son because of what one could consider an auspicious sign. After a few seconds, the king released a breath that he hadn't realised he had been holding when there was no change. The thirteen year old in the hospital bed didn't stir – and why would he have? If the boy didn't react at all to his older brother's touch, then he wasn't going to suddenly wake up because of a moon shining on him. He spun back around to the moon once more, sad that the youngest Lucerna was missing it.

_Caiellis might not ever see a paraselene again._

Marik choked back his own feelings of despair and helplessness when the treacherous thought pushed itself to the forefront of his mind. It made him feel dangerous and reckless. He wanted the throw something violently and irreverently through the window in an attempt to smash the moon out of the midnight veil of the dark sky, destroy the paraselene and any other paraselenes that would follow. If Caiellis couldn't see it then no one else deserved to. Marik closed his eyes, rubbing his throbbing temples with his fingers and trying to push down the rage, anger and desperation which screamed inside of his head.

His son better recover. Caiellis better recover, because Marik wasn't sure if he would be able to live any longer if he didn't. However, even if he didn't want to even think about such a possibility, he knew for certain that if Caiellis didn't make it through this, if his precious youngest went to join his mother in perpetual paradise in the realm of angels, he knew that the world would become as cold as it had done before Orzhova brought his son, her second Summoner, back to life. And he knew that Johnias was going to pay from tearing him away from his children for so long, whether or not he had anything to do with what the horror had forced Marik to do. Nothing apart from making sure that Alexander would be fine enough to live on and obtain as much happiness as he could with the loss of his younger brother would stop him from hunting down his traitorous twin brother and slaying him when he judged Alexander suitable enough to become king.

.*.*.*.

The communion began in the same way as all of the others, although this time the energised expectation and fateful anticipation which had been exponentially rising in each consecutive connection was at a crescendo of grim suspense. The Eternal Realm was the same as it had always been, but each of the Confederates stood at equidistant points around the disc in the centre of their immortal meeting place was certain that the strange area around them could feel that their plans were coming to fruition and that now was the time to act.

The imaginary stars in the distance traced urgent patterns across the endless expanse of silvery darkness around them, dancing to the sublime and unknowable rhythm of the mysteries of the cosmos. The disc thrummed, but then it always did, only normally Beta would not pay too much attention to it. A melody poured out from it, sweet, sour, deep and light, slow and out of time yet lyrically perfect without words. Endless characters and hieroglyphs stretched across the disk in which they were stood, impossibly vast yet infinitely small pieces to a symphony that encompassed the whole of the two worlds and many more yet had no meaning.

Every word was spoken to its rhythm, each footfall pressed into place by the ordination of the everlasting watchers who followed its endless song, the identities of the masks that the five humans stood at five points on the gyrating yet motionlessness circle. The world danced and they watched it dancing; they were the shepherds, the disk told them, the identities that the masks they wore told them, they were the shepherds and the inhabitants of the two worlds were their flock.

They were the weavers and the life and light of the world were their twin threads, spun into an aria of eternity, a coil of song and silence that entwined forwards into the past and backwards into the future. This was what the mask told him, this was what Beta was, a thing that the latest man of many wearing the role would have never dreamed was even a possibility but was only the first step into the enigma that was twinned reality.

But they were not hear to ponder the mysteries of the two worlds, but to safeguard them against the growing threat that threatened to extinguish and enslave all as it had done many thousands of years in the past before the first bearers of the masks had thwarted it.

"So, Delta," Alpha's harsh and grating voice broke Beta's introspective musing, and he turned towards the largest of his fellow Confederates. The man, for Alpha could be nothing else, was missing a part of his arm, hacked off at the elbow in the violence of the Confederacy's plans that would end in the world being saved from the coming cataclysm made manifest. No longer did Alpha, who fancied himself as their leader because of his title, intone the words of the usual Confederacy protocol, the being utterly controlling the human body it had taken most recently filled with an impatience that they all felt, but rushing into the fray could end in the ruination of stratagems and plans carefully constructed over aeons, something that they could ill afford at such a critical stage. "What is the situation? Are we able to act now?"  
The addressed turned towards him, her sea green eyes regarding him solemnly through the bone white mask in the shape of the fox that made her seem even more mysterious but also akin to a predator – but not a reckless one that would charge after prey, no, an intelligent and clever predator that would stalk and manipulate its chosen meal into placing itself on their plate so that its fangs could be sunk into it. She replied calmly enough, though her voice had a hint of fear within it that belied the fact that none of them had been able to utterly annihilate their emotions apart from Gamma, "Yes. The pieces are in place. The stage is set. The Lord of Riots met his deserved fate, and the slayer of the youngest Archdemon has performed as we expected, although there were and are some additional complications. The darkness grows, but as we all no it is not quite time."  
They all nodded in response, though in different ways. All thought differently about the situation, although all were willing to push that aside and embrace the unity that made the Confederacy so strong – that made the Confederacy the perfect weapon to combat the abyss. Beta still had severe misgivings about the strategy that they had chosen, despite the fact that it was too late now to change it, so he would not communicate his doubts.

Or, apparently he would, as without even realising it he had begun to speak, his old voice breaking the quiet that had filled the Eternal Realm in the face of Delta's sombre proclamation. But once he had started, he felt a form of conviction, though not quite zeal, filling him, and he decided to continue, "I don't believe that this method is the only way that we can achieve our goals and protect the world. It seems so wrong, so dependant upon specific factors."

"Why bring this up now, Beta?! Why do you insist on making this difficult for us?!" Alpha bellowed at him, snarling his rage at the masked man in between him and Gamma. Instinctively, the Confederate who was known as the headmaster of the Scholaria Magnus in the material plane shrank back from the explosion of rage, but soon steeled himself and stood up straighter, meeting Alpha's baleful gaze with his own. Before he could reply, the dispassionate tones of Gamma cut in, their cold voice splitting through the sudden rise of anger within Beta, "As much as Alpha is allowing his emotions to control him, logically I must agree with him. This plan was agreed upon approximately eleven days ago dependant upon which time period one utilises. You should never have given your acquiescence had you thought that there was something inefficient about the current strategy we are prosecuting. Even though it is far too late to change now, what would you suggest that we implement to alter our plan of action to better suit your thoughts? It is pointless to make complaints when one does not have a superior alternative to present."

Beta suddenly felt all of his defiance, all of his _humanity,_ deflating underneath the emotionless logic of his fellow Confederate stood to the left of him. He really didn't have a better suggestion that he could tell them, and all he did know was what that what they were doing seemed so _wrong _to him. He muttered, dejected, "It's just … he is so young … someone that young doesn't deserve-"  
The man was cut off when Alpha, shuddering with anger that poured off of him in waves of pure fury, stepped into the centre of the circle and then in front of Beta in two swift strides, ignoring his usual adherence to the rules that the Confederacy had obeyed ever since their inception and entering Beta's part of the circle – with such an unprecedented act making all of the Confederates react in shock. Towering over the much smaller man, Alpha's single remaining hand grabbed the front of Beta's robe, lifting him off of the ground and slamming him into the crystalline pillar behind him, the man's head bashing on the emblazoned glyph of a B stylised in the ways of the ancients which had been there to designate his place from the conception of the Confederacy. Beta's feet dangled above the ground as his hands pawed at the armoured one of Alpha, the man stronger than him even with only one arm, and with no way to get him off because magic was forbidden and inaccessible within the Eternal Realm.

"Alpha!" Epsilon shrieked, its childish voice a warbling cry that split through the shocked gasp of both Delta and Beta. "What are you doing?! You aren't supposed to leave your area of the circle!"

He pushed his helmed head into the man's face until they were virtually nose to nose, his hand leaving bruises on the front of Beta's collarbones with the strength that he was pressing into them, and growled, his voice a threatening hiss, "I am sick of your constant complaints and sympathy for these mortals that we need to manipulate in order to save the world from darkness. You already know what we need to do and why we need to do it, so why do you insist on making this more difficult for us all?!"  
"I..." Beta managed to grind out, resisting the urge to kick at his fellow Confederate because of the fact he knew at the back of his mind Alpha wouldn't hurt him – or would he? None of the other Confederates were interfering, too scared of the potential consequences of leaving their assigned areas and breaking the traditional rule which had never been ignored up to this point.

"Save your words! I'm tired of you trying to be on the side of those that we need to sacrifice for the greater good! Do you want everything that we have planned, every life that has already been ended because of our machinations to go to waste simply because you feel for a child?!" Alpha spat, tightening his one armed grip on the other Confederate.

"Get back in your place right now, Alpha," Gamma intoned, speaking the words with no emotion or human inflection within them at all, but there was a hidden note of authority within them and Beta blew in a breath as the pressure on his chest lessened and he was lowered slightly, though he still had to reach out with his feet to touch the ground with them. He hadn't realised how monstrously large Alpha was until he saw him face to face like this and had to come to terms with the size of his ally (although it did not seem like that at the current moment with him pinned against his crystal pillar by his so called ally).

The tone of Gamma lacked anything even vaguely resembling emotion, yet Beta still felt the command laced within, simultaneously subtly yet overtly directing Alpha away from him as the Confederate wearing the bulbous helm of reflective glass continued, "This is absurd, even when one considers your tangent towards showing the emotions of frustration and rage and your predilection to assuming that you are the commander of the Confederacy – the alpha male, as is a common term for such a role within the dialects of the world's nations, predominantly Welkalite and Erian. Release Beta immediately and return to your assigned location. I will assume leadership from now on because reason and efficiency dictates that we cannot have an extempore director so prone to giving into their emotions. Unity is the defining factor in what has allowed us to reach this point, and it will be unity and direction that ends the threat which has been building up from the years after its original defeat."

Spoken from the mouth of another, the words might have been encouraging, inspiring even, but in Gamma's cold and robotic voice it was simply a statement of indisputable fact. Eventually, presumably scowling underneath his mask, Alpha released Beta, growling and muttering curses under his breath as he walked back towards his usual station in between Gamma and Delta. Epsilon looked as if it was about to start crying, their wide and childish eyes behind their mask grown to an even greater size by the breakage of the Confederacy's age old rules, and Beta coughed as he stood up, using the crystalline pillar behind him as leverage to pull himself back to his feet after being dumped on the ground by his fellow Confederate.

"Now, are there any more objections or concerns that need raising before we can continue to enact the plan?" Gamma queried impassively, taking the lack of response apart from a few shakes of heads as an indication that he should continue. "We must execute this part of the plan with one hundred percent efficiency. Making no mistakes in paramount to the success of this entire venture. In the name of the greater good, we must succeed."

.*.*.*.

_Day Fifteen_

.*.*.*.

Alexander walked aimlessly through the white corridors of the Ordo Medella, having been once again told to leave by his father so that he could actually get some fresh air this time. He drifted as he stepped, his mind on other things than the steady rhythm of his feet pounding into the floor and his heart beating within his head in time to the walking.

He didn't know where he was going, and in fact he didn't care at all where he was going, because nowhere he could go would bring back his little brother from the unconscious state that he was now in, nowhere he could go was where he belonged – which was by the side of his younger sibling. He knew full well that he needed to get some exercise and that yesterday's venture at it achieved absolutely nothing in that way, but he hated it. Marik had imposed a short time limit on how long he had to spend out of the room, not because dad wanted to be cruel but because dad cared about them both even if Alexander really thought he should only be focussing on his youngest son.

Walking round the hospital without a destination was just him wasting time and exercising his aching limbs for the sake of pleasing his father and adhering to the principal that he wouldn't be able to help his own little brother if he made himself sick. But he still did it anyway, wandering around like a lost spirit unable to find the paradise that it belonged within which had been denied to it after its untimely death. He had been stopped once, when one of the burly orderlies of the Ordo Medella that he had made friends with when he had been wounded by Aksua himself had tried to talk to him and assure him that everything would be alright, but he hadn't been able to hear what the man had said to him and simply stood there and stared until he went away, smiling sympathetically and patting the younger male on the shoulder as he did so.

Alex had caught his reflection in one of the windows and mirrors within the hospital, and knew for a fact that he looked awful. He was ashen, almost as pale as his little brother, with his blue eyes sunken and hollow in their sockets. His height had been reduced somewhat because of the fact that he was constantly slumping in sadness and sorrow, and there were dark shadows underneath his eyes that belied how much emotional pain he had gone through over the last few days. Wisps of blonde stubble adorned his chin, as he hadn't been able to shave in days, though he naturally did not have much facial hair like his father, that which he did had obscured mostly by its colour of golden white.

He looked nothing like the handsome and charming prince which he had once envisioned himself to be, but at least he hadn't started getting thinner yet because of his awful diet (though he had lost weight over the whole Aksua incident and would start to do so soon if he didn't begin to eat properly again) and his muscles that he had worked hard on had not yet started to waste away due to lack of use and nourishment. Not that the boy cared, because he didn't care about anything other than his little brother, but he wasn't surprised that everyone he met or walked past seemed to show him huge amounts of concern and tried to comfort him due to how horrible he did look.

Ideally he wanted to avoid people, because people would speak to him and he couldn't stomach a conversation at all, but his path had led him to the entrance reception of the hospital on the lower floor where most official paperwork would be completed and that was the only way that he was going to be able to get outside. There was a small stall that catered for the food needs of patients and relatives of said patients sat around here, with tables and chairs strewn around the interior of the large hallway room. He idly wondered how much Caiellis, being much more shy than Alexander ever was, thought the same as he did now, how much he avoided places of people simply because he didn't want to be recognised or spoken to.

Alex reasoned that his little brother had a much more legitimate reason for that than he did, as Cai was the host of the Angel of the Black Sun who was still viewed with a mixture of awe, terror and hatred by a large proportion of the Lucaelian population. He couldn't remember the amount of other children he had beaten up when they had been younger if they had done something to his little brother because of the younger boy's Summoning, but knew that it was quite a lot. What could he say? He was a protective older brother, but that simply made him feel even worse in this circumstance as there was little that he could do to protect his smaller sibling now.

For as long as he could remember, Caiellis had never had a best friend (or even friends that he was close to), apart from Alexander himself but that didn't count because they were brothers, as the youngest Lucerna was too nervous to interact with other people (especially without his brother or one of his Uncles there to be a buffer for his adorable but sometimes irritating shyness) and did not make friends as easily even if he did begin to start talking to others around his age. Besides, Alexander knew that Cai would have had to find people who didn't discriminate against him because of his Summoning of Orzhova which he had only recently unlocked (though the seventeen year old couldn't say how many days ago as he didn't know how many days it had been since they had brought his brother to this hospital) and that they normally had to leave places too quickly to allow his brother to find a good friend who was willing to interact with him.

Alex had often taken pity on his baby brother and allowed him to tag along with him when he went out with his friends, but a lot of the time that was also forced by their mentors if they had other duties to attend to in the cities and couldn't babysit Caiellis, so Alexander had resented his brother's presence when he had wanted to be with his friends without the squirt joining him with him.

When the civil war finished, the seventeen year old had mostly ignored his younger brother, assuming that his desire to get some privacy and personal space after spending nine years with the kid was mutually felt by the two brothers. He hadn't offered Caiellis the change to come and be with him and his friends, or join in with his training or the lessons that the newly elected Hierarch Tybalt had given to him, assuming that Cai would do what he wanted. Now Alexander wished that he had spent as much time with his younger brother as possible, that he had helped him through the Summoning trial and made his brother know that he could always trust his elder sibling with anything.

_Caiellis might not be dying if I had just done that. I wish that I had done so much more for him, been there for him in this time of direst need, but instead I wasn't._

He walked slowly into the reception area which was mostly empty, as while this was the main Ordo Medella hospital in the City of the Sun there were many others scattered across the metropolis in its different districts and areas. There was only the attractive young receptionist at her desk who bowed her head towards him that he might have flirted with in another circumstance, the young woman reading out of a prayer book and silently whispering the words to herself – probably praying for the recovery of the youngest Lucerna if she knew about it, or the success of the soldiers in Welkas and their safe return.

All he was going to do was step outside, breathe in the cold air of the eternal night for a few minutes, and then return to his younger brother the second he met the time limit set by the king. He strode across the room, the area around him blending into one big grey expanse around him that made him feel dizzy and cold inside, intending to do what he had already thought, when his eyes noticed movement across from him and automatically locked onto it.

He saw two boys sat around a table with small meals in front of either of them – the first, who would have been around the same size as Alexander if he was stood up fully, looked around the prince's own age, with dark brown hair and sharp features. The second was sat in a wheelchair, and even though the seventeen year old wasn't exactly examining him in detail he could tell that he was only in the contraption because he must have recovered from an illness recently as there seemed to be no overt damage to his legs that would prevent him from walking apart from weakness and exhaustion.

He was around fourteen years of age, taller and larger than Caiellis but still quite a bit smaller than what Alex assumed was his older brother by the way the older boy was acting around the one in the wheelchair and attached to a wheeled IV pole next to him. He was pale as well, eyes red rimmed and surrounded by black from lack of sleep, with the same colour of hair as his older relative who stopped his gentle jostling of the boy's shoulder and turned around to the eldest prince who was walking through.

"Bro, is that …?" the younger boy asked, Alexander turning his head towards them and staring blankly for a moment, realising that he had stopped moving and had only been looking at them for a few seconds. The older teenager averted his head from Alex's gaze before turning back to his sibling who looked as if he was about to loudly greet the Lucerna prince who he had probably never seen in this close proximity before, answering quietly, "Yeah. It is. But don't say anything. And no, before you ask, I'm not going to push you over there to him so that you can pay your respects to the prince."  
"Aww … why not?" the smaller of the two pouted as Alexander forced himself to keep walking, trying to push away the sudden surge of rampant jealously and angry envy that had risen up inside of him which was being quickly replaced by a more keen version of the sense of loss that had ripped a hole in his chest ever since he saw his baby brother in the broken state that he had done. He might not ever get to hear Caiellis whining and complaining ever again. He might not ever be able to see his younger brother's puppy dog eyes that he could barely ever resist levelled in his direction any more. He might not have the opportunity to have normal conversations with Cai if he passed away from the illness and wounds that were afflicting his incredibly frail form right now. There were so many things that he wouldn't be able to do if his brother died on him now, so many things that he wasn't even able to think of most of them, of what he would miss from being with Cai – normal things that he never would have noticed or paid any attention to but was already longing for now that they had been ripped away from him.

He had to get away from these two brothers, because they reminded him of his relationship with Caiellis that was threatening to end more and more each moment the thirteen year old did not improve. He wanted more than anything else to be able to do the same for little Cai, to have to tell his brother that he couldn't do things because he was too weak, to have his sibling rely upon him and need him to get through the pain that he was in. He would give anything to be in the same position as the older of the two Lucaelian teenagers right now, and merely being in the presence of them reminded him of what he might lose should Caiellis not recover within a few days.

"Because," the older boy replied, his voice deeper than that of his younger brother as he clapped his hand on the boy's shoulder, the timbre of his words tinged with a thoughtful resonance as he explained, lowering his voice although Alex still heard him, "Prince Alexander has the exact same look on his face as I did whenever I looked in the mirror over the past few days when you were getting worse."

Alexander wondered if there was a specific look that worrying big brothers had when their younger siblings were in danger, knowing without a doubt that his face would definitely be the manifestation of it, but paid no more attention to the two siblings because it hurt too much as he left the hospital. He opened the door quietly and slipped out, ignoring the freezing cold and adjusting the leather jacket that he was wearing which had been a present from Tristram, Tybalt and Caiellis on his sixteenth birthday and still fit him now to better shield him from the low temperatures of the day. It was snowing, as it had probably been doing a lot recently since it was still the heart of winter, white flecks lit up by the light of the city in the darkness around them whirling to the ground as the harsh wind blew them.

It seemed like there would be some form of blizzard soon, meaning that many of the people would be inside of their homes right now even though it was mid morning, and he breathed in the cool air, watching his puffy exhalations spiral through the cold. It was hardly a rarity for one's breath to be seen within Lucael, as it was cold all year round and did not have as much seasonal variance as the other nations, but today his breath was particularly visible and the temperatures were close to freezing. He stood there for a moment remembering a time when he had once had a competition with Caiellis to see who could blow their breath the furthest, one of the many stupid contests they had taken up that Alexander normally always won by merit of him being older and bigger.

This had been no different. The seventeen year old's melancholic mind was drawn back to the many enjoyable times they had had in the snow when it wasn't too dangerous and cold, the snowball fights that the brothers and their carers had had, recalling when he had let his younger brother bury him in snow in an act of consolation for destroying a snow sculpture (cunningly named "Mr Snowman" by a six year old Cai) that the younger brother had spent a long time building and perfecting. He had to forcefully yank his mind out of the descent into reminiscence because he knew that once he let himself fall into the happiness of the past it would be a long time before he could escape and be able to face the dire present once again.

Alexander turned around, something next to the hospital and attached to it catching his eye, and on a whim he walked towards it, feeling around in his pocket for the money that he usually kept in there – as he thought that it was entirely unfair for him to appropriate the goods that he wanted instead of purchasing them even if he could with his Lucerna influence and prestigious heritage. He didn't want to have to communicate with people at all, but he couldn't resist entering the small shop that was covered from the snow which would be for the relatives of young children being seen to at the Ordo Medella hospital.

It was a place to buy teddy bears for the youngsters who were going through surgery to help them through this hard time, most likely lovingly created by the owner of the small business, as even though the Lucaelians were a hardy and practical people who wouldn't usually indulge their children with too much privilege soft toys were an exception to that rule. He knew that Caiellis was way too old for this type of thing now (even if he was only thirteen which was still young), and would object to Alexander buying one for him, but the middle Lucerna couldn't resist purchasing something cute and cuddly for his younger brother to help him through this time.

The woman who ran the shop smiled at him as he entered, bowing her head reverently, though Alexander couldn't tell if she was wondering whether or not she was wondering why the prince had entered her shop or not. He didn't know how much of what had happened to Caiellis was being told to the people, it it was at all, because he knew for certain that the entire truth would not get out as the idea that a Lucerna could be taken over by a mental invader was considered to be preposterous and should stay that way so that the people were not worried – as a denizen of the reviled nether taking control of the king of Lucael was an awful prospect that could have easily caused the death of thousands of soldiers and pushed the Kingdom of Light to its knees.

He assumed that the fact that Caiellis had utterly annihilated an Archdemon, one of the greatest threats to the Kingdom of Light and the source of the New Empire of Passion's corruption, on his own would be publicised, as well as the fact that he had been heavily wounded in the battle and that was why he wasn't appearing any more and why the king and the eldest prince were keeping to themselves, which would also rouse the Lucaelian warriors into a righteous anger at what had happened to one of their beloved royal family, especially the precious youngest of them who was still a child, but that would be it. The fact that Marik had turned on Cai should be kept hidden, as well as the reality that the Archdemon hadn't killed the youngest Lucerna but he had attempted to commit suicide instead.

Alexander didn't think that Cai was at all cowardly, disgraceful or dishonourable for what he had done, he only felt sorry for his younger brother because of what Caiellis must have been feeling to want to end his own life and felt guilty as he hadn't been able to stop him from going through with it, but others in the kingdom could perceive his attempted suicide as that and Cai didn't deserve the embarrassment or shame that would be heaped upon him by others less sensitive than those who would sympathise with him either.

Alexander scanned the rows of carefully created bears and other animals inside the warm shop, a Lucaelian wisp dancing around a fireplace and ensuring that the heat spread to the extremities of the building, giving it a warm, cosy and homely feeling that the seventeen year old wished he could have indulged in more. Even though the woman who was currently manning the desk of buying was only his senior by a few years, the place still made him think of his grandparents' house in Scientia Mos which he and his brother had stayed at semi regularly throughout the war due to the fact that it was somewhere safe and familiar that they both enjoyed being in.

He wondered which one would suit his little brother the best, casting his mind back to when Caiellis had actually possessed teddy bears which they had been able to take with them in the civil war. He remembered that the youngest Lucerna had had many in the past, but they had been immolated in the fire that had consumed their (well, his, as the eight year old Alex had moved mostly into his own room but had still slept in the same one as his little brother for that fateful night) nursery, but Cai had been able to fit one into Tristram's pack that the man had allowed the boy to take with him out of the collection that he had at his grandparents' abode.

It had been of a white rabbit, a rare creature within Lucael due to the fact that only those with magical properties gifted to them by White mana could survive within the darkness of the wilds, and little Cai had often clutched his affectionately named Fluffy-Bunny (often shortened to just Bunny) when he was scared or wanted to go to sleep on those nights that he slept in his own bed. They had lost the soft toy at some point during the civil war when they had been forced to run without taking any of their supplies or clothes (past the ones that they were already wearing) with them, which had understandably made the five year old Caiellis quite sad, but after that he had forgotten about his want of soft toys, declaring that he was now too old for them and that they were just slowing them down anyway.

He had decided that because Alexander, Uncle Tybalt and Tristram couldn't have any then he wouldn't either as it was unfair to his young mind, which was a kind thing to do and had made Alex smile even then. He dragged himself out from his memories, refusing to wallow in them once again because the happy times were tainted by what had happened to his baby brother, and located one of the adorable teddy bunnies that was of a similar style to the one that Rosa Noctis had personally made Caiellis. He took it to the counter, the woman at it smiling at him and bowing, aware that he would have definitely flirted with her if such things hadn't lost all meaning without his brother to tell him that it was rude and squeal in disgust in an exaggerated manner that made him seem younger.

"Is this for your little brother, Prince Caiellis?" she asked, respectfully, and Alex nodded, not really sure if she knew the extent of what had happened to Cai or not – or how much she would be able to tell from how he appeared. She smiled cheerfully at him, probably trying to make him feel better himself, which didn't work and Alexander was in no mood for communicating with human beings other than those that belonged to his family at the current moment. Her voice was soft and slightly joyful, though not in an obtrusive or annoying way that would make Alex resent it more than he already was doing because of the fact that any enthusiasm or sympathy that was being shown towards him was beginning to incense him a large amount, though that irritation couldn't get past the barrier of coldness and hopelessness surrounding him and preventing him from showing any emotions to anyone but his little brother – and even then he still felt like he was lying to Cai.

She continued, talking to him and obviously noticing the distress that he was trying hard to conceal, "It is certainly a cute one. I personally think that it quite suits Lord Caiellis, though I wouldn't go about telling anyone that. It should help him in his recovery, blessed be his soul. Buying him this is a very nice thing to do, my lord."

The seventeen year old was tired of conversation now. All he wanted to do was buy the item and get out of here so that he could be by his younger brother once again. He didn't want this sympathy from her, because he could already feel tears gathering at the corners of his eyes even though she wasn't saying anything overtly bad that should cause this amount of sadness that he felt. It only reminded him how bad his sibling's condition was, and he hated the fact that despite the shopkeeper only being a few years his senior she was treating him like a young child who couldn't deal with his emotions. He had already read the modest price tag on it, and made to pay for the item before she stopped him with a kind, "No, no. Don't bother. You can just have it for free."

"N-no," Alex protested quietly, stuttering slightly, not wanting to feel like he was robbing the young woman or manipulating her desire to provide comfort for the distraught prince into her giving him the soft toy for free. He was already regretting this course of action now, wondering why he hadn't just stayed within the confines of the outside of the hospital, but he did know for certain that he wanted the teddy for his younger brother because anything that he could do to help was something that he would do to help. She smiled back charmingly at him again, replying, "No, really. I'm not going to accept your money for this. I know what you and your blessed younger brother did in Usnaan, how you fought like heroes and how Lord Caiellis was wounded in the act of slaying an Archdemon. You have to understand that me giving you this is just my way of thanking you for what the Lucernas have done for us over the years. So please, just take the rabbit and my blessing and don't try and pay for it. I don't do this job for the money anyway, I do it because it is a useful pastime whilst I train to be a healer of the Ordo Medella. I do it because it makes me feel warm inside knowing that I'm helping children through what might by the most painful moments of your short life. You and Prince Caiells risked your lives for all of us at such a young age, and I want to repay that debt in any way I can."  
Alexander stayed silent, gnawing on his bottom lip slightly and wondering how bad he looked if he was evoking that sort of reaction from her. He supposed that he should just accept the gift as what it was, and slowly placed his money back into the pocket of his leather jacket which had been washed and cleaned of the blood and grime of the battlefield at his father's insistence and taken away from him. He took the soft teddy, nodding his head in thanks and trudging across the snow back to the nearby hospital, the act of kindness touching him slightly – but not enough to make him feel anything other than sorrow.

.*.*.*.

Marik sat at the side of his youngest son, watching him breathe through the oxygen mask and knowing just from honing in on that and shutting out everything else that the small puffs of breaths were becoming steadily weaker. He watched his son like he had done so many times over the past few hours, slowly sinking further into his own sadness but refusing to begin submerging in his own sense of steadily mounting defeat.

He remembered what the ethereal girl had told him the day before, that he should be making an effort to communicate with his youngest son and ensure that he knew he was wanted in the world by not just his older brother but his father, who had initially spurned and rejected him, as well. Marik wished that he had the easy familiarity with Caiellis that his eldest son did which apparently extended to when one of them was in deep unconsciousness. He was well aware that Alexander's talks with his younger brother were as much about the seventeen year old persuading himself that they would survive this strife that had ripped through them as it concerned aiding his little brother and coaxing him out of his deathly slumber, but that didn't make them any less genuine.

He had tried to speak several times over Alexander's absence after sending the boy outside when he had assured himself that he wouldn't have another breakdown and be consumed by the waves of grief that endlessly crashed against the dams of determination within the boy's mind, but each time he had fallen silent and simply stared at the boy instead, contemplating just how he had managed to fail so much and how he had possessed such a lack of foresight in dealing with the youngest Lucerna, he and Emili's precious baby boy that they had fought hard for.

He had lost touch with his youngest son over the civil war, and never regained it or Caiellis's trust even though he had been going about the right way before making the mistake of sending him to the Scholaria Magnus – which was indeed a fantastic opportunity, but Caiellis would have benefited from staying in Lucael and being taught by his father instead. He couldn't even communicate with the thirteen year old without starting some form of argument or causing Caiellis to become locked within self loathing, and right now he had no idea as to what to say to the sleeping teenager.

Alexander found it easy to just open his mouth and speak to his younger brother, but when Marik was alone with his son his mind refused to work and make him say the words that he desperately needed to impart onto his child. Caiellis needed to know that the right decision to make within his head was staying here with his father and brother, but apart from occasionally making contact with the boy the king of Lucael hadn't proved at all why his youngest should stay for his sake. There seemed to be a cold void between them that had been rife with resentment and anger but was now deadly silent, and Marik couldn't find the words that would allow him to forge a path through the greyness and extend a hand to his youngest son.

All those years ago, when his beloved wife had been still alive, whilst Caiellis had somehow known that his daddy had a very important duty that made it so that he didn't see the man as his mummy or big brother, he had still come to his father with some of his worries and concerns and had always had a place within Marik's arms, snuggled up next to his chest with the man utterly smitten by his youngest son. And Marik would have responded to that, looking after and talking to his little son, dealing with his problems in any way that he knew how. Caiellis had adored his father. He had sought his approval even though he had only been four or younger at the time, and laughed happily whenever he got it. He had come for him for comfort and love, and he had received it.

But in essence, things could have almost been the same if Marik hadn't made the first mistake in a series of them when censuring the youth for his lack of success in Summoning. Even though Caiellis had naturally become more reserved about his emotions and less affable to displays of open affection due to his age and greater maturity at being thirteen, he had nonetheless strived for his father's acceptance and blessing, but instead he had been met with scorn, condescension and disapproval from a man who had forgotten what he loved most in the world and thought that the only thing for him now was to rule the Kingdom of Light, that his heirs were merely princes, extensions of his will that he could employ in battle and the ruling of the nation if he was unavailable, instead of his sons that he could love and teach and who were the last and most important remnants of Emili's legacy that she had left the world.

He had forced it to get to the point that Caiellis had shown him insolence and disrespect because he had come to terms with the fact that he would never see his father's pride in him, which had been right but so horribly wrong in the same instance, and instead of curbing that he had fuelled the fires of obstinacy and sadness that he made the boy believe it was truly him trying to kill him and telling him that he should have left him to die.

He loved Caiellis, desperately, but he had pushed that down under his desire to punish the boy for his defiance instead of finding out the rationale behind it, and he hadn't been able to show it – he couldn't show it now, in spite of being well aware that his son needed to hear his voice to want to come back into the world. The father who would have hugged and comforted his little boys had been buried deep within the harsh and authoritarian king who regimented and disciplined his young teenagers and had no time or patience for their personal concerns – especially not Caiellis's. He had managed to dig the part of himself out that allowed him to show affection to Alexander, but the one that was for Caiellis was trapped within catacombs of disappointment and coldness that it needed to rise out of now.

Caiellis had been too intimidated to ever ask him for help, with his Summoning trial or anything. He hadn't trusted the man enough to tell him his plans to enter the rotting heart of Usnaan on his own and deal with the source of the threat by himself, and had valued himself so little because of his father that he hadn't cared about the insane risk to his own well being that he was putting himself under. He hadn't seen Marik's love for him at all, so he had believed fully that his dad had wanted to kill him and end his life there and then. He had struggled, all alone, first against his dad that he almost died against and then the might of an Archdemon that he had only defeated through the sheer emotional release that would be contributing in preventing his mana from regenerating now.

He had cried and sobbed with no one to help him, no one to tell him that Marik had been controlled and wrong about him, no one to tell him how much he was loved and valued and how many lives would be scarred forever without him, and he had ended his own life thinking that his own father hated him and didn't class him as his son, blamed him for his mother's death and the peril that his cherished older brother and the entire Lucaelian force comprising of millions of legionnaires was in.

And now Caiellis was dying in a hospital bed, giving out at a much slower speed than before but slowly drifting further and further from them all the same. It was too late to take it all back, too late to change things. Too late to show his youngest son just how much he was loved.

He shifted closer to the bed, reaching for the small hand on his side of it. He might not be able to muster up the words and courage to speak to his youngest son, because he knew that nothing he could say while Caiellis was in this state would help the boy, but he could still make contact with him. He needed to make contact with him, as Caiellis was his son and if he held on to him with all of his might and strength and love the youngest Lucerna might not slip away from them.

Thin, limp fingers were motionless, curling slightly in his grasp as he loosened the restraints a small measure in order to pull his son's hand up closer to him. His large thumb that was calloused from years of gripping the handle of a sword stroked against cold skin that was stretched too tightly over fragile bones.

His son had been somehow getting thinner as he couldn't eat, and though the doctors had inserted a gastric tube straight into his small stomach that would feed him with some nutrients borne from White and Green mana it was no substitute for eating normally. The boy had already been scrawny to begin with due to his bad diet and naturally slender frame, but now that he had lost even more weight he was practically skeletal.

"Caiellis..." Marik choked out.

There was so much that needed to be said.

_I'm sorry … _

_I was wrong …_

_You did good, no amazingly …_

_You are my son, and nothing will ever change that ..._

_I love you._

There were a million words and none of them could get past the blockage that wasn't just a choking lump of tears that he couldn't shed. He hadn't said these things to a conscious Caiellis for years, had somehow imagined that training and discipline would show his youngest son how he felt underneath all of the arguments without the necessity of speech, and now there was no time left to break the habit.

He needed to speak to his son, but he wasn't able to. Caiellis needed to know how much he was loved, but once again his father failed him.

Marik was broken from his sombre reverie when his eldest son entered the room, walking quickly towards his brother's bed and standing on the other side of the youngest Lucerna, something bright and soft in his hands. He was saved from his attempts at trying to force words out of the knot in his throat when the voice of Alexander filled the near silence.

"Hey, little guy. Look what I've got you," the seventeen year old offered. Alex gently set down the cuddly toy on Caiellis's stomach, careful not to dislodge or place pressure on a newly inserted gastric tube that he stared at in horror for a moment. So this was why his father had wanted him out and had imposed a time limit before he could re-enter the operation room – because even more drastic measures were being put in place in order to save the youngest Lucerna's life.

The soft toy that had been given to him as a gift by the young owner of the shop was cute, even Alexander had to admit. It was a bright white and lop eared bunny rabbit around the size of a large carafe, with adorably over sized paws and thick, soft ears that trailed all the way down to its lower abdomen. Marik forced himself to smile as he saw it, glad that Alexander had made productive use of his time outside and had got something that would reaffirm his belief in his younger brother's survival.

Alex grinned sheepishly, his blue eyes full of a hope that he thrust into them with all of his might to the point where it was practically bursting out of his chest, murmuring, "Yeah, I know. You can't wait to wake up and tell me that you are too old for soft teddies, aren't you? Personally I think it suits you."

He gently stroked the silken and fluffy material that made up the teddy, then shuffled the rabbit over Caiellis's thin chest paw by paw until its nose brushed up against the youngest Lucerna's sunken cheek. Marik watched on, tears almost making their way into his eyes at the display of unreserved kindness and love from his eldest son to his youngest, but they didn't because he wasn't sure he knew how to feel any more. The warm glow created by Alexander's love for his younger sibling was soon subsumed by the greyness once again.

As expected, Cai remained eerily silent, and even the beeping of the machines in the background seemed unusually quiet – which was not a good sign. The oxygen mask's constant puffing was also muffled. It was still functioning, filling Alexander's little brother's lungs up with air at every soft and systematic whoosh and click, but the sound was subdued as though it too was now aware of how fragile and tenuous Caiellis's hold upon life had become.

He moved the bunny rabbit round, removing the restraints on Caiellis's only free hand (as Marik was still holding tightly onto the other, his thumb brushing over it periodically) and gently grasping hold of the thin wrist of his brother's right arm. Alex rubbed his finger over the bones jutting through his sibling's wrist, contemplating how it was possible for Cai to get even thinner than he had been already, and placed it on the rabbit so that the youngest Lucerna could get a feel for it himself. He had to keep trying to help his brother, to never give up on him, but as he stared at the younger boy's hand over the stuffed rabbit teddy resting on his chest, soft nose buried in his neck, he couldn't stop himself.

"Angels ..." he breathed, transfixed by the sight of his brother's wrist and slender forearm next to the rabbit. He was quite sure that Caiellis's arms were thinner than those small limbs that the stuffed toy possessed, and it made him feel sick to his stomach as well as reminding him how weak his brother was. He began to breathe faster at the horrible view, hating how fragile and delicate – far more than usual – Cai felt under his grip, and when he shifted his fingers round from the boy's bare wrist to his hand he saw red marks there that had been caused by his own gentle grasp.

"Oh angels … no ..." he gasped out, his vision shimmering and blurring with tears again that he couldn't stop. His brother was so thin, so weak, so fragile next to the toy rabbit that he had got for the younger boy, and he felt like he needed to vomit.

Marik turned around swiftly at the sharp intake of breath from his eldest son, his eyes meeting Alexander's blue orbs that had panic and fear within them. He quickly stood up, letting go of Caiellis's hand and placing his other on Alexander's shoulders, rubbing them gently as the boy's breath hitched in misery again, most likely at the sight of his skeletal brother compared with the teddy that he had chosen for the thirteen year old.

When Alexander stopped after a few minutes, he returned to his seat, returned to holding his youngest son's hand once again, and looked over at the seventeen year old after making sure Caiellis hadn't changed.

Alexander's eyes were burned out sockets, all of the joy that Marik sensed he had forced into them was completely gone, erased utterly from the blue irises. The boy and the young man he had become who shied away from most demonstrations of affection shown towards himself, from showing his true sadness and feelings of sorrow, had always had expressive eyes. Anger, excitement, amusement – they all betrayed him even when his face was impassive apart from in a few circumstances.

Marik had seen a multitude of negative emotions over the past two weeks, from panic, despair, anger, frustration and sheer terror at seeing his baby brother in the state that he had found him after presumably completing his own personal battle within the City of Pleasure and rushing to the centre of the Welkalite capital. But he had also seen loved, fierce and tender, when he sat with his younger brother, comforting, soothing. Holding on against all odds.

Now there was just … nothing. Fury warring with anguished grief and an adamant determination that his younger brother would survive had given way over the long and seamless hours to fear. Marik had hated that, the weakness and terror that he knew that his eldest son didn't want to show now that Caiellis was in a safe location and had the medical attention that he needed but had forced its way out of him nevertheless. But now the fear had faded to blankness.

Alexander had given up. Truly, this time.

He was beyond devastation, beyond anything more than sitting beside his deathly ill brother and holding his thin hand.

"Alexander..." Marik tried. The boy blinked, slowly, languidly, as if surfacing from a deep stupor, and looked at him. And Marik once again didn't know what to say to one of his sons. He wanted to console his eldest son. He wanted to tell him once again that everything would be alright, that Caiellis would pull through and survive this. That this was all a foul nightmare of anguish and despair from which they would all wake up from soon and regain the happiness and light in their lives. But this wasn't a dream. He was losing his baby, and Alexander was losing his little brother, and nothing would ever be close to fine after that.

He swallowed anxiously and looked away, feeling the seventeen year old's gaze upon him but unable to meet it any longer. He had failed them both far too much, too much to ever make reparations for. He would never obtain the absolution from his mistakes that he craved, that rested in the life of his youngest son, and he would never be able to show the love to his sons that he should have given to them the second he met them after the civil war which had dragged his little boys away from him nine years ago and never given Caiellis back. He was damned, condemned to wallow within his guilt and self-loathing because of what he had allowed to happen to his youngest son.

He almost didn't notice the movement at first.

Then the cold, limp, hand in his two larger ones stirred slightly, and his head swung round at the nearly imperceptible twitch. His eyes alighted on his youngest son, who was beginning to breathe more painfully, his young body feebly moving as his face slowly screwed up into an expression of pain. Caiellis's eyes opened, bloodshot and filled to the brim with tears of agony.

"Caiellis!" both Marik and Alexander shouted in unison, the doctors of the Ordo Medella instantly began swarming around the bed like crows to a freshly killed corpse. In Marik's peripheral vision he saw Alexander jerk upright.

The unfocused and blearily emerald gaze that had been staring into space through lids that were half shut – but open nonetheless – slid away from the ceiling, shifting to look at the only other teenage occupant of the room. Marik heard Alexander's breath catch, and a potent mixture of relief, terror and adrenaline coursed through his veins.

"Caiellis..."  
Something flickered across the youngest Lucerna's face, the movements slow and numbed by the pain relief substances being pumped through the young system, an expression that Marik could not identify. He knew just from looking into his son's eyes that the boy was barely awake at all, that he had simply slipped from his unconsciousness into a state of quarter awareness and that he wouldn't know what was going on around him. But despite the blurriness and unfocused quality to the thirteen year old's eyes, there was still a clarity to the green orbs which Marik had feared that he would never see again.

"No … Caiellis, please," Alexander pleaded, his voice breaking.

The youngest Lucerna's eyes widened a little, becoming slightly more open, and his gaze drifted sluggishly to the other person holding his second hand for one brief moment. Marik felt something die inside of him at the utter desolation in his son's eyes. It wasn't even fear, nor terror or hatred, just sheer despondency that froze the king to the core.

"Caiellis ..." he choked out once more, tears beginning to blur his vision as the boy's eyes broke off the contact with his father's. Alexander was hyperventilating, the same as Marik, and the doctors around them were formless smears of motion and incoherent noise that the king and his eldest son automatically blocked out, so utterly focussed they were on their youngest family member.

Tears rolled freely down the seventeen year old Lucerna's face as Caiellis's mouth moved, but whatever he tried to say was too quiet, too weak and obscured by the oxygen mask. The unspoken words misted up the glass interior of the mask as his lips moved in a feeble imitation of speech, an attempt to stay something. It was only seconds after he started doing it that Marik realised the movement of his son's mouth was in a silent scream, and his heart broke to see it.

The boy's eyes slid slowly shut once more.

His breath faltered, the oxygen mask unable to keep him breathing when his whole body was giving out.

Then he was still.

.*.*.*.

Marik and Alexander sat in the chairs that they had been slumped within the first time they had brought Caiellis here two days ago. Both of their bodies were taut with stress and desperation, and Marik's large and strong arm was around his eldest son's waist, keeping him pinned to the seat after he had spent the best part of an hour trying to force himself past his dad and run to his little brother's side again.

Several long hours ago he had given up at that, and the howling and screaming had stopped a few minutes proceeding the cessation of the seventeen year old's physical resistance after Alexander had shredded his vocal cords once more, shrieking out his brother's name over and over again. At first the king thought he should have taken his eldest son out of the operating theatre, that he would be distracting the doctors from their vital work of trying to get Caiellis back to life after his heart stopped once again and he stopped breathing, but he couldn't countenance such cruelty knowing that it might be the last time the boy ever saw his younger brother alive.

He wished that he could have stood by Alexander's side and held the unconscious and still Caiellis, but the reality of it was that they would have been in the way. The arm that he had put around his eldest son's waist had been to restrain him, but now it was to offer support and comfort, now it was proof of the fact that Marik couldn't pull away even if he had wanted to. The boy clutched onto the rabbit teddy that he had got for his brother after they had been forced back by the burly orderlies of earlier, them having to shove Marik away this time as well until he gained enough control to get his eldest son to the back of the room where they had been two days before.

Alexander held the soft toy tight like it was a part of his little brother, his hands holding his last connection to Caiellis to his chest as he had shuddered in the grip of wracking sobs which had stopped now. His lower lip was bloody and red from the amount that he had bitten into it, gnawing through the skin in his worry, but Marik hadn't the heart to tell him to stop – even if he had been able to speak past the lump in his throat that had risen up ever since his second son's eyes slid shut once more and he was forced away from the boy after having to see the sadness within his gaze. The tear tracks were stark and evident on his pale cheeks, but he had stopped crying now – though his fear had not dissipated.

It was redolent of the first time then had entered here after the Angel of the Black Sun had taken them from the brutalised mansion courtyard in the City of Pleasure which had been the site of Caiellis's attempted suicide, but instead of there being seizing and thrashing from the youngest Lucerna there had been deathly stillness until the doctors managed to revive him. Marik had seen some interesting things from the usage of mana from the Ordo Medella operatives – not only had golden symbols of power surrounded the thirteen year old, but one of the doctors had fulminated bolts of shining electricity through the boy, presumably to restart his heart and get him breathing once again.

It was tense now, and almost silent apart from the movement and speech of the surgeons working on preserving the youngest Lucerna's life after he had slipped away from them once again. Marik hoped more than anything else that Caiellis wouldn't do something like that again, that his condition could be stabilised to what it would be before, but he knew that he was grasping at straws and that his youngest son had been getting far too weak. He had stopped breathing again a few hours ago.

They thought they had lost him, and might still do. When Caiellis had closed his eyes after trying to speak to them both, after trying to scream in pain or fear, they had thought that it was goodbye, that the thirteen year old wouldn't be able to hold on any longer and that it was time for his life to end, as prematurely as it would have been.

But Caiellis was still fighting after the Red mana had been utilised in an unconventional manner to heal instead of harm, and Marik sensed his older son moving and so looked up, following Alexander's gaze. Surgeon-General Mortan was walking towards them slowly, his visage cautious in a way that suggested to Marik that the news he bore could be interpreted as positive but he didn't want to give away any false hope to the exalted relatives of his patient who had been through so much over the past few days. But Marik could see the sudden optimism that had replaced some of the dire gravity in his venerable eyes; he saw the way that the aged but exceptional man walked just a little straighter, as if portions of an invisible weight had slipped off of his shoulders, and even though he tried to stop it Marik could feel the waves of potential happiness and excitement coursing through him and making his heart pound in his head again.

It was the same type of excitement he had felt the day that he had first confessed his love to Emili, the excitement that he had possessed on the day of his wedding, the excitement of the doctors first announcing that his wife was pregnant and the excitement of seeing both of his brilliant sons being born. It was a dangerous optimism, and Marik tried as much as he could to quell it because things could easily go either way and he did not want Alexander to pick up on it, but he couldn't help but feel better.

"My lords. We have managed to restore Lord Caiellis's condition to breathing status once more. And it seems that he is getting better now that we have done so. I cannot be certain, and I would hesitate to promise you that your son is going to wake up, let alone without any form of brain damage or permanent injury, but his vitals are improving," the doctor informed them, his voice clinically and professionally emotionless and detached, though Marik could see the tiredness in his eyes that was only a mild reflection of the exhaustion within the two Lucernas. "I do not want to give you false hope, as Prince Caiellis's condition is still very grave and could easily deteriorate further, and there is no guarantee that him waking up prematurely and almost dying again hasn't done irrevocable damage to his fragile form, but he is certainly slightly better than what he was before he opened his eyes. He is responding to stimuli, ever so slightly, and his breathing seems stronger than before."

The Surgeon-General did not pull any punches in his assessment of Caiellis's predicament, and for that Marik was immensely grateful. He was going to ask the man a question, but Alexander beat him to it, cutting in with the speed that the seventeen year old was renowned for, "Will he wake up?"  
The question was straight and to the point, but there were so many hidden meanings to it. _Will my little brother be alright? Will I get to see him again? When will he wake up, if he does? Will he ever be the same? _The doctor's brows furrowed slightly in consternation as he considered the question, although it occurred to Marik that Mortan would already know the answer and was thinking of a way to word it that would be suitable for Alexander. Marik shifted his grip on his eldest son, wrapping an arm around his shoulders instead and squeezing tight.

"Forgive me, Lord Alexander, but we are not entirely sure. Your brother's brain signals are getting stronger according to the machines Blue mana we have employed to monitor them, but each patient works by their own time scale. He may not even wake up at all, though I am optimistic that he will do so – especially since he has blessed Lucerna blood," the commander of the doctors responded, the barest hint of pleasure in his voice at this turn of events that he evidently tried hard not to communicate to his patients.

"Can we sit beside him now?" was Alexander's next question, fired in before Marik even got a chance to speak. The Surgeon-General nodded, and replied, "But make sure that you are very careful with him. He is still in a very fragile state that could go either way for him, so I would keep all contact to a minimum. Also try not to get in the way of the other doctors."

Alexander set off, shrugging out of his father's grip and resuming his vigil over his younger brother, a glint of hope in his blue eyes amidst the devastation of what they had witnessed. The doctor said all the words that Marik had been hoping to hear, and he wanted to be excited, but Caiellis was still lying there unconscious and attached to all of the machines plugged into him like he was some sort of Uverian construct from Yentar, and the king just wanted his son – no, his _sons –_ back.

Marik had seen the melancholy in his youngest son's eyes as he brushed with death once more, and knew that he would have a hard time trying to repair that, but he was going to put all of his effort into it. Nothing meant as much to him as having Alexander and Caiellis happy and safe after all that they had gone through, but every time he tried to feel hope he couldn't help the images of his youngest son in all of the pain that he had been and was in flashing through his mind.

.*.*.*.

When Alexander had heard that Caiellis, his little brother, might wake up soon and was getting better, the seventeen year old changed and didn't look back. The fear and worry that had crippled the eldest prince, that had made him seem as young and vulnerable as his age might suggested, vanished almost utterly, though Marik could still see the lines of worry on his son's forehead and the sadness that he had tried hard to dispel from his eyes.

Now he was sat by the youngest Lucerna's bedside with all of the confidence, strength and brotherly love that defined him. There was no _if _any more, not to Alexander's adamant mind, but instead it was _when _and the boy was sure to tell everyone that he could – breaking out of his silence of only speaking to his younger brother – that Caiellis would be waking up soon, even if the doctors and other Ordo Medella operatives were well aware of their patient's condition.

Marik could see clearly that his first born son wasn't even trying to listen when Choirmaster Esmelde gently told him that Caiellis might not be the same any more, that he might get worse and could still die, because Alexander refused to let any pessimism get into him.

Marik wasn't exactly sure where his eldest son pulled up all of that strength from, but it left him awe struck as he sat beside his youngest's bed, the restraints reattached to his slender wrists to ensure that he would keep still even if it made him look like some sort of wild animal – or a captured prison about to be subjected to a number of tortures.

The king pushed the analogy out of his head, repressing a gulp when he saw the sight of his youngest son fighting the Archdemon alone once again, without Orzhova this time, and being assaulted by its spiteful Black and Red mana. He didn't miss the flash of emotion in his eldest son's eyes as he gently stroked his little brother's hair once again in the hours of them being sat by here, as day had stretched into early evening and the eternal twilight hadn't lifted, or him tenderly resting his fingers on the boy's neck as if to feel the sluggish pulse for himself and remain assured that his younger brother was still alive.

Marik understood that. He had seen Caiellis's chest fall without a subsequent rise, felt the coldness of the hand in his grip fade and become replaced with the unnatural chill of death. He had seen his youngest son killing himself because he thought that he was worthless and that his father hated him, and he had howled over Caiellis's body until Orzhova pulled him back to the world.

"I wonder when-" Alexander was about to start, before he stopped speaking instantly, and Marik's eyes focussed their gaze upon the face of his youngest son that was beginning to crease up in pain. Adrenaline and excitement flooded through him, and he was sure that his eyes widened in a mixture of joy and fear as the boy's head rolled slowly to the side and the pace of his breathing picked up.

"Caiellis? Caiellis!" Alexander almost yelled in pure, unadulterated happiness, and though Marik longed to tell him not to get his hopes up, that his younger brother might just be shifting in his bed, he couldn't get the words out past the mixture of anticipation and despair that he himself felt. Eyelids fluttered and Caiellis's mouth opened on a whimper, brows twitching in the pain he must have been in even with all of the treatment of the doctors – as it had only been two days since all of the wounds had been inflicted onto his frail young body. "It's ok, Caiellis. It's ok now. Everything is safe. You're safe. Just open your eyes, little brother. I'm here for you."

"Caiellis?" Marik whispered, unable to say anything apart from the name of his youngest son as he felt rays of light beaming down from the heavens inside of his mind, illuminating him in their glow and beginning to repair some of what had been broken inside of him. He knew that this might be premature, that his son might not wake up and that Caiellis could have been rendered a cripple by all that had happened and all of the abuse he had sustained, but he didn't care in the slightest at the current moment and he watched with baited breath as his youngest son let out a tiny mewl of pain.

Marik stared down intently at his youngest son, which happened to be a large mistake, as the second that Caiellis's eyes snapped open as fast as they could with the numbing and mildly sedating substances pouring through his veins and the soothing mana surrounded him that slowed down his functions to ensure that the deterioration of his body would be much more prolonged and give him a larger chance to recover without his wounds worsening at the fast rate they would have done without it the youngest Lucerna reacted with terror.

The panic was immediate, and Caiellis's mouth widened in sheer horror as he stared up at his father with an expression that threatened to pull apart the man's heart again.

"No … no no … please … don't ..." he whimpered and tried struggling to the other half of his bed, the one with his big brother next to it, tugging desperately on the wrist restraints as his eyes widened even more when he came to the conclusion that he was tied down to the bed. Marik instantaneously released his son's too thin hand, standing back away from the operating bed on which Caiellis was trapped, his son beginning to pant beneath the oxygen mask as he began to sob in fear, raising his hands placatingly and adding a soothing note to his voice as he tried, almost whispering: "Caiellis, calm down, son. It's over now; I'm not going to hurt you. Just let me explain, son …"

The thirteen year old, still extremely weak, wouldn't listen. Or perhaps he _couldn't _listen. The poor youngster was terrified; he began shaking his head frantically, panting and shivering at the presence of the man who had been the cause of him being in this state and the figures crowding around his beg. The hand that was in his older brother's grip tried to wrench itself free, but the effort was weakened by Caiellis's state and wouldn't have been successful even if the youngest Lucerna had been at optimum condition. Alexander kept his little brother's small hand firmly within his own, his blue eyes alight with pity and concern because of the distress present in Cai's green ones. His younger brother was terrified, shaking and thrashing to try and get free, to get away from his father.

He knew that what the horror had forced their dad to do had been bad, but he was coming to the realisation that "bad" was quite evidently a tremendous understatement. _At least if he remembers some of what happens we know for certain that his mind isn't completely destroyed, _the seventeen year old reflected ruefully, though now was not the time for such things. He shifted closer to his younger brother, giving his father a look that Marik didn't catch, his gaze fixed upon his youngest son in a way that probably frightened the youth even more. He injected a commanding inflection to his otherwise comforting voice, using the authority he knew that he had over his younger brother as the boy trusted him more than anyone else as he commanded, "Caiellis, stop it. You're safe. Dad isn't going to hurt you, trust me. Calm down, little brother, just calm down."

Caiellis's eyes met his older sibling's for a moment, and Alexander would have sworn that he felt something inside of him audibly shattering when he saw that the brief flash of trust and safety in his brother's eyes quickly fading, replaced by more unadulterated fear. The thirteen year old's distressed mind had probably assumed that his older brother didn't know about what had happened between him and their dad, that Alexander was only trying to assuage him because of his reaction and not because he wanted to give his father the chance to explain everything to his youngest son.

He continuously stroked Cai's soft mop of brown hair until the boy gradually reduced the amount that he was struggling, his eyes still fixed upon their father who was being crushed by the guilt inspired by his youngest son's terror, although it was definitely not acceptance that was making him stop his thrashing – though he did not calm down. It was resignation. He knew, rationally, that there was no way he was getting away from this, not in the position that he was in.

Caiellis sniffed something incomprehensible and lost within his sobs of pain, fear and anguish, tears rolling down his young cheeks as he turned his face away from his dad, looking towards Alexander for a moment before he squeezed his eyes shut. The seventeen year old knew without a doubt that if Cai had been able to move his arms and hands he would have wrapped them around his head and cried until the danger and fear left him, but right now he had to resign himself to not even looking at his father and trembling in fear.

"Please … please don't … no … please ..." the boy cried, and Marik had to intervene. He moved round to the other side of the bed as the surgeons watched on, unsure whether they should be intruding on what was quite clearly a private family moment but wanting to perform tests on their young patient now that he was awake – exceeding all of their expectations. He reached out to his youngest son, his voice breaking as he spoke, "Caiellis, I'm not going to harm you, son."

"GET AWAY!" the boy screamed as loud as he could when his eyes opened at the sudden change of direction from his father's deep voice that sounded unusually soft and remorseful, though for what reason the youngest Lucerna could not ascertain because all he could think about was what his dad had said to them as he squeezed the life from his youngest son, what he had shouted in his face and whispered contemptuously in his ear as he strangled him to near death. He was hyperventilating, and he howled between the sobs as the king stumbled back, "GET AWAY!"

The words were spoken with pure terror, screams that were wrenched out of raw vocal cords that hadn't been used for days and somewhat muffled by the oxygen mask around his face that Caiellis would have already taken off if not for the restraints preventing his movements. But the fright, agitation and sorrow in the howling voice was all too real and couldn't be obscured by the mask around the lower regions of his face.

"Everyone, get out! Now!" Alexander shouted over his brother's yelps of utter terror and agony, standing in front of Caiellis's bed like an aegis that would never allow pain to get to the youngest Lucerna – an aegis that had failed if that was the case – and continued as the surgeons automatically followed his commands, "Caiellis, you need to calm down! No one is going to hurt you!"

He turned back to the doctors and his saddened father, the man's dismayed eyes wet with tears that were misting Alexander's own, "Please, just leave. You should leave, if just for a little while. Caiellis isn't himself. He's still out of it from the recovery and probably still thinks he is in Usnaan."

"With all due respect, Prince Alexander," the Surgeon-General began, taking a step forwards, "We need to perform examinations and tests on your younger brother now that he has awoken from his restorative slumber."

"You will be able to. I'm just going to make sure that he knows he is safe, that he knows no one is going to hurt him. I'm the only one that can do this," Alexander replied, a pleading resonance to his voice. He turned back to his father, meeting the man's distraught gaze as his youngest son's screams dissolved into a fit of painful sobs that tore at all of their hearts and made each one of them that hurt want to embrace the young prince in a comforting hug and assure him that everything was alright, "Please, dad. Let me talk to him. I'll explain everything, okay?"

Marik blinked, his ears almost deaf to everything but the noises that his youngest son was making and only barely able to hear Alexander because he was the king's eldest, and nodded slowly, broad shoulders slumped in defeat. He had known that it was going to be hard to get Caiellis to understand what had truly happened, that he hadn't wrapped his hands around his youngest son's fragile throat on two occasions (with one remarkably worse than the other) of his own volition and had never, ever thought the things that the horror of Aksua had spat out of his mouth, not even in his greatest rage and anger in his son.

"Uh … yes, you're right," he sighed, turning to go and follow the doctors who had already left to wait in the room adjacent to this one where the king had explained what had truly happened to his second son to his first, the transparent glass allowing them to assess the state of their patient from there and intercede should anything occur, before spinning back to his older son and adding, "Just make sure he knows that I love him. Please."

"You know I will, dad," Alex responded resolutely, offering up a sad smile to his father. With a last glance at the mournful figure on the bed, Marik Ensis Lucerna left the room. The middle Lucerna sighed heavily, a long exhalation encapsulating his apprehension and sadness as well as relief at having Caiellis back with him, relief that could never be eclipsed. He didn't know how they were going to fix this, how he was going to convince his younger brother to let their father in and let him fix their relationship. Even before the possession, ever since the civil war's cessation and the beginning of their first meeting Marik had been extremely harsh on his second son, chastising him for failing to Summon and driving Cai into a deep depression with his accusations and words.

But they had to try. For Caiellis's sake.

The thirteen year old in question was still whimpering softly, tears sliding unimpeded down his pale and gaunt cheeks with no fingers to brush them away. His lips still soundlessly moved in a pattern of _nonononono_, of fear of further pain and emotional agony as his brother made his way back to the side of the bed that had been the site of huge amounts of sorrow for him.

"Caiellis, hey … look at me, little dude. Your awesome big brother is here," the boy tried to make his voice confident when instead his mind was filled with anxiousness, and Alexander nervously waited until he had his younger brother's attention. He reached out his hand, slowly, anticipating Cai flinching away and immeasurably glad when his brother didn't, and brushed the tears from his eyes, and though practically it was a pointless endeavour as more soon fell the motions helped to comfort Cai a small amount, which was a victory to his older brother.

Caiellis blinked a few times, most likely attempting to clear his vision of the tears blurring up his eyesight, and looked desperately up at his older brother. The youngest Lucerna was still terrified, knowing that his father who had tried to kill him and professed to have always hated him would still be nearby, but even through all that he felt a slight sense of security that coincided with the awareness that it was only him and his big brother in the room – the room of a hospital. Alexander smiled down at him, though even with all of his emotions in turmoil and his mind unusually slow Cai could sense that the smile was somewhat forced, and tried to move his hands round so that he could grip onto his brother's wrist and erase his tears himself before belatedly remembering that his arms were restrained for some reason.

"I know that you are scared. I know that you are hurt," the seventeen year old began, still systematically brushing away Caiellis's tears whenever they fell and mindful of how wounded his little brother was as any careless action could hurt the boy a significant amount – and he kept his voice as soothing as possibly for his younger sibling, "But you have to listen to me, please. I need you to listen to me, Cai. Can you do that for me? I'm only going to help you, little brother."

The boy bit his lip in response, still shaking with one of his hands in his brother's grip and the side of his head gently being held by Alexander's free hand, and let out a heart wrenching sob as he replied, young tones drowning in anguish, "No no no no … why? Should h-have j-just l-let m-me d-die … w-why couldn't you l-let m-me g-go?"

He broke down in more wretched whimpering as Alex reacted instantly, his own voice close to breaking from all of the emotional pain he was suffering by seeing his younger brother in so much sadness after waiting for so long in constant torment for him to wake up, "No, Caiellis! Listen to me! I'm not going to let you die! You have so much to live for, little man, and nothing justifies what you did to yourself!"

He hadn't meant to shout at his already frightened baby brother, and knew he had made a mistake when Cai recoiled in fear, trying to pull himself away from the bed. Alexander's hand on the back of his head prevented him from shifting backwards on the bed, and he gently grabbed hold of the thirteen year old's chin as the boy was wracked with more painful sobbing, letting go of his hand. The youngster's wide and frightened eyes darted across the room, looking at everywhere but the face of his older brother who he thought was furious with him, unable to turn his face away from Alex despite trying to wrench his head around and break free of his implacable grip.

"You don't k-know … you w-weren't t-there … dad … d-dad …" the younger male tried, but couldn't continue under a fresh flood of tears that made it sound like his entire soul was being pulled out of him, his breath hitching in misery as he cried in front of his older brother. "H-he … he s-said ..."

The words were lost under more sobs that made Alexander's insides ache to the core of his being in sympathy for the sadness of his younger brother, who closed his eyes shut, squeezing them tight as the tears dripped out of them, shaking his head again as if he was trying to escape from the world and the cruel reality of what had happened to him. The seventeen year old gave his brother a gentle shake when it was clear that the waves of tears weren't going to abate on their own, murmuring softly, "Hey, Cai, listen to me. That wasn't dad."

"W-what?" the thirteen year old Lucerna stammered, quietening down, his eyes snapping open again and fixing on the other boy's face, beginning to feel tendrils of hope when he looked into the big brotherly familiarness that had almost always been able to erase his sadness.

Shock was the first thing that the distraught and addled boy felt at the words, and he wasn't sure whether or not he should believe them. Alexander's expression was soft but serious, and he brushed tears from his brother's cheeks as he carried on with his explanation, ignoring the flashes of purple energy from the Black Sun that seemed diminished (though it had not faded almost completely as it had when Alexander had first seen his brother after the battle) by Caiellis's weakness as they did not affect him at all – they were too feeble, "I know what happened to you, Cai. And I know for certain that what you saw wasn't dad – or at least, it was his body, but it wasn't his mind. It wasn't _him. _He was possessed."

"W-what? S-since w-when?" he stuttered out in between a gasping whimper, a product of the pain shooting through him as well as the sudden surge of emotion from him as his eyes locked onto his brother's face and his ears absorbed every word.

_That wasn't …. that wasn't dad? It wasn't dad? What? I don't understand …_

"Since after he killed Aksua. The horror that she Summoned, the one that trapped you inside of your own mind, managed to get inside of dad when he wiped the floor with that vampire bitch. A part of it entered his mind, as an Unbound, influencing his decisions and making his anger worse. It took him over completely when he entered your battle with the Lord of Riots, and even though he tried to fight it inside of his head he couldn't get rid of it until you defeated him," the boy explained patiently, watching as his brother's eyes began enormous and welled with even more tears whilst listening to his sibling's recounting of the events.

A mixture of different emotions, many of which he could not identify in his befuddled and narcotised state, surged through the youngest Lucerna, attacking his confused brain and wrapping around his broken heart as he felt the need to cry again. He simply stared in disbelief at his older brother, his mind unusually slow in processing the words that had been spoken to him and the information contained within them as his brother smiled encouragingly at him, even though he could see the pain in Alex's blue eyes that he knew was his fault.

"S-so it wasn't him...?" Caiellis whispered, the noises in the room around him fading away as his lips made the quiet words, barely audible over the puffing of the uncomfortable oxygen mask around his face. He couldn't repress more tears any longer, and let them trickle down his cheeks again, until the trickle became a flood and his brother let go of his chin, moving his other hand round so that the thumb on it could also be used to aid in comforting the youngest Lucerna. Alex nodded, replying, "No, it wasn't. None of what you saw when you were fighting the Archdemon was dad, and all of what was before that was manipulated by that bastard of a horror that managed to get inside of his head and twist his thoughts."

Caiellis gasped in a mixture of pain and anguish at the words, the fateful implications of an agent of the inner darkness invading the mind of a Lucerna king too terrible to consider but rushing through his mind nonetheless, and as one of his big brother's hands made its way down to his right one he squeezed it with such a force that it threatened to cut off Alexander's circulation and would have ground the bones together if Cai had been stronger.

_So if it wasn't dad … if none of what he said was true … if … if …. then …_

He cried, letting the misery pour off him in waves when it suddenly hit him that what he had thought might not be the case, that maybe his dad did love him and maybe he had wanted his youngest son, maybe he didn't want Caiellis dead, maybe he hadn't tried to choke him to death because he wanted him to suffer but was being controlled by a creature of the abyss instead. It was all too much to the poor boy whose memories were somewhat scattered but focussed with utter clarity upon all that Marik had done to him, though he wasn't sure whether some of them were the truth or what the nightmares he could barely remember had shown him.

He knew that he had ended his own life because he blamed himself for his mother's death, because he blamed himself for Alexander's injuries and current danger and the peril the entire Lucaelian force was in due to his recklessness and weakness, because he had believed that his father who he had craved love from hated him more than anyone else but perhaps … perhaps he had been wrong.

"Come on, baby brother. I know this is hard on you. Just let it all out. None of that was dad," Alexander muttered to his younger brother, letting go of the boy's head again, and clasping his small hand in both of his as the youngest Lucerna's head was slowly rested back on the bed as he shook in the grip of more wracking sobs. Caiellis tried to quiet himself, but couldn't until a sudden though shoved itself to the front of his mind, and he gazed up at his older brother with fearful eyes. "A-are y-you o-ok, A-Alex? A-are the soldiers?"

The older male gave his younger brother a patented smile, amazed out how kind Caiellis was in that despite the fact that he was the one in the bed who had almost died, he was still concerned about other people and how they were – but then his younger brother didn't value himself at all, obviously. In a shaky voice, Cai added, "I-I s-saw you … I saw you being hurt … I saw you being strangled … D-dad said you were being hurt because of me..."

One of Alexander's hands automatically went to his throat, rubbing the bruises that were there which made talking and swallowing relatively painful (though nowhere near as bad as it had been on the day of the battle), but they were nothing compared to the awful black and purple marks on his younger brother's neck, the worst ones concealed by the bandage around the cut on his throat which had been inflicted by Cai's own hand.

"I'm fine, Caiellis. Yeah, I did fight the Master of Violence, but I didn't get hurt too badly. Not compared to you. And the rest of the army is also well enough," he said, not wanting to inform his brother about the awful scale of the casualties even though he himself didn't know if what had happened to the legionaries around him was indicative of the state of the rest of the battle for Usnaan which had been effectively ended by his brother's bravery. The thirteen year old did not need that on his conscious as well, not in the condition he was in. But obviously Cai did not feel as reassured as Alex had hoped as he tightened his grip further and stared up at Alexander with wide, fearful eyes.

"Caiellis it's ok-" he began, instantly attempting to placate any sadness that might have started to form again within his younger brother who still hadn't quite processed the fact that his arguments with his father and the man's horrible opinion of him might not have been what it seemed.

"No it's not!" the boy suddenly yelled out, the words still tinged with gigantic amounts of despair, "It's not ok! Nothing is ok! Stop saying that it is!"

Caiellis was beginning to panic again, all of this information too much for his distraught mind to handle and comprehend, and Alexander tried to verbally reach out for him before he started screaming again, "Cai-"

"It's not ok! If I had known … if I had known I could have stopped him making the decisions that he did in the war! I could have helped him!" the youngest Lucerna shuddered and gulped, beginning to shout in his fear again, back arching off of the bed, his arms tugging at the restraints now digging into his wrists as he thrashed once more, "If I had just been a better Lucerna in the first place, n-none of this would have happened!"

"Caiellis! Stop it! You are going to hurt yourself!" Alexander hissed at his younger brother, angrily, though the anger was not directed towards Caiellis himself – just his insistence at blaming himself for everything due to his utter lack of self-esteem or any sense of self-worth. He pinned his brother on the bed as gently as he could, holding the boy down in an attempt to stop his frantic struggling. The last thing he wanted to do was aggravate any more of the fragile thirteen year old's wounds, especially not his broken ribs as Alex himself knew how painful they would be, "You couldn't have known, and even if you had it wouldn't have made any difference at all!"

Loosening the restraints a little and still very conscious of his brother's wounds, he lifted his struggling brother and carefully slid behind him on the bed, cautious of moving all of the things attached to the youngest Lucerna as he did so. The older boy's broken ribs complained loudly at the treatment of them, but the seventeen year old could not care less and nothing was going to stop him from assisting his younger sibling in this time of need and comfort – he only hoped that he wasn't hurting Caiellis at all.

"You d-don't get it!" Cai half snarled, half cried as he wriggled in his older brother's arms, coughing painfully for a moment as every word sent shudders of pure agony through his broken form and painful throat, hitching the occasional syllable as he protested and squirmed, "I did research on that type of h-horror a-after I f-failed to h-help you! I s-saw the w-warning signs ... If I had just used the Lens of Guilt around dad … I-I w-would h-have b-been a-able t-to exorcise it from h-him … w-what i-if i-it l-led the s-soldiers t-to t-their d-deaths … w-what if it t-tried t-to h-harm y-you? You w-were a-already h-hurt because of m-me … y-you wouldn't h-have been able to de … to defend yourself..."

"Well it didn't, and you need to spot blaming yourself for what happened to me because of Aksua," the older boy told his distressed brother, finally managing to hold him still enough, his arms carefully around Cai's waist and crossed over his stomach, avoiding the tube in it feeding the boy's wasted frame some nutrition that the thirteen year old luckily had not noticed yet otherwise he would have been dismayed at that as well.

"If you had tried anything," Alexander had to smother a small gulp of fear, though he had already been through the greatest terror of his young life seeing his brother unbreathing and almost dead with his heart no longer beating until Orzhova somehow managed to breathe life into his brother's broken body, "It would have made dad _kill you, _Cai. You are damn lucky to be alive now as it is with the amount that you have gone through ..."

Caiellis slumped in defeat, mournfully acceding to his brother's point and acquiescing to his desire for him to stop struggling against him. He sank back against Alex, who accomodated the movement by adjusting his arms slightly, still grateful to all of the powers out there that he had his younger brother back and a chance to speak to him and make right all that went wrong, had another chance to protect the younger boy from the cruelty of the world that Cai had been forced to experience first hand. Sobbing quietly, he murmured, "You c-call _this _lucky?"

The words were joined by a half hearted gesture that involved him straining against his bonds until he remembered them and gave up, slumping back down, though Alexander was sure that his younger brother would have raised his arms in an encompassing motion had he been able. He relaxed his grip slightly now that his sibling was no longer resisting, and rested his chin on his younger brother's scalp.

"You're alive," he stated, well aware how close those two but infinitely powerful words were to being rendered false, and shut his eyes sadly as he tried to get the emotion in his own voice under control, failing miserably to do so when he carried on in his attempts to repair his brother's woes, "When I found you in dad's arms … you weren't breathing … you had very nearly _died,_ Caiellis! And you would have done without Orzhova managing to breathe life back into you! Dad told me … that you killed yourself, Cai! Have you any idea what that did to me? What that did to me and dad, and would have done to Uncle Tristram and Uncle Tybalt if they had found out before Orzhova took us here, to Civitas Sol? Do you have any idea how hard it has been to watch you in a coma for the past two days?"

"I-I'm s-sorry," Caiellis whimpered shamefully, though he was not sorry about ending his own life – he was sorry about the pain that he had put his beloved family members through, especially the pain that he had caused to Alexander. _I always end up hurting him … no matter what I do … if I'm alive or dead he always seems to suffer because of me … _Alexander was quick to rectify his mistake, consoling his little brother, "No, I'm not angry at you, baby bro. It's just … I don't think you understand how much you are worth, and how much we _all _care about you."

The youngest Lucerna fell silent, and Alex hummed quietly in frustration. He needed to see Cai's face, to see his expressive green eyes so that he could help him more and be certain of the emotions running through the smaller boy, but right now Caiellis needed the physical contact and comfort more.

"Just promise me one thing," the seventeen year old whispered, anxious for a response from his brother who was now sobbing silently instead of making any noise.

"Wh-what?" the younger boy inquired, still as willing as ever to answer his big brother's questions even in his state where he couldn't go a second without having to suppress a broken, pathetic whimper. He would have been lying if he said that being wrapped up in the arms of his older brother didn't make him feel safer, but he still didn't feel like he wasn't in any form of danger even if his dad had never wanted him dead – though he still had a sinking feeling about that. Caiellis sounded more than a little ashamed, and that made Alex' heart sink. It hadn't been and presently wasn't his intention to make his kid brother's emotions decline even more than they already were.

His brother choosing to end his own life was not cowardly, and it wasn't anything he should have been ashamed of – he only needed to know how much everyone else hated that, how ashamed everyone else was that he had been permitted to become that emotionally distraught.

"Promise me that you won't ever try to do anything like that ever again. Just promise me that if you ever feel like that ever again, you will try and talk to someone, _anyone,_ about it," Alexander tried, still wary of the answer – he was well aware that his younger brother hadn't exactly had the opportunity to have a pleasant and long chat about his emotions with someone else after ending the Lord of Riots, but still, "None of us could have lived with ourselves if you had succeeded, if Orzhova or the Ordo Medella doctors hadn't saved you."

There was a pause as silence descended, the incessant beeping which had been a physical warning as to the increased heart rate of the youngest Lucerna slower than it had been before but still too weak for Alex's liking.

"Dad could have," Caiellis whispered after a moment's delay; Alexander leaned over just enough to see his younger brother's quivering lip underneath the glass of the oxygen mask strapped around his face.

"And that is where you are wrong," Alexander replied with a hint of finality and comforting confidence within his own voice, "Dad does love you, kiddo, more than you could ever imagine. I know that he isn't exactly the easiest person to get along with, but he does love you and the horror inside of him perverted that. You should have seen him over the past two days. The last time I have seen him that heartbroken was just after mum died when I got a glimpse of him then … and even back then it wasn't as bad as this was."

A tiny pause followed, and then, in a small voice, Caiellis asked, "R-really?"

"Really," Alex confirmed with a smile, knowing that his dad had been just as distraught as he had, only the man had had to fight past that to comfort his eldest son and stay strong for both of his children when Alexander had no longer been able to do that and had broken down himself, "Dad blames himself for not being able to fight off Aksua's horror just like you did – and do, even though you should stop. He had to watch him hurting you over and over and over again, and he had to watch you fighting against the Archdemon afterwards and what happened after that."

Caiellis stayed silent, taken aback by this new revelation and perhaps allowing a part of him to hope that maybe things would change now, that his brother's words were the salvation from all of the resentment and pent up anger between father and youngest son that he had craved until he had given up on it and instead longed to escape the man's hatred that apparently wasn't true. He could still visualise his father hurting him, images flashing at the back of his mind where he tried to pull himself away from them, the words snarled at him hissing in his ears, and knew that that would take a long time to recover from … but if it wasn't true …

"It has been crushing him, Cai. He had to watch himself hurting you so much, he had to watch his youngest son killing himself because he thought that his dad hated him with nothing that he could do about it … and that is going to take him a while to work through, little man. I think that he is going to need you to help him with that. You are going to need to help each other, to let him show you the love that he does have for you. Would that be ok?"

A longer pause, during which Alexander held his breath as his brother contemplated the words.

"Uh … yeah … That would be ok, I guess," Cai responded after a brief moment, still unable to fully comprehend what was going on. He could feel his eyelids trying to shut themselves, and it took a monumental effort to keep them open and keep himself aware to the world, but he wasn't going to let himself drift off into sleep now – not when his family needed to see him awake and the doctors needed to perform tests on him. Not whilst there was still unresolved bad blood between him and his father.

The older boy felt his baby brother's head nod slowly and quietly empty his lungs. It had been a crude attempt, asking Caiellis to help their dad out just as the man was intending to help him, knowing that his younger brother was too soft hearted to turn his back now that he knew the truth of what had happened between the eldest and youngest Lucernas, but Alexander was convinced that it would work. Caiellis and Marik working together could only be beneficial to them all, provided the two were honest with each other and learned to accept each other's emotions. He hugged his sibling closer to his chest, muttering, "That's my little brother."

They stayed like that for a little while longer, Caiellis seeking silent reassurance for the anxious trepidation and anguished sorrow within his heart and Alex supplying comfort as best he could. The older boy listened to the sound of his brother's soft breathing, wondering how he could have existed in the short period where Caiellis's lungs hadn't been working and filling his body with life, pondering how he could ever repay the Angel of the Black Sun for the miracle of his little brother's continued life. He gave the younger male a bit more time to process all the information that had been shoved at him, already convinced that his brother didn't have any form of brain damage or injury as he would have been able to tell and was just exhausted, enjoying the mere feeling and relief of being with an awake brother with the sense of how close they had come to losing him at the back of his mind.

"I owe you an apology, Cai. Well, several in fact," Alex murmured softly, seeking to make up for what he had done in allowing Caiellis to get to the state that he was in now. The boy responded, genuinely surprised, "Wh-what for?"

"I shouldn't have let you and dad get as bad as you did. I shouldn't have allowed you to enter the centre of Usnaan all alone and fight Tradax by yourself. I shouldn't have pushed you away after the civil war ended and I should have helped you through your Summoning trial," he responded, taking a moment to wipe the tears from his own eyes. Caiellis simply listened, not blaming his brother for any of these things but willing to let him finish his own confession, feeling the wretched guilt that was inside of his big brother which Alexander had let fester inside of him over the past few days and wanting to help Alex as much as possible – as Alexander had just done for him.

He knew that in the reverse situation, he would have blamed himself for what happened to the older boy, just as he had done when Aksua had almost drained his older brother dry and afflicted him with her maleficent vampiric curses which had nearly killed him, but right now his big brother was completely faultless in what had happened. Alex had been the biggest reason for part of him wanting to stay in the world, and he had been reminded why so much in the past few minutes of him surfacing from the slumber he must have been in. He felt weak, thirsty, and his throat itched like someone had poured Welkalite sand down it, but none of that mattered.

"And most of all, for you anyway – I should have never pretended that I was up to holding Aksua off whilst you tried to Summon," he stated, gently, "It was stupid, dangerous, and set a bad example. It could have got both of us killed simply because I wasn't going to admit that I wasn't strong enough to deal with the vampire alone. I deserved to get as hurt as I did, but I'm so sorry you suffered and got the blame for my ego trip. It wasn't your fault at all, ok? It was nobody's fault but my own."

"Wh-what? O-of c-course i-it was my fault. I mean … I abandoned you … I left you to die because I was too weak to g-get o-out of a pathetic d-dream-" Caiellis instantly protested, but his brother cut over him firmly, "It was _never _your fault. If it makes you feel any better then it was nobody's fault at all apart from Aksua's, ok?"

Cai's nod wasn't convincing at all, and he sniffled a little, tears gathering at the corners of his wide eyes. He still didn't believe what his brother was saying at all; he knew that Alex was just trying to get him to feel better about himself because he had tried to end his own life like the disgrace to the Lucerna family he was, but replied anyway with a shaky, "O-ok."

"Caiellis?" Alex's voice hardened a little, unwilling to let his baby brother go on drowning in guilt over the Aksua incident which was nothing compared to what had happened to Cai but had been the catalyst for the second, greater stage of his depression.

"Yeah, ok," Caiellis sighed glumly, aware that while his brother might never blame him for it that he would continue to do so – but perhaps he shouldn't let it affect him as much as it had done, and learn from his mistakes instead of crying over them. He added: "I just hope that dad sees it that way."

"I think he will. No, scratch that, I _know _that he already does. He's been controlled by that same horror, so he knows exactly what it feels like," Alexander reassured his younger brother who was relaxing tiredly against him. Wanting to preserve the moment of brotherly intimacy and love forever was what was in Alexander's mind at the present, however he was well aware that Caiellis was exhausted and his body was very weak so as a result of that he wouldn't be awake for much longer. He was confident that he had done enough for now to help his brother, though would do a lot more, and it was slightly selfish of him to keep Cai to himself if the younger boy was now able to see other people. Only one person could truly hope the youngest Lucerna, and he was stood outside of the room.

Luckily the glass of the waiting room was only transparent one way (as otherwise it could easily distract the doctors or frighten their patients if they saw their relatives crying) so the little boy couldn't see his dad or the surgeons watching him, as otherwise Caiellis would have panicked even more until they left.

"Speaking of which, do you think that you are ready to see him now?" Alexander queried hopefully, though he was fully prepared to stay and not let dad in if his brother didn't want it and wanted to be on his own with Alex. "He's probably already wearing a groove in the floor outside this room."

"S-sure … um … I-I mean yeah. I'll s-see him," the boy answered anxiously, his wrists shifting nervously in their cuffs. He wanted the oxygen mask off, uncomfortable with something around that area, but he knew that it was the only thing keeping him breathing at the current moment as he was far too weak to do it on his own – and if he removed it then he wouldn't be able to stay awake. That was probably what the restraints were for: to ensure that he didn't attempt to take it off in a panic and ruin the efforts of the Ordo Medella to save him. "But … I'd like to talk to him alone ..."

Caiellis sounded quite scared but determined to do it anyway, which made his older brother smile proudly. The younger boy definitely was brave. He replied quickly, infusing his voice with confidence and loved, "Not a problem at all, little dude. I understand. I will be right outside if you need me."

.*.*.*.

Marik looked up when he heard the door closing off the waiting room from the operating table creak open, swinging round from where he had been observing his youngest son intently to gaze into his eldest's eyes. He hopefully stared at his older boy, silently asking the question that he knew would be answered soon, though the seventeen year old's expression was as inscrutable as Marik could make his own.

"Caiellis wants to see you," he said by way of greeting, his face and even his expressive eyes giving away nothing, a rare occurrence indeed, although the king could see the evidence of tears that had been wiped away from Alexander's eyes. Marik sighed in relief, glad beyond quantification that he would be finally able to see his youngest son awake and talk to the boy, and made to move past but was stopped when a firm hand pressed against his chest and held him back – the first time Alexander had done anything like that before. He narrowed his eyes questioningly at the young man, though he had a rather large clue as to why Alexander had prevented him entering.

"Just go easy on him, please dad. He blames himself for, well, everything, and he doesn't need you to make that even worse. I won't let you hurt him any more with your words whether you mean to or not," Alexander told him sternly, his voice a mixture of a pleading beg directed at his dad and a firm declaration that epitomized the amount that the seventeen year old would do to protect his younger brother – accentuated greatly by what they had managed to get through and the horror they had faced. Nevertheless, it still hit Marik badly even if he knew that his eldest didn't mean the words and wasn't thinking that his father was making a mistake – it was only a precautionary tactic. Even so, Marik didn't take it very well, his face creasing up in near defeat and looking terrible in that one moment of weakness before he wrestled control of his emotions.

"I know, Alexander. Do you really think that I am going to go in there and discipline him for his reckless heroics after all that we have gone through?" Marik asked, though the question was clearly rhetorical as he continued without giving his son a chance to respond, "I remember what..." he glanced around at the doctors who had given them a relatively wide berth before lowering his voice slightly so that he would not be overheard, but even if they did hear it for one they were loyal Lucaelians who would not spread dissent and secondly without any context for the words there would be nothing to plant the seeds of doubt within their minds, "What the horror said to him."

He turned back to the boy in the room for a second, looking through the window at an extremely nervous Caiellis that his heart went out to, before returning his attention to Alexander, asking, "I know that you know your younger brother better than anyone else. Do you think that he will ever recover from this?"  
It was a hard question, one that Marik wasn't expecting a clear answer for, but he had to ask it anyway even if he regretted making his eldest think rationally about that. The middle Lucerna pursed his lips to cover a smile that might have formed when he answered, "With your help? Eventually, yes. It is going to be hard though."

He watched as a very anxious Marik trudge into the room containing an equally agitated Caiellis, hoping that the words he had spoken would turn out to be the truth and that his father and little brother would begin to bond again so that their family could be made whole once more.

_What do you think, mum? Do you think that Cai and dad will be able to make it up to each other? _His mind asked, idly wondering if Emili was watching from her place in heaven and concluding that she definitely was, that she would be proud of her family for making it through this tragedy.

It wasn't often that he directed his thoughts so that he was speaking them towards his beloved mother, preferring to think about her instead of to her when he allowed time for introspection upon the past, not wanting to be bogged down by the sadness of days gone by, so added: _I'm sorry for not protecting him, mum. I know that is what big brothers are supposed to do, but I failed our youngest family member. I hope you can forgive me, and believe me when I say that I am going to make up for it._

Caiellis gazed up at his father nervously as he entered, nibbling on his bottom lip shyly when the Lucerna patriarch sat down in the seat previously occupied by Alexander which had been vacated after the occurrence a few hours ago where they had thought that the thirteen year old was giving out on them. He had to physically repress the reaction of moving away that his body almost forced him into, his father's face flickering in devastation at the movement for a short moment. He knew that his dad hadn't meant to hurt him … but it didn't stop the terror from rising up inside of him at the thought of being alone with him again – even if that was how it needed to be.

Caiellis's face was covered in the tracks of spilled tears where the oxygen mask wasn't obscuring them somewhat, and the Black Sun on his gaunt cheek shone with a weak purple glow in response to his sorrow – but the fact that it was so diminished to the haunting illumination that Marik had become used to when his youngest son cried and the tears touched his Lucerna birthmark was a stark reminder of how close they had come to losing the youngest member of the royal family.

Neither knew what to say and each was reluctant to begin a conversation, reluctant to speak the wrong words and ruin this pivotal interaction from the beginning, and Caiellis stared at his dad, aching for him to say something. In the end, the responsibility fell to Marik, as he was the father and the older of the two Lucernas. It was just too agonising to watch Caiellis emotionally beating himself up trying to find the right thing to start with. And in any case, Marik felt that he owed it to the poor youngster who had suffered from his father's failure to be the only thing that Caiellis had needed him to be, to provide the only thing that his youngest son had ever wanted from him.

"I was forced to watch most of it," he began, staring his son straight in his wide green eyes that were so reminiscent of Emili's he felt his wife looking out of them as well, though he saw much of himself in Caiellis also. But more than both of what he had inherited from his parents was the personality that the boy developed himself, the lovable and compassionate and innocent thirteen year old who had been trampled into the ground and almost killed looking back in a mixture of fear and hope that made the boy seem even more pure and young, yet incredibly thoughtful despite that. _Angels above. Words cannot describe how glad I am that he is still with us. _He swallowed, gruffly adding, "It was how it derived more of its sick enjoyment from the situation, forcing me to watch my body hurting you."

Caiellis nodded encouragingly, immeasurably thankful that dad had taken control of the conversation between them and in a good way. He hadn't known what to say otherwise, and it was taking all of his effort and determined self-discipline to retain his composure and not start giving into the parts of his mind that screamed for him to get away whilst he still could. Parts of him couldn't ignore the flashbacks rising up, the feeling of his father's gauntleted fists and booted feet crunching into him and breaking his fragile bones, of metal clad fingers wringing his throat and cutting of his air, of damnations and horrible, horrible words lancing into him with far more force than any of the physical attacks could ever do.

But now that he knew that wasn't his dad, that it was Aksua's horror which had trapped him inside of his mind as well, he could only just push away the images and emotions roiling within him. Marik smiled a little, letting out some of the sheer happiness he felt at his youngest son's survival and his willingness to listen from where it was embroiled with the sadness of the whole situation.

_Thank you for giving me this chance, Caiellis. __Thank you so, __so__ much._

"I was a spectator, watching you get hurt, but I could feel it as well. I felt your bones snap, your blood warm on my hands, I heard the things that it forced me to say to you … and I couldn't stop it," Marik's vision grew blurry until he blinked a few times, scrubbing a hand over his eyes and brushing away the tears, "Angels know I tried, Caiellis. I promise you, I fought the bastard but it had me locked in so tightly."

"It's ok, dad," Cai whispered, finding himself sympathising with his father for whom it must also have been awful, even if Caiellis wasn't a model son and not as good as Alexander, "I understand. It wasn't your fault. "

"No. It was," Marik insisted, frustrated with himself and beginning to be filled with the self-loathing that along with the worry had defined these past few days, "I should have seen the signs when I found myself wanting to act violently towards you. I should have identified it when I put my hands around your neck the day before the siege of Usnaan and I hadn't even realised it until Tristram entered. I'm so sorry that I wasn't strong enough to stop it, that you got hurt and I couldn't protect you from it, that it was _me _hurting you … you have to understand, Caiellis, that I would never harm you intentionally. And that I don't blame you for any of this. You're my son, my precious baby boy, and I love you _so damn much _..."

Caiellis's eyes widened and filled with tears at the thoughtful words of his father that reached down deep inside of him to a place that he hadn't been sure had existed any more when he chose to end his own life because of what he thought had been the case. It wasn't often – try _hardly ever, _and pretty much never in the case of the youngest Lucerna_ –_ that either brother heard their father saying it out loud now that they had returned to him after the civil war and their mum's death, to the point where Cai had believed that it was no longer the case. He found himself instantly warming to the man now that he had said it, now that it was out in the open and he instinctively knew that his dad wouldn't ever hurt him, and had to repress a wracking sob as he replied, "I l-love y-you too, dad."

He tried to wipe a stray tear that trickled down his cheek and would certainly be the catalyst for more, but his hands were still restrained. Sad eyes stared up at Marik, slender wrists tugging on restraints that they could almost fit out of they had become that thin. "Please?" Caiellis begged in a small voice. "I promise that I won't d-do anything st-stupid," he then added, morosely, "For o-once."  
"Aww, Caiellis," Marik didn't hesitate, just unbuckled the restraints and tossed them aside as his youngest son's small hands instantly went to his face, wiping away more tears that refused to stop falling as his exhausted body was afflicted by tired whimpers of sadness and relief. The king of Lucael sat for a moment, awkwardly perched on the edge of the seat next to his youngest son, knowing that he wasn't very good at this father thing and not wanting to make any moves that would upset the boy further. He held out his arms, and when Caiellis had finished brushing away some of the tears enough so that he could see past the distortion of his vision and look at his dad, he nodded.

Very, very carefully and delicately, he sat on the bed containing his second son and gathered the youngster into his arms, Caiellis's fingers clutching the fabric of his dad's shirt as he buried his head in his chest, ignoring the part of him that howled at him to pull away because of what he knew. "You aren't stupid, son. And you are certainly not worthless. You are a great, a fantastic boy with a kind heart and a brilliant mind, and when I woke up after you had killed the Archdemon and the horror had shown me the end of it, when I found you and realised that what it had showed you doing was the truth … I wanted to die."  
"Wh-what?" Caiellis asked, his voice still shaky from the crying that just wouldn't stop no matter how hard he tried, all semblance of his self-control dissolved in the wake of these new revelations that had reduced him to all of four years old again. His mind was still confused, the mixture of foreign substances circulating around his body's systems making his thought processes unusually sluggish and lethargic, but he distinctly remembered either his brother (most likely) or his father telling him that the horror which had almost been the bane of the Lucerna family on two consecutive occasions had left when he had subdued the man and trapped him in the cage of his son's crystallised blood.

He leaned back a little so that he could stare up at his father. "What d-do you mean it showed you?"  
Marik nodded in response, even though such a question could not be answered solely by that, gently cupping the back of his son's neck and stroking his soft curls, remembering the last time he had held his son like this the last time he had spoken with the youngest Lucerna before the civil war. He spoke quietly, going off of his admittedly lacking fatherly instincts of doing that with the intention of not scaring or upsetting his youngest even more than he already clearly was. "Once you defeated me the horror trapped me in my Mind Realm and allowed me to see out of it, probably extracting pleasure from the thought of me watching you battling an Archdemon alone. So I saw what happened to you after you defeated it and woke up..."  
Taking a deep breath and fortifying his resolve, trying not to let the images of his son crying all alone as he slid a knife across his own throat overwhelm him, the king struggled on, "I had hoped more than anything that what it was showing me wasn't true, that it … that it hadn't happened. It told me something else as well. The horror, I mean. It made all of my annoyance at you turn towards anger. I knew it was my fault for what happened to your older brother, not yours, because I shouldn't have let you both get stolen from me in the first place and I should have listened to you more, but instead I blamed and condemned you instead of giving you the proper care and attention that you needed. I should have checked you, Caiellis. I should have made sure that you were ok as well as your brother, but I just shouted at you and laid all of the fault on yourself. And for that I am truly sorry."

Caiellis nodded, and snuffled a little as Marik's hand gently reached out to wipe tears from the boy's cheeks, something that he had seen Alexander do and something that he had done in the past, when he had been more in touch with his fatherly love for his sons. Blinking, Cai stopped himself from recoiling just at the last second, but it was enough to dissuade his dad from doing it so instead the man wrapped the arm around his son's thin waist. The youngest Lucerna swallowed, wanting more than anything to just snuggle up against his dad more and bury his face in his chest in a way that he hadn't been able to do ever since his mother, his father's wife, had met her end, but he had to confirm something first.

"So … it's not true? It was making you l-lie?" the desperate plea quivered in his young and tired voice, and Marik's comforting motions stopped dead for a moment. Incredulity flashed on his face, as well as worry, and both of those emotions were present in his deep, usually gruff voice which was instead suffused with fatherly love. There was hurt there, as well, hurt that his son might still believe what he thought he had already made known what wasn't the truth, "True? What the horror made me say to you? You think … you actually imagine ..."

"I-I did some research on the t-type of horror Aksua h-had," Caiellis explained, one of his hands absently twirling the fabric of his father's shirt as he dropped his gaze, staring at the bed instead of meeting his dad's eyes. The grip around the youngest Lucerna was tight with emotions that Marik couldn't begin to define, but that made it slightly uncomfortable for his thirteen year old son, "In case a-anything l-like that ever happened a-again"

Marik nodded in reply, knowing that with the amount of guilt that had been in his smallest child Caiellis would have wanted to prevent himself from ever being unable to help his big brother because of one of those reviled spawn of the abyss any more. Doing something like that was logical, and it suited Caiellis's way of combating their myriad foes.

"T-turns out that the closest thing I could get to it was an Abyssal Nocturnus. T-they work by invading the mind of t-their target, using their personal thoughts and fears to empower the horrors and control their v-victims," Caiellis mumbled nervously, unwilling to look up at his father, envisioning the man's gaze to be furious or derisive and simultaneously wanting to be out of the man's arms yet craving the comfort and assurance they provided. "W-we w-were always fighting. We b-both g-got s-so m-mad, w-with or without the h-horror. A-and t-they u-use actual thoughts t-to … to..."

He had to fight back a heart wrenching sob of misery, determined to continue, "I know … I-I know that you l-love m-me … y-you j-just said … but what a-about .. wh-what about a-all the other st-stuff …" Caiellis seemed to shrink away from his father as Marik's eyes widened in realisation, excruciating clarity clicking within his skull.

"Caiellis ..." he murmured, softly, wanting to bring his son close again but not willing to cause the youngster any more stress by doing so and forcing him into his father's embrace, though he still held the boy in his arms as the thirteen year old turned his head away, the king staring on helplessly as the words flooded out of the teenager. "I k-know I'm useless … l-liability … I'm s-sorry … d-don't want to be a b-burden … I'll try h-harder … I'm sorry …"

The words disintegrated into miserable sobs, and even though Marik wasn't conscious of moving he found that he had already pulled his youngest son close once again. _He almost died. I almost lost one of the two most precious things in the world to me, and he still thinks that I see him as a failure. __He still thinks that I blame him for his mother's death, that I see him as a burden to the Lucerna family even if I love him deep down._

Marik was silent long enough that Caiellis raised his eyes timidly. The man stared down in utter disbelief and horror that made the boy hesitate, and his dad soon gasped, "Angels, I'm sorry, Caiellis. Son, I'm so sorry."

"What for?" Caiellis managed, his face crumpling up in sadness.

"For not showing you enough … for not giving you enough confidence in me to know how much of a lie all those things you just said are. For letting things get so bad between us even without the horror manipulating me that you might actually believe that I truly feel like that, that those were truly the thoughts running through my head and that it just plucked them up from my mind as well as saying worse. I know I said things that I shouldn't have when we argued, but ... Caiellis, I would never … I could _never ..." _the king's voice cracked, and that was enough to have the youngest Lucerna exploding into tears again, all of his emotions too much to deal with after drifting between life and death and having his last memories before this being of him ending his own life due to what had occurred before that.

Marik held him close, his voice somewhere between a growl of anger directed at himself and anyone who had ever tried to hurt his baby boy and a remorseful admission of complete failure, "What that bastard spawn of the abyss made me say … it was lying, Caiellis. It wasn't anywhere near … within a thousand miles of the truth. I can't even … I can't even begin to tell you how wrong it was."

Caiellis's breath caught, and through the oxygen mask his whisper was almost inaudible, "Try..."

"Before Emili … before your mother died … I used to go into your room at night, sometimes when she was already in bed. I would watch you and Alexander sleeping, although more often than not he ended up in your crib as well, or your bed when you moved into one. I would just sit there and watch the two of you cuddled together," Marik began, sucking in a quivering breath, "It was one of the happiest experiences of my life. But I did the same the night before the battle in Usnaan. I saw you sleeping there, with your brother … and I think I realised then that I still had a part of Emili left in both of you."

"You are so like her, Caiellis, in so many ways. She loved her books too, as you might be able to remember. She always liked to talk about what she had been reading to me. When she was pregnant with you, and after you were born, she would always tell me how while Alexander might have been the fighter out of you two, the defender of the people, that you would be her – _our –_ little scholar. But you are your own person as well, my son, your own unique, brilliant and amazing person as well as a heroic and kind prince."

"I know that we haven't see eye to eye on things in these past two weeks of me actually talking to you … we don't always agree on what is as important … but what the horror said about you … it was wrong. The bastard creature was _lying,_" the king spat vehemently, the venom in the words unmistakable. He shifted Caiellis backwards away from him, not because he wasn't enjoying the feeling of having his son curled up to him so tightly, but because he needed to look into the boy's wide green eyes.

"I have never felt, or thought, what that disgusting _thing _said to you using my lips. Not ever. You are strong, Caiellis, even if you are small and a bit scrawny. And you are intelligent, extremely so for your young age, you are kind and empathetic, and you are brave and selfless. You are an exemplary prince, and don't ever think that I view you as a burden, or a hindrance to myself and the prosecution of my role as king – no matter what I might sometimes say, or what other things forced me to tell you. And while I may occasionally disagree on you about the right way to implement a strategy, or find the tone of voice that you use with me slightly disrespectful, I am so _proud _of you, and all that you have accomplished even though you are far too young for war. I know that your mother would … would have been proud of you too."

Marik brought round one of his hands, a finger gently tracing one of his son's bruises that weren't covered by any of the bandages or gauze on his face. It brushed lightly on the livid blue/black mark on his son's jaw where Marik had been made to force it shut before he couldn't stop the horror making his body strangle the boy any longer.

Caiellis cried into his father's chest, and the man held him close with an undying grip as he cleared his throat, meaning to carry on, "I can't say that I haven't thought a thousand times about that night, if there was anything that I could have done to save your mother. If I had got there a few seconds earlier, maybe … or … I don't know. But Caiellis, I have never, _ever_, regretted saving you from the enemies that entered after you dealt with the ones that hurt you and Alexander and murdered Emili."

Caiellis sobbed into his father's shoulder as the man hugged him, his eyes overflowing with tears as his dad's large hand gently stroked the nape of his neck and the tangled curls of brown hair there. "But if I could go back in time … do it all over, have another chance … Caiellis, I wouldn't save her if it meant losing you. Caiellis, I love you, I love you so, so much."

"D-dad..." the trembling whispered was muffled. Thin hands clutched at the back of Marik's shirt, twisted hard in the fabric as Caiellis pressed himself closer, finally able to obtain the love from his dad that he had ached for (without his brother being wounded horribly at the same time) ever since he had been torn away from him in the civil war. "_Daddy_..."

Marik's brawny arms tightened around his shaking son, and Caiellis went willingly, relaxing in the grip as he buried his face in his father's shirt. Marik turned his head, chin lowered to rest on dark brown hair. They fell silent for a few minutes, the noises of the machines and the sniffling of the youngest Lucerna the only sounds in the otherwise quiet room, just enjoying the moment of closeness that had never happened before since Emili Noctis had been murdered. Marik resisted the urge to rock his youngest son like he had done in the past, unsure Caiellis's ribs would hold up – it was bad enough that he was doing this with him. It was enough to have the boy there with him, alive and healing.

"I'm sorry, dad," Caiellis broke the silence with his quiet and young voice which hadn't yet broken. Marik's reply was instantaneous and coloured with incredulity, "What the hell for, son? You didn't do anything wrong."

Caiellis pulled back again, green eyes full of guilt that had Marik wondering just how much was locked inside of his youngest son, how much self-loathing he was carrying around, because he had already tried to soothe much of it. Instead of irritating him, as it might once have done, the king simply felt even more sorry for his baby boy. _Angels above … no wonder he wanted to end his own life … _

"I'm s-sorry for t-trying to k-kill myself. It was st-stupid, p-pathetic..." he shuddered, and snorted mirthlessly and quietly, "I'm such a c-coward. You must have been so dis … so disappointed..."

"What?!" Marik demanded in disbelief, staring at his youngest son once again, before tenderly smoothing down his hair behind his ears and brushing it out of his eyes. "Angels, Caiellis. Disappointed? Caiellis, when I found you, I was many things: scared, no, _terrified,_angry at myself, heartbroken … but never _disappointed_. You'd just been attacked, thrown across the ground, punched, choked and emotionally ripped to pieces by someone you trusted to never hurt you – even if I didn't have a particularly good record with that. Caiellis … I told you that I wanted you _dead_! And I tried to make good on that!"

The man shook his head, his eyes welling up again. He needed to repair his son's self-esteem from the wreck that he had turned it into, that was for sure.

"I hate that you tried to take your own life and almost succeeded if it wasn't for Orzhova … but you didn't know that I was possessed. You were carrying too much guilt over Alexander's injuries, guilt that I did nothing to take from you and only made worse. You blamed yourself for your mother's death, for the danger that your brother and the rest of the army was in because of what the horror made me say, and you thought that you were never supposed to have lived in the first place – that you were never loved or wanted by the two people who had created you. Caiellis, just promise me that if you ever feel like that again, then you will talk to me, or to your brother, or to Tybalt or Tristram or any one of the people that care about you – which is a lot of people, everyone in the kingdom in fact. Nothing ever justifies suicide, Caiellis, nothing. I know that you probably don't feel that you can to me or anyone for help, and I know that you couldn't have done it back in Usnaan, but please promise me that you will never do anything like that every again, alright?"

Caiellis nodded, the hint of a smile playing onto his lips when he thought about how similar his father and big brother could sometimes be. To break the quiet and because he was concerned, he murmured, "He was pretty scared, huh? Alexander I mean."

Marik smiled. To say how perceptive and intelligent his youngest son was, sometimes the boy could miss the plainly obvious when it was something to do with how others thought about himself. "Scared doesn't even come close, Caiellis, and you know that. You know how much your big brother loves you. He loves you so much, son, that I don't think he would have lived much longer if your Angel of the Black Sun hadn't pulled you back from the brink of death in time. Neither of us would."

Marik didn't mean that his eldest son wouldn't have survived, because he would have done anything in his power to preserve the life of his last remaining child, but surviving wasn't the same as truly living and Alexander would have lost all semblance of happiness. He had seen what Caiellis's near death had done to his older son, and did not wish for something like that to ever happen again.

Caiellis gulped when that sank in. "You mean...?"  
"Yes," his father nodded sadly, looking deep into his son's wide green eyes as they filled with more of the seemingly endless tears from the almost infinite reservoir of sorrow within Caiellis's heart – an ocean of sadness that would dry up and become a gentle stream of happiness if Marik had anything to do about it. "You are the reason he keeps on fighting, why he never gives up."

"Oh angels!" Caiellis cried out in despair, realising what he had almost done. At the time, while he knew how sad Alexander would be when the news got out that his little brother had died in the act of slaying the Archdemon (and had no reason to suspect that Marik's reaction would have been similar,) he somehow hadn't quite realised how much it would tear his big brother apart even though he was well aware of how much the older boy loved him. "He never … I didn't … what … no … I ..."  
The boy broke down again, the day too much for him to handle, and sobbed loudly in his father's arms, leaning his head on the man's shoulder and the nape of his neck again.

"Shhh, Caiellis. It isn't your fault," Marik rubbed his back in gentle circles, being careful to avoid the spots that were covered in medical gauze or bandaged as to not cause his youngest son undue pain, "Just let it out, son. Just let it all out. I am here for you. You've done so, so good Caiellis, and me and your brother are so proud of you."  
Earlier, a month that seemed like years ago, the man he had been would have assumed Caiellis's tears were a sign of weakness. Now he knew that they were only a sign of strength, as sign of his son getting stronger and facing his emotions, and he was only glad that Caiellis was here to cry at all.

After a few minutes the door opened quietly, Alexander stealthily creeping across the threshold and into the room containing his beloved family – he didn't want to spoil anything of what was going on in here that he had been able to see from the waiting room. He went round to the other side of the bed, facing the back of his younger brother, and met his father's eyes. There was no surprise in those usually austere bright blue eyes, only emotion that might have been fatigue, relief or sadness, a combination of all three or something else that Marik Ensis Lucerna seldom displayed so openly.

Tears, wet and streaming, glistened on Marik's cheeks as he held his youngest son, crying silently but unashamedly out of a mixture of so many strong emotions running through him, and though Alexander was sure that his dad would have wiped them away as soon as possible in any other circumstance right now that would have meant letting go of the tight but gentle hold he had on his youngest son. They looked at each other for a moment, unspoken words filled with happiness and relief passing between them without the need for either to open their mouth.

Then Alexander quietly slid onto the bed on the other side, avoiding all of the leads of medical equipment connected to his junior sibling, reaching out to grip hold of Cai's bony shoulder. He listened to the soft shudder of Caiellis's breathing through the oxygen mask as he lay half asleep in his father's arms, something that he had been frightened and convinced that he might never hear again.

He said nothing, because, right then, nothing needed to be said.

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Guardian Oleic: Iridescent Angel (yes the FTV: Angels art).

* * *

**So you managed to get to the end of this juggernaut. That was extremely emotional, and while I do intend for there being more heartbreak scenes soon I promise you that the action will start up again soon. Stay tuned for then, and leave a review if you have anything to say about the current state of the story.**


	43. Toil and Struggles

**Again, sorry for the rather long delay on this chapter, but school started again and the chapters will be smaller than this so that I can get them out more regularly once again (my severe writer's block and lack of inspiration for this one didn't help either). Anyway I hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading.**

**Also, over a million words! Wow. Since this is a milestone, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has ever read this story and all those who had followed or set it as one of their favourites, but in particular Foxtrot Agent 21 and Lullaby121 who gave me the motivation to continue with this story and allowed me to consider it from different angles. It wouldn't be the same without their feedback at all. Finally, I would like to give a thank you to the semi-anonymous reviewer u60cf28, who gave me the first review on this story and gave me hope that someone out there liked it. Now I have no idea whether they are still reading or not, but if they are thank you.**

**Edit: 12/10/2015 - For any who might be wondering, I have not abandoned this story and the new chapter should be coming out soon. The gigantic delay is down to me being extremely busy with sixth form (junior year for confused Americans) and the fact that I was writing two scenes simultaneously (meaning that after this one the next chapter should come relatively soon).**

* * *

_Hello, my young Summoner. Hello, Caiellis Noctis Lucerna._

_I know that you are probably too weak to hear this – as you definitely don't have enough mana to return to the Mind Realm during your slumbers – but I need to say it anyway._

_I am proud of you, Cai, even if I don't agree with what you did. I can see why you did it, and I only wish that I had been there to stop you and convince you otherwise … as a guardian angel should._

_I cannot see out of you at the moment, your mana is too weak for anything to reach me but the barest and most distorted refraction of the material plane, locked as I am within the lonely cathedral of your mind. But I can sense that things have changed, that sadness has been turned into joy, and for that I am grateful._

_I wanted to speak to you so that you are certain that I don't think ill of you in any way, though I will be saying this to you when you recover enough so that you can visit the angel within your head._

_Never do anything like that again. Your life is worth living no matter what others think of you, no matter what your father believed you to have done – even though I can detect that not all was as it appeared and that I may have been wrong in my estimation of him. I can see the steadying hand of a father's support, the tender touch of a brother's love made gentle where it would once be firm by sorrow and guilt, the spilled tears of a grieving family, the anguish of loss turned to the relief and happiness of salvation._

_You are strong despite your young and frail form, my Summoner. You will get through this. I promise you that, with the support of your family and myself, you will endure and overcome this hardship._

_I do not know if you can hear these words or not, drifting as you are through the expanse of exhaustion within your young mind, but I have to say them regardless of that. You will endure. You will overcome this. You are stronger than this, stronger than the demons that hold you down – whether they be the demons of the forsaken darkness of the abyss or the demons formed from the shadows of loss and sadness within your heart that are beginning to be dispelled by the light of acceptance and love._

_Go now, Caiellis. You have not been asleep for long, but before this you slept for a dangerously lengthy amount of time as your body attempted to rejuvenate its wounds and preserve your life – though I myself do not know how long. The physical world is calling to you, and you should not deny it. The merriment and affection that you deserve is waiting for you. There will be pain, I do not doubt it, but you are better than the pain and you will rise above it._

_Just remember that I will be waiting for you when you are healed._

.*.*.*.

It had only been a few minutes after Marik had reluctant laid his now sleeping youngest son down on the hospital bed proceeding the boy falling back into an exhausted slumber in his father's arms when the youngest Lucerna started to stir again. The two older members of the royal family, Marik and Alexander, sat in the chairs to the left and right respectively of their youngest which had held them in some of their weakest moments, watching over him and then leaning closer the second he started moving again.

"Hey, look who's awake, princess," Alexander stood up, looming over his younger brother and smiling broadly down at the smaller boy the moment his eyes snapped open once more and Caiellis was presented with the interior of the room once again. One hand instantly went up towards the oxygen mask upon his face, grabbing at the glass briefly before the seventeen year old's large hand encircled his four year younger brother's small wrist. He gently caught Cai's thin hand in his and gave it an inspiriting squeeze, uttering, "How about you wait for the doctors to say whether or not you can take that off before you do, little buddy?"  
Caiellis looked panicked again, his eyes darting frantically from one corner of the room to another, analysing his smiling older brother before locking on to his father's movements out of the peripherals of his vision, swivelling his head round to the Lucerna patriarch before making a pathetic whimpering noise at the pain assaulting him.

The youth wasn't entirely sure what was transpiring, though the memories were quickly coming back to him as the fog receded from his paradoxically exhausted and sleep deprived mind – as he could recall one of his family members telling him that he had been sleeping for two days since the battle for the capital of the demon worshipping and pleasure obsessed New Empire of Passion, so really he should feel more rested, although he understood why he didn't perfectly well because of how weak he felt and the wounds that he knew his body had sustained – coupled with the numbing sedatives supposed to lessen the pain.

Such advanced thought soon faded in a few seconds when a wave of sheer pain, blisteringly hot and freezing cold in the same instance, washed over his body, focussed in specific locations of agony but otherwise spread out, and the boy immediately found it hard to breathe. The oxygen mask was pressing air down on him in irregular bursts of motion completely out of synchronisation with his normal breathing pattern, and as he started breathing faster as his body reflexively tried to cry out in pain he couldn't get any air to his lungs for a short moment.

Alexander leaned forwards quickly when his younger brother made a noise akin to a choked whimper, Caiellis sobbing, crying and desperate to breathe as his eyes widened and his hand began spasming frantically in his older sibling's grip. The surgeons sprang forwards, as did Marik, worriedly staring down at his youngest son, words making their way to his lips but staying there the moment that the seventeen year old in the room began to speak. He had things to say to his second born, but he knew for certain that if there was someone who would be able to calm him down in this brief transitional period between wakefulness and restorative slumber (although luckily the fact that Caiellis had woken up now confirmed that he would start to recover and awaken at more regular intervals – as it had only been minutes since he fell asleep in his father's arms after the moment of intimacy that they shared which had driven the king to tears) would be his big brother.

At least the fact that Caiellis wasn't panicking as much as he had the first time round, not trying to scream or escape from his father meant that the boy could still remember what had passed between the eldest and littlest Lucernas,

"Hey, hey little brother. Calm down now. The oxygen mask is helping you breathe, little guy, because you aren't strong enough yet to do it on your own. Just breathe with it," Alexander encouraged the younger boy softly, his voice urging and comforting in the same instance as he gently rubbed Caiellis's wrist with his thumb. The youngest Lucerna's mouth was open, gaping silently in an attempt to get air, the other one of his hands holding the wrist of his older brother as tears glistened in his eyes. The pain was all consuming, yet focussed into pinpoints of torment all vying for attention within his brain.

His eyes flicked across the room at a frantic rate before he forced them to lock onto Alexander's face when his brother urgently called his name, noticing that his father and the surgeons (some of whom were busy adjusting dials on machines that he realised must have been attached to him in some way) were stood slightly back and allowing the middle Lucerna to take care of the situation, something which made the youngest member of the royal family feel strangely better – as it wouldn't be some stranger trying to calm him, but his very own older brother.

"That's it, Cai. Just look at me, and concentrate on my voice. Breathe in when I tell you to. Breathe in," Alex encouraged him, and Caiellis tried desperately to accede to his wishes, hacking in a breath as air flowed into him, though he mistimed it somewhat and was still panicking, clawing at his brother's arm to try and pry it off of his wrist and get to the oxygen mask underneath. The seventeen year old moved his other hand around, locking it onto the piece of equipment allowing his brother to breathe in order to ensure that the younger boy would not dislodge it, and stared into Caiellis's wide and frightened yet utterly exhausted green eyes which luckily had none of the abject terror directed at the king present in them that had been there the first time he had properly awakened since the battle for the City of Pleasure, just horror at not being able to breathe properly.

"Keep it on, Caiellis," the older male commanded when his little brother feebly tried to push his hands away so that he could get to the mask, and even though it did scare him slightly it was nothing at all compared to when it had happened the first time and his younger sibling had been unconscious and bleeding from his mouth at the time. Now the glass of the mask was misting up with expelled breath instead of bubbling crimson, and Alexander kept his voice steady and soothing, aware that his younger brother depended entirely upon him to stay collected and not panic right now but fully ready to embrace that duty again after having it denied for what seemed like so long but had only been two days fraught with despair, as he spoke, "Just take nice and steady breaths. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out."  
Caiellis complied, the blurred room and his older brother coming back into focus, although his vision was still hazed somewhat by the pain ravaging his young body, relaxing back against the pillows after coming to terms with the fact that his back had automatically arched and it had only been Alex' restraining grip that had kept him on the bed. He took shaky breaths, still uncomfortable with the blasts of dry air spitting into his face, but aware that he wasn't strong enough to do it on his own. The features of his older sibling, covered in big brotherly familiarity but still tight with worry and tiredness, sharpened as he concentrated on finding the rhythm of his breaths, wondering how he had done it the first time (even whilst crying his eyes out he had still been breathing) and concluding that it had been because he had been focussed upon other things at the time, so stared at his brother.

"You're doing great, Caiellis. Keep it going like that. There we go," Alexander smiled down at him, releasing his grip on the boy's thin wrist and the oxygen mask slowly and instead clutching one of his younger brother's small hands in his own as the boy's breath misted up the oxygen mask when he sank back, the whole effort having exhausted the boy. "What is it with you and that oxygen mask, huh short fry?"  
"Sorry," the youngest Lucerna murmured guiltily, his eyes drifting from his older brother to the other part of his family on the other side of his bed, meeting Marik's loving gaze, though underneath that there was parental worry which the man made no effort to conceal. It then hit Caiellis how dishevelled his family looked, as while he was no stranger to seeing his older brother in a similar state to this it was more stark with their dad as the youngest Lucerna had never seen him showing weakness so overtly before – _no, it isn't weakness at all, and I know that dad will agree with me there. It isn't weakness to show concern for your loved ones, and it isn't weakness to show love to them either._

The man's cheeks were heavily stubbled, and although Caiellis had seen his father (who preferred to keep clean shaven) with a small dusting of a beard before after what had happened to Alexander and was aware that the man would have looked similar during the war he hadn't ever laid eyes upon his father when the forty year old appeared this bad prior to this. Dark rings encircled sunken eyes, tear tracks barely evident on his pale cheeks where they hadn't been before, or at least Cai hadn't noticed them the last time he had woken up, but when Marik noticed his scrutiny he immediately smiled down at his youngest son, genuine parental love pushing past the worry and making his dad's face light up in a way that he had only witnessed before the civil war.

"It is good to have you back with us, Caiellis," the man said, his deep voice coloured with a slight inflection of emotion, though Cai knew now that such a thing was usual of his dad who didn't have the ability to show as much emotion as other people – though he had heard the same note, just much stronger, in his father's rumbling timbre when they had embraced. The boy was about to reply, before the pain which had faded into the background during his endeavour to breathe rose to near unbearable levels and he had to repress a scream, the noise coming out as a strangled whimper through clenched teeth instead. Every slight movement was sending a series of uncomfortable and throbbing sensations ricocheting throughout his body like they were bouncing through it, but most prominently within his ribcage which seemed to rattle like he was in the midst of some sort of earthquake even though he knew he wasn't moving much.

Unfortunately, ceasing to breathe wasn't a valid option so he was forced to live with it, until much more stinging and agonising torture rushed through him.

"Ah-ah!" Cai tried to hold it in, not wanting to seem even more needy and pathetic than he already must appear, but everyone in the room had already noticed and was reacting to his distress. His father gripped his free hand tightly, demanding, "Where does it hurt, Caiellis?" and when an answer was not forthcoming as the boy couldn't open his mouth without wanting to clamp it shut instantly and shear off his tongue with his teeth he assured him, "It doesn't matter. The pain is going to go soon. The doctors are going to help you, so don't worry. Just make it through this, and it will get better."  
Caiellis tried to nod, but remembered belatedly that doing so would cause him more agony halfway into executing the motion, so simply laid back down in his bed and attempted to keep the pained noises to a minimum as he felt some more foreign substances rushing into his veins. Slowly, but surely, the torment began to dissipate, replaced by a kind of numb bliss that made it hard to move but was preferable to the pain, though he didn't like the way that it clouded his mind and befuddled some of his thoughts.

"I apologise, Prince Caiellis. It was my idea to relive you of some of the sedatives after you appeared to be able to cope with the pain the first time you had woken up, as it would increase the frequency at which you would regain consciousness and proper awareness of your surroundings," an aged but vaguely familiar voice broke into his thoughts, and the boy craned his neck to look at the wrinkled features of Surgeon-General Mortan who gazed down at him with a clinical but sympathetic eye. The boy nodded, or at least tried to, feeling the stead progress of the narcotics and numbing mana coursing through his young circulatory system, and the man continued on, "We have only adjusted the proportion of medication slightly so that as much as pain as possible will fade away without you falling back into your curative slumber. However, it would be beneficial to keep you awake so that you can undergo some tests in order for us to assess your current condition."

Although the man kept it hidden, evidently not wanting to worry their young patient, Alexander knew that they were alluding to the fact that Cai's brain could have been permanently damaged by the amount of time he had spent without precious oxygen getting to it as well as referring to the potential for this physical harm being too much for his brother to cope with. He gently squeezed the younger boy's hand, telling him without words that his big brother would be there for him all the way through it, and saw Marik doing the same on the other side of the thirteen year old. With Caiellis's family backing up their youngest, there was nothing that the young teenager wouldn't be able to do.

"We can do these tests whenever you are ready, though I personally think that they should be left a few minutes," Mortan suggested, his face professionally grave which made the youngest Lucerna feel nervous even if he knew that such was the expression which the aged Ordo Medella member habitually wore and so didn't necessarily correlate to his chance of success in these tests. He felt tired, his exhaustion exacerbated by the fact that he had more sedatives pumping through his veins than before, but he was determined to stay awake for his family even if all he wanted to do was to escape from the pain, which while it was diminished was still strong. The surgeons backed off, leaving the Lucerna family in relative privacy even though they were still in the large room with them, and Caiellis looked across the room at them before tilting his head downwards.

More panic, though the edge of desperation was taken off by the narcotics within him, flooded through his mind as he saw the tube sticking out of his stomach, a revolting sight that had him instantly wanting to rip it out, although he managed to restrain himself in that respect. Relaxing his breathing, he turned to his older brother, a question in his wide green eyes that were brimming with tears at the thought of the _thing _that had been shoved inside of him and into his stomach that he could barely feel but was still there, and Alex smiled back sadly.

"Sorry, short stuff. You have to keep that in as well. How else were we going to make sure that you didn't become even more malnourished?" he replied to the look with that explanation. The contortion of Caiellis's features in utter disgust and revulsion would have been almost comical if not for the haunting tint to his expression and the glaze of tears in his eyes, and the boy mumbled, "I don't like it."  
"I don't think any of us do, Cai, even though it makes you look like some form of freaky cyborg from the League of Uveria," Alex joked, gently squeezing his hand again and rubbing his fingers over the thin skin stretched over the bones, attempting to get his brother out of the misery that had descended over his young face in the light of what was being done to him, "And besides, you were already as thin as a stick before this battle, and even though you have become even skinnier – which I didn't think was possible, though you managed to prove me wrong – there would have been nothing left if you hadn't had the gastric tube inserted. Don't look so down, baby bro, it is only temporary. Once you are strong enough to eat it will be taken out."

"Don't call me that," Caiellis replied, his lips forming a small pout of petty little brother that was entirely eclipsed by the melancholy sadness of his features as he came to terms with how broken he was, just how many machines had been thrust into him in an attempt to help him and how many wounds he had picked up. He had known that he had been hurt in every single place imaginable by the Lord of Riots which he didn't remember killing but knew that he had, but back then his emotions had been much more pressing than his physical sense and he had ceased to care what had happened to his body because at the time he had wanted to die.

Now that he didn't, now that he knew the truth, knew that his father loved him and his big brother more than anything in the world and had been manipulated by a spawn of the abyss, the fact that he had survived so many wounds honestly shocked him. _Although I guess I know that Alex or dad would have easily got through them, because apart from the fucking stupid wound I inflicted myself Alexander was harmed far more than I was by the last vampire Aksua, but I am weak compared to them._

"I'll call you what I want, little dude," Alexander stuck his tongue out at his brother, and though Marik was aware that he was trying to distract the younger boy from his predicament and force him to indulge in the brotherly banter, the king decided that he would intervene on his youngest son's behalf at any rate due to the fact that he wanted to reaffirm his love for the boy and ensure that the thirteen year old knew, "No you won't Alexander. You can call him any of your nicknames for him apart from the ones that are out of order. Otherwise you will have me to answer to."

The seventeen year old raised an amused eyebrow at his father, knowing that he was doing it solely to make Caiellis feel better, and turned back to the despondent thirteen year old. He was completely aware that trying too hard to make Cai feel happy about the admittedly quite dire (though nowhere near as bad as it could have been without his baby brother's tenacity and strength in spite of his wasted frame) situation would end in failure, as it had done in the past when he had pushed his sibling too hard to be cheerful, but even so he was still going to try up until the point where he would conclude that it wouldn't make any more difference.

The boy pulled his head up off the cushion underneath it, wincing at the pain of the motions and hoping that his family hadn't honed in on that, and pulled his hands out of the two older Lucerna's strong but comforting grips as he manoeuvred his body so that he was sat upright, his back resting upon the hospital pillow which was against the headboard behind it. He shook his head at his older brother when the boy moved forwards to offer assistance, although the pain must have shown on his young features as the seventeen year old decided to aid him anyway, placing a strong and underneath his younger brother's armpit and helping him in sitting upright.

Caiellis wanted to glower at his older brother and tell him that he wasn't an invalid even if he was heavily wounded, but he was grateful for the older male's assistance as he wasn't sure if the pain would have been too much for him or not. Instead he murmured, "Thanks, Alex."

"No problem at all, Cai," the boy responded, grinning at his younger brother as the smaller adolescent adjusted his position slightly, shifting like he would usually whilst in bed. Yes, this was definitely better than having Caiellis still and nearly dead and having to contend with his grief as well as stay strong for his younger brother, even if the youngest Lucerna was understandably sad and confused by what was going on all around him. Caiellis brought his hands to his stomach, unconsciously fiddling with the tube in it before dragging his prodding fingers away before either his brother or his father decided to, placing them on the bed instead and gripping hold of the mattress. He shot a glance over to his father again, the man flashing another smile at him, still not used to having the novelty of the man caring about him openly even if he knew that his dad had cared about him even before the horror's possession, only not showing as much as he had been the king.

He wasn't entirely sure whether or not his father would stay in this loving and affectionate mode that occasionally brought up fragmented pieces of memory from Cai's past that he could barely remember as it had been seen through the eyes of a four year old, or if once the threat of his youngest dying or being permanently hurt had faded into the background he would go back to how he was before – but even if he did, they had shared something special the last time that they had spoken in privacy to one another, a bond of intimacy between father and youngest son had been forged after it had laid, strewn aside, unattended to and broken, for so long, something that the littlest Lucerna wouldn't ever forget.

Caiellis also knew that their father wouldn't be as harsh or violent towards him as he had been during the war with Welkas, as that was when he had been possessed by the horror – rather if he did go back, it would be to the way that he had been acting before the negotiations at the Scholaria Magnus, which wasn't too bad as he had been trying to form a relationship with his second child and had given him the Sword of Glass (which had been destroyed, most likely in the final blow which had rent the Lord of Riots asunder, and although the boy felt slightly guilt about being the cause of the loss of a four hundred year old relic he supposed that it had ended the existence of an Archdemon so had met a worthy end) at the time.

However, he would always remember that his father did love him no matter how the man acted, he had been told so by Marik himself who had explicated stated that, that his love for his sons would often be concealed under his kingly visage and his veneer of an unstoppable monarch that he wore when ruling the Kingdom of Light to the point where Cai had often been questioning if it even existed or not. He knew now that even in their arguments, deep down his dad did want him and did love him, even if this state of him being an affectionate and doting father ended when Cai recovered.

"Everything is going to be ok, Caiellis. You just need to relax and get better as your body recuperates from its injuries," Marik told him, pulling his seat closer so that he could be nearer to his youngest son and incredibly tempted to gather the small boy into his arms again and never let go of him, aware that Caiellis wouldn't know that he had only spent about twenty minutes asleep since he had woken up before and that it would seem like much longer to the youngest Lucerna.

He leaned over the boy, not missing how the thirteen year old suppressed an instinctual reaction of flinching back and aware that it would be a few days at the very least until the youth could repress that completely, that the experience the boy had undergone was still too fresh in his mind, and pressed a firm kiss to the top of the youngster's head which had him blushing slightly at the attention.

"Besides, Alexander needs his little brother to run circles around him to put him in his place," the king joked, pulling back to ensure that he didn't overstay his welcome in the boy's personal space even if he could have easily held his youngest son for hours. His son's eyes met his for a moment, bleak despondency warring with love and understanding for supremacy in the emerald orbs, though they did not change at his father's attempts at humour. Alexander snorted, "Yeah, like that has ever happened. The only way in which shortie will be running circles around me on those tiny legs of his will be with his Geek Boy reading."

Caiellis paid little attention to his family's conversation, as while he wouldn't admit it focussing on that and his own thoughts at the same time was hard with the numbness of his mind. It was just good to have them talking to each other, to have them around him and showering him with easy love, to have a sense of normality (not that dad deigning to join in, let alone starting the conversations with them, was anything close to common) around him instead of the utter anguish which had suffused his young form and mind in his final moments of battle with the Archdemon Rakdos which still flared in his mind – although his psyche had already locked away some of the memories within cages of thought, unwilling to allow him to revisit the trauma of that time, even if they would emerge during his nightmares or other moments of weakness.

He loved seeing dad like this, having him by his side and supporting him like he had so many years in the past and like Alexander did in the present and had done throughout the horrible civil war instead of condemning, censuring and harshly berating him for any misdemeanours he might make, even if the man's parental love was slightly awkward due to lack of use. His big brother and father could have been speaking in a different language for all that he cared, because it was enough to have them here, safe and happy enough (although he could see the sadness barely hidden in their eyes and given more lease to tint their weary gazes when they thought that he wasn't looking). It was much better than them not being able to talk.

It was extremely comforting to have both his brother and his father here now, particularly so now that the eldest Lucerna was supporting him instead of shouting at him. There was a certain amount of relief present in knowing that he no longer had to fight against the anguish and the pain all alone, in knowing that someone else would take the weight off of his shoulders instead of leaving him to deal with it by himself. He was aware that independence was something that he should always strive for if he wanted to act as a good Lucerna prince, but right now he didn't care and that did not mean that he couldn't have the older members of his family here to protect him.

"Are you both ok?" he asked, quietly, when the conversation faded into silence halfway through Marik's reply when he probably realised that his youngest son hadn't been joining in at all, and Alexander's mouth opened to speak before Marik instantly cut in, although Caiellis knew for a fact that the seventeen year old would have said the exact same thing that their father was in the process of doing so, "Yes, my son, we are absolutely fine. You don't have to worry about us, focus on yourself and your own recovery (Caiellis thought that there was quite a heavy _for once_ implied at the end of that sentence, which was ironic considering what all of his family did and that he thought himself to be the most selfish and self-centred). I'm not going to lie to you, we didn't get through the battle for Usnaan entirely unscathed, but it was nothing bad. For myself, at any rate, Alexander will have to be resting like you are – which is none of your concern and nothing you have to worry about."  
Alexander's glower cut into his father's side, not wanting to start the inevitable process of Cai feeling guilty over all that had happened – as if there was someone who should (and did) feel contrite it would be the ones who had failed to protect their youngest and most fragile family member. Marik returned it stonily for a moment, understanding Alexander's concern somewhat even if he was not as familiar with Caiellis's urge to blame himself for everything as the boy's older brother, but wanting to make sure that now that Caiellis was awake the seventeen year old did not have to act like he wasn't in any pain or was an invulnerable older brother so that his sibling didn't worry.

"Yeah, like dad said. We are fine," he said with a hint of finality directed at his father, as the man didn't know as well as he did that Cai had a penchant for worrying about everything in a way that Alexander had decided that little brothers shouldn't have to. Caiellis's sleepy gaze kept switching between them, and even though his throat felt hoarse and he didn't fail to notice how his family winced empathetically whenever he croaked out something, though the hellish soreness of his vocal cords which he hadn't been able to pay attention to the last time he had woken up was dissipating more and more whenever he used them, he spoke, "Are you s-sure? I mean … you both look awful ..."

"You are hardly in a state of divine beauty yourself, little buddy," Alex replied, rewarded with a harsh glance from his dad and Caiellis's eyes falling to the bed in shame, so to rectify the situation he grinned down at the younger boy and patted him gently on the shoulder, "We're fine, Cai. Stop worrying about us. You need to be focussed on yourself, because there is nothing wrong with me or dad, ok?"

Caiellis rolled his eyes, nodding anyway but keeping all movement to a minimum as to minimise any pain that he might feel, as even if he wanted to be stronger and to be able to endure more torment causing himself undue torture was not an efficient way of getting about life in his current condition – and it would definitely be picked up on by his older brother if perhaps not his father, both of whom were already worried about his health.

"Ok … ok. Wh-what happened to the army in Usnaan?" Cai then asked, taking a few breaths between the words as his family waited patiently, the look in their eyes suggesting that they understood well how much effort it was taking for the youngest Lucerna to stay awake, let alone speak to them and communicate his worries. However, nothing was going to stop him from finding out what had happened within the Welkalite capital city that he had fought within, even if the version of the news that he would get would be as gentle as possible, probably omitting the amount of death there had been in the slaughter to appeal to his sensibilities. Caiellis didn't mind, he was too tired and already too sad to want to have to deal with all of that guilt right now, and he was too tired to even care about the way that he was being treated like a young child – which, he reflected, he supposed he was.

It was a rare occasion indeed that Marik would behave towards him in such a way, so he was determined to make the most of it and ensure that his dad didn't feel too much guilt over all that had happened to them, and while Alex regarding him as a child wasn't exactly uncommon a part of him still wanted to revel in it as he was grateful that his older brother was still alive and well, even if he did look awful and like he hadn't slept properly in days. Cai was well aware that he would appear much worse, but it didn't prevent him from being concerned for the welfare of his family – just because he was the youngest didn't mean that he couldn't be.

Marik and Alexander shared a glance, telling one another without the usage of words that neither of them would be revealing the complete truth about what had happened (although neither of them knew the true total of death and only Marik was truly aware of what had happened within the City of Pleasure since Alexander hadn't left Caiellis's room to go and communicate with the Lucerna family's generals back within Welkas after their hasty exit from the New Empire of Passion to get Caiellis to the hospital which he had been in for the past two days, so in essence the seventeen year old knew just as much as his younger brother did about the ending of the battle and the Lucaelian victory).

"Thanks to you, son, the Tempest of Craving and the demonic taint in the city was destroyed when you annihilated the Archdemon that the Welkalite Orders of Passion had Summoned within their capital, leading to a Lucaelian triumph and peace being restored. Even now there are talks of a truce between our own Kingdom of Light and the newly instated leaders of the Welkalite Empire, although I do not yet know the exact specifics," Marik coolly informed his youngest son, watching as the boy nodded in response, his eyes betraying little of his thoughts and only the constant sadness and pain as well as relief that he was with his family.

Marik squeezed the boy's shoulder gently as he took in the news silently, wondering whether or not his youngest son remembered the killing of the unholy Defiler which had almost ended him and had caused nearly all of these wounds (although there were still many which had been inflicted by Marik's own hand which made him feel utterly sick to even think about), anything to keep his restless hands occupied. He was quite nervous for the state of his and Emili's second child, and he wasn't sure how but he managed hide his anxiousness from his sons under a veneer of concerned calm which he wasn't sure was working.

It was not that he didn't want his boys to see that he was worried for them and loved them, as might have been part of his reasoning for hiding his emotion from them in the past, he just didn't want the true extent of his fear to be communicated to them as his empathetic sons would become even more frightened (for each other, not for themselves) if they sensed it.

Marik would keep all of the true anguish and terror that he had been confronted with himself so that his children would be spared from it, his darkest moments in the past few days when he had been confronted with a dead youngest son before the Angel of the Black Sun had saved him from the coldness of death's embrace. He knew that his sons were aware now that he cared deeply about them (even if Alexander had been before now when Caiellis had been labouring under the misconception which the king had done nothing to disabuse him of that his father didn't love him and in fact resented his presence after the debacle of the abduction and the seventeen year old's near death experience at the hands of Aksua), and he wouldn't hesitate to show his love and fondness of them, but they didn't overtly need to see how scared he had become (although Alexander already had and Caiellis might have done when his older brother had been hurt).

Caiellis had expected that the Lucaelians would be victorious, even if a part of him deep down insisted that the fact that they were here had meant that they had retreated after being repulsed from the City of Pleasure, but he hadn't confronted the thoughts very much, too wrapped up in his own misery to even consider what had happened as he had convinced himself (in no small part due to the manipulation of his father and what the man had been forced to say to him) that all of the deaths in this war were his fault – as he hadn't just been too weak to fight off his kidnappers and drag his older brother into the abduction as well, but he had abandoned the soldiers in his attempts to end the battle for Usnaan quickly and in his failure to prevent the unholy ascension of the Lord of Riots which he could still see whenever he shut his eyelids.

It still wasn't a glorious victory, no victory ever was when it concerned the murder of human beings, and Caiellis didn't feel at all happy or proud that he had had a potent role in it. He just felt the same sensation of hollow emptiness that had occurred whenever he had led the Scientia Mos army to triumph over the forces of the darkness (apart from when he had executed the Merciless Eviction on the army outside of Jeksaan and had believed that he was a horrible mass murderer). That was always followed by depression, but at the moment the youngest Lucerna did not want to confront these issues, he only wanted to revel in the company of his family for once.

He was almost too tired to even think like this, having to fight to keep his eyelids open due to the fact that he knew the doctors wanted to perform tests on him whilst he was still awake. A brief cough made his throat feel like it was on fire, and he turned to his older brother when the boy immediately asked, "Is there anything that you need, Cai? Anything that we can get you?"

"W-water … please," he croaked out, feeling as it the refreshing liquid would allow him to erase the sensation that felt like sand being poured down his throat, and the older Lucerna nodded his head. The fact that he was being fed gastrically meant that he wouldn't be dehydrated even if he felt like he was, but it also meant that his mouth and throat wasn't feeling the effects of any of the water inside of him. Caiellis didn't even want to think about how the doctors had prevented him from needing to get up and go to the toilet, as such a thing only made him feel horrified and even more distraught.

Alexander turned to leave and fetch his brother a drink, but then a slender hand latched around (although it couldn't fit the full way round) his wrist and he spun back around to Caiellis, the boy's green eyes silently pleading for him to stay and for someone else to get it. He smiled, depositing himself back in the seat and dragging it closer to his brother's bed, one of the orderlies having heard the youngest prince's request and departing briefly to obey it. He hoped that his blue eyes conveyed the fact that he was not going to leave his younger brother if the smaller boy didn't want it (and even if he did it was unlikely that in the next few days he would), and gently pulled Caiellis's hand away from his wrist so that he could hold it again, "Alright, squirt. I'll stay here."

Caiellis nodded in response, lifting his head slightly so that he could look over and silently thank the man who brought the glass of water over to him, depositing it in his father's grip when the man reached out for it. Marik leaned over, asking, "Do you think that you are strong enough to be able to drink it yourself? You will have to take of the oxygen mask briefly to be able to."

"Yeah … I can do it," Caiellis replied, although to be honest he had no idea whether he could or not because even small movements seemed to require energy that his exhausted body just didn't have, and reached out a shaking hand towards the glass that his father held out for him to take. Marik eyed him dubiously for a moment, gently passing it to him after a brief delay. Caiellis grabbed hold of the cup, the lightweight glass feeling immensely heavy in his weak hand, and almost instantaneously dropped it before his father's hand shot out and grabbed hold of it. His face burning in shame, the youngest Lucerna slumped back against the bed, consciously repressing the tears that threatened to drip out of his eyes and feeling his family's pitying gazes spearing into him.

He knew that it had only been a few minutes since he had first woken up by a coma after almost dying, but he still felt completely useless and utterly helpless as his father took the drink away from him, saying, "Right then. I will help you with the drinking, my son."  
He moved forwards, perfectly willing to hold the cup for his youngest son whilst the boy drank in a way that he hadn't done since the boy was a child and hadn't been able to do it himself, but Caiellis shrank back, embarrassed. He smiled at the boy, and said, "Caiellis, there is not shame in accepting help from your family. I am truly sorry if anything that I said was the cause of you being embarrassed to take help when it is offered to you, but you should know that me and your brother are always willing to help you when you need it."  
The youngest Lucerna hung his head, but moved towards his dad when the man motioned in his direction with the drink, biting his lip and fighting back against the sting of sudden tears. "I'm sorry," he muttered softly, hating the fact that he couldn't even have a drink on his own without having to force someone else to help him.

His older brother sat on the edge of the bed gently, avoiding all of the trailing leads from the machines plugged into the smallest occupant of the hospital room, and gently rubbed his arm, "Aww, Caiellis, it will get better. You are still very weak now. There is nothing to be sorry for here."

To the thirteen year old's dismay, a huge tear dripped down his face, one that he instantly wiped away, cringing in shame all of the while even though he was well aware that he had sobbed himself to pieces in his father's arms not too long ago. He looked over at his father, the man's smile still plastered onto his face even though the youngest Lucerna knew that some of it was forced, or at least thought that it was. Marik stared back at his son, holding the glass in his hand, hating how utterly dejected Caiellis's young and pale face looked but knowing that it would take a while for the youngster to recover from all that had happened to him, before a small and incredibly strained smile split the thirteen year old's young face and he grinned back at his dad.

There was still a haunted tint to his emerald eyes, but Marik was glad that his son was making the effort to try and be happy instead of wallowing within despair even if he didn't blame the boy for it and would help him at every opportunity now that he was awake, and Caiellis broke the brief silence that had descended with a soft, "Alright."

He was reluctant to allow his dad to help him drink, the thought of the man seeing him as pathetic and a burden still fresh in his mind even if he knew now that it wasn't the truth, so instead quietly protested, "Um … Can Alex do it instead, dad? S-sorry..."

Marik pushed back the twinge of disappointment and utter self-loathing that he felt, knowing that his son was far more comfortable with his older brother helping him than his father after all that had passed between them and growing up with only Alexander at his side, and he tried not to let it bother him or hurt his fatherly pride. Caiellis lowered his gaze guiltily, afraid that he had offended his father by saying that, as it wasn't the man's fault for the civil war and the fact that Caiellis hadn't seen him for nine of the thirteen years of his life, but he felt more comfortable having his older brother do it even though he was sure that their dad would have done so in the past.

"Of course, Caiellis. Whatever makes you the most comfortable," Marik replied smoothly after a pregnant pause had fallen before he had realised that his two sons were waiting on his response to the youngest Lucerna's request, regulating his voice as much as possible so that the deep sadness that he felt in his heart wasn't reflected within it. He had missed out on so much of his sons' lives, but instead of that being an excuse for him to succumb to grief and wonder what might have happened had he been able to anticipate the civil war and protect his family better it was merely another powerful reason for him to be with them now, to support Alexander through his ascent into adulthood and to aid Caiellis through puberty and his teenage years now that he had breached into them.

He handed his eldest son the drink, not missing the flash of shame in his youngest's eyes and hating himself for it, resolving to gently grip hold of the boy's far too thin shoulder for a moment in an attempt to confer solidarity and comfort as well as understanding for Caiellis's decision. Alexander grinned at his brother who turned his gaze over to him, grasping hold of the bottom of the oxygen mask in order to start the preparation for lifting it up so that his younger sibling could drink (as judging by the lack of interruption or intervention from any of the Ordo Medella professionals it was perfectly fine for them to allow Cai to drink and to briefly take off the mask).

"Dad is right, little bro. There is absolutely no shame in allowing your big brother or dad to help you out. Not that I won't use this as comedic material at some point, but I think you deserve at least … three month's grace?" he winked at his younger brother. Caiellis actually scoffed at that, though the noise sounded painful and wilted because of his sore and heavily bruised throat. Alex winced in sympathy, knowing that the painful bruises on his own neck were trivial in comparison to the black and red marks on his brother's, as his brother replied, "You won't last a week."

Marik grinned at his eldest son's almost casual teasing of his youngest. It was fascinating to see that even though there were some signs, as in the seventeen year old being more gentle with it than Marik assumed he would normally be, but instead of acting like Caiellis was a patient who had come perilously close to death and was still not out of danger yet (as while the king didn't want to consider it there still remained a possibility of his youngest son deteriorating further once again, though that was massively reduced by him waking up) he treated the younger boy like they were both perfectly healthy and that this was just a normal day to them.

Even if it might irritate Caiellis slightly, which Marik assumed that it wouldn't because it made a nice change to all of the arguments and pent up anger that they had been privy too recently as second son drifted further and further away from father as the gap between them widened ever more, it would still be an efficient way of injecting normalcy into the boy's life, as well as happiness and causality – something which he desperately needed to make it through this. Teasing the youngest of the Lucerna family gave him a perfect excuse and apt method of not focussing on what had transpired in the past few weeks, the destruction and danger which had first peaked in their abduction and the injuries sustained by Alexander and had culminated two days ago when Caiellis's body had given out after his saddened choice to take his own life.

"Whatever. Tell me when you are ready," Alexander stated, sat next to his brother on the bed and trying not to unconsciously compare his own size to his sibling's because of how perilously thin the thirteen year old was. Gastric nourishment was no substitute for proper solid food, not that Caiellis had ever really eaten a good diet and had always blanched at the idea of consuming as much as his older brother did. The youngest Lucerna had been scrawny and thin for as long as his older brother could remember because of the fact that they had an age difference of four years, but currently that was even more pronounced than usual due to his inability to take in solid food at the moment and his body's need to use all of the energy that might have been converted into stores of fat or muscle to restore his mana pool and heal itself over time.

Caiellis's thin hand encircled his brother's broad wrist again, past caring or being annoyed about the fact that his digits didn't go all the way round, the youngest Lucerna using it as leverage to pull himself up more so that it would be easier to drink as his brother held the cup in front of him, his face set in a mask of helpful comfort that belied his earlier words. Cai knew that the situation was embarrassing and awkward for them both, because they were both teenage boys and Alexander was almost an adult, in spite of the fact that his older brother seemed perfectly fine with it all.

"Ready," he uttered, hoping that the very brief removal of the oxygen mask wouldn't be as traumatic or scary as he was envisioning it to be. Alexander gently lifted off the bottom of the mask, pressing the rim of the cup to Caiellis's lips as the boy begin to drink greedily. The seemingly freezing cold (even though it was simply mildly cold and not the temperature of ice) water touching his lips and trickling down his throat was one of the best experiences of his life even if he couldn't breathe for a short time, and he gulped for more.

"Not too much, kid," Alexander warned him, pulling the cup back after Caiellis started sipping rapidly at the water (as the older boy had only tilted the glass slightly in order to make it easier for his brother to drink in short sips instead of having the water rush inside of him), spluttering in small amounts as he did so. The oxygen mask was fastened over his face again, and the youngest Lucerna let out a mewl of discontent as the water was pulled away from him, presented by the face of his big brother who shook his head at him, telling him, "You need to take it in short sips, Cai. You don't want to drink too much and make yourself sick, do you?"  
The boy frowned at his older brother, pouting in a way that Alex thought he might never witness again from his younger brother if he hadn't woken up and only got worse instead, but what the middle Lucerna had said made logical sense even if it did seem cruel to him. He was about to ask for more water, his thirst for the refreshing liquid still not satiated, before both Choirmaster Esmelde and Surgeon-General Mortan made their way over to his bed, the former holding slips of paper in her hands and a pen that she would presumably utilise to write down the results of the tests that Caiellis underwent.

Alexander shifted off of the bed, placing the water glass on one of the desks next to Cai's abode of the past few days, looking up as the doctors approached and grasping for his brother's hand again, clasping it reassuringly so that his sibling didn't feel as nervous as he undoubtedly would be knowing the thirteen year old. Marik, who had remained silent as his eldest son helped his youngest drink and recalling a time when he had done the same for both (even if Emili with her position as the mother had done it more), stood up, sending a watchful eye over to all of the monitors that stated his son's condition for anyone to see and glad to see that nothing had changed since he had first properly woken up an hour or so ago, that the lines of colour which meant so much more than their physical forms could ever represent were still going strong, though their curves and bends were nowhere near as pronounced as they should be in a healthy young boy.

"Are you ready to begin the tests now, Prince Caiellis?" the Surgeon-General asked the boy, taking in the faces of his other rulers before glancing down at the slender youth on the bed who blinked tiredly up at him, rubbing his eyes with one hand and adjusting the oxygen mask slightly, though he didn't keep his hands on it long enough to provoke a reaction from his ever vigilant older brother. He nodded, although he must have looked tired, as Marik's deep but not cold or emotionless voice spoke into the air as he said, "You don't have to do them now, Caiellis. If you are too tired then just say so."

"No. I'm fine," he replied, though he wasn't just telling his dad as he rested up on his elbows, the fact that he was the centre of attention the only thing restraining the temptation to fiddle with all of the tubes and wires attached to him that he couldn't feel too much of because of the sedatives within him. He wanted to get these assessments over and done with so that his family could be reassured and so that he could spend more time with them, still not fully convinced that the situation would stay like this forever, therefore making him adamant to make the most of this opportunity to have his big brother and dad here. Besides, he wanted to complete the tests as well for his own personal sense of pride, as while he hadn't spent very long conscious in this bed at all he wanted to be able to be active because he hated being in this position – though not as much as his older brother did.

Mortan cocked an eyebrow at him, moving forwards and saying, "I think you forget, my young prince, that your father there invented the word "fine". There is absolutely no purpose to hiding your pain, and while I know that you want to follow your family's bad example in not showing any weakness – an admirable trait in any different situation – there is no conceding the fact that you are undoubtedly in pain and that you are in a hospital bed. I am a doctor, Prince Caiellis, and I have been in this profession longer than your father has been alive, so believe me when I say that I can tell whether or not you are in pain."

Caiellis chewed his lip slightly, turning away from the gaze that was piercing into him from the clinical eyes of the head doctor glancing at Choirmaster Esmelde instead who smiled down at the prince with a mixture of motherly and doctor based concern that put him more at ease. She rolled his eyes, voicing, "I did tell you that he sometimes went on rants, didn't I?"  
Alexander smiled and Caiellis gave a tiny and tired smirk as Marik squinted his eyes in a bit of confusion, assuming correctly that this must have occurred whilst the two boys had been on their own during the time period where Alexander had been in a similar situation to his younger brother. Puzzled as to what the doctors were going to test him on, having already collected what he knew about medical tests into his mind beforehand as a preliminary measure in order to help his youngest son as much as he could (as he knew that it would most likely be painful for the boy, involving exercises of pained and cramped limbs as well as the probing and examination of wounds to ensure that they were recovering very well), he leaned forwards in his chair.

His son's condition was his condition, and he had a very clear notion in his mind that these appraisals of Caiellis's state would be much more arduous than the ones that Alexander had been forced to go through only less than two weeks ago. He wondered whether it would be worth it or not to offer comfort to his youngest son right now, contemplating gripping hold of his shoulder to not only give the boy the solidarity of his touch (since the thirteen year old had slid out of his hand) and to metaphorically assert that he was backing him up in everything, but such a thing might only serve to get in the path of the doctors so could end up being a waste of his effort.

_No, what am I thinking? Of course it isn't a waste of my effort to help reassure my youngest son – or either of them, for that matter. That line of thinking is what ended with us in this situation in the first place. Even if the comfort is only brief, it will still be worth it for Caiellis – and besides, that train of reasoning implies that the boy's emotions are something mathematical and quantifiable, that they can be adjusted in ways that have a clear effect and that the smallest actions might not have unforeseen implications. I may think that there is no point in putting my hand on his shoulder if I have to take it off within a few seconds is purposeless, but to my son it might mean a large amount since it shows him that I am here for him, that I will do everything in my power to aid him through this and that I have learnt from my mistakes._

_I need to start trusting my instincts and fatherly urges more instead of pushing them aside or attempting to use logic to analyse and refute their merit. However, that obviously does not mean that I don't have to think about anything, especially not in times akin to our arguments before (as of course I will argue with my sons again – such a thing is without a doubt considering we all have stubborn personalities, they are both teenagers and I haven't exactly been impactful as a father), and that I should blindly follow the first thing that enters my mind heedless of the consequences, but I do have the ability to be a father inside of me and I need to nurture that just as I nurture my own children. For example, take the last time Caiellis awakened: I did not act out of thought but out of my love for him, and it showed._

The king sent a short glance over to his eldest son, examining what the seventeen year old was doing to help his younger brother through what was to come without making it evident, although Alexander was simply sat and looking at the doctors. He was not afraid to admit to himself that he had started using Alexander's actions as a basis for his own in dealing with the youngest member of their family – as they quite clearly had merit and worked, although the fact that Caiellis had spent much more time with his older brother and was therefore much more familiar with him was a large defining factor of that -, taking visual cues from what the seventeen year old was doing because he knew better how to make the thirteen year old member of their family feel more comfortable and at ease.

His intentions were not to completely mimic what his eldest son was doing, as simply becoming a faulty replica of the youngest Lucerna's older brother had no purpose and would only end in Caiellis finding the whole situation strange, as well as the fact that Marik couldn't be Alexander as they were different people – the relationship between brothers was of course different to the relationship between a father and a son, and Marik wouldn't have it any other way as there was no way that he would imitate some of the actions his eldest son undertook when interacting with their youngest (such as pulling him into wrestling holds) – but to simply have more of a foundation on what worked with Caiellis and what didn't, although he had already started that through his own conversations with him.

Furthermore, the king was not aspiring to change anything but the way that he had acted around Caiellis and the souring of their already almost shattered and distant relationship which was nothing near how he had originally imagined it before Emili had been murdered and his children whisked away from him by the ravages and perils of war, as he wasn't going to invent an entirely new persona for dealing with his son or anything ludicrous and guaranteed to fail like that.

No, he only wanted to show the boy the true way that he felt about him instead of hiding it away and simply assuming that Caiellis would know since he was his son, and he fully intended to create his own connection with the adolescent instead of borrowing Alexander's or engendering an inferior version of the bond between brothers, but it wouldn't hurt to have prior knowledge as to what worked and what didn't. Right now Alexander was more experienced with Caiellis, which meant that Marik could probably strive to learn a lot for him in order to avoid any massive misdemeanours. Whilst he wasn't exactly afraid of making mistakes and knew that both of them would, he ideally didn't want to do anything that could compromise Caiellis's emotional state too much or push them further apart.

He would be careful, but not to the point of no longer being genuine. The king shook himself out of the reverie that he had fallen into, deciding that he could think about all of the multifaceted thoughts revolving around within his sleep-deprived mind once both of his sons had gone to sleep and people stopped talking to him. Right now he needed to focus upon the plight and trials of his youngest son, so placed his hand on Caiellis's shoulder anyway in spite of what he might have thought earlier.

"Before we undergo the physical tests we would first like to begin a mental examination," the Choirmaster explained, her voice laced with understanding and a comforting note that made her perfect for dealing with children and adults alike, even if Caiellis wasn't sure whether or not to class the tone of her voice as patronising to him or not. He supposed that he would appear as awful and fragile as he felt inside, so that meant others would take pity on him, especially those who had fought to save his life from the death that had been close to claiming it. He nodded in response, contemplating what they would want him to do, assuming that this was related to the fact that he had suffered a serious concussion and was most likely due to him missing out on vital oxygen for however long he had done.

The thought of being brain damaged or having his thoughts locked within his head sent a shudder down his spine, one that was evidently noticed by those in the room around him as his big brother was quick to assure him with, "Don't worry, Cai. This is only a precautionary measure to make sure that you haven't been damaged in the head to make sure that the doctors don't have to focus their healing there."

Cai would like to say that he felt reassured by that, but he knew that his older brother was hiding the fact that it was a large possibility he would have suffered some form of mental injury that would affect him for the rest of his life. Alexander was omitting the part where the youngest Lucerna might have undergone permanent brain damage that could not be healed by the doctors of the proficient Ordo Medella which had saved his life and the life of his older brother.

The seventeen year old didn't want him to worry as much as he already was, and although it was a fruitless endeavour Cai couldn't help but feel more safe now that his elder sibling was here, as if Alex somehow had the power to repair his mind if it had been broken by the lack of air, and although Caiellis might have believed that in the past he was no longer the impressionable youth that truthfully thought his seemingly invincible big brother could do anything almost as well (and sometimes better) than his parents could (especially in the civil war when no parents were around and when Cai had refused to believe that Uncle Tristram (who the boy was wondering about now at the back of his mind, as well as Uncle Tybalt) was as good as Alex or dad).

He didn't _feel _brain damaged, in spite of the reality that his mind was fogged and some of his memories were distorted slightly and warped within his head, although all of those that were happened whilst he was fighting the Archdemon so he didn't blame his psyche from trying as hard as it could to erase them or lessen the horror of the incident, but that didn't mean that he wasn't.

"Firstly, we would like you to verbally answer these mathematical questions in order to ascertain the state of your cognitive and logical functions," Esmelde told him whilst Mortan transcribed some information from some of the monitors of the devices surveying Caiellis's condition onto a sheet of paper in front of him with his quill, most probably those that were regulating and examining his brain waves. Even though the woman spoke in a voice that Cai had heard before, directed at him because he was a small child from many of the citizens of the Kingdom of light, she didn't spare any details or conceal the medical terminology under the veneer of attempting to be kind. Evidently she knew that he wasn't an idiot even if he was young.

The boy frowned, wondering what sort of questions the sheet that she was holding would entail, his mind already pre-emptively awash with thoughts about different types of mathematics and ways of solving equations, though he hoped that they would account for his exhaustion and the fact that they had him on the mild sedatives for any mistakes that he might make, as well as the reality that his emotions had been torn to pieces and his mental state was slightly frayed at the moment by all that had happened. Alex patted him on the arm gently, avoiding any of the spots that had been hurt or had wires from machines that he hoped would be taken out soon as he did so, and exclaimed, "That should be right up your street, Caiellis."  
_Should being the operative word here. This seems slightly random, although I __suppose that it will help them in understanding if anything has happened to my brain. I can already sense the presence of some small amounts of Blue mana within me that are most likely surveilling my mental strength and the power of my thoughts, although my sensory capabilities are __tremendous__ly weak currently as I cannot generate any mana at all and I'm surprised that I can detect the magic of thought in the first place – I can barely even feel dad or Alex, and they had huge mana pools that I should be able to perceive from quite far away. Anyway, enough of that, I am already tired and allowing my mind to wander will simply reduce my ability to complete these questions. I presume that there will be some memory tests next to assess how much I remember, so once – of I – I finish these I should prepare for them._

Alexander didn't particularly like the way that Caiellis's expression was extremely anxious, despite the fact that he knew it would mirror his own even if he had smoothed his features into a supportive grin as much as he could in order to instil confidence within his younger sibling. He didn't think for a second that his younger brother would have been mentally damaged even if he had spent time without air, because he could see the clarity in his emerald eyes despite the fact that they were vaguely misted up as a result of his tiredness and the tears which had spilled out of it earlier, but only time would tell and he was still worried about the younger boy.

He would never be not worried about Caiellis, as his little brother was a gravitational mass that simply attracted trouble from all around him (being a Lucerna, a small child and a Lucaelian – but not just that, a royal family member as well – that could use Black mana tended to make the spawn of the darkness want to target the younger brother of Alexander), especially not now when he still felt the seemingly endless hours of loneliness and despair when his brother hadn't been awake keenly (as he had only been around an awake Caiellis for less than an hour), the all consuming and crushing sorrow that had threatened to swallow him up from the inside and replace his heart and happiness with a gaping void longing to be filled, but right now he was concerned for the younger boy because he knew precisely how badly Caiellis had become.

He tried not to let his younger brother on to that, as did his repentant and guilt ridden father who remained holding the boy's shoulder and kept his expression carefully concerned but without the fear the seventeen year old knew would be within, as Cai was perceptive as well as empathetic and any worry that he picked up on would simply make him more scared, which was something that the thirteen year old ill needed at this time.

"Would you like to begin?" the voice of Esmelde broke into all of their thoughts, and Caiellis nodded, attempting but failing to infuse the gesture with eagerness and instead making it appear hugely apprehensive. The woman began reading out the questions as well as turning the paper round so that he could look at them himself – they were challenging, but not too advanced or complicated and probably that way in order to avoid him exerting too much pressure on his mind to solve them or overworking it and hurting him. He answered quickly, though not hastily or before he was sure that he had completed them properly, but by the end of it a massive grin was splitting his older brother's face.

"Angels above, you are such a nerd," the seventeen year old teased, and Cai was sure that his big brother would already have him wrapped in a playful headlock if he hadn't been so wounded or hurt. He let out a small smile, a flash of his adorable dimples that had Alexander wanting to grin even wider, glad for his younger brother's sake even though he had not been fully cleared yet of permanent damage. Marik nodded, impressed at his thirteen year old's capability for the questions even though he was exhausted and had other things on his mind, and was about to congratulate him before the Choirmaster did so herself and began a second interrogation, suddenly asking the youngest Lucerna a question that seemed quite random but was cleverly concocted to make him think deeply into it.

Caiellis answered, hopefully with the right answer after being taken aback slightly, and Esmelde smiled encouragingly at him, "Perfect. You have completed everything so far with an utterly flawless degree of accuracy. We will be able to have the results of all of these tests in no time at all if you continue on like this."

The youngest Lucerna nodded again, silently wondering how many times he had done it on this night (well, he assumed it was night, though he wasn't entirely sure and his sense of time was understandably inaccurate and awry due to the amount of time he had spent in a slumbering state) because it was easier than speaking with how pained his throat felt from all of the abuse it had received. He wasn't able to stop himself yawning, quite loudly in fact, and was met with four sympathetic smiles when he did so.

"If you are too tired to continue, then you do not have to my prince. Do not pressure yourself too much into doing this if you do not feel up to it, as not only is there the possibility of the results being affected by your exhaustion in a way that they may not be, say, tomorrow, you risk overworking yourself and tiring youngest out even more," the Surgeon-General told him, briefly looking up from the numerous panels of information that laid out Caiellis's vital signs and anything else they would want to know about him to gaze at the youngest prince, who replied quickly, "No. It's alright. I'm just a bit tired, that's all."

"Even so, we are not going to undergo physical tests today, my lord," Esmelde cut in, the words inflected with a note of finality and interlaced with a doctor's authority over their patient which extended to the Lucerna family the many times where their vaunted endurance could not protect them and they required proper medical aid and the healing of professionals. Caiellis was about to respond, wanting to do everything in his power so that he could recover faster and get his older brother and father out of the worry that they had been steeped in recently and would be hurting them as well, with the fact that he was already acting as a Lucerna shouldn't (he couldn't remember Alexander ever not fighting against not doing exercises when _he _was wounded) burning in his mind, before his father stepped in, "The Choirmaster is correct, my son. Unnecessarily and prematurely stressing your body out could have potentially disastrous consequences as well as inevitably causing you (_and therefore me and your brother, although you do not have to know that and should continue to focus upon yourself_) more pain. If you still feel up to it, I will allow you to complete the mental examination today, but you will not be doing the physical exercises tonight, Caiellis, and that is final."

"Ok..." Cai acquiesced to his wishes, his expression turning from a mixture of protestation and relief that he had at least preserved his skill at mathematics to one of sorrow as he shrunk back, and with a pang of painful clarity Marik belatedly realised that he had made the words far too harsh, unnecessarily so. His voice had been suffused in his concern for his youngest son which had made the proclamation seem unduly strict and severe.

His son didn't quite pull out of the gentle grip that his father still had on his shoulder, though as he slumped slightly in defeat he almost slipped out of it, and Marik leaned forwards on the seat that he sat on so that he was closer to his son, ensuring that his face was showing all of the pride and love that he felt for the boy – whilst others might carefully sculpt their features to give off a specific impression, Marik often had to force them into simply showing positive emotion when he felt it due to his expression habitually becoming grim and cold when not angry because it had often needed to be like that during the dark days of the civil war.

"Caiellis. I was not trying to say that I think that you are in any way unsuitable for it or too weak to do it. I only want to do what is best for you, my son, and what your body is the most comfortable with. I wasn't at all trying to imply that you are inadequate, or that there is a problem if you are too tired to exercise your body at the moment. All I want for you is to recover at the pace that is best suited for you and for you not to push yourself too hard because you think that you have something to prove, because you do not. I want you to take it nice and slowly instead of rushing into it, is that alright Caiellis?" Marik asked, smiling at his son when the boy looked around to him, his green eyes fixed upon his father's face as if assessing it to ensure that the words coming out of his mouth were the truth.

The king kept his features open, because (apart from the fact that he was still scared for the boy – Caiellis knew, but that fear wouldn't do him any good) there was nothing to hide from him, and eventually his son nodded solemnly in response, the hint of a small smile of pure content tugging at the corners of his mouth before he turned back to the doctors, but not before murmuring, "Thanks, dad."

The man grinned warmly, glad that he had made his point heard to his youngest son and that the way he spoke to the boy was beginning to become more and more friendly instead of abrasive, and that he was becoming as eloquent with his second child as he was with his first. The almost unrestrained joy he felt in being able to be a father again surpassed anything that he had ever felt since the death of his wife, giving him a taste of the time before the unfolding treachery of his twin brother and three cities of Lucael turning to the darkness in their betrayal of the Lucerna throne, although he knew well how fragile that happiness was and how much it had to be protected.

Furthermore, despite the reality that right in this moment and for the next few days he wanted to be almost solely focussed on both of his precious sons, he was well aware that he would have to push aside that joy and contentment when it came for him to fight the final battles against Johnias when his twin brother rose his head again out of the reviled darkness which he had made his residence within after the bloody conflict and the defeat of the Fallen outside of the walls of the City of Swords. His sons were his greatest strength, but also his greatest weakness, and while he wouldn't have it any other way he still had to take measure to protect them that would come above any personal wants or need to see them and spend time with them – as it had been during the nine years of the civil war.

After a few minutes of the Ordo Medella operatives quizzing the youngest Lucerna on a multitude of different topics, the Choirmaster turned to Marik for a moment, briefly bowing her head in respect before stating, "That is enough for one night, my king. If you would like to join us then we can discuss Caiellis's results in greater detail in private."

"Why? Is there something wrong?" Alexander immediately asked, standing up out of his chair, an expression of worry instantly etched onto his young face that to Marik made the boy appear more like a father than an older brother depending on how he looked at it, although he knew that his children were closer than most (if not all) brothers were and that Alexander had every right to be worried about his younger brother as well. The doctor smiled back at him, diffusing some of his tension as he gazed into her eyes, examining them intently – not caring if the actions were friendly or not with the health of his little brother concerned - to ensure that there was nothing that she was concealing from him and concluding that if she was he wouldn't be able to find it out from her right now.

"No, not at all Prince Alexander. The results of the tests are fantastic, as you already know, and I think that we can just about clear him from the risk of any significant brain damage – or even minor damage, though we will have to look into that more. I only thought that it would be prudent to tell your father out of earshot, as it seems that Prince Caiellis is already falling asleep and I would not want to unintentionally keep him awake," she responded, inclining her head in the direction of the youngest Lucerna who had phased out of the world, his eyes struggling to stay open. Cai blinked and looked up when he heard his name, immediately registering that he had zoned out from the world, too wrapped up in his own thoughts and too tired to stop himself from falling into them, his vision clearing and his eyes presented with all of the members of the room looking down at him, which instantly made him feel shy and have the sudden, childish urge to hide behind his big brother. He didn't know exactly what had been said, but they were gazing at him expectantly, so he nervously and sleepily inquired, "Wh-wha?"

Alex snorted, smiling at his younger sibling as the boy rubbed his eyes in the way that made him seem younger – although, Alexander reminded himself, Cai was still only thirteen years of age and had been for just more than a full month, so was technically still very young despite how adult he often acted. Caiellis narrowed his eyes in confusion at his older brother, who simply winked back as if the two were sharing a private joke that they had devised together, although Cai had no knowledge of this and hoped it hadn't had something to do with what was said.

"Alright then. I will be back shortly, Caiellis. And I will be bringing some supper for you, Alexander," Marik told his sons, who nodded in reply, although Alex didn't particularly fancy the prospect of food he couldn't deny that even though his mind didn't relish having to eat, aware that he might throw it up and still worried sick for his ill younger brother (despite the fact that much of his despair had been alleviated by the fact that Cai had woken up and could talk to them), his body was physically starving and could do with some nourishment. At any rate, he wouldn't be able to help his little brother if he continued to neglect himself, and now that Caiellis was able to wake up and was no longer slowly dying with no way for his family to help him he could stomach eating again.

The thirteen year old watched his father and the Choirmaster depart the room, Mortan adjusting a few dials as Caiellis felt more pain relief being mana and substances (as there was only so much magical energy that his body could take without it becoming detrimental to his health, so the White mana had to be blended with curative materials and medicines in order to heal patients like him properly) pumped into his system which helped take the stinging edge off of the pain which was his constant companion. He had endeavoured not to show it to anyone, but quite clearly he had been unsuccessful in fooling the venerable doctor, who quickly winked at the youngest Lucerna before departing after his medical compatriot, leaving the two brothers mostly alone apart from a surgeon and Ordo Medella orderly/nurse who remained within the room in case of emergency.

"Go to sleep if you are tired, Cai. Don't force yourself to stay awake because you think that it stops us from worrying about you, squirt," Alexander informed him, the casual resonance to his voice stopping the words from turning into a command and instead converting them into advice. He glanced round at his older brother, still sat up in the bed, one of his hands automatically going to the tube in his stomach before a larger one belonging to his sibling shot around his wrist and gently forced it back to his side, Alex shaking his head at him slightly but still smiling.

"Na-ah. I'm going to stay awake as long as I can," Caiellis responded, shaking his head in a way that made Alexander smirk at his brother acting his age. Cai didn't need to elaborate upon that, the seventeen year old already knew that firstly his little brother wanted to spend as much time with his family as possible now that the differences between them were staring to be solved and conciliations were made, instinctively scared that somehow something would end this time of happiness so wanting to hold onto it for as long as possible because he couldn't quite believe it to be true – something that Alexander could empathise with immensely – and secondly so that he could delay from having to enter his nightmares.

Alex didn't know whether or not his brother had had any whilst he was in his coma that he had broken out of today, of if he was too deep into slumber and took weak to even have fever dreams of the awakened world, nor if he would experience his normally frequent nightmares if he slept now that his extended and involuntary slumber was over, but he could not blame his sibling at all for wanting to avoid even the chance of it after what Caiellis had gone through. Fighting an Archdemon would be utterly unlike anything that Alexander had ever experienced before, and though he wished that he had been the one to battle against Rakdos, not his frailer younger brother, he wasn't sure if he would have been able to kill it and obliterate its entire existence like Cai had.

But the middle Lucerna could still see the fear in his baby brother's eyes, the haunting melancholy that lay under every expression and every emotion within his large green orbs, and knew that the terror he had faced – as well as the emotional abuse at the sight of his father betraying him that had led him to suicide along with whatever the bastard demon had done to him or shown him – would continue to burden him for a while, and some of what had happened would stay with him the rest of his life even if he did overcome it and gain the ability to push it away.

Caiellis was still scared, his eyes flicking to the location of every noise that was made despite his tiredness, especially whenever their father made a movement as it was evidently hard for him to adjust to the man exhibiting the love for his family that the king's eldest son had believed in all along and had seen much more than his brother. It appealed to Alexander's want to protect him and give him a sense of security, though it was also a reason why he would want to stay awake so that the those who could protect him within the conscious world could continue to do so and ward off his terror that would have no compunctions about assaulting him when he slipped into sleep.

Besides, Alex shared Cai's sentiment of wanting to stay as far away from his unconscious psyche as possible, as every time he looked away from his younger brother or blinked he could see Caiellis, still and broken in his father's arms as the man cried silent tears over him, could still see his baby brother thrashing and seizing and bleeding and _dying _as he had almost done on this very day before the doctors managed to stabilise his condition again – which had led to him waking up, so had been a blessing in disguise, although Alex was hesitant to view it in that way.

"Whatever you say, little bro," the eldest prince replied to his brother's insistence that he would stay awake even though every few seconds Cai's eyelids would droop and he was sure that his sibling wouldn't be able to fight the pull of rest. However, it seemed that, like in a lot of things, Caiellis would continue to be defiant of it, and he was about to say something to his younger brother (not that he wasn't fine with the companionable silence between them, he just wanted to hear his brother's voice as he hadn't had the opportunity before an hour ago) before the younger boy glanced quizzically to something on Alexander's previous seat on the opposite side of the room, asking, "What is that?"

The seventeen year old followed his brother's bemused gaze to the other wall of the room, smirking when he saw the rabbit teddy sat dolefully on the seat which he had vacated in his haste to see his younger brother and sit beside him after the most recent time he had almost died. He had only bought the thing this morning, but the hours that had passed since then felt like weeks to the prince, who stood up and walked towards the bunny, stretching as he did so. He grinned as he brought it back to his younger brother, who cocked an eyebrow in dubiety at him as he settled down in his seat again, holding the teddy out in front of him and patting it on the head.

"Here. I bought it for you whilst you were in your coma," Alexander smirked at his brother's face, which had twisted into an indignant frown, adding, "I thought it suited you. Doesn't it look cute?"

Caiellis stared at the soft toy for a moment, eyebrow still arched at is, as if by gazing intently at it he could ascertain his brother's motives behind such an act as well as discern the precise type of materials that had been used to make the rabbit, evaluating it like he would an enemy before combat to assess its capabilities and potential movements or tactics, before he smiled at it. Alexander was right. It _was _cute.

He knew that he was far too old for soft toys now, he was a teenager for angels' sake, but he couldn't help finding the fact that his macho older brother (who did admittedly have a soft spot for him even if he sometimes complained about Cai being more emotional and sensitive to words and actions and teased him for it – no matter that Alex might deny it, he had cuddled up against his older brother too many times for him to ever profess that he didn't care about his younger sibling) had gone and bought him a soft toy out of his worry for him endearing. He beamed at his big brother for a moment, who looked vaguely taken aback by that, having probably expected that Caiellis would berate him for it and inform him that he was far too old for it, "Thanks, Alex. It is cute. I mean, I am a bit too old for soft toys now, but I appreciate the sentiment."  
Alexander let out a little smile at his brother for that, having anticipated a verbal lashing from the thirteen year old as he could have assumed that Alex had only done it to irritate or demean him, or to treat him as younger than he was, but instead of jumping to conclusions Cai had looked deeper into it, seeing the reasons for the action and the gift as what they truly were and appearing grateful for that. He was thankful for that in a way, as even though it did show Caiellis how worried he had become (not that that was a bad thing as his younger brother had almost died on several occasions and he was allowed to be concerned about him) it also meant that his brother had more of an understanding of how much Alex cared about him without the seventeen year old having to say it and creating more emotional situations – like this one was perilously close to becoming.

"In that case," Alexander replied, shifting onto Caiellis's bed again so that he was closer to his younger brother and holding the teddy rabbit out in front of him, before tickling Cai's cheek with the soft toy's long ear as he thrust it towards him, "You won't mind having it in your bed all of the time?"

Caiellis sniggered, the automatic reaction to having something so soft brushing against the tender regions of his face, which provoked a wider smirk from his older brother as the boy carefully leaned over, his hands over the rabbit's stumpy legs as he walked it over his sibling's leg who tittered within the bed, though Alexander ensured to go nowhere near the normal length of tickling his younger brother as he usually would as he didn't want to exacerbate Cai's wounds at all or cause the younger male any form of pain. "St-stop it, Alex."

The way in which Caiellis said it made the seventeen year old certain that he was not causing his little brother distress of any kind (apart from embarrassment as he could see one of the doctors and the youngish nurse that he had made friends with when it had been him hospitalised looking over at them out of the corner of his vision, though they paid little attention to it out of respect for their patients' privacy), as if Cai asked him to stop in a different way then he would, instantly. But it wouldn't hurt for the youngest Lucerna to be the subject of some brotherly teasing, even if the intensity was massively reduced. Snickering to himself, Alexander did his best rendition of a high pitched voice, not dissimilar to how he occasionally and mockingly mimicked Caiellis's own voice when doing impressions of his younger brother to irritate the boy, "I'm not Alex, I'm Bunny! I just want to be friends with you, Cai!"

The look on Caiellis's face for a short moment after he first said the words was completely priceless, and even though they had a delay the seventeen year old was disappointed that he didn't have a mana camera with him so that he could have captured the image for future reference (and subsequent bargaining with his little brother), before the younger boy laughed, the sound music to Alexander's ears after the constant silence punctuated only by weak beeping noises, the quiet activities of the Ordo Medella healers, the extremely faint breathing of his younger brother and his own broken sobs that had been the only sounds in the gaps between his father trying to speak to him.

Instead of prolonging his little brother's suffering further, still deeply concerned about the boy and how weak he still sounded, he settled down the rabbit on the youngster's skinny chest (away from anything that could possibly be affected by it, such as still healing broken ribs), as the boy exclaimed in amusement, "So you've called him Bunny? How original, Alexander."

"You can give him a different name if you dislike it. I think that the simplicity quite suits him," Alexander responded, entertained by the fact that his younger brother had already decided that the soft toy had a gender but not by the fact that it was thicker than his little brother was, though he refused to think about that right now and simply provide the diversion from the predicament he was in for Cai.

He moved the teddy's arms round so that it was hugging against the thirteen year old, who began to laugh again, the noise one that Alex had feared he would never be able to hear for the rest of his life and one that he hadn't really been able to provoke from his little brother recently unless one counted the tickling which, before the time they had talked the day that he had discovered Cai's self-harming, he hadn't subjected his sibling to in years. Although the first time he had done it the adolescent had nearly choked on his vocal cords (as it probably hadn't been the best idea considering his throat was still relatively raw as well), Alexander still replicated his high pitched tones again, the fact that it had made his little brother feel happier making it worth the pain that was bearable anyway, and squealed, "Your brother didn't call me Bunny at all! My parents, Rabbit and Hare, named me!"

Before Caiellis could respond with an explanation that the rabbits and hares of Lucael (or the species in Yentar which varied wildly from the rare Lucaelian variety and were far more common as domesticated pets within the Republic – as animals did not necessarily need to be equipped with tools to survive and kill out of the abyss if their owners protected them instead, whereas within Lucael the only animals that survived were ones that wouldn't be killed, such as hounds) couldn't breed with one another (meaning that unless Bunny's parents had names which did not correspond to their species then it was likely that Caiellis's teddy was adopted – not that it really mattered since it was an inanimate object) the nose and ears of the soft toy were nuzzling against him and made him laugh even louder, one which quickly worsened into a worrying cough that forced the youngest Lucerna to scrunch up his eyes in what seemed like pain.

"Don't be antagonising the patient, Prince Alexander, or aggravating his injuries further," the nurse came over to their side, a bulky man around the size of Uncle Tristram that reminded Caiellis that the Guardian and Hierarch would still be in Usnaan, with short black hair cropped close to his skull and intelligent eyes the colour of amber gemstone. Caiellis, once the small coughing fit that hurt his ribs (though the pain was much more tolerable than what he had expected due to the substances that he was pumped full of keeping every second from being one suffused with unbearable agony), pulled away shyly, unfamiliar with the man despite seeing him a few times, his sunken cheeks tinged a slight shade of crimson that did nothing to alleviate the unhealthy paleness of his young features.

Alexander, who had already pulled away the teddy and had turned instantly from a tormenting sibling into a concerned big brother that had been ready and willing to help his youngest family member at any opportunity or call for one of the Ordo Medella professionals still in the room to come and aid Caiellis, smirked at the older man who couldn't have been much past twenty (although he had never asked him his exact age since it hadn't come up in many of their conversations) that Caiellis assumed was probably Alex's type of person even though he was a doctor and so wouldn't be as "suck it up" as his older brother usually was.

The young man stuck a large hand out to the youngest prince, who wondered despite himself whether or not he would have been training for battle or not since he seemed quite big and with the proportions usually seen from those who had undergone the rigorous training of the Lucaelian legionaries, introducing himself as, "Hello, my lord. I am Ralvar Manus, a healer of the Ordo Medella, and I have tended to both your brother when he was wounded and you. It has truly been a pleasure to serve the Lucerna family in this way, Prince Caiellis."

Caiellis would have gone red if his cheeks weren't so ashen from the weakness of his body, but instead he timidly cowered behind his older brother by shifting his body slightly behind his and making himself look smaller. He wasn't the best (_one of the worst, in fact_) at talking to people that he didn't know, especially when they used his titles and paid respects to him, but the fact that he was in a hospital bed and that the man had helped operate on him made it even more awkward. He reached out to grasp hold of the man's hand, figuring that it would be polite to acknowledge Ralvar's gesture of respect and shake his hand, and murmured shyly, "Thank you for helping to save me and my brother."

Alexander snorted at the youngest Lucerna's bashful sheepishness, gently clapping him on the back and moving round the bed so that he was sat by Caiellis's side instead of next to him and facing the smaller boy who barely took up any space at all on the large hospital operating table/bed, allowing Ralvar to shake his hand properly and uttering, "You don't have to be so shy, Cai. Ralvar isn't exactly going to hurt you."  
"Not exactly," the other young man grinned, releasing the youngest Lucerna and checking all of the vital signs as per his profession. He knew quite a bit about Caiellis, more than the thirteen year old would envision at any rate, due to his conversations with Alexander when the boy had been wounded and having to do medical exercises and take tests to ensure that he was recovering well – which he should technically still be doing, although he knew better than to pester the seventeen year old about it now. They weren't exactly close friends, though he had spoken to the younger boy before the time he had been hurt after the abduction of the princes by the Welkalites who had met their deserved fate according to the exalted king, since he had been training underneath one of the other healers during the civil war as a combat medic and a much younger Alexander had been hurt at that point as well.

They were simply friends through circumstance, having conversations between one another to help the seventeen year old relax and to keep him from getting too bored, allowing the prince to talk and relieve some of his boredom at not being able to be active and do the things that they had wanted to. The friendly and amiable Lucerna was open and talkative, unlike his younger sibling who obviously much preferred to keep most of his thoughts to himself and was reticent to speak with strangers. The eldest prince was easy to form a sort of bond with and even easier to admire.

As Ralvar had helped in the assessments of Prince Alexander's condition and explained some of the exercises to him, they had discussed a wide selection of topics, ranging from ranking the female Ordo Medella professionals on a number of different attributes which probably weren't appropriate for the youngest Lucerna (although he was thirteen, a teenager now) to talking about Alexander's health. The older brother had been perfectly willing to say some things about his younger brother as well, although not anything too personal, and so far everything that he had said seemed to match with what Ralvar had seen as of yet.

However, in the time that the youngest prince had almost died and had been trapped within the weakness of his own body, the healer (who had finished his studying and wielding of magic but not yet the combat training which would have allowed him to join in the war against the corrupt New Empire of Passion) had seen a complete change in the confident and charismatic son of the king, watched him be reduced to utter despair and his young face filled with crushing sorrow at the condition of his little brother.

It was evident to any who had seen the two princes together or listened to one talk about the other that they were extremely close, apparently far closer than blessed King Marik and the Arch-Heretic had been according to his teacher, and it was well known that the two had spent years without their father – so any who bothered to consider the implications of it would be aware that it was very likely Alexander had raised his sibling from the age of four alongside Guardian Tristram and Hierarch Tybalt.

Ralvar was personally glad that Caiellis had started on the long road to recovery, and not just because he was a Lucerna prince or because he was a young child or even because he was an innocent human being who served the good and had almost died protecting other people – but because it had breathed life back into Alexander and given the boy a purpose once again. Even though he did not know the two princes very intimately, and most likely never would, he felt like he had been given a glimpse into a very different and very human Lucerna family, which simply made him respect them all even more than he already venerated them.

Alex shifted within the bed, draping a muscular arm around his younger brother's bony shoulders and gently pulling the smaller boy closer to him, quietly asking him, "Is this ok, Cai? I'm not hurting you, am I?"  
"No, you aren't," Caiellis replied quickly, grasping hold of Alexander's arm despite the fact that he knew there was no way that his older brother would put him in any form of painful or humiliating wrestling hold with the arm that was slung loosely around his shoulders and making him feel safer and more protected. Ralvar smiled at the two, pondering telling Alexander to be careful and concluding that such an act would be pointless as the seventeen year old would already know and he wouldn't be rough with his little brother. He himself was an only child, so had never experienced anything like this in his own personal life, although he had been liable to treat one of his smaller friends in a similar way before the two had parted ways a few years ago when she had been killed in one of the battles within Civitas Sol.

Ralvar hadn't been able to save her, not at that time when he had still been a teenager, desperately trying to restart the younger Lucaelian's heart and channelling his White mana into her heavily bleeding form, and it had been the thing that had motivated him to join the Ordo Medella instead of the legion as he had originally been intending to – though he technically still would, as once he completed his combat trials he could fight alongside the soldiers whilst tending to their wounds and healing them.

That sheer uselessness and despair that he had felt had been something that he never wanted to feel again, and although he had personally murdered the bastard who had stabbed his best friend, pummelling the man's face into a bloody pulp after he disarmed Ralvar, he hadn't been able to save her, and she had died in his arms. Now he was repaying his debt to her by saving others, and he was glad that he had been able to help (even if he personally thought that he hadn't done much) and have a part in restoring Prince Caiellis's health and bringing light back into Alexander's eyes.

Cai shifted awkwardly, though it wasn't his older brother who was making him (physically) uncomfortable, it was the numerous tubes that were allowing the medicines to enter his bloodstream, providing him with hydration and feeding him which made him feel disgusted. Alex accommodated for his movements, glancing up at the healer who was still stood near them and looking into the older male's eyes, smiling all the while but hoping that his expression could communicate what he didn't exactly want to say. Ralvar nodded, taking the hint from the eldest son of King Marik that he wanted to be as alone as he could be with his little brother so that the thirteen year old didn't feel as nervous and could relax properly, something that was needed considering how exhausted he appeared.

"Alex, what time is it?" Caiellis suddenly asked, his small voice piping up from where he laid against the pillows (still sat upright) as his brother looked down at him, tempted to rest his chin on the smaller boy's unruly mop of soft brown hair but deciding not to do so right now, reaching over to the chronometer that his dad had uncharacteristically left in his seat (and even though he avoiding his younger brother as he did so the boy still arched his eyebrows in annoyance as Alexander leaned his arm and shoulder over him and blocked out his vision, something typical of the sort of person his big brother was – especially when he was with Caiellis).

"Quarter past eleven," the boy answered as he flipped open the intricate lid of his father's timekeeping device and examined the interior of the clockwork device as he located the spinning hands. It was a beautiful thing, one that the boy was sure he could remember his mother buying and lovingly enchanting for dad on one of the man's birthdays before Caiellis had been born as he sat on her knee and watched her weave the golden-white magic into the exquisite metal which had been hand-crafted by artisans of the Lucerna family, mentioning that daddy did like to keep a precise track of time and that he had broken the watch which he had used before that when atypically left it on during one of his rigorous training sessions.

In that, the youngest and eldest of the royal family shared another trait, as Alexander knew well that Cai also liked to know what time it currently was to satisfy his mind – as evidenced by what he had just asked for. The elder Lucerna then joked, "Way past your bed time, little guy, but then I think we can excuse that tonight."

"Not funny, Alexander," Caiellis instantly reprimanded his older sibling, who pouted in an exaggerated manner that was the result of him mimicking what Cai had done in the past when the younger him had been acting petulantly about something that they had been forced to do in the civil war (such as helping with chores when he wanted to read), though that had nothing on the "bitch face" his smaller sibling had pulled when he was even more irritated and had grown older and more predisposed to showing his negative emotions, still something that he did now although that had recently been replaced with genuine anger directed at their father which was much more serious than the kind of defiant irritation he had shown towards Tristram whenever the man had wanted him to go through physical training when it didn't suit Cai or when Alexander did something which irked the little man.

"Hey, I wasn't trying to be. I was just stating that since you have spent so long asleep, I can forgive you for staying up at this point when, in any normal day, you would have been in bed at this time," he protested when his younger brother half heartedly glowered at him for a moment, most likely slightly annoyed by the fact that Alexander had stated that this was after his "bed time" like he had a prescribed one – which he didn't, but Cai was still only thirteen years of age and he needed his sleep (even if it did normally involve nightmares). "Angels, Cai. Quit giving me that look just because I said that you, a thirteen year old, would have a bed time before eleven o'clock."  
"I don't have a bed time," Caiellis sleepily protested, repressing a yawn which would give little credence to his words, which made Alex smiled when he heard his brother doing it. He placed the metre back in his father's seat, the fact that he had left it there a testament to the reality that Marik had much greater concerns even if he did treasure the gift from his late wife, responding with, "You do really. But we have been noticeably lax in enforcing it recently."

"Anyway, thanks for the teddy," Cai murmured, and Alex chose not to tease him about it, instead ruffling his hair affectionately and keeping his hand away from the bump on the back of Caiellis's head where it had been split open and most likely inflicted him with a painful concussion which would have made it even harder to fight, "Not a problem, kid."

They sat for a few minutes in the companionable silence, Alexander deciding on a whim to pull his younger brother slightly closer and rest his chin on his head anyway, the grip around the skeletal form of the youngest Lucerna tight and protective but gentle and tender nonetheless. Caiellis didn't complain, not that he would in a normal circumstance anyway unless he was really not in the mood – he only ever protested when the hugs were so tight that they squeezed the air out of him and made him feel like he was being crushed or when they were otherwise more uncomfortable than usual (as he was sure that his older brother purposefully made them that way in their usual embraces).

He understood that Alexander would want to hold him close, especially with what had happened to him and how close his big brother had come to losing him, and he was grateful for it because it reminded him of why he had to get better and why he never should have tried to end his own life in the first place. He rested his own head on the older boy's broad shoulder, though he didn't fall asleep. He was tempted to cry again, so pushed down the notion, ignoring his sorrow even if he had plenty to be sad about. It wouldn't be very appropriate for him to start sobbing his eyes out into his older brother again, irrespective of how many times he had done it and the last time being in the same day.

He would hold his older brother close as well, in his own, different way since he couldn't exactly wrap his skinny arms around Alexander and make the older boy feel safe, and he would be sure not to leave him alone when they were in danger any time soon. His ribs hurt, to the point where it was hard to catch his breath, though there was nothing that anyone could do about it since they had been broken and all of the measures to enhance their healing had already been put in place, and his vocal cords ached from unfamiliar use, but he wasn't sure if he could have been any happier considering the circumstance that they were in.

"I'm going to protect you, little brother," Alexander murmured softly, though the thirteen year old wasn't sure whether or not it was meant for his ears or even if his older brother had meant to say it. However, it still made him smile, and he snuggled up as close as he could to his big brother without damaging any of the wires temporarily embedded into his skin and the needles in his veins or forcing the older boy to hug him like he had done the first time he had woken up and had made Alex have to calm him down since he had still believed that his father was still out to kill him and still truly hated him more than he hated an Archdemon, "I'm going to make sure that you are safe, Cai. I'm sorry for failing you, but I won't ever do it again."

"You didn't fail me at all!" Caiellis instantly exclaimed, his brother pulling back slightly and looking down at him with a surprised and incredulous expression. Truth be told, he had thought that his younger brother had fallen asleep and he was whispering the words to him without even thinking about them, still in the mindset that his brother wouldn't be able to hear him and was still unconscious as he had been before his tumultuous and sudden awakening to a moderate degree, which meant that he would have to quickly snap out of it whenever his brother was actually awake – as it was, to a certain degree, quite embarrassing for Cai to hear his confessions even if they were directed at the thirteen year old. It was all for his ears at any rate, but the seventeen year old didn't appreciate the fact that he had been caught off guard in one of his rare moments of vocal introspection.

"You weren't even there through all of what happened, and I left you instead of it being the other way round, remember? It was my fault for not being near you and leaving you alone in the City of Pleasure, so you shouldn't blame yourself for what occurred whilst you weren't there. It isn't your fault at all, Alex," of course Cai would insist that it was his own fault, not the fault of the older brother who should have been protecting him, and though the middle Lucerna didn't exactly want to debate it now, not with other people in the room (not that he actually minded them listening to him as they already had done, even if it did change their impressions of him, but it was a private family issue and not one he really wanted relative strangers to know about – the fact that his family was the Lucerna family irrelevant to that desire, although that was another reason in itself), he had to disabuse his younger brother of that notion immediately.

"No, Cai. None of this is your fault, not in any way or any form. But I should have been able to stop you from going to the centre of Usnaan alone, and I should have been able to get to where you and dad were fighting instead of being bogged down and delayed by enemies weaker than what you were fighting against. I should have been strong enough to defeat that bastard the Master of Violence before he fled. If I had just followed dad instead of taking off on my own to try and get to you … I might have been there to stop _it _(he didn't think that mentioning the supreme monarch of the Kingdom of Light being possessed by a horror of the darkness was particularly prudent or appropriate for the other people in the room – whether or not they were listening to the conversation or not). If I had been a better brother … you might not have … I should have given you more of a reason not to..." Alexander's voice cracked, and the boy squeezed back tears that were pricking at his eyes, turning away from his younger brother in order to compose himself, cursing his own weakness all of the while.

_Get it together, Alexander Ensis Lucerna! You aren't the one who felt like killing themselves and went through with it, and you aren't the one who almost died on numerous occasions and thought that their father hated them! I know that I was sad, angels, sad doesn't do justice to the misery that I felt watching him slowly give out, it doesn't go anywhere near encapsulating the freezing terror and drowning anguish that I felt, but I have to stay strong for him. Angels above, anyone who looked into our life the past few weeks would think that he is the older brother here, not me._

The boy hadn't wanted to voice the words, and that had nothing to do with the fact that others were listening. He simply couldn't bear to say them, especially in front of his younger brother who watched as his sibling's face became resolute again, the almost unbreakable solidarity that Alexander had exhibited when he had given his quiet confession back over the momentary lapse of weakness that he knew his older brother wanted to conceal from him even if Alex didn't mind him knowing how worried he had been and still was for him.

"You're wrong!" Caiellis almost yelled the words, not quite sure why his emotions were reacting with such anger at his older brother and a part of him fleetingly pondering whether or not this was what Alexander felt when endeavouring to stop Cai thinking similar things about himself. He was exhausted, physically and mentally drained by the whole ordeal, and all of his emotions were frayed and were retaliating towards different mental stimuli in ways that he couldn't predict and that took him by surprise, and hissed in pain as he protested against his sibling's assertion that he wasn't a good big brother.

Alex reacted immediately, gently holding his brother down, his blue eyes watching the younger boy worriedly and making his voice significantly more soothing as he spoke, "Hey, hey, stop that. Don't hurt yourself, Cai. I get what you are saying, alright? You don't want to be harming yourself any more than you already are, ok little dude? You are going to hurt yourself if you get so worked up. You are still healing, and I'm guessing that those ribs of yours didn't like that at all, did they? Do you want me to ask the doctors to increase the dosage of sedative to reduce the pain?"  
"No … no. I'm fine. It is going now," Caiellis replied through gritted teeth, relaxing back against his older brother and breathing slowly as to not hurt himself further, though it still annoyed him how Alexander had managed to blame himself for all that had happened to the youngest Lucerna. He knew what Alex had alluded to – he had been trying to say that if the seventeen year old had been a better older brother, then Cai wouldn't have chosen to end his own life, and he wanted to tell him that he was one of the main factors in him not wanting to do it but the fact that he had put him in danger and constantly dragged him down, a burden on his shoulders and a weight around his neck, had helped tip him over the edge, amongst other things of course.

But Alexander would argue against that as well (_well, hopefully he would, although I'm not really sure why he would want to deny the truth_) and would assert that Cai had done nothing wrong just like the boy thought his big brother was utterly blameless in all of this misery to befall upon the Lucerna family as well, but because Caiellis wasn't in the shape for arguing his points would stand whereas the youngest Lucerna's wouldn't; they would falter and fall flat on their faces. Besides, he was reasonably confident that his older brother didn't yet know about the true extent of what had been said, and Cai wasn't sure if he ever wanted to tell the larger boy for fear of how he would react and how guilt-ridden he might become. Right now that was only between him and his dad, and unless Cai changed his mind and felt his big brother needed to know it was going to stay that way.

The boy eyed his big brother dolefully. He wanted to say so much to his sibling, to share his thoughts with Alex, but talking hurt and he couldn't arrange many of his tired mind processes into the correct and cohesive order. Instead he settled back down against him, only glad that he could spend this time with his older brother and supposing that if the situation had been reversed then he would be guiltily tearing into himself as well – just like he had (and still was doing) because of not being able to stop the last vampire from hurting his beloved brother despite the fact that he had been there in his presence as he was being fed upon and hurt.

_But then, that was different. There was no way that Alex could have helped me in the battle of Usnaan, not with me Voidwalking from the outset to slay Tradax on my own, whereas when Aksua almost killed him and almost drained him dry of blood I was _there _with him, just too weak to escape from her horror's foul embrace and too stupid to figure out the dream world for what it was, too convinced by the fact that mum was still alive in it to bother to think about how she hadn't aged at all and that I could still remember her dying even if I did think that the real world was just a dream. So I was to blame for that, no matter what he says, and he wasn't to blame for this – no one is apart from the horror that took control of dad._

Alexander gave a little wave to the Ordo Medella operatives who were gazing in concern at their patient, signalling that nothing was wrong and that he had it under control, as his brother muttered, "I suppose we can call it even then, despite the fact that you're wrong about it being your fault. I failed you when Aksua hurt me, you "failed" (Alexander heard the audible quotation marks in his brother's voice) me a few days ago."

"Alright. But we aren't having this conversation now," Alexander told him flatly, determined to make sure his brother wouldn't hurt himself or build up any more stress within himself to add to what was already present in amounts too large for Alex's comfort. It wasn't that he didn't want to listen to his brother, although Caiellis's self-deprecation wasn't something that he enjoyed hearing as little brothers shouldn't have to feel like that unless they made genuine mistakes and it sometimes hurt to see how almost non-existent Cai's self-esteem was even if a lot of his tendency to blame himself for things reflected a significant amount of Alex's own mostly internalised thoughts.

What he had said which had sparked this whole conversation and ruined his brother's relaxed state had been the truth, but he wished that he hadn't said it, accidentally voicing his thoughts since his brother hadn't moved in a few minutes and with his chin on the smaller teenager's head he hadn't been able to see his eyes.

"Ok, Alex … I just want you to know that I truly think that you are an amazing big brother, and that you were the main reason for making me … for making me want to stay" Caiellis told him somnolently, his soft tone carrying a level of compassion that took the older boy only slightly by surprise, lowering his voice to a drowsy whisper for the last part, rubbing his left eye with a tiny fist made of thin fingers and yawning again as he did so. Alexander smiled, though part of his expression was tainted by sadness as his younger brother sat in the bed beside him with his arm around the smaller boy's shoulders, although he tried not to show that to his sibling who had been through so much but was still fighting against it.

"Angels, Cai. A little bit of medicine and you turn into a complete girl," Alexander joked, to distract slightly from the fact that the words of his younger brother had touched his heart and reminded him that even if he would continue to believe that he had failed the littlest Lucerna he had done some good in helping Caiellis and made the boy feel slightly wanted, and because he didn't want to spend all of their time being emotional. Because he could have the opportunity to tease his little brother in a way that he hadn't been able to do for days, in a way that might have been stolen from him. He could practically hear his younger brother rolling his eyes at that statement, retaliating snarkily, "Yeah, so what is your excuse?"  
The seventeen year old chuckled at the retort, ruffling his little brother's hair again with the hand attached to the arm curled gently but tightly around his shoulders, replying, "Good comeback, for once. It seems that my efforts to educate you on the art of verbal sparring have not entirely been in vain."

He leaned over and kissed his younger brother on the forehead, which had the younger boy's eyes widening in confusion and surprise at the sudden action, rare from his older brother who preferred to show his love for his younger sibling in different, often more subtle ways to displays of outright affection (apart from hugs that he gave out to his brother after or during times of stress, danger or sadness), and he made a half hearted squealing noise of disgust that he didn't truly feel. "Eww."

"Thanks, little bro," Alexander responded with a grin, the patented smile etched onto his young but dishevelled features, and added quietly, his voice barely above a whisper, "And I think that you are awesome as well. For a little brother, at any rate. But you are _my_ little brother, and that means I'm going to keep you safe."  
It wasn't too often Alexander said things along the lines of what he had just stated, although Caiellis knew that it was true and in the most recent couple of weeks that had elapsed it had been said more often than before that. Usually the older brother of the youngest Lucerna would show it in other ways other than outright stating it, exhibiting his fondness for his little brother through affectionately teasing him and in their normal conversations. Normally it didn't need to be said, since Cai already knew all of these things, knew what his older brother thought of him even if sometimes he had let other factors get in the way of that and mask his belief that his big brother wanted him around, but after all they had gone through it was good for the youngest Lucerna to hear Alexander voice the words.

He sat against his older brother, listening to all of the sounds around him and suddenly immeasurably glad that the doctors had managed to save him so that he could be within all of this again. _Angels above, what had I been thinking? Even if I thought that dad and mum had never wanted me born, even if I blamed myself for my mother's death, for the danger my big brother was placed within in two consecutive occasions and the deaths in the Lucaelian force, I shouldn't have given up so easily. I am a Lucerna; I'm not supposed to be a coward. I know perfectly well why I did it, and I can't say that I wouldn't do the same if I had to go through it all again, but it was still disgraceful and stupid of me. _

_I can't believe I didn't truly realise how much it would hurt Alex, but what dad said was true even if I don't want to believe that. I know that suicide isn't justified, but at the time I thought that I had put everyone that I had ever loved in danger – which is still partly the truth – and that many of the people that I should have been protecting had died because of my weakness. I know that what I did was wrong, and I can't say that I wouldn't do it again, but I am glad that I am alive now – for my sake, dad's sake and Alexander's sake._

_You're my little brother,_ Alex thought, sappily, before inwardly and outwardly smirking at his own sentimentality. He held his younger brother close, vowing that he wouldn't let the younger boy get so lost and anguished and hurt as he had done, that he would be Caiellis's light to shine upon the path ahead and guide the boy's way, his shield and protector to guard him against the evil and cruelty present in the foulest regions of the two worlds out for his brother's (and his) blood and his confidante and friend who he could always trust and always share his most private worries with.

_I'm so happy that he is alive. I don't know what I would have done without him._

.*.*.*.

Marik followed the Choirmaster out of the room to the waiting room adjacent that would allow him to observe his sons and satiate the niggling feeling at the back of his mind that they were in danger, his face set in a granite mask of concern for his youngest son and apprehension for what the woman might say to him that had been important or significant enough to hide from Caiellis.

"Is there something wrong with my youngest son?" he immediately asked, cutting straight to the point and dispensing with any of the pleasantries or anything else that might have got in the way of it, his father's fear making his voice sound harsher and more scathing than he had intended it to, twisting the genuine question into a demand. To her credit Esmelde didn't seem fazed at all, and didn't even bother gesturing for the king to sit because she knew that the forty year old wouldn't have deigned to, and even though her tone started positive her face reflected little of that now that her features were drawn into a serious expression, as he questioned, "Is it the results of the mental scans? Has Caiellis … has he suffered some form of brain damage?"  
The king didn't care in the slightest that he had let not just a little of his concern leak into his voice, his desire to ensure the safety and health of both of his children having overridden any care of presenting himself as a good Lucerna, though Esmelde had already seen him in some of his weakest moments and her opinion of him hadn't seemed to change through that so it wouldn't be affected by this.

Besides, even if she wasn't a parent, she would understand his worry after all that had happened to his sons, and the possibility of Caiellis having sustained permanent damage would have put a dark spin on the relief and joy he felt at the boy's recovery when he had been slipping slowly into death with seemingly no way to halt his constant deterioration and infect the sheer happiness at seeing Caiellis awake and being able to finally give the boy the affection and proper attention he should have started showering him (_well, perhaps not quite to that extent since I still had my duty as a king to attend to, as I do now although that can wait until I am certain of Caiellis's full recovery – both physically, mentally and emotionally, as whilst I may have been able to convince the boy that I do truly love him the relationship we have has only just begun to become one of mutual love and there is still a long way to go before I can repair it fully_) with as soon as the civil war ended with increase amounts of self-loathing and more guilt.

The fact that there was a chance that Caiellis may never be the same again because of what Marik had done to him – under the control of a denizen of the abyss or not – sent icy shivers of combined contrition, hatred directed towards himself and horror stabbing up and down his spine, conjoining with the truth that his youngest son could still easily get worse and his condition could degrade once again (something that he didn't even want to consider it was that awful a possibility, but something that he knew would break him and Alexander again even if they had been able to speak to their youngest family member and make him feel safer).

Nevertheless, the fact that Esmelde had asked for him to come out here had definitely ruined the feeling of pride and delight he had felt whilst watching his intelligent little boy answering all of the questions put forwards to him.

"No, or at least I don't think so – though as I said we do need to perform some more tests just to be one-hundred percent certain that his mind has not been affected, or at least not emotionally. All of his higher reasoning skills seem to be present, and his limited withdrawal seems mostly psychological. I am still worried about the fact that he fought an Archdemon and sustained these wounds by doing so, as that undoubtedly would have caused a significant amount of trauma and mental damage, but there is nothing that we as doctors can do about that and your son will have to confront the memories of that battle himself – with you and Prince Alexander at his side, of course," Esmelde informed him, her voice clinical and professional yet coloured with sympathy and solace, and Marik had to physically prevent himself from sagging with relief, actively stopping the stress and tension from leaving his aching limbs that he hadn't exercised properly in days because of the fact that there must have been some form of concern if Esmelde hadn't wanted to say it in front of his sons (as he didn't exactly believe her entirely when she had stated that there were no problems and that she simply wanted to discuss the test results outside so that they didn't stop Cai from drifting back into sleep) as the woman continued,

"And although there may still be physical wounds that take longer than expected to heal if they ever do, you already know about the potential for permanent physical impairment and before we can subject Prince Caiellis to more examinations and until his body truly starts the healing process we cannot offer more than out best estimations at this point. No, that is not what I wanted to talk to you about, my lord."

"Then what is what you wanted to discuss?" Marik asked, his voice terse and strung like the tightly pulled rope of a forlorn adventurer using it to climb up perilous mountains, extremely tense and ready to snap at any moment, plunging the king into the chasm of gloom and defeat he had only recently managed to rise out of, and the woman's eyes reflected the mixture of apprehension combined with somewhat maternal concern for her patient that made the forty year old want to shake the information out of the smaller Lucaelian that he towered over, although she showed no fear and knew that the king was behaving in this manner because one of his sons was in danger.

"We wanted to discuss Prince Caiellis's Black mana," a stern voice broke into the king's thoughts, and the man spun around to see the aged Surgeon-General Mortan standing at the other side of the room, the man's eyes close to harsh but not quite there in the clinical way that the king had become used to over the years, although there was no prejudice or barely-concealed hatred in the man's eyes that Marik was grateful for, although it was possible that the venerable healer of the Ordo Medella who was the official director of this hospital and all those within the City of the Sun had been able to hide the instinctive Lucaelian detestation of the darkness which so often applied to poor Caiellis as well.

However, if the man did have any resentment directed towards the youngest prince because of his Summoning as many in Civitas Sol, the metropolis which had suffered the worst in the reign of Xarius, did, he didn't show it and his loyalty to the Lucerna family as well as his desire to help his patients overwhelmed it if it was there.

"As you already know, my king, because of the scarcity of Black mana appearing within the citizens of Lucael – the forever damned Emperor of Light was the only Lucaelian to have been naturally born with the darkness inside of them before your son – no disrespect intended, my lord – instead of having to obtain it through contracts with the denizens of the forsaken night – we have never operated on a patient with the ability to wield the magic of darkness before," the Surgeon-General began, his voice perfectly even and bereft of even the barest hint of emotion, reminding the king of his own cold father in the past although Mortan was much warmer than the man had ever been for as long as Marik had known him, and Marik nodded, suppressing the automatic defensive reaction that had been present in side of him ever since his youngest son's birth whenever someone mentioned his youngest's Black mana – as usually it was done in a derogatory manner and insinuating that his precious baby boy was similar to the self-styled Emperor of Light, even if it was often concealed by a veil of civility and respect for the royal bloodline and the most recent descendent of Matalis Ortus Lucerna.

He had not had to deal with it much during the civil war since there were more pressing concerns than his youngest son's darkness which had been shown for the first time in annihilating the demons which had murdered the four year old's mother and hurt his brother in spite of the fact that it could make him a target by those interested in the powers of darkness – such as the youth's traitorous uncle – and he had pushed thoughts of his children away so that he could concentrate on the prosecution of the war and enacting vengeance in the name of all those who had been lost.

Before that, he had only had to argue against the absurd suggestions of some of the Light-bearers and was certain that they had kept their concerns to themselves or others who thought in a similar way to them due to the fact that they were under no illusions of what their king would do if he heard more of it. However, right now nothing Mortan was saying was related to the discrimination and loneliness that his youngest son must have faced due to something that he had been born with and the past actions of a being who had chosen to be his guardian angel that he couldn't change, and it was only borne of a desire to aid their young patient.

He nodded again, though his gaze shifted from the wrinkled features of the older man to look upon his youngest and eldest son for a moment, the younger of the two's Lucerna birthmark which was stark but weak and faded on his right cheek barely visible to the king underneath the misty glass of the oxygen mask which his baby boy's breath had condensed upon, highlighting to all that his breathing was strongest now it had ever been since he had been brought here and that they would be able to take it off him soon and allow the thirteen year old to breathe for himself – though right now he was clearly too weak to. He turned back as the old man crossed the room to stand next to his fellow high ranking operative in the echelons of the Ordo Medella, allowing the king to look at them both instead of having to turn between them as they spoke.

"This means that we have no knowledge of how it could react to the different treatments, if it is generated in a different way to his White mana or generally any information about it apart from the way it has been utilised by our foes – which is not helpful, as I am sure that you can guess. All that we have to work upon is the limited knowledge Choirmaster Esmelde was able to gather when she treated the prince's burn wounds four days ago and some of what we have seen so far, which doesn't suggest anything at all. I will ask you now: do you know any information concerning the Black mana within your youngest son, my king?" the doctor inquired, and Marik shook his head sadly, feeling like he was missing out on something that he should have been intimate with, that he wasn't aware of something that was an intrinsic part of his youngest son.

All he did know was how his second son had taken the treatment the doctors had given the then baby before the civil war, but that was before his mana had been generated in any significant amounts as to affect anything or have a noticeable impact. The doctor nodded, neither surprised nor pleased by that, and carried on with his relaying of their concerns, "That is entirely understandable, my lord. We are all aware that you were not able to care for your sons in the civil war. We would ask Prince Alexander also, but we do not want to put him under undue stress at the moment and would prefer it if you did so – or you could even ask Prince Caiellis. Besides that, I am assuming that only Hierarch Tybalt and Guardian Tristram are aware of any potential complications, but obtaining contact with them is currently infeasible as you well know."

Marik nodded again, licking the inside of his dry mouth, as all of the moisture within it had been sucked out of it when the Choirmaster had asked him to accompany her away from his two sons who were currently sat together with Alexander next to his brother on the operating bed on which he had almost lost his youngest son, a part of him, several times. He hoped that something which had haunted his youngest son ever since his birth and the Angelic Descent of the Angel of the Black Sun wouldn't aid in his undoing now or compound the recovery which they all desperately needed to happen.

_No. I cannot think of it in that way – and I am not going to. The Black mana has not cursed my youngest son, neither has Orzhova – the only negative thing (well, that is a bit of an overstatement as obviously I do not know what it has affected and the extent of what it might have done – as it could easily be a cause of his migraines which I hope stop and stay far away from him now) that the magic of _darkness, _not _evil_, has done is invoke the resentment and instinctual hatred of his peers and elders. Besides, Orzhova saved his life, for which I will be eternally grateful, and from what I have seen of her she is still an exemplary – if unusual and unorthodox – First Sisterhood angel in spite of her past with her previous Summoner. _

_I already know that the darkness in my son is simply another power he has access to, not something that defines him, and apart from his hatred of the demons and evil of the world none of his personality works with it – he is not arrogant, neither is he self-serving or selfish (despite what I may have told him during our arguments) in any way even if the fact that he is a teenager going through puberty and the tumultuous ascent into adolescence could sometimes make him seen that way when we argue. He is not evil, in no sense of the word, and never will be – he is compassionate, kind and gentle, not murderous or greedy._

"However, we do not know anything for certain yet. Our concerns may yet prove to be completely unfounded and his Black mana may not affect any of the treatments or the magic used to heal him – as the prince still does have large amounts of White mana within him that will aid in the healing process once they build up inside of his empty mana pool. Prince Alexander's Red mana does not inhibit the application of our healing spells and we have no reason to believe that Lord Caiellis's Black energy react any differently once it is regenerated, as at the moment he has none of either type of mana within him as you already know. Combined with his White mana, there is a high possibility that nothing will change. We only thought that we should bring it to your attention instead of keeping it to ourselves," Esmelde explained carefully, the king staring her straight in the eyes as he played the words within his head, before nodding for the third time.

"I see. Thank you for sharing this with me," he replied succinctly, some of the worry that he felt retreating for the moment, ready to rise up again if anything potentially detrimental to his little boy's health arose or any other complications emerged. He exited the room through the door that led to the outer corridor after shooting a brief glance into the operating theatre to see Alexander plant a small kiss on his little brother's head, something that he had only seen his eldest son do before the battle for Usnaan began and the two had embraced then, although he had done it before the civil war when copying his parents.

The loving ministrations of his older son brought a fond smile to the king's face; his eldest boy was holding his youngest with a patient tenderness that most would not expect from the masculine seventeen year old, one that most would never see because it was reserved solely for Caiellis. The sight of his little boys together reminded him how lucky he was that he had sons such as these, that both of them had survived the immense danger over the years that had seen them both brush acutely close to death – that only earlier today he had feared that he might never be able to see his sons together and happy again.

Alexander and Caiellis had always been close for as long as he could remember, although when they had been younger they weren't even as close as they were now even if they had still had their brotherly bond and their relationship was friendly with one another (as the younger Alexander hadn't reacted badly or with any form of jealously to the new arrival in their family, seemingly happy with four years of being the centre of attention wherever he went and glad that someone else could take that so he could spend time playing instead, which was good as Caiellis's premature birth had made the parents of the youngest Lucerna worried enough without having to be concerned about their other son accidentally hurting him). He recalled fond evenings with Emili where the two had watched their children play and had sometimes joined in with them, although Marik could remember watching them with his beloved wife more prominently since those were the times that he cherished as well.

The queen and king had sat by the side of one another, not speaking apart from to occasionally fawn over their children or make sure that all of the other members of their perfect family were in perfect condition, watching their children play and feeling their love for one another. Emili had given him two brilliant sons, and his wife had loved being a mother more than anything else in the world just like Marik was realising that he had felt the same about being a father – his love for Emili had been immeasurable and indescribable, but his love for his children had surpassed that without him thinking of it. He had known, even though she had never stated that because she was a kind woman and wouldn't have wanted to hurt her beloved husband's feelings, that the mother of his children had loved him more than anything – but loved her children a tiny bit more than that.

That was only natural, however, and he hadn't resented her for it at all because through loving Alexander and Caiellis she was loving him as well – and it was vice versa for the king and his love of his children. She would be so proud of them, so adoring of the young men that her little boys had grown and matured into (even if Caiellis was still a small teenager and Alexander wasn't an adult yet), and Marik wished that she had been here with them instead of him – despite the fact that he had the power of a Lucerna king and a First Sisterhood angel and she had not, and that the Kingdom of Light would have definitely fallen to Johnias without him.

_No. Do not think like that. Emili is still here with us, in my heart and the hearts of my sons and watching over us all from her place in the highest and most perfect paradise that she deserved to go to. She would be proud of them, and is proud of them, and I promise you, my wife, that although I have failed them – especially our youngest – I will do everything in my power to make it up to them and keep them safe._

He strode through the corridors of the interior of the Ordo Medella hospital which had become familiar to him, although he had memorised its layout the first time he had visited this one several years ago so now he could walk through it without even having to think of the correct path to take for his destination or read any of the signs. The king descended the stairs, knowing that there was a more confident resonance to his footfalls and movements than the way that he had trudged when out of sight of other people, the fact that his son had woken up removing some of the despair which had slumped his posture even if it hadn't gone and he hadn't allowed it to affect him like his eldest son because he had a duty of care to the seventeen year old which had allowed him to focus his thoughts.

Now that Alexander had the same as him, the same responsibility (and though it was in a slightly different form in essence it was still the same) to protect his younger brother, the boy's purpose had been renewed and he had been revitalised by the turbulent awakening of his little brother, and he was beginning to change back into the young man that Marik had become familiar with – although he would love Alexander the same no matter what side of his personality he showed to his father.

Marik was immensely glad that there were other people that were attuned to the needs of his youngest son in a way that he wasn't, because even in his time of being most confident as a father he had always harboured doubts about the way that he was dealing with his second born – that was just the sort of person that he was, and had learnt to ignore a significant portion of his self-critical side and trust in his fatherly instincts, but they had deserted him completely (well, he had locked them away and trapped them in a cage borne of the cold and eternal need for vengeance) through the civil war and he had treated his son like a disobedient soldier instead of a person.

He was akin to a blundering fool when trying to deal with or comfort his youngest son, and hoped that working with him rather than against him would allow him to build up the familiarity needed for him to be able to accustom himself to Caiellis's needs and the subtleties of his emotional moods as he went through his teenage years. Instead of forging ahead and assuming he was right because he had not time for children, Marik would take more time to consider what the implications of the things he did when interacting with his youngest were. However, that did not mean he would hesitate to embrace his fatherly instincts at all when Caiellis needed him.

Emili would have known what to do instantly to soothe her baby son, and even though Marik knew that the teenage years of a person changed them drastically he was certain that his wife wouldn't have struggled as he did to account for the hormonal imbalances of their youngest son. Or perhaps Marik simply couldn't see it that way as to him his wife was perfect, perhaps she would have difficulty doing it just as he did – additionally, if Emili was still alive then it would be likely that he would have been with his youngest son all through his life as well so it wouldn't have been as hard to connect with him despite the reality that it still would have been difficult.

The Lucerna patriarch crossed the room to the kitchen of the hospital, hoping that there were still culinary products available despite how late it was – as otherwise he would have to make his way to one of the taverns outside of the hospital and ideally he wanted to avoid staying away from his children as much as possible. Luckily, there was one chef still around, a tired woman with wispy grey hair that went down to her shoulders, and she took his order for two oxen steak sandwiches that he knew Alexander liked to eat from the amount that he had devoured in his own stay at the same hospital. She smiled at him, obviously thinking the same thing as him, and within a few minutes the king was climbing the stairs again, the meals in his hands.

Marik generally didn't eat around this time as it was unhealthy and he was sure that he had read somewhere (before the civil war when he had more time to read books not pertaining to warfare, magic, history or ruling) that it could potentially affect the body's internal monitor, but he figured that he and his eldest son could make an exception to that rule tonight since neither of them had eaten a substantial meal since before the battle within the sprawling, sand covered streets and garish avenues of the City of Pleasure and if they were going to keep up their strength and retain their physicality it was required of them.

Tristram had told him that Alexander would eat anything that wasn't associated with a vegetable or fruit, and he was inclined to believe that from what he had witnessed of his eldest son's monstrous (but not excessively unhealthy for a growing boy seeking to put on more muscle like he was) appetite and love of food, whereas Caiellis had always eaten less than his older brother and his tendency to eat large meals (when they were available) had steadily declined over the past few years until it had become as virtually non-existent as it was now.

When he entered the room again, nodding to the Choirmaster and the Surgeon-General who had remained at the side of the room far away from their patient, uncomfortable at leaving him when he was still in such a critical condition but likewise not wanting to intrude on his and his brother's privacy, the king wasn't particularly shocked to see that his youngest son was still awake, laid in almost the exact position he had been when Marik had left the waiting room to get the food, his sleepy gaze making its way over to the man who entered the operating theatre. Alexander looked over as well, the mouth watering smell of the steak burgers which his father must have purchased making his almost empty stomach grumble in expectation of the meal, acutely reminding him of how hungry he was even if he didn't feel it.

Smiling at the noise which was audible from where he was stood, Marik smoothed out his features and reduced the intensity of the grin on his face, though his voice wasn't near strident when he spoke, asking even though he knew the answer, "Are you still awake, Caiellis?"  
"Yeah, dad. I wanted to stay up until you came back," his son replied lethargically, his heavy-eyed and tired gaze taking his father in from where he was propped up against the pillows resting on the headboard behind his bed that had the dual purpose of being both an operating table and a relatively comfortable place to sleep, the thin blanket that had been thrown over his son the second night of him sleeping here covering almost equally thin legs. Marik smiled at that, wondering what he had done to deserve such kind boys, and would have ruffled his hair if he hadn't been holding the late supper he had obtained for himself and his eldest son, although it wasn't certain that Caiellis would react in a positive manner to that even though Marik personally thought he would since he accepted it from other people.

He turned his gaze to his eldest son, the other one of his children having looked up at his entrance as well with his arm around his younger brother's shoulders, though Marik didn't fail to realise that Alexander had placed himself in the optimum place for evading causing any form of discomfort to his younger brother yet still being able to offer consolation to Caiellis. Marik walked over to the other side of the bed, figuring it would be easier that way instead of having his eldest son disentangle himself from his younger brother, and handed Alexander the sandwich, giving the boy a look which told him that refusing to eat would not be tolerated, especially now that Caiellis was awake.

Marik knew that in spite of the fact that the younger boy would probably not fall into a deep slumber like he had been in for the past two days Alexander would most likely stay with his smaller brother precisely the same amount of time as he had been before the rousing of the youngest Lucerna. He would stayed perched next to his bed as he had been before he had left his coma, waiting to see his eyes and greet him with the familiar smile that Alexander often wore around his little brother. That was exactly how he had been in the brief time between Caiellis waking up for the first time and the second, and it would be how he would act unless Marik urged him to take care of himself as well.

"Here, Alexander. I assumed that you liked these considering the amount that you ate the last time we were here," Marik voiced, adding as much nonchalance to his voice as he could muster, the words of the highest ranking Ordo Medella personnel brooding within his mind as he glanced at his youngest son who was looking at the food. A pang of sympathy made him wince at the longing tinge to his son's dewy and tired green eyes, even though Caiellis probably wouldn't even like the type of food that they were about to eat. Alex was about to bite straight into his burger, suddenly coming to terms with how hungry he physically was despite the reality that he was still worried, but a pointed cough from his father made him pause as he glanced over at his younger brother and the sadness in his eyes.

"Sorry, little bro. We'll take the food outside," Alexander instantly apologised, guilt worming its way within him. His kid brother was still obtaining his own sustenance through gastric feeding; eating hot and solid food in front of him seemed exceedingly unfair. But when Alex made to move and get up, though he was tempted to ignore the food in favour of remaining with his younger brother until he fell asleep again, Cai's small fingers held onto the wrist of the arm around his shoulders like a vice. The boy shook his head slightly, and his big brother read the silent message easily enough. _It's ok. Please don't go._

Alexander settled back down again, removing his arm that was slung around his brother's shoulders so that he could grip the bread buns created from wheat grown in the underground photo-refectories where those with the ability to utilise Green mana but didn't have a predilection towards violence or combat spent their time growing and nurturing crops with both hands. He tried to eat it as gracefully as he could, which provoked Cai staring at him with wide eyed intent, a tiny grin forming underneath the misty glass oxygen mask that suggested he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

_Alexander with table (although he isn't exactly sat at a table, so I should probably use the word culinary instead – not that it really matters) manners? The wonders never cease. _He glanced over at his dad again who had taken a bite out of his own meal, chewing it contemplatively as he stared at his sons, blinking to focus his gaze when he saw one of them looking at him. He correctly interpreted the wonder in Caiellis's eyes to be directed at the fact that Alex was eating in the most dignified manner he had ever seen the seventeen year old, assuming that the way in which he had seen the boy eat before this when his appetite returned was indicative of how he usually did it – with little respect for any forms of etiquette or proper eating decorum, despite the fact that he remembered teaching his son table manners when he had been younger.

The forty year old smiled at his youngest boy's amazement, quickly finishing his own meal and wiping his greasy hands on a cloth before reaching out to clasp hold of the youngest Lucerna's small hand in one of his much larger ones, his lips which had already formed a smile on his face twinging into a more sympathetic one when Caiellis unthinkingly flinched away before his tired conscious had even registered the movement, though the boy quickly rectified that and held his dad's hand.

_We are going to have to work hard to get through this, my son. I know that it will be a while before you can force yourself to overcome the fear of me that the damned horror forced to grow inside of you, the fear that I did nothing to stop and was borne from my initial disapproval of your inability to Summon when the civil war ended. _It hurt him inside to see his son unconsciously reacting with fright whenever his dad reached towards him before he brought himself under control and let the man complete whatever fatherly action he had been intending to, although he did not blame Caiellis at all for that since the boy had almost been strangled to death by his hands, had suffered numerous awful wounds such as broken ribs and a concussion because of him, and had been told that his father wanted him dead and that he should have left him to die with the mother whose death had most likely traumatized him for the rest of his life.

The boy's hand was cold, though not quite as freezing as it had been before this, and Marik automatically began rubbing it in order to warm his son up – as it was likely that the boy would be quite cold tonight even if another blanket was brought up (and he had no doubts in his mind that Alexander was thinking of donating his own thicker one to his younger brother) as it wasn't entirely practical for the doctors to give him a thick, fluffy quilt, not with all of the medical equipment that had been put into him which could be affected by it if it got tangled up.

The youngest Lucerna yawned again, looking much more like the thirteen year old that he was rather than the adult that everyone expected him to be, and Marik knew this tired version of Caiellis that he had witnessing now was one of the very few occasions he had seen his youngest son acting and appearing around his own age when he wasn't asleep and became innocence personified then. Alexander, once he had finished his own meal, snorted, "Go to sleep, Caiellis. There is no point in you forcing yourself to be awake."

"I want to … I want to stay up with you two," the younger boy objected tiredly, rubbing his eyes again which was a clear sign (if any more were needed) that he was exhausted from this ordeal and needed to go back to sleep. Marik didn't quite have the heart to force him to go to sleep right now, not when he seemed adamant on staying awake to be with the family that had missed him so much when he was gone, and it would only be a few minutes until he drifted off naturally anyway.

Alexander rolled his eyes, quietly asking his brother if he was alright every so often to ensure that he wasn't in any pain as Marik watched the two lovingly. All of the people that had talked to Caiellis since he had woken up for the second time only less than an hour ago had worn him down, and his eyelids languidly drooped once, twice, before shutting fully the third time as he was evidently too tired to pull them open once more. The hand gripping Alex's relaxed as sleep claimed him again, creeping up on him once more without him realising it as the boy's head rested on his big brother's chest as he slumped. Alexander smiled adoringly, smirking over at his father who was grinning silently as well, wanting to stay like this for a long time but knowing that he would have to move soon so that he could get his younger brother properly in bed instead of leaning on him.

The seventeen year old would have been perfectly fine snuggling in with his little brother for the night and sleeping alongside him so that he could keep his protective grip around the younger boy's thin body and assure himself that the thirteen year old Lucerna was safe and sound with him, but the fact that Caiellis was so wounded meant that he was incredibly reluctant to do so – Cai had spent the night with him after his abuse and torture at the hands of Aksua, but that had been different as he was less beaten up than his younger brother was now and significantly less fragile than the youngest Lucerna was. He didn't want to get in the way, or be the cause of more of his little brother's suffering, so gently pulled the small boy away from him, tenderly placing him back down in the bed and shifting the pillow so that it was still underneath his head.

Caiellis instantly reacted, waking up again with confusion and fear in his wide but slitted green eyes that were still filled with exhaustion, breathing heavily through the oxygen mask and thrashing for a second against the strong but gentle grip on him before his brother reacted to calm him down, soothing, "Shh. Shh shh shh. You're safe, Cai. It was just me moving. Calm down, baby brother."

His eyes fixed upon the older boy's face and the affectionate smile upon it, the boy's taut body relaxing and resting back against the bed as he tiredly and subconsciously looked at his big brother for guidance that the seventeen year old was only too happy to provide, his breathing slowing down again. "Go to sleep, little buddy. I'll be right here when you wake up – _we _will be here when you wake up."

"Yes, we will indeed. So go to sleep, my son," Marik added, his deep voice coloured with love for his children that made him realise why he had become so cold and motivated only by the need to avenge the wrongs inflicted upon his kingdom by the traitorous Fallen without them by his side and without them to care for and look after – even though they were no longer small children (despite the fact that Caiellis was small for his age) and were teenagers instead. Caiellis didn't turn around to acknowledge his father, too tired to do so, but he knew from the way that his son reacted, almost imperceptibly, that he had heard.

Caiellis gazed gratefully up at his big brother one last time before his eyes slid shut. Alexander gently brushed the hair from the younger boy's eyes even though they were shut, letting go of his little brother's hand and sitting back in his own chair which was still next to the side of the bed so that he could easily react to any signs of distress from his younger brother instantly.

He turned to his father, a moment of silent understanding passing between them again where the man gave up on his idea to force his eldest son into going to sleep in a proper bed as that would have been too cruel for the traumatized boy who deserved to be with his family as well. No, splitting any of them up was not going to happen on this night, and the words that he had spoken with his youngest son the first time he had properly roused from his deep slumber (he didn't count the extremely brief awakening which had heralded the boy going back into his seizures and almost dying again a few hours ago) playing around in his head, the guilt that Caiellis had built up inside of him which had only been exacerbated by his father and what the horror creature had made him say.

"You should follow his example, Alexander," Marik told his eldest son, who nodded, feeling the strain of the past few days bearing down on him as well and supposing that he should try and catch some rest now that he had been able to properly talk with and comfort Cai, although it was still likely that he would have nightmares of the things that had happened recently and had been seared into his mind – with the sight of his younger brother briefly waking up, trying to speak and failing and almost dying again one that would definitely join with those of his little brother in his father's arms and having to breathe for the younger boy.

He settled back in his chair, casting a watchful eye over his baby brother, before asking his dad in a quiet tone, "Are you going to be getting to sleep as well, dad? You need it just as much as I do."  
The man smiled at his thoughtful son, rubbing a hand through his own blonde hair which was starting to turn white and was lighter than his eldest son's, before replying, "I will." even though he knew that it was unlikely that he would be able to sleep for more than a few minutes before the thoughts of his youngest son and the desire to check on both of his children overrode his body's need for rest. He watched as Alexander slowly fell asleep as well, determined to keep up his own silent vigil over his sleeping sons for as long as possible – for it was what they deserved.

.*.*.*.

The darkness inside of the cavern was cloying, suffocating, wrapping around her as she waded through the sticky liquid that clogged up the spaces between her toes and saturated the leather armour that she wore, making all of her movements sluggish and slow. The only light in the area was the flickering orange glow of the dim flame conjured above her pale hand, the wan illumination cascading over the throbbing walls, making the shadows dance and shift within the underground tunnel. It reflected off of the pool of dark red that Ilentia waded through, a canvas of crimson liquid that glistened in the orange light of her flames.

The shadows moved in ways that no natural shadow would, twirling in their own mad reverie as they reached towards the Master of Gluttony, if such a title still existed, hungrily grasping at her as she battered them away with the sword she held in her other hand. They were ravenous and endless, seeking to feast upon her body and her soul, but nothing more than a simple distraction that did little to dissuade the woman from her path, merely a mindless extension of the malevolent will at the centre of the underground network of tunnels with no will of their own.

She remembered this place, a fractured recollection of a time long ago that showed her broken memories and unfocused images. But back then it had been different, less tainted by the darkness that pulsed like veins in spider web patterns of black and red criss crossed across the stone walls and pulsated to the heartbeat of the creature at the centre of tunnels, the convergence of the many passageways within the Mind Realm of the Welkalite.

Before her dark resurrection at the hands of the now dead Archlord of Rapture, the Mind Realm of the woman who had been known as Guena had possessed the same structure of the one that Ilentia was traversing now, only the rock of the interior of the cave had been barren and bare instead of seeping with a darkness of no natural origin and covered with shifting occult symbols that twisted and unravelled under Ilentia's gaze, stitching themselves together and pulling themselves apart to form new and ever more malicious glyphs the further she descended into the darkness.

Years ago, this had been one of the places that the girl she had been had hated the most and feared almost more than any other, as she had often walked through the tunnels that intertwined and curved over one another like a rock version of an internal intestinal structure, which had never been a particularly comfortable image for the slender youth that she had been. She had been transported here in her dreams, dragged unwillingly into this realm of humidity and claustrophobia, and although she had been placed within many of the twisting tunnels of the Mind Realm they all led to the exact same location – the former feeding grounds of her nameless cyclops.

The girl Ilentia had once been before Tradax Yulica had ripped her former personality to shreds and elevated her being to what she was now had at first tried to flee from the cyclops when it learnt of her intrusion and rampaged through its territory to drag her back into the cavernous maw in which it made its residence, her desperation making her attempt to fight off the massive and gluttonous beast which she would come to understand had been assigned as her Summoning, though for what reason she nor the stupid creature that did not have thought processes past food and survival and as such did not have the ability to communicate in anything past grunts, bellowing roars and pathetic mewls of pain had known.

Every time she had woken up screaming, dragging herself out of her mind before she was eaten by the creature that took its residence within it, and it was only when her desire for power had first awakened within her so that she could secure herself and her younger brother a future she had entered the realm of her unconscious psyche willingly and confronted the cyclops, forcing it to bend to her fiery will as she burnt the brand of her name onto its skin – though at the time it had not been her name as the girl she had been had never been taught how to read anything more than the symbols drilled into the heads of the menial servants of the Order of Gluttony so that they could better follow orders.

She had subdued the disgusting beast and forced it to serve her as she propelled through the ranks of the consumption based Order of Passion, feeding it the pulped remains of many of her rivals who had attempted to stop her before she had reached the position that she had held before her master who had given her his patronage, Ershun Firefist, had been slain by the Lucaelian princes that he had attempted to prevent leaving the city, grossly unprepared for the amount of power that the two boys and their sanctimonious angels had wielded in comparison to the strength of his personal greater demon.

The woman could not list a comprehensive account of all of her past experiences, and what she did know was broken and distorted by the darkness within her heart, but walking through this place which was the expression of her mind and the closest she would ever come to delving into it brought up barely repressed memories, bringing unformed words and fractured ideas to the tip of her tongue and pressing against the barriers of her mind, almost there but not quite in a way that made Ilentia feel uncomfortable like little else did. Flashes of images of a time long passed spiralled and flashed beneath her eyelids and in the furthest recesses of her mind, seeping out of the cage of unknown dark power that they were locked within and teasing her with the promise of understanding her past.

If Ilentia had cared at all about the woman that she had once been, the temptation to give into the enticing images and let her mind be overridden by them might have been convincing, but to her it was nothing more than a slight inconvenience and made her feel somewhat disconcerted.

Now instead of bare rock that dripped with the products of perspiration the interior skin of the cavern was crusted by blood and covered in malignant patterns stretching across the stone. Crimson gore sloshed against Ilentia's legs like the acidic fluids of the digestive tract which would help in ingesting the products of consumption, and while the former her had often thought that she was walking into the lair of the beast and that she was nothing more than an unwilling meal now she was entering her Mind Realm for the first time since she had brought her previous Summoning under her control and established herself as its master by bringing it to heel with the power of her defiance and anger of her own volition.

The darkness wrapped around her yet did not touch her, fingers of shadowy substance ghosting over the tunnels around her and reaching towards her before she batted it away with the sword held in her right hand, her left conjuring the small flame that lit the way in the abject blackness which solidified and increased in intensity the closer she got to the dark heart of this underground cavern, the new beast at the centre of her Mind Realm who was calling to her with tendrils of its malevolent will.

The sword was not one of her own, a simple steel blade that she had managed to birth into this world with through her own defiant will, an extension of her desire to wreak violence, and the clothes that she wore had nothing on the light armour she was clad in within physical reality even though they were not as defensive nor protective as the armour of other nations, particularly the plate armour of the Lucaelians who had overcome the Welkalite resistance within their capital of the City of Pleasure. Malice and Fire, whilst powerful weapons, were not representative of her mental self, and the thick and simple blade that she carried now was. In the world of the physical, such a conventional weapon would have no affect on the being that she wished to fight, but as this was her Mind Realm (although she somewhat doubted that it solely belonged to her) the sword was merely a manifestation of her own mental strength.

The small flame that flickered in her left hand was weak and spluttering with small sparks, nothing compared to the roaring infernos of pyromantic strength that she could conjure up within reality, and whereas in the past her Mind Realm had reacted to her rage and allowed her to channel the powerful fires of her heart within it the darkness which had permeated through this place and saturated everything with its pollution, spread by the demon that resided at the centre of it, was much stronger than her Red mana here.

Arrapackxia, ever one for the melodramatic in Ilentia's experience, was making a statement, that her fiery will would do nothing against its Black magic and demonic power, but that did nothing to deter the Master of Gluttony from enacting what she had planned to do ever since her hasty retreat from Usnaan.

Black fluids with the consistency and texture of writing ink trickled down the walls of the cavern like the perspiration which had gathered on Ilentia's brow when she had been known as Guena, coldly sweating out of her fear and the heat of the underground network, but now the woman was perfectly cool and unfazed by the prospect of what she might face – as she was intending to face it.

The inky liquid dripped into the pools of blood that the woman splashed through as she descended through the claustrophobic subterranean passages, turning the crimson blood of those that the demon bound to her by Tradax in the terms of the Infernal Contract had slain and feasted upon to an even darker red, the unnatural and yet perfectly human ichor pooling around Ilentia's feet and drifting along her path with her, drawn to the presence of the insatiable creature at her heart which had disobeyed her far too many times.

The darkness of her demon whispered to her, words of an ancient and brutal language intermingling with those of a human dialogue that she could understand, although she could still work out what the miasmic aura of the greater demon was trying to communicate to her. It was a purposeful act by the beast she was intending to confront combined with the unnatural will of the tainted shadows of this place, simultaneously automatic and designed to dissuade her from continuing or to inspire even a small amount of fear within her as well as impress Arrapackxia's power upon her.

**Come … come … Master of Gluttony … come … come to me … Raktashcar … **

The woman might have been tempted to smile if she was prone to displays of emotion. _I am coming, you demon scum. But I would not be encouraging myself if I was you. _The shadows rippled around her, the darkness billowing around the woman's lithe body, the intensity and loudness of the paradoxically barely audible yet screaming whispers of madness and desire forbidden by those labouring under the constraints of morality increasing, and she knew that Arrapackxia would have heard her since it was connected to her mind and lived within it – which was why it had to obey her will, not act in whatever way it wanted to.

**I will feast … feast … eat … fargaddan … consume … kaz'nack …. join us … join us … I hunger … we hunger … Gamchicoth ….**

The woman knew from her past memories that she was nearing the cavernous space at the approximate centre of her Mind Realm where the greater demon bound to her would dwell in the crude resting place which had once belonged to her gluttonous cyclops beast of the Sancturia mountains, although she was expecting it to have changed significantly due to the warping and corrupting influence of Arrapackxia.

She recalled that when she had been known as Guena that there had always been a sweltering heat to this place, a fiery warmth produced by the extreme temperatures of her Red mana that she had come to embrace instead of being frightened by, and within that warmth there had been a desire to consume all, a desire to endlessly devour and eat all of the food that she could get her hands on. The heat was the same, as well as that endless lust for consumption, but instead of it being a passion for feasting upon the banquets of the material world it was an insatiable hunger for souls that suffused the Mind Realm of the Master of Gluttony, a ravenous intent to gorge upon the lives and essences of human beings, to feast upon the angelic enemies of the spawn of the darkness in Sancturia that could never be satiated.

There was evidence of taint everywhere, and while that did not particularly bother Ilentia as she had nothing against using any and every power available to achieve her goals the power of the corruption was a testament to how much of a hold Arrapackxia had obtained upon her mind and soul, how much its malevolent influence was permeating throughout her body and how much control it had on her – or at least thought that it had. Ilentia knew that the demon Summoning within her had been anticipating this ever since she had survived the battle for Usnaan in which it had abandoned her and abjectly refused to obey her commands, as while she had been expecting that because she had not been presuming that Arrapackxia had any form of loyalty towards her (as that sort of relationship was entirely mutual and her former Summoning hadn't had any inclination to help her past her forcing it to either) it still meant that she would have to reaffirm who the master of her Summoning was.

The black lines of taint pulsed like veins carrying the contaminated blood of the demon as she waded through the blood that stuck to her pale legs, her own blood vessels that were blackened by the corruption within her pulsating in time to the malignant heartbeat at the centre of her Mind Realm. Ilentia, in her form as Guena, might have been disturbed at what had happened to herself – she was pale, ghostly so, with fiery red eyes locked in that moment of final defiance which had stayed with her and made her mind incredibly sharp and full of adrenaline no matter where she was, and her blood was black with the magic of darkness running through her circulatory system and corrupting it. But then she had always been extremely ambitious, even in her former life when she had wanted to look out for her last remaining family member, her younger brother, and had wanted to gain power so that she could secure his future as well, and hadn't cared whether or not the power that she obtained would have any price.

Ilentia was not at all perturbed by it, as it was her body and that was how she had always known it to be, and while she wouldn't class the desire to survive above all else and the will to do anything to ensure that she kept living now that she had been given a second chance as ambitious now that she was free of her chains, free of the shackles that had bound her to the Archlord of Rapture, she could claim power and do whatever she wanted – when she forced her greater demon to serve her until it was time to get rid of it.

**I hunger … azazael … I hunger … chaockma … come to me … **

The words were a horrifying mixture of human sounds and unnatural syllables mixed together that would have split open the mind of any who did not possess a demon or another denizen of the darkness of the other world inside of them and at their discretion to Summon, whispers of madness and of dark things that no human should ever have known, although if they were supposed to inspire dread within the Master of Gluttony (Ilentia reminded herself to stop calling herself that ridiculous title) then that had failed.

More likely Arrapackxia was doing it to entertain and amuse itself, as well as wanting to show some of its power in its arrogance. Ilentia could see the maw of the large cavern in her mind, the central chamber of her Summoning's residence that seethed with dark power which she would wrestle under her control and truly gain dominion over so that there would be no more disobedience or dissidence from Arrapackxia.

There had never been any bones or the remnants of bodies at the entrance to the cavern, and this time it was no different. Both of her resident Sancturia creatures were far too greedy and ravenous not to consume every single part of the food that they could get their hands upon, leaving no evidence that there had been anything devoured within the cave at all. However, what had been exacerbated by the demon's presence was the stench of rot and partially digested bodies exuded by the mouth to the lair of her Summoning, strong enough to make the former her gag and vomit up unreal substance, as she vaguely recalled her cyclops making itself eject the foul contents of its gigantic stomach, spewing it out of its gaping maw so that it could continue to attempt to satisfy its endless hunger for more.

She assumed that Arrapackxia would not being doing the same, that the demon had no such constraints as her cyclops had and could constantly feed upon the remnants of the meals of the souls of those it had devoured when Summoned by Ilentia. But instead the smell was off foetid taint, sickly sweet blight blended with the scent of endless death into a sickening aroma that had even Ilentia curling her nose in disgust at the being that inhabited this foetid swamp cave within her mind.

The earth at the mouth of the cave entrance was a sopping quagmire of blood and sticky black liquid, the blurred impressions of a time long past interspersing over the sight of what Ilentia was looking upon now, the tracks of her former Summoning still visible in the sodden rock despite being covered in blood.

She discerned the tactic for what it was, the demon within her forcing her to remember the past of a woman she no longer was and who Ilentia had never been, when she had not been so strong and when she had been so much more vulnerable than this. Arrapackxia, whether it was doing it intentionally in order to weaken her or not, was subjecting her to the fractured recall of her past life before her near death and dark rejuvenation, trying to distract her and make her believe that she was still weak. The echoes of the whispering darkness were joined by a low, wet growl of something large, hungry, and depraved that was carried up into the tunnels and resonated throughout the dripping walls of rock in a way that no natural sound was.

It was however not primal, not the natural hunger of a large predator eager to eat, simply atavistic and cruel and infused with a longing to sink its claws deeper into Ilentia's soul that it already had a grasp upon and to claim it at the moment of her death – and to make the moment occur in the near future. The demon lusted for her blood, for her soul, and Ilentia would not let it have either of them.

The small flame in the palm of her left hand shimmered and flickered, the fiery passion of her Red mana unable to penetrate this far into the tenebrosity that shrouded this central area of the catacombs, and then went out. Ilentia had to physically repress a sigh that encapsulated her utter lack of amusement, and attempted to conjure up the flame again so that she would have some illumination. She wasn't surprised when she couldn't, and this time the woman couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes at the spiteful and hungry laughter that boomed up the passageway.

The tunnel that Ilentia had been placed within when she entered the Mind Realm corkscrewed into the wider entrance to the central chamber where her greater demon would be waiting for her, widening as it do so. She pressed on until she reached the threshold of entering the true realm of Arrapackxia which it had inherited from the Summoning she had sacrificed to obtain the greater demon through the terms of the Archlord of Rapture's Infernal Contract that some would consider as unholy which she hadn't truly understood at the time, her new mind reeling at the new body she had been given and the new consciousness that had thrust itself into her form.

Moisture, black and sickly saccharine, drizzled in the air, pattering in trickling droplets of pure darkness upon Ilentia's clothing and running down her sword as she paused before entering the chamber containing the demon expecting her – she wasn't nervous, nor felt any fear at the thought of confronting the atavistic beast within, but she still wanted to collect her thoughts and remove any possibility of her being distracted by the fleeting glimpses of a world through eyes that were not locked forever within crimson defiance; this battle would be extremely dangerous as it was and any mistakes or brief hesitations could cost her dearly.

She started moving again, her splashing footsteps impossibly loud despite being joined by the raving murmurs of thousands of different voices, yet all of the voices were the same – her own. Ilentia pushed past the memories that threatened to rise up all around her, the sound of her past self's screaming intermingling with the disgusting noise of an unnatural tongue sliding over impossibly sharp teeth belonging to a being that wanted her soul.

The maw of the cavern was a rugged mouth of dripping stalactites and shimmering, blade-esque stalagmites. Some ran together in oddly conjoined columns which she didn't remember from her broken recollections of this place – evidently Arrapackxia's malicious aura had warped the shape of her Mind Realm – wet and glistening like malformed bones or the sinews of gigantic predators. The sounds of inhuman breath rasping over dripping fangs came again, and it occurred to Ilentia that the oily and ink-like darkness was akin to the saliva of a beast borne of the darkest regions of the twinned worlds. It drew Ilentia on, beckoning her in so that she could assert her control of her Summoning once more and remind it who it belonged to even as some primal part of her brain told her that whatever lurked within the darkness of the mountains caves of her mind was something that she could not defeat.

The thought was so alien to her that she stopped in her tracks once again, hesitating on the cusp of the final chamber as the darkness shifted and twisted in tenebrous arcs of midnight corruption over her pale form as flashing images of her time as a normal human made a sudden resurgence within her head, blindingly bright yet dim and blurry. The intrusion to her psyche was so subtle that only a thought so incongruous to the self image she had built up of herself which was amplified within her own mind allowed her to register it and reveal its presence.

_Arrapackxia … you clever bastard … _Ilentia forced the memories down again, although this time it was much easier because of instead of having to concentrate upon suffocating each and every individual fragment of her fractured recollection of experiences that someone who was essentially and to all intents and purposes another person had gone through she could focus on blocking out the demon's invasive will now that she had confirmed that it had a hold upon her mind and how this mental manifestation of her thought, isolating and removing each of the tendrils of spiteful will that had infested her mind as she stopped, instinctually knowing that Arrapackxia wanted her to come to him and that it would not leave its domain until she confronted it.

She could not dislodge the demon's influence completely, as it was residing within her mind due to its position as her Summoning, but she could dramatically lessen the effects and control that it had over her thoughts and fears, reducing the amount that her greater demon could manipulate the memories of her past self and use them to distract her. Ilentia, knowing that she had hesitated long enough and not wanting to spend longer than necessary within her Mind Realm due to her acute awareness that it meant she was unconscious within reality, stepped forwards, into the darkness.

The only reason that she could see was a combination of the fact that she was impressing her own will to have control of her mind upon this place and her greater demon's want for her to witness it and the area around it. Ilentia descended quickly into the cavern, her red eyes piercing through the darkness that shifted and danced to the tune of a pounding heart, the beating heightened by unnatural fear and ravenous expectation. A stagnant lake of blood and blackness filled the centre of the cavern, its surface a crimson mirror of gore and basalt darkness. The ambient temperature, despite still being uncomfortably hot, dropped by several degrees, and plumes of breath that twirled alongside the twisting shadows feathered before Ilentia.

Her pale skin tingled at the power of her greater demon as it always had done, the revulsion within her mind no less reduced now that she was in what it would like to think of as its domain, and as her gaze swept through the cavern which had changed since she had lasted visited and brought her previous Summoning under her control in what she would later learn to be classed as a "Summoning trial" (although vastly different from the ones undergone by the humans connected with Sancturia creatures made of different colours of mana, as while others had to complete specific tasks or prove their worth in a way in which the Summoning saw fit Ilentia had simply had to defeat her cyclops and impose her will upon it), the darkness of her greater demon moulding it to his will even if it still retained the overall shape and structure of what it had been before the Infernal Contract.

Blotching globules of darkness, some larger than Ilentia herself, covered the walls and the floor, expanding and contracting in irregular yet somehow synchronous sequences, spewing out the black liquid that covered everything else as they did so. The centre of the cave that was filled with blood and inky darkness was a crude alter, covered in words that hurt Ilentia's eyes to look at even as she did so, items of dark symbolism that she did not know of scattered around the central, spike-like plinth that was birthed into the room by the shadows, ethereal yet corporeal in the same moment and covered in sigils that would have burned themselves into Ilentia's retinas had she looked upon them in reality and not been the Summoner of a demon.

And there, hunched over next to the altar and with the blood of souls dripping down its lips, was Arrapackxia, his lymphatic and pallid skin dripping with the black liquid that the cascade of darkness from above bathed it within as he gazed up at Ilentia, a predatory smile playing over his twisted lips before they contorted into a snarl of condescension mixed with a voracious hunger. The demon bit into the neck of the writhing body that it held, the crunch of breaking bones resounding throughout the cavern and eclipsing the endless drip drop melody of thick blood splashing into more blood, and flung it across the cave where it crashed into the moist rock walls, spraying jetting and unnatural crimson everywhere around it as the soul body's spine cracked and shattered.

Ilentia had to resist the temptation to roll her eyes again, keeping herself fully focussed on the greater demon within her that she would have to defeat or subdue to get it under control and obeying her orders once more, as any distractions could easily be fatal within the realm of the mind – and, while wounds that were inflicted and suffered within this mental space were not carried over into the physical world and would not afflict Ilentia's mortal form, death was permanent and it would give Arrapackxia her soul, or whatever was left of it.

She did not believe for a second that her ravenous greater demon was partial to savouring his meals and slowly torturing and consuming them like others of his foul breed would, and that meant that Arrapackxia had specifically saved the soul that he had just now devoured in order to attempt to intimidate his Summoner, something which had not worked and something that it must have known wouldn't, unless it paid absolutely no attention to Ilentia which was likely considering the fact that the demon had forgotten about the teleportation device Eras had given her. Arrapackxia had obviously wanted to at least make her feel some doubt, some hesitation that he could exacerbate through the fear inducing and exacerbating properties of Black mana that all demons were made from and possessed the magic of – even though her demon did not specialise in the causing of terror like some of his spiteful siblings did.

"Ah, Ilentia, the forlorn Master of Gluttony," the demon hissed, his voice an arrogant mixture of derisive scorn and voracious intent as it leaned forwards, baring fangs covered in the dark crimson blood of souls and grinning at the woman across the cavern from it, Ilentia raising her blade and glaring silently back at the beast and it stretched two massive arms wide. "It is an honour, my pleasure in fact, to welcome you to this humble abode of mine-"  
The Welkalite had already leapt forwards, wielding the power that she knew she possessed within her mind to launch her agile body into the air, her savage blade whistling as it whipped through the foetid and sickly atmosphere of the corrupted cavern. Arrapackxia reacted quickly, his unnatural reflexes augmented with the dark vitality that filled those of demonic origin and the speed of the abyss, bringing up one monstrously clawed hand to block the simple sword on his talons.

He laughed, the white pits of his eyes swirling with a combination of dark mirth and hatred directed at the bonds that bound him to his current Summoner, the restrictions imposed upon him by the form of Infernal Contract which the late Master of Rapture and Arrapackxia's demonic sibling Carramoshk had utilised to drag him out of his hunting grounds within the outer territories of the void and constrain him to the current Master of Gluttony.

The talons scraped against Ilentia's blade in a screaming spray of sparks that guttered as they hungrily spat onto the ground, even something as mundane as small flashes of fire warped and distorted by the malevolent and edacious demon, and the young woman quickly pulled away as her crude sword began to bend at an unnatural and inefficient angle under the strength of the greater demon that stood at over double Ilentia's height.

"What, Ilentia, no introductions or pleasantries before we got down to business? I know that you are dour and boring, but this is pushing it even for you, my dear," the greater demon cackled, the blackened liquid trickling like streams of ink down its freakishly pale skin, joining the blood that was already streaming down its chin from Arrapackxia's gaping jaw and mingling with it as the demon beckoned outwards with both arms.

The woman didn't reply after having sprung away, her agility in the physical world carried over into the Mind Realm as that was her mental representation of herself (luckily she wasn't turned into what her past self would have been manifested as because that would have made her unable to fight), aware that had Arrapackxia wanted to he could have curled his large hand around the blade and ripped it in half or disarmed her, although she might have been able to cause some damage due to the fact that this was her Mind Realm and conventional weaponry was much more than that within this somewhat familiar place.

She glowered back silently, not wanting to indulge the demon with any of her words and attempting to shut off as much of her mind as possible when the woman felt the tendrils of malignancy extending into her psyche, attempting to wedge open her mental defences so that the greater demon within her could manipulate the fear of her past self against the Ilentia of the present and use it as a weapon as one would use a sword.

Ilentia could not stop it from opening up some of the locked doors to her fractured past that she could not even unseal herself nor had any inclination to, as Arrapackxia resided within her psyche and his influence had spread deep within her being, souring whatever her soul now consisted off and corrupting her mind and body, and the image of the demon's ravenous visage and the corrupted cavern flickered, the memories of her Mind Realm when it had been inhabited by the cyclops she had also brought to heel and had been the place of Guena's greatest fears occasionally superimposed over the current one.

The demon rose to its full and impressive height that was smaller than others of its kind but larger than a significant number of them, the huge black wings that burst out of his back, showering demonic blood behind them in an expulsion of vile corruption that made Ilentia want to vomit, scraping against the top of the cave as he stared down his Summoner.

Shadows curled round his horns that reflected the dark majesty of his demonic power, a malevolent and tainted distortion of the stately and natural magnificence of other beings of impressive might, fingers of pure darkness reaching round and stroking the demon in their accursed caress. Ilentia felt the power levels of her greater demon rising exponentially, which she had expected – Arrapackxia, while it was a vile being which Ilentia wanted rid of as soon as possible when it outlived its usefulness even if she didn't see it as unholy, was certainly not foolish, and had saved its meal of the plentiful amount of souls harvested within the siege of the City of Pleasure so that it could be as strong as possible for when its Summoner inevitably confronted it to bring it in line and under her dominion once again.

The meat of humans and the substance of their souls within realms other than the one that Ilentia and the rest of her species lived within were apparently interchangeable, and her own greater demon required the former within the material world or the latter when within the strange realm of Sancturia or the Mind Realm of his Summoner to unlock his true potential.

While fighting her Summoning when he was weakened by not having the flesh of humans (whether it was physical or borne from their souls) to feast upon would have been much easier for Ilentia, the Welkalite was in fact somewhat glad that Arrapackxia would be at his full power for this upcoming battle between Summoner and Summoning – as not only would it allow her to establish her dominance over him and force him to submit to her will once again, it would also show her demon that even in his most powerful state he could not defeat her or disobey her orders like the being usually would within the material realm after having eaten. Arrapackxia had a clear tangent of only listening to her imperatives when necessary and when he was not strong enough to break out of her chains of the demonic bargain that connected them, and that was risking Ilentia's survival – so it was therefore something that had to be stopped.

She focussed some of her consciousness and the mental power that was contained within it back within her mind, wielding it in a way that she hadn't done in several years to attempt to leave the Mind Realm and return to the world of the awakened, but was not surprised to see that her passageway out of her anima was blocked off by an invasive and unnatural force. Ilentia had not expected to be able to retreat from this battle, flee from the seemingly physical manifestation of her mind and escape the demon's clutches, nor had she wanted to – as if she ignored this threat to her health in the form of her disobedient Summoner now it would prove to be detrimental in the long run.

No, this was something that she could not ignore, and if Ilentia was not strong enough to defeat her greater demon then she would not be powerful enough to survive within the world and forge her own path through it.

Arrapackxia laughed again, the noise saturated with unearthly amounts of inhuman malevolence that no being should ever have been filled with, although it was nothing compared to what the demon's Summoner had heard whilst she had fought within Usnaan and Tradax's foul and reckless plan had unfolded, a roar of much greater magnitude and maddening power than anything her own Sancturia being could ever muster up crashing across the entire battlefield and filling her with the sadistic bloodthirst which had been one of the few positive sensations within her since the day of her dark revival. He spat, the blood mixing with his acidic saliva that dissolved a hole in the rock that it landed up before congealing into a strange, scarlet substance that Ilentia had no intentions of touching, before his spiteful voice rang out, "Are you trying to flee from me, my dear? How cute. How utterly _pathetic_. Do you really think that you can escape from this realm, Ilentia? Your mind is mine now, and I will not let you leave until I have finished devouring your insignificant little soul!"  
It raised a claw hand, the shadows coalescing more prevalently around it as Ilentia felt a tingling on her skin that it took her a moment to identify, although she was reasonably shocked when she discerned what it was – fear. Not any form of terror directed against the demon, as Ilentia was not scared of Arrapackxia in any way and knew that his psychological barbs would have no affect upon her, but her mental body's natural reaction to the emission of unreal Black mana – especially within the mind.

Even though the woman who would have been the Master of Gluttony had the Orders of Passion not been rent asunder by the unyielding hammer of the Lucaelian legions and devoured under the resistance of the Welkalites that capitalised upon their greatly weakened power was quite far removed from the standard definition of human, Ilentia still belonged to that race and the instinctual, base dread that the power of a greater demon sparked within her was something that could not be repressed no matter how hard she tried, although she refused to let it distract her or prevent her from being able to properly fight against Arrapackxia. No, she would wield her fear as a weapon, turn it into adrenaline even though both were not real within this realm of thought and emotion and use that to defeat the demon within her head.

"Enough with words. I will feast upon your soul, and there is nothing that a mortal can do to stop me!" the demon cried, irrespective of the fact that Ilentia had said a total of nothing since entering the cavern, the walls of the chamber making his voice echo as it blared out at the Summoner of the demon in question and surrounded her with a wall of malicious sound that battered at her mental defences and would have made her recoil in fear had she not been the Summoner of a greater demon. The darkness, collected into a ball that rippled with dark intent and grew wriggling spines of tenebrosity out of it, and the demon flung them at the woman. The shadows burst forth from where they had been collected together, rippling through the air as they lanced towards Ilentia, the woman flipping away from them and sweeping her sword round.

She tried to reach into herself, reach into the burning heart of who she was and fling the fire of her mind at the darkness that burst forth from her greater demon, but the corruption of the being of the abyss inside of her smothered the flames that were inside of her and prevented her from accessing the Red mana around her. This was the demon's realm, and the raging inferno that was a part of her being could not penetrate past the taint that saturated this foetid place. She had not expected to be able to use it without significant amounts of power being placed behind it, something that she did not have the time for with the greater demon bearing down on her, but it did not bode well at all for the outcome of this battle that she could not even utilise a modicum of her power.

The sharding bolts of darkness cut through the air, ripping into the walls behind where Ilentia had been stood and tearing chunks of contaminated rock out of them as she somersaulted to the side. She was fast, but not fast enough to avoid the tendrils of pure gloom that sliced into her right arm and ripped holes across her as they pierced her stomach.

Ilentia snarled in more anger than pain, pushing back the agony of the wounds that were exacerbated by their origin and forcing the injuries that were weeping black blood to close through sheer force of will – as what had been hurt was not her body, merely the representation of herself within the Mind Realm, and as such she knew that she could manipulate it at will and avoid some debilitating effects that would have crippled her back in the material plane.

She couldn't, however, elude death simply by focussing all of her mental might on not dying, and that meant she had to fight back against the greater demon that was already closing in on her, Arrapackxia's wings furled close to his body that was a dark perversion of sculptural proportions that would be held in high regard within some human cultures that venerated physical strength to augment his speed and ensure that they would not get in the way in the relatively claustrophobic confines of the central cavern even though the world warped and deformed around them as Arrapackxia's grip on the mind of the Summoner it was bound to solidified and strengthened.

Ilentia hissed in fury as her wounds were closed up, the fact that she had been able to regenerate the injuries inflicted upon her internal form doing nothing to lessen their excruciating pain despite the fact that she found it nowhere near as enfeebling as lesser humans would. She glared at her greater demon, her red eyes alight and suffused with her hatred of the being that had been bound to her in a time when she had not known what implications such an Infernal Contract would entail and had been loyal to Tradax since he had only just resurrected her, the hatred that she felt towards all those who would seek to impede her path to continued survival and the freedom to do whatever she chose to that was now directed at her own demon.

Ilentia grasped onto this loathing of hers, holding it tight within her mind so that she could focus it onto the demon that was quickly approaching her, the dark waters of blood that were in the cavern splashing across the walls and painting them red the few places that weren't already covered in viscera. She could feel the power swelling up inside of her, the dark magic coursing through her veins and filling it with the Black energy that tinted every stimulus with the familiar sting of the shadows that she had become accustomed to, and squeezed her hands tightly into fists as the shadows formed around them.

With a hiss of hatred, she blasted the mental power that she had charged up inside of her at the greater demon, her detestation manifesting as a tendril of shadow that burst out of the space in front of her and launched itself towards Arrapackxia. The demon grinned, and then laughed, its booming and baleful voice echoing across the caverns and making the entire cave shake with its power, the tenebrosity that was around Ilentia screaming in tandem with the roaring bellow of their master in a multitude of shadowy voices. Arrapackxia battered the lance of pure darkness away with the back of one monstrous hand, stalking forwards as he did so, his eyes suffused with hunger and amusement as the woman staring up at him repressed her shock at her attack having absolutely no effect.

"Oh, Ilentia my dear, did you really think that such a thing would harm me, the Archdemon of Greed?! Did you truly believe that your futile attack would have any affect on a creature borne of the darkness that you were wielding against me?! I will feast upon your soul, wench, and I will make you pay for taking me from my hunting grounds and forcing me to be your slave in battle!" the demon shrieked, his voice impossibly deep yet simultaneously extremely high pitched, the screaming tones amplified by the shadows around the woman who had held the position as Master of the Order of Gluttony, and launched forwards. Ilentia's retaliatory attack ripped a line of blackness across the demon's thick forearm as her sword drew its blood, but as her body twisted away from the greater demon its massive hand wrapped around her waist.

A wave of revulsion flooded through the woman's mind, Ilentia fighting the urge to throw up at the demon's foul touch as it wrenched her back, dragging her lithe form through the air as she angled herself in its grasp so that she could repeatedly stab at it with her sword, the blows infused with her hatred and anger as the demon squeezed her, attempting to snap the woman in half and crush the internal organs of her mental representation and slay her. Ilentia rained down violent attacks upon the hand that held her as she was quickly pulled through the air, inflicting numerous blows within the space of a few seconds as her blade was covered in a sheen of violent darkness that hearkened to the wounding of the demon and the administration of pain, the malicious force behind the partly desperate strikes ripping slices of darkness across the demon's sinewy pallid flesh.

However, it did not dissuade Arrapackxia, whose venomous claws stabbed into his Summoner's lower stomach and chest, slicing through the pale skin and with each agonising incision accentuated by the spiteful aura saturating the Mind Realm, drawing blood that spattered to the floor and covered everything in more of the sticky black liquid that was akin to ink and symbolised a form of corruption.

With a cry of pre hatred, the Welkalite woman rammed her sword into the thumb of the demon, the talon it was belonging to threatening to disembowel her by eviscerating her stomach as it tore through her clothes and crushed some of her bones to a fine powder that she could still regenerate within this realm of thought if she could focus enough on it. The demon shrieked in a mixture of pain, rapturous bliss, and its own form of malevolent loathing directed towards the woman it had been bound to and forced to serve, vindictively hurling its Summoner away from it and instantly launching an orb of concentrated darkness at her as she crashed into the wall.

Ilentia's mind was filled with pain, agonising, torturous pain that stung all of her senses and overwhelmed any other stimuli her body might have been exposed to at the time, and she heard some of her bones cracking as she was bodily flung into the bloody rock at the other side of the cavern, luckily managing to twist her body enough through the air so that she landed still facing her rebellious demon, although that meant that her back had smashed into the solid rock and she could have been paralysed even though her body was more resilient than a normal human's due to the dark vitality that had been instilled into it both by her unholy resurrection at the hands of her former commander the Master of Rapture and her Infernal Contract which had imbued her form with the ability to endure wounds that would have murdered most other members of her species without the type of mana allowing them to be durable in the face of attack and the fact that that was increased further due to the combat taking place within her own mind – giving Ilentia the ability to quickly recover from injuries she might not have been able to regenerate in the material world.

Nonetheless, she was still in extreme danger, and she saw the rough sphere of darkness that was a blot within the already gloomy cavern which approached her at a paradoxically seemingly ponderous but intensely fast rate just before it hit her. Her teeth gritted within the pain that she was already in, her blackened blood a concomitantly sour and sweet tang within her mouth (although she could easily ignore the foul taste as well as the connotations of it since for a start she didn't care and secondly she had far more pressing issues at the moment), Ilentia tried to drag herself away for a moment before her mind registered how much her body had been hurt and a burst of white hot pain around her lower back and stomach forced her to come to terms with the fact that for the moment she couldn't move, her legs and back in agony and twisted at a somewhat unnatural angle.

An emotion that took her a while to identify coursed through her mind, the adrenalized sheen of her body's reaction to its predicament slowing everything within her Mind Realm down yet speeding it up in the same instant, amplifying every sensation and this strange emotion that had suddenly sprung up within her and welled up in her head. It was panic, the first time she had felt anything close to that since she had been brought back to life by the Master of Rapture that had bound this dangerous and arrogant demon to her and forced it into her mind with the sacrifice of her former Summoning, and the sheer unfamiliarity of the sensation almost made her want to pause and consider it if she had been in any other situation.

She raised her hands, the sheer panic and the development of that into fear for her life distracting her as the shadows within her head capitalised upon it and exacerbated the hesitation within Ilentia and making it hard to do anything but what her instincts told her to, pulling up the pulsating darkness from around her – as this was her realm as much as it was her demon's and the Black energy within it belonged to them both – and attempting to form a shield of solid night around her form that would nullify the affects of Arrapackxia's magical assault. But Black mana had never been a particularly defensive tool even though it could be employed as one and had been done so by many over the thousands of years it had been available to humanity and the creatures that were borne of it within the other world, and within the demon's residence her intent to protect herself was warped and distorted by the malevolent power of the being inside of her, weakened significantly as the ravenous orb crashed into her downed form.

Ilentia's world exploded into darkness and pain, the teeth of the shadows that ripped into her and drained both her essence and blood impossibly painful as the release of gluttonous mana from the sphere that had surrounded her with tenebrous arcs of hunger incarnate fed upon her. She screamed, the pain too much to ignore and the agony that was suffusing her consciousness the worst thing that she had ever felt. Ilentia did not quite know what the dark energy that rippled around her and was quickly doing was factually doing to her, what sort of malevolent curses it would inflict upon her mental manifestation or what damage it would do, nor how fast it would kill her as it was already undoubtedly doing, although time had suddenly lost all meaning as the concept of it had been overwhelmed by the sheer torment that had become her entire being.

It was torment made manifest, but unlike some other pain that she had experienced in the past it was not exquisite, nor was there any semblance of a positive stimulus hidden within the agony as bite marks from unreal teeth rippled across her flesh, black blood spilling out of the tears in her pale skin before it was glutted upon by the tongues of shadow that lapped up at it and ran their tainted substance over her. The agony blossomed all around her, darker and brighter and stronger than she had ever felt in this new life of hers.

Everything faded away from her, ripped apart by the pain and slowly overridden by the sensation of pure agony, everything apart from the pure, unadulterated terror that had wrenched open her mind and had her screaming in a mixture of the utter horror at the thought of dying that she had never witnessed before despite knowing how much she prioritised her own survival and only wanted to live on within the world now that she had been given a second chance at life and the suffering that was rushing through her and amplified by every single bit from fanged maws of shadow that tore her flesh open. The adrenaline of her body combined with the fear as the darkness consumed her, forcing Ilentia to be unable to see anything. She didn't know what she would be doing, did not know how her body would be acting in this world of the mind, nor if she was making any sound or not, but too much of her advanced thought processes had dissolved under the torment for her to care any longer.

_I refuse … _the last remaining part of Ilentia's mind that had not yet been consumed by the trauma that had afflicted the rest of it thought as the darkness and the pain wrapped around her, blotting out her vision and the rest of her thoughts and experiences as it devoured sections of her consciousness and overwhelmed her senses with tenebrous energy.

_I refuse... to give in … _She thought again, the words spoken into a void empty of all but pitch black pain, and endless sea of undulating midnight that screamed in longing for whatever remained of her soul within the shell of her was all, it devoured all, the dark magic of her greater demon filling her mind and blinding her senses to anything but the fear and the pain that flooded throughout her form.

_I refuse … to die … _The words were a brief glimmer of light, a small spark of defiance within an abyss of ravenous intent and the hunger of beings too terrible for any mortal to comprehend, the hunger of the being that was locked inside of her which ached to sink its teeth into her soul and make a banquet out of her was tiny, imperceptibly small within the vast expanse of voracious blackness, but it was there, although it threatened to be crushed to nothing within any second.

_I refuse … to give in to this ..._ It was a minute and obstinate source of fire, the refusal to give into her fate and let the death that she had refused to touch her ever since her time as Guena and her survival throughout the danger of both of her lives that had been strengthened into something tangible but ultimately desperate when she had been almost killed, her fire almost smothered, by the now dead Master of Rapture, before becoming intensely more selfish and focussed upon herself instead of Guena and the ones that she had cared about (which only amounted to her younger brother who could have died or survived for all that Ilentia cared) after she was brought back by the dark magic that she sensed Tradax had not understood properly at all.

_I refuse … to let Arrapackxia get the better of me … _The small spark of defiance within all of the pain was close to being extinguished as the endless waves of gloaming washed over it, quickly dying in the face of the overwhelming power as the demon's magic poured through her and his influence over her mind and soul was exerted, utilised to make Ilentia feel all of the pain and the fear that she should have done. And when it died, so too would the woman who had once been known as Guena and was now known as Ilentia, the defiance of death that had defined her ever since the day of her dark reincarnation and Arrapackxia's binding to her squeezed tight and gnawed upon until it dissipated into nothing at all and left Ilentia's soul ripe for the taking.

_No … I will not let _anyone _stop me from living … I will not let anyone control me … I _will _not die … _The flames withered within the darkness, unable to sustain themselves with no energy or passionate emotion to feast upon, languishing like a dying flower of incandescence, a rose that had lost its thorns and consigned to death in a realm of shadow and insatiable hunger that eroded its petals to dust as it fed upon them. _No … no … _NO!

The flames died, leaving only coldness in their wake. The flower wilted, petals turned to tiny particles of nothingness that were swallowed up by the endlessly insatiable darkness that feasted upon it. The defiance was snuffed out at the source.

**NO!**

The flame rose again, but this time it was no longer a flickering fire – it was part of the darkness itself, blazing up out of the ashes as the malevolent shadows wrapped around it, the fear combining with her need to survive instead of being opposing forces that had distracted one another when the first had originated. Her determination returned, mixing with the darkness truly this time, becoming one with the blighted canker which had been placed within her heart as she truly embraced the power that was inside of her. The demon had meant to crush her, feast upon her soul and her desire to keep living, but it had only made her stronger.

Ilentia's mind exploded into darkness and fire, the memories of her time before she had been turned into what she was now by the capricious whims of the Master of Rapture erupting in excruciating clarity within her head as the thousands of images of two lives combined flashed before her eyes and in her mind. She was Ilentia, and yet she now knew who Guena was, what she had done in the past, what her hopes and dreams had been and who she had loved and hated – but, more importantly, she now knew the last thoughts that had ran through the agonised mind of the gluttonous woman had once been, the last words of defiance against death that her psyche had spoken to herself that had allowed her to remain alive for much longer than expected and had infused her with defiance ever since.

She was Ilentia, and she did not care at all for Guena, for what Guena had thought and what Guena had done – she was as uninteresting and dull as any other nameless human was – as it was in the past and was was irrelevant to her current situation, but knowing what Guena knew now that she had smashed past the barriers in her head which had prevented her from accessing the memories even though they currently seemed like past events which had happened to someone else (which was in essence the truth of the situation) gave her more power and allowed to be no longer distracted by the fragmented slivers of the past that had blurred behind her eyes in this place of the mind.

The rose twisted as it grew from the corpse of what it had once been, thorns bursting once more out of its skin and dripping with Ilentia's venomous hatred of those who would try to stop her, resplendent in its new darkness that was the spawn of her fear that she had embraced instead of believing that it didn't exist, her fear that she was now brutally murdering and slaughtering inside of her so that she would be free of that, just as she would be free of the demon's magic now.

Sight returned to the Summoner of Arrapackxia, the intensification of the dark magic which had blocked out everything else removed and replaced by the omnipresent and tainted gloom which had pervaded the Mind Realm of Ilentia ever since it had been inhabited by the greater demon that was now attempting to end her so that it could free itself from the Infernal Contract and feast upon her soul in an endeavour to quench some of its limitless hunger for the souls and flesh of mortals. She rose to her feet, the pain radiating through her as her own form of darkness pushed the demon's away and ripped it to shreds, her flaming pyromancy that Ilentia had been able to access ever since she had passed her first Summoning trial combined with her new gift of Black mana and swirling around her in alternate ribbons of midnight and burning crimson. This was not new, as she had utilised both Red and Black mana in the same instance before, but it was more powerful than ever and the fire inside of her had managed to reach the demon's realm.

However, instead of reacting incredulously to this new development and hesitating, or even waiting for its magic to finish with its Summoner, Arrapackxia had already leapt forwards, his leathery wings stretched wide as he sprang towards the Welkalite who had shakily risen back to a standing position, forcing her wounds to be repaired as she pushed back the pain. Ilentia looked up, and then cried out as the demon smashed into her, evidently having begun the attack the second the spawn of the abyss had cast the spell which had forced Ilentia to battle through it. One of his hands ripped a brutal wound in her side, the other crashing into her upper chest, fracturing bones and almost entirely crushing her larynx to shards of dust as the space between the demon's thumb and forefinger pressed into the woman's throat and slamming her into the wall, making her cough up blood as she tried to fight back.

Ilentia was grateful that she had managed to keep a hold of her sword throughout her ordeal in enduring the demon's magic, her fingers having tightened around the handle to the point where blood had been drawn from them pressing into the crude material of the blade's hilt with such force. She fulminated her power into the weapon, the shadows that twisted and solidified around it able to augment the brutal cleaver sword and turning the metal black and poisonous as she ripped it across the demon's arm, inflicting more incisions as they both blasted dark power at each other. Arrapackxia spat curses in words of a language so vile and depraved it made Ilentia's ears bleed to hear it, attempting to crush his Summoner's throat and be done with the whole combat but restrained by tendrils of darkness that wrapped around huge digits on a pale hand and pulling it away from her neck as she spat blood at it.

"You dare to defy me, you foolish mortal scum?! You dare to think that you can command me, that I will willingly submit to you and be your slave?!" the demon shrieked, all semblance of humanity gone from its voice as it howled into Ilentia's face in words that she shouldn't have been able to understand, words that could never be uttered by a mortal tongue. The fighting between them was close and savage, an onslaught of blows and crude, formless magical attacks directed against one another with no thought for their surroundings or their own safety as they rained down blows on one another. Ilentia's black blade carved a bloody rent in the demon's left hand, ripping off two of the being's fingers that would regenerate further, as Arrapackxia pulled her back from the wall and slammed her into it again, snapping bones and rupturing organs as Ilentia was viciously man-handled.

Tendrils of shadow from two different points of origin but borne from the same wellspring of hatred danced in a brutal embrace of wriggling blackness as they tore at one another. There was no elegance, not skill in battle involved, only brutality and strength and the willingness to do anything to force the opposition to submit. Arrapackxia's venomous claws rammed through Ilentia's stomach again and again, her own sword ripping a line of darkness across the greater demon's through that fountained black ink over her as it did so, the corrosive blood of the spawn of the shadows melting her clothes and skin as it dissolved them like digestive juices would.

It was pure, unadulterated violence, liberated from any forms of strategy or pathetic codes of honour that would slow down others from other nations, and Ilentia could well empathise with those from the savage Order of Violence that revelled in the utter bloodshed between them. However, in a battle of sheer power and physical strength, there could only be one victor between them both.

The demon's claws sliced across her face as her sword stuck in its chest, the Black mana surrounding the cleaver blade and augmenting its destructive force unable to penetrate through the unnaturally fused bones of the demon that were in a different place to how a human's skeleton would have formed, jarring her wrist painfully and the blade bounced off of the bones and stuck fast within the greater lord of the darkness's rapidly regenerating skin. The talons ripped into her eyes, hacking across the red irises and tearing them out of their sockets in an explosion of unnatural and contaminated black blood (although it was nowhere near as corrupt as the demon's), the sight of the dim and dingy cavern replaced by pure darkness, although Ilentia was not concerned.

She could still sense the malevolent presence of the demon right in front of her, one hand having ripped into her face and the other holding her off of the ground with savage clams rammed through her stomach; her senses were far more attuned to the Mind Realm then they could ever be to the physical world – and even then they were augmented heavily by her demonic gifts. She could hear the demon's movements even as she perceived them in her magical sense, smell the rancid corruption of Arrapackxia underneath the sickly sweetness of the aroma that did nothing to conceal the rotten core of taint, feel its hot breath one her shoulders as time seemed to slow down. Her body was a fiery inferno of agonising pain, her ruptured stomach and her brutalised eye sockets screaming at her, but that was nothing compared to the anger and the hatred that was flooding through her, filling her near broken body with dark strength.

"Yes," she replied, her words spoken with an otherworldly resonance as the demon's hand shot back across the air, claws that were suffused with midnight poison aiming to ram into her head and end Ilentia once and for all, and the shifting shadows that filled the room which had previously been under the greater demon's sway repeated that defiant statement in a multitude of different tones and timbres that all carried the same loathing and unstoppable fury within it.

Ilentia let go of her sword, grasping onto the scarlet and black rose that burned with flames of blood inside of her. The rose's thorns cut into her mind, ripping into her soul and making it bleed, ramming its spines into her psyche and exacting a toll on her body as she mentally concentrated upon it, feeding it with her blood and life so that it could grow within her, the spark, the _seed_, of hatred and defiance at the heart of the flower swelling with the life force that she was trading away for more power and its nectar the dark strength to allow her to channel energies that she had never been able to access before.

"I will defy you, demonic beast! I will command you, for you are mine to command, and I will force you to submit to me and do whatever tasks I give you!" she shouted, blind but still gazing at the demon as her hand shot up, wreathed in bloody fire and crimson darkness, grabbing hold of Arrapackxia's massive hand which was missing two fingers and holding it back from slamming into her head. The demon's monumental, inhuman strength strained against her own, but power was blossoming inside of Ilentia, stronger than she had ever experienced before, and she could feel the talons of its other hand twisting within her stomach, ripping upwards through her organs and scraping against the bottom rung of her ribs, grazing at her spine as he attempted to kill her as fast as possible. Ilentia was stronger, and she could feel the unnatural fear seeping off of her demon as she grabbed its other wrist in her second, crushing it with the power of her grip as dark and furious energies cascaded through her and bled out of her wounds. She wrenched it out of her stomach, the wounds already beginning to repair themselves as control of the Mind Realm began to shift from Arrapackxia towards her, sensing that she had more power than the greater demon and aiding her because of it to avoid her displeasure.

"What-" the demon didn't even get chance to finish its incredulous and loathing filled demand before a wave of Red and Black mana in the form of bloody, scarlet flames burst out of Ilentia, searing the flesh of Arrapackxia and forcing the demon back as it was forcibly shoved across the room. The beast pulled its leathery wings in front of itself to defend it from the release of power, ravenous darkness forming up in front of it and saturating the air with as much defensive Black mana as the creature could muster up. Ilentia fell to the ground, her feet splashing as they crashed into the blood pooled beneath them on the floor of the cavern, and she felt her wounds regenerating as she held the rose of power inside of her tight, caring not for the fact that it cut into her and drank her essence as it did so because it gave her more strength, strength that she could use to bring her greater demon in line.

Her wounds were regenerating as she stepped forwards, the sanguinary darkness that was swirling around her reknitting her flesh, weaving the strands of sinew and flesh together again as one eye formed, then another, allowing her to glare at the demon who was prowling around the edges of the room, insatiable tenebrosity that snapped hungrily at the air gathering around Ilentia's Summoning as it prepared to fight back against her. Her sword was still stuck in its chest, the wounds resealed around it, but she cared not for a weapon that did not exist.

With a scream of rage and hatred, the demon launched itself at her, a gigantic blast of pure, unadulterated hunger crashing out of its outstretched hands that would bring ruin and death to the woman it was targeted at. A cry of her own on her bloody lips that streamed with black gore from the exacting power that she was wielding, Ilentia responded with her own screaming pillar of bloody flames, an inferno of rage and hatred meeting the demon's in an explosion of dark magic that had the entire cavern shaking and the inky, viscera-esque liquid evaporating into blackened steam and ash as Ilentia poured more and more power into the attack.

The flames overcame Arrapackxia's gluttonous scourge, wreathing the demon and immolating him as he screamed in pain and hatred, ear splitting shrieking noises that made Ilentia feel vindicated inside bringing a sense of satisfaction to the whole endeavour as she stepped forwards, feeling more alive than she ever had done in the past and with every sensation rendered so base and atavistic as to be sublime to her enhanced senses even though she knew that this feeling of power and strength would only last as long as she fuelled it with life and she would rather like to keep that in reserve until she fought in the material world against any potential enemies there. When the scathingly bright yet caliginous flames that had covered the demon dissipated, returning their energy to their master, Ilentia beheld the blackened ruin of Arrapackxia again.

His wings had been incinerated completely, turned to dust that sloughed away from him, and although they would be able to regenerate as most wounds inflicted within this Mind Realm were superficial it was a testament to the amount of power Ilentia had been able to use that she had burnt off the symbols of her demon's ascension after feasting upon mortal flesh or essence, forcing it back into its weaker form. A sheen of ash covered the demon's skin as it breathed heavily, panting and snarling as Ilentia approached it without fear.

Arrapackxia hissed at her, a wounded animal in all but name, and made to leap at her, but Ilentia was quick to react by reaching into the power that her Infernal Contract with such a being gave her to conjure up the chains she had used to restrain the demon before – although instead of being formed purely from solid shadow as they had been in the past this time they were composed of claret darkness ringed with bloody flames which burnt at the demon's skin as they wrapped around it. Arrapackxia thrashed, screaming vile curses and unknown words in defiance as it pulled at the chains around its neck and shoulders and legs before more wrapped around its arms and yanked them to its side.

"It seems that you were all bark and no bite, weren't you Arrapackxia?" Ilentia asked, no mirth whatsoever in her voice, unable to resist taunting the demon as it alternated between snarling promises of pain and howling in pain as she tightened the grip of her burning chains, the repugnant smell of raw and roasting flesh oozing from the greater demon as it thrashed. She walked towards it, flames and dark energy still wrapped around her hands and an aura of defiance was exuded by her as the demon automatically tried to reach up and harm her to protect itself. Ilentia tightened the grip of her flaming restraints upon the blighted beast within her mind, forcing it back into the ground and pressing its chest into its legs so that Arrapackxia was bowed in a gesture of unwilling supplication, although hunched over it was still nearly as tall as her.

The smell of burnt flesh would have once given her pause, or alternatively would have once made her mouth water in anticipation of a meal at the height of Guena's power, but now it only made Ilentia feel slightly satisfied that she was causing her greater demon actual pain – as it would make Arrapackxia more obedient in the future. She stepped forwards, utterly confident that there was no way the demon would be able to harm her now that her power was forcing it into submission, and drew her sword from where it was stuck fast within the demon's flesh – the metal of the blade instantly becoming bloody and molten when she touched it as her power conducted into it, allowing it to easily slide out of where it had been trapped within the demon's renewed body.

"You will not defy me any longer. You will obey me, Arrapackxia, for as long as I live. Your servitude is my right, and nothing you can do will allow you to break free of it," Ilentia snarled, grabbing hold of one distended horn and dragging Arrapackxia's monstrous head up with her free hand that was suffused with power and forcing the demon to stare defiantly into her eyes. The demon smirked at her, although the visage of contempt belied a greater hatred within the Summoning, though it knew better than to spit on her. She switched her grip on her blade, pouring power into it as she rammed it straight into the demon's forehead, drawing blood as she did so with the greater demon's writhing held still by her fiery and bloody chains that repressed the motions.

When Ilentia pulled back the blade, the ancient Welkalite symbol for enslavement was branded onto the being's forehead – and it would not fade, not even when Ilentia died and Arrapackxia would be able to feast on her soul. It was a permanent mark, a grave insult to her demon, but also an expression of her dominance over the Summoning within her mind. It growled at her, malevolent pits of eyes filled with the desire to kill Ilentia, and she couldn't help but smile maliciously and vindictively back at the demon. She would pay for that when her life came to an end, but then she had already traded her soul's journey to whatever afterlife might have been waiting for it for power in this world and so it would have already ended up in the demon's spiteful clutches. The brand would allow her to assert her might over her demon whenever she wished – and although Arrapackxia was subservient for now, as she released her chains and allowed the demon to freely move (though he elected to stay bowed) it was unrealistic to think that it would not try to betray her in the future given the chance.

Ilentia didn't care. It was what she had expected, what she would have done in the same position, and for now and for the foreseeable future she had power over her greater demon. She sheathed her sword at the scabbard on her waist, turning around and preparing to leave, when the demon's voice pierced into her back, "Just what did that fool Tradax create when he made you?"  
Ilentia spun around angrily, preparing to question her resident demon on what it meant by that, before Arrapackxia's features twisted into a grin and it told her, "I wouldn't waste any more time here if I was you. There is danger in the material plane that I would preferably like to avoid, as I'm sure that you would too."

To any casual observer the demon would appear completely nonplussed by all that had happened, but to Ilentia it was obvious that he was suppressing his agony as well as his anger and rage that would be bubbling up inside of him so that he didn't give into the temptation to lash out and force his Summoner to respond to that.

Nodding, and not in the mood for questioning Arrapackxia on what he meant by these rather vague statements, Ilentia departed the Mind Realm, feeling the addictive rush of the power she had harnessed fading from her as she did so.


	44. Moonlit Ambush

**So, I finally managed to get this near unworkable chapter finished and done. I would explain all of my reasons for it taking over two months to complete, but honestly I don't have the time right now, nor the inclination to bore you with them. **

* * *

Ilentia's eyes snapped open from her sleepless slumber, the red orbs in her head instantly adjusting to viewing the world beyond the darkness of her eyelids, and she sat up in the tavern bed that she had been staying in. Ilentia had, whilst wearing her mask and ensuring that the lighting of the ceiling prevented the owner of the small business from seeing the colour of her eyes, paid for the room discreetly with money that she had stolen from a citizen of Kalaan that she had murdered and pillaged the corpse of.

In any other nation, the owner of the tavern made for visitors of the eastern city might have refused her commerce and insisted that she show her face before allowing her to purchase a room with the limited funds that she had acquired, but within Welkas unless the order of things would change with the swift dissolution of the Orders of Passion only the money mattered to the owners of the businesses within the New Empire of Passion (if the name was to be kept when the official ending of the Orders synonymous with it occurred), not the identity of their customers.

That had allowed her to get away with renting the dingy room out with the money she had obtained without any of those within the dilapidated reception of the hotel recognising her – as Ilentia had been a very influential figure in the Orders of Passion due to her role as the Master of Gluttony, and her success at crushing the resistance to the Orders of Passion within Usnaan and Iesaan had been highly publicised and spoken of throughout the Empire, although the news that was proclaimed loudly by the representations of the Orders and the upper classes of the several cities and large towns within the mostly desert or steppe nation of Welkas was a largely propagandised and romanticised version showing her as a hero of freedom slaughtering those who would dare to challenge the sovereignty of the Orders of Passion and the values of unrestrained excess that they imposed upon the nation.

She sat up in the bed, tensing and releasing the muscles of her limbs so that the energy would get back into them; in order for her blood to begin to flow at an optimum rate again and to ensure that she would not cramp after the hours of inactivity as she fought her greater demon in her Mind Realm. Ilentia stood up out of the bed, adjusting the mask that she had ripped the colours and parts of the design off of to fully safeguard her identity against any that might have seen her with it on even if such a thing was quite far-fetched and there was more of a chance of people recognising her from her distinctive defiant red eyes than the mask she had worn at formal occasions when attending the Archlord of Rapture's ridiculous parties – although at least if she did not allow anyone to catch a good glimpse of them she could be passed off as a simple pyromancer, as red eyes were common within such a breed of mages to match the fiery colour of mana that they wielded.

The fact that her own eyes were far more bloody and filled with dark power than any conventional pyromancer did not mean much if she moved quickly and efficiently throughout the city. Her gaze instantly flicked to the rotting wood of the door, noting that it was in the exact same position as before so no opportunistic individual had attempted to steal from her or kill her whilst she had been in the vulnerable position of bringing her resident Summoning back under control once again, and although she had not expected that the dubious nature of the tavern she had especially chosen so that she could keep out of the central city and the higher regions of Kalaan that she had descended from made her want to have precautionary methods in place – as she did not trust the faulty lock of the door which hadn't caught at all when she tried it.

Ilentia undid the crude enchantments that she had woven into the door, a the sigil of a seal of inhibited fire that would have detonated in a blisteringly hot inferno, incinerating all within a five metre radius had anyone touched the door to her dismal room, faded, the mana imbued into it returning to her in a flash of crimson, although for a moment Ilentia was tempted to leave it upon the door so that the next person to have the room would instantly be enveloped in a rush of flames.

No, that was completely ridiculous – as there was no use in leaving tracks for others to follow when she wished to remain as inconspicuous as possible until she had decided upon where to go next.

Besides, she had anticipated correctly that none of the other rather unsavoury (although who was she to judge?) customers of the lodge at the south of the city had wanted anything to do with her, as despite the fact that she had given away nothing of her personal identity or the position that she had held before the defence of Usnaan had been splintered by the hammer of the Lucaelian legions and the dark benefactors of Tradax had been slain by the incandescent angels of the Kingdom of Light, the Tempest of Craving rent out of the sky by a blast of combined radiance and Black mana that must have come from the youngest scion of the Lucerna family that Ilentia hadn't seen within the battle (to be more precise she hadn't laid eyes upon any of the hated royal family of their enemies) she had made the fact that she was a warrior abundantly clear by keeping her swords and their scabbards in full view from where they were strapped to her belt underneath drab and dull robes she had "liberated" from another citizen of Kalaan.

Knowing that there was no way of telling the precise time within the room that she had temporarily purchased from her prior inspection of it which had allowed her to ensure it was as safe as she was going to get before her inevitable confrontation with Arrapackxia could begin, Ilentia walked towards the window, the tattered curtain unable to fully conceal the broken glass behind it that blew in the cool wind of an otherwise humid and hot day. It had been late midday when she had entered the tavern, the sun still relatively high in the sky even though it was blocked out by some of the taller buildings that rose up from the centre of the large city (though even huge Kalaan was nothing compared to the sprawling, immense expanse that was Usnaan), but when she drew open the stained cloth that masqueraded as a makeshift curtain she was bathed in orange light from the setting sun.

It had taken her longer than expected to subdue her greater demon Summoning, in spite of the fact she was fully aware that time worked differently within the Mind Realm to the natural progression of it in reality when one was not intoxicated by narcotics, stimulants or hallucinogenics or filled with adrenaline and that sometimes in her previous life as Guena she had spent only minutes within the territory of her psyche which had felt like days in the lair of the cyclops which had been sacrificed for Arrapackxia's blighted blessing. Ilentia turned, closing the battered curtain which was blemished by some questionable substances (much like the thin mattress and quilt of the bed she had sat in for her venture within herself was also) and quickly making sure that she still had everything that she had entered the room with.

Satisfied, she exited the darkened room that she had only stayed in for a few hours – as Ilentia had only purchased it for one night to conserve funds – and entered an equally drab corridor that she quickly crossed, descending the half rotted staircase and elegantly shifting past a gruff looking man who was ascending at the same time, her sinuous and predatory movements indicating that she was a warrior to all who knew those things and ensuring that none of them would attempt to hinder her or get in her way. Of course, she would reduce the amount that she did it significantly when she entered the outer city, as while Ilentia still intended to give off the impression that she could easily protect herself the movements of an expert warrior could bring more attention than ward it off.

Flashing a short glance at the owner of the tavern, her laconic nature asserting itself as she decided to speak no words, Ilentia exited the run down reception and slid into the alleyway that she had chosen at random to walk down, trusting her instincts to lead her to somewhere to stay so that she had been able to confront the growing itch inside of her head which had abated now that Arrapackxia was back under her control. The demon's final words to her played over in her mind, and as she traversed the tight space between ramshackle buildings on the outer edges of the centre of the large city she examined every opening and scrutinised every shaded individual that passed by her, analysing them in order to make sure that they were not the danger that the Summoning which had been bound to her had warned her about.

Although it was entirely possible that Arrapackxia had simply lied to her to fuel the fires of paranoia within her, Ilentia knew just from the way that her greater demon had uttered the words with a mixture of begrudging subservience (it would never get anywhere near respect and Ilentia did not care about that at all) and sadistic glee in her predicament that it had been telling the truth and had revelled in that fact. She crossed the alleyways, half intending to stay within the shadows so that the danger that her demon had spoken of could not find her, but a niggling formication at the back of her mind altered her that whatever was coming would not be dissuaded by hiding away in the dark corners of Kalaan. Instead, even though it was far more dangerous, she would go into the light and near the centre of the large city, as not only would she be able to get to know more of her bearings there and potentially scout out the source of the notification her personal demon had given her, it was the main place where she would be able to appropriate a means of leaving the city even though she intended to avoid whatever limited public transport still remained after the uproar of the war and the turmoil the New Empire of Passion had been subjected to the past few days.

Being in the far east of the Empire, the influence of the Orders of Passion which had originally been quite strong within the eastern city had waned as the war with the Kingdom of Light intensified and resources had been gradually drawn from the east to support the west and the borders with a sanctimoniously angry Lucael to help both stem and channel the ire of the angel-worshipping nation.

However, even as the Resistance within the city had slowly yet exponentially grew as more and more became dissatisfied with the Orders of Passion and their stranglehold upon the Empire that had been named after them (as it had simply been called the New Empire of Welkas by the Protector Jarred Redhand after the liberation of Welkas) and the slaying of the deliciously ironically named Last Tyrant and more and more people secretly pledged their allegiance to clandestine cells of the Ja'an Guard, promising their aid to the Resistance if the time came that there would be another uprising against those who had taken power for themselves, Kalaan was the centre of commerce in the east of the Empire and as such was had been relatively highly fortified when compared to other cities and large fortresses in the area that had been stripped of soldiers and defences in order to protect and reinforce Usnaan so that the invasive force from the kingdom to the west could be rebuffed and that victory capitalised upon.

Tradax had banked all of his resources and power in securing a victory within the City of Pleasure, and now it was showing in the way that the New Empire of Passion and the hierarchies of power synonymous with it were collapsing in on themselves, falling to the pressure from below and crumbling now that there was no centre of power and gravity bringing them together.

Ilentia knew that her former master wouldn't particularly care, especially now that he was dead, and assumed that he had abandoned an entire half of the Welkalite territories for any prospective invaders to claim as their own (although none had as the east of the nation shared borders with the usually peaceful Yentarian Republic which had declined to utilise the opportunity presented to them by the late Archlord of Rapture to conquer more territory and expand their Republic and other "nations" too small and pitiful to even mention or be considered powers of the known world) because all of his personal strategies to obtain more power and influence and to increase the number of those that were in thrall to him had been hinged upon slaying the Lucaelian invaders, their precious Lucerna family and using that to attack the heavily weakened Kingdom of Light so that he could enter the infamous darkness of that nation and interact more closely with his demonic patrons.

Ilentia did not know for certain, nor did she pay any heed to what the plans of her now dead commander had been, but it was clear for all to see that such a gambit had not paid off and the shattered remnants of the Orders of Passion were paying for it now as they were ripped to shreds by the voracious desires of a people that demanded more and would go to great lengths to get it.

Ilentia did not think badly of them for it at all; she would do the same if she was in a similar position to civilians who had been oppressed by an autocratic lineage of pure bred tyrants and then exploited and hegemonized by those who had succeeded them after many promises of freedom for all, but it made it incredibly dangerous for herself as she was a part of the old ruling class that had been almost fully destroyed by the war with enemies that they had not been able to slaughter or even emerge triumphant against once, and now that the Orders of Passion were no longer in a position of any meaningful power as those last dregs of the once empire-spanning dominance were in the process of being torn down by those tired of ceaseless exploitation and greed being the Master of Gluttony meant that there was a price upon her head that many would be willing to risk their lives to acquire – which was why it was necessary to keep incognito.

Two days ago, when the battle of Usnaan had been lost against the implacable and incandescent war machine of the Kingdom of Light, Ilentia had been transported to a dark room within the underground chambers of a mansion in the nexus of pleasure and debauchery within Kalaan by the device that Eras Stormwind had given her at the dawn of that fateful day. Ilentia had waited for just more than an hour, content to bide her time and rejuvenate some of her power that had been expended due to the battle as well as quell the frustrated roars of the demon inside of her mind as it howled in frustration and tainted rage at her escape so loudly the noises had echoed inside of her skill and almost brought her to her knees, but the Master of Wealth had never arrived.

This had led to her to the conclusion that Eras was dead, something that she did not have much of an opinion on as while she had found the boy completely insufferable to the point where she had often contemplated ripping his throat out the nineteen year old had clearly had a plan for securing his power within the Empire and using the failure of the armies at Usnaan in stopping the Lucaelian advance (which, barring a few assaults of the fortresses and towns relatively close to the City of Pleasure, had stopped as presumably a deal was being negotiated between the Lucaelians and the leaders of the Ja'an Guard) to further his own ends, and Ilentia would have been intrigued to see what part she would have had to play in that scheme and what benefits she might have been able to reap from it.

However, she couldn't say that she felt sympathetic for the youth in the slightest, and had resolved to continue on her way without him or his machinations that meant nothing to her, deciding to find somewhere suitable to stay to both avoid the uproar of the battle for the capital of the empire and to tackle the menace of the demon within her, which is what had led her to the tavern on the outskirts of the central region of the city after she had progressed through the streets of it and laid low through the violence which had swept Kalaan up as the Resistance struck against the last remaining strongholds of the Orders of Passion (predominantly the Order of Wealth as the eastern city was a centre of commerce and a bastion lead by a governor from that avaricious fellowship which had lost its Master within the bloodshed in the titanic capital city, although of course portions from all four orders had been present in large numbers).

Unlike in other, weaker cities that had been overrun by the Resistance when the forces had been drained from the east (such as the city of Ja'an itself which was the main force of the rebellion against the dictatorial Orders of Passion and had declared its independence and subsequent secession from the New Empire of Passion barely days after war had been declared by the Kingdom of Light and before any Lucaelian armies had even entered Welkas, led by the venerable but apparently charismatic Lady Ullfaer who had fought in Redhand's revolution), the ruler of Kalaan, a greedy and imperious woman by the name of Carlyia Bloodfang (so named for her obsession with drinking blood in a variety of different forms) who had overseen the entirety of the eastern Empire, had kept a tight hold upon her main territory in lieu of spreading out her forces in an attempt to reinforce those leaders of cities rife with civil war, ensuring that Kalaan stayed loyal to the Orders of Passion whilst all around it was swept up in a sea of dissension and revolution.

Bloodfang was a brutal tyrant of a governor who had ensured that the slaves within the city had kept up their quota of production for weaponry, armour and food for the armies up to standard by savagely and painfully executing all that did not comply with her exacting standards; the displays made out of those who had failed to please the Marshal of the East had still been fresh and rotting all across the city when Ilentia had first arrived and many had yet to be taken down by the new order which had overthrown the last remnants of the New Empire of Passion present in this stronghold of the east.

She had made sure that her elite cadre of personal Enforcers had constantly purged as many as possible obvious and visible signs of dissent, attempting to systematically eliminate all those that would attempt to overthrow her grip of power upon Kalaan, but it was impossible to utterly eradicate all traces of strife and deep-rooted resentment of tyrants from the eastern city with the limited forces that she had at her disposal.

Ilentia had never seen the woman before, but she had heard of Bloodfang's exploits from some of those in her own now obliterated Order of Gluttony and had listened to Tradax talking about her before – as apparently Carlyia was distantly related to the late Archlord of Rapture, a factor which had not aided in securing her power whatsoever as Ilentia's former commander had no knowledge of this before she wrestled control of Kalaan from the former Marshal of the East, capitalising on the sudden ascension of Tradax Yulica, Ershun Firefist and Arendus Draal to gain a position of influence in her own sectors of the Empire by slaying the one who had inhabited the role before her.

However, because she had not been a Master of Passion and simply a military leader and region governor Bloodfang had not been given the opportunity to trade in her Summoning of a flaming phoenix for a greater demon and therefore access Black mana as well as her natural Red magic, which had most likely been the fault of Tradax's paranoia over being betrayed and turned against by his generals and the other high ranking figures of the New Empire of Passion (just as he had back stabbed his own former master to gain his power, so to was he afraid of others doing the same to him – and rightly so), making her less powerful than she potentially could have been and clearly stating that she was worth less to the man who was in charge of Welkas than those who lead the Orders of Passion like himself.

Ilentia had slowly traversed the city, sharply aware just from the feeling of tension and barely repressed violence throughout Kalaan that the eastern city would soon explode into brutality between those who supported the Orders of Passion and those who either intended to back up the Resistance or simply rebel against the old hierarchies without choosing the side of the Ja'an Guard.

Ilentia had at first wondered whether or not she should announce her presence to Bloodfang by travelling to the central municipal building that also functioned as the Marshal's personal palace, the decadent temple to carnality that was built upon its own small island in the centre of a boiling lake at the heart of the eastern city.

She could have asserted her dominance over the city (whether or not Carlyia would have acquiesced to that without physical force being required was debatable) as one of the four main Masters of Passion and declared that there would be a new mustering in the east to reclaim the empire from the rebels that swarmed like desert vultures did to the carrion corpses of those who set out into the sand swept steppes, proclaiming herself as the new de facto leader of the empire, but Ilentia had no desire for sovereignty over Welkas nor any particular want to insert herself into the power vacuum that had been ripped open at the top of the chain of command by the annihilation of the New Empire of Passion's leader.

Instead Ilentia had chosen to watch and wait, deal with her own personal problems and conceal herself and her whereabouts away from prying eyes to avoid making herself even more of a target in the mind of the Resistance leaders – as, unless the Lucaelians who had personally fought her had spoken with the envoys which must have been sent from the Ja'an Guard to negotiate the surrender of Welkas with them or told those who had that the Master of Gluttony had escaped the city alive, no one else in the nation would know anything as to her fate, meaning that it was generally assumed that she had died within the near destroyed City of Pleasure, which was exactly how she wanted to keep it.

There had been numerous news reports flitting in of the Empire being overwhelmed by forces of the exponentially growing Resistance which had taken this chance to finally rid themselves of the tyrannical Orders of Passion, but those who attempted to actively spread the information and make the knowledge that was much more tangible than the rumours of others who had entered the city after fleeing from from the revolting territories of the collapsing Empire more widely known had been swiftly and mercilessly culled. Carlyia had imposed strict borders upon her city, locking it up and going into a state of martial law and preventing as many from entering or leaving Kalaan as possible, spreading her Enforcers around the borders of the city and trying to keep her tight control of it that had been slipping away every second that no more reinforcements came from the wider nation which was dealing with its own problems.

It was a desperate tactic, Ilentia had sensed that even whilst not paying overt attention to the state of the city so long as it did not affect her, as the Marshal of the East had wanted to conserve as much power as possible and retain her seat of influence within a kingdom which no longer existed. Because of that, and the lack of safe places for a despotic ruler such as herself now that the Orders of Passion and their lackeys were fully exposed to the vengeance of those that they had exploited and oppressed for years of destructive and hedonistic revelry, Carlyia had not fled and abandoned the city as others had their own (a group which included Ilentia), instead fortifying her palace and the city surrounding it in an ultimately fruitless endeavour to try and weather the incoming storm of long awaited retribution.

However, in her attempts to close off the gates of the city which had left hundreds of refugees who simply wanted to be away from the violence and had flocked to one of the last remaining bastions of order within the New Empire of Passion stranded outside and without any food or water, Bloodfang had spread her Enforcers too thin. The day prior to this one, a force of warriors from the Ja'an Guard and the full Resistance had attacked the city at the same time as the cells of revolutionaries which had gone into deep concealment within the bowels of the eastern city rise up from underneath it and attacked the Enforcers from behind. The refugees, and those who had tired of the Orders' debauched reign already in Kalaan, had added the weight of their bodies to the attack, and the streets had ran red with human blood which still stained it now as Ilentia walked through them – although the amount of gore shed within the walls of Kalaan was nothing in comparison to the viscera which had drenched the City of Pleasure because of the carnal Tempest of Craving.

The fighting had been bloody and close, and from what Ilentia had seen as she made pains to avoid it and killed all those who came too close to her without revealing her presence in the city Carlyia's tactics had been effective in murdering many hundreds of Kalaan's besiegers, but the Enforcers simply did not have the numbers to ever prevail against the crushing amount of those who wanted Bloodfang removed from power. The battle had been a clash between the citizens of the New Empire of Passion who ached for freedom from the lashes, yokes and sybaritic dominion of their oppressors and the cornered rats of the Enforcers and remnants of the Orders of Passion who knew that there would be no forgiveness from an Empire now baying for their blood to be shed in the name of justice and liberty.

In a way, it was oddly and incredibly reminiscent of what Ilentia had heard of the fighting which had swept through the old Empire in Jarred Redhand's revolution (as she had still been an infantile toddler at the time), even though it was at a much smaller scale and instead of the Ja'an Guard (or the Resistance, however one wanted to call it – it was irrelevant to Ilentia) battling against the full might of the advanced and disciplined military of the royal family they were battling against those who had aided them in the fight against the dictatorial emperor of the past and the descendent of those revolutionaries who had become gluttons for the pleasure and the promise of dark ecstasy which had been denied to them by the inbred sovereigns of the Empire of Welkas – and it was on a much smaller (but still vast) scale as the capital of Usnaan had already been near annihilated by the Kingdom of Light which had not played any part in the previous and purely civil war.

If the Lucaelian legions had been the earthquake which had ripped through the New Empire of Passion and reduced all of its edifices to carnality and deprivation to dust, the defiance of the Ja'an Guard who still adhered to Redhand's utopian tenets of equality and freedom for all and the Resistance of the wider Welkas which had swept up around them was the aftershocks killing those who had survived that first monumental disaster.

In Ilentia's mind the Resistance did not deserve any credit for what had happened to the Orders of Passion, and that the Lucaelian legions should have pushed further into the Empire and claimed it for themselves instead of letting it remain after simply obliterating the vast majority of Welkas's armies at Usnaan, but then she did not know the motives of the self-righteous warriors from the Kingdom of Light nor what their sanctimonious royal family of Lucernas would have them do, and she assumed that merely reaping revenge for the abduction of their precious young princes (who should never have been allowed to escape in the first place, something that would have undoubtedly led to the victory of Welkas and the completion of Tradax's schemes when one considered who had slain the godlike demon that the Archlord of Rapture had died Summoning), avenging the deaths and enslavement of those who had been claimed in the Empire's perpetual raids into the darkness of Lucael and thus preventing further banditry and lastly removing the foothold the demonic enemies of the Lucaelian angels that they worshipped as gods was enough for the Kingdom of Light and the Lucaelians had no interest in their desert territories (though the west of the New Empire of Passion was composed of more dusty steppes and rocky mountains than the seas of sand and arid savannahs in the east).

Carlyia, in lieu of joining the fighting and leading from the front, had remained within her own personal residence which was highly fortified against attack and at the centre of the steaming oasis within the dry wilderness on which Kalaan had been built, with the Enforcers that had fled to there rallying around her elite troops as the rest of the city was overcome around them. Despite herself and her desire for caution and to remain unseen, Ilentia hadn't been able to resist the temptation to watch the battle unfold, so had observed the final moments outside of the opulent palace from a distance, though even with her vantage point she had not been able to view what had happened inside of it.

Bloodfang had originally tried to close off the entrances to her palace, forcing her warriors to raise the drawbridges to her own personal paradise of pleasure, but the weight of fleeing troops had prevented her from doing so and she had evidently decided against her first tactic of cutting those Enforcers who had been routed by the attacks in wider Kalaan when they tried to enter her final defence and instead chosen to welcome them in until the Resistance chose to attack – as brokering a surrender would have been impossible and only would have ended in her death or imprisonment, and she was too psychotic and prideful from what Ilentia had heard and seen from the way her Enforcers were positioned throughout the city to even consider it.

Had this battle taken place elsewhere in the world, either side could have burnt the bridges over the boiling lake around the Marshal's citadel – as the Resistance could have had the opportunity to consolidate their forces around it before finding a way to attack the palace without using the bridges (as with the amount of verdant growth within the gardens of the fortress and the vast supply of water meant that those who had stayed within it would not run out of sustenance unless either of those assets were destroyed, and if such a thing happened it was very likely that there was no way they could prevail in any case) or the Enforcers could have stopped them from entering for a prolonged amount of time until their own retreat could somehow be facilitated – but the fact that Kalaan was within Welkas, an Empire which had been founded upon Red mana and was filled with the most pyromancers than in any other part of the world, such vital pieces of equipment were enchanted with ancient protective wards which had been put in place by one of the old emperors who had utilised the palace as a traditional holiday home, and as such were near immune to fire.

Yes, they could have been incinerated after great expenditure of mana, as there was nothing that could stop the magic of fire in its most powerful forms, but such a thing was unnecessary when the citadel could be simply attacked from the front instead. Almost the same amount of the revolutionaries died in that final push into the heart of Bloodfang's dominion as had been claimed throughout the entire city, and only the copious amounts of Red mana that were released burning bodies and enemies to ashes prevented the drawbridges clogging up with bloody corpses, but eventually, with no small amount of sacrifice, the force from the outside managed to make a breach into the palace and swarm into it.

According to the boasts of the Resistance, the last confrontation had taken place within the large domed centre of the medium sized citadel, between Carlyia, her most elite praetorians and the ones at the forefront of the Ja'an Guard. Bloodfang, as befitting of her name, had reaped a significant tally amongst those who had tried to take her down, her phoenix's ability to be easily re-Summoned in a blast of scorching immolation proving to be pivotal in slaying many of her foes, but eventually she had been beaten and killed by a Welkalite who was only fifteen years of age when he had burnt her to smouldering ashes with his fire cat, solidifying the victory of the Resistance and making himself a hero in the eyes of the public for ending the Scourge of the East as she was now being called.

It was a new dawn for the Empire of Welkas, as while it was weaker than it had ever been – even when one considered the tumultuous aftermath of the Revolution orchestrated by Jarred Redhand had decimated the nation's defences and embroiled the civilisation in civil war, as the damage that the Kingdom of Light had done eclipsed that – the fact that an Empire might now be founded upon values of passion and individuality without obscene pleasure-seeking and depravity meant that it could end with much more strength than it had ever possessed. However, Ilentia was far more inclined to think that the nation would disintegrate without a strong leader or set of sovereigns, that the disparate and defiantly rebellious Welkalites needed to be kept in line by the grip of a powerful and merciless commander who did not tolerate dissent, and that bereft of that the Empire would cease to be one and would become more of a collective of different cities loosely connected to one another, that different sections of the Empire would split off from the main body of the nation and attempt to create their own status quo by rebelling.

There was a large space at the top of the Empire for a new leader to arise and bend the Welkalite people to their will once more, just as the Orders of Passion had done after the murder of Jarred Redhand's family and the Protector's sudden retreat into hiding and unreachability, and only time would tell if this revolution in the wake of the Lucaelian attack on Usnaan and the small territories blocking them off from it would serve to change Welkas significantly for the better of the general public like the first one should have or if it would simply open up the figurative throne for another to take the place of the tyrant holding the nation in line and brandishing their new Empire as a weapon to further their own goals.

Ilentia did not particularly care either way, even if some deep rooted part of her insisted that she should and that the fate of her nation should have been important in some manner to her, and as he walked through the streets of Kalaan she took a rare moment to ponder what Welkas was and what would happen to it now that the Orders of Passion had been fully destroyed.

After the defeat of the Enforcers within Kalaan, the army of Ja'an Guard and other revolutionaries had mostly left, though some almost negligible portions had remained to ensure that the city was kept safe from any potential assaults and to fully consolidate their victory here to tear down the idols and respective pleasure dens of the four different Orders of Passion and establish new buildings in their place (though that had not begun quite yet as far as Ilentia, who did not have access to the theoretical plans of the new rulers), ones that still venerated passion and individuality but not unrestrained excess, departing to presumably meet with the Lucaelian dignitaries and warrior still within Usnaan to negotiate the terms of the Empire's surrender – as despite how bloodied the army of the angel worshippers had been, with tens of thousands of casualties wreaked amongst them by the psychotic and bloodthirsty Welkalite forces and their unholy and carnage driven patrons, there was no way that with the armies that they had the Ja'an Guard would be able to continue the war against the might of the Lucaelian legions.

It was a simple logistical fact that negotiations were the only way forwards for the new leaders of the broken New Empire of Passion which had only lasted just more than two decades before being toppled once again, just like its predecessor which had remained for thousands of years before then due to the iron clad heel of the dragon wielding lineage of autocrats keeping their subjects under control, and now all that remained to be seen was what sort of deal – if any – would be brokered between the Lucaelian forces and the Resistance now that it would be interacting with them – although Ilentia knew that it had been the Resistance within Usnaan that had helped the young scions of the Lucerna family escape from the City of Pleasure and Tradax's clutches in the first place so they must have had some contact with the Kingdom of Light before.

Ilentia was still extremely alert and wary, the demon's proclamation that she was in danger ever echoing over and over again in her mind as she slipped through the shaded streets and alleyways of the section of Kalaan which she had stayed within when confronting Arrapackxia and forcing him under her dominion once more. She stepped out of a darkened passageway which had been free of all signs of life onto a long avenue that was central to the eastern city and bathed in the last dregs of wan orange light from the baleful sun setting in the horizon and sparing the land from more heat.

It was cool, the breezes of air that wafted over the very few areas of skin that Ilentia had left bare (which amounted to her shaded face, because even leaving her hands uncovered would show that they were extremely pale, noticeably and unnaturally so compared to how tanned those who had lived underneath the oppressive light of this nation were) refreshingly chilling, reminding the woman that it was still technically winter within the regions of Magnus-Primae, not that there was much difference within the Welkalite days of burning heat apart from the temperature being not quite as sweltering as it was in the days of summer where those without skin used to the burning illumination of the red eye of the sky had to cover it to avoid being immolated by the sheer intensity of the heated glare of the malicious, angry star.

However, what Ilentia had remembered was an impressive processional befitting of Kalaan's wealth that it had accumulated as the centre of commerce within the east (matched only in splendour by Usnaan of the west, the older twin's position as the capital city and the birthplace of the first emperor who shared Ilentia's name meaning that it was matched in size and majesty by no other dwellings within Welkas) had been reduced to rubble. The street was a shattered ruin, lined by the skeletal shells of some buildings that had been gutted by the violence that had taken place within the city. Debris was piled high, and the dead still littered the ground despite the battle having ceased over a day ago, heaped in gutters clogged and at the base of crumbling walls, though there were already several individuals searching the corpses for either their loved ones or relatives or to loot them for money, something that was generally frowned upon within Welkas and those that did still have a sense of honour but happened nonetheless.

A near all pervading stench hung in the humid yet cool air, rancid and foul like rotting meat (which it what it was, in essence), only mitigated by the gentle breeze which occasionally blew it into Ilentia's nostrils and made the demon inside of her hungry to cause more death and to feast upon the blood of humans, writhing excitedly within her before Ilentia quelled it with a mental impulse deep within her. Despite the fact that the devastation of Kalaan was not notable at all when one placed it alongside the slaughter within Usnaan, the effects of savage warfare were plain to see – once lush tree lined boulevards had been incinerated by the amount of Red mana released indiscriminately by both sides in their attempts to emerge victorious, the plants that could grow in Kalaan due to its situation upon a large, paradisical oasis within the deserts of the eastern Empire reduced to scorched rubble by the violence, and the orange skies were still filled with blackened soot, the residue of the battle which had occurred in this place.

There were many more Enforcer corpses than those of the Resistance or the civilians who had been caught in the collateral crossfire (even though she was sure that many in the Ja'an Guard would have tried to avoid using their most destructive spells in areas of a high innocent population the forces of Bloodfang had had no such compunctions), but that in itself did not signify anything relevant to the amount of casualties on each side in this area of the city as and equal number of both had been slain.

The only reason that less bodies belonging to members of the rebellion lay on the ground for the desert vultures to pick at was because of the fact that they had few who would take them away, no loved ones to retrieve their corpses for a proper funeral and none who would be seen associating with them still within the aftermath of the New Empire of Passion's dissolution – as while many within the Resistance would profess to be part of a new order that put the good of the people first, that did not mean that the humans that composed the revolutionary armies would behave any differently to what they normally did and any who were observed searching for familiar faces amongst the Enforcer bodies (most of which had been stripped of their armour and weapons and lay face down in the dust and sand) would undoubtedly be persecuted by the victors of this conflict and would be putting themselves in danger.

Ilentia avoided eye contact with those who glanced in her direction, the mask which she wore that had been scraped free of all iconography and colour which would suggest that it belonged to a noble able to afford such fine dyes and exquisite carvings (at least in the words of the one who had had the mask fashioned for her, one of her former subjects within the Order of Gluttony which she had not been fit for leading at all, something she had begrudging acceded to as at the time she had not wanted to disobey Tradax's orders at all, even ones as minor as wearing a mask to his Address in the central Tower of Ecstasy which had been where Eras Stormwind would have met his end, assuming that he had remained within the place that he had stationed himself and his most loyal troops) concealing her face and preventing any humans, even those assassins well versed in the masks worn by the Welkalite nobles from identifying her.

The architecture of Kalaan was unique and markedly different from that of Usnaan, the city of Ilentia's birth and one that she had never left before the altercation which had led to her becoming the Master of Gluttony, as long ago it had been part of an eastern nation separate from the small kingdom that Welkas was an as such developed its own culture and style of building. It had been a medium sized empire from what Ilentia had once been told in the past as a young child back when she had more of a pleasure for spending time within the stories some of the older people had told her. However, not long after the full empire had been established by the first empress Kalaan had been besieged and conquered along with many other cities after a great war which spanned several years between both sides until the might of the dragon tyrant prevailed over the eastern leaders and their fiery efreets. Although that had taken place over a thousand years ago, some of the ancient architecture of that old culture could be perceived within the buildings of Kalaan.

Situated to the south of some portions of the Yentarian Republic and to the west of the large and viridescent jungles that were home to a few tribes of people that occasionally interacted with the Welkalites and were combined into a collective nation too small to register as one of the four major powers of the world (although if they had been located within the Deep Forest of the Erian Conclave Ilentia knew that they would have been considered part of that mysterious and secluded nation of forest dwellers, even though the woman did not know enough information about either to be able to ascertain whether or not their cultures were similar or not, or if the Kalasang Jungle was associated with the same tenets of Green mana as the much larger forest to the south west of the super-continent on which the four nations resided) which had occasionally attempted to raid the Welkalite residence with armies of beasts formed from Red and Green mana (with the courtesy returned by roving bands of Welkalite warriors striking with brutal retaliation into the known locations of settlements within the forest), Kalaan was a heavily fortified city that thrived upon the veins of rare but volatile minerals with mana augmenting properties present within the nearby Kalasang Jungle.

In addition to those deposits of crystal that could massively enhance the destructive capabilities of mages wielding them (although it also made their spells more dangerous, and reputedly Bloodfang had worn one as a necklace that would improve the power of her Red mana) the city often harvested trees from the nearby jungles which were not accessible anywhere else but the far west (and those from the Erian Conclave were harder to raid and obtain from because the forest dwellers were so protective of their nature reserves, with the territories of the Conclave also much more perilous due to the greater connection with Green mana and the many dangerous Unbound creatures that roamed freely within that realm in a much greater frequency than the Kalasang Jungle), allowing the construction of fortifications and the making of weapons across the New Empire of Passion and thus bringing in huge amounts of wealth to the opulent centre of the city and solidifying the position of the Order of Wealth and the city's own version of Usnaan's Augur's Quarter within Kalaan.

The city, being located upon an oasis within the desert lands, also had an easy supply of fresh water from the streams that ran through the whole settlement and the large river that bisected Kalaan and made it so that there was a huge lake in the centre of it where Carlyia's palace had once stood before it had been ravaged by the violence and was in the process of being converted into a new governing centre.

Ilentia strode through the streets, intending to locate some form of functioning transport so that she could leave the city and possibly even the New Empire of Passion in this time of great turmoil so that she could escape from still being a potential target and make her own path through the world. Even as she remained alert for any enemies that might cross her route and with all of her senses which were attuned to discerning the presence of enemies strained to their maximum output the woman still devoted some mind power to considering her potential options for travelling away from Kalaan and where she could be taken from the eastern city by what little transport would be available.

Ilentia was still unsure where she would be going, her severely lacklustre knowledge of other cultures and civilisations as well as general world geography heavily compounding such a decision – the extent of what she had been told by others and what little she had seen from herself from those who had entered the New Empire of Passion and belonged to other nationalities was that they did not thrive upon violence and fevered rage like the Welkalites themselves, meaning that there would be much more stagnation within their cultures and that their orders and hierarchies that govern their society would have been in place for a significantly longer length of time that the ones that had recently been torn down within Welkas.

Maybe Ilentia should stay within whatever the New Empire of Passion was about to metamorphose into, as despite the fact that the Orders of Passion synonymous with the aforementioned nation had been almost utterly destroyed (and certainly decimated enough to the point that they would have no more influence upon the Red mana based kingdom) the overall philosophies of the Empire would not change to a great degree, even if not as many individuals would be exploited by a tyrannical circle of rulers and they would not longer venerate carnal debauchery.

However, as the Master of Gluttony (irrespective of whether or not the role truly still existed) Ilentia was reviled across the nation and would be a target for those who either wished to exact vengeance for the lives she had ended within the Resistance or bounty hunters that wanted to claim a most likely quite substantial sum of money as a reward for hunting her down in she was ever sighted. Furthermore, the fact that Ilentia unfortunately had a quite a distinctive and recognisable appearance meant that if she was spotted or even glimpsed by anyone that knew the slightest bit about her she would be declared alive and a threat to the new order. That meant that she could not stay within Welkas without a significant disguise, and currently she was not in the mindset to want to be at a constant risk of discovery and assault from those who despised what she had represented in the past.

But with Welkas, the place that would have been the best for allowing her to remain within, somewhere that she could not stay, Ilentia was unfortunately forced into considering other options for her future as there was nothing much to be gained within Kalaan at the current moment and the barbaric but unrestrained civilisation she had been born within too dangerous to her at the present point in time, too close after the dissolution of the Orders of Passion for her not to become an immediate target if her presence was ever revealed.

Lucael was obviously off limits, as for one the mostly insular and xenophobic residents of the Kingdom of Light would never permit a total stranger entering within the borders of their darkened nation and secondly as soon as she revealed that she was in fact a Welkalite and had obvious signs of inner taint and corruption she would be targeted and captured by all those who reviled the demons of Sancturia (which was all of those who belonged to that nationality). Besides, even if Ilentia had been able to stride through the cities of Lucael with impunity she was unsure that she was even inclined to do so due to how dour and religious the place would indubitably be considering what she had seen of the stern and pale people so far, and the only possible reason that travelling there would appeal to her was to kill some of the self-righteous fools that wasted their lives in the service to a royal family enslaved by angels that managed to be even more sanctimonious than the insufferable Lucaelians themselves.

That left only Eria and Yentar open to the woman who had only recently held the title of Master of Gluttony, and neither of them seemed particularly enticing to her considering what little she knew of their societies. Firstly, whilst the former could have allowed her to enter into the Deep Forest and never been seen by another human again Ilentia wasn't exactly partial to the idea of walking head first into a place that she had never visited for and becoming the meal of a dangerous Unbound predator despite how tempting it was to attempt to bring the beasts under her command or to dominate one of the many tribes scattered throughout the domain of nature lovers.

Besides, in spite of the fact that she was certainly quite an adept fighter she had no idea whether or not she would be able to stand against the overpowering might of the fauna (or even the flora, as when Guena had been a child she and her younger brother Otio had been regaled with vividly brutal accounts of a raiding expedition into the Deep Forest that had gone horribly awry due to the presence and subsequent ambush of gigantic plant elementals which had crushed several of the story teller's comrades before they had even managed to attack the outlying tribe districts around Geansse by one of those who had taken them in off of the streets of Usnaan before being killed in the bloody revels which had swept across the New Empire of Passion) within the verdant realm, nor did she had much of an idea how to survive, what food would be available within Eria, what substances were poisonous or the location of anything within the vast jungle that no one knew the true size of.

Eliminating Eria off of her list meant that out of the four major nations, Yentar was the only one that was available for her to travel to, and though Ilentia had no inclination towards anything to do with researching, knowledge collecting or the pursuit of so called "enlightenment", but apart from that and the Yentarian Republic's general dislike of reckless and impulsive Red mana due to it being the antithesis of the logical and analytical Blue that they were based upon it would be perfectly fine for her to enter some of the cities until she could decide upon what she truly wanted to do with her newly free existence – a liberty that she had not been expecting and as such had not considered before (as Ilentia barely ever did planning, this introspection being an extreme rarity for her).

She assumed that the opinion towards demons in the Yentarian Republic would not be overtly negative (as Black mana was allied with Blue (though then again it was allied with Red as well and a rather large majority of Welkalites would consider the darkest beings of Sancturia to be monsters that did not deserve to enter the cities of the Empire)), as due to their scientific and inquisitive nature (or at least what she had seen so far of the Yentarians suggested that, though she had only a limited idea of the sub-factions known as Leagues within the Republic and how drastically their ideologies might differ from one another) they would not find the demon inside of her intensely repulsive, nor an abomination or a violation of the laws of nature.

Yes, Yentar seemed like the most likely option for her to select once she obtained the means to travel there.

Then a sudden thought pushed itself into Ilentia's mind as she randomly took a detour through another side alleyway to avoid the gazes of a few of the Ja'an Guard that had remained in Kalaan and had been patrolling the central avenue in order to aid with maintaining the order of the eastern city and so that as much of the inevitable violence between civilians could be prevented as was possible (for whatever reason that was done, as Ilentia personally thought that they should be left to kill one another because so long as it didn't affect the rebuilding process it would remove the amount of work that they needed to do in keeping the overall peace and securing the territory in the name of the Empire), unwilling even with her mask to allow them to spot her and feel in any way suspicious towards her.

Perhaps, although the Kingdom of Light itself was not a feasible option she instead could partake in a trip into the outer abyss that was reputedly the manifestation of hatred and Black mana itself (although that had some of the same problems as the Deep Forest in that she had no knowledge of the (most likely perpetually shifting) geography of such a mysterious race), as she already had a greater demon that was part of the Sancturia darkness which surrounded Lucael inside of her heart, she had already danced with damnation because of that Infernal Bargain that Ilentia had been forced into just after her dark resurrection and perhaps once she was there she would be able to dispose of Arrapackxia – or obtain an even greater power, as the nether realms were saturated with Black mana which cavorted to the twinned tunes of ambition and hatred and would aid her in her ultimately selfish quest for survival above all else.

It was a possibility, and quite an alluring one at that, but for now Ilentia resolved to escape the war torn New Empire of Passion so that the Resistance which was out for the blood of the Orders of Passion could not find her and have her executed (as, although she was a powerful and adept fighter and was aware that the Resistance didn't have too many extremely formidable mages to the same extent as the Orders of Passion had possessed (such as the Masters of the respective Orders and the generals and marshals of different armies that had powerful Summonings (whether or not they had traded their original ones away for demons in a wretched contract for more power at the cost of their souls and their "purity") - as otherwise they would have utilised more frontal tactics in combating the despotic regime of the rulers which had just been deposed instead of orchestrating clandestine operations all across the New Empire of Passion and relying upon the shining legions of Lucael to provide the military and magical power to achieve victory – Ilentia couldn't take on the entirety of the Ja'an Guard all by herself because there were far too many of them to resist).

To do that she first needed to secure passage to the north eastern city of Ja'an itself so that she could use the coastal ports of the place which had ironically been the least affected out of any of the Welkalite territories within the war which had swept through the nation and as such was the strongest area in post war Welkas, as although such an area would be infested with revolutionaries and those who supported them if she could stay concealed they would have no reason to suspect that a surviving Master from the Orders of Passion would enter into the nest of Resistance itself, most likely considered to be the most hazardous and illogical place for those who had been part of the newly destroyed hedonistic ruling class to flee to which made it all the more safer for her as if she stayed careful there was no rationale whatsoever for them to have suspicions about her presence.

Then once she was there she could utilise the water faring connections of the seaside city to travel to Yentar in the safest way possible (which was by boat, as though Welkas and the Republic were connected at numerous locations by land as well it was undoubtedly more dangerous to cross the deserts there which were home to numerous strange Unbound creatures of Blue and Red mana). To that end, she re entered the central processional in the middle of the city, her eyes darting over the figures that she wandered past through the slits in her mask, the predatory gaze scrutinising each one of them for clues as to whether or not they would be one of those with access to transport (such as the few Yentarian vehicles which had been adapted or stolen from the league of technology developers or those which were of Welkalite origin and had been developed separately by scientists belonging to the Empire which ran off of explosive Red mana combustion engines) as her red eyes slid over them, never lingering too long in order to avoid exposing them to her intense gaze and make them feel nervous.

Transportation was a luxury that few could afford within Welkas, the airships and sky barges that did exist exclusive to the rich and the influential, but now that the Orders of Passion no longer existed Ilentia knew that it was very likely not many but the most prominent figures within the Resistance would have access to aerial conveyance. That meant that Ilentia, unless she was in the mood for some violence against the newly instated governors of Kalaan (which would reveal her position without a shadow of a doubt), would have to find one of the automobiles belonging to those that that would be supplying the Resistance with long distance resources or the personal vehicles of the mercantile traders who had made a home within the centre of commerce within the east and were eager to exploit the new changes to find new revenue for their businesses.

Although they usually did not come without their guards (as otherwise they would be targeted often by those who wished to either escape the city or bring their criminal activities elsewhere), they would be much easier targets than the important officials within Kalaan and would allow her to remain inconspicuous. Ilentia spotted a glimmer of light from the right of her, her eyes instantly and automatically flicking to the source of faint illuminescence (as it suggested that it would be a metal weapon reflecting the light around it and due to her survival instinct the woman had instinctually glanced over at it to ascertain what threat it might represent) that would have blinded her in its glare if she had been only a centimetres behind where she was now stood, and a satisfied smile played onto her face underneath her no longer stylised masquerade as she identified it as the glint of automobile keys glittering in the fading orange glow of the sun which had been accidentally brandished by an individual who was on the other side of the street.

The person, a medium sized man wearing grubby overalls stained with soot and dirt from the cities suburban districts combined with the grime of the battlefield that Kalaan had become, took a turn to the right, walking down into a dark alleyway that was close to abandoned from what Ilentia had seen, obviously cursing his mistake of accidentally showing the fact that he had the ability to access a vehicle – as although the battered populace of Kalaan would be much less criminally inclined than before the deposition of their tyrant Carlyia Bloodfang and the revolution which had given them freedom from their oppressors there would still be many opportunistic individuals eager to obtain the ability to utilise a rare vehicle to either leave or gain them more money by selling it off to those who would use it for nefarious deeds.

At any rate, the man would, unfortunately for him, not get off so lucky and his mistake would not go unpunished. Under the cover of the shadows from a passing convoy of wagons pulled by huge and grunting wasteland krovods that were a form of domesticated Unbound creatures from the steppes and deserts of Welkas which obscured the wan light of the setting sun, Ilentia crossed the street, slipping between patches of darkness and the gaps between the caravans of resources taken from elsewhere in the Empire to stay hidden from any prying eyes which might have wondered as to her sudden alteration of direction.

She was grateful that events had conspired so that the convoy halted nearly the moment she had to cross the paved stones of the road in the centre of the wide avenue which had been cluttered with traffic of those pulling carts of food out of the city centre to be distributed amongst the public and those refugees who had been kept near starvation ever since their arrival when the Marshal of the East still retained her seat of dominance.

The man that she had been following who owned the keys slipped out of sight for a moment as he was concealed by the shadows of the side street he entered, and Ilentia glanced warily at the large (but not gargantuan like others of a similar species) krovod next to her that eyed her as she passed, its rasping tongue licking dry lips as it regarded her with the maximum amount of curiosity a dumb beast such as that could muster up. Drool ran down its haired chin as its large eyes covered with a film of moist skin that protected the fragile irises of the creature from the sand and dust of its natural habitat within Welkas as well as allowing them to retain their wet properties followed Ilentia's movements as she gracefully navigated the confined space between the end of one caravan and the head of the beast.

The woman who had once been at the head of the New Empire of Passion resolved to slow down and keep her movements more passive when she noted how panicked the krovod's eyes appeared, the pupils wide underneath the translucent layer that was coated with dust and sand due to the fact that it hadn't blinked ever since Ilentia had got close to it – evidently the creature that lived in both Sancturia and the world of humankind was able to detect that she had something unnatural inside of her, something that frightened the beast into a form of comical terror.

However, what would not be comical would be if her presence startled the omnivorous (barely any Welkalite creatures solely feasted on an exclusively herbivorous diet due to the scarcity of plants that could easily be consumed within the arid mesas of the eastern nation) transport creature enough so that it started reacting, possibly even causing a stampede as its fevered panic would spread to the others in its convoy chain around it. Whilst that would be a powerful distraction that she would have been tempted to employ in a different circumstance, Ilentia knew for certain that she definitely wanted to avoid such a thing when it would be her that was crushed to a pulp underneath the cloven hooves of the krovod.

It would increase the amount of time it would take for her to reach the one with the keys to an automobile which would allow her to efficiently traverse the mostly uninhabited areas between Kalaan and Ja'an, but it would also largely reduce the danger and mitigate any chance of her alarming the beast of the steppes so that was currently more important to the former Master of Gluttony.

Besides, in spite of the scarcity of vehicles within Kalaan that were not armoured or in use by the Resistance military troops (and consequently much more difficult to acquire, as although Ilentia was perfectly capable of taking on the warriors within Kalaan it would have the twofold result of firstly revealing her survival to all within Welkas and secondly alert the Resistance that one of their transportation devices had been stolen) it wasn't as if the unassuming man that she was following would be the only one to possess a means of transport in the eastern city Eras Stormwind's escape method had teleported her to.

Ilentia carefully made her way out of the space that she had happened upon, swiftly darting across the rest of the distance between her and the alleyway in which she had, ensuring that she stayed as nonchalant and as innocuous as possible as she passed through the areas that were within vision of other citizens of Kalaan, casually but still purposefully striding through them to show that she knew exactly where she was going and would not suffer fools that would try to halt her progress whilst simultaneously emphasising that her path was not urgent and she could take as much time as she wanted even though without any other civilians nearby Ilentia would have sprinted and leapt after the man with the keys to a vehicle which she would use to escape Kalaan.

The woman slipped into the alleyway shadowed by the overhang of stylised rooftops that was thankfully empty of any form of life apart from the man that she was following who had almost reached the other side. Ilentia pulled the grubby hood of her robe down over her drab mask when the man sent a darting glance backwards, fearful of being followed. The Welkalite born in Usnaan stayed to the side and hidden by the gloom that the last dregs of luminescence from the sun could not penetrate to, preventing the man – her target - from noticing her as she halted when he directed the frightened gaze in her general direction.

When he turned away and continued on his path to most likely the location of the mechanised transportation that was available to him, Ilentia kept moving, long and elegant strides carrying her swiftly and silently up behind him as she crossed the distance efficiently and at a much faster rate than he was fleeing (due to the fact that he was trying not to attract attention to himself in his movements, a futile gesture of resistance considering Ilentia was already onto his trail), a quiet predator stalking unsuspecting prey through the sand swept street, the grains of dust and desert sand serving to muffle Ilentia's already near silent footsteps.

Pre-emptively gripping hold of the handle of Malice locked within her left sheath, the enchanted blade's lust for blood and pain already seeping through its haft and notifying Ilentia of its sadistic impatience for causing the man tremendous amounts of suffering and longing to shed his viscera upon the street floor – though if everything went to plan then Malice would have to wait to satiate its craving for gore and agony as she only intended to dispose of him once she had entered Ja'an and would most likely be using her malevolent blade's destructive twin Fire for such a task in order to eradicate all trace of him and not leave a body for a potential investigation to occur (even though death within the cities of Welkas was hardly a rarity and as such his death once she got there would most probably not be inspected with any great detail if at all, especially if she could dump his body in the sea – but there was no use leaving a corpse at all if she could help it), as immolating a person tended to have such an outcome.

Quickly striding up behind him, Ilentia had enough time to analyse her target with the four out of her six of her senses so that she could be certain what she had been intending to do was the right course of action to take in order to detain him and force him to take her to his vehicle. He was the same height as the woman who had possessed the title of Master of Gluttony, built wiry like the vast majority of those born within the arid desert states of Welkas who did not have stable access to food and were not part of the gluttonous ruling classes who had been pampered by their parents' wealth (or wealth that they had obtained for themselves in Guena's case) and had never been forced to fight for their life until this point.

He was wearing a shabby brown tunic, and as Ilentia examined him from her position quite close behind him but still out of his sight she perceived brief flecks of Red mana within the person which would most likely give him the ability to drive the vehicle that he owned the access devices to. Ilentia's target did not seem like the typical owner of an automobile, much less an airship, though her sensitive nose picked up the acrid aroma of soot coming off of him which indicated that he could have been the official driver to a vehicle or a worker that piloted one of the ships that transported resources across the empire.

Or perhaps he was a thief that had stolen the unlocking mechanism for himself from its rightful owner and as such was planning to siphon off parts of the transport to others to earn money of use it to travel himself, as he certainly didn't appear much like a worker. However, what was certain was that his identity or role didn't matter so long as he could aid her in her escape from Kalaan and the territories of Welkas.

The Summoner of a greater demon had already mentally noted that he had a sheathed knife in a bare an unembellished leather scabbard at his waist that one of his hands was already primed next to, but Ilentia was certain that he would not have enough time to bring it to bear before she was upon him. Swift as a bolt of screaming crimson lightning arcing down in bloody parabolas from the roiling Tempest of Craving, Ilentia drew Malice, the blade aching to cause wounds and slice open fragile human skin, and reared up like a praying mantis behind the man.

Her bloodthirsty sabre slipped in front of him, the elegantly brutal and malicious edge instantly pressed to his throat and breaking the fabric of his clothing there, only a millimetre away from drawing blood. Understandably, the man instantly thrashed in panic, about to shout out and attract attention to himself for all that might be around and willing to help him, and to quell that Ilentia instantly broke the skin of his neck with her blade, the sharp edge of the master crafted scimitar made by passionate Welkalite artisans and artificers and imbued with the murderous power of Black mana, though she ensured that none of the vindictive and noxious poisons that usually coated Malice when she was in a battle and seeking to inflict as much damage as possible upon her foes were present this time as infecting the man with potent venom was exactly something she would prefer to avoid at the current moment.

With a sharp intake of breath, the man immediately stopped his resistance, his adrenaline fuelled mind realising through the fear that he would assuredly and painfully die if he opposed his current attack's goals at all. Scarlet rivulets of lifeblood ran down his throat and trickled down the wickedly curved edge of Malice which greedily lapped upon the vitae as Ilentia, inflecting her already intimidating voice with as much authority and menacing threat as possible, commanded, "Do not try to resist unless you want your throat slit, something that will happen much quicker if you continue to attempt to discreetly channel your mana or keep your hand on the hilt of your weapon."

Evidently trying to control his breathing which was close to hyperventilation, the nameless man tilted his head in a muted gesture of acquiescence, letting go of his blade's handle and raising both of his hands as well as suppressing his mana – though he had not been expecting such a sudden assault, the man was a Welkalite not born into a powerful and wealth family and as such had survival instincts honed by years of endeavouring to eke out a living in the cruel New Empire of Passion (and perhaps the Old Empire judging by his age of around thirty five) which had made him react quite quickly to the threat of the former Master of Gluttony.

The two had stopped, the fact that the street was empty going a long way towards Ilentia being able to do this and say what she wanted to him even though her voice barely rose above a hissing whisper as she snarled, "There are two ways that this can end. The first is that you take me to the vehicle that you currently have the keys for and then transport me across the deserts to the city of Ja'an. The second is that I kill you right now and leave your body to rot in the gutter (Ilentia didn't think that it was entirely relevant to start commenting that she would in fact incinerate the man's body to ashes scattered by the winds so that it could not be located). Neither of these options appeals to me more than another so it is entirely your choice as to whether or not you survive here."  
The man gulped nervously, though he did so in a reserved manner in order to avoid having his throat being cut into more by the blade already extremely close to it, and Ilentia could smell the stench of fear upon him that her sword also picked up upon, though unlike other things that she was supposed to have control over (such as Arrapackxia, though now she had forced the demon into subservience and was certain that he would not be able to disobey her further) Malice, being nothing more than a blade with the barest hint of atavistic and base sentience and nothing close to intellect or conventional awareness, could not do anything without the accord of its master. Even so, it still oozed hunger, and Ilentia was sure that if the wielder of the sadistic scimitar was weaker than her that the blade would have buried itself fully in her current victim's throat.

"I … I can take you to the automobile o-on the w-western side of the ci-city," the man stuttered, his words blending together in his fear for his life, as now that the brief surge of adrenaline which had coursed through his circulatory system had dissipated it seemed that he had truly realised just from Ilentia's harsh timbre of voice and the purposeful resonance to her words that it would really be no trouble at all for her to end his existence and carry on with whatever she was intending to do once she had a method of vehicular movement to take her to the birthplace of Jarred Redhand which had been one of the strongholds of the Old Empire before the now ironically named Protector had unseated the generals of Ja'an from their throne of power and rose up against the city's oppressors in the first major of the revolution which had established him and his followers as a very real threat to the dominance of the even more ironically named Last Tyrant (though back then the young man had not been known as that).

"Good. And if you try anything, and I mean _anything,_ that I so much as perceive as being defiant or attempting to call for help from the Resistance present within this city then I will not hesitate to deliver a swift yet agonising death for you. I will not tolerate _any_ form of insolence," Ilentia growled threateningly, and although the man had not been able to look at her yet it seemed that perhaps he was beginning to register who she truly was from the tint of her voice (as Ilentia had been forced to speak in a proclamation that had been broadcast across the New Empire of Passion proceeding when she had systematically rooted out and exterminated the verminous cells of revolutionaries within Iesaan, declaring that all others from this so called "Resistance would suffer the same fate" - something that she would not have done naturally but was a useful horror tactic).

That was just another reason for her to eventually eliminate him once his usefulness had come to an end, but for now she needed him alive to get her to the transportation that he had the ability to utilise.

Nonetheless, her target evidently had enough presence of mind not to inquire about her identity right now, correctly assessing that his assailant was not in the mood for idle small talk. Ilentia pulled Malice away from the man's neck, the slicing of the blade's razor sharp edge through the air sounding suspiciously like a pestering its parents for, and instead of wasting time shifting her grip on it and pushing it to her victim's back that would give him a chance to react to her and spoil her plan of using him as a means of obtaining transport her left hand had already drawn Fire from her right scabbard and pressed it into the cloth of his tunic, breaking the sand covered material open as the weapon's twin flared with jealousy when she sheathed it.

"Lead me to it then," she ordered, ensuring that the fact she had a blade drawn and ready to slam through his chest hidden from the world around her, though she assumed that the man would most likely choose a discreet route that would avoid the gazes of others if he knew what was good for him. To help with the masquerade that she was not threatening his life, Ilentia grabbed him by the hand with her free one, her fingers enclosing round his fist that was covered in the dust of the city and breaking apart his own digits so that it would look like to any others that he was leading her somewhere and that he was holding her hand, not that she was directing him herself and forcing him to take her to the situation of his means of conveyance.

The fact that she was wearing a mask and a robe further added to this ruse, and she had seen many men and women of the night belonging to the hedonistic and apparently bliss inducing Order of Rapture wearing a similar attire when catering to their customers, and although such an Order had already been abolished that did not mean that the trade of pleasure had stopped and that those who offered their services in such a manner would be bereft of any form of work – the official Order of Rapture may have been destroyed but that had nothing do to with the carnal desires of humanity remaining.

If the man had been a Lucaelian, it was very possible that he would have deliberately tried to get her caught by leading her through a route filled with civilians and then beginning to resist her, forcing her to kill him in front of those who would be aghast at such and act and begin to attack her, perfectly willing to sacrifice his life so that others would be able to detain her.

However, she was thankful that he was not, that he was a Welkalite much more concerned with his own existence than the overall safety of the nation and the Resistance and as such would want to elude the sight of others as much as his assailant did. Ilentia was glad that she did not live in a society filled with insufferably selfless individuals convinced by propaganda, the promises of angelic salvation if they died in the line of duty and the acts of their comrades to want to lay down their own lives to preserve those of others, as it would make controlling them extremely hard compared to this where she only had to threaten him with death and her commands would be obeyed.

They walked, not too quickly as to rouse the suspicion of any that might see them but swiftly enough so that none would notice the blade that was pressed against his back, Fire aching to break the man's body and savagely obliterate it, significantly more interested in inflicting damage and causing destruction rather than the effects of administering wounds, not as inclined to revel in the pain of its targets and only wanting to annihilate them to show off its own power and delight in the show of violence.

The man's fingers were clammy and emitting a warm heat that Ilentia could feel even with the gloves that she had procured in order to conceal the deathly pallor that had afflicted her ever since the Infernal Bargain which had given her the ravenous beast that resided inside of her and had further corrupted her form to a greater extent than her dark reincarnation already had. His pulse was fast and erratic, the beating of his heart reflecting and placing more emphasis upon his fear that Ilentia could see in all of his actions and movements.

A myriad selection of different thoughts were colliding together within Ilentia's head, but she ruthlessly quelled all those that were not germane to her immediate circumstance, still alert for any form of threat but endeavouring not to communicate that to her captive with her body language – though it was probable that he was too focussed on his own predicament to notice how tense Ilentia had become, moreso than what she was at the beginning of committing the crime.

Following the man, who would not lead her to any potential compatriots unless he wished to die a messy death at the point of Ilentia's blade, Ilentia passed into another abandoned and empty street that was away from the main avenues still bustling with activity despite it being late evening, although this one was lit up by the rays of orange from the star that shone down at them from its place at the edge of the sky at the cusp of night. Then the sun fell below the horizon, a midnight veil drawn across the evening heavens, warm amber replaced by sweeping darkness faintly twinkling with the light of distant luminescence, and Ilentia grunted in annoyance when the man in front of her that she hadn't bothered to learn the name of abruptly halted.

"What are you doing?" the woman barked, her scimitar clasped in her left fist already close to ripping through the individual Kalaan citizen that she had captured and forcefully pressed into her service, the anger that she didn't even try to repress and the irritation which filled her mind blended together in a volatile cocktail of promised violence oozing with the intent to murder and give into the thirst for bloodshed and destruction that motivated her blades and gave them more power.

She let go of his hand, the man's fingers having fallen limp within her grasp, and winced as a strangely cold pain flooded through her skull like icy water was being poured into her brain and freezing up her stimulation of movements combined with a weird numbing sensation that she had never experienced before, and shook her head as she swiftly stepped round in front of him.

The pulse that had been a constant reminder of her victim's fear had slowed and become much more regular and mediated, another clear sign if any more were needed that something was occurring with the one she had chosen to take her to the city which was the womb of the Resistance, and the possible implications of that played through Ilentia's mind as she turned round to stare at the other Welkalite in the now fully dark (the light from the mana lamps which might have been illuminating the main streets (as it had done back when the Orders of Passion had possessed power here) could not penetrate through to dispel the shadows at this place) back alley.

The man stared back blankly, the tense set to his face smoothed out and his jaw slack like he had recently ingested a potent narcotic which had left him unable to use his bodily functions, but Ilentia knew that such a thing was not a case due to his pulse not being redolent of the sluggish beats of those who had taken one of the many varieties of the dangerously effective depressants that were widely available within the New Empire of Passion in order to augment the stimuli and pleasure responses of the clients of some of the Orders (such as the Order of Rapture, which was the most prominent in the trade of mentally altering substances), the normally irregular and extremely slow pulse of those affected by such a thing wildly dissimilar with that which Ilentia had felt before breaking off her contact with the man.

However, what was the most disturbing and concerning to Ilentia was the faint and dark blue light which rippled like pools of deep water in the man's eyes. reflected the silver light of the moon that had previously been eclipsed by the powerful sun within the hot nation of Welkas, but instead of mirroring the lunar glow the man's irises which Ilentia distinctly remembered as being a shade of brown emitted a dark sapphire glow that appeared to be a mixture of both darkness and lapis lazuli. Ilentia could feel an unusual sensation akin to freezing cold fingers brushing at the nape of her neck but inside of her head instead of touching her skin, a foreign presence that she could intuitively realise was there due to her advanced senses without intellectually considering it as a possibility making her feel extremely uncomfortable.

Wasting no time, Ilentia slammed Fire into the side of the man's head, the sharpened edge of the destructive scimitar slashing into the captive citizen's skull and bursting it open like a ripe fruit, the crimson juices that sprayed out of the defenceless man's head which had been hacked in half evaporating in a whoosh of steam joined by the explosion of smoke that billowed forth from his burning body as Ilentia poured fervent power through the extremities of her fingertips and into Fire, the blade reacting excitedly to the Red mana and the possibility of wreaking destruction in any of its myriad forms as the man was incinerated.

With her free hand, Ilentia snagged the keys that had been one of her prospective tickets out whatever the New Empire of Passion was going to become now that the Resistance had taken over it and the west had been devastated by their neighbours in the Kingdom of Light, grabbing them before they were claimed by the conflagration that the man's overalls had become as she swept her blade around and retracted the power that she had placed within it. Fire hissed, flaring off sparks in annoyance at not being permitted to consume everything within the blaze, but Ilentia was quick to quell its brief defiance through the force of her mind.

She drew Malice, the blade whipping through the air as it shot out of her sheath, and gave up on the pretence of trying to do anything but survive fully and avoid or kill any who would threaten that. Efficiently reacting to the perceived threat, as obviously someone had used a form of magic that she had never encountered before to paralyse her potential escort out of Kalaan, Ilentia, forgoing retaining the inconspicuous quality that she had striven to protect throughout her venture through the eastern city in order to better preserve her own life, began to draw upon her reservoir of mana that had recently been bolstered by forcing Arrapackxia to divert more of his own essence and magical energy into heightening the power of her own and allowing the darkness to pour forth from her limbs and wreath her in a shroud of pure shadow that was far darker and more malevolent than the night that had come upon Kalaan with the setting of the sun.

Malicious laughter laced with ravenous hunger permeated the miasma of voracious gloom that saturated the air around her, and Ilentia would have rolled her eyes in disapproval of the greater demon's antics had she not been solely focussed upon identifying this new threat. An unknown and foreign presence was lingering in the recesses of her mind, slowing her thoughts and her movements, but despite her efforts she could not tear it out of her or set it aflame and destroy it with waves of internal fire, which meant that she instead had to devote her power to resisting the pull of the strange sensation that threatened to drag her under into an ocean of cold numbness.

Ilentia was not overly concerned with the fact that Arrapackxia had decided to herald his own Summoning with the sadistic cackling which had filled the street with its discordant and predatory song because the Summoning and the presence of the greater demon would have alerted many in the city already due to the large concentration of Black mana that had been released around her and was covering the avenue in branches of shadow that were darker than the already near pitch black stone. A little sound wouldn't make any difference, and while some may have thought that Ilentia was overreacting to the fact that her chosen victim had frozen up and fallen unconscious on his feet she trusted her instincts – and her instincts were telling her that this was the threat the demon that had been bound to her with the sacrifice of her former cyclops from the mountains of Sancturia had warned her of after she had forced him into submission once more.

The tendrils of insubstantial tenebrosity that were bursting forth from her hands and her blades and swirling as it played around her robed form became more solid as she poured more Black mana into the unholy Summoning ritual that was the advent of her demon's entrance into the physical world, billowing around her in this more congealed manifestation as it coalesced in front of her and began to build up into a more humanoid form, though the monstrous proportions of the demon were anything but close to the appearance of the humans that inhabited this world.

"Don't even bother," Ilentia snarled at the greater demon as his large mouth, filled to the brim with sharp teeth that would most likely feast upon human flesh this day, opened, ready to greet her with his customary sarcastic comments or attempted threats, and Arrapackxia's lips twisted into a cruel and vile perversion of a child's pout at being denied enjoyment at that, although at least he remained silent and didn't waste any of the Welkalite's time with meaningless words in an endeavour to make her feel more uncomfortable or make her doubt that she was the master of him.

It was with no small sense of satisfaction that Ilentia noted that the brand of slavery she had seared into the lymphatic pale skin of the greater demon's forehead remained, starkly evident upon Arrapackxia's forehead and in the centre of its two curling horns. The Summoning must have noticed her brief scrutiny, as its mocking sulk instantly converted into a scowl of pure hatred and loathing that made Ilentia almost smirk. It was good that Arrapackxia hated her, because there was nothing that he could do to escape the rules of the Infernal Contract (one of the few rules that those who followed the tenets of Black mana or were formed from the darkness obeyed, although there were many attempts by both the Summoners and the demons bound to them to circumvent that) and as long as he was still forced into obedience it did not matter what the demon's personal opinions on the matter happened to be.

Ilentia stepped past the large form of her demon who, despite how massive and bunched with muscle that he was, was one of the smallest greater demons that Ilentia had ever encountered before (which was not many, though she had seen others that had been bonded to the other Masters of Passion) but made up for that by increasing in size once he had feasted upon human flesh or souls and was able to utilise the full extent of his power, Arrapackxia begrudgingly falling into line behind her as she quickly traversed the alleyway that she had been led into by the one who was supposed to have allowed her to travel to the heart of the Resistance.

The unfamiliar numbing sensation in her head that was stemming the flow of some of her thoughts like a damn within the river of her psyche was increasing in potency, as if reacting to her so far futile attempts to remove it and resist its influence, but now that the demon inside of her had entered the material plane and she was gifted with more dark power it was easier to mitigate the effect that it had upon her even if it still remained an uncomfortable reminder that whoever it was that she could sense as a threat within Kalaan had access to her mind, something that the Master of Gluttony was not at ease with.

She wanted to see something before launching into a potential plan of action, something that would confirm a niggling suspicion at the back of her mind that had burrowed into her psyche ever since she had first looked upon the blue glow of the man's eyes before she had killed him. The fact that no one as of yet had reacted to the presence of a demon within their city that all but confirmed the existence of one of the Masters of Passion and was a significant threat to all of their lives was not in itself concerning as it had only been mere seconds since she had Summoned Arrapackxia – but what was far more disturbing was how the raucous noise of city life that had filled the eastern city even in these late hours (though day and night cycles had never been a barrier to the Welkalite people as it was in other cultures and revels in the New Empire of Passion had lasted well into the afternoon of the next day without any form of pause) had died down almost the instant the man in front of her had stopped moving and ceased his activities.

Silence had filled Kalaan, utter and complete silence that was extremely eerie, punctured only by the gentle _whoosh_ of the wind as it blew the ubiquitous sand and the dust around the city and the sound of the footsteps of the Welkalite woman and her demon on the street that was a mixture between the clacking noise of boots slamming down on the stone and the crunching of sand underneath their footfalls. Despite the fact that Ilentia was still labouring under the idea of being stealthy and her graceful movements reducing the impact of her footsteps and therefore reducing the noise that they made, they still sounded deafeningly loud and amplified to a great degree with no other sound within the large dwelling of Welkalite people.

Although the fact that her demon was anything but graceful (though Arrapackxia was certainly not lumbering and clumsy) and had no qualms about creating noise as well as being much heavier than his Summoner meant that their movements echoed throughout the empty backstreet as it bounced back and forth between the walls. The silence would be unnerving to Ilentia if she had been able to be scared by such a thing any more, but despite that it was still concerning that a city with potentially hundreds of thousands – or even millions – of inhabitants would not be creating any noise whatsoever.

There was no movement in the sky either from what Ilentia could see, the birds and other flying Unbound that had been there before and had often flitted past Ilentia's vision as they glinted in the light of the orange sun (before it had fallen past the horizon) completely and conspicuously absent. Not even the large vultures that usually circled above the settlements of humankind to capitalise upon the weakness of those left unattended and had gathered in great force after the violence between those still loyal to the Orders of Passion and Carlyia Bloodfang to partake in the scavenger's feast of the grim pickings of those who had been killed or heavily wounded and left for dead by their allies were present, which was another sign that something was severely wrong if any more were needed.

The clouds had also swept in, blocking out the twinkling light of the stars and plunging the sky into darkness apart from the one focal point of the moon which shone with a lucent celestiance into the night. A frosted halo of silver girdled the sphere, strengthening its stellar brilliance. It had been waxing steadily over the past few days above the city of Kalaan whilst Ilentia had been a temporary resident of it, and it was culminating at a full moon at this point, a zenith of grey light that beamed like a miniature sun down on the eastern settlement. However, whilst the baleful red orb in the sky was hot and angry, suffused with rage as it glared down at the withered and arid landscape beneath it, the full moon's light was a cold and dispassionate glow, a frigid winter gleam that austerely beheld those who lived their lives underneath its emotionless gaze.

"I'm glad that you decided to heed my warning," Arrapackxia quipped in a way that made him seem very far from it as he stalked behind her, his eyes fixed upon Ilentia instead of their surroundings as the young woman kept up her systematic surveillance of the nearby area for enemies or any indication what was happening. The Summoner of the greater demon ignored the Sancturia creature that knew enough about Ilentia not to get too close to her (or even worse, touch her with its repulsive skin and disgust her with the contact) and was still under the mindset of not disobeying her or pushing her boundaries for now after what she had done to it.

Even though Ilentia was not even looking at the demon, she could sense the barely repressed anger combined with detestation directed towards herself that simmered underneath its skin and filled its voice, dripping from every malicious syllable and seeping out of every word spoken, but at least right now Arrapackxia knew better than to try anything, not with the power that she had shown and the pain that she had caused the demon which it was trying to hide as if forgetting that they were mentally linked due to its residence within her mind. Ilentia would have asked Arrapackxia if he was suffering from the same debilitating mental affliction that seemed to be gaining strength and forcing her to divert more attention to suppressing it, but it was entirely possible that the demon had no idea it was straining her and that revealing it could change its views of aiding her for now – additionally, she was hardly trusting of her personal demon helper, and Arrapackxia most likely wouldn't provide her with any useful information whatsoever.

Ilentia warily paused before leaving the shrouded alleyway which had been longer than she had expected and had cut through a rather substantial section of the city whilst remaining utterly empty of all other human life (though the rats that she had been able to see wriggling and swarming underneath the sewer grates of the backstreet had also stopped rearing their heads with the coming of night and the advent of the moon's light. Arrapackxia didn't stray too close to her, also halting in its tracks as Ilentia waited until she had fully prepared for leaving the relative safety of this uninhabited area and crushed the distractions within her mind, repressing the effects of the mental intrusion as much as possible and endeavouring to place as many barriers in place within her psyche as she could to halt the progress of the odd feeling.

She could hear the demon's hungry and rasping breathing behind her, atavistic inhalations and menacing exhalations forming a dark melody that promised agony and torment to those who would arise to become Arrapackxia's victims, and she could smell the stench of his scent on the air, raw and rancid meat mixed with the unpleasant aroma of moist and sickly sweet corruption. However, she was perversely glad of its presence, as it meant that despite how much she personally despised the demon inside of her that resided within her subterranean Mind Realm Ilentia would have a powerful ally to combat the potential threats with.

"You first," she ordered Arrapackxia, sliding to the side to make way for the demon that cocked what would have been an eyebrow for a human being at her, its grey pits of eyes glinting with equal amounts of hunger and amusement as it bowed mockingly to his Summoner and rising up again. Arrapackxia looked away from her, loping forwards into the avenue that was a parallel of the one she had first located the key bearer within, and Ilentia followed behind quickly, ensuring that the demon stayed within sight of her after a brief moment where it was not attacked or beset upon by enemies, from the Resistance or otherwise.

She passed into another large processional within the central regions of Kalaan surrounding the still smouldering palace building that had been the tyrant Bloodfang's place of habitation and also the location of the last stand of the Orders of Passion within the largest city of the sand swept east of Welkas, though this one had a large and flowing stream of water that cut through the centre of it as it was at one of the four compass points from the central island paradise at the middle of Kalaan which provided the entire city with a means of alternate transport (though it had not been used in that manner for many years after one of the older emperors had decreed that it be kept free of boats that did not belong to the military or the pleasure barges of noble families closely related to the royal line) and a supply of clean water due to its position as being built upon a desert oasis (as many of the eastern cities were, though this one was much more than most).

Ilentia stared at the water for a moment, the moon's reflection illuminating the street around it in its silver glow as the lunar circle rippled in the movements of the mixture between a lake and a river that was much cooler here than it was around the central island within Kalaan. Her eyes gazed into the shimmering light of the reflected moon, the numbness of her mind exacerbated by such a thing, before she forcefully shook her head and turned away from it, full of disgust at herself at being transfixed by such a thing when she was already aware that this sudden change had coincided with the fall of the sun and the beginning of true night.

She turned round, her eyes finding her demon who had halted and was glancing at the figures in front of him, before nodding as she gazed at them. It was as she had expected; the other living beings of Kalaan had been affected just as the man who had owned the keys to a form of vehicular transport which would have facilitated her escape from the city she had been teleported to by the retreat mechanism that Eras Stormwind had gifted to her.

Their eyes were suffused with the same faint and murky sapphire glow that had consumed those of the first she had seen like this, and they had frozen in the actions that they had last been completing like someone had somehow halted all time in the area and that this was simply a snapshot holographic photograph of Kalaan at night created by Blue mana – though such a thing could not be true, as Ilentia had been in Kalaan for several days now and had been able to exit in and out of her own Mind Realm, meaning that this could not be any form of imaginary illusion world that she had been transported to.

Across the street from them, another supply caravan train of resources that would be disseminated amongst the refugees who had sought to obtain asylum from the violence in the wider nation as New Empire of Passion destructively thrashed in its death throes and threatened to take all of its inhabitants down into ruination with it and the civilians within Kalaan already who had been displaced and damaged by the civil war and oppressed for years by the regime of the Orders of Passion was suspended and frozen. The eyes of the krovod harnessed to the wagons of food and clothing were glazed over, the emission of blue fluorescence there much less prominent than it was through the eyes of the humans, and they were also paused in unconsciousness with their eyes open.

Arrapackxia extended one large palm that was topped with venomous claws curling out from the extremities of huge fingers, reaching out towards one nearby civilian who was paralysed by the enigmatic magic that had somehow been cast, and Ilentia watched her demon as she kept her eyes figuratively peeled for any sign of those who had caused this, trying to ignore the unfamiliar emotions that were swirling around inside of her head at what she was seeing.

The fact that she had not been affected and was not currently slumbering on her feet could mean a few things, although at the current moment due to the reality that Ilentia could feel her mental self having to fight to escape from the pull of the same unnatural sleep which had entranced those in Kalaan made her presently more liable to believe that it was down to her mental strength, her force of will and the power that was at her command which had allowed her to resist the spell that had evidently utilised the moon as some form of focal point or transmission device.

However, it was extremely worrying that such a spell existed, as the possible implications of this kind of power to silence an entire city and force it into a deep unconsciousness boggled the mind – how many times had it occurred before, if such a thing was possible and Ilentia wasn't hallucinating or under the effects of a type of magic that altered her psychosis? How many times could it happen again to Welkas? What had the orchestrators of this event achieved before by employing this exact tactic to suppress the minds of those without significant strength at their beck and call? And what did they hope to achieve now – or were they even creatures that had motives? It was entirely possible that the perpetrators of this magic that had left the avenue which Ilentia was stood upon silent apart from the breath of the cool wind as it shifted the sands were not quantifiable at all, as they could be a form of elemental, horror or other Unbound creature that had the ability to force an entire city into sleep.

There were so many unanswered questions, but the most prevalent two in Ilentia's mind were whether or not this occurrence had something to do with the fact that she was in Kalaan now (and she was too concerned with her own survival to ever assume that it was just a coincidence that this had happened now) or if it would have occurred without her and how it was that her demon had known of this happening, a fact that went a long way towards convincing her that this was by design and not a random happenstance that – or that it had been targeted towards Kalaan itself.

The demon's hand brushed against the nearest civilian, a soldier from the Resistance who had been turning to gaze at something that Ilentia could not see when she followed her line of sight, but instead of touching the woman there was a shimmering glimmer of murk around her that vibrated and undulated as he tried to make contact with her – most likely so that he could devour her and rise to his full power.

"Hmm. Interesting..." Arrapackxia murmured to itself, languidly tracing a line down it with a long claw as if he was trying to draw a pattern into the woman's skin, the expanding scintillation birthed forth from a mixture of blue and black light and composed of a strange essence with Ilentia was not familiar with.

The demon turned to the woman's compatriot, an older member of the Resistance whose brow was furrowed in concern as she leant upon her spear (an unusual weapon choice within Welkas, as most warriors preferred the brutality and swiftness of close quarter weapons like swords, daggers or axes, suggesting that either she did not have a penchant for savage and passionate violence or had equipped herself with that to reinforce the idea that they would be keeping the order within Kalaan), and suddenly slammed its hand forwards into her.

Such a blow would be enough to eviscerate even some of the toughest mortals and disembowel angels, and to all intents and purposes it should have rammed straight through her armour with no resistance at all, impaling her through the stomach and turning her organs to shreds, but instead of doing any of that all of the force behind the blow was instantly and silently absorbed by the shield that rose up around her.

It was as if the slumber that the citizens and creatures of Kalaan had been forced under also protected them from harm and prevented the awake from interacting with them at all – stopping them from trying to save them or kill them. Arrapackxia allowed darkness to encircle his fist, launching a tendril of pure blackness at the woman after his arm had been stopped by the gloomy shield around her, but it had the same effect as the physical contact itself and was halted just before touching her or affecting her. Ilentia was uncertain as to whether or not a magical attack of great potency (or a physical assault bolstered heavily by mana based energies) would have any effect, but presently she had greater concerns as her demon began to lope forwards again, moving in its usual manner of utilising all four limbs when it had not metamorphosed into its more formidable embodiment of rapacious hunger.

"How did you know that something like this was going to happen?" she demanded of her demon, her questioning tone filled with an authoritative resonance as she wielded the power that she had obtained over the Sancturia being to force it to respond to her (as otherwise it would suffer excruciating pain that even a greater demon would not be able to resist falling to their knees and screaming at) and the demon didn't turn around to her as it replied whilst she warily eyed the area around her for any indication of activity (though she hardly expected that those who had caused this would accidentally reveal themselves to her) that would suggest the presence of enemies, "It was a simple inkling, my dear. I believed that it would be pertinent to inform you of such a thing, my mistress, and it seems that such a thing did not go unfounded. We demons have senses that far surpass those of mortals, metaphysical perceptions that mere humans could not hope to ever attain-"  
"Cut to the point," Ilentia uttered, tired of her demon's meaningless drivel that it was spouting at her as they slowly progressed through the city – although she had no idea why they were moving or where they intended to go, as this was one of the most open areas in the city already and as such would be the best place to remain within for anticipating the next move of their mysterious enemies, and considering that the aforementioned performers of this act had what amounted to control over the entire city there was nowhere safe place within it that would allow Ilentia to stay away from danger, not that she even wanted to as there was no use in simply hiding instead of fighting.

However, what was frustrating for her and was making her exasperation rise was the reality that there was little that she could do apart from just waiting for them to come to her – a course of action that she despised, as Ilentia had always preferred to be proactive and be on the offence even before her dark resurrection which had accentuated that even further, echoing many of her nationality who were much more adept at attacking than defending (one of the many reasons why the siege of Usnaan had ended in disaster for the Welkalites (well, more precisely the Orders of Passion) even though the tactics employed within the sprawling capital had been anything but conservative and defensive.

"There isn't one. I perceived that there was a threat to your continued existence, and made you aware of exactly that. You were the one that asked the question," the demon's words started off as a snarl of irritation and annoyance at being spoken to in that matter by a pathetic human being, but as Ilentia's baleful gaze had become flintier, her eyes like the red orbs of the scorching sun on certain days but much more crimson, Arrapackxia's tone became begrudgingly more respectful and less belligerent, recognising that for now Ilentia had the upper hand in the battle for dominance of which they were both participants.

Sniffing, Arrapackxia strode away from the woman, automatically attempting to yank one of the mortals stood stock still at the side of the water before scowling in frustration when its efforts were thwarted and it was forced to take an alternate route to the edge of the stream which still flowed freely from the island oasis in the centre of Kalaan, a sight which could have potentially been amusing if Ilentia was inclined to view it in that way (which she was not).

The demon placed its hand in the slowly moving water, gliding its large fingers through the liquid before pulling them back to his face and licking at the droplets of water that dripped off of the digits before nodding to itself. Ilentia watched from a short distance away, close enough for the Summoning to assist her if danger arose and for her to bring it to heel with chains of darkness if necessary but far enough away to alert her if the demon spontaneously decided to turn on her and to not be affected too much by its loathsome aura or the feeling of disgust that she had always felt directed towards it.

"The water. Have you ingested any of it?" Arrapackxia somehow made the inquiry simultaneously seem to be brimming with the desire to help Ilentia and full of sadistic glee at her predicament. Ilentia frowned as her Summoning swirled another large claw within the river that ran through this section of Kalaan and separated the four main districts of the inner city, replying with some confusion, "Of course. But I only drank when necessary."

Despite the fact that with her new body Ilentia had far more stamina and endurance than any normal human and could go hours in the blistering heat of Welkas without hydration being necessary where other would have died of heat stroke by then, she was still only human and required sustenance of both the liquid and solid type to be able to act at optimum capacity. That meant drinking from the water of the rivers that passed through the eastern city. Arrapackxia nodded, continuing, "That is one of the sources of the spell that has frozen up the mortals around us and is currently affecting yourself, although with your power you can resist its influence. The water is infused with particles that have been permeated with mana of the Blue, Black and Green varieties, for the entire length of your stay at the very least if the taste of them is anything to go by. Whoever did this must have waited for the advent of this night to put their plan into action, as the full moon of Vene'Kalzcrox, known as the Sorcerer's Moon by some pitiful cultures of your race, acts as an amplifier for Blue and Black mana."  
Arrapackxia turned back to her, his eyes still gleaming with predatory hunger in spite of the relative helpfulness of his words (although where he had derived the knowledge from was unknown, but if it didn't help Ilentia then she did not care in the slightest), and haughtily stretched his palm towards Ilentia as if beckoning her over, tendrils of gloom coalescing and dancing around its poisonous claws, "Come, my Summoner. I have a boon to grant you."

Ilentia's gaze must have betrayed how apprehensive she was about such a thing, her eyebrows immediately arched despite herself, and the demon chuckled, amused tone full of malignancy and dark mirth. "Please, I have no intentions of doing anything remotely traitorous right now despite how amusing it would be. You are in control for now, my dear, as I would quite like to avoid any more pain at your hands for the time being. Now you can either except my gift or not, it does not matter to me in the slightest."

"Why are you going out of your way to help me all of a sudden?" Ilentia questioned suspiciously, making no moves towards the demon who was still stood in the exact same position with hand outstretched and tenebrous arcs swirling around its talons.

The demon smirked, full of false mirth at the situation and at his Summoner, responding with a nonchalant shrug expanded upon by, "There is no particular reason for it. You forced me into continued enslavement and reinforced our Infernal Contract, and while before that I had wanted to rush your death as soon as possible so that I could feast upon your soul and punish you for making me abandon my hunting grounds with a thousand years of excruciating agony that is more painful than you could ever imagine," Arrapackxia's eyes widened in longing at the thought and he licked his lips hungrily,

"You have shown yourself to be much more powerful than I had ever anticipated – as not many mortals can mark a demon's flesh as you did. I am intrigued by you, Ilentia, intrigued by what Tradax managed to create from the ruin of your corpse when channelling the power of my little brother and our former master. And I am not interested by many mortals at all. I still eagerly await your death and my freedom from these bonds, but for an immortal being such as myself a few years is not going to change anything, and for the time being I can entertain myself by bringing your enemies to ruin and watching to see what chaos you create."

Ilentia considered the words for a moment, and then, certain that it was not a trap because invoking her wrath would bring untold consequences down upon the greater demon that she could sense it did not want, quickly stepped forwards. Begrudgingly, she spat, "Do it then. Grant me this power that you seem so eager to give to me. And be quick about it."

"As you wish," the demon smiled viciously, his hand immediately lancing forwards to her face. Ilentia repressed the automatic reaction of recoiling away from the personification of primal hunger mixed with sadistic hedonism in front of her and forced herself to remain still so that the demon could do its foul work upon her. The demon's claw that extended out from its index finger was ensorcelled by wisps of malefic darkness formed from Black mana and Ilentia had to fight to keep her eyes open instead of instinctively shutting them so that the greater demon presumably still under her command could not touch them. Arrapackxia drew the long talon around her eyes, whorling round one of them and then tracing it in lines of blood across her face. It split apart the skin, and Ilentia hissed as the agony flooded through her, each nerve ending around her eyes and connecting to the visual sensory organs aflame with the pain that blossomed as a deadly flower all across her.

"What are you doing to me?" the woman snarled, the pain making her furious tone of voice much more terrifying to hear, but she did not make any moves other than raising her swords and channelling mana through them in order to show that she was ready to tear into the Sancturia being if necessary and hack him apart to forcefully return Arrapackxia to the Mind Realm within her subconscious. The words and the defensive actions provoked loud barking laughter tinged with a hint of contempt from her Summoning, who chuckled, "I never promised that it would not be painful, Ilentia, only swiftness is what you asked for. Hold still. I am not quite finished yet."  
Blackened blood like liquefied tar that shone with a flickering molten light of burning embers ran down her face in rivulets of dark liquid that stained her cheeks with the sticky black substance that her vitae had become, and the demon's claw sliced deep, scraping against her bones and causing more pain that she ignored.

The skin of her face became slick with her blood, more gore pouring out of it than should have been possible considering where the incision had been inflicted, but Ilentia supposed that this "gift" that the Summoning of hers was granting her was magical in nature and as such would not obey normal rules of anatomy. The Welkalite could infer just from the demon's posture and the sound of the ravenous creature's voice that it was enjoying causing her pain under the pretence of aiding her, and although its touch was more gentle now as it was applying the finishing amelioration to the ritual (Ilentia could tell because she could already see the way that she perceived things changing) it was no less torturous.

Redness filled her vision, alternating between arcs of crimson and pure darkness that burned into the night, but Ilentia found that when the demon pulled away from her that everything had much more clarity within the darkness, that she could see the beating hearts of the humans around her and notice the minute vibrations of their breathing as the air in front of them puffed against the barriers around them which had prevented Arrapackxia from touching them and devouring them (as she was sure that her gluttonous demon would have done had the opportunity to do so arisen), the minuscule shimmering of the fields of magic around them clear as day to the Master of Gluttony now.

"I have given you the witch-sight, fitting for one such as yourself if I do say so myself," the demon uttered as a way of explanation as to why Ilentia was now suddenly seeing the world in so much more predatory detail than before as the wounds around her eyes regenerated slowly by closing up and preventing the flow of blood that had poured out of them. "It should aid you in locating our enemies, as now that I have granted you this unholy blessing you have the closest to the same capabilities of sight of myself that a mere mortal would ever be able to obtain."

"Do you know of the nature of the foes that we face?" Ilentia asked as she scanned the area around her once again, feeling the mana that the demon had described to be present in the water saturating the air and able to isolate and identify its presence within her, though it was too far absorbed within her body for her to be able to purge all of it now. Arrapackxia shook his horned head, responding, "I have an inkling, but that is all."

Sensing that she was going to get nothing more than her demon who was clearly aware of much more than the limited information that he was letting on, Ilentia eyed the water now that she could see the patterns of unfamiliar mana within it that was also present in the bodies of all those frozen up around it, walking towards its edge and staring down into the depths of the clear liquid which had become murky and dark as day had turned into night, its crystalline purity facilitated by near constant boiling from its source of the central oasis island which cleansed the water of any potential foul toxins now gone and exposed as simply a façade which had hidden the corruption of three colours of mana.

She stared into the water that was illuminated by the light of the moon, but this time with her new witch-sight Ilentia could perceive her own reflection within it. The demon's ministrations had left her with relatively prominent scars on her face, sacrilegious and forsaken symbols drawn carved onto the spaces around her eyes that flashed with mana as she stared at them, and dried blood had coagulated on her cheeks which she hadn't bothered to wipe away.

She gazed into her own read eyes, briefly wondering whether this was who she was and what that meant, what it meant to be Ilentia instead of everyone else before quashing the uncharacteristically introspective and rebellious thoughts that had risen up at the sight of her own tainted form as she noticed something strange. Tendrils of darkness were wrapping around her reflection like strings of pure midnight, but as she looked down at her own physical body she could see nothing in her conventional sight nor her newly augmented witch vision. Ilentia glanced back at her reflection, which was being surrounded by the shadowy chains and ropes that gently wrapped around her rippling form, her pale skin degrading and disintegrating away as the darkness touched it as Ilentia watched herself with wide eyes.

The skin sloughed off from her reflection, exposing the tender flesh underneath with bleak white bone protruding from it before even that was concealed by the darkness encircling the projection of her. Ilentia's eyes flashed blue and the moonlit reflection reached towards the physical body of the woman that it belonged to, acting of its own accord instead of following her own movements like it was supposed to. Ilentia automatically raised her weapons and stepped away from the slowly flowing river, but not before she saw the reflection of herself which was being consumed by the blossoming darkness screaming words that she could not read at her as it was dragged away and submerged.

No sooner as Ilentia had witnessed the strange sight then she sensed movement in the peripherals of her newly enhanced vision. The sudden motion in the corner of her eye opposite to the one that Arrapackxia was stood within attracted her attention, something that she would not have perceived without the witch-sight, and she snapped her head towards it, pushing the thoughts of what she had seen within the darkened waters of the river out of her mind and concentrating herself on this new arrival – she would not be distracted by what she was sure had been nothing more than a simple illusion, a banal trick of the light created by mischievous Blue mana combined with malicious Black in order to give her pause.

But then it was gone. Ilentia growled in frustration, knowing that only her enemies – those who had caused this city wide slumber – could have caused this. She could feel the intrusion within her mind growing stronger and more pronounced, altering her to the proximity of foes, and strange, half formed images of something she couldn't quite identify were pressing at the edges of her psyche.

The woman who may have been the only remaining Master of an Order of Passion within the New Empire bearing its name emitted another snarl of frustration. Even with her demoniacally enhanced witch-sight, she could see nothing, but Ilentia refused to believe that she had seen nothing.

"Arrapackxia?" Ilentia hissed, wanting to know whether or not the demon had seen the same as her or had an idea as to what the movement had been, but before the Summoning could put forward an answer (if that was what the demon was even intending to do, as Ilentia had no guarantee that the beast would answer her demands) another blurred and indistinct shape shot out of the darkness of night and sped just out of vision, moving with an impossible swiftness that even Ilentia with her advanced senses could not follow. She raised her levels of mana, channelling the magic of combined passion and hatred to such a point that she would be able to release it without even a moment's notice, ensuring to hold in the usually defiant mana which was notorious for disobeying the commands of weaker mages and either providing them with far too much mana for them to control (and exploding in a violent backlash in the same instance) or activating too early in its haste to wreak destruction and ruination. Ilentia stood stock still, the only sounds the breathing of herself and her demon who had near silently moved up behind her, but there was nothing more to be seen.

She gave the area where she had first seen movement a final glare, adrenaline pumping through her body and coursing through her polluted bloodstream and making everything seem slower, and began to walk forwards. Her feet clacked upon the cracked stone of the pavement which hadn't been repaired after the battle within the city only a few days ago, and as she stalked forwards with Arrapackxia following close behind a lithe figure crawled down one of the walls of a nearby armoury (which had been plundered by both sides of the conflict for weaponry and left barren afterwards), its form vague as if it dragged the surrounding darkness with it like a shroud.

Ilentia flicked a glance over her shoulder, sensing the motion despite not having looked in the same direction as it, and the figure melted into the shadows once more, returning to invisibility near instantaneously – but not fast enough. Ilentia saw it in her witch-sight, a nebulous figure displaying remarkable agility in traversing the vertical landscape blending back into the tenebrae, almost before she had caught sight of it.

With a cry of frustration, Ilentia released the mana that she had been building up, a wave of fire borne of Red mana combining with volatile hellish energy spawned by her Black bursting out of her crossed swords as it crashed across the street, melting the broken paving stones underneath it to molten slag as it rushed over the building that the enemy had been scaling, the powerful mana smashing into the armoury and reducing it to a shattered rubble within a few seconds as it immolated it in hellfire that ripped it apart. Glowering at the debris that smashed apart as it hit the ground, Ilentia was not surprised to see that there were no charred corpses or ashen remains within the scorched ruin of the building – although there were figures inside of there, civilians with their lullaby shielding now caked in ash that slowly poured off them like waterfalls of black powder completely unaffected by the powerful magic that she had released, as were the ones that the flames had passed over.

"Patience, my dear. We wouldn't want to wasting too much mana on shadows, would we?" Arrapackxia mocked, though in spite of the demon's voice being heavily saturated with a derisive resonance Ilentia detected an inflected hint of frustration as well, her own irritation at the tactics of her mysterious foes reflected in the angry timbre of her Summoner's words. She didn't reply to the scornful utterance, even though she could have spat back a blisteringly scorching response. _Do they seek to make a fool out of me? _

_Irrelevant. I need to remain __calm so that I do not act reckless and play into their hands. My foes are clear trying to __bait me into overreacting to their displays of confidence, so I need to not give in to that and to force them to come at me on my terms._

Ilentia could occasionally discern a flash of blurred movement on the edges of her range of vision several times more, and although each time she snapped her head round to investigate and noticed that her demon was doing the same as its roving grey pits of eyes followed the threats that were dancing around them even with her new gifts of sight she could not fix her eyes upon them and they faded as soon as they appeared.

Had Ilentia given into her frustration, she might have been tempted to shout something akin to "Show yourself, cowards!" but that would not have been remotely useful and would only have wasted her breath. Both Fire and Malice in her hands were becoming tired of the games the enemies were playing, the former more than the latter as Ilentia's hand holding the blade affiliated with Red mana tingled with the infernal energy she had released from it, and the Master of Gluttony was inclined to agree that this constant waiting was straining her to breaking point and filling her with constant adrenaline which would have abandoned other humans by now.

What was more concerning however was the foothold the invader trespassing into her psyche had gained over time, and the images that were being placed within her mind were becoming more and more distinct and recognisable – Ilentia saw herself wandering through the night streets of Kalaan, ignoring civilians as she normally would and moving in the exact pattern she had employed earlier. The images themselves were nothing special, possessing no unique qualities or characteristics that would make them stand out from anything else.

It took Ilentia a few seconds of internally analysing them for her to deduce what they were and the purpose that they had – they were false memories, recollections of a day that would never pass being implanted into her mind, inserted into her head as if that was what she had been doing upon this day. Ilentia knew that the same would be happening to all of the other inhabitants and temporary residents of Kalaan who were trapped within their soporific stupor, that they would believe what their minds had told them about this day and think that the images and ideas being placed inside of them were the truth.

No one would ever have any cause to suspect that anything in the city was amiss, that all of its civilians and military from the occupying divisions of Resistance had been forced into a senseless slumber whilst the Master of Gluttony was hunted down within their ranks. They would all be none the wiser to the power that this enigmatic threat wielded over them, and the ramifications of that were potentially immense.

It was powerful telepathy, that much was certain, and while Ilentia did not have much experience with the magic of the mind at all (especially the magic of interacting with others' mental states, as she was a Summoner and as such had a cognitive link to her resident greater demon) she assumed that such a momentous spell would have required gigantic quantities of mana to power – and that the water would have acted as a medium for this.

"The mana within the water," Ilentia spoke, filling the void of silence that was only broken by the echoing sound of her and her Summoning's movements despite the amount of near imperceptible motion that there was within the processional street near to the central island palace, constantly alert for when these foes of hers would make their move upon her and press the attack. Arrapackxia glanced over at his Summoner half resentfully as she continued efficiently, "Could it act as a conduit for the magic that is afflicting me and the other Welkalites in Kalaan now? And does that mean that there is a mage utilising the particles placed within the water in conjunction with the Sorcerer's Moon to amplify the spell that has frozen up all of them?"  
"My, you are an intelligent one aren't you?" Arrapackxia derided at first, before elaborating before Ilentia could snap back and release some of the stress that was building up within her at not being able to isolate and slay her enemies that were affecting her and slowing down her movements with their magic, "Yes upon both accounts. There will be one mage, or perhaps several, who are channelling the spell, but for them to do that they would most likely have to be present within the city. I do not exactly know what technology has been invented which could allow them to project their magic upon this blasted dwelling of maggots from a distance, if any, so I would presume that they are located here – though with what we have seen so far it would be a significant misdemeanour for our enemies to have placed them in an obvious area, and judging by their current favouring of stealth I am not surprised that we cannot sense them even with my advanced sensory capabilities."  
Ilentia did not have the time to respond before a flash of motion that would not have registered in her normal eyesight (in spite of the fact that it far surpassed that of most other human beings) forced her to respond. Malice lashed upwards through the air, intercepting the projectile that had hurtled towards her mere inches from her face, and she smiled despite herself at the fact that her foes had now made their move.

It was a display of confidence which was not echoed inside, as the woman was having to actively suppress rogue thoughts that told her that she had no hope to defeat a force that had planned this occurrence for who knew how long and had the power to suppress the activity of an entire city the size of Kalaan, and those concerned with what they wanted from her and why they had chosen to do this now. It was entirely possible that they were only seeking to eliminate her because she had happened to be able to resist the pull of their induced slumber and as such was an anomalous result that needed to be eradicated so that they could continue with a strategy that didn't concern her, but for some reason she seriously doubted that and believed that they were in fact intending to kill her to further their own enigmatic agenda or to capture her for the same rationale.

Instead of allowing the missile which had been launched from the top of a nearby roof at his Summoner to fall to the ground, Arrapackxia's large hand shot out and plucked the small blade from the air with a grace that a being of his size should not have possessed, holding it delicately between his forefinger and thumb that were both larger than the dart.

The demon studied the long, barbed splinter with interest, noting the venom that it was saturated within which was of both physical and magical origin blended together. It was half of the length of the spawn of the darkness's large finger, and so thin that it was all but invisible if he turned it on its side – meaning that it did not refract nor reflect the light of the moon and would have not betrayed its presence to Ilentia without her witch-sight. It was sharp as well, the fractal edge of the barb already cutting into Arrapackxia's digits, though his leathery and tough skin was too resistant for it to pierce and draw blood.

The ravenous demon lifted it carefully up to his lips, and his snake-esque tongue flashed out to sample the poison and enchantments at the end of the serrated tip. The taste was acrid, and Arrapackxia registered several toxic agents upon the splinter, some of which were familiar to him and occasionally employed within his own magic (though it did not have the same demonic power as the venom more frequently utilised by the greater demon of the Sancturia abyss) whilst others were unknown to even a paragon of evil such as himself. The foreign substance entered the demon's polluted bloodstream, and his limbs began to vibrate quickly, spasming in a shuddering motion that Arrapackxia was quite unfamiliar with for a short few seconds.

A slight sweat broke out on the demon's pale brow, and he lifted a minutely shaking hand in front of his eyes, trying to keep it steady but failing. He felt the unknown serum coursing its way through his malignant veins, working its way towards the blotted and rotting mass of Black mana that masqueraded as Arrapackxia's heart, but the demon remained unconcerned as he stepped forwards, tossing the barb aside, where it pinged off of the energy field surrounding one of the paralysed citizens of Kalaan. Indeed, as soon as the poison had entered the being's unholy vessels, the demon's mana engineered defences against the threat of something borne from or related to the same power that made him had activated, and were even now isolating and decomposing the toxins, absorbing the Black mana which had given potency to the venom for himself and ejecting the Green and Blue that was also present and unusable by the greater demon.

Arrapackxia smirked as his pounding heart rate steadily returned to normal, his blood purged of the negative effects of the barb's coagulated toxicity after less than a minute – as any poison that could provoke that response from the body of a greater demon was one that was that would rip through the immune systems of a human being and permanently shut down their fragile internal organs, heralding their death in a series of violent spasms and vomit.

Whilst Arrapackxia had emerged from the ordeal completely unscathed and would not be affected by any of the bolts unless they somehow managed to pierce his leathery hide (and even then he would still be near immune to their debilitating effects for a period of time more protracted than a few seconds), his Summoner would not be so lucky if she would have the venom injected into her own bloodstream. Arrapackxia chose not to warn her, figuring that if she did not know herself then it would come as an unpleasant surprise for her and that he was not her carer nor had any obligation to protect her from damage. No, he would conceal that glimmer of information for his own use, and Ilentia would have to find out for herself – and if she didn't, then he would claim the prize of her soul sooner than he had anticipated.

The thought amused him, and he laughed, his voice not inflected with even a hint of the exquisite pain that he had felt coursing through his body at the potent venom that the barb had been coated in, the substance bonded to the dart in a manner that would allow it to completely cover the surface and flow like water into any incisions made. Ilentia glanced over at him for a short moment, a bemused tint to her narrowed red eyes the only indication that she was confused at Arrapackxia's actions, and the demon grinned wolfishly at her for a second until she turned away again, ever watchful for the actions of their foes.

The demon's gaze instantly flitted over to where he had noticed movement, his predatory senses honed from millennia of hunting within the darkness of the nether realms and the other territories within Sancturia that he had entered to feast upon their residents immediately perceiving the motion that his Summoner had not managed to discern despite the gift of the witch-sight that she had been so gratuitously given by Arrapackxia.

"Your enemies are close, Ilentia," he whispered, though his insidious words carried far through the silent night and hissed into the Master of Gluttony's ears in a way that was entirely unnatural. Ilentia glanced up from the top of a building that she had been studying after the moon's light had been obscured for less than a second by a figure that she was certain had traversed it, focussing intently on the path in front of her.

Sure enough, she could just see an indeterminable number of lithe figures darting from cover to cover and from shadow to shadow in the darkness of the night, heading towards them from across the avenue. Even with the advanced vision provided by her dark resurrection at the hands of the late Archlord of Rapture and the supplementary enchantments given to her eyesight by her demon Summoning's dubious gifts they were inexplicably difficult to concentrate upon. While they were moving fast as they shot between the darkness and the weak silver and eerie luminescence of the Sorcerer's Moon that bathed the street in its faint lunar glow, they were not so swift that the Welkalite would not be able to gaze upon them in any normal circumstance, but it was as if her eyes slid off their forms and were unable to centralise her vision upon any of them.

It was akin to trying to hold a wriggling fish just dragged out of the waters of its home with hands moistened by the liquid covering it, her eyes unable to find purchase upon the slippery forms of her opponents as they blended in and out of the gloom.

Ilentia's pale lips curled into a frown of frustration, and she snarled under her breath as she refused to be thwarted by simple illusionary trickery, tired of the games that her erstwhile enemies were playing with her. She directed her fiery gaze upon one of the figures as it stopped moving, allowing her to focus upon the member of the oncoming attack – as it could not be anything else, not now that she had already been the target of a minute projectile assault. For a moment, the humanoid was clearly visible as it crouched, the long fingers of one hand splayed out against the floor.

Their slim body was encased in a form fitting suit of reflective black armour which somehow refracted the light around it so that it would not touch the protective covering and only distorted the darkness and was moulded to what Ilentia presumed was a human's movements; a far cry from the heavy and mostly inflexible plate armour which had adorned the Lucaelian troops she had fought against last, possessing more similarities with the light guards of the vast majority of Welkalite warriors but covering all skin instead of leaving it bare to the elements.

Barbed ridges that she could sense were coated in magically synthesised toxins rose along its forearms, shoulders and what she could see of the human's legs, comparable to the weaponisation of armour that many brutal gladiators from the Order of Violence or battle dancers of the Orders of Entertainment or Rapture went through but with much more murderous purpose and less savagely artistic (or ridiculous, dependant upon the point of view of the person viewing it) flair than those attached to the clothing of the Welkalite – the suits of her enemies were built to kill, to assassinate or eliminate, not to entertain or cause pain to the wielders themselves.

The foe's head was enclosed within a sleek, backwards sweeping helmet made from a single piece of material possessing the same properties as the rest of their armour, not allowing Ilentia to see through to their eyes to ascertain whether or not her enemies were human or altogether something more sinister. The person was equipped with a slender weapon of a strange and unfamiliar design that Ilentia had not encountered ever before but she could not help admiring for its finesse and efficiency, attached to the black vambrace and fed by a sleek canister by the side of it that the woman who might still be the Master of Gluttony presumed had been the source of the barbed dart which had shot through the air earlier.

An elegantly curved blade protruded from the top of the area behind the barrel of the dart weapon, something that Ilentia could tell was curled more for ease of usage and effectiveness of design rather than any form of style – though the spiked appearance of her masked assailants would certainly evoke terror from those who had not seen as much as she had and engender fear from mortals who were not possessed of the same undying will to survive and prevail against those who would see her tied down or murdered.

Even with the figure that Ilentia assumed was aligned with the League of Thrazek knelt almost completely still (but too far away for her to launch a bolt of fire or darkness at them) it remained very difficult to capture in her eyes, parts of its bleeding back into the shadows in spite of the fact that they weren't moving at all – whether that was to taunt or distract Ilentia was unknown, though she still gazed at the enigmatic near silhouette as it gave her a modicum of time to analyse a foe that she had not been able to fully look upon until this point. It was hard for her to believe that the person was in fact a corporeal creature with how it seemed to possess ethereal qualities at this distance, but Ilentia was certain that it was due to how defined its shape was despite how difficult said shape was to perceive.

Then the unknown foe was moving once again, their movements sharp and precise as it dashed back into the murk of the night that had served to conceal the approach of her enemies for this long until they had chosen to reveal themselves in this way, evidently having corralled Ilentia into the place where they thought it would be the easiest to take down a target of her formidable nature or eager to maximise the time that they had alone with her – suggesting that the spell which had sent the civilians of the eastern centre of commerce and power into a deep slumber could not be sustained indefinitely and that the longer this battle was drawn on the more chance there would be for the Welkalite citizens to awaken, which was not necessarily a good or a bad thing in Ilentia's case.

The speed of her shadowy antagonist was unnaturally fast; one moment it was perfectly still, utterly balanced and focussed and Ilentia had concentrated in on it with the aid of her witch-sight, and the next it was gone. The precision of the motion suggested intensive training for years on end as well as the selection of humans with the required body type for the role, but there was a grace and fluidity of the actions that no normal and unaugmented human, no matter how trained or expert, could ever hope to match. However, despite that Ilentia could not sense much mana based resonance being emitted from those that were approaching her – it was present, just not in great quantities – which indicated that there was something other than magical enhancements that were propelling these new enemies of hers at to the level of speed and near sublime agility at which they had reached.

Although the fact that she could not sense magic could be attributed to the fogginess of her mind, the memories that were being implanted in it with telepathic magic she was constantly attempting to resist were distorting her senses and slowing them down, the pull of the induced sleep which had claimed the rest of the Welkalites (or the few representatives of other nations) in Kalaan becoming more and more enticing the longer it took for her to defeat these enemies, though for now she would be able to resist it for a very long time ranging into hours.

"It is as I anticipated," Arrapackxia's voice broke her brief reverie, alerting her to the fact that the demon had obviously utilised the brief halting of one of their adversaries commanding three colours of mana to examine the foe himself, or that Arrapackxia with his sight that could perceive far more than just the physical world (as while Ilentia had been given the gift of the witch-sight which did allow her to discern some things that were not of material origin it augmented her normal vision more than allowing her to see in alternate ways).

The Master of Gluttony did not turn around to her demon who for once spoke quite quickly, aware that there was not much time before their foes closed in on them and she would not be able to listen to his words. In spite of their urgency, there was still a haughty note to the demon's atavistic tone that Ilentia might have been tempted to forcefully remove from it, but ruminating upon what implications that might have soon became secondary to diving out of the way of a rain of splintered barbs gifted speed by magic from the vague direction of her shrouded enemies.

As she evaded the attack, she felt a splitting pain in her head, one that ripped through some of the numbing mist within her mind that was reducing the speed of her impulses and thoughts and caused her to have to bite her bottom lip to prevent her from hissing. She could sense the demon next to her who had made no moves towards their enemies apart from crouching down like he was ready to pounce into battle (correctly expecting that their adversaries would come to them instead of the other way round) was forging a connection within her mind again.

**Our enemies are from the League of Thrazek in the Yentarian Republic, **Arrapackxia's voice spoke into her brain without needing to open its mouth or waste its words on breath (a habit of Arrapackxia's whilst the spawn of darkness was fighting), an itching and entirely uncomfortable sensation of being connected to the demon that made the stench of its taint that it had infected her with all the more evident flaring into life within her head.

For once Ilentia welcomed the feeling of corruption and disgust that automatically rose up from within her at the reminder that the greater demon was a resident of the deepest regions of her mind. The pain of the being's words that were hissed into her head and resounded around within her skull was a confirmation that her mind was still active enough so that she could listen to Arrapackxia's voice through the mists within her minds, penetrating through any potential obstructions that might have prevented her Summoning utilising the link that was between them.

In any case, the statement only confirmed what Ilentia had already been harbouring suspicions about – even though she had previously had no idea whether or not the fabled organisation even existed or if it had been fabricated by those who had spoken of it so that their tales would hold more precedence with those that they were spinning them to, and had only ever heard brief and stunted snippets of information concerning the most mysterious of the Leagues of Thought within the Yentarian Republic.

She had heard rumours of an organisation that had enigmatic goals and seemingly struck wherever it wanted and whenever it wanted, leaving villages of Yentar or other nations alike plundered of resources or assassinating specific targets without any discernible reason for doing so, but the younger her when she was in the form of Guena had dismissed such ridiculous claims as being completely overblown. She had, apparently incorrectly, decided that either the League of Thrazek didn't exist or that they were a clandestine cartel of assassins and agents who had exaggerated their own reputation so that they could acquire more potential customers.

However, while Ilentia was concerned as to what they wanted with her and why they had rendered an entire city of the New Empire of Passion completely helpless, vaguely interested to know what their intentions had been or what they were, she was far more worried about the fact that the enemies were here and approaching at a frightening pace. She held her two swords at a ready position, both of them almost writhing within her grip they were that desperate to unleash their own forms of power upon their wielder's enemies, their excitement for the coming violence and opportunity to inflict the twin blessings of pain and destruction palpable and augmenting Ilentia's own Black and Red mana respectively.

**I regret to inform you that I only know a limited amount of information concerning this secretive guild, and that is from what my little brothers have spoken of to me in the brief intervals that I have deigned to listen to their words, so the information may or may not be credible, **Ilentia found it amazing that despite the demon helping her by providing her with information about their enemies and the type of spells that they had utilised (though the spawn of the abyssm did not have much of a choice considering what she had done to him in forcing Arrapackxia under her servitude once more) he could sound so sarcastic and resentful of her, the demon's hatred tangible as it leaked into her mind and reminded her that there was much to be valued about such beings even as she would rather be rid of him so that he could not stab her in the back the moment such an opportunity arose.

**We have already seen that they wield a trifecta of Black, Blue and Green mana, one of the few things that I have encountered which do, though the ones that we are fighting against seem to prefer the former and have only sparingly utilised the latter to augment that, **Arrapackxia's disgruntled mental words were almost polite and twisted in a foul perversion of what some cultures would extol as gentlemanly, though underneath the mockery there was a primal hunger for their foes that was beginning to eclipse all else. **And I have heard from some sources that their biomancers have a penchant for modifying and altering their own Summonings to improve their capabilities through the additions of things akin to extra colours of mana or greater combat aptitude, so I assume that we will be greeted with evidence of this soon.**

The words took on a scornful tint at the end of the mental speech, indicating that Arrapackxia found the practice of augmenting Sancturia creatures ridiculous – though that was characteristic of a being that was the epitome of arrogance and (honestly not entirely unfounded) conceit such as himself who believed that there was nothing that could be improved about him.

Ilentia had seen Welkalite Summoners who had permanently changed their own Sancturia Summonings (whether or not the creature had given its consent or not (if it was even one that was intelligent enough to communicate with their masters, as a rather large number were not capable of speech – including the cyclops which Ilentia had sacrificed in the Infernal Bargain after being brought back to life by the vile magic of Tradax Yulica), replacing arms with spikes or blades and equipping them with barbed armour that would induce terror within the ranks of their foes, though if what Arrapackxia had told her was factual or not and if there were Summoners against her in Kalaan she expected to see something far more refined or biological mutations instead of brutish and crude physical adaptations like those exhibited against the Lucaelian forces within Usnaan and the territories that they had subjugated prior to that final battle concerning the Kingdom of Light.

Ilentia didn't bother mentally replying, as whether or not the demon was able to hear her thoughts was still something that she hadn't yet deduced, and besides she did not have anything that she needed her Summoning to know or answer now. The information that Arrapackxia had supplied her with was at mediocre quality at best, and while there were some titbits of knowledge which might prove useful in reality most of it was meaningless to her and would not aid her in this fight at all.

Arrapackxia suddenly stepped forwards, roaring at the top of his voice (which was not as loud or powerful as it was when he had consumed flesh within the material plane or souls in any other (as they were potent not enough to satiate his thirst within the physical world)) "Come then, foes! Come and face the Archdemon of Greed! I am your doom made manifest, and I will enjoy tearing you apart and feasting upon your souls! Prepare for your everlasting torment, pathetic humans!"  
If any of the enemies had been dissuaded by that, they showed no sign as they finally materialised more prominently out of the shadows, still under the influence of the spell that made them difficult to pick out but forced to reveal themselves somewhat in order to attack.

The greater demon ripped a long tendril of pure gloom out of the air and launched it towards the members of the League of Thrazek with a contemptuous flick of his outstretched hand. The blast of midnight was easily evaded by the agile agents who blended back into the darkness as they eluded the animated Black mana. Arrapackxia grinned as a hail of retaliatory bolts fired from the technologically advanced weaponry of their opponents struck his left shoulder, embedding into the tough skin as he grunted but not penetrating far enough in for their deadly cargo to be unloaded.

Ilentia analysed their foes in the brief stages of the fight where she was able to see them, working out that despite their similarities there was five or six enemy agents railed against them – a pitifully small number of warriors when one considered that even with the numbness of her mind and her uncharacteristic inability to utilise the full extent of her senses she could not intuit that there was any powerful mages or warriors with a high capacity for mana usage amongst them, and whilst it could simply be a part of their strategy for concealing themselves Ilentia doubted it.

That didn't mean that she was going to become complacent, not at all as such a thing suggested that perhaps there was far more to the shadowy assailants than what could be seen and worked at first glance. Such information was not a stunning revelation by any means, but Ilentia did not have any more time to think of the nature of her foes before they were baring down on her. The Welkalite woman banished the thoughts from her mind as a fleeting shadow leapt out of the darkness, brandishing a blade attached to their wrist that arced out of the night towards her.

Vaguely taken aback by such frontal tactics that she hadn't expected from the mysterious League of Thrazek which seemed to have meticulously planned this perfectly right from the beginning, Ilentia blocked the attack with Fire, the person that she assumed was an assassin forced to leap back to avoid being immolated in the backlash of the parry as Fire released flaming power all around it at Ilentia's command, the gloom of night lit up by the flaring orange light which cascaded all around her but was instantly blocked by a wall of solid night which prevented it from illuminating the attackers.

Had Ilentia been a Lucaelian obsessed with the light of their so called holy angels and fixated upon bringing sanctimonious radiance to everything she might have baulked at the dark power which had been utilised to preserve the advantage of the shadows and the espionage of her stealthy foes and been aghast at the notion of fighting within complete darkness (little did Ilentia know that the forces of the Kingdom of Light did that on a regular basis when their White mana was not strong enough to repel the tenebrosity of the abyss that their civilisation was built within), but since she had a sentient piece of the calignosity inside of her she was perfectly fine with fighting for her life within the pitch black darkness of night.

Another rain of bolts came speeding out of the air towards her when the assaulter that she had clashed blades with flipped away from her, but Ilentia was already moving and even though her foes had clearly predicted her path she was still able to avoid the darts. Arrapackxia must have thought she was a fool if he seriously believed that she hadn't noticed the effects that the poison on the splinters had had on him, a demon of the forsaken nether realms and the most unequivocally evil place within the twinned worlds, and made the connection that it would be far more impactful if it was absorbed into her own bloodstream.

She felt a build up of Blue mana in one of the enigmatic and faceless assailants that materialised out of the night, a sapphire glow spiralling around a slender hand that flickered in and out of sight as a Summoning ritual was cast, the azure light doing very little to give away the position of the mage. Ilentia sprang forwards with her swords at the ready for a twin strike, but was forced to dive out of the way as a lance of pure Blue energy split the air that she was stood within, something that she instinctively sensed would do more damage in fraying her already strained mental defences and hindering the production of her mana than hurting her physically.

The Master of Gluttony was not accustomed to fighting those that utilised that type of mana, as although some of the Lucaelians had employed the magic of thought and logic within Usnaan and a select few members of the Resistance had possessed access to the spells of intellect and foresight they had only been minor foes at best. She had never truly fought against anyone from the Yentarian Republic who was well versed in employing the many strange abilities given to them from the repertoire of cold Blue mana at their disposal, and as such this would be a learning experience in the sense that it would open her eyes as to the type of fighting that was undergone by mages of that discipline.

The mana coalesced into a single and sleek form, and a screeching sound was the harbinger of a new Summoning pierced into Ilentia's ears, the noise howling into her mind and becoming amplified by the telepathic entity that was already intruding upon it and being waylaid by her mental defences. The aerodynamic form of a flying creature was formed out of the dazzling shapes of Blue mana that twisted and turned with the potential of possibility before creating the sapphire sinew of a beast that glinted in the moonlight.

It screeched at her again, strangely beaked mouth gaping open as two eerily glowing eyes suffused with an aquamarine radiance beheld her, an aerial predator spying out its prey from the sky. It had two legs held close to its body but levitated above the street and the Summoner who had already retreated back out of sight with long and sinuous wings that looked like they might have once belonged to some form of bird creature but twisted and mutated with a layer of fibrous and fleshy skin morphed over it in place of feathers. It was a weird mutation of a being, one that Ilentia knew would be far more effective than the original Summoning of the mage but one that managed to slightly unnerve her all the same due to its unnatural blend of strangeness and efficient evolution.

It wasn't much that could disturb the Master of Gluttony who had watched the consumptive deprivations of her Order of Passion that she had inherited from the last scion of the Firefist lineage (which had only been brought to power due to Ershun following and supporting Tradax in their usurping of the older Masters of Passion with their newly obtained demonic power), but the sight of the membrane of azure flesh stretched out over the bones of the bird that could be seen beneath it was one of them.

A core of cyan energy at the heart of the raptor pulsated with wisps of mana that Ilentia could tell would be powering the modified Sancturia being with power and enhancing its already augmented functions to an even further degree, gifting it with speed and a magical distorting aura which served to confer it with the same concealment properties that the Summoner and their allies had already deployed. Ilentia could tell that the aerial raptor avian which seemed more like a flying manta ray than any form of bird did not require much magical energy to conjure into the world, and as such the mage responsible for its Summoning would not be hampered much by its destruction or set back by being forced into harnessing the requisite amounts of magic to Re-summon the being.

It screamed at her again, a wave of Blue mana taking the form of the sound and thrumming through the air as it rushed towards Ilentia who was already preoccupied by fending off one of the agents from the League of Thrazek that had launched themselves at her in order to delay her and prevent her from reacting as efficiently.

The assailant had executed a number of hit and run attacks from blending in and out of the night, wielding the mentally altering powers of Blue mana and the shadow manipulating abilities of Black to contort the fabric of the darkness around them and forcing Ilentia to either rush out of position in order to get to grips with them which would expose her to the assaults of the other foes or to endure their attacks in a defensive position so that she could protract the fight until Arrapackxia managed to devour one of them and increase his own power level.

The demon leapt in front of the blow, claws suffused with tenebrous life as it slashed the air around Ilentia, almost startling the woman had she not seen it coming due to the fact that it was a rare sight for her greater demon Summoning to show deference to her and willingly come to her aid, but the adversary from this covert organisation surreptitiously melted back into the shadows before Arrapackxia could split them open.

The demon grunted in a mixture of irritation and angry frustration as a line of splinters struck his chest and large collar bone, though again it did not embed too far into its skin so that the poisons could be released into it. Ilentia used the distraction formed by the demon to spin around and glare at the membranous raptor which screeched at her again as it dove from an awkward angle which would have left her open to attack had the spawn of Sancturia darkness not been at her side and prepared to protect her. The Master of Gluttony did not care what strange modifications the creature had undergone to turn it from an avian organism into what it was now, it would burn in the inferno of hellfire like anything else.

The woman reached into herself, drawing upon the power that she knew she had available and tearing past the misty and numbing mental barriers which the intrusion into her psyche had been systematically placing within her to draw upon the defiant Red mana at her heart. She pointed Fire towards the mutant bird, the edge of the destructive scimitar lit up with a flaming orange light as Ilentia's hand that was gripping the handle of the violent enchanted weapon glowed from within, hellish embers of unholy immolation illuminating the bones and blood vessels within her forearm and hand as the Red mana flowed through her.

She roared as the heat grew in intensity, the Summoning of her enemies choosing not to divert its course as it dove towards her, splitting through the night with a keening shriek of augmented lungs as it did so, the fires of Ilentia's corrupted heart erupting through her hands and engulfing her blade in a conflagration of infernal crimson as it crashed through the air towards the oncoming Sancturia being of Blue mana.

Or at least, that is what should have happened. Instead of enveloping the beast in immolating fire and melting the modified flesh from its enhanced bones, Ilentia felt an unfamiliar and utterly uncomfortable sensation at the back of her mind and near to her heart where she had been generating the Red mana for the spell of consuming flames, one that quenched the fire at its source and momentarily extinguished the inferno within her the second she was about to release it upon the avian mutant, halting it in its final ignition and leaving the Welkalite temporarily bereft of power.

It was as if the trail of power that led from her repository of magical energy that had been fuelling the channelling of fire had been cut or blocked off for a brief moment, the strings of the puppet of blazing combustion which she had used to coax the mana into life snipped by scissors of calm and analytical magic.

The woman who had held the influential position of the Master of Gluttony was certain that a bemused expression in between stupefied confusion and smouldering frustration had plastered itself on her face when all that was launched out of her blade instead of the firestorm of thirsty flames were a few desultory embers that the curved sword coughed out which barely singed the sapphire flesh of the creature which was rushing towards her as they licked at it with unimpressive orange tongues, Fire whining in annoyance at no more power being delivered to it as Ilentia quickly processed her shock and managed to shove it down, the imperative to survive against all the odds once again rising to the forefront of her mind and ensuring that she remained completely focussed on the battle at hand.

The Welkalite was not accustomed to countermagic at all, having never fought against it in the past and having not been in the position to be battling against a potent enough mage (or group of magi) to muster enough Blue mana to cast such things due to the rarity of that sort of magical resonance within the New Empire of Passion, but somehow whilst imagining it that had not been what she had been anticipating. It was equal amounts infuriating and deadly, even moreso in that respect than the shields of protective White mana that the Lucaelian clerics utilised to protect their allies from the storms of near indiscriminately destructive spells flung at them by the Welkalite military because at least then Ilentia could force them into an unfavourable position in not being able to achieve anything else other than delaying the inevitable.

However in this case her magic had merely been cut off for a few moments, the mana wasted and spent without her being able to facilitate anything with it, and now her opponents were capitalising on that brief distraction. Although she factored it into her short term mental strategy the moment that Arrapackxia had mentioned the rivers and main water sources of Kalaan being saturated by Blue mana amongst others, she had anticipated that there would be more warning to it and that she would be able to retract her mana instead of casting the spell if she sensed it coming.

Perhaps it was because her enemies and therefore their mana signatures were concealed by the camouflaging magic that they were employing to great effect and in a normal circumstance Ilentia would be able to see the counter spell coming before it arrived and react to it, or maybe it was down to Ilentia simply being inexperienced in such things and as such unable to register the potential tell tale signs for such a thing. For now it meant that using her mana was a risk that she was unwilling to take.

Ilentia instead raised her blades, conceding to rely upon physical attacks instead of bombardments of magical assaults for the time being as the sleek evolution of a bird swept down on her, wings sheathed in a film of Blue mana which would hinder the production of her own dark energy and prevent her further access to it as it whirled through the air at the Master of Gluttony. The woman's senses were on fire, knowing that there was no way that with the number of her enemies despite Arrapackxia seeming to be able to distract two of them that it would only be the first visible Summoning that would be assaulting her at any single moment – as even without access to her spells the woman could still slay it due to her demoniacally enchanted frame and the spells interwoven into the fabric of her two weapons that naturally bled mana without her having to do anything more than give them a link to her own.

The creature shrieked as it dove down at her, a frigid bolt formed from an unnaturally generated and freezing wind whooshing through the night as Ilentia quickly sidestepped, evading the magical breath. A humanoid form began to materialise out of the shadows around her, one of the four agents of the League of Thrazek specialising in physical combat that the Welkalite had managed to distinguish despite them being identical scything out of the gloom with their serrated wrist blade coated in noxious poisons slicing towards her.

Ilentia quickly responded with both an instinctive blast of shadow as she wielded the darkness around her as an additional weapon with her Black mana that was quickly quenched no sooner as it had begun (which was what she had expected and planned for, and as such had only put enough mana into the attack as would have murdered her current opponent to bait out the countermagic and confirm that the two mages in question which she had seen for a few moments had enough power between them to quickly generated enough mana to use more of the disruptive spells) and a retaliatory strike from her own weapon as she ducked down low and drove it upwards, Malice having whipped round from its defensive position into allowing her to attack again.

The assailant nimbly curved round the thrust of the blade but was forced to belay their own attack in order to survive (showing Ilentia that their current modus operandi was to continued living instead of afflicting the Master of Gluttony with their debilitating poisons and sacrificing themselves for the benefit of their comrades – suggesting that perhaps the venom attached to their melee weapons was not potent enough to incapacitate her and leave her as easy prey for the others (although she would not labour under this assumption as it could easily end in her death if she was too arrogant), or that the agents of the League of Thrazek were not the sort of warriors to want to die in the name of overall victory), leaping back as Ilentia reversed her grip on the sadistic sabre and lashing it across where the assassin had been.

The generous gift of her witch-sight was allowing Ilentia's augmented and crimson eyes to track and follow the agile movements of her opponent to a much greater extent than would have been possible before it despite the fact that her vision had already been post human at that time only minutes ago before the sleeping streets had exploded into violence. To this end, she could still perceive her foe in spite of their attempts to dissolve back into the onyx murk of night and could have grinned in an entirely predatory and malicious had she been so inclined. Following on with her instinct, Ilentia quickly released a rush of flames from her right hand weapon that spontaneously erupted into vivid combustion as the faceless warrior raised their own wrist mounted projectile contraption to launch another spray of poisoned splinters at the Master of Gluttony.

The burning magic melted and then vapourised the most likely metal bolts as it rushed towards the assassin, Ilentia having planned the release to ensure that the enigmatic sorcerers which had already nullified two of her spells at the moment of their inception could not prevent this one from having an affect. Before the fire immolated her current enemy, the human's free left hand was swathed in a bright aquamarine glow which split through the darkness of night for a short moment before being wrapped in coils of swirling Blue mana that engulfed their slender form prior to being concealed by the night once more.

Acting on impulse, the Welkalite sprang forwards, knowing from the past what the magic meant in this circumstance as she had put a similar spell into action herself when utilising the long distance displacement device that the most probably late Master of Wealth, but she was too late and the agent disappeared in a spiralling flash of essence dissipation as her fraternal twin blades hacked through the empty air, ripping through the space that the enemy had been previously occupying before they had vanished with their usage of Blue mana.

Her choler rising at the ability of her foes to perpetually elude her wrath, Ilentia spun around with a gracefully poised twirl on one foot to where her eyes had managed to somehow predict where the enemy would appear out of the teleportation and was about to charge on ahead into it before instinctively pausing herself.

She was met with the two frozen shapes of a mother and son in front of her, dark blue leaking from their open eyes as they were paralysed in the position that they had been before the spell, with the somewhat malnourished young boy that couldn't have been much older than six years of age pointing towards something in the distance, their thin and bruised face lit up with happiness and suffused with a childish enthusiasm that Ilentia had forgotten even existed and made contempt rise within her. The woman was a haggard warrior too thin to be healthy (suggesting that the limited food that she had obtained had been given to the boy that Ilentia assumed was her son) and with her hand on the boy's head, gazing towards the same thing as her child as her own battered features contorted into confusion.

Ilentia didn't care at all what they had been glancing at, only that they were in her way and halting her progression towards the enemy that she had almost punished for assaulting her before they had slipped out of her grasp once again. She would have obliterated the obstruction with her magic (well, maybe not considering the fact that it would most likely be annulled by the manipulative sorcery of her adversaries) or hacked the adult and child to pieces and continued on with her current objective of eliminating these enemies in any other circumstance, but the shimmering shields of mana that were presently flickering with a scintillating orange light as they absorbed the remnants of the blaze that Ilentia had blasted out all around her protected the civilians from her interference and forced her to go around them.

The Master of Gluttony was beginning to discern why the emissaries from the League of Thrazek had entrapped the populace of the city located in the eastern reaches of the New Empire of Passion in this spell of theirs that presumably made it take significant amounts of effort to break and harm them (although she had managed to kill the person that she had taken the keys to a vehicular method of transportation before the spell had fully set in and caused the others' near immunity to damage) – at first Ilentia had been quite perturbed at the notion that they sought to preserve the civilians and not affect their lives in any way as that did not seem like the actions of something that would be seeking her out even if it might have been some form of mysterious inquisition that hunted down the "corrupt and tainted" such as herself (though such a thing was incredibly unlikely anywhere but the Kingdom of Light where it was probably the norm), but now she could see that there was an entirely ulterior rationale for freezing them in time.

The fact that the civilians had been paralysed and unable to act meant that they were obstacles to one confined to ground movement like Ilentia and Arrapackxia when he had not devoured the flesh of a member of mankind, obstructions to her path that could be navigated easily enough around when simply walking in a peaceful situation but were potentially deadly when she was forced to steer clear of them in her manoeuvres and factor them into every action that she took – whereas the agents of the League of Thrazek were free to meld in and out of the shadows to challenge the Master of Gluttony in any manner that they saw fit.

Ilentia held in a scream of frustration when she lost sight of her target, the melee focussed assailant from the Yentarian Republic having blended into the darkness once more now that they had teleported away from their Welkalite target, repressing the expression of her emotions and instead moulding them into a source of more power to pour into her blades and to pre-emptively channel mana in the hope that she would be able to release quickly enough and with sufficient force to overwhelm the countermagic of her foes.

She spun around on instinct, her combat honed reflexes alerting her to the presence of another enemy behind her, and Ilentia glared up at the flying creature that screamed at her as it angled its sleek body to descend towards her at a rapid rate once more.

The Master of Gluttony was suddenly tempted simply to take the reckless dive on the head and carve into the being with her twin swords even as it ripped its augmented beak into her – she could sustain the wounds and keep fighting at near optimum capacity due to her unnatural endurance and resistance to pain -, emphasising the brutality of her preferred method of fighting, but had to push the thought out of the way when she considered that the mutant bird could easily be conjured into existence once again without much expenditure of mana from the mage that it belonged to, and whilst the Welkalite would regenerate at a reasonable pace (a process which was slowed down by the blockages of her mana passageways caused by the numbing telepathy that was spreading its benumbing influence all across the mental pathways within her body connected to her mind) it would still place her in an extremely detrimental and risky position that would allow her attackers to fully harm her in any way that hey chose to.

Ilentia turned on her heels, not bothering to fire off a casual spell as she knew that it would be nullified by the magi who had not yet fully revealed themselves and were most likely remaining as far away as possible from the melee engagement to aid in preserving their own lives so that they could continue to help control the flow of the battle.

She sped off through the maze of frozen people, intending to run to the point where she could utilise her greater demon's strength and power to distract her foes and relieve some of the pressure that was being placed upon her by the near constant shadowy attacks, not wanting to be pinned down in a specific place and be at the mercy of her assailants by the only Summoning which had entered the material plane through the magic of these agents so far in spite of the fact that Ilentia was reasonably certain that she would be able to kill it if it did so and force it to be brought back again if they so desired.

The modified avian dipped and swung through the cool night air towards her, staying just behind her as she fled through the streets and navigated through the statues of motionless individuals which had been clogging the central avenues even at this time of late evening before they had been frozen by the sorcery of her opponents. Ilentia could feel numbing reverberations of power swirling within her head, the effects of the water she had ingested that had been suffused with particles with mana accentuating properties combined with the light of the Sorcerer's Full Moon slowing what would have been blisteringly fast movements without it and causing a strange sort of cold pain within her skull.

It was difficult to elude on foot something that moved by taking to the sky; the finned raptor rose easily over the obstacles of the civilians and warriors of Kalaan that Ilentia had to run around and able to maintain upon a course of motion, constantly forced into checking what was in front of her to avoid crashing into the glimmering fields around the citizens and rebounding off of them, whereas the Sancturia beast could fly over them without any difficultly at all in its screeching pursuit of the Master of Gluttony.

Ilentia dodged a flurry of barbed darts that was launched at her from a shrouded figure located on one of the rooftops of the mutilated buildings of the main avenues which had been scarred by the civil conflict which had taken place only days ago here, the bolts leaving contrails of midnight as they cut through the air and were powered with mana to make them even faster and more deadly than usual – evidently her enemies had decided that such precautions that had a greater chance of revealing them were necessary if they ever were to succeed in combat against a Summoner of her formidable nature.

She rolled underneath the outstretched spear of a lethargic looking guard who had been rubbing his eyes with one grubby hand, though from exhaustion or because of the ubiquitous dust the Welkalite could not tell (nor did she care in the slightest), the bombardment ceasing the moment she did so in order to converse ammunition and not waste it by firing at near impenetrable locations – confirming that at least the non magically specialised agents could not break the barriers around those affected fully by the lullaby spell cast by their peers, which was what the Master of Gluttony had suspected.

Ilentia slid between two more citizens of the slumbering eastern settlement, twisting her body between them after already having tossed her robe aside due to the fact that there was no chance of anyone from the Resistance or the Ja'an Guard noticing her when they were all stuck within unconsciousness. The corrupted albino twirled past another selection of troops, her sixth sense which was somewhat clouded by the interference of the telepath within the group of Yentarians tracking the movement of her demon as well as the low mana Sancturia creature that was chasing her down whenever it became more obvious to see.

She ducked beneath convoys of resource wagons and dashed between hulking krovods halted in their last action and put to sleep by the narcoleptic consequences of the spell cast upon the entire city, but when she emerged on the other side of the processional the howling beast nimbly curved round to meet her and dove straight at her, a pattern of cancelling indigo weaving itself into being around her and halting the progression of the automatic spell that the Master of Gluttony had began to fire back to retaliate against the creature.

Ilentia had the breath knocked out of her as the manta ray-esque being as its beak covered in what were clearly razor sharp but extremely thin spikes arced down to smash into her. The woman raised her fiery sword in her right hand, clamping it between the mutant monster's jawline whilst attempting to pull her other more malevolent scimitar around to eviscerate and disembowel the creature before a trail of shadow flecked with globules of Blue mana wrapped around her wrist and pulled the hand holding the sword down to her side so that she could not respond.

Ilentia was already straining against the sinewy muscles of the Sancturia resident enough so that she could not devote much power to attempting to wrench her arm up past the magical restraints, and snarled back at the beast as its atonal screech made her ears pop with the force of the noise when it snapped down on her blade, though its beak was still wedged shut by the fiery blade. Ilentia tried to course mana through her veins and incinerate the face of the creature, but no sooner had she begun to channel it then it was shut off once more and her magical energy dissipated into the air in a few speckles of fiery red.

Acting on impulse, the woman twisted her head to the side, bolts of opaque black that didn't even glint in the light of the Sorcerer's Moon puncturing the rock of the paving slabs that Ilentia had been knocked onto by the snapping beast. Whilst some of the more reckless Welkalite warriors (or those who had an insatiable hunger for glory and to attain martial prominence, their allies be damned), the Yentarian assaulting her with the ranged weaponry that the assassins were equipped with was evidently at an angle where they could not effectively fire at Ilentia without hitting the Summoning which had crashed into her and was holding her in one place as her muscles strained against its sinewy and membranous flesh – and had concluded that they would much rather refrain from harming both the creature and the Master of Gluttony despite the disposablity of the former and the importance of the latter in facilitating the cessation of this altercation.

It also suggested that perhaps the penetrating power of the missile splinters was not powerful enough to pierce through the aerial raptor and stab into Ilentia, or that the poison would be ejected into the Summoning before reaching her and as such would prove to be ineffectual.

Ilentia banished the thoughts to the back of her mind, knowing that whilst they would be influential in allowing her to obtain victory and were contextually very important they had little relevance to her current predicament of wrestling with a genetically modified creation of the agent sorcerers of the enigmatic League of Thrazek and were not applicable here – and despite the fact that in any other circumstance (other than fighting within her own Mind Realm whilst being relentlessly assaulted by the memories of a life which was not her own) she would have been able to concentrate on both the pathways of intelligent thought in planning out a method of emerging triumphant and the split second reactions required to be an exceptional combatant of her calibre right now in the present the bombardment of implanted thoughts as well as the mental disruptions of the intrusion to her psyche she could only focus her mind upon one, and it was self explanatory as to the option that she chose.

Ilentia spied one of the assassins of the shadowy order materialising once more out of the darkness but at a different angle, and allowed the creature that was bearing down on her to push her further backwards. Her back scraped against the shield of pure mana surrounding the paralysed form of one of the Kalaan krovods, the large beast acting as an ample cover to prevent her being ambushed from behind (even though it was possible that her foes would be able to dive underneath the domesticated creature with the formidable agility that they had displayed earlier), grinding her blade against the small but razor fangs of the raptor that beat at her with its wings that were sheathed in Blue enchantments.

Her left arm was still pinned at her side by the tendril of pure gloom which had snaked around it and was restricting her movements despite her ample resistance to it, and she couldn't move the one holding Fire without the denizen of Sancturia's beak impaling her and tearing her flesh from her bones, somewhat held in place by the fingers of darkness that were grasping at her out of the night and seeking to pull her down into the endless void of oblivion.

She was, to all intents and purposes trapped, but the young Welkalite woman had no fear for herself right at the moment as in spite of the progression of the spell's soporific impact upon her senses and ability to move Ilentia was near certain that she would be able to stave off the predations of the mutant flyer almost indefinitely. Nonetheless, she was still a prime target for any of the agents not dealing with a rampant Arrapackxia should they choose to come out of the shadows that they were concealed within and face her, a target that they could choose to attack at any time because Ilentia wasn't exactly going anywhere.

The Master of Gluttony of the destroyed New Empire of Passion began to build up mana inside of her, mustering up the energies of darkness and flame that were locked within her chest and had been gifted to her through her dark resurrection at the whims of Tradax Yulica but not actively beginning to form any sort of spell with them and as such not giving the magically attuned members of the Yentarian party anything that they could focus upon to countermand apart from her generation of mana which was something that was incredibly difficult to stop, especially with such volatile colours as Ilentia wielded.

That would force them into acting to prevent the simultaneously immolation and annihilation of the raptor (something not utterly adverse to their probability of success) as otherwise Ilentia would then be given free reign to begin bringing the battle under control if she was not stooped, which was exactly what the Welkalite and the greater demon that had recently been fully forced under her dominion wanted.

Whilst eradicating the mutant with a surge of mana that would obliterate the surrounding area wouldn't be too harmful to the chances of the League of Thrazek defeating Ilentia and doing whatever they wanted with her (most likely killing her, though there was a possibility of her capture occurring due to the demon that had tainted her body and soul and wanting to experiment upon a foul creature of the darkness that they may not have had the ability to obtain in the past), leaving her with mana flowing through her veins and at a high power level would make it exceptionally troublesome for the enemy sorcerers to continue with their current strategy of impede her efforts to utilise the full extent of her dark abilities.

Sure enough, the agent that was forming from the wisps of shadow as contrails of midnight bled off of them and revealed their suited form appeared next to her, their blade whipping round into Ilentia's unprotected side as fast as they could manage it and with a blow that was sure to inflict as much damage as possible as it tore through her flesh. Ilentia smiled, a predatory grin that exposed her gleaming white teeth that were covered in the gritty sand of the city, not even bothering to hide her condescending satisfaction at having been able to bait her opponent into exactly what she had planned for.

She hissed in hatred as the human's blade closed in on her with the mutant still pressing her into the back of an oblivious and slumbering Welkalite refugee, her skin scraping numbly against the shield that flared in annoyance at the interference and the contact with another object, a dark blue glow permeating the night and saturating everything in a backwash of deep sapphire flecked with warning notes of inky blackness, mana flaring into life all around her in a snarling release of undirected energy which Ilentia had no intentions of controlling – the Master of Gluttony only began the process to remind her foes what she could do if she was left in this state without one of them intervening to attempt to prevent her, flashes of indiscriminate magic arcing around her and dancing in a haloed corona of coruscating hellish fire around her appearing that did nothing to deter the advance of the agent from the League of Thrazek, just as she predicted.

The assassin moved so fast they were nothing more than a shadowy blur of motion, and Ilentia made sure to narrow her eyes and focus upon her new witch-sight to ensure that she did not get struck by the envenomed weapons of her opponents whilst executing this dangerous manoeuvre, as that would severely slow down her movements and poison her with the same substance that had caused her demon pause and had made him break out in a strange sweat (although he hadn't bothered to warn Ilentia about it herself, probably thinking that if she got herself afflicted by the toxic serum then she deserved to die and wasn't worthy of his help).

The mutated bird was still snapping at her sword, the properties of the membranous flesh the only think preventing Fire from melting its skin and sinew from its bones, and the agent's blade sped through the air like a dark. Ilentia invoked the rules of her dark pact, the vile contract forcing the ugly power inside of her to rear up and making Arrapackxia obey her commands – not that he wasn't already. Ilentia felt the demon's will battling against her own flaming influence before he begrudgingly acceded to her complete control, allowing her to display her dominance as darkness flashed within her molten red eyes. The Master of Gluttony needed the greater demon that she had sacrificed her old cyclops for to be under her command fully, not acting with her imperatives in mind but still doing what he wished for this to work properly, as any minor missteps could end in her death or wounding which she would ideally prefer to avoid if the time came to it.

Arrapackxia roared, still possessed of those functions as Ilentia directed him over, barging past the mysterious warriors that the demon had been tangling with and delaying as he hunted down their mages out of the darkness that he had been born within, and tenebrous tendrils of hatred wrapped around its brutal talons as it sprang forwards.

The enemies from the Yentarian Republic who still had not revealed their motives (perhaps Ilentia would keep one alive and tortuously interrogate them afterwards) were forced to leap out of the way and melt back into the night to avoid being impaled as the demon crashed through the air, its already preternatural speed for its size augmented by aggressive enchantments of Black and Red that it had used Ilentia's mana (with the woman's permission) to cast upon itself by evoking primal and atavistic sources of magic that the sorcerers had obviously been unable to dispel.

The greater demon leapt into the air, utilising the Welkalite mortals that had been trapped within the spell of their foes to propel itself faster – in any normal circumstances the prodigious weight of the demon would have crumpled the humans, crushing them to dust and pulping their internal organs into fine powders of blood and flesh, but with the protection all around them that forced them into an induced unconsciousness and prevented any from interfering with them formed platforms of solid energy that Arrapackxia could utilise to launch itself into the night air.

Arrapackxia's taloned hand locked around the back of the slender throat of the screeching raptor, tearing it away from the Master of Gluttony even as it choked out unnatural ululations that had a strange and freakish cadence to it that could have disturbed Ilentia if she wasn't so focussed on her survival as she span around when she was freed, sighting the enemy with her augmented vision that illuminated them in unholy circles of crimson as the figure's blade cut through the air in front of her.

Ilentia blocked it on the newly released Fire, pouring mana into her left arm and channelling her blend of frustration mixed with anger and a desire to survive above all else, to preserve her life and let nothing stand in her way whilst doing so. She managed to break free from the tendril of shadow which had wrapped itself firmly around her wrist and sunk in spikes of gloom. Thorns in the darkness cast by one of the two mages had burrowed into the flesh of her palm through the gaps in her worn leather gauntlets, but as she wrapped fire and her own darkness around her limbs the woman's inky blood became scorching hot and melted the spells of her foes away.

Malice made a quiet and strange noise of hissing sibilance which the woman quickly realised was an expression of excitement mixed with enjoyment, and spun her blade round in a whirling slash of the scimitar that left contrails of shadow in its wake to deflect the weapon that had been slicing towards her. The blades clashes, sparks shining as the two pieces of metal – one maliciously curved and full of its own sadistic personality, the other only slightly less cruel and barbed with poison but much straighter and not reflective – ground against one another. Supposing that she could do something to keep the sorcerers more occupied and enjoying the sensation of burning within her veins (albeit the fact that it was tarnished somewhat by the numbing resonance still within her skull that she had not been able to cause the expulsion of yet), the woman brought her Black mana to the fore as she pulled Fire round in an arcing strike at the same time, intending to impale her opponent with a lance of darkness that began to coalesce out of the sabre in her left hand. She was not surprised in the slightest when the mana was cut of from its source, the evanescent wisps of blackness scattered to the winds as they were lost within the already near pitch black night. It had not required much mana to cast the spell, but it would most likely have slain the warrior that she was tangled with at the current moment.

Ilentia was beginning to get a taste of the plan that the enemies were employing – to actually attack Ilentia in melee combat they were forced to reveal themselves out of the shrouding concealment magic that had allowed their approach to go near undetected until one of them had willingly showed themselves to the Master of Gluttony (as at this point unless she was caught off guard by an unexpected attack from an angle she had not taken into account (unlikely) she had already proved the range attacks to be ineffectual, as unless they could deliver their deadly cargo into her circulatory system the missiles were small and easily deflected or eluded by one with alacrity and spatial awareness as formidable as hers, thus rendering them near useless at the current moment).

However, apart from the limited protective capabilities their form fitting armour provided the enemy agents were fragile and easily killed if she managed to force them out of position and into her waiting magic, which meant that their mages had to constantly be concentrated upon what Ilentia was doing so that they could counteract whatever non physical actions she might want to take as to safeguard their allies, meaning that whilst the Master of Gluttony could only expend relatively small amounts of mana that only made small dents into her internal repository of magical energy if the enemies were in her general vicinity and were going to attack her instead of fading back into the onyx midnight and force the enemies into thwarting the magic and wasting their own mana in return.

Nonetheless this was still not an efficient way of fighting, as in spite of the reality that Ilentia had a large mana pool power by her hatred, independence and anger that could support the casting of many spells she was still only one mage against two who were evidently powerful enough to sustain several enchantments upon their allies and perhaps be the cause of the narcolepsy which had afflicted the entire city, though Ilentia sincerely doubted that considering such power would have been something that she hoped she would be able to detect if it was originating from the two sorcerers that she could see.

Growths formed from Black mana moulded themselves into place from the night around the back of the greater demon as Arrapackxia endured another storm of bolts from the foes that he had left behind in order to aid his Summoner, magical impacts from the few spells that the mages were casting that did not relate to preventing the actions of their enemies scattered along the demon's back. The beast of the abyss grunted but otherwise did not react to that, nor was he at all fazed by the creature held in one huge hand ripping at him with its beak and slashing with blade like fins.

The Welkalite woman who could have been the last remaining Summoner of her nation with access to one of the demons of the Tempest of Craving associated with unadulterated lust, hedonistic excess and unmitigated greed for pleasure let go of the demon's mind, releasing the mental tether that she had placed around the ravenous creature to make sure that there were no mistakes with her strategy for turning the tables of this fight (as there was no room for error due to how close the assailant from the enigmatic group of her enemies was and the potency of the toxins that their weapons were all coated with) and allowing Arrapackxia to wreak as much havoc as he chose now that one of the opponents who had dared to challenge the Summoner of a greater demon of the other world was desperately out of position.

The demon bellowed and laughed in equal amounts at the defiance, snapping the raptor's cartilage filled throat to the point where even the flexible nature of the mutant could not stop its neck from being broken and its death (before it returned to the Mind Realm of its Summoner to lick its wounds and await its master calling upon it once again).

Arrapackxia cackled again, the haughtiness of its spiteful voice doing nothing to disguise the burning hunger within it that was devouring the demon from the inside and slightly concerning Ilentia as to what risks it might take in securing the meal that it so craved (due to the fact that Blue mages were notorious for being able to forcibly return Summonings back to the mental worlds of their masters through their magic of disrupting their connections to both Sancturia and the source of mana of their Summonings and as such making their forms dissipate because of their inability to be sustained without any mana powering them) as she didn't want to have to waste time and large amounts of effort by bringing him back into the world and she was certain that she could not fight against these foes without the greater demon aiding her.

The broken raptor's head lolled listlessly in the demon's taloned hand, its raucous cries silenced by the strength of the foul being, but before the body was returned back to the Mind Realm of its inscrutable Summoner Arrapackxia, in a mixture of nonchalance and contempt, tossed the corpse of the creature in the direction of the rest of their foes who were cut off from their comrade locked in combat with Ilentia. The membranous form of the Sancturia abnormality enhanced by its Summoner veered sharply and flipped through the air, one of the warriors forced to dodge it before it smashed into the wall with a brutal crack and expulsion of strangely pigmented vitae that did not give off the scent of blood at all. The avian mutant exploded into shards of sinewy mana as it collided with the rough stone of a nearby ruin that was in the process of being reconstructed in the aftermath of the battle for Kalaan, brightening in the night up in a fleeting display of blue effulgence.

Grinning wolfishly, Arrapackxia turned to the warrior that Ilentia was attacking with full force, her blades spinning in an erratic yet elegant storm of curved steel that the agent was hard pressed to deflect and avoid due to how simultaneously random yet graceful the blows were. The assassin fought with a methodology of combat that she had never encountered before; the logical blows and elusive steps of the adversary encapsulated a systematic and disciplined approach to the fight combined into a style that was utterly cold and lacking anything resembling flair or individuality yet despite that was extremely efficient and could adapt to many situations instead of being simply set in its ways and inflexible.

To contrast, Ilentia's own techniques were derived from her mind and did not have any set basis within what little that she had been taught – of course she had trained a rather significant amount in the few days after her infernal resurrection, but she had not spent any time being told how to properly wield the weapons that had belonged to the former Master of Gluttony slain in combat with the two Lucerna princes of the Kingdom of Light (and the current was unequivocally convinced that the blades would not have tasted any blood in that combat as Ershun Firefist would have taken any steps that were necessary to secure a safe position relatively far away from the scions of the enemy royal family whilst his greater demon fought against them).

Her style had been developed from herself alone, having had no prior experience with melee weaponry in her time as Guena (not that she would have known until recently anyway when she had obtained her old memories whilst fighting against Arrapackxia and establishing control once more). She fought how she instinctively felt was right: Malice, being the more precise weapon focussed upon inflicting cruel damage to individual targets, was placed in her left hand due to that being her strongest and most accurate, whereas the more indiscriminate Fire could be wielded easily with her right as it required less distinctness of focus to cause destruction.

It was a battle of what was clearly rigorous and intensive training given to an individual who had been augmented to even greater levels of discipline and effectiveness by their masters and individuality, the lack of any form of direction not obtained internally and the skill created by the will to survive and fight against her foes. Ultimately however, it was a battle that did not matter. The agent twisted away from her, deflecting one wide strike of Fire with a serrated blade attached to their forearm that ground painfully against the violent scimitar, and was forced to slip to one side to dodge a bloodthirsty blow from Malice that would have split them head to toe.

Ilentia had already realised that, cut off and isolated from their allies who were already advancing upon the Welkalite and her demon that were closing in on the one split off from the main group, the enemy she was presently in combat against was attempting to delay her for as long as possible and reach enough distance away from her so that they could morph back into the shadows and escape her reach.

To that end, the Master of Gluttony leapt forwards again, using the perpetual and nearly always reckless aggression that the Welkalite people were famed for to force her opponent into blocking and responding to her twin strikes and making them remain within the dance of clashing blades for much longer than they wanted. Ilentia maintained her state of wariness and caution even if it was heavily subdued by her offensive dynamism, forever looking out for a hail of envenomed splinters and any potential lashing blades out of the shadows that would pierce her and infect her bloodstream with the serum that she did not want to have any experience with.

Her head was still ringing and pounding, the false memories of a day spent in relative inactivity that were individually tailored to each current resident of the eastern centre of commerce flooding into her skull and clouding her higher realms of thought were their imagined visualisations, and the habitual excitement of the battle and the adrenaline it incurred was severely diminished by the invasion of her mind that was growing stronger every moment, the spell's somnolent influence over her increasing in power as the weft of this fight was spun out across the fabric of time.

Arrapackxia reared up beside Ilentia, the demon's grey eyes suffused with a greedy hunger that would never be satiated but could be partly quenched by the flesh of their enemies. Its predator's gaze sighted the mortal that the Master of Gluttony was in combat against, and the spawn of the darkness's nefarious claws ripped forwards, slashing through the air with a speed borne of an unrelenting thirst for blood which made up the essence of the greater demon.

The claws tore into the arm of the assassin who had noticed the threat but had been powerless to defend themselves from it much other than twisting slighting and avoiding being impaled through their faceless helm by the claws. However, they were still not fast enough to escape the strike of the greater demon, and instead of taking the attack where Arrapackxia had intended it to be delivered the agent of the League of Thrazek's awkward manoeuvre forced the brunt of the blow to be inflicted upon their shoulder.

Their whole left arm was sheared off, rich crimson blood with a vaguely unnatural tint fountaining from the stump, but the Thrazeki didn't even react in any noticeable manner to the agony of the dismemberment – not even a hiss of pain emanated from the mask of the warrior, something that Ilentia might have admired if she cared at the moment (and anyway, it wasn't as if not reacting to pain was a sign of strength – it was overcoming the suffering and wielding it to the disadvantage of those who were inflicted it that was true power) – and their twofold retaliatory attack ripped a line of blackness across the demon's huge forearm with their only remaining arm.

The Master of Gluttony evaded a storm of splinters that the enemy seemed to use non of their restraint in launching, obviously aware that there was no escaping death at this point and as such unloaded their full cargo of poisoned bolts upon their foes, but Arrapackxia only laughed as the metal barbs rebounded ineffectually off of the leathery flesh of the demon, the long incision that had been torn into him by the blade closing up in a sickening reknitting of dark flesh woven back together by threads of corruption. It was like trying to stop a desert twister by throwing a few rocks at it: utterly pointless and ultimately achieving absolutely nothing.

The demon laughed as it advanced quickly, seeming to Ilentia that it was simultaneously taking its time to be as terrifying as it could possibly manage and to instil fear into their foes (not that such a thing was inevitable, as if a person didn't react when one of their arms was violently slashed off by the malignant claws of a greater demon then attempting to intimidate them was a futile gesture - though Ilentia knew for a fact that Arrapackxia revelled in the horror of both enemy and ally alike as he was a demon amused by such things) yet moving swiftly as not to provoke any form of punishment from his Summoner and to not allow for his prey to escape him.

He raised one clawed hand, blood still spurting into the air from the ruin of the Yentarian's arm and covering the cracked pavements in claret fluid that mingled with the dried gore which had yet to be swept away by those tasked with repairing the city of Kalaan (as there were much more important things to cater to), intending to wrap it around the mortal so that he could take a juicy bite out of it, the demon's nostrils flaring with the sweet scent of blood that was just as intoxicating as the aroma of fear that he wasn't perceiving from the human who remained standing in the same combat ready posture as before whereas others would have fallen to the floor from the agony wracking their fragile forms and the loss of blood and a limb. The rain of darts dried up, though the foe still maintained their position, knowing that there was no way they could escape, and seemed apathetic towards their own fate.

Just as Arrapackxia's hand reached forwards, Ilentia detected a surge of malefic Black mana from behind the agent and narrowed her eyes as an eruption of shadow and gloom enveloped the Yentarian assassin. Their suit of armour instantly melted away through the entropic magic that had been cast upon them, degrading at an extremely fast rate and revealing a pale woman underneath who glared rather impassively at the Master of Gluttony before her flesh sloughed away from her bones, the deathly energy passing through her ripping away layers of her skin until it exposed the musculature of her face underneath – and even that blackened and poured away in liquid form as the unnatural rot took hold, her skeleton putrefying and ageing into dust within a time span of less than as second.

Arrapackxia's talons passed through the decayed mess of the assailant, the agent's body crumbling away like festered sand before the demon could get to grips with her and sustain himself upon her flesh. Ilentia quickly pulled away her eyes from her greater demon – whose own grey orbs flashed with a hatred spawned from being denied of the chance to slake the eternal voraciousness that defined the damned creature – and angled her gaze towards the focal point of the origination of magic that she sensed.

Her eyes augmented by the witch-sight locked on to a lean, ghostlike figure that became visible for a second, an Ilentia got the impression that they were almost taunting her despite doing little that could be insinuated as that. She glowered up at one of the two mages, their armour as black as pitch and their covered arms and gauntlets that were etched in arcane sigils which the Master of Gluttony was positive she hadn't laid her eyes upon before and were infused with a dark illuminescence which radiated Black mana – the source of the spell.

The demon next to her opened its mouth wide and howled in the mixture of a terrifying roar and a scream at having its prey denied, a bellowing peal of utter loathing mixed in with inflections of a vile lust for the pure pleasure derived from inflicting death and feasting upon the flesh of other living beings, but without the swell of power that would have come with Arrapackxia's feeding the greater demon's volume was not exactly impressive to Ilentia, who had heard it to the point where it would have nearly ruptured her ear drums if not for her demoniacally augmented form.

It was the culmination of its pining for the substance of mortals, the zenith of its wanton rage at having its desires denied to it by the machinations of its foes made manifest within the demon's voice, but if the Thrazeki agents were perturbed then there was no sign of it, a notion exacerbated by the masks that concealed any fearful expressions they might have been wearing. Most likely they would know that the demon expressing its anger would not be detrimental too them and that in this form Arrapackxia was all bark and little to no bite.

"Someone has done their research," the ravenous creature spat derisively, the undertone of eternal hunger much more than just that now as he stalked forwards, the degraded corpse of the first opponent to die completely gone now that the putrefaction had fully set in and their form had decomposed. The same mage that had left the cover of the darkness to be near fully visible to them (only the shroud of magic still remained around them which kept their figure indistinct) pulled up waves of coalescing Blue mana around their palms, the strange symbols that had flared into life on their black vambraces shifting and metamorphosing into a new pattern underneath Ilentia's gaze, one that did not ooze entropy and plague but instead represented something akin to deception and misdirection – or at least according to the Master of Gluttony's witch-sight, as without that Ilentia was sure that she would have no ideas as to the nature of the mana that was being channelled.

An interlocking matrix of Blue mana was etched into the air in front of them, spinning beams of sapphire light that danced and twirled into one another before Ilentia's eyes, alerting her to the fact that this mage was not the one who had created the raptor Arrapackxia had brutally ended the physical existence of as they were Summoning in a manner much dissimilar to the conjuration ritual of the mutant avian. Like individual threads of fabric, the strands of energy exhibiting the tenets of duplicity and guile were wrapped into one another, woven together like a puppet of Blue mana as they began to be gifted with form and substance, obtaining a physical state of matter instead of remaining within an ethereal form.

Arrapackxia gnashed his wickedly sharp teeth together in a volatile combination of frustration and desperation, leaping forwards before Ilentia could order him herself. The three remaining warrior enemies detached themselves from the concealment that the midnight provided, revealing themselves under the auspicious light of the moon and becoming vague and ghostly in shape as they surged towards the demon and her currently stationary Summoner in a blur of nimble motion.

The Master of Gluttony knew well that it was a delaying tactic, and was still subconsciously trying to process the ramifications of the mage who was Summoning now murdering their own comrade just to prevent the demon from sinking his malicious teeth into the woman who had seemed rather nonplussed at her fate – it all but confirmed that the six had been sent to apprehend, capture or kill the Welkalite woman, and that they had access to information concerning Ilentia's method of fighting and Arrapackxia's dependence upon mortal flesh to unlock his full potential.

Whether or not those who had ordered this to happen had assigned the two sorcerers to the group in order to fully counteract Ilentia's abilities and nullify her defiance or had simply been the closest of the agents of the most enigmatic League of Thought, was, like much of the nature of the clandestine organisation, a complete mystery to the woman, but she soon smothered the thoughts once more. It was the influence within her head that was refusing to be dislodged until she escaped the affliction of the lethargy inducing spell that was interfering with her normally focussed thought patterns, pulling them into introspection and higher realms of consideration that she would not be able to sustain as to distract her further and facilitate the creation of an opening for her enemies to strike.

Nonetheless, although the fact that Arrapackxia was still starving for meat meant that the ravenous demon would be more inclined towards aggressiveness instead of wasting precious time in attempting to intimidate their foes (a tactic which, for whatever reason, had clearly not worked, indicating that the regime that the warrior were trained by had evidently removed all forms of emotions and allowed them to be completely unconcerned by a greater demon of the nether realms), the hunger of the demon was affecting her ability to sustain him. Arrapackxia had never been Summoned into reality for Ilentia's use and gone such a lengthy amount of time without his feast of flesh before this, and as such without that increase of power that Ilentia received in tandem with her Summoning the Master of Gluttony was experience the strain upon her mana pool much more keenly than ever before – a problem further compounded by the intrusion within her and the particles of foreign mana that had been ingested in the water she had drunk to hydrate herself.

However, becoming agitated would not achieve anything, so Ilentia scolded herself as she watched the three agents dance around her near frenzied demon, dodging its taloned strikes that left swathes of taint in their wake and peppering the beast with their bolts of poison – most likely hoping that they would get a lucky strike and maybe hamper the demon's movements. She raised her right sword, placing some mana within it and willing to test her enemies' capability to render her spells null when one of them was in the throes of a Summoning ritual that was nearing completion, but instead of the other mage revealing themselves the one that was forming their own Sancturia creature out of the fabric of their magic switched position, their gauntleted fingers bending and flexing as they manipulated the essence of their mana in such a way that Ilentia's witch-sight informed her that would be optimum for countering her own spells.

The magic began to take shape and assume a form, a strange creature of liquid quicksilver emerging from the fusing links of mana with no discernible features other than an amorphous set of sweeping tentacles composed of the cryptoplasmic substance that made up the rest of the being. It rippled, shimmering in the light of the moon as it slithered across the ground, rivulets of a metallic liquid spilling off of it and splashing on the ground before being pulled by a gravitational influence back into the creature.

Its supple movements were contrasted by the occasional spasms it underwent, wavelets of motion cascading across it and making the being appear like an endlessly undulating and animated pond of liquefied metal – but instead of being the heavy and thick molten substance that was wielded by some of the New Empire of Passion's ferromancers who specialised in casting spells that manipulated superheated metals, this seemed more like water that was encased in a film of thin metal and behaved as a much lighter liquid than any molten material would.

The woman could pick out the individual droplets that were pooled together to make up the substance of the creature, each one of them rippling and vibrating to the tune of some unknown melody, and Ilentia narrowed her eyes as the nebulous creation of Sancturia that she had never witnessed or even heard of before began to shimmer and crease like the tranquil surface of a still lake disturbed by a pebble being skimmed along its length. The glistening creation turned, each droplet moving in its own way to alter the structure of the being as Ilentia watched, still with the need to do battle imprinted into her mind but willing to pause to see what her enemies were doing before rushing into the fray. If she had any reason to suspect that throwing herself at her foes would delay whatever the newest Summoning was doing or somehow impair the tactics that her assailants were putting into action then the Master of Gluttony would have done, but for now she was content to watch and react accordingly.

Each independent droplet was an entity unto itself, individually motivated by an autonomous muscle structure contained within the interior of the globules. Yet each separate bead worked in tandem with the others as the creature shifted and altered its form, behaving like a shoal of burnished fish when they stirred or switched direction, the moonlight refracting off of them scintillating like the scales of said aquatic swarm.

The bizarre creation that was twisting in and out of itself began to become more defined, its unstructured shape starting to morph into something more solid than liquid, its flesh taking on a pale hue that was all to familiar to the Master of Gluttony as she watched with no small amounts of trepidation mixed with hints of curiosity as to the nature of the Summoning.

Arrapackxia's almost desperate roars faded into the background of her mind, only remaining as a footnote so that the Welkalite could continue to mentally track the position of her Summoning, as she watched the shifting skin of the being change into something far more lymphatic and ghastly, sigils of dark resonance imprinting themselves upon its vibrating musculature before being erased as the skin underneath it underwent its transformation.

Large claws dripping with abyssal toxins pierced out of tendrils that had spun around each other and paled into white limbs and formed large fingers, a mirror of those that were being swept through the air in pursuit of shadowy agents that danced around the greater demon in their midst. Bony horns like the antlers of a false deity of nature corrupted from within by the taint of darkness and gluttonous craving rose up into the air as the shape shifter brought itself to new elevation by rising to its new full height, and Ilentia sensed a build up of polluted Black mana that had not been there previously explode into existence as she stared into the half-formed face of a creature that she was intimately accustomed to seeing now.

The rippling iridescence of the scales refracting the lunar light of the Sorcerer's Full Moon did nothing to quench the malicious darkness that was emanated from every pore of the Summoning now that it had almost completed its new transfiguration, and as the scintillating metallic liquid slotted neatly into place within the spherical spaces of the ashen eyelids, morphing into themselves to form orbs of pure hunger and atavistic lust, Ilentia found herself staring into the face of Arrapackxia once again – the face of the greater demon impersonated perfectly by the mimicking creature that had been conjured by her assailants.

It was exactly the same as the ravenous demon, the hunched and predatory posture it had assumed a perfect mimic of Arrapackxia's own before they had both risen to their full height, every detail exact right down to the smallest units of conceivable measurement. Even the brand of subservience that Ilentia had seared into the forehead of her rebellious Summoning a few hours earlier when she had been within her Mind Realm was replicated to precise specifications, and from appearance alone if the Welkalite woman did not have an intuitive connection to her own Summoning she might have been fooled by it.

If its mana pool was anything to go by then it would possess the same abilities as the unfed and therefore fettered Summoning of the Master of Gluttony, and as Ilentia stared into its grey eyes she felt the same mixture of revulsion and primal apprehensiveness that she had become used to from gazing at her own greater demon – it was not quite _fear, _as Ilentia refused to believed that she felt _fear _towards anything at all, but it was the same instinctual shadow of dread that flickered within her which could not be suppressed whenever she looked upon the maleficent visage of a lord of the realms of hell.

The irrepressible thirst for the flesh and blood of mortal beings as well as that longing to gorge upon the banquets of their souls were both present in the cryptoplasmic being's imitation of Arrapackxia's eyes, and Ilentia was certain that she could sense the same age old enmity seeping out from the grey orbs of the false demon. Instead of reacting as Ilentia would have expected, a combination of roars of challenge and cries of outrage, Arrapackxia's frenzied howls ceased as he let the warriors that he had been hounding in an attempt to catch out one of them and feast upon them escape unharmed, sizing up the clone of himself and barking out a haughty laugh at the antics of their foes.

"Oh my, I am truly a handsome devil!" he chuckled, full of the dark mirth that perpetuated throughout his malevolent and arrogant species, stroking his pale chin with taloned fingers as he regarded the shapeshifter with no small amount of amusement as it growled back at him with a perfect rendition of the demon's anger and hostility. Arrapackxia smirked, the underlying flecks of insatiable hunger twisting the demon's smile into something even more malicious as its eyes swivelled in their sockets, taking in the other Summoning which had assumed his form and then turning back to the mage who had conjured it into existence.

**I presume that you can take care of that pathetic impression of me yourself whilst I either eliminate the Summoner or devour the other agents sent to battle against us? **The demon's words pierced into her mind, the pain of the mental connection with such a vile being simultaneously disgusting and inciting revulsion within the Master of Gluttony but also something that she was grateful for, as the invasion into her psyche was clouding her thoughts and the lancing agony of the demon's spiteful words (whether or not Arrapackxia was aware of the torment communicating with its Summoner was irrelevant) served to somewhat pierce through the mental fog which was saturating her inner psyche.

Ilentia repressed the automatic motion of nodding to the demon, which would not have been picked up by the beast of the abyss considering it wasn't even looking in her direction, instead replying with a mental message of confirmation which would have amounted to a simple grunt of affirmation had it been done physically.

Arrapackxia was correct in suggesting that course of action to the Welkalite, as Ilentia knew that because of the fact that the shape shifting Summoning had the same power level as her demon they would be roughly equal in strength and as such would fight until a standstill without anything major occurring – the spawn of darkness's might would be cancelled out by the newly obtained power of the transmogrifying being, and although Arrapackxia was obviously more familiar with his own abilities and would most likely be able to turn the tide in his own favour (unless the cryptoplasm copied the thoughts of the Master of Gluttony's Summoning also and as such could calculate the optimum method of utilising abilities) it would take too long and did not take into account the fact that the emissaries of the League of Thrazek outnumbered Ilentia five to one, assuming that there were no others – as the presence within her thoughts was not explained by the two sorcerers she had already faced.

Additionally, without the power burst that was derived from the ravenous demon feasting upon flesh and rising in strength combined with the affects of the unnatural substances that she had ingested Ilentia was struggling to maintain the demon in its current form, and because of the Sancturia based nature of the doppelgänger which had taken the form of her demon Arrapackxia wouldn't achieve anything by devouring its essence.

The enemy demon which wasn't a true demon at all turned from Arrapackxia towards the Master of Gluttony, evidently it or its Summoner having assessed her as the true threat that couldn't be simply taken down by the minor agents – a conclusion most likely arrived at as a result of their lack of success in coming anywhere close to eliminating her so far – and requiring more brutal power to slay. She bared her teeth to the creature, glad that it was wearing the face of something that she despised so that she could better channel her hatred towards it, and lazily spun both of her hankering blades in languid circles baiting the creature to attack.

The other warriors had faded back into the night once more, but the imitation of Ilentia's demon did not have the same ability to flee from the Welkalite and her Sancturia thrall, so it stood in the centre of a group of refugees who had been warily navigating around one another, the tension that must have filled the air before night had fallen now replaced by something altogether much more palpable. Arrapackxia sniffed the air, watching as the being which had taken his form loped towards Ilentia in exactly the manner that he would do so himself if wishing to assault the Master of Gluttony.

It might have been interesting to see which one of the two would prevail without the binding of their Infernal Bargain skewing the odds in the Summoner's favour, but there would be no time for that as the demon suddenly found itself beset on all sides by shadowy assailants and their magical leaders flinging a bombardment of spells at him.

Ilentia rushed forwards, hoping that the sorcerers would be too distracted with Arrapackxia to counter any of her magic but not willing to presume that such a thing would be the case, and used the pulsing reverberations of mental numbness within her mind to fuel further anger, a searing gout of flame pouring out of Fire as it was angled against the demon mimic. Arrapackxia's clone snarled at her, the demon's conceit and scorn of her magic oozing out of the primal noise, pivoting and batting the torrent of hellfire aside with a leathery and pale limb, claws slicing through the malicious orange of the assault and leaving pure night in their wake, gouges of black into the sea of infernal heat.

It lurched forwards, moving in a way that was extremely reminiscent of the offensive manoeuvres that Arrapackxia used to close in on his enemies with a burst of speed that should not have been expected by them, a sharding bolt of darkness hacking through the air that Ilentia had to leap to one side to dodge as it tore a great rent into the ground on which she had been stood. The talons of the false demon slashed round, Ilentia blocking them with her crossed blades and hissing in frustration when her attempt at releasing a wave of darkness intertwined with fire was met with failure and halted just as the mana was expended from her. The woman's shoes scraped along the ground as she was pushed backwards, desperately attempting to use her enhanced strength to divert the force of the shapeshifter's blow away from herself as it was pressed down on her, wishing to deflect the attack elsewhere instead of taking the brunt of it on her two swords and significantly straining her muscles, but it could not be avoided at the moment.

A rain of splinters coming from one of the agents tangling with Arrapackxia as they tried to contain the rampaging demon almost caught the Master of Gluttony off guard, and it was in the split second before they would have impacted into her lower hip that she pulled away from the demon in a spray of sparks, evading the envenomed bolts but exposing herself to a further attack from the demon.

The blow slammed into her side, violently flipping her over as the talons ripped into her skin, lacerations streaming with her polluted inky blood gouged into life as the cuts were torn into her. Ilentia hissed in pain as she twisted her body mid air, but she had already decided upon this course of action and had prepared herself for the jolts of agony that had delivered.

She had encountered the corruption which ensorcelled the demon's claws before, and knew that she would be able to purge them from her bloodstream and regenerate the wounds that had been caused to her soon enough, but the toxins of the bolts launched at her by her enemies were far more deadly and an unknown to the Welkalite. She couldn't take any chances like that, not now, and even though the overall wounding which was caused by the swipe that had torn great rents into her lower abdomen that would eventually seal up it was still better than being afflicted by the poison of her foes.

Ilentia writhed in pain for a single moment before twisting within the air, attempting to get herself further away from the unreal demon before it could strike again and make her an even more difficult target to track for those agents not overtly occupied by her own Summoning and manipulating her vaguely aerodynamic form so that she could do so. Another blow from the clone of her greater demon almost tore into her chest as she span through the air, scything through the night as she landed, poised and feline for a short moment before staggering backwards in pain, hurt.

The aerial acrobatics had cost her despite Ilentia being far more resilient than any normal human and able to perform the elusive somersaults to avoid the attacks launched her way by the replication of her demon, the wounds that she had suffered not sealing up and regenerating within the effects of her dark vitality as fast as she was used to because of the effort it required to maintain her ability to think coherently and clearly assess the battle with the intrusion into her mind. Nevertheless, her inky black blood that blotted her clothing with a tar-esque substance began coagulating almost immediately over the tears in her waist and abdomen inflicted by the shapeshifter's claws.

It roared at her once more as it closed in, not deigning to use words and thus not revealing to the Master of Gluttony whether the clone of her demon had the capability to communicate in anything other than guttural barks and primal howls of hatred so pure yet corrupt that Ilentia was half convinced that the creature would be unable to shift back into its original misshapen and quicksilver form now that it had experienced the fell loathing of a greater demon from the realms of Sancturia's hells.

An extremely sharp blade rammed into Arrapackxia's back as he pursued one of the tactically retreating assassins of the most mysterious sect of the Yentarian Republic known to him, and the ravenous demon roared in pain as the weapon ensorcelled by magical enchantments that conferred highly piercing characteristics upon it sliced through his leathery flesh and penetrated to the bone, scraping along the hard substance that made up the skeleton of the demon.

Had the spawn of the nether realm's dark nurseries been a mere mortal, or another pathetic being which took damage easily, the starving Summoning of the Master of Gluttony might have been thrust into a paraplegic state for the remainder of its existence (or until it was returned to the Mind Realm of its Summoner or could undergo some form of hellish rejuvenation), but since Arrapackxia was a greater demon (and a true one, not a runt sibling or cousin of the edacious fiend that proclaimed to be one but would only be classified as a lessor demon (if there was such a thing, because even the most minor demon still commanded power rivalling any angel hailing from the reviled Second Sisterhood) by the demonologists of the mortal world) the only effect that the attack had on him was to simultaneously cause him large amounts of pain and incense him even further – his unholy body having already internally manufactured a foul cure for the venomous serums coating every conceivable weapon of his and his Summoner's newest and present enemies.

The blade was wrenched agonisingly against the interlocking bones of the demon's spine, grinding against them as it was twisted in order to inflict as much damage as possible, and Arrapackxia spun around, swinging his claws in a lethal and vicious arc around him.

Had he been well fed and at the height of his power (something that was in fact possible when tethered to Ilentia despite his subservience to her, as the tenets of their Infernal Bargain (which he had been forced unwilling into by the meddling of the dead Master of Rapture and his foolish brother Carramoshk whose life had also been severed by their godlike and rapturous progenitor which had in turn been slain by the Summoner of the Angel of the Black Sun whom Arrapackxia had encountered only once before and had been terrified of even if he would never admit to the snaking tendrils of dread which had wrapped around his blackened and blighted heart in the presence of the seraph of darkness and light, a mesh of two opposite forces which should never have existed) allowed the bound demon to utilise the full extent of their abilities at the expense of their Summoner's mana – if they were not strong enough to control the being they had dragged up from Sancturia's abyss then they deserved their fate) Arrapackxia would have found the attempts of the enemies to damage him amusing at most.

Now, malnourished, lacking the sacrament of his sustenance and aching to sink his teeth into the soft flesh of a human and feast upon the delicacy of their blood (he was not picky like some of his little brothers as to the nature of that blood, finding little difference between the innocent vitae of a virgin child that had never harmed a soul in its virtuous existence and the ichor circulating through the veins of the most foul and debased murderer), Arrapackxia feared that perhaps the blows dealt by the mere humans dancing around him would end in the doom of both himself and the Summoner that he had been shackled to the longest (every other had been murdered by himself so that he could return to the murderous and base pleasures of his hunting grounds).

The reactionary strike didn't hit anything, indeed there seemed to be nothing behind Arrapackxia at all, though the being of the other realm knew that not to be the case. The customary adrenaline and excitement of fighting against mortal birthed from the sweet nectar of their terror and their hilarious attempts to hold him off or even defeat him was soured heavily by the irritating tactics employed by these current foes.

They were akin to a swarm of wasps or mosquitoes, perpetually hovering at a sufficient distance to avoid retaliation and diving in to sting or bite whenever the attention span of the demon waned or he was focussed on killing another of their group. The wounds caused by them were not the causation of much individual damage per se, little more than major sources of irritation, but when combined together and coupled with Arrapackxia's lack of nourishment they could eventually becoming intensely detrimental and could force the demon back into the Mind Realm of Ilentia – an act which would indisputably end in her defeat.

The greater demon longed to swat them aside, wrap his large hands around them and crush the life from their frail bodies after ripping them apart with his fangs and have their blood (which seemed to have a strange chemical tang to it indicating that their suits filled them with drugs that allowed them to exceed normal human limitations in their agility, endurance and lack of fear) dripping from his mouth.

To that end, he reared up, turning his head back and forth as he scanned the shifting shadows of night around him. It belatedly occurred to him that not only did the emissaries of the League of Thrazek bend the darkness around them in their approach to conceal themselves but had also augmented the impenetrable blackness of the gloom to higher levels than would usually be possible through the distortion inducing sorcery of Blue and Black mana amplified by the swollen eye of the Sorcerer's Moon – but done without the usual nefarious influence of sections of the abyss overlaying onto the material world more prominently than in normal locations (an effect exhibited by the perpetual shade of the hated Kingdom of Light or the unnatural darkness of Usnaan when the Lord of Riots's Tempest of Craving had been roiling above it) which the demon would have been able to sense.

No matter. It still would not stop him from finding them, it would not stop him from hunting down each and every last one of them and feasting upon their broken corpses as they mewled in terror at his inexorable and inevitable approach, their bloody doom epitomised by Arrapackxia. The demon narrowed the grey pits of pure lust for the meat of human beings which served it as eyes as its demonic gaze pierced through the darkness, locating the reflective black suits of his foes and honing in upon their essence, upon the tiny fluctuations of the air in front of them as they exhaled and the vibrations of their thudding hearts.

In spite of the fact that the espionage highlighted by their assailants from the League of Thrazek was exceptional, that the warriors and two sorcerers who had come to fight against the Master of Gluttony and her contracted demon seemed to suppress all notions of fear, of any form of emotion that could compromise their fighting ability, they could not repress the very things that made them living creatures: their need to breathe, their need for fresh blood containing vital oxygen and nutrients essential for the production of energy to circulate around their body and supply it with the constituents for continued life.

No matter how augmented and enhanced they were, no matter what strange substances they ingested which would still their hearts for seconds at a time and still allow them to function at maximal capacity, prevent the need for large amounts of breathing despite expending large amounts of energy that would have others of their race keeling over and unable to act in any way other than panting for air, no matter what magics they cast that concealed their life essences and the signatures of their emotions, they were still living, breathing human beings at the core.

And that would be their downfall.

Arrapackxia sent a blunt and brusque mental command to the Welkalite woman who was currently his Summoner, having deduced that the "strategy" (if their tactics could be labelled under such a term) which they were labouring under now was not working in any sense of the word; the greater demon could occasionally view the mortal he was constrained to when she was struggling against the copy of himself that roared and growled at her with a perfect rendition of his own frenzied hunger but one that did not reflect the sheer _need_ for sacrilegious sustenance which burned within Arrapackxia's breast.

He hid a smirk which automatically creased his lips in the split second before he could prevent it at his Summoner wincing in pain at the mental message – Arrapackxia was nothing if not utterly insensitive to the torment of Ilentia and any psychic communication between the two through their infernal link was agonising for the woman – turning back to where he could faintly perceive his foes circling around him, hoping to trap him amongst them and banish him back to the Mind Realm of Ilentia so that they could focus all of their efforts upon her.

**I would like to see them try it.**

There was no possible way that the melee soldiers of the Yentarian Republic's most enigmatic order would be able to achieve such a goal alone, that much was obvious and had already been established. They could wound him, yes, they could severely impede his ability to aid his Summoner in this moonlit encounter, but without the magic of a potent sorcerer aiding them they were simply not powerful enough to eliminate the ravenous demon, not with Ilentia remaining able to sustain him for now. However, with a well placed blow from a stealthy magic wielder the task of dispelling the essence of Arrapackxia was much more easy to enact.

That in turn would require the mage in question to reveal themselves from the shadows so that their ritual spells could be wielded to their full effect without having to undertake the labourious procedure of maintaining the concealment enchantments shrouding the assassins, as otherwise the magic would not be potent enough to dent the unnatural shielding of the greater demon which made it resistant to petty magics and weak spells due to its hellish heritage.

Added to the fact that the lineage of Rakdos the Defiler (a family tree which included Arrapackxia, and while the demon would in any usual circumstance not give a care about the precise identity of other demons it was related to more closely than others) had an inherent protection from the meddling spells of their foes that would serve to attempt to suppress and counteract their eternal desires for forbidden carnality, to detain them in their psychotic rages and prevent them from experiencing the dark emotion of their sinful passions in all of its glory, the two Summoners of the squadron of their enemies would definitely be forced to come into the light of the moon to use sorcery that would have any effect upon the insatiable demon.

He could somewhat perceive where the mages well, as they registered more prominently in his senses due to the fact that they had mana within them and were Summoners, but they lingered at the edges of his perception and constantly endeavoured to remain within the peripherals of his vision. Arrapackxia could smell their scent, the cold and flavourless aroma of their Blue mana tinged with darkness and life intertwined in a strange pattern of Black and Green energy respectively, although the latter was only present in extremely small amounts due to the biological modifications that their Sancturia creatures had undergone.

To this end, he did not directly stare at any of his foes, blocking out their presences within his mind so that the idea that he did not have any inkling of their locations was further reinforced while he sensed them forming up around him for a new attack.

He needed them out in the open, and that was where Ilentia came into his plan.

The Master of Gluttony nodded in acquiescence of the sudden alteration of the strategy, staring up at the shifting demon which gazed back down at her, a snaking tongue flicking out between wickedly pointed teeth and tasting the air in front of it with the new senses it had acquired after assuming this new form – though if it sought to lap up any form of fear from the air then it would be severely disappointed; Ilentia had fought this demon before (albeit when it had belonged to her and was bound by the profane bindings of their contract) and knew exactly how it was nothing to be feared – only something to be wary of.

She slowly stepped round an aged man frozen in mid step, his leg raised into the air, reading to plod down onto the next paving stone before he had been locked within the spell which had swept through the entire city of Kalaan.

The moon's dusty ring of lunar radiance became brighter and more coloured, the impassive silver glow that usually suffused the cold orb shining with more of a sickly and pale green mixed in with deep ocean darkness that shone down on the combatants below.

Her posture was tense, her muscles tight and ready to burst into action, and although she gave off the impression that she was in full control of the situation, preserving the illusion that Ilentia was fighting at near optimum capacity and had a clear plan in mind for defeating the doppelgänger of her own greater demon, in reality her thoughts were scrambled by the shaking presence within her head. The Welkalite was finding it increasingly more difficult to link ideas and facts together in more, her functions of higher reasoning nearly utterly abandoned in the face of the psychic intrusion and the flood of false memories which would be afflicting all those in the eastern city under the influence of the Sorcerer's Moon burying her more advanced thoughts over the implications of the different skills available to her assailants and how they could apply them to this battle – or indeed how she could apply her own to it.

Even though it was adverse with what she had thought ever since the Infernal Bargain after her dark resurrection had been initiated, Ilentia was somewhat glad that her greater demon was taking charge with regards to her safety, as while Arrapackxia was a vile beast that she despised he was still intelligent and cunning and could easily lead them to victory given the chance – and now that she had instilled him with begrudging respect and the imperative to serve her (or suffer the consequences of the branding backfiring and marking him even more prominently, perhaps even crippling the abyssal creature) she did not have to fear betrayal as much as she had been cautious of it before.

No, despite not being able to think clearly and having a numbing drumbeat endlessly echoing throughout her skull Ilentia could still follow commands (that sense ingrained into her ever since she had been brought back to life by the Master of Rapture), and her instincts for survival and bloodshed were as potent as ever. The demon replica cocked its head to one side, an almost quizzical tinge entering its grey eyes, and had the Master of Gluttony been able to think properly she would have noted that because there was no way she was going to be deceived with relation to the identity of her own Summoning the shapeshifter occasionally acted strangely in its new form.

She grasped onto the intense loathing that still burned within her chest, the smouldering hatred of all those that would try to end her new freedom aflame inside of her (the intrusion of her foes and their narcoleptic magic doing nothing to extinguish the source of her power), Fire lighting up once more with hellfire in preparation to release a spell of great magnitude. Malice dripped with tenebrosity in her left hand as the woman gracefully stepped in between a group of frozen men and women, her eyes and newly obtained witch-sight fixated upon the clone of Arrapackxia that stared her down, stepping forwards itself and cracking an already damaged paving stone underneath its prodigious weight.

She knew that the time for enacting this new strategy would come soon, and she was intending to manipulate the false demon into a perfect position for it to be put into practice. The woman's twin blades hissed, each noise blending together in a background cacophony of bloodthirst and an unquenchable desire for violence in its two main forms, both of them a twisted reflection of the same addiction to inflicting pain and destruction.

She walked slowly away from the location of her own Summoning, pulling the fake demon back with her as she clutched her side, not allowing them to see that it was already sealed and that no fresh inky blood was pouring out from the gaps between her fingers, moving like a taut string and exaggerating the pain that she was in. The shapeshifter followed her, loping between the ranks of paralysed citizens and warriors of Kalaan, probably under the misconception that she was attempting to increase the distance between them so that she could heal.

The demon's words tortuously laced into her mind, a string of commands that masqueraded as a shadowy pathway throughout the fog that Ilentia followed, her body acceding to the wishes of Arrapackxia. She waited for his message, the confirmation that she could progress onto the next stage, and after a few seconds it was given.

Ilentia flicked out her wrist, blindingly fast and with the alacrity that she had unknowingly become infamous for within the New Empire of Passion (as she had not left enough alive out of the Lucaelian group she had tangled within in the Glutton's Quarter of Usnaan for her to become known well within the legions of the Kingdom of Light). Malice was launched from her hand, lancing through the air like an enlarged version of one of the splinters fired from the wrist mounted weapons of the Thrazekis, and the demon automatically turned to bat it away, not wanting to have the chance of the blade piercing into its skin and the possibility of the darkness present in the scimitar being deposited within it.

She reclaimed the blade quickly, a tendril of shadow bending forth from the night under her will and wrapping around the jet inlaid handle of the sabre as another swift (although not blistering, as her manipulation of the darkness could never quite be as fast as her own movements) strike thudded into the demon that was still closing in on her despite the distraction.

Her witch-sight flared, the spinning symbols of violent intent that had already encircled her target shifting in time to Arrapackxia's influence within her head, the demon's presence reaching up from the Mind Realm and bypassing the fog within her head that may have alerted the caster of the spell afflicting the entire city with soporific unconsciousness, irregular and spiked shapes of atavistic resonance detaching from the reticular structure highlighting the shapeshifter through the twilight murk and spinning maddening around a seemingly empty region of the darkness.

She pulled the sword of Malice back towards her, releasing her side so that she could brandish both of her weapons fully, the crimson and saw-toothed heptagram which contorted and buckled aperiodically moving within her sight like a rogue pupil within an iris of darkness, coming closer to her as Arrapackxia's sibilant commands and power allowed him to manipulate the witch-sight and confer what he knew through his own vision to the Master of Gluttony. The woman clasped her two blades together, launching a howling ball of fire at the shapeshifter being, which laughed as it smashed the flames aside with one arm, retaliating with a sharding bolt of darkness which broke apart into many projectiles of shadow which arced through the air at the Welkalite.

Ilentia span her blades, hacking apart the missiles that came too close to her as they ripped chunks out of the paving slabs that made up the streets of Kalaan and weaving in and out of those that she couldn't tear apart with her twin sabres, but she knew full well that this was only a preliminary attack as the demon charged at her. Flipping backwards out of the rain of darkness as Fire and Malice formed a shield of flashing metal around her, Ilentia poured Black magic into her swords before ramming them into the ground as she landed.

Drawing upon the power conferred to her by her greater demon whilst also sacrificing portions of her own life in order to fuel the spell so that she could temporarily ignore some of the limitations placed upon her by the lack of food for her Summoning and its inability to ascend to its second form, Ilentia let the corrupted force rush through her veins, her circulatory system singing with the evil energy as it fulminated into the ground. She was unable to not note that the other rough circle within her vision had risen to a greater elevation, lingering upon one of the rooftops to the left of her as the shapeshifter trampled over the ground towards her.

The Black mana, interlaced with patches of passionate Red energy that fed upon Ilentia's anger at the disruption of her own thoughts and the desire of her foes to subdue her freedom and shackle her to a life of sleep and entrap her within their plans, poured through the rocks of the street, cracking the paving stones to pieces as it surged below them. The darkness rippled, hands of shadow rising up from the ground and impeding the artificial demon's path as they grasped onto him, seeking to pull the false being into their massed ranks as gouts of burning orange flame flared into the night sky and set it aflame.

Ilentia was acutely aware that such a spell would not have the power to stop a greater demon even if the greater demon in question was a mimic creature, but poured mana into it anyway. Hands of darkness wrapped in barbed wire of infernal fire clawed at the demon's thick legs as it crashed down the street towards her, Ilentia having found the exact location where it would be able to run straight at her without any obstructions in the labyrinthine mass of civilians who had been paralysed in time.

She reached inside of herself, focussing her primal anger at being attacked by these new enemies into the artisan sabre held in her right hand, her pale arm wreathed in a frenetic blaze of all consuming flame that wrapped around the scimitar of Fire clasped tightly in her hand which greedily devoured the flames and absorbed them into its already burning blade. Baleful crimson mingling with fiery anger as they crashed together within her second sword, and she rose up to her full height, leaving Malice embedded in the ground as it continued to pulsate with the nefarious malevolence that grasped at the onrushing clone of Arrapackxia, the taint seeping into the ground and animating it to her menacing will.

_Come on then, fake demon. Let's see how you match up to my power, _Ilentia thought, or was rather _forced _to think by the sway that the voracious overlord of the dark had on her mind. It was evidently to distract the mental presence within her head that she had foolishly allowed entrance by quenching her thirst on the city's water, to make it unaware that Ilentia was not intending for her final blow that would end the metamorphosing Summoning to be this one. For once it was in the Master of Gluttony's best interests for her not to be able to think clearly, as that would prevent the caster of the narcolepsy from telepathically altering their allies as to her real intent.

The fire surged through her veins, and she took a step backwards, holding her blade out in front of her as the power coursed through her veins, the blackness which had stood out starkly against her pallid skin after battling against her demon within the foetid cave of her mind being replaced by an incandescent scarlet that shone with the angry and destructive light of the tempests of hell. She grasped on to the handle with both hands, Malice's protestations at being let go of drowned out into the roaring of the Red and Black mana in Ilentia's ears, the hands of shadow having served their purpose of delaying the shapeshifter long enough.

Instead of focussing her magic into both of her limbs separately so that the respective type of mana could be funnelled into the sabre of hers that reacted most strongly to it and amplified the power, Ilentia thrust the unmolded and raw mana into the more destructive sword of Fire which shook and buckled with the energy that was being poured into it.

An inferno of resonant power swirled around the Master of Gluttony, evanescent sparks of darkness and flame snapping and hissing at the air as they died moments after they were born, and Ilentia shook in the grip of the magic that would be one of the most outright destructive but also indiscriminate and inaccurate spells she had ever released before – enough power to immolate and consume the shapeshifter due to the fact that it had only copied the form of Arrapackxia which was at the demon's weakest, before he had been given the chance to sink his teeth into human flesh.

As Arrapackxia had foretold, the replica demon still barrelled down the street towards the Welkalite woman, but at the same time the bloody halo of the witch-sight's transfixing upon a point in the distance suddenly became fixated upon a figure materialising out of it with gauntlets immersed in scintillating Blue mana extended outwards and held just below the level of their head, just as the shapeshifter came to about two metres away from the Master of Gluttony.

It was a more confident display than the agents from the League of Thrazek had shown so far, but to all intents and purposes Ilentia should not have been able to see that they were there so therefore the manoeuvre – which was hardly anything close to brazen in and of itself – was perfectly safe in any other circumstance.

Fluctuating whorls of energetic resonance played along the slender fingers of the magos, sapphire fibres of Blue mana twisting and twirling in a pattern of denial that extended quickly towards Ilentia as the sorcerer thrust their arm outwards, their ability to counteract the Master of Gluttony's more powerful magic that they had been unable to nullify before having undergone the Summoning ritual and risen in power because of it. The dark psychic energy bombarded the Welkalite woman, wrapping around the contrails of blackened hellfire which had surrounded Ilentia and threatening to suck away all of the mana.

The speed of the countermagic was so swift that if Ilentia hadn't had Arrapackxia presenting her with the boon of his own demonic sight into the shadows which had manipulated her witch-sight into tracking the subtle movement of the Yentarian Summoner she would not have been able to perceive it before it drained her magic of power and passion – and had such a fate befallen her, the Master of Gluttony would have been easy prey for the false demon bearing down on her.

The split second before the imperceptibly rapid countermagic siphoned away the emotion and strength behind her channelling of the fire bursting out of her limbs and licking the night air in front of her in preparation for its release, Ilentia painfully dragged the seething energy back inside of her, Fire expressing its discontent at not being able to incinerate her foes as the flames surged backwards through her veins. She howled in pain, but turned that howl into another spell, one so primal and linked to her body's intrinsic direction of her mana that the mage from the League of Thrazek would not be able to prepare a counter measure in time to stop it.

The agony flooded through her circulatory system, the torment of the mana's punishment of her and the torture of dragging such a large quantity of volatile darkness and hellfire inside of herself coruscating across her pale body, but instead of forcing her to her knees and making her surrender to the trauma of the backlash of the action Ilentia used it to power herself, her defiance rising in tandem to the pain to the point where it was impossible to distinguish the two – just as it had been when she had been fighting for her life against Arrapackxia within the foetid cavern of her Mind Realm.

The eldritch power of the mage brushed against her skin, a cold sensation of numbness rushing through her veins before it was erased by the sheer suffering that was crashing throughout her body which was impossible to be ignored and brought back feeling to her limbs within a few seconds. Ilentia pulled away from the tendrils of nullification magic, which, without the clear target of the spell that she had been generating within her, quickly faded away into the darkness of night.

She could feel the bloody rose inside of her chest, the metaphor for her brutal magic, uncoiling within her and scraping her insides with its poisoned thorns, and focussed the supercharged mana down into the extremities of her legs just as the shapeshifter came upon her. Its arm arced downwards, seeking to impale Ilentia upon maliciously curved claws or tear out the contents of her stomach with those same wickedly sharp talons, but the Welkalite was already gone, springing into the air and flipping over as she did so, the somersault allowing her to yank Malice out of the ground with a noise of power disjointed.

With adrenalized blood rushing through her circulatory system, time slowed to a crawl around Ilentia, the endorphins that were swelling inside of her form powering her and heightening the responses of her senses to obscene levels of excruciating yet exquisite clarity. That was good, as such would be required for her to pull off the directive that Arrapackxia had sent straight into her mind and that she had assessed worthy of her time herself (the pain allowing her to achieve clarity with a brief moment within her thoughts and turn her impulses and instincts towards those of a vaguely contemplative nature for a short moment).

She flipped over the shapeshifter's impression of her ravenous demon's arm, but instead of launching a barrage of attacks from her aerial vantage point, which, despite the fact that they were augmented by the speed that she had enhanced herself with, would not have achieved anything past inflicting minor scratches upon the false being's leathery hide, flicked her legs out through the air and landed upon the large arm of the clone Summoning. The woman utilised the solid surface as a method of further propulsion, kicking off of it so that she could leap away from the doppelgänger of her own Summoning, but not before a remarkable change began to overcome the shape shifting creature.

Its pale form began to break apart, unravelling like a tapestry of black flesh and visceral quicksilver tugged apart at the terminal ends of its gory ends (although there was no expulsion of blood involved in the sudden transformation), and even as Ilentia leapt through the air away from it she could still view the change that it was undergoing out of the corner of her crimson red eyes. The form of the false demon split apart, rendered back down to its constituent components of cryptoplasmic essence that span around in concentric circles for a few moments before bending in on themselves.

As Ilentia shot through the air, landing upon the rooftop on which the mage was stood only a few seconds after the Thrazeki had revealed themselves fully, the clone of Arrapackxia became much smaller, assuming proportions that were significantly more similar to a human than a greater demon. The Welkalite Master of Gluttony cracked the already ruined tiles of the building's covering with her rapid landing, her momentum making it all the more brutal and forceful, and whilst she did so the shapeshifter took the form of one of the melee focussed warriors of the Yentarian Republic, becoming identical to one of the assailants and firing at Ilentia with its own replica of the vambrace mounted weapon.

The splinters impacted into her back, easily penetrating through the leather armour that she was clad in which was still stained by the scarlet vitae shed by her Lucaelian enemies back in the City of Pleasure, and tearing into the fragile and thin skin beneath. They deposited their cargo of deadly poison straight into her veins, the shapeshifter which had taken the form of a Thrazeki assassin having pinpointed the location of her predominant blood vessels, and Ilentia instantly felt the serum spreading through her circulatory system.

The pain was blinding, almost overwhelming, and Ilentia screamed.

But she had come too far now to be overcome by some toxic venom, and she forced herself to endure through the agony. Besides, the momentum that she had already built up with her near crash landing on top of the roof (sacrificing her usual grace and poise for more speed) was too great for her to even consider stopping, and it was with the war cry of a banshee she charged at the seemingly surprised (although one could not tell due to their mask).

Malice slammed into the matte black faceplate of the sorcerer, lancing through the smooth helm like a shoemaker's needle pierced through the leather of their products. Blood spurted out from the wound, jetting over Ilentia and splattering her in its scarlet stain as the Yentarian spasmed in their death throes, the magic that they had been harnessing dissipating to the unholy wind that had sprung up.

Ilentia licked her lips as the blood ran down her face, the chemical tang of the ichor doing nothing to disguise the iron flavour of the fluid, and pirouetted on the rooftop, dragging the convulsing mage with her. The shapeshifter exited reality without making a sound, expressing none of the fury that another Summoning based in different colours of mana might. Ilentia whipped the body of the agent round with her blade still lodged firmly in their skull, ignoring the agony that flooded through her which combined with the pain from pulling so much unstable energy within her to the point where she was teetering on the edge of unconsciousness and defeat.

The Master of Gluttony raised her leg, paying no heed to the involuntary muscle contractions which seized through her as she kicked the body off of her sword, Malice screeching in approval as the mage was torn free and tumbled off of the roof – straight into the waiting arms of Arrapackxia. The ravenous demon had charged in Ilentia's direction the moment she had started to enact the next portion of his masterful strategy to satiate his burning hunger, and cackled in sadistic joy at the still live meal that was dumped into his embrace.

He bit into the man's head (as although the mage was not making any cries of pain the fact that their helm had shattered reveal their gender), shuddering in ecstatic bliss as warm blood spilled into his mouth and his teeth tore into the flesh of the head, breaking through the armour and the skull to rip into the brain at the centre. Blood dripped down the demon's chin as he howled in glorious exultation when he rose up, black wings bursting out of his back and unfurling outwards towards the silver moon that bathed everything in mystical lunar light.

The darkness thickened around the demon, his corrupt strength pouring the nether realms into the night and disrupting the movement of his and the Master of Gluttony's foes throughout the gloom.

The shadows were his now, not theirs, and no longer would they hide within the murk.

Arrapackxia turned, his talons sharpening and lengthening in a sickening extension of unnatural keratin, and raised one viciously clawed hand, darkness billowing out from it as the night bent to the exalted evil of his malevolent will, wrapping around a shadowy figure who had futilely hoped to conceal themselves within the gloom and violently yanking them out of it.

"Thought you could hide, did you? Thought you could deny me of my deserved meal?!" the demon shrieked, anger and dark mirth mixing together in a discordant cacophony of unholy wailing that cut through the shadow, mouths of tenebrosity opening up and gnashing their midnight teeth as they screamed in an unearthly echo of the nefarious being's threatening words. The soldier was smashed into the ground, their limbs stretched out by the tendrils of tenebrous gloom encircling the human's arms and legs as they were sent reeling by the violent impact.

The Thrazeki struggled, fighting back against the darkness despite their being no hope for the agent now, and Arrapackxia grinned sadistically as he grasped the mortal round the throat, lifting them off of the cracked ground like a child and permitting them full use of their limbs, the midnight fingers sliding away and hunting for more prey within the unhallowed night.

The Yentarian writhed, though whether that was due to the pain that must have suffused their fragile body or was intended to facilitate a futile attempt to obtain freedom from the ravenous demon's voracious clutches was unknown.

Arrapackxia laughed at the pitiful endeavours of the human at trying to break out of his grasp, slamming the assassin's head onto his other hand that was set rigid and with its vicious claws extended. Their head shattered, blood and brain matter splattering everywhere and coating the demon's limbs in crimson viscera, the faceless helm surrounding it splintering into slivers of black porcelain.

Arrapackxia took a juicy bite out of the corpse, before easily and dismissively tossing it away from himself. He commented, "Weakling thing," as he almost nonchalantly flicked the body across the street, before turning and gazing at the rest of the agents who lingered within the shadows, their masks concealing their expressions.

"Come then! Come and face the fate of your comrades! I long to feast upon your tender flesh, to feel the crunch of your bones as I sink my fangs into them and to consign your souls to my abyssal hunting grounds to be my playthings for all eternity!" the demon taunted as it extended its arms and wings either side of it, shadows coalescing into onyx fangs of corruption that repeated the being's hellish call, the display of power costing Arrapackxia nothing.

If the assailants of the Master of Gluttony were perturbed by the roar that billowed across the avenue, cracking the already brutalised pavement and ripping the tiles of stone from rooftops through the infernal noise, it did not show behind their visors of black nor in their resolute and battle ready postures.

Had Arrapackxia been partial to introspective thought, he would have pondered how much psycho-conditioning their mysterious foes had been forced through to allow them to be almost completely immune to the effects of the demon's rise in power – even the hated Sisterhoods of the heavens of Sancturia would be affected by the exhibition of clear unholy strength (even if Arrapackxia would never admit that the few times that he had faced a First Sisterhood seraphim in battle they seemed mostly apathetic to his transformation itself and only showing emotion that was borne from their detestation of him), but here these mere _mortal _warriors cared not for his demonstration and the bloody murder of their compatriots.

Dark mana radiated from the demon like heat from an infernal bonfire within the caverns of the eternally damned, but the only agent of the League of Thrazek who seemed in the least bit concerned was the last remaining magic user, their posture more tense than that of the two warriors that flanked the one who must have held more authority within the shadowy ranks of the most clandestine League of Thought as they allowed Blue mana to blossom from their hands, re-conjuring the mutant raptor which screeched as it was birthed into the material plane once more.

The mage was the target that he would choose then. While the other two agents of the Yentarian Republic stood stoically at almost equidistant points either side of the sorcerer, unfazed by the demon's terrifying outbursts like faceless statues of assassins instead of the real things, the magic user, through either a greater sensitivity to the metaphysical aspects of the or a heighten capability to think and process their dire predicament, had more of a reaction – even if that reaction did not come close to the fear that Arrapackxia had been intending to incite within his enemies, the fear that he sustained himself upon along with their flesh and blood.

The Archdemon of Greed (though not yet an actual Archdemon) mentally promised himself that he would see fear from one of his foes before the night's end, and etched that fateful pledge into the darkness where it gained its own hate fuelled existence and oozed its malevolence into the night.

Arrapackxia snorted derisively at the beast when it cawed at him with an unnatural and warbling shrieking noise, paying no heed to the fact that his Summoner had not yet descended from the rooftop on which she had ambushed the controller of the shapeshifter, and roared once more, an incoherent noise of pure lust for flesh and unadulterated gluttonous need combined with the exultant pursuit of the hunt of frightened mortals.

Ilentia staggered backwards, the progress of the artificially manufactured poison within her veins causing her mind and body to be set alight with a form of agony that she had never experienced before – akin to the venomous kiss of the desert lotus but with none of the bliss-inducing properties of that rare flora harvested across Welkas by the Order of Rapture so that their customers could experience the full gourmet of ecstatic torture the New Empire of Passion had to offer.

It _hurt, _waves of blinding agony coursing through her pale form, but with the new rise of power from her pet greater demon the violent mana that was kept within her system was having a much more prominent effect when trying to expunge it, her dark vitality augmented by the ascent of Arrapackxia and his savage nourishment.

But the serum that was steadily advancing through her blood vessels was nothing to compared to the heightening of the telepathic resonance within her already abused skull that the toxins created by the shapeshifter's impersonation of one of the Thrazeki assassins had heralded, the psychic assault dragging her ever closer into the chasm of unconsciousness and numbness that was the anathema to Ilentia's being; she had to use almost all of her concentration and effort to resist the mental pull into greyness.

The demon's rise in power was supposed to coincide with her own – it was supposed to be galvanising, invigorating her with more unholy power that should have been electrifying, but all the Master of Gluttony could feel now was the perpetual reverberations of the presence inside of her mind that blocked out nearly all stimulation.

She should have been energised by Arrapackxia unlocking the full potential of his malevolent abilities, but in lieu of that all she could feel was more distracted, all she could do was devote yet more of her thought processes into clinging to the edge of awareness and sustaining her greater demon – the only thing between her and the enemies that she was honestly surprised weren't attacking her yet. Ilentia was not aware of the fact that their progress through the darkness was disrupted by the presence of her greater demon in his more powerful form, but little did it matter as her mind was still fully aware that it would not be long before she was the recipient of more assaults so that her mysterious assailants did not have to deal with the formidable power of a released demon.

She pushed herself off of the roof, realising blearily that she had fallen onto her knees and had been laid with her face being cut into by the shards of rock splintered off from tiles in her haste to assault the Summoner of the doppelgänger, and used her swords as a method of leverage as she unsteadily rose to her feet, wincing at the agony that pulsated in an irregular yet somehow rhythmic ripple of mental destruction inside of her head. Her mana pool was still near full, regenerated by the ravenous demon finally accessing the upper limits of its capabilities.

_Damnation. I can … barely think with this … presence in my head … _

The bloodied and wounded Master of Gluttony swivelled her red eyes in their sockets, shaking her head to clear the haziness that had suffused her vision and was clouding her witch-sight, concluding from the fact that she could see all three of the remnants of the Thrazeki force that Arrapackxia would be able to deal with them well enough without her intervention.

She was not content leaving the situation in the demon's hands at all, especially with his predilection towards savouring the murder of the targets that the Welkalite had sent her relatively new Summoning at and his penchant towards trying to betray her control – but she could barely even gather the required amounts of energy up within her to cast a spell of the required focus or shape without causing herself immense amounts of damage, let alone concentrate on the myriad factors of the fight against the shadowy foes that had assaulted her.

On the bright side, at least the fact that she wielded more violent and spontaneous forms of mana meant that there was not much mental concentration required to stimulate an equilibrium of magical energy within her – as opposed to the more controlled and serene varieties of mana such as White and Blue, Black and Red combined were erratic and irregular, the presence of the magic of passion and fire driving the usually callously disciplined Black into a frenzied and violent state.

This meant that Ilentia was able to access the volatile and destructive energy inside of her without any mantras to carefully monitor its usage or any mental focus at all – it was emotional focus that was the key and despite (or perhaps because of) the psychic intrusion she had plenty of that. Her mana would be primal and raw, but still effective even though it would harm herself to utilise, and due to that she decided to observe her demon fighting instead and intervene only if it was required.

The Archdemon of Greed beat his large black wings, buffeting the air saturated with corruption and vile darkness all around him as he scraped nearby buildings with the nibs of the unholy pinions, grinning maliciously at the enemies who began to slowly spread out, evidently intending to flank the greater demon and utilise their superior mobility to potentially lethal effect, but that meant that the sorcerer was left further away from the others as the membranous raptor took to the air, strafing the spawn of the underworld's pits with bolts of aquamarine that the demon rolled his grey pits of eyes at.

He leaned forwards, his nose rippling as he sniffed the air, the aroma of fear that he had become so used to from mortal creatures still not present within his enemies, and poured dark mana into the night air. One of his eternally hungry mouths of shadow opened wide behind the ear of the Thrazeki sorcerer, conveying the demon's insidious words as he whispered, his voice suffused with a maddening resonance, an insanity-inducing sibilance that dripped from every syllable and oozed out of every malefic word: "Do you not fear me, mortal? I am your _death_, the ending of your existence, the herald of eternal fear and pain. Does that not terrify you? Does the thought of spending an eternity within the darkest hells of Sancturia not fill your frail bones with fright?"

As the words were enunciated by an unnatural mouth as a tenebrous tongue slid over teeth of darkness, the masked mage of the League of Thrazek stiffened, before spinning on one of their heels and snapping of a blisteringly fast counter spell at the gaping maw opening wide and belching a stream of globular darkness at the magic wielder, barely nullifying the vomiting attack because of the atavistic and raw power of the demon that was not beholden to the laws of mortal magic.

But that left the rest of them open for more powerful incantations cast by the greater demon, and Arrapackxia's grin only widened as he contemptuously flicked out his hand, a rending hail of sharding calignosity tearing into the howling raptor, ripping the sinewy flesh from its modified cartilage as the darkness wrapped around it, crushing it to a bloody pulp with no resistance. The demon stamped a taloned and heavy foot into the ground, a fissure of pure abyssal matter cracking across the abused avenue and etching an unholy sigil of smoking darkness into the street that fountained with liquid and oily blackness that arced into the night air, bonding with the midnight darkness in a sacrilegious unity of corruption and shadow that sent the onyx robes the latter half of the demon was clad in billowing.

Arrapackxia raised his hands, extending the fingers as the nebulous Black mana coalesced around them, unnatural darkness manipulated by the greater demon as it swarmed around the sharp tips of his wings and ran along his elongated talons, moulding the voracious mana into a dramatically more potent shape as it swelled and converged in front of him, an irregular and jagged symbol that the eyes of men bled when they looked upon it scratching its way into being and providing a focal point for the unfettered mana.

The ravenous demon snarled as he released the magic, the pulsating form of the ability throbbing to the malignant sound of a pounding heartbeat, thudding with the exuberance of the chase and in bestial anticipation of a meal of raw flesh and rich blood. The rough blot of the darkness, swirling with eddies of pure and unadulterated hunger, rushed forwards through the distance between it and prey, the corporeal manifestation of a raging, unquenchable thirst for flesh flooding the air as it hurtled at the mage.

The slender figure quickly prepared a counter spell, etching lines of sapphire luminescence with their nimble fingers and spinning them like thread, quickly assembling the parts of the nullification, but Arrapackxia knew instantly that it was far too weak to halt the demon's magic and laughed scornfully at the paltry effort to mitigate the damage of his sorcery. One of the warriors, located to the right of the last remaining Summoner of the party hailing from Yentar, leapt at their leader, knocking the other Thrazeki out of the way of the roiling mass of ravenous appetite.

The magos impacted into the ground and quickly rolled back to their feet with an elegant flip, just in time to see their comrade being surrounded and subsequently devoured by the shroud of hungry darkness that swarmed over the mortal. There was no screaming from the disciplined assassin, but Ilentia still heard a sound akin to thousands of whirring and screeching teeth ripping into the Yentarian's flesh and tearing it from their bones at an obscene rate whilst their soul was yanked from their body and plunged into the underworld abyss.

The gout of purple and black desire rampaged onwards, gnawing into the street and consuming the broken stone of the pavement before Arrapackxia silenced it and quelled its power, returning the mana to himself. The desiccated form of the melee specialising agent of the enigmatic League fell to the ground, a blackened husk of dust and some bone fragments all that was left of the human before even that blew away on the winds that had suddenly sprung up.

The demon barked with more maleficent laughter, clenching and releasing his fingers as a coil of lacuna darkness rippled into non-existence around them, but instead of the energy emulating the pure emptiness of the void, the death of all life and motion, it was infused with the pleasure of feasting and the cruel enjoyment of the hunt.

Ilentia watched on until that point, wherein the splitting headache that she was suffering under rose in intensity until it was almost unbearable. She screamed, the sound torn from bloodied lips and accompanied by a spray of inky black vitae, as the shaking within her skull made the whole world vibrate around her, the reverberations inside of her mind rising in potency in tandem to a tear in the thick darkness that widened every second.

A figure began to appear, forcing their way through the demon's intensification of the night blackness as portions of Arrapackxia's own personal domain within the pits of Sancturia were dislodged by the cold and calculated magic of this new arrival.

Ilentia sensed that her mental agony, as well as the soporific sorcery afflicting every other inhabitant of the eastern capital of Kalaan, was originating from this person, but could not do anything other than writhe on the top of her elevated vantage point as the circles of pure psychic torture within her head pushed at the borders of her skull, making Ilentia feel as if her mind was being simultaneously wrung inside out and crushed to a pulp as her pale fingers clutched her head. There was a thrumming note that sounded like it was emanated from an instrument of an impossibly low pitch, a deep and emotionless tone that pierced into her most private mental spaces, threatening to rip Ilentia's psyche in two and crush all semblance of what she was, strangle her personality and cloud every sensation until she was nothing more than a mindless drone – or dead, with her cranial matter having burst out of her nose and leaked out of her ears and mouth.

The figure materialised out of the gloom quite close to Ilentia's location, and the impaired Master of Gluttony flipped herself over, ungraciously crashing down onto the dusty ground of the street below and thankful for her body's regenerative properties as she slammed into the stone of the pavement, anything to get away from the constant, unending noise.

She couldn't think – she could barely form words inside of her head – but her mental impulses were still going strong, and it was those that her body hearkened to, her limbs spasming into action as her mind exploded with pain. But it was not torture that she could ignore, the agony of the flesh paling in comparison to this mental assault that she was in the throes of, and the woman let out another scream of raw internal pain which was filled with her frustration at being laid low by this magic when she should have been able to best any warrior and defeat any foe, a shriek which quickly dissolved into convulsive coughing and hacking caused by the progress of the venom throughout her blackened veins, the dark vitality of her body doing little to halt the flow of the poison within her which in turn facilitated a further influx of telepathic power within her head.

_No … dammit … no … I won't … won't let it end … not like this …_

_Arrapackxia! KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!  
_**Your wish is my command, my dear Ilentia. **The demon's voice, a harsh and grating noise that usually would have caused immense amounts of slicing pain as it cut into Ilentia's thoughts, was incredibly distant, like Arrapackxia had shouted the words from the other side of Kalaan, their spiteful timbre lessened and diminished by the blaring and all consuming psychic invasion.

"More of you?! Good! All the more flesh for me to sink my teeth into! All the more blood for me to slake my thirst upon! COME THEN, YOU PATHETIC MORTALS! COME AND FACE THE MIGHT OF THE ARCHDEMON OF GREED!" Arrapackxia howled, and had Ilentia not heard the certain tonality to his voice before she would have been convinced that the greater demon was thankful for the appearance of more enemies to feast upon. But she did, and it was one that she was intimately familiar with, having heard the same from Arrapackxia only a few hours ago when she had bested the Summoning and reaffirmed the unholy contract between them by branding him with the mark of servitude, a grave insult at best and a declaration of eternal war against the demon at worst.

Although Arrapackxia was not as frightened – or whatever emotion that demons felt instead of human fear, though Ilentia had learned first hand that even a functionally immortal being formed from the personification of enmity, hatred and unadulterated desire still felt terror very similar to that of any mortal woman or man – as he had been within the subterranean hell of her Mind Realm, he was still more scared than Ilentia had been expecting. She had anticipated that Arrapackxia would be longing for her death so that he could escape the forced Infernal Bargain that he had been dragged out of the hunting grounds he so often mentioned, but instead of the demon exuding excitement at the prospect of potential freedom all that she could sense from her Summoning's words were concern for himself.

Arrapackxia raised his hand, the coiling tendrils of hungry darkness twisting round one another as he blasted it at the figure stood shrouded and stoic atop the roof on which Ilentia had just unceremoniously tumbled off of, the demon pulling up power from its corrupted heart and sending it at the new arrival. A tempest of gloaming and pollution surrounded the psychic, a spinning storm of Black mana that shrieked as it eviscerated the building on which the telepath who was presumably Yentarian stood, biting great chunks out of the guardhouse as it howled and screamed with unrestrained craving.

Glyphs of malicious intent imprinted themselves onto the night air around the structure, only visible because of the fact that they were darker and more evil than the midnight itself, and the cacophonous roar of a false god could be heard as the cyclone of twinned desolation and bloodthirst levelled the building and span maddeningly in a violent dance of atavistic craving.

Seven tendrils of substantial darkness curled around Arrapackxia's outstretched talons, alight with a violet lust that glittered like pearls of obsidian inlet with glinting lilac resonance, before shooting forwards and wrapping around the shadowy tempest that had surrounded the newly arrived mage.

Arrapackxia squeezed, and the darkness followed his movements, beating the air with his magnificently evil wings and flying into the night, gloom coalescing into a more physical and savage form as he coaxed the potential for unquenchable hunger out of it, the incarnate avatar of gluttonous desire made manifest haughtily staring down at the position where he had last seen the telepath sorcerer as malevolent Black mana trailed around his sculpted limbs and pooled within his eyes.

Ilentia forced her vision to come back into focus, wishing that there was a way that she could deactivate the diabolical gift of her witch-sight that was making it more difficult to perceive reality with confusing and spiked shapes of a blood red nature distorting her eyesight, and watched as well as she could whilst her demon unleashed his power upon the psychic wizard which had debilitated her so.

Arrapackxia couldn't repress a gasp of surprise when the dust and rubble of the building crashing down dissipated, revealing the figure still stood in nearly the exact position they had been before the destructive Black mana had consumed the structure on which they had appeared.

Concentric circles of Blue radiated out from five focal points in regular locations upon an impossibly complex pattern of hieroglyphs and lines of mana around the mage, the power of the mind impressed onto the air causing a shield of illuminescent and shimmering tessellation that somehow unequivocally represented denial within Ilentia's mind as she gazed upon it to be birthed into existence. The telepath was unscathed by the assault which had obliterated an entire section of the street, the protective countermagic that they had instantly created shrouded by shadows that they had commandeered themselves protecting them from the attack.

They were stood mid air, held aloft by the force of their staggering intellect, arcane sigils blending with darkness and Blue mana connecting with Black in a three dimensional mosaic of nullification all around them. Their posture was straight and tall, almost haughty and arrogant but not overly representative of any form of emotion, exuding as much sentiment as a wall of ice, but certainly not tensed and defensive like it should have been to endure such an onslaught of demonic power without suffering even a scratch. Even so, it was impossible to ignore the sight of the Thrazeki inclining their head slightly towards the greater demon aloft above them, an unmistakable challenge.

Ilentia did not have time to consider their appearance or their equipment (though it was possible that she wouldn't be able to because of the pain resounding within her brain) before Arrapackxia had screamed with rage and shot through the air towards the sorcerer who definitely was the commander of this small contingent from the League of Thrazek.

The greater demon who fancied itself as an Archdemon of Greed dove towards the human who had _dared _to emerge unaffected by his dark power, intending to impale the upstart mage upon his claws and bite off their head – see if they were so smug about themselves when their blood was dripping from his fangs – a swarm of dark bolts breaking off from the miasmic blackness surrounding the foul being and launching themselves at the mage before the demon could get to grips with them.

The pattern around the Yentarian reformed itself, the glimmering lines of pure thought and mental potency detaching themselves from one another and intercepting each and every one of the shards of midnight before they could get anywhere close to the levitating telepath, the deep sapphire glow that suffused the eyes of those affected by the lullaby spell of the citizens and warriors within Kalaan the same colour as the magic wielded by this mage – and had Ilentia possessed full usage of her thoughts she would have wondered how much power this individual could muster if they were able to send the populace of an entire Welkalite city into a state of induced narcolepsy and withstand the diabolical strength of her greater demon in his stronger form.

The Thrazeki held the staff in their right hand high, the strange curling sigil that it was topped with which was clearly imbued with large quantities of power augmentation, and tilted the elegant stave towards the onrushing Arrapackxia. A blast of pure void darkness split the night air as it fulminated towards the greater demon, extending outwards in a spinning bolt before its end split into multiple pieces, the gloom converted into crystalline streams of energy that broke off from one another and formed a lattice structure around the last remaining Summoning, one that emitted a strange and incomprehensible glow of nothingness yet paradoxically _something_ that Ilentia couldn't distinguish.

An enigmatic labyrinth of thought magic and shadows coalesced into being around Arrapackxia, who howled his tempestuous fury at the mage as he battered his claws into the unreal structure, but when the telepath slammed their staff onto the ground in a single fluid motion, a wave of Blue and Black mana resounding out from it that passed over both Ilentia and the aerial demon captured within the maze of scintillating psychic networks and capillaries of gloaming interlaced with flecks of the same dark blue that Ilentia had become accustomed to observing from her foes.

The woman couldn't suppress a bone chilling screech as Arrapackxia's essence was ripped to pieces, the connection between the greater demon and the mana supplier that was her, the Summoner, weakened immensely to the point of virtual non-existence so that Ilentia could no longer maintain the Summoning's presence within the physical world. She screamed as the demon was forced back into her, agonising pain rushing up and down her spine and exploding within her head at the power that was conferred to her from the Summoning and ascension of her Sancturia denizen being abruptly withdrawn, plunging her already tortured mind into more psychic torment as the demon's quintessence was forced back inside of her Mind Realm that warped inwards on itself, denying her the power that she so craved and that would be vital for her success.

Ilentia cried tears of black blood that marred her already bloodied pale features, clutching her head with one hand and scrunching herself up in a foetal position on the dusty streets, like a scared child who had lost their parents and desperately wanted to become safe again. Like Guena, all those years ago, when her and Otio's mother and father had abandoned them within the previous civil war that had swept across the Old Empire.

Her head pounded, and her orientation couldn't have been worse, but even in spite of that her instincts and impulses still refused to be smothered by the telepathic magic penetrating her mental defences. The Master of Gluttony tried to find the rose of power within her, the strength that she had unlocked when almost dying to Arrapackxia, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't reach it or even visualise it with, the enshrouding mist within her head blocking out the wellspring of mana inside of her.

_Damn it … damn you …_

The mage stepped forwards, gently lowering themselves to the ground as if they were walking on an invisible staircase, and Ilentia was able to analyse them at that moment. They wore a similar type of armour to the other, more minor sorcerers that she had seen from the League of Thrazek, the same reflective black that conferred them unnatural concealment as the night darkness was bent around them, but with a fluted pattern and several inscriptions and glyphs which were intensely blurry under the young woman's gaze, runic lettering imprinted on the surface of the armour.

Their mask was split into two parts instead of being a single sleek visor, with a space left for their pale mouth to touch the air and their for colourless lips to bend as they made words, although for the most part the mage stayed silent. The vestments of the sorcerer were completely by a shimmering cloak of deep ocean darkness and a cocoon of dreamlike imagery that seemed unaffected by the wind sweeping across Kalaan, moving to their own euphonious rhythm and unrestrained by the general laws of physics.

Ilentia gripped onto the handle of a blade that she was still holding onto tightly, trusty Malice writhing in her grasp and longing to sink its barbed teeth into the flesh of this new foe that had prevented its wielder from fighting back at her full capabilities.

The human telepath hovered closer to her, not deigning to step onto the ground and kept aloft by the power of their mind, and Ilentia focussed her own malice, her _hatred, _into a concentrated source of loathing within her head, seething with pain and anger and black enmity.

With a cry of pure hatred, the Master of Gluttony sprang forwards, her tensed muscles releasing as she shot through the air towards the Yentarian only a few feet from herself, her sadistic blade an extension of her malevolent will as it sailed towards the psychic.

The Thrazeki didn't even bother to move, flicking the fingers of their free hand into a new position that caused the geometric and anagrammatic shield around them to shift and amalgamate into a new form, spinning patterns of interlocking energy that expanded outwards, effortlessly knocking Ilentia back onto the ground, Malice tossed away from her, as her mind was subjected to an impossibly gentle yet excruciatingly tortuous caress that plucked the defiance, the source of hatred within her, out of her mind, and along with it the will to fight dissipated until it was nothing.

As her eyes glazed over, the Master of Gluttony stared up into the smooth helm of her foe, and in spite of the fact that she could not see the eyes of the telepath she was certain that she could perceive dispassionate contempt, the kind of cold disdain a high ranking noble would show before signing the death warrant for thousands of peasant lives.

_No … no …_

"Executor," the minor mage spoke, his voice unmistakably male, and although it was clearly supposed to seem emotionless there was a hint of fear mixed with guilt in the man's tone. Arrapackxia would have been furious to know that the sorcerer had been unaffected by all of the demon's terrifying menagerie of phantasmagoria but was subjected to fear in the presence of his superior.

The psychic didn't turn, continuing to study Ilentia as an empathy bereft scientist would analyse an insect before trapping it and subjecting it to agonising experiments for the rest of its existence, her pain not extenuated by the fact that she was drifting ever closer to somnific oblivion.

_No … dammit … no …_

"Save you words, Biomancer. Casualties are unavoidable and an acceptable eventuality within a conflict such as this," the telepath also seemed to be male, although with the strange timbre to their emotionless tone it was impossible to ascertain their gender for certain, especially with their androgynous outfit. They continued, their words echoing over and over again in Ilentia's mind, akin to a toneless and dispassionate song that lulled her into an induced unconsciousness, "What is unacceptable, however, is the death of your fellow sorcerer. I recollect that I warned you to take the utmost care in apprehending the Master of Gluttony."

Had Ilentia been able to watch, she would have seen the other, distinctly male mage stiffen as their superior floated a few centimetres above the ground, and with a dismissive gesture the swirling pattern around the psychic was dispersed into the night air. "No matter. Strategy Moonlit Ambush has been enacted successfully."

Ilentia tried to reach for the psychic, attempting to tear into the Yentarian with her bare hands if need be, but she couldn't move, couldn't _think, _her body refusing to obey the blurted sounds within her skull which barely made a difference to the resounding noise inside of her head.

_No … _

The sorcerer turned, and Ilentia's eyes drooped, her vision blurring even as some part of her still tried desperately to harness the defiance which had defined her existence ever since her dark resurrection.

_No …_

But it was not enough. It would never be enough. The Master of Gluttony's eyes closed, their red fire extinguished from the midnight, her body illuminated only by the silver light of the Sorcerer's Moon at its zenith.

And as everything faded to grey, the vast darkness within Ilentia's mind claimed the woman.

* * *

New Summonings in this chapter:

Unbound: Bazaar Krovod

Carlyia Bloodfang: Magma Phoenix

League of Thrazek: Cloudfin Raptor, Cryptoplasm


	45. Belief

**Right, so, my sincerest apologies for the absolutely massive delay on this chapter. However, assuming you wish to read it, there will be a more in depth explanation in the addendum. But for now, I hope you enjoy and thank you for reading.**

* * *

"Now you are simply gorgeous! Look at those fiery red eyes, that flawless pale skin, those dark veins! And the power, the _hatred_! You are a fine specimen indeed! There is much that I can do with you, my exquisite friend. I will preserve your beauty for an eternity!"

_.*.*.*._

"_When he's scared, he seeks comfort in you."_

_The words echoed in and out of the young boy's mind, resounding within his head as he glanced up at his mother's kind features, the green eyes alight with fondness and love for her children. She smiled at the gaze of Alexander, before the youngster turned to stare at the windows on the other side of the room as the flashes of coruscating lighting caught his attention. _

_The four year old's innocent blue orbs widened in a mixture of awe and fear as they reflected the blue incandescence, determined not to let his own fright at the crackling display show, but when a roiling boom of thunder resounded loud enough to shake the entire palace he couldn't stifle a muted whimper, one that he repressed as soon as possible but would have definitely been noticed by his mum._

"_How do you know?" he inquired, his voice a whisper as if he was concerned about intruding upon the rumbling song of the thunder, or adversely frightened that speaking would somehow attract the lightning into striking something significantly more tangible than the general outside. _

_Alexander had been through a few storms before, spending the first coupled huddled against his mum or dad and the next stoically refusing to be scared by the scintillating lighting and deep roaring of the black clouds, but this was by far the most violent tempest the child had ever experienced. Rain battered on the glass of the windows, pounding on the ground and covering everything outside in a sheen of glossy water which reflected the dazzling arcs emanating from above._

_The quietness of his high pitched voice meant that it was utterly drowned out by the tempestuous fury of the storm outside, eclipsed by the wrath of the black skies before it reached his mum's ears. _

_He sat beside the woman on the floor of their nursery, the toys that they had been playing with earlier in the day neatly packed away in the boxes lined across the sides of the room. _

_A single candle between them cast eerie shadows on the walls, the faint light of the one golden wisp Emili had conjured playing across the room – the storm's power had prevented any more from being lit up, the woman had carefully explained to her four year old, otherwise she would have covered the room in the warm radiance until her children were calm enough to go back to sleep. _

_This yellow glow was simultaneously contrasted yet complemented by an almost imperceptible purple luminescence from the Lucerna birthmark of the youngest of the royal family, the dark blemish formed into the semblance of a star of both shadows and light which had become drastically more prominent and stark after fading significantly after the infant's Angelic Descent and the kiss of the Angel of the Black Sun emitting the haunting celestiance that it did when the tears of the baby made contact with it, as if it was a reflection of his sadness._

_For some reason, mummy had insisted that they both sit in a circle of faintly shimmering light until either the storm abated or daddy got here from the important king work that he was doing, and so far because of the turbulence of this thunderstorm as well as the gentle tone of his mother's voice Alexander hadn't had the inclination to disobey her wishes. Added to that was the lethargy that he was afflicted with due to having been rudely awoken in the middle of the night by the thunder and his terrified younger brother._

"_How do you know?" Alex repeated, more loudly this time but still not raising his voice to any extent, rubbing his big blue eyes tiredly with one chubby fist as he gazed up at his mummy, the woman's emerald orbs directed at the chronometer held in her left hand, either checking what the time at this ghastly hour of night was or ensuring that time still ticked at all. More lightning chased after the thunder, splitting the dark sky with a jagged crack and flashing through the windows as Emili blinked, gathering herself and smiling down at her four year old, secretly hoping that the tempest would subside soon and was of natural origin but unwilling to let her worry be imposed onto her children._

"_Look at him," the woman gestured towards her sleeping youngest, shifting slightly on the soft carpeted floor (a far cry from the rough wood that had once comprised the entire flooring of the nursery before she had asserted that they should alter it when she had been pregnant with her eldest; hard materials were not suitable for a young child, especially not with how excitable and lovingly active Alexander had turned out, the four year old liable to exhaust himself through endless games and maintain his entertainment level by simply running round in circles and diving across the furniture)._

_Before he moved to snuggle up next to the woman, Alex quietly glanced down at the warm bundle in his arms, a perturbed expression adorning his chubby young face when he saw that the baby was no longer crying, resting soundly in the embrace of his big brother instead of bawling his eyes out and mewling at the storm outside. _

_Caiellis had woken up in the middle of the night, the second the thunder began coinciding with the frightened first scream that the baby had released. Nothing that mummy, who had been asleep in the chair within the nursery/bedroom that the youngest Lucernas shared, had done to try and soothe her seven month old had achieved anything. Cai had stubbornly refused to be calmed, sobbing and howling as thunder boomed ahead, and Alex had watched as Emili fretted about the small baby, attempting a number of things from rocking her youngest son to singing a melodic and gentle lullaby over his crying and thrashing, with none of them having any form of success in assuaging the baby's terror at the weather outside, the sound of which resounded throughout the palace. _

_Alex had got out of his bed and stood close, but not close enough to get in the way of mummy tending to his little brother, wishing that there was something that he could do to aid mum and comfort his younger sibling though not wanting to shove past his mother and help his baby brother – particularly since he knew how good mummy was at aiding both himself and Cai when they were feeling down, or were in pain, or if anything was generally amiss with either of them._

_He had known for a fact that there was little that he could do compared to her almost magical ability to both comfort and ease the distress of himself and more recently the baby of the family that had been added only a few months ago. _

_The queen had politely asked for her eldest son to hold onto her youngest for a few moments whilst she got Caiellis a drink and also imprinted the glimmering pattern of magic onto the floor for them to sit in with glittering light that poured from her fingertips, but as soon as the four year old had wrapped the baby in his affectionate cuddle, saying words that he hoped were soothing and promising to protect his younger brother from the scary display of nature and that the storm could not get to them when they were within the palace (not that he would let it get to Cai in any case), the fussing baby had almost instantaneously calmed himself._

_Alexander smiled as he gazed down affectionately at his younger brother, his tired features graced with an expression of love for the smaller boy that he knew he was going to become great friends with when he progressed out of this stage and leant how to walk and talk. _

"_Wow," he commented, his eyes infused with wonder at the sight as he rested against his mother; Alex's small back leaned against her chest as he continued to hold his now quiet and serene brother, "How did I do that?" _

_Emili laughed softly at the wonder in her eldest son's voice, her four year old mystified as to how he had managed to stop his brother from sobbing and wailing by doing little more than just holding him in his arms. Caiellis's eyes were shut, not scrunched shut – which in itself was an indication that he was bereft of stress or pain – but gently and peacefully closed, and his tiny and fragile chest rose and fell with each languid breath now that he was settled within sleep once more._

_The way that Alexander held onto his younger sibling never failed to melt Emili's heart whenever she gazed upon it; her eldest had a unique understanding of the frailty of their youngest and instead of being forceful and rough like other disgruntled first borns would be when presented with a new addition to the family, one that screamed and howled for attention (although Caiellis was usually quiet, far more quiet than Alexander himself had been at that age), he was tender and gentle with the much smaller male. _

_Sure, relatively infrequently Emili had been forced to reprimand her first son over the treatment of his younger brother when she caught Alex being a little too harsh, but most of the time she had to repress the urge to instantly quell actions that could be interpreted as unintentionally hurtful or forceful, aware that it was just brotherly love and that Caiellis wouldn't be able to develop properly if she cloistered him away from the world and anything remotely unpleasant, especially not as a Lucerna prince. _

_Besides, most of the time the youngest descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna seemed to enjoy the playful way Alexander sometimes handled him, so there should have been little cause for concern, and she knew how contrite and apologetic Alexander would become if he did accidentally cause his baby brother pain. It was just that she had not yet managed to get over the premature birth of her second son and the month that he had spent within the neonatal incubator to protect him and allow his small and delicate form to build up enough strength to survive without a constant influx of protective mana and defence from anything dangerous outside his little cocoon of safety._

_The twenty seven year old doubted that she would ever forget the longest month of her entire life, the days of her youngest tenuously holding onto life and the days that had she not been a parent possessed of the burning and adamant determination that her children would survive to grow up and become their own men she would have been convinced that they were going to lose Caiellis. _

_They were imprinted into her mind, along with other, much happier images, and while she was aware that little Caiellis was much stronger than the state that he had been in just after his early emergence from her womb Emili's first instinct would always be to protect her sons – a trait exacerbated by the fragility of her littlest._

"_It's big brother magic," the young mother told her oldest, pushing the melancholy thoughts from her mind and revelling in the look of happiness that Alex directed at her as more thunder rumbled. Instead of reacting fearfully, little Caiellis simply unconsciously curled up closer to his brother's chest, resting his small head against it whilst still remaining asleep._

_Alexander's eyes had widened before he had smiled, the blue irises backlit by more flashes of lightning, "Really?"_

_Emili nodded, ruffling the boy's blonde hair that was so reminiscent of her husband's but slightly darker than Marik's – tinged more prevalently with gold than that of the king's._

"_I'm awesome," the four year old declared, before wrapping his arms tighter around the warm bundle of baby Cai and his fluffy and soft night time attire as the infant had snuggled closer._

_Emili had laughed once more at the response, the timbre of her voice loving and comforting, and suppressed a tired yawn. Her children didn't need to know that right at this minute she felt drained despite it only being a few minutes until midnight – an almost unheard of hour for her young sons, but one that Emili wasn't usually tired at unless she had gone through a particularly taxing day as queen of the Kingdom of Light – and wanted her husband to finish with whatever task had consumed him for the best part of the day so that not only she herself would feel more reassured but her two sons would as well._

"_Yes you are, sweetheart …" the woman readily agreed, assuring her eldest, "You are an awesome big brother, and Caiellis feels safe with you, see? You help take care of him, and you make him feel better."  
Alexander smiled, beaming at the compliments, before his face was pulled into a frown of mixed consternation and confusion._

"_So do you, mummy. You and daddy make Cai feel better, and you and daddy are awesome as well," the amiable youngster countered, gently stroking his soft fingers along the wavy hair that the smallest member of their family had begun growing, brown like mummy had said it would be to daddy even though his baby brother had started off with blonde hair like him. He glanced back at his mother, making sure that she wasn't selling herself or his absent father short of awesomeness._

_Emili gazed back down into his eyes, her face adopting the habitual expression of a smile that arose whenever she talked to her children (disregarding any extenuating circumstances), though there was a hint of something there that four year old Alex couldn't identify._

"_Yes. But it is different. The bond between brothers is not the same as the bond between Caiellis and me, or Caiellis and daddy," Emili explained, repeating as her eyes had clouded over somewhat, "The bond between brothers is different."_

_Alex nodded as though he understood what she was saying, and Emili had sighed, sounding tired and sad for a reason that the young one couldn't ascertain. He smiled up at her, always positive, always happy, and mummy grinned back, the sense that something was amiss with the kind woman that Alexander was too young to aptly describe fading away._

_She brushed the eldest prince's blonde bangs out of his bright blue eyes, kissing him on the forehead before rubbing her baby's back gently. _

_The littlest scion of the royal family had stirred beneath his mummy's touch as his big brother switched his vision back to the baby in his arms, nuzzling into Alex's neck as his tiny hand fisted the silken fabric of the four year old's pyjama top. Alexander's face lit up at the affectionate gesture from his baby brother, his features seeming even brighter as they were illuminated by another crackling burst of lightning, "Did you see that, mummy?"  
Emili's smile had returned with full force, the tiredness utterly dispelled. It was as if it had never been there, and Alex assumed that he had just been imagining it. _

"_Mmmhmm," she hummed in confirmation, "Your little brother loves you, Alexander."_

"_And I love him too," the little boy proclaimed with all the sincerity that a four year old could hold. Emili blinked against tears, knowing that her precious boys would always have one another even if they didn't always have her. _

_But Alexander didn't see. All that he could see was the baby that he looked down at, his little brother that he had calmed down, and squeezed his own larger, but still small hand over the fist scrunched in his shirt._

_This was the point where Alexander's recollection of the events differed from the ones that played out in front of him. Instead of the storm fading away into serene silence, the thunder quietening as the lightning dimmed, it only got louder, crashing into Alexander's ears in an unholy wail of the discordant cacophony of a thousand would screaming out in anguished unison. And in lieu of the lighting's disappearance, heralding the return of the perpetual darkness enshrouding the territory of the Kingdom of Light, the streaks of jagged blue darkened, turning vivid red as if they were becoming rivulets of crimson blood that stitched across the bruised sky._

_The storm howled around him as pain blossomed throughout his limbs, unfurling like a flower of torture bathing in the dark light of suffering within his body as the excruciating torment flared and radiated across his young form. There was a pervasive and repugnant stench of ash, blood, burnt flesh and death all around him, contrasting sharply with the fruity aroma of the washing shampoo that his mum had used to bathe his younger brother which he could have smelt faintly on the baby's hair and the homely and comfortable scent of the nursery that had been there only moments ago._

_This wasn't how it was supposed to be. This wasn't what Alexander could remember from that night, one of the times he had first begun to learn what it was to be an older brother, the dream that he had been having twisting and lurching within the halls of his mind as the world warped around him._

This isn't right … _Daddy was meant to enter the sleeping place of the two youngest Lucernas after a few extra moments of conversation between the __four year old and his mummy, the weary look that had been seemingly etched into his still young features __dissolving instantly as soon as he beheld his beloved wife and children._

_H__e had ruffled Alexander's blonde hair __with a form of proud endearment that only the king could manage with his eldest son, congratulating him on managing to soothe his baby brother when Emili had informed the man about what had happened, kissing his wife on the cheek and his four year old on the forehead before politely requesting to hold Caiellis. Alexander was only slightly unwilling to relinquish __the younger boy in his arms to their father, as while he had liked the feeling that he would be able to calm and protect his little brother with him so close he also knew that daddy would certainly do the same, if not much better than he had._

_The king was then meant to __pluck Caiellis out of his big brother's embrace, __hug him close to his chest as the baby automatically snuggled back down after the brief disturbance of being lifted into the air. Marik had placed Cai back in his cot after a few moments of personal time with his youngest son, smoothing back his tufts of curly brown hair that had stuck up and sitting beside the cradle as Emili prepared Alexander for going back into his own bed on the other side of the room, __turning and winking at his eldest son before soothing Alexander back into the realm of sleep also, the four year old safe in the knowledge that his parents would protect both him and his baby brother from any storms that might rage outside in the future, just as he would help them in safeguarding Caiellis._

_That, as Alexander would come to learn in the years of turmoil that followed his mother's brutal assassination and the war between the Kingdom of Light and the New Empire of Passion, was an assertion that was ultimately proven false._

_But this was all wrong. Daddy hadn't come to the nursery yet, and the presence of the boy's mum was swept away by the violence of the tempest that rampaged all around him. _

_In fact, he didn't think that there was a nursery left at all, as the room was torn away around him, ripped from his mind like his mother had been and consumed by the storm above and surrounding the kneeling youngster. _

_Alexander was shaking, shaking in a mixture of horror that pervaded and froze his limbs and anger that raged inside of his heart, a burning desire to murder every last one of the servants of darkness and consign the evil of the world to immolation in the fires of his fury that pulsed at the edges of his unreal consciousness. But the anger couldn't be released, it could barely be felt, the mounting sense of terror and overwhelming grief eclipsing whatever wrath __might have wanted to burst out of him._

_The emotions were strange, unexpected, clashing with the __warmth that had exuded through his mind only moments earlier in a crashing display of jarring emotional discord __that would have filled the eldest prince with confusion and bewilderment had the sheer anguish that had been jolted into __his mind __not been saturating all his senses and drowning out everything else._

_He was on a courtyard, but it was unlike any courtyard that he had ever seen before, obsidian flecked with the deep orange of volcanic influence and the magmatic powers of hell stretching out as far as the Lucerna could see. Spires of black rock that curled inwards framed the infernal plaza, dripping with the vitae of a thousand slain innocents and arching towards a sky of psychotic turbulence and electric thrashing. Blood pounded at the slick and crimson earth around him, a constant rain of gore that replaced the far more natural downpour that had been consigned to the outside world only a few seconds ago. _

_It cascaded down his face in rivulets of scathingly hot scarlet, pooling at the sides of his body as it impacted onto the hard stone that the boy was knelt upon. _

_There was more noise as well, blaring out across the courtyard in a maddening howl __that still did nothing to block out the deafening emotions that had suddenly begun roiling through the second youngest Lucerna's head. _

_Alex suddenly became aware of the weight that was still in his arms, his main priority thrusting itself to the forefront of his false dream state consciousness, his duty as an older brother that he had taken upon himself all those years ago allowing it to shove past the otherwise overpowering sorrow that he was under the influence of._

_The mass of the younger boy had changed, his body having seemingly elongated within the span of mere moments and become heavier, although not nearly heavy enough to be too much of a hindrance to Alexander much more than holding a small body was already. The weight was almost as insubstantial as it had been before the change that had swept the nursery and their parents away with it, or perhaps it only seemed that way because Alex was able to cope with it even better than he had been._

_He looked down, noticing his own hands first. They were not the hands of a four year old child; they were no longer chubby, small and tender, but larger, stronger even though they shook uncontrollably in the throes of the unknown sensations that assailed him. The fingers were long, thick but not excessively stocky, and the skin was slick with blood, hard but still soft and not yet calloused by years of holding a weapon._

_They were attached to broad and lean wrists, but Alexander was quick to disregard whatever he himself looked like – what he had changed into after the cessation of the memory – when he laid bleary eyes upon what those hands were holding onto. One was wrapped around another slender palm, fragile and thin fingers clasped hard within his own, though not with any returned force from the recipient of his grasp._

_The other was cupping the pale, bruised and bloodied cheek of a younger boy, one that still laid in his big brother's arms, and although there was something oddly tranquil about the scene it was anything but peaceful. _

_Caiellis had changed, no longer a sleeping infant clothed in warm and fluffy garments but a small adolescent suffused with teenage slenderness exacerbated by his already thin build and the lifestyle of a young prince. He was much larger than he had been, all of those years ago when the first storm had raged around the palace fortress of the Lucerna house, but was still small in comparison to the one holding onto him._

_In spite of the sheer power possessed by the ear splitting noise that resounded all around Alexander, the loudest thing that he could hear was the thrumming pulse of his own heart, an insanity inducing drumbeat that did nothing to displace the sense that the silence of death had descended. A deathly chill emanated from the painfully thin body, seeping through Alexander's fingertips and leather trousers in conjunction with the physical blood staining him, its coldness and motionless frost sapping the boiling warmth from the savage demonstration of atavistic power and reducing it to a frigidity that spread through the older brother's aching bones._

_Caiellis was still in his arms. Even with the crimson spilling onto his face from the bleeding sky, there was ample enough room between the gashes and bruises upon the youngest Lucerna's pale cheeks for Alex to see that the smaller boy was afflicted with the ghostly pallor of death. Caiellis had always been pale, even only minutes ago when he had been a tiny baby frightened of a storm on a completely different magnitude to this one, but now he was virtually colourless, the gore strewn across his youthful features derived from the endless rain of unnatural vitae combined with the wounds the youngster had sustained doing little to conceal how ashen he was. _

_It was an enigma, a violent paradox, that everything around them was so _loud _yet to Alexander the quietness of utter grief and loss that embodied the world around him and his little brother was so _quiet _that he was able to hear the symphony of his own pounding heart's thunderous hammering on the inside of his chest, the erratic rhythm of his breaths that seemed to draw no air in at all. It was so silent, hushed, that he would have been able to detect the slightest disturbance within his brother's immobile form._

_And this quiet allowed him to perceive that neither the thudding of Caiellis's small but brave and kind heart nor the boy's soft breaths were present in this stormy courtyard._

_A scarlet slash was drawn across the smaller male's throat, outstripping the horrible collection of bruises, broken bones and bloody rents that the youth had been fatefully acquainted with, and as Alexander stared in horror at the line of red that imprinted itself into his eyes, flaring with a raw light in the crimson lightning that burnt its image into the eldest prince's retinas for forever more, he came to the sudden, dreadful realisation that if Caiellis wasn't breathing, if his heart wasn't beating … then he was … he was ..._

This isn't supposed to happen. This is not supposed to happen …

"_Caiellis! Wake up!" is what he would have shouted, is what his mouth moved to pronounce, but he could not find the air for the words and the short gasp that did nothing to alleviate his breathlessness was utterly drowned out by the crashing, roiling noise of his own young heart breaking within his chest. But the sight of his baby brother so pale and hurt, so still and broken in his arms when he had been so safe and contented only moments ago was too much for Alexander to handle._

_It felt like there was a suction pump within his lungs, or a vortex of mana that extracted all of the oxygen out of them and left the boy without anything to breathe with as he stared at the brutalised visage of his younger brother, a far cry from the serene expression that had adorned the cute features of a much smaller Cai. _

_Blood pooled within Alexander's eyes, the constant torrent of the visceral droplets pattering down atop his forehead and pouring into his blue orbs. It stung his eyes, blinding them to the observation of the world around him in a flaring spike of pain that was dull to the boy's senses. However, he couldn't even consider moving to brush the gore out of his vision, he didn't dare to break off contact with his younger brother with one hand even for just a short moment – the adolescent was incapable of blinking it away._

_Nonetheless, no matter how much steaming viscera streamed down his face and obscured his gaze with its agonising touch the sight of Caiellis so hurt and coldly still could never be erased. Alexander couldn't breathe at all, the vision of his baby brother in that much peril closing off his lungs as his mouth gaped open, words that he should have screamed unable to escape it with nothing to sustain them._

_And this time, instead of having his mum helping him with his younger sibling, instead of their father aiding them both every step of the way, Alex was all alone with Caiellis. It was how it had been, how it was supposed to be, but Caiellis wasn't supposed to be hurt, Caiellis was supposed to be safe in his big brother's presence and Alexander had failed and oh angels …_

_Alexander sat, stock still with his small brother clasped in his arms and held across his knees, unable to move or even process any other thought that differed from the predicament of the younger boy, for an indeterminable amount of time. _

_The crashing vortex of blood, ash and the electric sinew of the storm made not an imprint on the middle Lucerna's mind, his eyes that were blurred through the red fluid that cascaded into them fixed solely upon the youngest member of his family's discoloured and bruised face, his pale cheeks that were contused a myriad of different violent and hurt hues yet ashed and deathly all the same, the Black Sun on his right cheek that had lost all of its onyx lustre, and his eyes that Alexander could somehow sensed had been scrunched up in pain both emotional and physical before his brother had left but were now closed and slack._

_The boy didn't feel the tears that were spilling freely out of the oases of raw and unfettered anguish that were the eyes that he had inherited from his father, the father that he had failed in allowing Caiellis to be so hurt. The clear liquid carved twin paths of grief down Alex's young cheeks, wending their way down to the edges of his face before splashing onto his little brother's own, the crystalline droplets that fell down Cai's innocent features making it look like it was the youngest Lucerna himself that was crying. _

_And _that _was what was meant to be. _

_Caiellis was supposed to be the young one, the smallest member of the Lucaelian royal family that released his emotions so that Alexander – and his other elders/members of his family (whether they were related by blood, such as his father or mother, or bonded through time spent surviving the darkest times together, most notably the boy's Uncles Tybalt and Tristram) – could help him overcome them, could assuage his fears and salve his worries. _

_Alexander only knew this because of his only memory in this time, the sole thing that he could remember being the occasion when both him and his little brother had been much younger, the last storm that had metamorphosed into this newer and much more destructive form. All of the broken images that lingered on the precipice of his consciousness meant nothing to him, not with his younger brother this hurt, and despite the fact that he could barely recall anything other than this and the actions of only mere minutes ago he knew what he was thinking was the truth._

_Caiellis was meant to be able to show his emotions – he had always encouraged his younger brother to share any problems with him (even if he might have occasionally and teasingly belittled him for them and rarely told the younger boy to deal with them himself) so that he could solve them, as was the duty that he had placed upon himself ever since his first meeting with the baby and after … something that he couldn't remember._

_But he couldn't tend to his younger brother like this, not with Cai so silent and motionless. He didn't know how to help him in their predicament, how to fix what was wrong with him and bring life back into the littlest Lucerna. _

_The immensely faded Lucerna birthmark emblazoned on the diminutive youth's bloodstained features didn't even react with a modicum of the somewhat haunting purple luminescence which Alexander had began to associate with his younger brother's sadness, but then they were not the boy's own tears and as such might not have interacted with the Black Sun sigil anyway, if Caiellis had been in his normal state and not laid across Alex's knees with the older boy's muscular arms looped underneath him._

_Alexander's vision, already blurred by the downpour of vitae from the screaming sky and the trickling water that gushed out of his emotion-filled and bloodshot eyes, was distorted even more by the breath that he could not pull in, his brother's state preventing even that basic function. _

_The shock of the sudden mental agony that he had been thrust into from when he had felt safe and emboldened by happiness and brotherly pride paralysed the teenager, and he could do nothing more than stare in shock at his smaller sibling and the change that had overcome him, the mantra that _this is wrong, this is all wrong, _repeated over and over like a sadistic hymnal within his skull._

"_No..." he whimpered, the words even quieter than a whisper and immediately washed away by the sheer volume of the tempest that split the ground below it apart with its fury, the arcing blasts of crimson lightning scoring deep into the plaza and leaving bloody wounds that seethed with volcanic and hellish lava in their wake. Alexander could feel himself breaking apart, piece by shattered piece, his heart broken and dying, trapped in the confines of his chest as it pumped sorrow through his veins, his world collapsing around him and the apocalyptic scenery fading into grey._

_Caiellis was dead. Angels above, his little brother was dead … _

No. I won't let this happen … I won't let him go … he can't go … he's my baby brother and I don't want him to die …

_Shuddering violently in the throes of his anguished mind, Alexander felt like he was about to eject the contents of his stomach but couldn't process the thought, couldn't think of anything that was related to himself. His own wounds didn't even register on his conscience, not even with a dull background ache, and the sensation of being almost drowned in boiling gore was nothing compared to the feeling of his younger brother's blood on his hands. _

_He stared down, transfixed by the sight of his baby brother with eyes closed and wounds covering his abused form, the horrible, horrible slice of red on his slender throat tearing itself into Alexander's corneas, somehow brighter than the rest of the lacerations and bruises scattered across Caiellis. The crimson glow resonated with some primal part of Alexander's psyche, a form of bloody rage swelling up inside of him that threatened to brutally slaughter any who had taken part in harming his younger brother without remorse, but it could not escape the walls of the distress and misery that tightened their grip on Alexander's soul._

_It manifested itself within the agonising shakes of fear, anguish and sadness that the boy was afflicted with, the only movements of the youngest Lucerna caused by that painful shuddering of his big brother. The tears dripped down his cheeks in a never ending rain of grief joined by that of the blood, the blood that fell out of the wounded sky, the blood that bubbled out of Caiellis's wounds and leaked out of the wounds and slashes inflicted upon his cold body._

"_No..." he whispered again, the word the only thing that he could think of, the statute of denial the one concept that his broken and despondent mind allowed him to consider, the last salvation and the final promise of absolution, that none of this was real – that Caiellis could never be so hurt._

_Anything else was too much for Alexander to cope with – anything else would kill him. His body was already rendered unable to move, rendered unable to do anything other than gaze at his deathly brother, hoping beyond the concept of hope – as that was too much for the boy to form within his head – that somehow this was all wrong, somehow his brother's awful condition was a lie and that somehow, despite how _real _it all seemed, this was an illusion. _

_The thoughts were not the centre of his mind, nor did they even make any impact whatsoever on his grieving state. But they were present nonetheless, and some small regions of Alexander that were unnoticed by the rest overcome by the wounds of his baby brother desperately gripped onto this half formed idea, anchoring Alex to reality and ensuring that, for now at least, he wouldn't completely lose himself to the emotions that roiled inside of him, that he didn't succumb to the utter lack of purpose corresponding to the loss of his brother. _

_Alex was afraid to move, unconsciously and instinctively frightened that if he shifted his grip on his brother, or if he adjusted his position to do anything to help Caiellis, that his younger and only sibling would fade away or break apart like infinitesimally fragile strands of shimmering gossamer. His mind refused to have him move, the dire knowledge that his baby brother was dying – or the unspoken and unthought of suspicion that he was already dead – in his arms whilst he did nothing to help making no impression upon the boy._

_He sat there, shuddering and shaking in the embrace of his emotional pain, for an unknown amount of time, the storm becoming more and more turbulent and ruinous by the second as it tore apart the ground around Alexander, strikes of coruscating electricity impacting into the barren earth and scoring demonic patterns into the land. _

_It was too much for him, too much for his young mind to comprehend at once, the possibility of so much loss – the loss of the thing that he lived for – breaking him apart more and more._

No … Caiellis …

What am I doing? _The thought was sudden, but not unwelcome, breaching the roiling ocean of anguish and raw emotion __and thundering into Alexander's head. __His heartbeat thudding in his skull, the shaking teenager rocked backwards as if slapped, spontaneously breaking out of the reverie that had __encompassed his thoughts and staring down at his still brother. The younger boy shifted with his sibling's movements, his position changing but not of his own accord as he was limply pulled backwards with Alex, his head rolling to the side when the eldest prince's grip changed._

_He gazed once more at his baby brother again, taking in the extent of the wounds laid upon the bleeding adolescent, near mesmerised by the damage that had been done and fatefully enraptured by the thought that he could ever lose Caiellis, before his mind screamed out in anguish._

_A primal scream was torn loose from a throat already raw from howling, a mixture between a cry of desperation, a defiant shout of pure anger and a wail of emotional pain __that split through the air __and joined the shrieking of the __whirlwind of forsaken souls and demonic force in a peal of cacophonous noise._

WHAT AM I DOING?! _The mental words rose to a scream of their own, one which pierced through the fog of sadness that had been clogging up the teenager's thoughts, though it did nothing to erase it. _

_It was the understandable variation of the boy's unintelligible scream, the realisation that no matter the shock of suddenly having his younger sibling change from a calm and safe baby to a small adolescent that appeared as if he had been tortured by a score of sadistic individuals at once and gone ten rounds with a monorail train, nothing, __**nothing**__, excused Alexander's inaction._

_He jolted upright, though his blue eyes did not move from their position, his vision remaining transfixed upon his younger brother and best friend, scanning the boy's wounds at the same time as he stared in horror at the younger male's closed eyes and bloody visage. The boy exploded into action and noise._

_He had just been sat there. He had just sat there, with his little brother in his arms, the smaller boy's condition worsening every moment that Alexander had wasted away. _

_He had been unable to act, unable to even move, to hold his dying sibling closer to his chest. __He hadn't been doing anything to help Caiellis, nothing at all, and the desperate thought that his brother would pay for that mistake streaked like a bolt of crimson lightning through his brain._

Why couldn't I move?! Why wasn't I helping him?!

"_No no no no..." Alex's horrified voice made the words, oxygen and air flooding into his lungs once more as he managed to get his breathing partially under control, mitigating his hyperventilating to the point where he would be able to act and form impulses within his mind – not quite _think, _not in the traditional sense of the word, but grasp onto his big brother responsibilities and instincts and channel them through his limbs._

_Mana was not accessible to him, for whatever reason, but the middle Lucerna paid no heed to that indistinct realisation. Panic coursed through his shaking body, the anxiety and grief making him vibrate as he pawed at his brother's cheek, hopelessly aiming to obtain a response from the still youngster in a way that he had always been able to, tears still running down Alex's face and splashing onto the boy's bruised cheeks._

"_Come on Cai … Wake up for me … Wake up, little bro..." the words spilled out of his lips impatiently in between hitched breaths, half formed and broken but no less genuine and heartfelt because of it. He shook the thin boy, this time out of his own accord, gripping onto his slender and gaunt wrist with one hand and stroking his thumb over the jutting bone, still under the impression that he might somehow elicit a response from the motionless Caiellis. _

_He felt around the base of the thin hand, desperately searching for any faint vibrations that might constitute a pulse, a _heartbeat_, his brother's skinny wrist slipping in his blood slick grip as he tried to grip hold of it tightly, Cai's own bloody wounds and lacerations at the end of his bony forearm making the job even more difficult. _

_The older brother wished that he didn't have to touch the burn marks and cuts surrounding Caiellis's wrist, knowing that it would cause him pain and not wanting to be the source of any more, but there was no other way to ascertain whether or not his heart was beating._

_There was nothing, not even a near imperceptible throb – the only throbbing was the resounding pulsations of terror and distress within Alex's skull._

_Alexander's voice had almost always been able to rouse his younger sibling, even when the youngest Lucerna had wanted to ignore him and pay no heed to his big brother, his ability to calm Cai within a nightmare or to awaken him from a concussion induced unconsciousness often coming in handy and reminding the elder of the two brothers of their strong bond – a bond that he had once thought was unbreakable, a bond that he would do anything to protect._

_A bond that was quickly slipping away from him._

_But now it seemed that such an ability refused to work, that his brother was too hurt to hear the words in his state. If Alexander had been able to think properly, he would have resolved to continue speaking, repeating the encouragements and pleading like a mantra to make sure that any chance his brother might latch onto the words or somehow find reassurance within them was taken, but as he couldn't he talked without even knowing, automatically trying to find a way to get his sibling back into the world of the awake._

_He shook his head, blinking the stinging tears from his eyes so that he could better look at Caiellis, but the torrential rain of gore kept his vision blurry enough so that merely moving his head wouldn't clear it. But Alexander refused to break off contact with his little brother even with one hand, the implications and symbolism of letting go – of giving up on the youngest Lucerna – too horrifying to comprehend._

"_Come on come one come on … don't you leave me … come on, wake up..." he cried, the words broken and quiet but nevertheless infused with a form of big brother authority that might have made the hitched sentence seem less desperate and distraught to any outside observers that didn't know the eldest prince well enough to detect the prominent tinge of anguish and heart wrenching misery in his tone. He shook the younger boy hard again, not caring that such actions would have hurt Cai had he been conscious, but there was no response from the incapacitated teenager. _

_The never ending rain of tears from the boy who barely ever cried, not even when in extreme pain other than the watering of his eyes that he couldn't stop, could have drowned both him and his younger brother in their wretched depths. The fact that Caiellis was seriously hurt was the only thing that could cause such sadness, one of the very few things that could force Alexander to break out of his shell of strength and the walls that surrounded any form of weakness so that it was hidden from others._

Think. _He needed to think. Mindlessly shaking his little brother and __wishing for a miracle to happen was doing nothing for Caiellis, nothing at all. Since Alexander couldn't tear away his gaze from his stricken sibling __he couldn't get a sense of the place their old nursery had dissolved into, couldn't look to see if there were any individuals close that could help them, he instinctively knew that he needed to get an inventory of Cai's wounds, start fixing them in any way that he could._

_He sloppily pulled his brother back onto his lap, the blood that had drenched them both making it seem like Caiellis's body would slip away any second – just like Alex knew without giving thought to the awful prospect that Cai's tenuous hold on life was too. _

_Shakily, he moved his eyes back and forth across his brother's broken form, defiantly refusing to let the viscera that was streaming from the storm into them disrupt this task. _

_Bile rose to the back of his throat as he took in his brother's injuries, or at least those that he could see that weren't covered by the torn and shredded light armour that the boy was half clothed in __or those internal punctures hidden __underneath__ the __pale skin of the youngest Lucerna. He wasn't aware of how __he had obtained this information__, but he knew how to fix certain wounds, knew what he had to do to reduce the __debilitating__ effects of some and __salvage others, and tried to grasp onto that information within his head._

_Alexander focussed his determination that the youngest member of his family would survive this turmoil into a lance that would strive to clear his thoughts, allow him to fixate on certain ones and at least subdue some of his powerful emotion that threatened to tear him apart from within and was welling up inside. _

_He baulked at the condition of the smaller Lucerna that was strewn across his lap, the desire to tear apart and brutally obliterate any who laid their hands on his precious baby brother with the intent to do harm and channel the guilt that was devouring him from within into a potent force only eclipsed by the desperate want to save him and cure him of his ailments, to whisk him away from the danger. _

_To get his little brother back and to see him smile again._

_The boy had already zoned in on Caiellis, his concentration on him and him alone, the cataclysmic hellscape of the world around him as dull and unremarkable as stone grey now that he had much greater priorities. Alexander pushed through the seething fog within his mind, the oceans of despair and the grasping arms of heart-wrenching guilt at letting Cai get hurt to such a degree, trying to find the instinctual knowledge of how he could aid his sibling in this situation._

_The adolescent knew that every second he delayed was one where his brother's perilous hold upon life was weakening, but he could barely breathe himself and the snaking tendrils of the shock and horror of what had happened were still pierced into his brain and refusing to relinquish their hold upon him, though they were not paralysing him in terror and blinding him to the rapidly heightening degradation of his brother's health. _

_He couldn't think clearly no matter how hard he tried, the thoughts and knowledge of dealing with certain injuries half formed and blurry within his head when he endeavoured to pull them up and act upon them. _

_There was just so many wounds scattered over his little brother that he didn't know where to start. He couldn't evaluate which ones were the most important to fix first – he knew deep down that he probably couldn't even see the some of the most potentially fatal, hidden as they would be within Caiellis's clothes that he didn't want to strip off the smaller boy, affording him a measure of dignity even in this moment. _

_The leather armour that Cai wore, too small and weak to be able to fight clad in the heavy plate mail of the Lucaelian military or even the chainmail leather combination that Alexander was equipped with now, without heavily restricting his mobility, would be stuck to his body with the blood that he had shed, especially in the regions where it and the soft skin underneath had been torn open and the macerated remnants had been soaked in crimson._

"_I-I won't let you g-go, Cai. I w-won't let you go," Alexander growled the promise to himself and his grievously hurt brother, the stuttered yet snarled words mangled by his anguish and breathless panic, anger and defiance of the hopelessness of the situation mixing with grief. Every breath he took hurt, pain that he had not noticed until now blossoming within his ribcage, but it wasn't going to stop him from helping his brother, it could never stop him from saving Caiellis._

_He held his brother further away from him so that he could better see even though it went again every basic need to keep Caiellis close and safe that he had followed ever since the time of peace that had long passed. The boy needed to do something, _anything_, the fact that he seemed utterly useless and unable to salvage his brother's state tearing ta his mind._

_His ragged breaths through an open mouth filled with the bile inducing taste of copper blood did not supply him with enough air to be able to cope with the severity of his brother's situation, his instinct and mental obligation to protect the smaller boy the only thing keeping him teetering at the edge of insanity instead of falling fully into its psychotic depths. _

_Caiellis's wrist wasn't showing that he had a pulse, and Alexander hadn't felt the puffs of air that were reminiscent of his brother's breathing like he had when the much younger, infantile version of the littlest Lucerna. He knew that he needed to fully ensure that the heart of his sibling was still working, so let go of the back of his brother's mop of sodden brown hair that was matted down by the crimson rain._

_As soon as the only thing that was keeping Caiellis's head from falling backwards was removed the boy's skull lolled back, his messy hair falling away from his face as his head bonelessly flopped. _

_Alexander pressed slippery fingers to his brother's wounded throat, aghast at the amount of sticky scarlet blood that covered the boy's neck, desperately searching for any indication that Cai might still be alive, that the older boy wouldn't have to start with heart compressions and breathing for the younger male – as even though Alex refused to truly come to terms with it, the fact that neither his heart nor his lungs were working to keep him alive and sustain him would have dire consequences should the older brother not be able to act soon._

_A cry of desperation was wrenched from Alexander's lips as violent shivers wracked his lean form, the shaking borne from fear and grief, not any cold around him. There wasn't any indication that Caiellis was still alive; no vibrations inhabited his cold body other than the quivering of his older sibling that held onto him._

"_No … no no no … d-don't l-leave … I'm s-soryy … so so s-sorry … d-don't you l-leave me … I w-won't l-let y-you g-go ..." Alexander whimpered, the pathetic hitching of his breath filled to the brim with a form of defiant sadness that overflowed into his bright blue eyes. Alex stared at his brother, squeezing him tighter in a way that was sure to leave bruises that wouldn't be noticed on the boy's already abused skin as if holding onto his physical body would somehow stop his soul departing into the next realm of life._

_Caiellis wasn't supposed to go first. That had always been Alexander's mindset, his modus operandi. Even though his memories were broken, those of the time minutes ago where he had been a little boy talking with his mummy interspersed with shards of another life where he and Cai were at ages slightly younger than they were now, he still knew for certain that he and his baby brother hadn't lived the best life but that such should have changed._

_Caiellis deserved to live the best life that there was, he deserved to be able to live without fear and danger, not die within his older brother's arms as the middle Lucerna tried hopelessly to save him. Caiellis was supposed to have so much more than this, live so many years _

_Words spilled from Alexander's lips just as the tears slid down from his eyes, incoherent and incompressible crying that nevertheless still carried the emotion that was flooding his body. _

_He shook his brother again, clamping shuddering fingers over the gaping rent in his throat in a feeble attempt to stem the flow of blood out of it even if it was only slowly pouring free in a tide of scarlet that covered Alexander's hands in red stains that he knew would never wash away instead of gushing from the wound like it should have been._

_There was too much, Caiellis was too hurt, and Alexander knew even if he refused to believe that his younger brother was too far gone for him to pull back. This nightmarish land was only a backdrop for the ghastly scene that was playing out between Alexander and his harmed brother, only ever a small blip within the older Lucerna's combat attuned senses that were completely focussed on his sibling. _

_He couldn't stem all the bleeding – he could barely even prevent Caiellis's life leaking out from where he was pressing his fingers into it in a pathetic attempt to close up the rents – and the realisation of that was more icy claws of despair that sank into his fractured heart. _

_The boy's eyes were open, half-lidded crescents that had greeted the world when his head had been tossed backwards and the residual force had shunted the eyelids upwards. Alexander's own eyes flicked to the minute showing of green within the expanse of paleness and red that was covering everything else around him and steeping it all in crimson blight, his gaze automatically drawn to that of his brother._

_There was no light in those eyes, none of the intelligence and brightness to them that even as a diminutive infant his emerald orbs had shone with. The curiosity, the wonder for the world that shone through the younger boy's evocative and expressive eyes, was replaced by the dullness and lifelessness of a barren wasteland of bloodshot green mostly hidden by eyelids that drooped with no tension of their own._

_There was nothing to remotely suggest that his younger brother still remained within the lifeless body that half-gazed up at the older adolescent, but Alexander refused to take the eerily vacant eyes of Caiellis as a sign that there was no hope left for him. There would always be hope as long as Alex was with the younger boy, the big brother that he was wouldn't allow it to be any other way and would never let him give in._

_The larger teenager gently but quickly placed his younger sibling upon the ground that was saturated with blood that peeled back like a scab from a wound when Caiellis touched it, exposing the rotting and infected core of the stone that the fragile youngster was laid upon. Alexander paid no heed to the nightmarish landscape swirling around him and crackling with painfully bright and impossibly jagged parabolas of scarlet lightning, as it was of a secondary concern to him and would only become pertinent once he had managed to save his brother's life – only then would it requite his attention, as only then would he have to carry Caiellis out of this hellscape._

_Pressing two fingers next to the bleeding rent within his little brother's neck in a frantic search for anything resembling a pulse yielded nothing. Heart rending, trembling in desperation and anguish, Alex was leaning over his younger brother, tilting back his head with a hand once more on the matted hair of the smaller boy, tugging him closer, pinching his nostrils so that he could begin mouth to mouth, all the while ignoring the endless rain of gore around him and the blood of Caiellis that stained him, its coppery tang that revoltingly rippled across his taste buds filling him with a wave of revulsion that hearkened the boy to something strangely familiar._

_The sensation was soon subsumed, overwhelmed by the excess of stimuli raging throughout Alexander's sense receptors and the screaming wails of emotion in his skull that were in turn pushed aside by the desperate need to be his little brother's salvation. _

_He started chest compressions in the moments where he was forced to pull away and suck in a few painful and hitching breaths, his body aching and stinging with the air that shuddered through it, mentally silencing the childish wailing within his head so that he could call out the timings that had been taught to him by a face he couldn't remember on a day that he couldn't recall. _

_It gave purpose to his voice, and while it would have been more efficient to simply imprint the numbers into his mind it was too full of anguish for anything to overcome it without giving verbal substance to the thoughts. It stopped him from blubbering and sobbing violently, something that was helping neither himself nor his baby brother._

_Calling out the timings into a world that refused to listen, burning the number of breaths into his head, the compressions … it all became a desperate mantra to save Cai's life. But the kid showed no sign of coming back, the only movement made by his cold body came when Alexander harshly thumped his chest, linked, fisted hands attacking Caiellis in earnest and the older boy felt his heart sinking further into the bottomless pit of despair eating up his chest as the infinitely precious seconds inexorably ticked by._

_Seconds that were constantly counting down to the point where the youngest Lucerna slipped away permanently. Caiellis was drifting further and further away, Alex could _feel _it even if rationally he had no idea whether or not his baby brother was still alive in the abused form of his. His eyes kept up that cold dead stare, green irises glinting in the vibrant, gory illumination of the violently crackling thunderstorm._

_But still Alexander didn't, _couldn't,_ give up on him. Caiellis was his little brother, a bright glow of innocence within a world of darkness and war, an intelligent and loving little boy that didn't deserve any of the punishments heaped upon him by the cruel reality of their life, and if there was one thing that Alexander would do above all others it would be to secure a happy future for the youngest Lucerna. _

_If he somehow could have, the elder adolescent would have sacrificed his own life to save that of his younger sibling's, even though the time that he spent with Caiellis when both were well and safe was the happiest of his young life fraught with peril and the danger of the darkness, and he had no illusions as to how his brother would always despise living on without Alexander even if in time he would come to accept it as reality._

_Alex would do that without a second thought or a moment's hesitation, give up his chance at a life filled with protecting others and enjoying time with his friends, family and those of the fairer sex that he was certain he would frequently consider when not in a time of need, so that Caiellis could have the same instead of him._

_But those thoughts, that impossible sacrifice which he would be willing to take if it only spared Cai from more pain and suffering even if it deprived him of his big brother, were nothing. They would not atone for his failure, his failure to prevent whatever it was that had occurred to finish with his fragile sibling unbreathing beneath his hands and motionless apart from his desperation fuelled attempts to restart the younger male's heart._

_He was supposed to be the protector, the youngest Lucerna's bulwark against harm and the one that kept him safe above all else; his ultimate prerogative was to have Caiellis unhurt and secure (and, simultaneously more and less important, to have the smaller boy happy and content, as while that was a goal in and of itself and it featured heavily upon Alexander's modus operandi, Cai couldn't be happy if he was dead or harmed), and in that he had failed – a fact that was clear for all to see._

"_Come on C-Caiellis ..." Alex panted out between every rescue breath, pushing himself well past the point of being safe with the amount of energy he was expending in his attempts to revive his brother, "You can do it … don't leave me..."_

"_Caiellis please..." the boy was openly sobbing again now, his breathless assurances and encouragement of his sibling dissolving into worthless crying once again. He had stopped keeping a mental track of the time since he had begun the resuscitation process; Caiellis was the only thing of importance to him, begging his little brother to come back as he certainly refused to notice that the smaller boy's ashen pale skin was slowly but surely turning the grey of muted corpse, his lips deep blue, what scant warmth was left in the teenager's body seeping out of it along with his blood._

"_P-Please p-please p-please … P-Please come back. P-Please come back. I promise I won't let you get hurt again … I-I w-won't l-let you … I'll protect you, I promise. Just please, please, _please _wake up, Caiellis," Alexander's voice, which had started off jumbled and stuttering in the wake of sadness, a shattered mosaic of emotion that's raw edges of unfettered emotion cut into the tone of his words, suddenly became clear, like the fractured shards of a crystal of sadness, loss and regret combining together once more into a strong proclamation wading through an undercurrent of guilt combined with confusion._

_He took in a long, shuddering breath that felt like it was slicing at the inside of his throat and pushing hard on his lungs as it eked its way through his own injured body, acutely aware of how long it was taking – every half-second punctuated by more grief (both internal and external) and more blood spilling onto the ruined courtyard and joining the crimson already congealed there._

_Alexander stared down at Caiellis, before launching himself back into the near hopeless endeavour to revitalise the youngest Lucerna even if a damned part of him that was formed from the waters of the wellspring of grief in his chest which he was desperately trying to drown told him that it was too late – that Caiellis was never coming back._

You have failed, _a voice, although it could barely be called that and was only aligned loosely to the definition, sliced like a rending dagger of murderous guilt and self-directed anger __into his head. Alexander drew in a sharp and pained breath at the icy shiv that rammed through his mind, the rancid blood of the gory rain filling his vision with red as he refused to divert any time from tending to Caiellis to removing the crimson stains from his eyes._

_As the droplets spilled like bloody rents in the fabric of reality in front of his sight, pooling at the bottom and rising up in a tide of red that splashed more colour onto the world that had all but turned monochromatic grey with the exception of bleeding Cai, Alexander paid no heed to the statement – if the boy even understood it. _

_The blood was pervading everything, pouring into Alex's open mouth when the briefest of respites from filling his little brother with his own air were taken, but this time instead of __being eclipsed by the horrible, revolting taste of his small sibling's lifeblood __and simply fading into another dull nothingness with the rest of his sensations, __it amplified the disgusting __iron__taste __to the point where it filled everything, drowning Alexander in the vile flavour as more voiceless words cut into his head._

You have failed. You have failed, _the words told him, repeating over and over and over in a maddening cycle. But this time they weren't just the barest imprints of voices; this time __they were recognisable as belonging to people that Alex must have known even if he could barely recall some of them._

Caiellis is dead! You were supposed to protect him. You are the eldest son, the firstborn, and you have failed in your duty to keep your younger brother safe. It was your job, your responsibility, and now my little boy has paid the price for your inadequacy.

_Those were the harsh tones of his father's censure, the king's words a hammering bombardment of disapproval that ripped the air from Alexander's stomach like the voice was a brutal mace of ice ramming into his stomach. __He had always looked up to his father, always admired him as a strong and invincible hero of the Kingdom of Light, utterly infallible in his ways. He had tried to emulate him, tried to echo his bravery and indomitably, to follow in his footsteps so that he could continue his father's reign if he became king._

_Marik was Alexander's idol, and to know that he had failed his father as well as his baby brother made him weep even more, the cold anger and hatred that was on the precipice of exploding in volcanic fury combining with everything else in being far too much for him to take. He could imagine the _

_But he had to keep trying. He had to keep going. _

_There was still a possibility – a chance that the teenager was going to ensure that he seized and never let escape – __that he wouldn't disappoint his dad. There was still time, he told himself, refusing to believe that there was any alternative to that fact, still time to save his father's baby and his own little brother._

How could you have let this happen?! How could you?! How am I supposed to live in a world without my youngest son?!

_H__is hands thumped down on Caiellis's fragile and already damaged chest, __the boy__ nauseatingly aware of the horrible movement of his brother's bones underneath his strong hands (_not strong enough to protect him, only strong enough to hurt him_) that broke after being subjected to too much pressure for too long, and the cracking noise that punctuated the thunder of the storm, impossibly loud within Alexander's mind and only eclipsed by the sound of the words inside of his head._

_Alex didn't care how hurt his brother might be, only that he lived. All else was secondary to him now, including the condemnation of the mental representation of his father __that he was desperately attempting to ignore now even if he knew he deserved it, deserved so much more shunning and pain for what he had failed to do._

Alex, why has this happened? I thought you said that you were going to protect him … I though that you made a promise my baby that he would be forever safe with you. You knew that Caiellis was fragile – you _knew _that he is much more delicate than you, much more of a thinker than a fighter like you – and yet you didn't guard him from the darkness.

_This was a voice that he had heard only minutes ago yet hadn't truly experienced for years of his life._

Mum...

I loved you both … I loved you both so much … You were the lights of my life, the twin stars that twinkled so brightly within the darkness of the world, the pride and joy of your father and I …

_Her voice began melancholy, but almost compassionate in the same instance, drenched in misery and regret that seeped through Alexander's core as he tried to shut out the voices – anything that was not related to the resuscitation of his baby brother was something that he could not afford to dwell on, could not afford to even listen to in spite of the reality that blocking it out was all but impossible._

_But despite that resolution to let nothing stop him from bringing Caiellis back into the world and facing his punishment for allowing the younger boy to be so drastically hurt when he was supposed to be under Alexander's guarding, the words of a woman that with sudden clarity he knew hadn't heard in years could never fail to leave a grief stricken imprint upon his mind._

I would have given everything for you … I _gave _everything for you and Caiellis, so that you two could live out the lives that I and your dad had dreamed for you since the moment we first laid eyes upon the two of you together … and now...

_Tears streamed down the teenager's face in cascading lines of pure sadness that blended with both the vividly and obtrusively crimson ichor of the eternal rain and the rich dark red of his little brother's blood that covered him, drowned him in its stench of failure and the pain of an innocent little boy too young and kind to leave this world and all that it held for him. _

_All he could taste and smell was the blood of Caiellis that covered everything in its redness, a stain of guilt and negligence and desperation that would never wash away as the voice of his beloved mother continued, its sombre notes filled with increasing amounts of anger and disbelief that complemented the grief instead of warring with it, her melodic tones like a euphony of sadness, disappointment and fear blended together into a harmony of negative emotion that Alexander had only ever heard once before in his young life – once before this fateful moment, that is._

Now Caiellis is dead. Now my baby boy is lying dead on the ground. And … I don't know if I can love you any more, knowing that it was your fault this happened...

_Alexander choked back tears, a primal part of him that was utterly concerned with repairing the damage wrought into his little brother's body futilely attempting to force the emotion out of his distraught form and silence the combined voices of his parents' anguish borne scorn within his head and surrounding his mind. _

_He knew that he needed to curb the feelings that had wrapped him in their embrace of darkness and sadness, throw off the chains of grief and sorrow that bound him and made him constantly shake in the throes of his sobbing desperation, aware that any mistake he might make whilst shivering and slipping on the blood that drenched his younger brother could result in even more harm being dealt to the smaller male._

_He didn't want to hurt him any more than he already was, didn't want to be the source of any more of Caiellis's pain, and to do that Alexander was as certain as he could be in a time of distress that he needed to focus fully on his brother instead of any of the endless and awful ramifications of the wounds he had already suffered through._

_But such a task was impossible, and the grey and colourless images of a future without Caiellis flashed behind the boy's eyelids in every coruscating lash of lighting that split the blood red sky with its crimson electricity, crashing into the ground and releasing crackling lines that spread across the sodden ground like jagged veins of destructive power. Like the veins that had been split within the youngest Lucerna's young form, the vessels that were releasing their vital cargo of blood onto the ground around him even as Alex continued to try and restart his heart._

Why did I even bother training you, you snivelling little bastard?! _The accusatory tones of Tristram accompanied the anger-ridden and anguished __diatribe__ of the boy's parents, not eclipsing them nor being overridden by Emili and Marik's words. Alexander had only ever heard him this furious before __when he was directing his rage against the foul enemies of the Kingdom of Light, never before targeted at one of the young princes. While the king's scorn was coldly seething with hatred that could never truly be repressed, Tristram's anger was a fiery lash of aversion __and hostility that tore into Alexander's back._

Why did you just leave him to die?! Why did you fail to help him when he needed you most?! WELL?! What excuses have you got for yourself this time, you pathetic brat?! _The Guardian's voice was like a thunderous boom of rage filled noise, not identical to the atavistic roaring of the corrupt storm howling overhead __but more akin to the reverberating crash of a pillar of annihilating holy light slamming into the guilty of this earth and erasing them from the sight of heaven's firmament. _

Your younger brother was always there for _you_, Alexander, always there to watch your back and protect you from the horrible danger of the threats of the darkness that were perpetually hunting for you there! At least one of you took my orders to always try and stay by the other's side. _Although it was not as terrifyingly loud as before, Tristram's brutal timbre still rippled and surged upwards with the force of his fury. _

_Now that he was quieter, the full force of the contempt that the man's voice within Alexander's head held the adolescent could be displayed, intertwining with that of the detestation exhibited by the words of his and Caiellis's parents that cursed him for his lack of foresight and his failure to keep his little brother away from the terrible harm that had befallen him._

Now, as you can fucking see, Caiellis is dead. It is all so wrong, so damn wrong. _You _should be the one dead, not him! What did he ever do to deserve this, Alexander?! What did he ever do to deserve your negligence?! What did he ever do to deserve dying alone with the person he trusted most out of anyone else in this entire world never there to help him in his direst hour?!

_In spite of the attacks lancing into him from the incriminating and condemnatory words of those who he had admired and adored all of his young life, the guilt that was pulsing throughout Alex's hurting and shaking yet numb body didn't get any worse, couldn't get any worse as there was no way that the eldest Lucerna prince could experience any more of it with his younger brother drifting into an eternal rest underneath his hands._

_Instead, the guilt became even harder to fight, harder to resist it taking over him and plunging him into an endless abyss of despair from which he would never be able to rise up out of and provide the aid that the youngest Lucerna desperately needed. _

And now I will never hear him call me Uncle Tristram again … I will never see my "nephew", happy and laughing any more … You have taken that from me, Alexander. You have taken that from us all.

_The seconds and the words blended into one another yet remained distinct, a mural of sorrowful inks distilled from the paints of a psychotic and sadistic artist of the mind that flowed around the teenager, and each pump of his hands on Cai's fragile chest that was breaking further than it already was even as he tried to save the boy and force the courageous and compassionate heart within the cage of his bones to begin working once more, each breath that he intermittently blew into the younger male's motionless form threw lips soaked with blood in the constant endeavour to get his brother to breathe once more, became one and merged with once another._

Alexander, you have disappointed yourself and your family. This you already know, but I care not for that – I care not for whatever pathetic excuses you might muster up, nor for the punishment that you so clearly deserve for allowing this to happen.

_Never far behind Tristram in the lives of the two princes that flashed behind Alexander's eyelids, Tybalt's customarily strict yet reserved and calm voice was contorted in a similar manner to the other important figures in the boy's life. It was suffused with both the righteous castigation that surrounded his words whenever invoking the divine power of the heavens to smite the enemies of the angels and the people of Lucael, but this was wrapped in a chain of grief and misery that the austere Hierarch barely ever displayed._

_The second mentor of the youngest Lucernas, the one who had first imbued his little brother with the passion for knowledge and reading alongside the boys' mum and had given Caiellis pride in himself and his abilities, spoke alongside the other voices inside of Alexander's mind. Like all the others, it was damning him, eroding the last vestigial walls against being utterly subsumed by the ocean of emotion inside of him and the cloying taste, smell and sensation of Caiellis's blood covering him._

No, instead all I care about is how much the world will suffer because of Caiellis's death. He was brilliant, your younger brother, a phenomenally intelligent mind combined with a kind and courageous heart that would do anything for the people he loved and for the citizens of the Kingdom of Light that it was his duty to protect.

_The melancholy shone through more prominently in those few sentences, the woe at the near death of the Capitalia Lux's Hierarch's youngest student blooming like a malignant flower throughout his words more strongly than the thorns wrath that punctured Alexander's lungs and made every single breath a difficult endeavour – one that he had to take for the sake of his brother, a near impossible trial that he sacrificed the fruits of to Caiellis each time he succeeded in forcing his own wounded body past its natural limits._

Caiellis had so much potential, so much to live for, and you have stripped that from him, Alexander. You have taken his life from him in your vile neglect of what he needed – your laxity in irresponsibility have led to this, and nothing you could hope to do can ever make this right once more.

Caiellis – your _little brother_ – is dead because of you. The brightest, most intelligent and empathetic mind – no, _person –_ that I have ever encountered, ever had the pleasure to teach and impart my knowledge to, has been ripped away from a world, a father and his Uncles that had so much more to give to him.

_Every second that slipped by screamed out Alexander's failure of his younger brother and made the voices that howled within his skull ever louder, their euphonious accusations and constant reminders of the guilt that had already swamped his ragged and bloodied form and was centred on the singular object of his vision._

_More voices joined the throng – the living grandparents of the two youngest Lucernas, Alexander's closest friends Leodred and Elizabex that condemned and damned him for not prevented the horrifying wounds inflicted upon his little brother, Lucaelians from all across the forlorn Kingdom of Light who had a connection to the two princes adding their words to the chorus of hatred and anguished anger that assaulted the teenager with blades sharper and more agonising than any sword. _

_Caiellis's own soft and young voice that hadn't quite broken yet but remained much less high pitched than it had been in the past of the boy's childhood was noticeably absent from the choir of vilification. It kept him in the constant knowledge that Cai was hurt really, really badly, that if Alexander didn't do enough to save him then he would never hear the younger boy's voice ever again._

_But despite how badly the censure of all those who knew the two heirs to the Lucerna throne caused him to react and tore at the edges of his already fraying mind, they were nothing in comparison to one voice on its own. They could never hope to eclipse this one, no matter how much they reviled him, no matter how much they reminded him of his brother's awful condition right in front of his eyes. _

_It was his own voice, twisted and contorted in a hatred of himself that he had never experienced before in his short life, that hurt the most. It strove to break him, shatter the already shattered pieces of his mind and heart into fragmented dust that could never hope to be repaired, repeating the same damning words over and over again._

Caiellis is gone, Alexander. Your younger brother is gone, and it is solely your fault! Face up to the truth, you pathetic, whimpering little dog. _The words hissed, his own mouth too bus__y __with supplying the broken body of his only sibling __with the life giving air that he would gladly sacrifice forever more if it meant that his baby brother could breathe again to make the sounds echoing out inside of his rumbling skull. _

_The malign syllables dripped with venom, the spaces between words punctuated with crackling blasts of lightning and the psychopathic screaming of the __unholy storm above._

Shut up! Shut up! _Another part of his psyche railed against it, the __desperate part that still clung to the slowly dying hope that __his younger brother would emerge out of this __and recover to be the same as he was before – or even just endure this pain without permanent damage – fighting the assertion, howling inside of his head as well._

Caiellis is dead. There is nothing, _nothing_, that you can do to save him from that fate, to bring him back no matter how much you try, no matter how defiant you are of the harsh reality of life. You can't save him now.

_Alexander fought against the words with every breath, every pump of his fists on his baby brother's still heart, but the effort was not achieving a single thing. Caiellis's heart refused to start again, his blue lips refused to move and breathe for himself._

No no no! Shut up! Be quiet! Cai isn't going to die! HE ISN'T! I won't let him … I won't let him go! _The challenging voice in Alex's head screamed, so unbearably loud with the strength of his conviction behind it and yet so quiet, a mere splash of water within a torrential downpour of __ever rising condemnation – a splash of scarlet blood upon a charnel house of gore. _

He's already dead, you idiot, waste of an older brother! How many times have I warned you, warned myself, and yet after all of the signs Caiellis is dead at your knees barely into his teenage years! You've let him die! You've let our little brother die! He was so loving, so kind – he always looked up to us, and we – YOU – have let him down! I HATE YOU! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!?

_All of the voices within Alexander's skull rose in volume, the chorus climbing to an ear splitting crescendo as the teenager pulled away from the cracking of his little brother's chest, his hands clasping over his ears in an incredibly futile attempt to block out the noise, silence the words that screamed his best friend's and younger sibling's passing from a life that had held so much more for him._

_He sobbed and screamed in the same instant, pressing his head into his little brother's chest, his tears splattering onto the blood that drowned him in the guilt and failure that it carried. _

_He cried onto Caiellis, something that he had never done before in his life, the words pounding into him like the drops of bloody rain crashed into the desecrated ground all around him._

"_No … no … no ..." the boy whimpered, unable to make any other sound, unable to do anything to help his brother after what had felt like hours of excruciating emotional pain attempting to breathe life back into Caiellis's young form and give the smaller boy the life that he deserved._

_He was utterly breathless, the sobs emanating from a throat raw from anguished screaming choked and stilted. The scent that he had grown used to of his baby brother was replaced by the all too familiar aroma of coagulated blood and sickening viscera that clogged his nostrils. _

_The blood was everywhere. It was filling Alexander's mouth, drowning him in its awful taste as he gagged and spluttered. It was filling Alexander's eyes, a tide of red rising in front of them once more and stinging like the crimson tears of guilt that they were. It covered everything in its scarlet paint, marking the ground of Caiellis's pain forever more and eternally staining all that was underneath the storm that howled in rapturous applause at the youngest Lucerna's still form. The boy wanted to vomit, to violently expel the contents of his stomach, but even as he gagged and retched in horror at what had happened to his younger brother he knew that to befoul Cai's body with his sick would be only adding to the degradation and agony that had been heaped upon his small form laid down in the blood saturated ground._

_He couldn't breathe, and he couldn't think, couldn't live without his younger brother. He couldn't act, the voices screaming endlessly in their wailing repetition of Caiellis's death, Caiellis's pain, and Alexander's failure to stop either of the two._

Why did it have to be him?! He is my little brother, I am his big brother, and I failed him so much! I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE TO SAVE HIS LIFE! WHY WAS I NOT THERE?! WHY DID CAIELLIS DIE ALONE?! WHY WAS IT HIM WHEN IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME?!

He's dead. Dead. Dead. Dead! Dead! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! _The words rose up around him, forming a never ending barrier of sheer noise that __entrapped Alexander, entangling him like thorns of guilt that pierced both his mind and his skin __and only heightened by the insanely amused rumbling of the unnatural tempest overhead__. _

_He buried his head in his brother's chest, desperately trying to do anything to block out the voices, block out the reality of what had befallen Caiellis, but it couldn't be done. Alexander was on the verge of giving up, as the one word that had shattered his entire life and represented so much more sadness and grief than its single syllable, its four letters could ever encompass._

DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!

"_NO!" Alexander howled, raising his head up to the infected sky and screaming out his anguish, a final, desperate plea to the uncaring heavens above and whatever gods might be listening to spare Caiellis from this fate. He cried, screamed, releasing all of the emotion and defiance that had been seething inside of his skin, but none of it made any difference. "NO! NO! NOOOO!"_

"_Alexander..." the words were weak, soft, quiet, barely making any imprint on Alex's distraught mind. Had he not been intimately familiar with the sound of the voice, the speaking of his name would not have registered with the Lucerna prince at all. The blood poured down Alexander's cheeks. The relentless drumbeat of damnation that had pounded within his skull to the point where he thought it would be split open from the inside instantly ceased, leaving behind a yawning chasm of silence that was barely filled by the eternal trickling of gory rain onto the blasted land. _

Caiellis!

_The boy abruptly and swiftly sat up, his gaze locking onto the face of his younger brother and his hand instantly wiping the stains of blood that blurred his vision. His heart ached, the need to see his little sibling alive and well fuelling his actions with a vigour that belied his pain and desperation, his connection to Caiellis that was close to being forever severed._

_But the boy's eyes were still almost shut (that half-lidded gaze carrying none of the emerald intensity that Alexander had become used to), his chest remaining unmoving and his face still paled by the grey hue of necrosis. Fresh tears swelled in Alex's tortured blue eyes at the sight of his baby brother unrecovered, more sobs strewn with haunting anguish building at the back of his throat at the mere notion that he had imagined Cai's gentle voice, a phantasm of thought that cruelly taunted him in its realness._

_The larger male quickly moved his hand to the youngest Lucerna's slit throat that he didn't have any mana at all to close, fingers slick with his brother's blood once again seeking a pulse that just wasn't there. He had heard Caiellis's voice, he was undeniably certain of it even in his maddened and hysterical state. The edge to the words had been just too tangible, just too intimate, to be a conjuration of his shattered mind. _

_Yet his younger brother still lay on the ground, still in the wretched repose of merciless death that had been his companion ever since Alex had first laid eyes upon the wounded boy._

"_Alex..." his name danced upon the boiling, scalding hot yet indescribably cold air once more, this time the shortened version that had been coined by his loving mother and spoken most by his brother. Caiellis's lips had not moved, but Alexander _knew_ with a certainty that he hadn't felt for a long time that it wasn't his distraught mind trying to reach out to any pieces of memories involving the younger prince. _

_The words had a direction as well, and the teenager titled his head in its direction, rubbing the visceral detritus of the unusually quiet thunderstorm above from his eyes so that he could see. The firstborn son of Marik's breath caught in his throat as he laid his eyes upon the speaker of his name, his tearful blue portals widening in shock when he beheld the figure only a few metres away from him._

_There, stood upon the crimson sea of congealed blood and viscera that was the horrifically defiled landscape around them, was Caiellis. It was his little brother, though he appeared remarkably different to the flood of images and memories that poured through the adolescent's mind at the sight of his brother across from him. His face was suffused with an ephemeral glow, his skin infused with an ethereal quality that only seemed to emphasise his fragility and strongly exuded the impression that he could be snatched away at any moment. _

_It was Caiellis. Yet the boy was still laid across his older sibling's knees. Alexander looked down, gazing at his unconscious brother, and back up at the one who had called out to him with that sonorous, emotion-filled voice that he was so used to, that he had heard a thousand times before and was as familiar to him as the motion of his own limbs, the mere act of breathing that he still found immensely difficult. He repeated the movement, his mind unable to understand what he was seeing, why his brother was in two places at once. _

_It could have been an imagination, a trick of his mind attempting to salvage anything it could and show him Cai so that he could avoid coming to terms with the younger boy's pain, or an apparition conjured by this nightmarish terrain to distract him from the plight of the smaller teenager and seal the youngest scion of Matalis Ortus Lucerna's fate._

_As soon as the thoughts violently shuddered through his distraught head like a spear of clarity, the slightly, almost imperceptibly insubstantial (had Alexander not known the junior male so closely he would barely have noticed, what with the terrible nature of their vile surroundings) form of the boy stepped forwards, seeming to do nothing in closing the distance between them yet allowing the older male to gaze upon the youngster's face and see into his brother's eyes._

_Despite the fact that they should have been lacking the usual colour which imbued them because of his awful condition this Caiellis's eyes were veritably shining with the emerald lustre that projected all of the emotion that roiled around within his little brother's breast as they reflected the pink and red light of the streaks of madness from the tempest above. _

_His youthful, gaunt features were pale and ghostly, blemishes of black and blue contusions alongside the rivulets of blood that ran down his white cheeks like crimson tears. The Black Sun birthmark which had been pale and faded upon the face of the Caiellis that had been laid discarded upon the ground was virtually non-existent, a darkened mark that appeared no different to lesions scattered across the skin that was left bare by torn clothing._

_He looked so young, too delicate and small for the violent brutality of the world that Alexander had meant to protect him from but had only succeeded in allowing him to be exposed to the full extent of the cruelty._

_His wounds were starkly visible upon his pale form, the horrific red incision drawn across his throat which should have rendered him unconscious or should have been profusely bleeding throbbing with a red light that emphasised Alexander's anguished guilt. The boy's face was bruised and bloodied, but more than that it was so, so sad, his eyes soulful and hurt. _

_He was innocence personified. Undeniably, indubitably, Caiellis Noctis Lucerna. And Alex's heart soared with a mixture of crippling grief and desperate hope that his younger brother was returning to him, that in spite of his mistakes Cai would be preserved and beside him for forever more. _

"_Cai..." he choked out in response, the strangled sob of his brother's name inflected with equal amounts of sadness and love. He made to move towards his little brother, scraped knees sliding across rotten ground sodden with blood, but the younger boy's haunted viridian eyes held him in place, transfixing him to the spot. _

_Had he been able to consider the reason rationally, he would have known that he dared not move towards Caiellis due to how frail and intangible his upright sibling seemed, that his touch might shatter all of his bones or that merely by approaching the youngster he would disappear like an evanescent gust of wind – he had already failed his brother enough – but with his mind utterly consumed by the youngest Lucerna's arrival he had not the focus of thought to ponder such things._

"_Alexander … Why didn't you help me?" Caiellis's voice was no louder than a whisper carried on storm borne winds, but they still scored themselves into Alexander's mind like a blade formed of thoughts. They made more of an impact than the loudest shout ever could, and the tears that sprung to Alexander's eyes matched those which began to well up in those glistening green orbs that the older boy had his own gaze fixated upon._

_He had no answer to that question, and gulped, disgust with himself warring with his desire to wrap his baby brother in his arms and keep him safe from the world. Alex shook his head slightly, not enough to disconnect himself from his brother's doleful stare. Caiellis seemed on the verge of tears, mustering up his own courage in a way that made his big brother so unspeakably proud of him, so proud to have a little sibling that always tried so hard. _

_But in turn that pride brought on more guilt, more sorrow, as instead of nurturing that bravery and using his own to protect his brother Alexander had let it be the death of him, let Caiellis sacrifice himself instead of stopping him and safeguarding him from the danger that only a loyal older brother could have saved him from._

"_Why weren't you there, Alex? Why … I needed you ..." Cai sobbed, the whimpering edge to his words dislodging the fragile resolve that Alex had built up and sending it tumbling in a cascade of emotions down to the ground. "I needed … my big brother … and you weren't there … you weren't there ..."_

_The worst thing about the voice was that besides a hint of accusation that Alexander almost gleefully lapped up, there was no anger present in the tone, no fury nor hatred directed against an older brother that had failed him. He wanted – no, _needed -_ Caiellis to be wrathful with him, for his little brother to detest him and release all of the rage that Alexander deserved at the senior Lucerna. He wished for punishment for letting his younger brother down, wanted to feel the stinging bite of hatred and angry pain from Caiellis so that he could have the sentence that he had warranted._

_But there was only sadness and fear in the youngest prince's voice, no loathing, no rage, just sorrowfulness and misery that Alex wished he could erase from his brother's form forever – along with the wounds and the torture that he had suffered through. The heavy inflection of fear interlaced with desolation not directed against the elder adolescent was more painful than any angry assault because it showed that Caiellis still loved him, still trusted him and wanted his aid even after all that Alexander had failed in giving to him. _

_The boy could feel his heart clenching in his chest once more, and despite the fact that crouched on his knees he wasn't that much smaller than his younger brother stood up he felt minuscule, smaller than he had ever done before. _

"_I cried … I called for you. But you never came. Why didn't you come, Alexander? I needed my big brother to protect me … wasn't I worth it?" Caiellis wasn't accusing him, wasn't condemning and damning him like so many of the voices of his family and friends that had pounded within his skull only moments ago in a choir of madness, just asking the question. _

_Alex wished more than anything else that he had been there, that he had been able to provide the help that his brother had so dearly required, or that he had been the one so damaged instead of young Cai. He couldn't answer the smaller boy's heartfelt inquiry, because he didn't know how, didn't know what words that could be said to soothe his brother's pain or make up for his failure to be the one thing that Caiellis had needed. _

_The world behind Caiellis flickered, darkening as an unnatural shadow spread out from the landscape to the back of him. A jagged bolt of lighting too close to his brother for Alex's comfort split the air, shrouding everything in a bloody, visceral red that seethed with unrelenting rage and the berserk fury of lustful psychosis. _

_Alexander cried out a warning to Cai, whose saddened eyes widened in fright at the sudden expansion of darkness behind him, the shade that blackened the blood at his feet and pulsed red in the unholy light of the crimson bolts arcing around him. The thunder, which had quietened to nothing more than a whispering susurration of rumbling as the apparition-esque Cai had began to speak to Alexander, roared once more, howling with contemptuous and terrifying laughter at the at the two young boys underneath its swirling insanity. _

_The scarlet hued darkness that pulsated in front of Alexander's eyes spoke to him of violence, of attacking those weaker than him and revelling in the rapturous agony inflicted upon their fragile flesh. It urged him on, goading him to give into the rage that had flared up inside of him, to smash his fists into his younger brother's frightened little face, to rend and tear at his skin with his short nails, to wrap his hands around his thin throat and drive a blade into his neck, watch him choke and splutter on his own blood as he …_

Stop! NO!

_A jolt of fear and concern for Caiellis split through the vermilion haze, and Alex used a surge of strength that came from seeing his brother in danger and being able to act upon it to rise to his feet, shaking off the violent impulses with a resolve that he hadn't felt for an eternity in this hellscape. He shrugged off the violent urges like they were a garment, viciously forcing them out of his mind so that the only thing he could countenance was saving the younger of the two._

_Finally, he could act. Finally, there was something that he could do for his little brother as an older sibling should. Finally, he could put his wrongs to right, save Cai from the fate that should never have held him in its sadistic embrace. _

"_Alex?" the note of fear that had undercut the prince's words ever since the boy had appeared bloomed like a flower of terror, petals of dread unfolding within the tone of his voice and twisting the name of the older Lucerna into a question without a clear answer. _

_The just teenager's already big green eyes widened even further as the carmine shadows played over his ethereal skin, but he did not turn around. His gaze remained locked with that of Alexander, the utter trust diluted with an uncertainty created by the betrayal of his brother and the older boy's failure to save him from the predations of the mad filling the elder Lucerna with a certainty of purpose which imbued his aching limbs with strength. _

_He sprang forwards, the body of his brother beneath him forgotten and discarded as it disappeared into the pools of blood, his mind honed in on the fateful sight of the diminutive form of Cai darkened by the malfeasance. The younger boy's fear was evinced by the surprised expression his innocent features pulled themselves into._

"_Alex! Help me, please," the child cried, though his voice remained quiet, muffled by the tendrils of fear that had wrapped around his chest. To Alex, Caiellis appeared as if he couldn't raise his volume as that would be acknowledging that there was something behind him. His desperate eyes pleaded with the older boy, imploring him to come to his rescue this time, a demand that Alexander was only too happy to acquiesce to. _

_Jagged streaks of coruscating red crackled at the peripherals of the elder royal's eyesight, but he paid them no heed, his vision honed, as it was, upon the slender shape of his brother._

I'm coming, I'm coming, _he thought, not wanting to waste __breath and precious energy on speaking the words to his sibling despite the reassurance that they would offer, the reassurance that the __petrified and __distressed adolescent clearly craved._

_With his gaze fixated upon his younger brother, Alexander hoped that the determination in his eyes to protect Cai __would convey more than the words which he couldn't spare air on ever could. __His trembling friend __took an almost stumbling step forward, hesitation defining the action bathed within the bloody shadows. _

_It __was as if he was t__entative to move towards Alex because of the reality that extricating himself from the __tenebrosity seeping out of the land like the pus of a weeping sore __would rouse whatever force was causing the intensifying of the shadow into action. _

_Whilst Alex would have preferred his brother to run towards him, __throw himself into the arms of the taller boy and let him whisk him away from the peril, __he could fully understand Caiellis not wishing to move, not wishing to aggravate the dark power surrounding the back of him. It was up to Alexander to rescue his brother, to take him away from all of this pain and suffering and bring him back into safety._

_Desperation flashed through his mind, a thousand images of what would occur should he fail his little brother again imposing an even greater sense of urgency upon him as he ran forwards. The sanguine drenched ground squelched beneath his pounding footsteps, the resounding beat of his shoes on the encarmine saturated __mud and rock nothing compared to the crashing inside of his head._

_The noise was starting again, the painful thumping that almost drowned out all else, but Caiellis's little sniffles and breaths of fear managed to pierce through it. Nothing could eclipse the sounds of need coming from the younger boy, nothing could stop Alexander from getting to him._

I'm coming, Cai! I'm coming, little brother. Just wait a few more seconds, and I'll be there for you.

I'm so, so sorry for leaving you alone the first time, but I promise you that I will not make that mistake again. I won't make it again!

_Yet no matter how far Alexander seemed to run, no matter how much he pushed his already over-exerted body over its battered limit in his frantic charge to his fragile sibling, the sprint seemed to be stretched out into an eternity of coldness and sorrow. _

_The distance between himself and his baby brother, a distance that had once only been mere metres that Alexander should have been able to close in seconds, was not consumed in the slightest by the run. He seemed to be getting no closer to his brother, who shouted out to him now._

"_Alexander, please! Help me, big brother! Please don't leave me! Please..." his pleading voice cut off, breaking in emotion that curdled within the older boy's own breast, "Don't leave me, Alex. Please stay with me. Please..." _

_The tears that had been gathering within eyes welling with fright entwined in dolour began to cascade down once pale cheeks stained red with blood, twin rivers of emotion that dripped down his chin as he cried. _

_Even with that display of fear, the youngest Lucerna still attempted to put on a brave face, still tried to mask his utter despair so that his older brother wouldn't be hurt as much by it. Such compassion and bravery made the senior teenager even more disgusted by himself, by his own inability to properly conserve it._

_The claret hued gloaming billowed around the skinny male, a foul presence that clawed at the edges of Alexander's already tortured yet determined mind just as it tore at the landscape around them. It saturated the air with malefic energies, Red and Black mana coalescing into a more solid shape behind Caiellis, who wiped the glistening tears from sparkling green eyes with one hand whilst reaching out towards his big brother with the other._

_Alexander's heart, battering at his bruised ribcage within his chest, was being torn apart once more as he beheld his brother in such a degree of danger again. He forced his burning lungs to keep supplying him with air as he ran as fast as his aching legs could take him at the location of his brother. His feet sank into the pools of blood that reflected a debased and violent version of himself, one that sprinted at Caiellis with the intent to harm instead of aid, but Alexander paid no heed to the perverse images._

_Yet, no matter how much he tried, the eldest son of Marik couldn't get closer to his younger brother. His limbs propelled him across the bloodstained mesa, but the figure of Cai barely became any larger, barely got any closer. But the malignant _thing _that was forming behind the boy grew with every second that he wasted running, a formless mass of pure and unadulterated excess mixed with evil that was beginning to take tangible shape._

_It was a tenebrous mass of carnal carnage, bloodthirsty lust, the screaming of thousands as they were roasted alive on a pyre lit by the fires of dark pleasure, the howling of millennia old civilisations as they were consumed by the blissful ecstasy of violence and hedonism, sacrificed to this capricious lord of overindulgence that was extending to over fifty feet tall, towering over the youngest Lucerna that quailed beneath it._

_Its laugh, joined with the peal of thunder from the storm above that spewed out lighting onto the tortured world below, was an atavistic cackle that bellowed above all else in ecstatic celebration. The already abused world around the youngest Lucerna contorted and buckled, like it was thrashing in tortuous seizures at the appearance of a creature so evil that the land itself quaked beneath its arrival._

_Black shards of rock soon covered in the stinking and steaming blood pierced out of the ground, shuddering and cracking into place as they lanced towards Alexander. Swerving and juddering to the left, the older royal avoided the rupturing spires of gore drenched obsidian, his feet almost slipping on the near sheets of visceral fluid that lined the rock beneath them before he managed to use the superlative fighting reflexes driven into him and honed by years of brutal training to regain his balance, limbs aching in protest of the actions. _

_The boy kept running, even as molten veins of lava filled to the brim with the dark energy of ruinous desire split the earth around him and his near hyperventilating younger brother. _

_The magma seeping out of the rock as portions of it were split open like ripe fruit formed an impassable ring around the littlest Lucerna, the baleful red glow painting the already gore strewn boy a vivid scarlet. The irregular circle was wide, too large for Caiellis to leap over without damaging himself, but not large enough to prevent Alexander from reaching him with his longer legs and more powerful stride._

_Caiellis shouted his name again, the words infused with the boy's renewed desire to have his big brother protect him from the fallen god that had begun to haul itself into this barren and bloody world in which Alexander had found himself and Caiellis._

_Despite all that had happened, despite all of the older adolescent's failures, underneath the terror and haunting sorrow was a hint of hope, not the shining streak of belief that Caiellis had once possessed in Alex but rapidly expanding in potency and faithful incandescence every second the danger increased. He still believed, more than anything else, that Alexander could save him from anything, could destroy any foe that dared to lay a finger on his precious little brother, and the eldest son of Marik refused to let that trust be dashed upon the sharp rocks of desolation and betrayal once more._

"_Alexander! Alex! Please, help me! Please, do something! I don't want … I don't want to die …" the poor kid sobbed, his Lucerna confidence and bravery instilled by an evident wish to not appear weak in front of his sibling overwhelmed by the sheer presence of the being bloated with horrible energies tearing its way into the once lonely landscape, his tear strewn visage fixed in Alexander's sights._

_He didn't know how he could protect his brother against the force of the abomination the began to take a more defined form around Cai. But he knew that all that mattered was that he _knew _he could, the certainty that he would not let down Caiellis once again a tangible thing within his mind, a concept that he could no more discard than he could stop his body from breathing until he died._

_All he needed to do was get to his brother before that _thing _did. The rest would work itself out from there, Alexander's plan to extricate his best friend and younger sibling from the pernicious situation that he had been thrust into not requiring details right now. He just wanted Caiellis in his arms, and then he could discern how they would escape or kill the malefic presence coming to them – or, more precisely, arriving at the youngest Lucerna's location._

_And now he seemed to be closing on his brother, whatever evil physics that had worked against him to impede his progress falling against his unstoppable will to reach Caiellis. He was tantalisingly close, almost near enough to reach out and touch his brother's already outstretched thin digits, to clasp his hand in his and heave him away from the fusing mass of darkness, blood and howling atavism._

_Alexander was almost certain that he could hear Caiellis's panting and short breaths, pushed nearer to one another because of his panic. _

_He could ascertain the splashes of the younger male's scintillating tears as they splashed on the earth after leaving his gaunt cheeks, even over the shrieking and roaring emanating both from behind and from the tempest above Cai and the perpetual splattering of the claret droplets rain of gore. _

_Alexander's body could feel the heat rising up from the circle of steaming lava entrapping the youngest Lucerna, but more prevalent than that was the waves of unnatural force expanding forth from the sinews of shadow whirling and spinning in a jagged maelstrom of atrocity and inhuman desire that slammed into Alexander. _

_They buffed him, attacking from different angles like the brutal punches of a mob of psychopaths, hammering into the boy, but they were nothing compared to the hammering of his own heart, nothing compared to the crushing power of what would happen to him if he let Caiellis be hurt again. He dug his heels into the sodden ground with every step, drawing on reserves of power that he didn't know he had but were definitely held back until his brother was in significant peril to keep himself moving forwards._

_Despite the risk that continued motion entailed, Alexander kept going, maintaining as much of the pace that he had sustained in his headlong charge towards his little brother as was possible. _

_Without both the strength that he had built up through years of persistent and gruelling training and the determination that nothing would halt his progress in reaching Caiellis it was entirely possible that Alex would have been whisked off of his feet by the violent squalls that drove the bloody rain into him, as one would have to stand still and hunker down to the floor to avoid most of the whirlwind of darkness and flame's effects and even then if they didn't have the right combination of strength and mass they could easily be sucked into the vortex of darkness._

_Calling upon every ounce of strength that Alexander had at his disposal, the boy ran at his little brother, reaching out an arm towards him in a desperate mirror of Cai's own actions. His lungs and limbs burning with the exertion, alight with the fire to save his sibling, he grabbed outwards, a singular motion imbued with all of his determination and resolve as he extended his fingers towards Caiellis's slender hand already angled towards him._

_Caiellis's eyes were large portals of despair and fear, though there were trembling inflections of hope and belief in his big brother that hadn't been shaken by the older boy abandoning him in those wide green orbs that seemed twice as huge in his distress. Sparkling tears cut lines of sadness through cheeks stained with blood, sweat beading his brow at the unnaturally hot magma pulsing with malice that lava had no business feeling that surrounded him._

"_Cai!" Alexander shouted, wishing that his brother could leap forwards. He was so close. So close to his brother, almost touching, almost able to latch onto his too thin wrist and pull his light body over the barrier of bubbling and bloody molten corruption. _

_The lacuna of unholy desire and charnel addiction, dark lust and an insatiable bloodthirst and so many more terrible, terrible things, things so violent and sinful that Alexander couldn't define with simple mortal words that would never capture the pure evil, unadulterated craving, present within the fallen god, rose up to its full height. _

_It towered over the two boys, expanding as far as the eye could see, but instead of obscuring the hellish landscape of blood and abused rock, blocking out the tempestuous storm above that flickered with hankering pink light, it _became _it. The blood and the lighting, the darkness and the fire, all joined together, a discordant cacophony of malevolence shaped in the form of an atavistic deity who lorded over a domain of violence and pleasure in all of its debased forms._

I'm coming, Cai. I'm coming. Angels above, let me reach him. I can't let him go … I can't let that _thing _have him. Get away from my little brother! He's mine! Mine! He's so near … I can almost touch him...

_Alexander's fingers brushed against those of Caiellis. He wrapped his hand around the boy's bony digits, not caring in the slightest that he squashed them together with a grip that would leave finger shaped bruises, and pulled, pulled with all of his might to drag his brother into his arms. Cai's own fingers squeezed around his sibling's wrist, not even large enough to reach all the way round and connect to one another._

_The contact sent a galvanising bolt of hope shuddering through Alexander's veins, and he wrenched his younger brother off of his feet, dragging with a force that could easily dislocate the youngest Lucerna's arm from its socket – but it wouldn't, because even in his frantic desperation Alex would not hurt his little sibling._

"_ALEX!" the boy screamed, as a huge hand of leathery, blood red flesh with sinews of darkness and debauched passion with impossibly large and vicious claws wrapped around his waist – or, more precisely, his entire body, the thumb curling around the youngster's face. Caiellis's hand was snatched away from that of his brother's, short nails that he had dug into Alex's skin ripping it open as they were violently torn away. _

_The pain of the blood-drawing abrasions was nothing compared to the agony speared into the older brother's chest as he gazed into Cai's terrified eyes when the boy was pulled away from him with a strength that was beyond impossible. Alex enclosed strong fingers around the jutting bones holding on as hard as he could, but his hands were slick with the endless blood and slippery on the bare flesh of his sibling's forearm._

_He had to keep his brother grounded. He couldn't let go, couldn't let Caiellis be dragged away from him again, not when he had come so close to saving him, not when he had seen the price of failure and had it seared into his blue retinas forever more. _

_The image of his brother dumped unceremoniously on the ground and covered in pools of his own lifeblood with horrible wounds etched like primitive sigils across his fragile skin lingered, a haunting ghost on the edges of his vision, but no matter how terrifying or poignant it was it could do nothing to distract him from the events playing out in front of his eyes now. _

_The older boy used all of his strength and muscle that he had built up for years in the twin efforts of bolstering his own pride and ability and becoming ever more able to protect those who in need (most notably his younger brother) in holding onto Cai. He would rather be yanked off of his own feet instead of having his baby brother taken away from him again, even if it would force Caiellis to have to endure the hefty weight of his muscular older brother on his already strained arm._

"_Alex..." the smallest son of Marik cried and gasped out, sobbing his big brother's name, voice tainted by the pain that must have been fulminating through his body as his fingers desperately scrabbled for purchase on Alex's arm again. Alexander tried so hard, gritting his teeth as the seconds unfurled out into what seemed like years, but it was never enough, it never could be enough. Caiellis was pulled contemptuously out of his big brother's grasp._

_He reached out for his brother again, his hand groping at empty air as more of the hot blood splattered onto it, unable to comprehend that Cai had been taken away from him once more. Confusion addled his mind, incomprehension and a refusal to believe what he knew to be true, but that was soon dissolved by a haze of red that pierced through the fog, all of his grief and fear for his little brother was turned into a fiery rage that exploded through his form._

_His scream of anger was incoherent, mere words unable to encompass the sheer ferocity of the desire to rend and tear at this demon that had snatched away what was rightfully his from him. _

_But it was effortlessly drowned out by the rumbling peal of howling mad laughter that boomed out in an explosion of sheer diabolical noise that burst forth from the demon holding Caiellis several metres off of the ground. The power resonated out through the very earth itself, cracking the stone as the malice and anger far darker than a billion humans in violent harmony could ever hope to muster up crackled in red lines across Alexander's vision._

_The massive creature reared up before him, leathery wings drenched in blood opening wider than the world itself, encompassing all of Alexander's sight as burning infernos of unrestrained desire fixed him in their malevolent gaze. _

_It was pure evil. It was Red and Black mana made manifest, lust and the carnality of carnage personified, a countless number of unholy passions and all consuming bloodthirst embodied into a single form that seethed with power that Alex had never laid witness to before – a single form that currently held his baby brother in one clawed hand._

_Caiellis's eyes were desperate, his face streaked with tears and blood, one arm crushed to his body by a single massive finger whilst the other scratched for purchase on his captor, little fingers scrabbling and clawing to no effect. _

_Alex could see the bottom of his dangling feet kicking and squirming, trying his damned hardest to free himself from the grasp of this brutal avatar of slaughter, but they stilled and fell near still when the demon – Rakdos, the name burning itself into Alexander's mind along with a thousand other terrible meanings of those two syllables – visibly increased the pressure of its grip, writhing in pain in lieu of resistance._

_Even over the crashing and rumbling of the abused land and its bruised sky, Alexander's ears were attuned to the horrible muffled scream that slid free from Caiellis's covered mouth. _

_The blood that was expulsed from what the older boy could see of the youngest Lucerna's mouth trickled down the gargantuan thumb, and that in combination with the way that the motion of his legs became stiffer and writhing was a testament to both the pain afflicting his undeserving little brother and the strength of the affront to light and life that was crushing him._

"_**Hahaha! He's mine, little princeling! Your brother is mine to use and abuse as I see fit, pathetic Lucerna!**" the mass of bloody sinew, violently serrated bone and forbidden magic bellowed, its voice and the words it carried scissoring into the young male's mind and hurting more than any other. The crescendo of sound washed over the older prince like a tide of blood and failure, his own face twisted into a fearsome visage that was only a lacking caricature compared to the spiteful gluttony given form and warped into an expression that leered maliciously down at him._

_He had lost him. He had lost Caiellis, let him be taken out of his brother's embrace once again, let him be dragged kicking and screaming out of the arms of safety and into the maleficent grasp of danger once more. _

_Atavistic pleasure incarnate had claimed his little brother as its own. The muscles and skin of the demon swelled and rippled, huge veins that traced thick patterns of alternating vibrant crimson and deepest black pulsating and wriggling like the malignant blood had a life of its own. _

_Having never laid eyes upon the beast before – ever, ever, _never_ – its exultantly sadistic form was indistinct, a wound of the bleeding material world itself that expanded with Red and Black saturation ever moment that passed, rivulets of flickering scarlet and tenebrous fires dripping across its skin. It was a creature of the foulest nightmares, a god given form by the unholy cravings of man and demon alike, a being beyond mortal comprehension and yet so recognisably, distinctly corrupted that it made each and every one of Alexander's senses hurt to be in the presence of such malice._

_He felt as if talons of passion and rage were scratching at the inside of his eyes, the world contorting and warping in tandem with the clawing in his mind. Cai remained a constant even as the avaricious demon that had taken him from Alexander and definitely caused the wounding of the other Caiellis shifted around him, the hurt world unable to contain the extents of its power and buckling at the seams as it tried to force itself in._

_The whimpers of his younger brother, amplified to a near deafening volume by the malicious aura shrouding the boy's captor yet somehow in the same instance kept quiet as to tauntingly remind the older Lucerna of the distance between him and Caiellis, sliced at Alex's mind. _

_The older sibling within him that defined who he was screamed at him, shaking at the inside of his psyche in defiance of the enraptured reverie that held him to the spot. _

_He knew that he should be helping – that he should be launching himself at the Archdemon and tearing at it with fingers, nails and teeth, anything to liberate his younger brother from its compressing hold that was squeezing the blood from his body and causing the fragile bones contained within to crack and fracture, he could not move._

_Alexander was transfixed by the smouldering, infernal pits of the demon's eyes. Within those flickering depths, he saw figures borne of fire and blood cavorting and whirling in a maddening dance that encapsulated both violence and orgiastic carnality. Although some of the sybaritic silhouettes were faceless humans were features of crimson gore, others were people that he recognised, albeit horribly distorted by the Archdemon's aura._

_His vision was filled with awful images, things that he knew were irrevocably _wrong _but could not tear his eyes away from, but there was one scene amidst the fire, corruption and blood that stood out to him again._

_It was the horrible visualisation of Caiellis, with Alexander's hand clamped tightly around his small throat and a straight edged dagger embossed with the golden-white wings of the Lucerna emblem pressed into his neck. He had seen this before, before he had been greeted by the other Cai's broken form, though he could not remember from where._

_The betrayal that welled up alongside glistening tears in the youngster's bloodshot eyes rooted the elder boy to the spot, before a heart-wrenching screamed snapped him out of the hellfire portals that were the demon's eyes. His gaze fell back into brutal focus, the stricken form of his little brother centring itself in his vision and the malefic visage of the unholy being near crushing him blurred in the background. _

_The malicious smile cut across the demon's face leered down at him, before, in a sickening cracking of bone and sinewy flesh it began to move, and its vile voice clawed into the world once again: "**You can't save him, Alexander. You never could. And now I will have my first taste of a Lucerna's soul!**"_

_Alexander reached a hand towards his little brother, still held to the spot by the sheer terror flooding his limbs at not being able to save Caiellis both from death's door the first time and from the appearance of the dark creature on the second. His mouth gaped open, blood and spit from all of his screaming drooling down his lips, but no sound left it._

_Caiellis's arm spasmed, the boy's bones cracking as he somehow, impossibly managed to wrench himself partly out of the demon's grasp with a strength that Alexander hadn't known he possessed. He grunted, gasping and coughing at the effort of merely moving one arm from underneath the squeezing fingers of his malicious captor, the lower half of his face emerging from the leathery and blood-slick skin that it had been held underneath._

_The boy's bright green eyes, alight with fear that Alex would have gladly given his life to expunge forever from his little brother's gaze, instantly met his. Although there was a hefty amount of the desire for the older Lucerna to abandon him and save himself from the capricious predation of Rakdos, the brother within Alexander couldn't see that. _

_He could only perceive what was more prevalent – the plea for aid. Despite the relentless thudding of the crimson rain and the discordant noise that clothed the Archdemon like a shroud, a sort of tense yet clear silence had descended between the three entities. _

_It was the calm before the storm, a seething quiet that preceded momentous violence that extended out longer than the seconds it occupied, stretching out across the hellish landscape until all noise faded away. It was the calm before the storm – but it was not eternal._

"_Help me, Alex," the words were nothing more than a whisper, weak, faint tremors on the fabric of the twinned realities. And yet they were more than enough to utterly snap the middle royal out of the reverie that had entrapped him, enhancing every single feature of Caiellis and the demon that had taken him._

_He reached towards his brother once more, as if by merely extending his arm towards the boy he could extract his little brother from the grasp of their most terrifying enemy yet._

"_Caiellis!" Alexander shouted, his voice a mixture between a strangled shout and an anguished cry. It was quieter than he would have liked it, almost drowned out by the sudden resurgence of demonic rumbling from across him. If there was anything, anything at all, that he could do to save his brother, then he would._

_Snarling with malicious laughter that had been the harbinger for the deaths of thousands of undeserving innocents, the Defiler raised his trembling captive higher, even further out of the limited reach of the older male._

_It opened its mouth wide, atavistic tendrils of bloody smoke and infernal fire snaking up from its gaping maw before encircling the petrified Caiellis. Alexander's eyes were locked with those of his terrified brother, bloodshot green and blue entwined throughout the Red and Black, and he could feel every pin-prick of pain inflicted upon Cai's delicate body amplified a thousand times over his own – though he knew that even with that it came nowhere close to the agony that the youngest Lucerna was suffering._

_Caiellis held out his own hand, thin fingers outstretched and ready to be grasped by his big brother. Blood dripped from his lips, staining his teeth red as his mouth was twisted in an expression of pure fear and sadness._

_Alexander began running, pumping his legs as fast as they could go, feet slipping on the sodden mud of this corrupted place. _

"_Caiellis!"  
His brother was everything to him, everything. Caiellis filled his vision and filled his mind. Caiellis was everything, the only thing that mattered to Alexander. He couldn't lose him. He wouldn't-_

_Then the Lord of Riots squeezed, gargantuan fingers caving inwards. Alexander's entire world exploded in fire and blood, the silent scream of his little brother as his body was crushed by the monumental and malevolent forces exerted on it howling in his ears just as the youth's death flashed over and over again in front of his eyes._

_The blood consumed his mind, subsuming and painting all in the crimson of his little brother's death, the crimson of his failure, the crimson of a life without ultimately the only thing that had made that life living. He was drowning in it, drowning in the endless tide of claret droplets. But they did not stop him from screaming._

"_CAIELLIS!"_

.*.*.*.

Alexander thudded upwards, the red draining from the centre of his vision like he was surfacing from an ocean of blood. It did not leave completely, coalescing at his peripherals and shading everything in a deep scarlet hue that refused to depart.

_Thud, thud._

He thrust forwards, the silken blanket that had been laid atop him and restricting his movements roughly shoved off of him. Sweat dripped down his brow, heat bursting through his veins and pounding inside of his head. _Caiellis, Caiellis! Where's Caiellis?! _

_Thud, thud._

The seventeen year old ground his teeth together, the edges of the dim but still lit room pressing in on him, still stained red from the blood of his younger sibling. His vision refocussed, his disordered mind instantly honing in on what he needed to protect, the violence that Cai had just been the victim of resounding around in his abused psyche.

_Thud, thud._

Languid beeping, quiet but unable to be ignored, somehow pierced over the sound of his heart thumping, and the frequent cyclic _whirr, click, whoosh _of some strange device coupled with the weak pinging notes brought a sense of systemic calm to the room that couldn't dislodge Alexander's panic.

_Where is he? Where is he? _The frantic thoughts crashed around within Alex's skull, his eyes darting from one place to the next as they adjusted to the light levels of this location. Sensation as he knew it slowly returned to him, the feeling of sticky blood coating his skin fading to levels where he could push it aside and not feel sick to his stomach.

_Thud, thud._

For some reason – be it the undying faith that the youth possessed in the bond between him and his younger brother, or the sheer refusal to believe or comprehend the horrific brutality that he had just borne witness to – he could not countenance that Cai would be dead. That he would be left without a little sibling, that he had been saved from the being that had claimed the thirteen year old and that this dusky world was what had greeted him after resurfacing into consciousness.

_No no no! It can't be! He can't be gone! NO!_

To this end, Alexander's eyes swept what was now clearly a hospital room for any sign of his brother, his confusion and desperation at another savage transition between tranquillity and barbarity near too much to handle and making him feel sick to his stomach once more. Only the thought of having to find his brother his again allayed his nausea and concentrated his mind on a singular objective. Walls painted in grey dusk were hued red by the blood still coating Alex's peripheral vision, revealing nothing to his prying eyes despite how much he internally implored them to.

_Thud, thud._

Alexander looked down, suddenly realising that the object of his concern was in the room after all – just much nearer than he originally thought. The languid rhythm that he had previously believed was the thumping of insanity within his head was resonating from a point clasped within one of his hands.

It was his little brother's wrist, the weak pulse emanating from it a testament to the life contained in the boy's body. Alexander stared down at the hospital bed in front of him as his vision adjusted to the lack of light, Caiellis's face illuminated by the flickering beams that washed over him, his closed eyes dark crescents against his gaunt features.

The smaller boy was sleeping, his face a mask of purity, a quiet slumber far removed from the rictus of pain and terror it had been contorted into the last time Alex had laid eyes upon it. He was peaceful, a serene figure laid on the bed in front of his big brother and seemingly unaffected by the cruelty and violence of this uncaring world.

Alexander felt his once pounding heart melting in his chest, relief flooding through his mind and happiness welling up inside of him as tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. In any normal circumstance he would have quickly erased the display of weakness from his currently part-defective eyes, but right now he couldn't care less.

_It wasn't real … It wasn't real! It was all just a dream … Caiellis is fine … Caiellis is safe, here with me and away from anything that could hurt him … He's _alive...

Alexander gazed down, swiftly unclenching his hand and recoiling his fingers back from Caiellis's wrist as if it had been scorching hot. He had only just realised how tightly his grip had been clamped down on his brother, and winced with guilt when he saw the red blemishes dug into the thin wrist.

The boy's arm slowly fell back to his bed, the motion thankfully not disturbing the sleeping youngster. Alexander beheld the thirteen year old, suddenly cognisant of all of the injuries that were heaped upon Cai, littered across his body in a patchwork mosaic of a discarded teddy bear. And the striking bruises that the older male could see were nothing in comparison to the wounds concealed by the clinical bandages and gauze that wrapped up a huge proportion of the youngest Lucerna.

Alexander's eyes dragged his vision across his brother's body, following the distressing pattern of wires carrying both natural and magically synthesised nutrients into Caiellis's bloodstream as well as some transferring pure mana itself to replenish that which had been lost to his little brother.

He was fragility encapsulated into a single small form, the oxygen mask strapped to his face that was the source of the puffing symphony Alex's ears had initially picked up on misting up with every contraction of the boy's thin chest.

While Caiellis dying in the hands of one of the most corrupt beings to ever taint the might have been a false torture, the abuse that he had sustained in the horrifically desecrated City of Pleasure had been very real.

Scratchy images of his precious younger sibling laid still in their father's arms as the usually stoic man wrenched cries of sorrow from his lungs, of Caiellis awakening in the bed he was now situated in with eyes wide and blood filling the mask keeping him alive, and of less visceral but no less terrifying sights of his unmoving brother slowing fading into the paleness of death with nothing Alexander could do about it flashing like faulty holographs around what his eyes showed him now.

The brutally real memories returned to him now. The seventeen year old only just choked back a sob, blue eyes moistening with tears that threatened to cascade down his cheeks at his abject failure to help his brother.

_Oh angels … Goddess ... why … why must he have suffered like this? Why did this have to happen to him?_

He knew that Caiellis had been awake, that he had talked to him and the king, making what limited amends he could with both the former and latter, and was in an infinitely better condition than he had been only a day or so previous.

That didn't matter. Even if his brother had been strong enough to speak coherently, strong enough to stay aware for longer than a few minutes and strong enough to cry into his family's arms, that still didn't mean he was safe.

Despite his seemingly stable condition and Alexander newly renewed optimism that they would manage to survive through the war between Lucael and Welkas, he was under no illusions. Caiellis's state was in no way absolute, and his current stage of stability – or even recovery – could be as transient as their sojourn to the Scholaria Magnus had been.

He stared at Caiellis's hand, the one that had landed back on the soft yet firm mattress of the hospital bed. Alexander reached out for it, gentling clasping it back into his own grip, a physical reminder that the youngest Lucerna was still there, still with them in spite of all that the darkness had thrown at him.

His gaze instinctively flicked up to the place on the opposite side of the bed where he recalled that his father would have sat. The seat was vacant, but Alexander didn't care – so long as he was with his younger brother, he could protect him, and he didn't need anyone else to do that job for him.

Their dad must have left without waking his eldest son, either attending to some of his kingly duties in the wake of the war, speaking to the doctors that had been both his and his brother's salvation or going to fetch something to aid any of the three royals.

It didn't matter. All that it meant was that Caiellis and Alexander were alone, like they had been many times throughout the years fraught with peril that they had endured – thrived – through. He looked back down at his baby brother, rubbing a soft circle over the marks he had left with a gentle thumb, swallowing down his nausea at how thin the younger boy had become. The seventeen year old felt that he could snap the bones with a simple flick of his own wrist, sickened by the thought.

He felt his heart melting in his chest at the sight of the piece of him that had very nearly been ripped away. The weakness that had afflicted him soon turned to love, and with that love came a resolute determination to safeguard the life of Caiellis with everything that he had – no matter the cost. It did occur to him that he already tried his damned hardest to prevent his sibling coming to harm, but that just meant that he had to become stronger, faster, more able to defeat those who strove to prevent his intervention in Caiellis's fate.

He'd wasted enough time already in his depression at what had happened to Caiellis – though that was admittedly understandable, as the youngest prince was his reason for fighting and without that he could find only a few things worth continuing to live for. Alexander had lost weight, not as drastically as his sibling had, but his unwillingness to eat in combination with the destructive caress of Aksua which had almost killed him only a couple of weeks previous had noticeably reduced his muscle mass and with it his strength. That could not stand.

"I-I promise to protect you, little brother," he whispered, his voice still harbouring that raw note of sadness which had accompanied him throughout his nightmare. His voice was still loud enough that Cai, if awake, had the ability to hear it, and Alexander ensured that it was inflected with a confidence and resolution that was an assurance to his brother that he would be safe here.

Alex removed the frailty from his voice – though of course the emotion remained, that was something that he could never just force away – and continued, "Believe me, Cai. I'm not going to let anything like this happen to you again. I _promise._"

His only response was silence periodically punctuated by the beeping signifying his brother's continued existence, but that didn't concern him. It would be worse if he did disturb the boy from his restorative slumber.

Alexander leant forwards and slowly, gently, planted a kiss atop a spot on Cai's forehead that wasn't covered in gashes or bandages. He usually wouldn't be partial to such displays of outright affection, preferring to let his brother know that he was fond of him through tormenting and teasing, but this was no normal situation.

"I love you, Caiellis," he murmured, before smiling at his younger sibling. It was a miracle that his brother was still with him. Even though it disgusted him to admit it, he had, at one point, given up on a future with the littlest Lucerna. Such could never happen again – he couldn't ever just sit, idle, whilst others tried desperately to preserve the life of his best friend.

The older adolescent felt the pull of his exhaustion once more, beckoning him into another restless sleep. Whilst he would prefer to watch his brother all night and keep an eternal vigil around Cai, such wouldn't be feasible, not in his current condition. Caiellis was constantly being monitored, his state perpetually observed by both trained professionals and the machines that he was attached to like a mannequin to puppet strings.

All Alexander could provide was emotional support and additional physical protection, and, right now, that had to be enough.

* * *

**Again, my deepest apologies for the unreasonable length of time it took me to release this chapter. There has been a lot going on in my life recently that has pushed writing the Eternal Dance of Light and Dark near to the back of my list of priorities. I am truly sorry to anyone who has been waiting for this chapter since the last one. Hopefully with the onset of the summer holidays I will be able to get back into writing properly.**


	46. The Blindness of Angels

The echoing of his footsteps on the stone stairs clattered in resounding echoes throughout the passageway, the silence of the darkness broken only by that swift rhythm. Dust that had layered itself upon the stairway despite his best efforts scattered as his boots hit the ground, sending grey particles billowing up around him.

The reliquary was a lonely location on the outskirts of Gol Secondus, City of Rebirth, situated deep underground and only accessible via a secret route known only to a select few – even lower numbers of which had been granted knowledge of what was kept within.

Garen Velox, a priest of the Cathedralis ex Remembrance of middling ranking (though still important, as all who brought the faith of the Goddess to the people were vital to the future and safety of the Kingdom of Light), was one of those. In fact, the unassuming man, with his wispy, greying hair and hurried gait, was the keeper of this arca, entrusted with its protection and proper storage by King Marik himself.

His fingers were still reflexively clutched to the simple but incredibly influential King's Blessing amulet that was a badge of his duty after showing it to the imposing but utterly necessary guards that had the permanent role of defending the vault from any potential interlopers who would seek to claim or destroy the relic within.

It did not hold a complex design, two stylised angel wings wrapped around a golden sun, and could easily be passed off as a talisman of protection that was hardly uncommon within Lucael, but with the pendant Garen, a plain cleric of the Goddess had the authority to access places in the Kingdom of Light that were forbidden to all but the Lucerna ruler himself and to requisition near any force to wield at his disposal.

The application of mana in a certain way that he had been taught by Hierarch Francis caused the silver wings to unclasp, opening up to reveal the sigil of the Sword of Wrath, King Marik and holy Akroma's personal emblem.

Garen coughed at the dust that sprung up at his every step, holding the sleeve of his priest attire to his face to prevent any more from irritating his nose. He did endeavour to keep the place as presentable as possible, but the reality that it was only he who was able to enter (unless he permitted the soldiers outside to, though they were not allowed to know what was kept hidden away in this place) and that he had far more important issues to attend to meant that it would be an impossible task to have everything at a pristine condition.

As he descended through the darkness, Garen snapped his fingertips together, generating White mana within them that shone with a golden light, illuminating the grey stone around him with a cold glow that, whilst still comforting to his mind, lacked any of the heat conferred by a hearty fire.

When he passed one of the many ornate braziers built into the wall, a portion of his conjured luminescence detached from the orb in his wrinkled hand, automatically activating the torches set at regular intervals within the stone.

Light spilled out across the corridor as Garen travelled down the efficiently hewn stairs, banishing the shadows as he passed and leaving spheres of illumination in his wake.

Relaxing his breathing – descending into this secretive vault had always put his nerves on edge, his responsibility to safeguard the object held within honing both his magical and physical senses – the late middle aged clergyman who had survived the horrors of the City of Silence forced his trepidation to dissipate.

The flickering light sent the darkness into a spherical dance, twisting and writhing like a physical force at the edges of his vision. Garen quickened his pace, not wishing to spend any longer than was necessary in this place. Despite the cold of the freezing winter first month of the new year, the eternal night had seemed especially cloying recently, as if it was pressing down at the humans that lived within it and scratching at the magical defence emplacements that protected the metropolises from abyssal intrusion.

Try as he might, Garen could not shake the sensation that he was being watched, that perfidious eyes traced his every movement. Muttering a prayer to the divine First Angel to grant him safety, the man reached the first waypoint on his journey.

He let the orb of White mana divaricate and flow to the extremities of his fingertips so that each of his digits was ensorcelled by a constant incandescence, tracing a pattern of his own devising on the stone walls.

The runes lit up with the glow of magic that he had enchanted the passageway and its ultimate destination with power that was a mixture of the mana which belonged to him alongside the aid of Hierarch Francis and another high priest by the name of Reldawen, his own not sufficient for the scale of the protective runes etched in the underground.

In spite of his initial impression that something was wrong, Garen, cursing his mind's weakness at not being able to dissuade his fear, completed his inspection of the wards in this area as meticulously as normally. His emblematic magic was the precise reason that he had been personally selected for this task, a runic proficiency that he had developed since childhood and had been a perfect fit to this new responsibility of his.

Breathing out an exhalation of relief, Garen ensured that his exhilaration on observing something that was not entirely expected (in the logical sense) did not compound his ability to function properly. The wards had not been breached; he confirmed that with another survey of those that were put in place to prevent any tears in the reality of this place at this section of the descent.

An intricate pattern of light, geometrically pleasing to the eye, faded as Garen removed his hand, his confidence bolstered by the knowledge that he was safe here – at least, from Sancturia invaders, though the highly trained guards to the entrance would have stopped the incursion of any others, and the runes would react violently to such enemies.

He continued on his way, the detailed but bereft of superfluous ostentation wooden staff – a symbol of his office as a cleric of Gol Secondus – held in his left hand ready to strike at any enemies of the light that he might encounter. At equidistant checkpoints along the silent route he completed the same procedure of assessing the state of the runic fortifications, methodically carrying out the preliminary sections of his duty.

As he walked, the perimeter of light that surrounded him receded, leaving darkness in his wake as to conserve his mana. The shadows danced behind Garen, as if they were taunting him, though his honed senses and wards detected no malevolence.

The past few nights after the victory over the Welkalite New Empire of Passion had been declared had heralded an even greater intensification of the abyssal night that perpetually surrounded the Kingdom of Light, reaching levels of darkness that had not been seen since the internecine war between the loyalists and those who followed the Traitor Prince.

Garen hoped that it was not a sign of things to come, as despite the fact that measures had been put in place to defend against an opportunistic attack from Johnias and that King Marik had reputedly returned to Civitas Sol from Usnaan the vast majority of the military was still situated within Welkas and would take several days before responding to an assault on their homeland.

That had been the rationale behind this impromptu examination of the reliquary and the catacombs leading to it. Garen had been on an edge recently, a sensation gnawing at the heart of him that he could no longer ignore, and thus had chosen to ensure that nothing could tamper with the dangerous artifact under his care.

His breath misted in front of him in puffs of air coloured by the summoned light, the effectively hewn stone corridor that was mostly natural and seemed to stretch on forever abruptly coming to a halt.

Garen's progress was stopped by a medium sized but still imposing granite doorway that reached up to the damp ceiling of the passageway. The door was covered in traditional Lucaelian iconography that the priest had, with the aid of his Hierarch, painstakingly carved into its surface.

Fluted angel wings, ancient characters that signified protection and punishment for heretical trespassers and the like covered the obstruction, but more subtle were the lines etched into the grey rock that connected four otherwise relatively innocuous sigils which would be impossible to notice unless one was a runic master or an expert in the study of patterns.

Garen focussed his White mana into the quartet of symbols, focussing his mind and concentrating at the task at hand. He pressed the amulet into the centre of the crossguard of a longsword etched into the, light flowing like liquid metal through the barely visible lines in a display of concentration that the priest had become well accustomed to.

Before opening the door to the vault, Garen reached out with his mind, harnessing his sixth sense and tracing along the pathways of the runes he had already activated – one last check to assure him that he would not be allowing enemies of the crown access to the reliquary.

Satisfied, he pulsed his authority outwards, the stone door smoothly sliding away and revealing the interior of the room beyond. Garen stepped in, the dust of isolation which had been omnipresent on his route nowhere to be seen within the cold room.

The arca was a semi-spherical chamber comprised mostly of the same grey rock that the rest of the tunnel consisted of, but with the sigils of warding that were merely carvings and enchantments on the underground pathway had evolved into intricately yet still functionally (as with most things of importance within Lucael – the people of the Kingdom of Light were a practical sort, wont to requiring every embellishment to have a purpose, even those in the most exalted places of worship) formed silver and gold engravings that decorated the reliquary.

A single pathway of rock led out towards the centre of the room, a jutting plinth surrounded by a golden orb of energy just above the surface of a more tangible container.

The ground fell away into an endless crevasse around the platform, one more defence against any form of teleportation based infiltration – the inscribed enchantments served to scatter it in the first place, but intensely focussed magic might be able to gain access. In that case, such precision as to bypass the wards and appear straight onto the ground without falling away into the immeasurably darkness would, by the grace of the Goddess, be impossible.

There, in the centre of the nexus of mana that permeated the air of this sacred place, was the artifact that Garen had been given the honour of becoming the custodian of.

Set into the top of the altar-esque pedestal a contained within the shimmering sphere of White mana was a closed book. Garen could feel the untapped power radiating from it in spite of the containment field, and muttered a short prayer to bolster his mental defences so that he would not succumb to the temptation to look inside.

The leather-bound tome was anodyne enough to the naked eye, but had been taken from the unhallowed ruins of the haunted and desecrated City of Silence a bloody and bitter two years into the civil war after the vengeful king had commanded his army to victory against one of Johnias's nefarious sorcerers who had taken up residence within the desolate metropolis.

To Garen's knowledge the woman had not been a traitor Lucaelian in the first place but instead the spawn of one of the bastard settlements within the abyss that had allied itself (or been subjugated by) with the betrayer prince.

He did not know what the capabilities of such a book were, nor what the agent of the enemy who had claimed the shattered husk of the once brilliant City of Quiet had planned to do with the item before King Marik had split her life from her body with one fell swoop.

But Garen could guess at its potential – _could, _but _wouldn't, _as such thoughts would be heretical – from the fact that it had not been destroyed in a focussed blast of purification magic, indicating that it was possessed of enough malevolence as to regenerate whatever unholy lore it contained back in the hands of those who wanted it.

The priest shielded his mind with another prayer to the angels, knowing from experience that even thinking about the book could invite its tendrils of darkness into his head. He stepped around it, the flickering light blossoming like a luminescent flower within his hand before the clergyman imposed a set order upon it to organise the radiance into a pattern of runic symbols reminiscent of all those that had been assiduously written into the cavern.

The golden magic played over the sphere encasing the tome, reinforcing the barriers already there as well as flowing across the semi-sphere to make a final check on the wards of the arca – Garen had learnt well in his line of work that one could never be too careful, and should the power of the malicious book fall into the wrong hands.

Nothing. Nothing had penetrated into the prison of this damnable volume, as was to be expected – there was no way the location of the malefic artifact would have been ascertained by those outside of the vault, and it was unlikely that many knew about the existence of the object in the first place. The interior of the arca was so saturated with subliminal White mana as to be anathema to all things demonic and corrupted, but Garen knew first hand that the spawn of the darkness could find a way to either barge through or insidiously bypass any defence.

As if in response to the thoughts, his sixth sense suddenly sprang into action, the presence of another source of mana within the central underground chamber like a flare within his mind.

_What? But how? None of the wards have been damaged! How have the defences been breached?_

Heartbeat thudding into overdrive, Garen instantly allowed the light in his hand to expand before placing it atop his staff and slamming it into the ground. The golden magic followed the pathways of runes across the stone room, supposed to bring the entire reliquary bursting into dazzling luminosity.

But as the mana left his controlling influence, it fizzed and spattered like the dying flame of an abandoned candle, the shadows remaining wrapped around the edges of the room. Yet Garen could not overtly perceive the taint of unholy Black mana, suggesting that however this intruder had entered this restricted area was not necessarily through evil means – though the abyss had always been able to conceal its polluted influence until it was too late.

Garen tried again, the bottom of his staff crashing into solid rock once more as he attempted to instantly dispel the magic illuminating the arca, which would make the unholy relic contained within much more difficult to gain access to. As he had anticipated, the wards failed to acquiesce to his demands, and the man moved so that his back was to the book – anyone wanting to take it from this place of imprisonment would have to go through him first.

"Show yourself, heretic!" the priest spat as he swivelled his head around, trying to keep up with the blurred motion of the one who had managed to follow him into this restricted location.

Experimentally but still swiftly, the cleric ventured a small amount of White mana into the connections that he had established with the enchantments woven into the cold rock of the room. He was startled to find that the runes simply would not respond to the stimulus provided by his magic – it wasn't that the mana was too weak to activate the defences, but that those defences didn't register Garen's input at all.

The intruder must have somehow blocked off his link with the enchantments, though Garen couldn't reconcile that with the fact that up until this point he had been able to obtain information regarding the entire area from the inscriptions.

That meant that they had somehow managed to subvert the entirety of the vault's enchantments to their own will, but such would require a tremendous amount of power and knowledge of the precise way they were laid out along the tunnel – much more than he was sensing right now.

_No … it can't be that – But does that mean they have to have the ability to distort the way in which the defences respond to me?_

_Very well then. I shall have to play by their rules. _The Lucaelian swept his staff round, keeping a tight hold upon his magical energy instead of feeding it into the runes that were supposed to amplify its strength.

The cold swelling at the pit of his stomach caused by the realisation that the intruder must have known that he would survey the damned relic of the massacre at Gol today or had been waiting in the city for a long time undetected refused to be quashed no matter the mantras and prayers he ran over in his mind.

The priest tried to push it aside, focussing on the blurred outline of a figure cloaked in shadow as it darted through the darkness, seemingly bounding over the chasm in the outer rims of the chamber as if it was solid ground.

Garen was a Summoner; he could call upon the power of an elemental of holy essence that had aided him through the many plights of his life in recent years, but he knew that with the rate the intruder was approaching him he would be dead before his companion was called from the Mind Realm.

Instead, Garen channelled mana from his heart to the peripheries of his fingers, taking up a stance so that the head of his staff was pointed in the direction of the rapidly advancing interloper. He placed the King's Blessing amulet at the tip of his weapon, starting to channel magic through it as radiant light spilled out over the chamber.

"Your presence defiles the sanctity of this holy place!" Garen let his voice become a defiant proclamation, using all of his expertise in delivering inspiring sermons within the midst of brutal battle and infusing it with mana to make it resound across the subterranean room.

The wings of his pendant opened once more, mana-borne light emulating that of the divine spilling out and explicating the indistinct assaulter within its illumination.

He saw a woman, lithe and deadly, clad in startlingly red robes dappled with black speckles. Jade eyes widened in surprise from within the confines of a bone white mask shaped into the form of some sort of fox before they were covered by slender arms arranged into a defensive position. Crossed over her concealed face like that would somehow protect her from the retribution form her intrusion.

The clergyman released almost all of his power that he could access without Summoning into the prestigious talisman, knowing that something that the Lucerna monarch would usually entrust to his most devoted servants would easily be able to withstand the influx of White mana.

Garen could feel it building within him, singing within his veins, the choir of violence in the name of the Goddess that he had been removed from for what seemed like aeons allowing its voice to pass through him.

"Begone!" he shouted, the word instilled with his zealous wrath as a beam of blindingly bright light cracked through the Sword of Wrath design of the King's Blessing. The masked defiler was consumed by the incandescence, a scream barely audible over the thrumming bass harmony of the light ripped from lips that were soon immolated by White as they were turned to purified ash.

The dust that was all that remained of the woman collapsed to the stone floor in a blackened heap, only noticeable in the central arca because of the meticulous work Garen had undergone in keeping this consecrated ground clean of filth.

And yet … the feeling that the trespass was still happening refused to leave from where it was pervading the aged Lucaelian's mind. Despite the fact that he swept his staff round, out of the corner of his eye he watched with stunned stupefaction as the ash of his opponent dissolved into gleaming cyan flecks that expanded in a glittering burst of obtrusive colour like the shattering of obscenely hued glass.

_An illusion! _Garen's mental voice screamed at him, but by this point it was too late. A figure landed behind him, grace matched only by her stealth, and before the cleric could cast a spell of protection a razor sharp edge was drawn across his throat.

"_Angels … deliver me …_ _protect the ..._" he gurgled. His neck hurt, but not nearly as much as he would have imagined the pain of death to be. It still stung, yet the blade had been so honed that he had barely felt it at all. But what he did feel was the crushing agony of knowing he had failed his king and the Kingdom of Light.

Delta scowled beneath her mask as the old man's eyes rolled back in his head, blood vividly red against his pale complexion spilling down his chin and throat where she had slit it open.

_When will these Lucaelians learn? Their precious angels are just as blind as they are, and their myopic beliefs are part of the reason for the coming darkness – the darkness that will swallow the _whole world_, not just their insular society._

She looked down at the sagging weight of the man in her arms, and for a brief moment regret welled up within her chest before she crushed it – or at least endeavoured to.

Despite the amount of people that Delta had put to the blade over the years, these clinical killings in the name of the Confederacy had never sat well with her. She was aware that this aversion to murder was exacerbated by the fact that her current self, form, persona, _host_, whatever she wanted to call it, was still young.

Still full of the optimism that had once defined the main assassin of the Confederacy.

Delta, the fox-masked of the Eternal Realm, refused to count her kills, aware that even as a virtually immortal entity the weight of them would still grind her down into nothingness, but she knew for certain that her newest body or self had murdered many more in a short space of time than many of her earlier selves.

She turned the dead man over in her arms, blade already sheathed after it had ripped through the fragile flesh of his jugular. Gloved hands – enchanted in a manner to imitate a pious servant of the king so that the artefact tied the priest had used wouldn't explode in a flash of obliterating light – unclenched death-stiffened fingers from around the amulet that would allow her to access what she had come to Gol Secondus for.

Her left hand turned a deep scarlet for a moment, before a gout of flame rippled out from her opened palm, incinerating the man's corpse and boiling the blood that had been splattered on the ground. Then, the Red became Blue, shimmering sapphire rippling out into that gaseous blood and ash and wrapping it within the sphere of her magic.

Delta refused to leave any trace of what had happened here. To that end, she focussed, collecting the memories and mental images of the man that she had just cut short the life of into a single space, weaving together a visual illustration of him from the threads of mana that slid around her fingers and focussing on what Beta had taught her all those selves ago.

The illusion that formed wasn't perfect; flaws formed from Delta's relative lack of knowledge concerning who she had just killed. It would be bereft of the personality traits and quirks any deeper than the most obvious surface attributes, but that would suffice for now.

Delta wasn't as adept at long term deception and manipulation as Beta (who, despite his recent recalcitrance, could weave together plots and duplicity that could – and had – ensnare entire kingdoms) and Gamma – she was more focussed on temporary misdirection that would stop those that she had interfered with from realising what had happened until the Confederacy had already proceeded to the next stage of its monumental plan which would soon be coming to a conclusion.

That would be happening here. Delta – and the artefact under inadequate guardianship within the City of Rebirth – would be gone long before anyone realised that the Garen who appeared before them was a fabrication and investigate the reliquary she was in now.

The glimmering, ethereal illusion nodded its head towards her, confirming that it knew its duty. She was confident her rendition would last as long as it needed to, and even if it didn't Delta doubted the inquisitors of the Kingdom of Light that would doubtlessly investigate such an irreverent intrusion would even know to suspect something other than the forces of the abyss.

Delta turned away from her temporary creation to the object of her current mission – the Aalyex of Anguish lay suspended in its imprisoning golden sphere of perpetually revolving runes. The woman could feel the dark power emanating from the malicious tome even through the suppression field. She doubted that the Lucaelians knew the true extent of what this book could do, as otherwise they would have kept in a facility far more heavily defended and consecrated than this place.

From what she had seen of the doctrine and dogma that spun around the Lucaelian people like a multi-layered web of faith, they did not prioritise the research of the dark talents of the enemies that they had fought against for over a thousand years – though the Confederacy had been battling against them and others for much longer.

Indeed, the mere mention of the word "demon" was considered close to sacrilege by the common citizenry, and within the upper echelons of the Kingdom of Light's hierarchy they prided themselves on their perceived purity and lack of knowledge of the forces and powers of hell.

Despite the fact that the Confederacy had only relatively recently gained access to the north-west nation of the great continent – the shifting hells of the demon kings prevented entrance in all but the most mundane of methods – Delta knew that it was not directly the fault of the Lucaelian populace for their ignorance concerning their mortal foes.

The angels that they so ardently revered had wilfully blinded their devotees to the nature of their antithesis, just as they had willingly blinded themselves in the name of their goddess and supposedly divine mother. It was their doing that neither they themselves nor the people that they claimed to protect were aware of how the powers of Black mana could be utilised.

Perhaps if they had not forbade delving into the lore of the hells then the Kingdom of Light might have had an inkling of the events that were on the blackened horizon. Lucael's citizens thought of their nation as a gleaming bastion of incandescence against the predations of the darkness, but in actuality they were a frail scab of hope compared to the nightmare still to come.

The angels were doing _nothing _to halt the rising evil. Delta doubted that they even knew about it. In fact, in their utter refusal to see the evidence blatantly in front of their all-seeing and yet ignorantly blind eyes, they were actively damning not just the kingdom of Lucael but the entire world.

Luckily, the Confederacy had schemed for too long in the shadows and prosecuted too many plans just out of sight of those that would stop them to leave humanity unprotected.

The Aalyex of Anguish was a fatal artefact created by a witch acting upon demonic instruction containing the grand total of all of the suffering felt by the poor citizenry of Gol as the city had been rent asunder by betrayal and corruption.

Although, from what Delta had discovered within her relatively short time within the Kingdom of Light, the Arch-Heretic Johnias Otium Lucerna had accomplished what he had wished for in the slaughter – not only had a horrific blow been dealt to the morale of the loyalists, the power of the abyss had swelled against the barriers of reality, allowing significant numbers of demons to manifest within inner Lucael – the woman and her masters had wished for the ability to replicate the effects of the unholy butchering of Gol's inhabitants.

When used correctly, the Aaylex could bolster the effects of any sacrificial rite aiming to weaken the thin film of skin between the mortal plane and the forsaken realms of Sancturia by a significant magnitude for a short duration through a short pulse of the condensed agony felt by the last moments of the souls held within.

Such a rupture in the fabric of reality would only spew the black lifeblood of the abyss for a limited time unless a being of suitable power could be anchored to the physical realm, but that was all the Confederacy – and those that would be acting unwittingly as their puppets – would need.

Though Delta found it disdainful to employ such vile artefacts in pursuit of their goals, she had seen enough within Lucael and the surrounding darkness that would quickly spread across the entire world to know that it was necessary.

It was all necessary. It was all for the Greater Good. That's what the Eternal had to keep telling herself. Once this was done, she could fade into the grey bliss of rest until the Confederacy was inevitably needed once more.

Quickly casting her own spell that would allow her to place both herself her prize within one of the stable warp-dimensions Gamma had created within the abyss (allowing the Confederates to move through a clear path transparent of hostile mana within the realm of Lucael, connecting it to the routes already established leading out form the Eternal Realm), Delta took one last look at the now near empty hemisphere of rune-inscribed rock around her.

To say that she did not anticipate the coming end-game would be a severe understatement. It was time for all of the carefully laid plans of the Confederacy to come to fruition.

Delta was ready for all of the murders and manipulation, precisely tailoring the paths taken by nations of Yentar, Welkas, Eria, many more that no longer existed in the eyes of man and now the Kingdom of Light that had remained out of their reach for far too long, to lead towards the balance being kept.

She had lived thousands of lives for this purpose, the purpose the five Eternals were created for. The stage was set. The Host was ready, she knew it. The evil that they had battled against for millennia was playing right into their hands.

The hunt was over.

And Delta was ready to embrace the kill.

* * *

**My apologies once again for a very short chapter. A few events in my life have made it so that I have little time for writing, further compounding the fact that I was finding it hard to detail this interlude period between the war in Welkas and the next part of the story in the first place.**

**I'm not abandoning this story though. I do have plans for the Eternal Dance of Light and Dark despite the fact that they have played around in my mind for years and constantly change from what I originally intended. For anyone that still cares, I intend to continue it in smaller instalments such as this one and the earlier chapters. Anyway, thank you for reading. Feel free to review if you have any constructive criticism to share, though bear in mind that I'm obviously not writing at my peak ability and I don't have the time to go over and check everything.**


End file.
